The Great Bank Robbery

Being raised on Butch Cassidy & Sundance Kid, Italian Job, Ocean's Eleven and Tezaab, I had to come up with a master plan in case of emergencies for times like these. When I even refuse to offer my pennies worth on any subject. When I just cant afford to give away a damn( Which I'm told comes from the smallest unit of the Indian currency when Sher Shah Suri was the Indian emperor). When I'm forced to covet my neighbour's Wi-fi to post this on the blog. But this plan would only be successful under the following conditions -

- This is the day when the bank is replacing its security cameras
- The Vault has been left open for its annual vacuuming
- The security guard has had a serving too many of Perugannamu, so he's almost toppling off his wooden stool
- It's a day in summer when there is a power failure, and the security alarm is not connected to the generator as a cost cutting measure
- It's the day before holi, so having colour on your face is completely normal
- The bank must have an empty parking space right in front of the bank
- The roads must not be dug up because of a drainage choke
- There must be a Public transport strike in demand for a separate state
- India should be playing the world cup final against Sri Lanka, with Sachin batting solidly on 12 of 19 balls, in pursuit of his 100th Hundred
- The man who shouts "Help! Bank Robbery" times it with the cheers that erupt when Sachin hits a Six
- Any finger prints that we leave must be hidden by the the tea dropped my the chaiwalla while passing around the glasses for the entire row
- The Investigation on the robbery must be postponed to sometime after the general elections.

As you can see, this operation requires precise planning. We should be ready will a full draft after we conduct a thorough market research. And it's certified A+ by the International Bank Robbery Certification of Excellence(Indian Chapter). Now where do I get the USD 75 to pay for the application form for the IBRCE?

I'm Delhite and you know it!!

Been a while since I've done this. and I needed a prey. So the loud delhi boy it is.
Yes, the one that usually calls for a mother sister reunion whereever he goes.

Oye

I walk on by, gurls be looking like what a guy!

I pump the Bhangra beat, with guys next to me in my SUV seat, yaar

Now toh tum Bol, glasses with tint, pants so cool,

It's the Gucci with the big ass torso

And a Khan Market belt that got the glow

Gurl, look at my Audi,(x 3)

Check it out

Gurl, look at my Audi,(x 3)

Check it out

When I walk into a bar, this is what I see

People turn around and they glaring at me

I've only got 500s in my wallet and I aint afraid to show it, show it, show it.

I'm Delhite and you know it. (x 2)

English is a Funny Language

The other day, I was reminded of a dialogue from the 1975 Bollywood Hit Chupke Chupke. It was simple one where the protagonist refuses to agree with the rules of English pronunciation by citing the example of ' T-O, D-O and G-O'. Toilet Humour from Bollywood, as clean as it gets! But then, it also highlighted the difficulty one faces in learning English, after speaking and thinking in another language for years. Here's a poem written by the Dutch writer Gerard Nolst Trenité called Chaos, who reminds you that English can only get worse, with the help of verse.

The Chaos
Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse.
I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy;
Tear in eye, your dress you'll tear;
Queer, fair seer, hear my prayer.

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, hear and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word.
Sword and sward, retain and Britain
(Mind the latter how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say - said, pay - paid, laid but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say: gush, bush, steak, streak, break, bleak,
Previous, precious, fuchsia, via
Recipe, pipe, studding-sail, choir;
Woven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Say, expecting fraud and trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Branch, ranch, measles, topsails, aisles,
Missiles, similes, reviles.
Wholly, holly, signal, signing,
Same, examining, but mining,
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far.

From "desire": desirable - admirable from "admire",
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier,
Topsham, brougham, renown, but known,
Knowledge, done, lone, gone, none, tone,
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel.

Gertrude, German, wind and wind,
Beau, kind, kindred, queue, mankind,
Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, Reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Have you ever yet endeavoured
To pronounce revered and severed,
Demon, lemon, ghoul, foul, soul,
Peter, petrol and patrol?
Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which exactly rhymes with khaki.
Discount, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward,
Ricocheted and crocheting, croquet?
Right! Your pronunciation's OK.
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Is your R correct in higher?
Keats asserts it rhymes with Thalia.
Hugh, but hug, and hood, but hoot,
Buoyant, minute, but minute.
Say abscission with precision,
Now: position and transition;
Would it tally with my rhyme
If I mentioned paradigm?.

Twopence, threepence, tease are easy,
But cease, crease, grease and greasy?
Cornice, nice, valise, revise,
Rabies, but lullabies.
Of such puzzling words as nauseous,
Rhyming well with cautious, tortious,
You'll envelop lists, I hope,
In a linen envelope.

Would you like some more? You'll have it!
Affidavit, David, davit.
To abjure, to perjure. Sheik
Does not sound like Czech but ache.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, loch, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover.
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice,
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal,

Suit, suite, ruin. Circuit, conduit
Rhyme with "shirk it" and "beyond it",
But it is not hard to tell
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.
Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
Has the A of drachm and hammer.
Pussy, hussy and possess,
Desert, but desert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants
Hoist in lieu of flags left pennants.
Courier, courtier, tomb, bomb, comb,
Cow, but Cowper, some and home.

"Solder, soldier! Blood is thicker",
Quoth he, "than liqueur or liquor",
Making, it is sad but true,
In bravado, much ado.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Pilot, pivot, gaunt, but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand and grant.

Arsenic, specific, scenic,
Relic, rhetoric, hygienic.
Gooseberry, goose, and close, but close,
Paradise, rise, rose, and dose.
Say inveigh, neigh, but inveigle,
Make the latter rhyme with eagle.
Mind! Meandering but mean,
Valentine and magazine.

And I bet you, dear, a penny,
You say mani-(fold) like many,
Which is wrong. Say rapier, pier,
Tier (one who ties), but tier.
Arch, archangel; pray, does erring
Rhyme with herring or with stirring?
Prison, bison, treasure trove,
Treason, hover, cover, cove,

Perseverance, severance. Ribald
Rhymes (but piebald doesn't) with nibbled.
Phaeton, paean, gnat, ghat, gnaw,
Lien, psychic, shone, bone, pshaw.
Don't be down, my own, but rough it,
And distinguish buffet, buffet;
Brood, stood, roof, rook, school, wool, boon,
Worcester, Boleyn, to impugn.

Say in sounds correct and sterling
Hearse, hear, hearken, year and yearling.
Evil, devil, mezzotint,
Mind the z! (A gentle hint.)
Now you need not pay attention
To such sounds as I don't mention,
Sounds like pores, pause, pours and paws,
Rhyming with the pronoun yours;

Nor are proper names included,
Though I often heard, as you did,
Funny rhymes to unicorn,
Yes, you know them, Vaughan and Strachan.
No, my maiden, coy and comely,
I don't want to speak of Cholmondeley.
No. Yet Froude compared with proud
Is no better than McLeod.

But mind trivial and vial,
Tripod, menial, denial,
Troll and trolley, realm and ream,
Schedule, mischief, schism, and scheme.
Argil, gill, Argyll, gill. Surely
May be made to rhyme with Raleigh,
But you're not supposed to say
Piquet rhymes with sobriquet.

Had this invalid invalid
Worthless documents? How pallid,
How uncouth he, couchant, looked,
When for Portsmouth I had booked!
Zeus, Thebes, Thales, Aphrodite,
Paramour, enamoured, flighty,
Episodes, antipodes,
Acquiesce, and obsequies.

Please don't monkey with the geyser,
Don't peel 'taters with my razor,
Rather say in accents pure:
Nature, stature and mature.
Pious, impious, limb, climb, glumly,
Worsted, worsted, crumbly, dumbly,
Conquer, conquest, vase, phase, fan,
Wan, sedan and artisan.

The TH will surely trouble you
More than R, CH or W.
Say then these phonetic gems:
Thomas, thyme, Theresa, Thames.
Thompson, Chatham, Waltham, Streatham,
There are more but I forget 'em -
Wait! I've got it: Anthony,
Lighten your anxiety.

The archaic word albeit
Does not rhyme with eight - you see it;
With and forthwith, one has voice,
One has not, you make your choice.
Shoes, goes, does*. Now first say: finger;
Then say: singer, ginger, linger.
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age,

Hero, heron, query, very,
Parry, tarry, fury, bury,
Dost, lost, post, and doth, cloth, loth,
Job, Job, blossom, bosom, oath.
Faugh, oppugnant, keen oppugners,
Bowing, bowing, banjo-tuners
Holm you know, but noes, canoes,
Puisne, truism, use, to use?

Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual,
Seat, sweat, chaste, caste, Leigh, eight, height,
Put, nut, granite, and unite
Reefer does not rhyme with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, senate, but sedate.

Gaelic, Arabic, pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific;
Tour, but our, dour, succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Say manoeuvre, yacht and vomit,
Next omit, which differs from it
Bona fide, alibi
Gyrate, dowry and awry.

Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion,
Rally with ally; yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay!

Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.
Never guess - it is not safe,
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralf.
Starry, granary, canary,
Crevice, but device, and eyrie,
Face, but preface, then grimace,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Bass, large, target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, oust, joust, and scour, but scourging;
Ear, but earn; and ere and tear
Do not rhyme with here but heir.
Mind the O of off and often
Which may be pronounced as orphan,
With the sound of saw and sauce;
Also soft, lost, cloth and cross.

Pudding, puddle, putting. Putting?
Yes: at golf it rhymes with shutting.
Respite, spite, consent, resent.
Liable, but Parliament.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, clerk and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, demesne, cork, work.

A of valour, vapid, vapour,
S of news (compare newspaper),
G of gibbet, gibbon, gist,
I of antichrist and grist,
Differ like diverse and divers,
Rivers, strivers, shivers, fivers.
Once, but nonce, toll, doll, but roll,
Polish, Polish, poll and poll.

Pronunciation - think of Psyche! -
Is a paling, stout and spiky.
Won't it make you lose your wits
Writing groats and saying 'grits'?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel
Strewn with stones like rowlock, gunwale,
Islington, and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, bough, cough, hough, sough, tough??
Hiccough has the sound of sup...
My advice is: GIVE IT UP!
-- Gerard Nolst Trenité
* No, you're wrong. This is the plural of doe.

Show me and I'll tell

“Show me a man or a woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call 'society'. Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.”
― Stephen King, The Stand.

Something tells me it's high time I start reading Stephen King.

What's Your Excuse?

I must admit, I suck in this department. I couldn't make an excuse to save my life. But there are those who've made an artform of it. Shel Silverstein was definitely one such. How else could he have written this one?

“I cannot go to school today"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry.
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox.

And there's one more - that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue,
It might be the instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke.
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in.

My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My toes are cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There's a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is ...
What? What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is .............. Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!”

The Artist - Movie Review

By the time I publish this review, the film world may already be raving about this path-breaking movie. Well, it's not really path-breaking in the strictest sense of the expression. Because this movie is a lot like what movies used to be at the very beginning, when it didn’t matter what you wore, or what you sounded like. And in an era when CGI is passé, and plastic surgery is what the doctors at Hollywood order, this back-to-the basics approach to film making is most refreshing.

So what is it that really works for this silent black & white movie, with mostly unknowns in the credits? For one, it relies on the abilities of the actors. Never before did the age-old cliché of “action speaking louder than words” hold true. And the Screenplay, for pretty much the same reason.

The movie takes us back to 1927, when Actor George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) enjoys a Midas touch with his movies, and charms audiences with his silence. With a stature that would make Douglas Fairbanks look like a metrosexual, Valentin looks like he has come to grips with stardom, and clearly knows what the masses want. However, it in this very department that he proves to be a little myopic.

At the peak of his career, he brushes off the latest developments in sound recording, and continues to live his charmed life with gay abandon. As a ‘silent’ expert, it seemed like sound judgement at that moment. But that’s a decision that would let his fortunes dry up.

Typically as silent films go, the protagonist becomes a pale shadow of his old self when he encounters testing times. And as with 89.64% of movies, when the going is bad, it’s really bad. The film has a few central themes running through it – how change is inevitable, how our male egos come in the way of letting ourselves have a go with the women we adore, and how stubbornness masquerading as strength totally kills one’s drive for success. The Artist continues this simple plot without any undertones of irony or lessons on morality. It is a fair depiction of a time when what you saw was essentially what you got at the movies.

But while the plot is simple, it still manages to keep you hooked, and that’s the reason why I believe director Michel Hazanavicius and his team deserves their share of accolades. With the smartest use of a forgotten medium, it is perhaps a reminder to everyone in the industry today of how we stand at that very precipice of changing times, much like protagonist of the film. Emerging technologies will always continue to change the way movies are made, and in the bigger picture, change life itself. But would we still continue embracing the familiar and render ourselves obsolete? Some questions are perhaps best left in the rhetoric.

The Artist may not win as many Oscars as I think it deserves. It would be a pity if it loses out to some of the more popular names in its categories. Either way, I hope the producers of The Artist don’t express their triumph or failure as vocally as moviemakers are known to. Because, as they’ve shown it with their silent film, they say best when they say nothing at all.

Mad Men India

A briefing at Sterling Cooper India

Drona Dhopeshwar(Creative Director): (banging the table) Our planners believe there is a paradigm shift in the market.

Pankti Oswal(Copywriter): (lighting a lights cigarette and then taking a deep drag)Isn't it what we were told last briefing. What's with the paradigm?? No permanent address, aa?? Te he!

Drona: (sipping on chai with a contemplative look)Po da!

Sarvanan Ramanuj(Art Director): (legs resting on the table) Chee! Thoo! You cant freelance as a bulk SMS forward sender with jokes like this!

Drona: Anyways, what I've done is asked Servicing to discuss it with Client and work on a new brief.

Sarvanan: Accha! Jaddi sileney gaye hai! Ha ha ha ha ha

Drona: Eh?

Pankti: What Sar meant was Chaddi! So how do you suggest we work on a new campaign? We know the brief is not going to change!

Drona: Good call, punk. The brief may not change, but circumstances have. We cant get away with having cricketers as brand ambassadors anymore. And yet we have the IPL, which our clients believe will help viewers forget the trauma of having to wake up every morning last winter, only to watch India lose every game in Australia.

Sarvanan: Maybe there is a moral here. Maybe we should go back to film stars as brand ambassadors. What about Rajni?

Drona: (banging the table) I think we've got something there. If we endorse Rajni, the results of the cricket match dont matter anyway.

Pankti: And what's more, we have enough of Rajni jokes to work with for a month long campaign.

Sarvanan: Eggsactly! Lets first publish a set of visiting cards, and mail it to people.

Pankti: Okay?

Sarvanan: Dont you get it? Rajni wont give you visiting cards. His cards will visit you. Ha ha ha ha!

Pank: Oh my gawd!! Ha ha ha ha!

Drona: ha ha ha! And then, his card should only say "I'll call you" and have his name on it. What say?

Sar: ha ha ha ha!

Pankti: Ha ha ha ha!

Drona: Ha ha ha ha!

(Three hours later)

Pankti: I think this calls for a party. What a day!

Sarvanan: Yes! It's time to visit some old monks. In the name of Rajni!

Pankti: Man, Rajni is the life of a party, even when he doesn't attend it? Ha ha ha

Drona & Sarvanan: ha ha ha ha

And the three creatives live happily ever after. At a local bar. Till the next briefing.

Disclaimer: The above actions should not be imitated at work.