24 fallacies of 24

     Watching the pilot as well as the second episode of Anil Kapoor's new TV series 24 was a refreshing change for Indian TV viewers. But, there were loads of things that were new, in the sense that such things were unheard of previously in relation to TV soaps, 24 of which are:  

    (1) You cannot have a title that short and expect the show to work. A 4-letter abbreviation is the bare minimum. Plus, there are no K's in 24. 

    (2) You cannot fit in events spanning one hour in real time into an hour long episode. Either you stretch, say, a 5 minute Saas-Bahu confrontation into an hour long saga accompanied by drum rolls, customized music and people turning their heads thrice in shock, or you try and leapfrog 7 years in a matter of one episode.

    (3) You cannot have an Indian lady in your show (Tisca Chopra) portraying a wife who is audacious enough to vent her anger to her husband.

    (4) You cannot show a hot female assassin making out with a male assassin in the washroom on board a flight before killing him. That 10 seconds long clip would qualify as porno in Indian TV. Plus, this has the eerie  undertones of female empowerment: travelling alone, choosing your partner, taking up employment opportunities (that too of an assassin) and shit.    

The Original Bihar-Ke-Lala

(This first appeared on AmreekanDesi)

I remember this guy from high school who was cheated out of an opportunity to cheat in the exams.

He had stashed micro-photocopied reproductions of the textbook inside a defunct cistern, and was biding time, trying to guess whether the time was opportune yet to rush out under the pretence of an urge to urinate and have a cursory look. But one of his classmates, Pappu, who was aware of such machinations, excused himself earlier, went to the toilet and extricated the photocopies.

(Continue reading here)

The Kings of Hard Times

We, Indians, are in for hard times.

Well, by no means am I an economist. Or a philosopher, either. In fact, I am as close to being a philosopher as Viveik Oberoi is to making a sensible film. This is to say, pretty close, like a typo-free Manish Tewari. But joblessness can make you do things, like thinking.

The writing is on the wall-coloured business newspapers, which double up as notebook covers, that carry with them gory tales of bloodbath on the stock markets, of some random Government policy going wrong, and much more, that make as much sense to hostel dwellers as the mess food.

In fact, the writing has been there for quite some time now.