Author: farooq Page 23 of 45

3 AM Thoughts

On June 3, 2016

We are trying to kid ourselves when we wish for the unachievable perfection. Feeding the wishfully constructed optimism with tales of our perfect lives. Perfect Selves. Perfect World.

We don’t know where we are headed. Our directionless lives are yet to be updated on Google maps. Our quest to hear, “Your destination is on your right”, is hardly right. It’s not even left. We are just left directionless.

We are clueless about life. A mystery we like to create our own versions of. We think we’ve got the definition. Still, Clueless.

We follow the herd. Damn! We are the herd. Even when we try to peek out to get attention. We follow others, others follow us. The Cycle. The herd.

We answer to questions that aren’t important. We don’t know how to ask the right questions. We fear asking the questions. We are afraid of those answers.

We get frustrated over issues which we won’t remember the next day. We search for things to crib about. We get frustrated when we are not frustrated.

We look for indulgences. Our preferred solution to all our lives’ problems. The unsatisfied urge keeps us hooked onto the queues of new indulgences.

We regret mistakes. But we don’t learn. We push them in the loop to be repeated again.

Where are we going wrong ?

What’s an Ideal Travel Plan, anyway ?

By farooq

On May 20, 2016

In Travel & Food

When you have to take a vacation and just plunge into the abyss of forgetting your work-pressure and simply get a break, where does your mind picture you enjoying?

For me, it has to be a Beach. Any Beach. The sound of waves rushing in, the waves giving the breeze a high-5 and your eyes enjoying the magic happening. Does this paint a picture for you ?

Taking out my cycle from the parking lot, I was trying to figure out my weekend plan. Probably a movie or catching up with a few friends? Maybe cooking something new in the kitchen ? or simply binge watching a tv-series while ordering food from any app which gives a discount.

Damn!

Eat. Sleep. Repeat mode awaits!

You wait for the weekend and end up doing one of those three things and then head over to another week of office.

Have to do something. Have to do something.

Goa.

And then it popped up just when I crossed the traffic signal. A green light lit right there.

Headed home, switched on my laptop, checked for flight schedules, but most were over due to the weekend rush. Finally got confirmed bus tickets as well as hotel bookings and bam! in just an hour, the Uber was downstairs taking me to my bus stop.

So, in just around an hour, the Uber was downstairs taking me to my bus stop.

The hour spent was to check how should I head to Goa. Should I take a flight ? Naah. Too expensive, although the website was offering me a good deal as compared to others. Still, expensive.

I don’t usually like buses, but hey, adjust maadi.

The backpack was dusted and any clothes (mostly clean ones) which I could find was thrown in. This wasn’t supposed to be like any of my other travels, where I plan, pack and explore the place.

This was supposed to be just a vacation and hence, the idea was to head there, chill on the amazing beaches. Maybe cool my heels while I finish those half-read books or jot down a few blogs on my laptop.

And isn’t that what goes in our head when we plan to travel? The expectation on what we would do once we are there.

My itinerary:

List of Beaches to explore: Baga, Anjuna, Calanghute and Vagator.

Sea Food: Whatever I could lay my eyes on!

Party: What’s that?

But a lot of it doesn’t go according to our plans, right? My Goa travelogue can give you a clear picture of what I (actually!) did there. And yes, it was exciting.

Of all the things that are with me from Goa, this planning process -from that green signal to booking tickets, remains an unusually exciting part. I plan things. I don’t usually do things impromptu.

I’m at a loss in imagining how all this would have been in an era of no-internet? Would I have rushed to the bus stop and enquired about the timings and tickets? Or would I have just binged on good American television along with a few cheese burst slices?

Fan Movie Review: Fan isn’t FANtastic, but Shahrukh will make you believe it is

By farooq

On April 15, 2016

In Movies & Entertainment

We all have been waiting for this. Fans, non-fans, the closet fans and everyone who watches Bollywood movies have been waiting for SRK to make a film and not blow up another marketing puff in front of them. Looks like he finally listened to everyone. When will Shahrukh not make masala movies ? When will he work with actual directors ? When do we see a movie where he acts?

Fan is the answer to all those questions. It’s Shah Rukh Khan all the way. And no one else. Fan isn’t FANtastic but Shahrukh will make you believe it is. Remove him, and you have just another story.

There is a fine line between being a fan and crossing it to being obsessed. Fan is about one such fan whose life is a result of this obsession.

Maneesh Sharma, who has directed “Band Baaja Baraat”, “Ladies Vs Ricky Behl” and “Shudh Desi Romance”, has a knack of bringing out the typical Dilli wala characters live onto the screen, is at the helm here. His crisp storytelling and holding the plot to not move out of place has been his biggest achievement. Apart from making sure he uses SRK in evey possible way.

Fan is all about SRK. I’m pretty sure that people will be raving about the character of Gaurav played by Shahrukh, which undoubtedly everyone should, but it is playing the superstar that he is flawless too. The subtle arrogance of a star, the frustration of too many expectations and anger if things don’t go his way. Aryan Khanna is good at what he does and doesn’t shy away from feeling proud of what he has acheived.

The best part about Fan is, it never treats the hysterical Gaurav as the villain and neither it turns the superstar Aryan Khanna as the hero/victim. Maneesh loves to play with gray hinges and Fan helps him put forth that idea of reality through the story lens. Definitely, no one could have done it better than the superstar himself.

Fan isn’t bereft of plot-holes though. The first half, with its fast pace and sleek story unfolding, doesn’t give that away but the second half initially exposes the evenly spread out flaws. The extremities of how fans and media treats you doesn’t accurately match up to reality and follow a similar trajectory of Bollywood drama, and neither does a fan stuck in the 90’s in the year 2015. Perhaps it was easier for Maneesh for this transition of Gaurav from an obsessed fan to someone out there to destroy the star.

Ignoring the evident flaws is not very difficult, and as soon as the amazing chase sequences follow, you’ll soon be lost into “What would Gaurav do next?”.

And O.M.G, the action! Frankly, I wasn’t expecting an action of this sort and I was blown away by what I saw. There are 3 amazingly done Action sequences which propells the movie to another level. I was wondering who is the Action Director of Fan ?

It is Oh Se Young, who has previously also acted as action director for Avengers 2! Undoubtedly, the action here was bound to be awesome.

This is where I usually add inferences to the rest of the cast, but in this Double SRK bonanza, there’s hardly anyone who made a lasting impact. Such is the aura of Khan in Fan. There is Sayani Gupta as Arya Khanna’s PR, Shreya Padgaonkar as Gaurav’s one-sided love interest, Yogendra Tiku and Deepika Amin as Gaurav’s parents, who’ve helped the plot develop further.

The reason you should watch Fan, apart from the excellent work by SRK, is that it leaves you with a thought. The film ends with Gaurav saying, “Rehnde yaar, tu nai samjhega”, but you will.

I’m going with 3/5 for Maneesh Sharma’s Fan.

Fan isn’t FANtastic but Shahrukh will make you believe it is.

Taher Shah’s New Song Angel

By farooq

On April 8, 2016

In Movies & Entertainment

Taher Shah is out with a new song. Yes, the same guy whose “Eye to eye” gave us sore eyes. And ears.

For the uninitiated, here is the EYE TO EYE video of Taher Shah.

And here is his new Video, Angel!

But then,

Who is Taher Shah?

Taher Shah is a self-confessed “sensational” singer from Pakistan. At least that’s what his Amazingly cool website and Facebook page tells us. He rose to “fame” with his song, Eye-to-Eye and made his way onto endless internet jokes and memes. If you’ve seen even one of his two videos, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

Brace yourself for more stupidity.

This Youtube Comment captures it perfectly.

Of course, for some reason he actually thinks this fame is due to his amazing singing ability. He doesn’t shy away from flaunting this on his website as well.

Yes, this is there on his website! Along with This:

This guy actually beats the hell out of KRK! Well Pakistan, you might not be able to beat us in Cricket recently, but with Taher Shah, Well Played!

Sadly I’ve to mark this in the Entertainment category. #FML.

Kapoor and Sons: A Family Drama you should not miss

By farooq

On March 20, 2016

In Movies & Entertainment

An emotionally draining and yet not over-the-top drama that peeks inside the turbulence of the family bonds of the Kapoor’s. Mind you, it’s the least bit dysfunctional. You’ll get glimpses of your own, your grandparents, the perceived “favoritism” by parents, fights between siblings, the discords, and of course the love. The Kapoor family has it all.

The plot centres around the 95-year old Sr. Kapoor, played by the amazing Rishi Kapoor, who is simply the coolest grandpa you’ll come across. His ultimate wish is to have a family photograph for which he summons everyone back to Conoor, the beautiful hill station near Ooty. How his two grandsons come back from abroad, their unspoken brewing discord, to visit their grandpa. How his son’s financial and marital issues pops up new fight scenes and how in the middle of it all, everyone seems to be lying about something or the other.

The star of the movie is the amazing screenplay which binds the complexities like beads of a non-matching rosary which works in a charming way. Apart from that, the characters’ effortless performances involves the audience in the story. You laugh, feel, smile and even cry as they take you through this amazing journey.

The film is close to 2 and a half hours and yet there’s hardly anything which gives the impression of just having pushed in there. The flow is justified by the buildup each portion requires. The credit goes to the ensemble cast as a whole. Although Rajat Kapoor and Fawad Khan deserve special mention. Rajat brings out the troubling mid-life crisis onto the screen perfectly and does that so effortlessly. Fawad is superb in doing complete justice to the character and his screen presence is unmatchable. This Pakistani actor can make a lot of Bollywood actors run for their money.

Alia Bhatt, Rishi Kapoor and Ratna Pathak make it worth the time and are equally great. Siddharth Malhotra appeared a little out of place in a few scenes, although it might also be due to being overshadowed by a great cast. He has a long way to go.

The music by Armaan Malick (& others) is good, but it is the background music which brings a lot of value to the finished product on screen.

Kapoor and Sons’ Director Shakun Batra, in only his second Directorial venture after Ekk main aur Ek tu, deserves a pat on his back for doing justice to the story and the starcast.

Kapoor and Sons is Drama that works in connecting your own self with the character plots and remembering your own family. This might well be the Piku of 2016. I’m going with a 5/5 for this flawless emotional adventure which is filled with some amazing light hearted moments that will press the nostalgic buttons in your head and make you laugh and cry at the same time. Yes, it’s perfect. Go and Watch it.

So much of it. And yet, Nothing.

By farooq

On February 28, 2016

In Random Philosophy

Blue sky. Tiny drawing birds. Chirps. Switched on winds. Vrooms and Horns.

So much of it.

And yet, Nothing.

The nothingness captures ’em all, and yet it all stays just in the head. There’s so much we want to talk aloud and yet it seemingly stays inside.

So much of it. And yet, Nothing.

You’d think blurting it out would help. You’d think, so much of it, and yet it’ll stay right where it has always been. Moments pass by, like this wind, which temporarily make us believe that it’s okay to let it out.

We do. A little of it. But add up something new to our existing nothingness.

Hiding behind those smiles, those adventures, those unclaimed territories we’ve established for ourselves, we try to fill the nothingness. We seek missions and move to another on its accomplishments. Either our missions are hollow or we have just too many accomplishments.

So much of it. And yet, Nothing.

We break bonds. We bridge new ones. We mend fences and destroy a few as well. Thinking this would be it. Still, Nothing. We don’t want to feel guilt, neither be bad in the perfectly traditional sense of the word and yet all we seek to do is seek pleasure. Pleasure into everything. Everything selfish. Of course, We are seemingly impossible to please. And in the end, do we get anywhere ?

So much of it. And yet, Nothing.

Here’s how you can help DiCaprio win an oscar

By farooq

On February 17, 2016

In Movies & Entertainment

There is no dearth of jokes whenever Oscar is near, especially when it concerns Leonardo DiCaprio. Apart from some really exceptional roles played onscreen, he is also famous for not getting the Oscar till date.

Usually, there is some “better” performance which overshadows his, every year at this religiously followed festival of entertainment.

The line launched a game on to “help win DiCaprio an Oscar”. This 8-bit browser game is called, “Red Carpet Rampage” and is super fun. Of course it plays on the joke of the “unlucky” DiCaprio running towards the coveted Oscar.

The game consists of other nominees trying to outrun him in the Oscar race, while he battles the papparazi as well as obstructions, mostly characters and props from his previous movies.

Spoiler alert: There’s an iceberg too.

I tried to help DiCaprio but couldn’t make him win. Can you ?

Here is the link of the game: RedCarpetRampage

So, how often has DiCaprio been nominated before?

Including this current years’ nomination, he has been nominated 5 times. In the previous 4 times he has been unlucky.

Leonardo has been nominated for Oscars for which movies ?

The chances look great this time. Although the same was there when he got for Blood Diamond.

Let’s wait for the Academy Awards (Oscars) to see whether DiCaprio finally gets to make that Acceptance Speech or not.

Till then, enjoy this game: RedCarpetRampage and let me know if you get the Oscar for him.

Why does the night make us think?

By farooq

On February 14, 2016

In Random Philosophy

In the need to get up early I head to the bed (Actually, just a mattress lying at one end of my room). In a bid to attend the morning scrum meeting where your boss has specifically asked you, coz you’re a habitually late, to be on time. And yet, you just can’t sleep!

No, it’s not insomnia. It is just the mind working just a bit too much. Why does it has to do that?

I’d like to believe it’s the fault of the night. Night which has a head of its own and wants us to sit beside him and talk it to sleep. Oh yes, I’ll call it a him.

And no, don’t mistake the night to be calm, it just has too much noise in it. We’ve just learnt to ignore it. There is so much going on with it that we fail to completely understand it.

All it does is, make us think. Not anything concrete or substantially valuable but the mundane stuff. Everything seems so normal to him.

Night is like Mark Rylan’s character from the Movie “Bridge of Spies”. When Tom hanks( his lawyer in the movie) asks him why isn’t he worried about the trial where he might be sentenced to death for being a Russian spy, he replies, “Would that help?”.

It just doesn’t seem to worry about anything. About the upcoming day, about the future or about anything at all.

It is like that friend of yours which your grandmother terms as bad company. It just wants you to sit beside him and not to worry about anything.

But you still do.

You still worry. Get anxious.

Who is to be blamed, you or the night?

Why does the night makes us think?

Random Ramblings

By farooq

On February 13, 2016

In Random Philosophy

Random Ramblings

Sunday is about to begin, while I’m yet to sleep off my Saturday. You know what it means, right? The weekend- the much awaited two days of our lives- is about to leave until another week.

As I rue over the lack of constructive work being done, apart from freeing up some space on my hard drive by watching a few movies and then dozing at ungodly hours, I pen this down. Of course, hoping that at least I’ll get to say that I wrote “something” over the weekend. Also, letting the Google crawl my website a little regularly instead of thinking it to be a lost cause.

It’s amusing how time flies as we finish off one weekend after another, hoping we’d do “better” in the next one. These are like mini new year resolutions which we religiously follow.

Indeed sometimes we do get things done. Clean up our apartments, do the dishes, wash the pile of clothes, repair things, get groceries in between, but these are more of what constitutes “regular” work. Isn’t?

I must point out that my regular use of these “double quotes” are just a forced attempt to push sarcasm. Sort of how I end up speaking these days, you know. Pardon me if that irritates you, but that’s just the way it is.

I had decided to be less serious in 2016. One of the biggest reasons I decided to not write about politics at all. Of course, it was more about not writing On Facebook rather than not writing et all. But, I’ve managed to stay away from it for this long.

It is tough. I mean, that was a BIG part of what I used to write on and now there is this big void.

BTW, If this sounds like a valentine day letter about politics, then I’m sorry. But it’s difficult not to write about it. But those things still hold true. There’s hardly any place for a different point of view or a discussion that’d not end up in someone being called an anti-national. There’s no arguing there.

Anyways, continuing to ramble like this and I might actually end up venting more than I should.

This post was just a pointless attempt to not make myself feel bad for not writing something this weekend. Now that I’ve put down a few lines, it does feel a little better.

Now, I’ll head back to catch a few extra hours of sleep.

Why I won’t be writing about Politics in 2016

By farooq

On January 31, 2016

In Politics & Social Issues

Yes, you read that write.

And No, it isn’t one of those click-bait headlines to drive you to read this post.

Or is it ? 😛

Well, jokes aside, this is a conscious and well thought of decision. Although it does sound similar to one of those “new year resolutions” we all make. Without any further ado, I’ll come to the “Why” of it.

It is very simple. I don’t want a headache.

No, headache is not from writing about it, but what comes after it. The stream of idioticity flowing in abundance. The idea of a constructive debate gets flushed in the same stream and what comes your way is, pure shit. No kidding. There is a missing political discourse in our country, evidently displayed through the sheer “brilliance” of our educated flock. The flock doesn’t like their “leader” to be criticized at all. After all, when you assign a demi-god status to someone, how can you stop yourself from not defending them ?

We all are biased. But no one wants to believe that they are not.

On Twitter, at least, responses of “disagreement” (If I may term them in a polite way), comes from people whom you can assign the status of a troll and simply ignore/block them. On facebook, it comes from people with whom you’ve studied, worked or played cricket in your childhood.

Disagreements in political ideologies are fine. It is quite necessity, but does it stop there ? Disagreements breeds discontent and gets personal as you dig more into it.

A debate has to be won. A clear side has to be picked. One leader has to be your leader. Why ? To talk to these folks. Because that’s the way it is for them. You are either with them, or against them.

I don’t want to explain myself any further because, well, I don’t need to.

I don’t want to say Never, because as the old adage goes, “Never say Never”. I’ll try my best to not post anything political on Facebook through the year, or maybe after that, but let’s take one step (rather a year) at a time. Twitter and my blog might occasionally (when I just won’t be able to resist), might be the only platforms for any of my politics-related posts.

Here’s to a worry-less 2016 for me. Cheers!