Monday, December 15, 2008

Calcutta Chromosome

I was going through all post of Calcutta Chromosome and after reading 100 posts from archives, posting some of the funniest lines here. FYI, I and that great guy has a similarity that we have degree in mechanical engineering.

1-'I hate Ekta kapoor fans' will find it interesting.

"Religion is the opium of the masses – Karl Marx.

Karl Marx did not know about Ekta Kapoor – Anonymous."

2-Manmohan Desai fans will love and hate it for same reason.

" Manmohan Desai wrote only one story in his life.
x (where x = integer greater than 1) siblings and y sets of parents (where y = integer greater than 1 but not equal to x) are separated due to evil relatives or natural calamities. They have a unique common trait in physical (locket, letter, tattoo) or metaphysical (secret, habit, song) form. They grow up (old) while coming in contact with each other at regular intervals but are unable to recognize each other. They are united after 7 songs, 4 fights and one drunken scene featuring Amitabh Bachchan.

Manmohan Desai: At least two brothers separated at birth. Three religions. Shuddering Nirupa Roy. Doddering Pran. Amitabh Bachchan. One gibberish song. One trained dog/hawk/cow/Easter egg/heroine's bodyguard. One operating theatre scene. One natural calamity (not including Kader Khan's wig). Divine intervention to cure blindness/TB/AIDS/obesity. Fourteen coincidences, each having odds of 786,000,000 to 1.
And he directed 21 films, of which at least 16 were box-office record-breakers."

3-X rated article(not for everyone.....)
I find that after 'Garv' the pride,its gay pride coming into our bollywood by Karan Johar,the fighter of lost causes.Lot of Dostana here.....
"Konkona Sensharma has already become to this what Nirupa Roy was to motherhood! She has already done in twice (Page 3, Life in a Metro) and looking good for more. With more and more films being made on a realistic gay relationship, it is only natural that the most dominant theme – closet homosexuality – will have to be depicted pretty regularly.
What will make it tiresome is the way it will be shown. In both the films mentioned above, the scene unfolds in exactly the same manner in which the hetero partner (cuckold?) arrives at the apartment of the closet-gay for a celebration (Konkona was even holding exactly the same things – a bottle of wine and flowers) and sees her lover in bed with (an)other man.
How long before a man walks on to a lesbian couple? I can bet the expression would not be the aghast look which Konkona had!"

For more post like this just wait for few days or read the blog of that guy only....

Friday, December 12, 2008

Consumer Culture

We are really living in the age of consumerism aka modern times. Today consumers have been turned into dustbins for private enterprises to discard their innumerable list of products manufactured more with a view to creating new needs rather than fulfilling needs. It is rather the creation of comfort zone or luxury than needs for few that converts the life of thousands into hell.

Even Images, ads and videos are created and seen more from the point of view of consumerism than as an expression of ideas. The shot of C. Chaplin working frantically in the factory to keep up with the assembly line of production in Modern Times spoke about the basic nature of consumerism and the death of the normal worker. Today, it really speaks volumes about the basic nature of any industry and the effect of consumer culture on our human society.

The sub-prime crisis in America surfaced when defaults were reported in payments for housing mortgages. The 5% population consumes 25% resources of the world. 90% of GDP is consumed in loans (Sources:Business India 5,October 2008). It is the real face of the capitalist economy of America which wants bail out package from the government. Ancient Indian had described consumerism as tendency to "Rinam kritvaa ghritam pibet "/"Take a loan and drink the ghee".

"This consumerism is not the problem with everyone in India, but there are enough such folks to make the issue a cause for concern. This is literally the first generation of young people freely using credit cards - without realizing the consequences. They see it as a necessary self indulgence. Lifestyle is their life. There are worrying stories of call center employees who are clueless about managing their money. By the 15th of the month, they've spent their salaries and continue shopping on credit cards. Then, instead of paying off the monthly balance in full they pay the minimum amount. Not realizing the horrendous 2.5-3% interest a month they're being charged. A few months down the line they are deeply in debt."(Source)

A must read for all of us : The article "Non Efficient Citizen" by Tomas Kavaliauskas on 'consumer culture and capitalism'. It was originally written in Lithuanian but it is transliterated in various languages due to its universal theme and impact. Here is brief paragraph from article -

"The capitalist order implies that the ultimate objective of citizens is to be consumers. Yet consumerism grounded in indebtedness means financial dependence as opposed to democratic freedom, writes Tomas Kavaliauskas. In the consumerist system, the individual who asserts him or herself through authentic freedom is regarded as a non-efficient citizen."

PDF LINK is here.
We often forget that "One should eat to live, not live to eat." - Cicero

The Strange Case of Female Bloggers

I am not keen supporter of feminist point of view. Really, I have feeble idea about feminism but believe in same opportunities and rights irrespective of gender to all human. In the blogging world, I find that number of blogs written by female were quite low than their male counterpart. I do not agree at all that less creativity or intelligence is behind that scenario.

Here, I read these female bloggers regularly: Rashmi Bansal, Nimmy, Piyul, AM and Gunj. I read their views on various topics because of their professional creative writing skills; not due to being of opposite sex. The point is that female bloggers or profile on social network gets more attention (profile view or album view) in internet world. I read some comments on female bloggers that are purely made to impress her by showing wit. You can find lot of clash between male in discussion at internet world but chances of getting male and female in heated arguments are quite low (by checking at orkut communities). I may be wrong or right but I sincerely believe females get more respect and liberty to express themselves in virtual than real world.

PS:This is link of Top 100 female bloggers list.