Posted by D.Raw El Payne 30 October 2004, 7:37am

12:21AM. Oct.30th, 2004. A very awed world in Payne's mind.



Just done watchin Tere Naam. I've seen tragic movies before, I've felt sadness before but 'tis been a while since that. Green Mile and Sommersby are the only two I can recollect which had me utterly close to tears but this is the first hindi movie in a loooong time. The last one was Anand. Ok, before I go digressing onto all the movies I've seen or go categorising cinema as such, I just want to get some weight of me shoulders - Tere Naam.

Brutally tragic is what the movie is. Brutal for the ruthless way in which the story keeps taking that guy's life again and again, tragic 'coz well, its sad dammit. I'm almost certain that if I see the movie again, I'll laugh at it or do some sorta apeshit, but for now, I'm awed at the whole thing. Friggin hell, I actually cupped me hands to me mouth when Salman Khan falls off the parapet onto the metal junk *ouch* and the following scene where she comes to see him and doesn't turn around after leavin him there. C'mon! What type of a girl leaves sweets et al and doesn't turn around?! Especially when he's the "love of her life"...i was WILLING her to turn around. But no she don't, and she leave Radhe screaming n hollerin for her...n me all :( . Get this, the remote control fell outta muh hands at the last scene. There she is, all dead. He slumps down n cries and then smiles a smile of utter resignation. Ok, so it was expected, so I saw it coming, but to actually watch the scene, to grasp the truth that the poor bald, mangled, wretch of a man had run through a whole forest/lake/what-not in one night to reach Delhi on foot while bound by chains - arms, legs and all! It hurt. Big time. n then Radhe walks back onto the street, hugs his bro and climbs into the van to return to "Sriperdhum Ashram(or wtever)", Aslam hollering in the backdrop. He came back from the dead for her, she died for him. He was ready to live again for her, she couldn't live without him. Dipshits, I tell you, total dipshits. :|

Does love like that exist? The friggin movie nearly convinced me, but dam - does it?? Love so strong, love so timeless, love so binding - in death or in life. Love to last a whole lifetime. Is that love at all? What type of a person do you need to be to fall so utterly in love? To so completely drown in the same love which would cloud your eyes and make the rest of your life seem insignificant. Which would make you board the van back to the same place from where you'd just escaped - to a place you'd entered as a vegetable but escaped with a burning passion in your soul, alive again. Alive to live life for all its worth. Alive to live again with(or for?) people who loved him. Would you kill urself again?  What were you doing there in the first place?! Do goons like that end up getting the girl? How much of Salman's hair - in the first half - was real? Can I grow the mop on my head into somethin akin? How gay would I look then? Should I kidnap chics to get their attention now?

I'm done.

Payne.


PS : Was gonna post about a whole lotta different things. Goddam movie f_kked up me mind. Right it did. :|



Current Mood: Heartbroken
Current Music: Fuzon - Khamaj

Posted by D.Raw El Payne 26 October 2004, 1:08am

"Write. Write me a story. Write me a poem. Write our story. "- Neurotron

How real am I?

I've just Alt-Tab'ed my way into this textbox here from a Yahoo messenger window. Am staring at blank space ready to be filled with my thoughts, with my words, with my prose, with me. I quoted those lines from Neuro because they were the first words which sprung up in my mind when the person in that Yahoo window said something about me being a "writer". I remember laughing the first time she said that, I remember asking her how important were words in one's life, questioning if the ability to twist reality and to output it in beautiful words was enough to get someone to like you, wondering if there would ever be a way to draw the line between the dramatic me and the real me.

I still don't even come close to the point of considering myself a "writer", but that aside, I'm right now plagued with doubts. Though I am in an intoxicatingly mirth-filled mood right now, I do not want to let this moment go by before I see why I am this way. Sure, a lot of things have happened in the past hour to bring me here, but I'm anyway mostly this ways(slightly neurotically gleeful I mean). But significantly, its been that conversation in that Yahoo window. I admitted to the fact that my thoughts seem to be stuck in my head, that before they reach my lips to be heard by the outside world there's a huge jam. I also admitted that these same thoughts flow much more coherently to my fingertips, that is, when I write/type. This brings me to that question right there at the top. How real am I?

Why is it that I'm always ten steps ahead while typing than when I'm talking? Is this online self - Payne - an outlet to be the better me? Is there any such thing as the "better" me? TP said we live in our lives in the past, if thats the case there's no better way to realise it than here, here when I wonder if the milliseconds more of time I have to respond online changes the way that people perceive me. I wish I knew why I am this ways. I can't help but seriously interrogate myself and come up with the other question - Are these words here  "me"? And scarier - Can I actually enact out other facets to myself? Can I be false to the point of being cruelly real? Do these questions have any semblance of truth in them? Why do I even doubt myself? Why do I even do this?

Coming to the beginning of this - that window. Looking back, I'd like to think that that conversation was just about perfect and that if you are reading this, you'd never doubt me. Never. I dont even know if this post is about proving a point or about putting out the questions that continue to plague me. I guess its neither - these are just my thoughts, just my meandering musings, just my words. Just me.

Payne

 



Current Mood: Grand
Current Music: Evanescence - My Immortal

Posted by D.Raw El Payne 21 October 2004, 8:23pm

10:54PM, Oct. 21st 2004. Payne's world.

The wheels are turning again. My blog is back. The HUGE post you see below is purely the result of a rambling mind. It is a perfect example of the hogwash that Payne can dish out. Read it at your own peril.


11:48PM, Sept. 17th 2004. Payne's mind.

Life. So easily understood, so easily complicated, so easily learnt, so easily lost, so easily lived...

Honestly, right here right now. It all seems so simple. The whole "it" of it looks soo good. :D 'Tis nice to be in this place. A place where I have NO idea what I am doing, no idea what I'm gonna be doing and sure as hell not thinkin about whats done. Some say its a shitty place to be in, that one has to know one's path or heck atleast one's position in life. But here I am, 11:50PM Sept.17th 2004, feeling totally high only 'coz I've cleared my mind of all things. Not that there was much to clear, but whatever vestiges of sense were lying in there I got rid o'em. I'm in this place not so frequently but I am every once in a while. These are the times, when I feel that writing is not a big deal, when creativity seems like a whole dosh of crap, when my skull feels lighter than usual...and boy, it feels like there's a draught of air in there right now...:-S weeeehoooooooo!! Ramblings of a maniacal schizophrenic is what these characters typed in notepad are. Utter dosh. Total crap. and so much fun. :p

Fine, the above shit was typed out just to get me flowing. Just to get myself thinking again. Just to fill up that empty space in there. To get my feet outta the wet cement over on the writer's block. Not a nice place to be I tell you. The wet cement's composed of all the energy-sucking thingies ever. It gets to you, it makes you stay in there, it makes you believe that life is good when lived by reading alone, it hurts. :| Yeah balls! ANYways.

Herd mentality. Two words I used to scoff at, two words I loathed, two words oft-repeated by one of my friends around this place. Well, time for a reality check. What have I exactly done in these past three years on campus? What have I done differently(if) in any way? What have I done? The answers are seemingly easy, just like so many things in life. I've had fun, loads of it. In more ways than one, the campus has been my life. By campus I mean the people and not the trees, benches, buffaloes and other such scenic beauties. Next answer, when it comes to life, probably some things done differently, but this is not about life - is it? This is about that elusive point of herd mentality I'm trying hard to grasp. Lastly, what I did do is follow the invisible pied piper. Ah, here it is. The point is I, even after learning once, am ready to hop along that trodden path. The path trodden by a million and then some. I shall put this explicitly in the next few lines and shall refrain from black-n-white generalisations.

Its been three years in this college, I stand at the crossroads of careerpaths as such, the clock's happily ticking away - the fingers pointing to the hour of decisions. Final year, like so many other students, I've made up my mind(mostly) about what to do. Here's the interesting bit, that decision about what to "do" is completely shrouded by the bigger question "what to learn?". CAT, GRE, Ph.Ds, GATE or jumping headlong into a job? Before delving into the details, its prudent that I say that this article talks about the majority of the people, not the rare few who know exactly what they're going to be five years from now. For most, the paths are clear, the decisions are definitely not, the motives even more unjustified.

Three years back, when I attended counselling, it was all so clear, so lucid. To be an engineer, to contribute in my own way in changing the face of some small technology somewhere. I place the blame squarely on myself for the fact that I have not done any such thing nor am I in anyway "an engineer". But along came the placements, first company and I'm placed. 4 companies along and 250 of us placed. Woohoo? Don't think so, time for some serious re-thinking. Look at the job-profiles, look at the kind of work. I'm not exactly lambasting the whole software industry here, but let me simply take stock of the situation here. Different cases - the student who's worked his behind off to get 91.6% in his electronics/mechanical/civil subjects, the student for whom software is a passion - in whose blood the lines of the coding matrix flow - and lastly, guys like me. First case, this is a person who may have got that exceptional %age by completely understanding the concepts of his subjects, by inculcating the fundas of the discipline into himself or by simply following the exam papers and grinding the heck out of the textbooks. Eitherways, the effort comes to a nil. None of that knowledge is viable now. Last case next, guys who've just about managed a 70%+ in the acads by playing ball under the floodlights of a reading lamp till the wee hours of the morning before the exam(one-day batting - so to say), guys who may or may not know the concepts, guys who may be slightly or not at all proficient in coding n such. The middle ground. Good speaking skills, good enough to shoot baloney at the companies coming down as to how "the acads are not important" and you're through. Then the software gurus, this is the sad bit, most of the MNCs coming down have downright menial work laid out for the freshies at their offices. Do you really see the coding god with knowledge in 18 languages making history at TCS? I don't. Lets now look at the other options, CAT and a Masters Degree.

CAT, how many of us are into it for the lure of the lucre? For the glamour of being branded a "future CEO"? For being the "head honcho" of an M-N-C? I shan't lie and say that I'm aiming for CAT for other reasons, but how many of us are really giving CAT for the right reasons? I don't even want to know. How many of them would be really capable managers? Sadly, all of them. 'Coz thats what the IIMs are there for I guess. How many of them really enjoy what they're doing? I don't know. Maybe you would. How many of us are doing what we're doing because thats we want to do? Sigh.

Is this what you bargained for? Is this what we want? Do we have a choice? Last question easiest answered, no. We may not have a choice, we may not even care to see above the madding crowd and look for that choice. We may not care to look inside ourselves and ask ourselves what we really want from life. Whistling Syko in his blog put it so well and so succintly, its passion that drives the world, its passion that gives life, its passion that creates, that invents, that innovates, that lives. More important than that, its the beauty of knowing YOUR passion. All the above paras mostly refer to people who instead of knowing what they want from life, continue to do things because they're clear about what they don't want from their lives.

Blame me for seeing the worst case scenario, blame for having a possibly caustic outlook on the future. But heck, these thoughts have been in my head for a looong while now and if it seems like I'm typing out mostly disconnected thoughts - it is that way wonly. Thoughts that have been killing me. My only hope when I started this BIG post was to in some way put my thoughts concisely and forcefully. As always I've flopped miserably. All I hope is that, from this point onwards atleast in life, most of us do what we are meant to be - not set out to achieve what is a de facto standard set by others. Its sad that we live in a country whose "individuals" are proud to constitute >60% of the workforces in leading industries worldwide but in reality are reduced to nothing but the masses. That quality education that is cooked up here in so many corners is seemingly wasted. I wish I knew what I had a problem with exactlly - I don't though. I wish that everyone would be an individual. I wish all of us would live to live. I wish I knew how to live.

(EDIT : The following text is typed on 21st Oct!)


Point is, here I am doing the same thing I did 4 years back. Aiming for a course I know jack-shit of. But dammit, do I want it or what! I may want it for all the wrong reasons, but I do want it. I want it for reasons beyond the course itself, I'm here for the competition, I'm here for the test rather than the course. Whatever it is, I'm here. 30 days to go to get there. Wish me luck.

If you've read till this point, you're awesome. *bows down*

Payne




Current Mood: Relieved
Current Music: Coolio - Gangstas Paradise

Posted by D.Raw El Payne 03 October 2004, 6:06am

October 2nd, 1:21 AM. Captain's Log.


Just watched Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. Bloody awesome it is. Grinned for the most part, watched in awe at the utter overaction towards the end, laughed at the background score doing the typppical danger routine and shed two whole tears at the end. Two whole tears, yes. I do not cry too much at the movies, no wait, I do not cry at the movies, no wait, I do not go to "the movies"....no wait, I do not cry. Yes. Anyway, the last movie I actually came close to shedding one whole tear was Remember The Titans, and the one before that was Sommersby. The former is an out-n-out american football movie, the latter...well the latter is kinda mushy-wushy. I like sports movies...I really do. Watch RTT and watch Varsity Blues while you're at it...heck even, Any Given Sunday... Geez! Anyways, DDLJ, awesome movie it is. Why? Cuz its the frigging epitome of indian cinema...the mother of all bollywood flicks if I may dare say. Its got every frigging element that makes the counters tick and yet it never fails to impress moi. You know why? (obviously U don't...this is ME we're talkin bout..geez!) Cuz it ain't got annny irritatin, irksome, fucked-up PESTS screwing with the flow of the movie. Or so I think, coz I watched only the last 1:15Hrs and I have no clue what happened prior to that...my long term memory is pretty short, you see. In that 1:15Hrs, DDLJ made me believe in the power of hindi cinema again, it made me think "ytf don't I watch more of this?!"....well maybe I should. Especially now, now when indian cinema is breaking new frontiers. Or tearing through new frontiers should I say...or ripping apart the curtains to broader horizons....Yes, the movie in question here is "Shaque", with Ms. Janki Shah showing us all a bit of what Indian cinema has been missing all these years. Lets not go over the top here now shall we? :-D This could just be an indicator of things to come...that is, if the censor-board doesn't nip this in the bud now...

O.k. Enough of the double entendres already. I've had it with my share of puns for the night. The whole sidetracking of the issue towards Shaque has neatly cleansed my brain of all remnants of the magical experience of DDLJ. Damn, its easy to be distracted nowadays with the power of the internet I tell you. Tauba Tauba also seems to setting new standards in sleaze...noicce. Back to DDLJ, watch it again...and again ppls, its a course in "How to make cinema work. In spite of ALL the songs and all the hamming and all the dipshits." Long title I know, but I'm never known to be concise anyways.

This is me. Out for now.

Payne.

PS : Do NOT watch Sweet November. You'll only end up dead. Thats good, 'cuz if you survive the movie, there's an outside chance you might end up seeing Mujhse Dosti Karoge, which will lead to your brain slowly, ever so slowly, oozing out of that hole in the back of your neck. Ouch. Male tears. Ouch.! *gross*



Current Mood: Mooney
Current Music: A dog howling out on the street. Me wants to listen to "Tujhe Dekha...", bluddy winamp is stuck in lala land.

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