For Argument's Sake!

There are good movies, there are bad movies and then there is “Thank You For Smoking”. An advantage of being a far-sighted (figuratively here, otherwise I am a myopic with slight cylindrical issues in my left eye) person is that you can load up your comp with movies and whatnot      and pass your days peacefully at home when you are not gorging on Mom-made bhelpuri or irritating the crap out of your younger brother for funzies.

Okay so I know this isn’t the best movie ever made (this going out to those who HAVE seen it, otherwise I reckon more than half of you haven’t.). The reason I chose to dedicate this piece of writing exclusively to one movie is I think one that can be attributed to subtleties of being a weirdo (“Litta” in college lingo).

Anywhoo…..the point about this movie that struck a chord with me was- “if you argue properly, you will never be wrong”. The protagonist is a guy who is a spokesperson for a tobacco firm and during the first 5 minutes of introduction he says “I don’t have a law or an arts degree, you can say I have a bachelor’s in ‘kick ass and taking names’.” 

Of course worth mentioning here is a point raised by Agent M (NOT Judi Dench, M here refers to an agent of the Morons- a secret society whose reach is beyond the scope of your wildest imaginations-who is albeit, every bit a female as Madam Dench) that “its not wrong to get married at the age of 21, you get married when you get true love”. Now, in my opinion no matter how well you argue that point, people (and here by “people” I mean those who have their IQ’s greater than or equal to zero) will always refer to you as insane.

On a more serious note (Yes! The previous whole paragraph was a joke.) I’ll say that the startling bit about the movie was how easily it gave out its message that nothing is right in the absolute sense of the term. (Making Winston Smith say “5 fingers” instead of “4” in comes to mind.) You know, when they colloquially say “big brother” and things related to that, what we don’t realise is that we are our own big brothers. Yeah I know, probably Bapu Asaram saying “Sab Mithya Hai!”, makes more sense to you but this is ME (with a bigger M) writing. So once again I dive into my bag of quotes and present to you this conversation:

Father: Okay suppose I were to say chocolate is the best flavour of ice-cream. What would you say to that?

Son: I’d say vanilla is the best flavour.

Father: Yeah, but just saying it doesn’t make you right.

Son: Of course it doesn’t!

Father: So if you were given a choice you would only eat vanilla and nothing else right?

Son: Yes…..

Father:  But I’m asking more than that, you see I want more. Which means I want liberty and a freedom of choice.

Son: But I wasn’t talking about that.

Father: But I am and see! I am “right”.

Son: NO!

Father: Yes, I am. I just proved you “wrong”….that automatically makes me right!

 

P.s.: I think they ought to give Christopher Nolan the status of “GOD”. (Just an afterthought after seeing “The Dark Knight”.) 

Waity Issue?

Undoubtedly one of the best things about being an avid Times of India follower is the once a week treat you get in the form of “Jugular Vein” by Jug Suraiya. The guy is probably the best satire writer I have come across and that’s like Bjorn Borg saying “The guy is probably the best tennis player I’ve come across!” (Yeah, I know you cannot compare me with Bjorn Borg, but c’mmon its not my fault if I am better looking than him!)

The latest “article” that he wrote focussed on nicknames and how they seem to be successful in bringing about the best in workplaces.(…..wonder it helped Beckham when they called him “goldenballs” where the ‘balls’ weren’t of the footballing kind!)

More about that later. Of course nicknames which are highly comic like those among the Moronic ilk will be discussed to improve the TRP of my blog.

One of the best issues I think he tackled was (to put it in layman terms) “lack of reading habit among the young generation”. (My younger brother screaming."Bhaiya! Aaj dekhkar bataiyo Delhi Times mein ki kaun kaunsi movies hain TV par!” comes to mind.) I think what he was referring to was the whole noveau culture at large but the part about the new literary habits was what struck me the most.

One of the most striking points about today’s younger generation (and here by young I mean below the age of 40) is the dearth of literature following. Part of the reason of me saying that is that I don’t count FPS, One night at call centre et al (not to mention “Anything for you ma’am-A (despo) IITian’s Love Story”) as literature. I think if the book sales of the last two years are looked at, these three would have surely had a market share of 75% at least.

I’m pretty sure by now, most of you would have labelled me a “Preachy Grandpa!” Well, mostly because reading is one thing I do most of the times (apart from when I’m not watching soccer, browsing wikipedia, following basketball, playing something, following F1 and of course gawking at Nicole Kidman wallpapers!) this is one issue I think I can go on and on about forever.

So again I end up writing a blog that would have made no sense to the junta in general at all. I’d like to quote from the inspiring prose: “The Gen Y thinks of reading as an art of identifying 26 letters (48 in case of hindi) which was prevalent among the ancestors when they were trying to distinguish themselves from monkeys!”

That’s my blog today!

And as the young ones would say: BRB!