Tinder. Mind-bender. Shape-shifter. Game-changer?

 

It was my first date with her. Although we had been friends for a while now, we thought--we could--I guess--go out. Ummm…

I wasn’t very sure why we were on a date. We never really clicked. You know, romantically. We were at best, friends (not best friends - at best, friends.). But I guess, the world has an itch to see a boy and a girl become lovers. ‘They must be a thing’. ‘Awww’. And the likes. 

We were not. Fifteen minutes in we were casually chatting like the friends we had been, when I asked her, what could be, the most unusual question on a date. ‘What is Tinder?’

Hold. Pause. I know. Should have established this earlier. This is Circa 2014. When online dating apps had just started booming in our great nation.

She laughed for a considerable time before flipping out her phone. Please note: we are still on that ‘date’. She showed me three guys within three kms, who were ready to meet her. By meet, I mean date. By date, I mean hook up. By hook up I mean ding dong. Interesting. Very interesting.

Now, that’s where the date died its natural death. But I made a good friend and eventually saw a lot of hook ups and break ups on this Tinder thing. That was the only way Tinder really attracted me. 

I, on the other hand, was still using love letters and pigeons. Till I eventually got married. Wait, I didn’t use pigeons. I used hawks. The messaging is faster, sharper and more effective.

Cut to 2020, where Tinder is part of a raging competition with other dating apps like OkCupid, Hinge and Bumble. All of them, like a variety of Mithais to a desperate teen. Sweet, indeed.

But we don’t live in simple times anymore. When you are whispering sweet nothings in your lover’s ears. Your phone is hearing a lot of somethings. Getting ready to unload a bunch of mushy advertisements on you.

Algorithm. We are not a stranger to that anymore, right? All the big wigs in the social media space have a keen ear placed on our lives. And a close eye on the kind of things we click on throughout the day.

Dating apps are a big part of this game. But in all the love, romance, hook-ups, break-ups and emotional attyachaars, we might be overlooking something that we knew all along. Algorithm.

On their Insta page, Revolio magazine recently posted something which talks about how Tinder uses a rating algorithm to match people who are equally attractive or in the ‘same league’. This is like handing over Tinder algorithm controls to the Mean Girls (the one where Rachel McAdams acts all bitchy). Or bringing back Mark Zuckerberg’s failed concept of FaceMash. Or asking Alexis and David from Schitt’s Creek to start planning marriages like Sima Aunty. Or if the Fair and Lovely ads were well, an app.

 

It gets even more evil. Every time a person with a low desirability score swipes right on you, your score increases and it makes you more desirable. But if a person with a low desirability score swipes left on you, you lose points. Eventually matching with someone completely on the basis of appearance.

It’s ironic how dating apps which ventured out to break the taboo of arranged marriages, are in their own sinister way, pairing people on the basis of looks and looks alone. Reminds me of that Black Mirror episode where Bryce Dallas Howard had to put on a big, fake smile just to get some likes and be eligible in the society, resulting in a massive meltdown in the end. 

 

Tinder not only has this shit going, but the desirability score is also based on what the person liked or disliked on Facebook and Instagram. Algorithm, you back again bro?

Algorithms can be behind many consequential decisions in your life. But that doesn’t make them full proof. They can be just as flawed as their human creators (Rachel McAdams from Mean Girls).

Scouring through some more articles, it came to my notice, I’m not the only one on this scavenger hunt for Tinder’s devious plans. Apparently, last year Tinder had stopped it’s ‘Desirability score’ or ‘Elo score’ mechanism and replaced it with another algorithm. Even after much pressing, Tinder has not released the nefarious workings of this new algorithm.

Somewhere far away, I hear Tinder laughing dastardly, Aahahhaha! Aahahaha!

In the eyes of many, Tinder is growing to be just plain ineffective. In an age where apps like Spotify and Apple Music can tailor your music just the way you like, it’s hard to accept an app which tailors your matches with a really, really low success rate.

In another press statement, while meticulously dodging questions about their new algorithm, they stated that the chances of meeting the ‘right’ person goes up with increased usage of the app.

Duh! What a marketing-y thing to say. These kind of pseudo details have left many users demoralized.

With little or no perfect matches many (not-so-avid) users are left thinking, ‘Is it really me?’, ‘Am I too picky?’ or ‘Am I hard to please?’.

 

Tinder. Mind-bender. Shape-shifter. But is it truly a game-changer?

Introducing ‘variable rate reinforcement’. For those who don’t know, it’s a gamifying mechanism used to shuffle the kind of choices you would make and present them randomly. Meaning, Tinder has got an idea of who you would match with, but to keep it fun and to keep you on the app for longer, it shuffles and throws options at you. This factor of unpredictability makes you almost addicted to it. 

In a test done by Medium, they used crude programming models to produce a dating app algorithm dummy, increasing the chances of finding the ‘Perfect Match’ on Tinder to more than 60% which is far from the reality Tinder users face (maybe 10%). A dating app giant like Tinder will surely have much better resources than a blog, to make sure users find more perfect matches in a shorter time.

 

Picture this, Tinder’s model changes to one that gives you a higher chance of finding your soulmate. 

Wouldn’t that be ideal? Wouldn’t that draw more users? Would that really require tedious PR strategies to sell it? Just leaving these questions here.

 

Then again, there can be many reasons why they would go for a more complex model and make it more meandering to get the perfect match. Maybe the fun of it all. Or maybe to get more subscriptions as compared to one-time users. Ultimately, it does make business sense, but at the cost of maybe many, many human emotions. Where does all this really leave the entire universe of daters, young and old?

Well, I’ll leave you with a quote (Yes, I’ve overdone the pop fiction refs) - As Jared Harris (Valery) in Chernobyl very rightly said, ‘What is the cost of lies? It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all.’

 

Off The Record - When Coldplay came to India

This is one of the longer posts. Brace yourself.

The Snake before MMRDA Grounds, BKC

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at the light of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light, do not go gentle into that good night”, quoted from a poem by Dylan Thomas, it speaks of the human struggle. Written at the time of his father’s death, it’s a call for never giving up, even at the face of death. I strongly resonated with these words, for most part of 19^th of November….Till I finally saw the light.

It was catharsis.

1030 hours. I’m standing at the end of a long boisterous queue of hormone driven teenagers, sprinkled by men and women who have seen a little bit more of life. And, bear with me as I use timestamps as I have in this paragraph. I hope it gives this piece the gravity it deserves.  

1100 hours. MMRDA grounds, Bandra Kurla Complex, prepares for a crowd, the magnitude of which it has never seen before. I see a hint of surreptitiousness in the eyes of the event organizers as they witness 80,000 odd people start marching vehemently through the entrance. I was part of them, and this purposefulness within us, could be attributed to the exorbitant ticket prices one had to pay to see Coldplay perform live in India for the first time. 

We had no idea what we had signed up for.

1230 hours. I’m standing at the end of a long boisterous queue of hormone driven teenagers, sprinkled by men and women who have seen a little bit more of life. You think I’m being lazy repeating this line again? I want to establish, that there were numerous such queues; let’s call them for illustrious purposes,The Snake. The snake was everywhere, and this time in front of the stall labelled‘Water’. The snake has many demands; pizza, burger, hot dog, Chinese, but none of them as basic as water. I stand behind the snake for close to an hour, without any sign of water….Yes, water. Pegged to be the largest music festival in India, Global Citizen Festival India, does not have water.

1300 hours. My phone is ringing frantically. My buddy is calling me back to the throbbing crowd who are waiting to devour the stage. After having stood at the end of the snake for water, for nearly two hours and on the verge of giving up, I was strutting back to him, when I saw a cluster of people running in a particular direction. Could it be? Had the giver of life finally made its cameo?

It was insanity. Taking me back to a scene from Mad Max Fury Road, where the antagonist reigns supreme over the control of water, I see the events guy representing a less decorative version of the same, as he hurls water bottles aimlessly at the crowd. It was mayhem. But, my buddy and I got our share of the spoils.

Water, the giver of life, had brought us back from the dead.

1430 hours. My buddy and I realise we don’t know much about Bollywood music. Ironic, considering 80% of the artist listing constituted of the best and the worst of that. We decide to bail on it. Yes, we can wish to spend our money in whatever way we want. We can’t be typical Indians, and be “paisa vasool karke rahoonga” and all.

Our POA: eat, hydrate, excrete and prepare for what would be 6 hours of continuous madness, to finally watch what we came for – Coldplay.

1600 hours. As we return, Farhan Akhtar chimes into the legendary Rock On hits. I must reiterate, as I mentioned before, Bollywood is a diverse diaspora. On one hand you have icons like Shankar, Ehsaan & Loy, A.R. Rahman and even a Farhan Akhtar (for his many talents), and on the other, you have Sonakshi Sinha and Shraddha Kapoor singing. Why are they singing? It made us scowl in scrutiny.

I am distracted by the, putting it mildly, ‘booty shaking’ of Demi Lovato, as I slowly but steadily make my way to the front, across the multitude of crowd, sprawled all over.

It is 4pm, and the Mumbai heat is menacingly overpowering.

Farhan Akhtar jamming with the Bacchan

1800 hours. The sun was down. A huge sigh of relief. But, the battle had just begun.

“I can’t do this, this is too much to take, I can’t breathe, and I’m going to puke”, near verbatim words of the girl standing right in front of me. She was talking about the crowd. My buddy and I had reached the front row, and the pressure from all sides was immense. An army ready to break through and conquer. Coldplay is up at 8:30pm. We have to resist, we can’t give up now. We have to hold fort.

1830 hours. Let me take a moment to address the 3 Sustainable Development Goals. Water(we could have so much more of it in the event), Sanitation and Gender Equality.

I might be getting them wrong. But, that’s the whole point. As a crowd of 80,000 odd, push, shove and endure what was a survival of the fittest, we have politicians and celebrities bombarding us with social messages. Nobody remembers, nobody cares. That is the truth. All we want is water and somebody to fix us.

1835 hours. Jay Z is in the house. He’s owning the stage. The level of swag is insurmountable.

As he mixes it up with his own version of Chaiyya Chaiyya, the crowd slowly forget their pains. They are more patient and accepting, and most of all they are grooving to rap they have probably only heard once in their lives. Jay Z fixes us.

JayZ brings the crowd back to life!

2030 hours. We made it. With our hearts in our hands and having sweated a lifetime’s supply of sweat, we finally see the Flower of Life, the Chinese symbol which marks Coldplay’s entrance. It is grand and quite unbelievable.

I have experienced this moment infinitely in my dreams and it is finally coming true. I want to pinch myself to make sure it’s not a dream, but the crowd does not let me move my hands. I am immobile but immensely content, as Chris, Jonny, Guy and Will, burst into the stage with exuberance and energy. What followed was two hours of enlightenment. An out of the world experience, which cannot be defined in words.

Coldplay, a band I have loved since nearly 11 years, so much so, that I would be married to it if it was a girl. I don’t know how I could manifest that. But yes, my dream had come true. 

Coldplay play all their greatest hits! Much to their fans' surprise

I see the fireworks, I see the balloons, and I see the waves of crowd chanting Viva La Vida. I see AR Rahman urging Chris Martin to praise the motherland, I see Chirs Martin pull off a subtle Arijit Singh. I see the light. It is incredible. This is the light at the end of the tunnel. The tunnel of sweat, tears, pain and patience which leads to the most memorable experience of your life.

It was catharsis.

A surge of colors and music engulfs the Mumbai crowd

 

2230 hours. Was it real? My mind races with the question as I turn back to exit the grounds. I follow the snake to the exit. I felt I had been transported to a more colourful and vibrant world, an idyllic world full of love and laughter. And now I am back again. It was just a concert.

I had told myself, after watching Coldplay in person, I would be ready to die. On the flipside, I felt more alive than ever, with the aching desire to experiencing this trip again, for many more times to come.

Dream Of A City

It proved to be a vicious circle. I’m back to square one. Is this some form of karma?

The departure from my home city of Kolkata, at a post adolescent period, led to a discovery of a plethora of social and cultural norms in the new city of Bangalore.

Needless to say, living in Kolkata in the cocoon of my mother, father and the Bengalis in my vicinity, followed by becoming a hostelite in Karnataka, culminated in a sea of metamorphosis.

New city, new ways, new rules. It sounded like a Bryan Adams song, which I soon discovered was just a veil over the true identity of the city. Every place will be different in its own way, but Bangalore was much more than that. It was a rebirth.

I suddenly realized I had missed out on so much. I had experienced so less. And, I had very less time before my tryst with the city gets over. 

A cocktail from the 70s hit me like a speeding truck. The Doors, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and of course, the abominable, Led Zeppelin. I had discovered classic rock and with it, introspection and retrospection. The beer was flowing like the rivers of Babylon and the pubs were superfluous. It was a whirlwind of opportunities to meet new people, eat new food, and indulge in new and varied concoctions.

I was in a hurry!

At this stage, you would guess, I was under the influence of more than just friends and peers. Of more than just substances. I was a slave to the city. The lights and sounds were an elixir to me. Going out each weekend felt like a revolution, a rebellion. But, was it really?

Cut to five years later.

I wake up disoriented in an unfurnished apartment in the suburbs of Mumbai, to the wailing cry of morning Namaaz. Trying to gather my bearings, I browse over the many unknown faces that I hosted in the house party last night.

Reeling under the effects of what had been, I strutted to my balcony squinting at the afternoon sun, when I felt I saw an apparition. For a second I felt as if it was my own self from my time in Bangalore.

And then it disappeared.

It had been only a year in the city and I had started warming up to Mumbai. The pulse of this new place was exhilarating. I felt like I was cheating on my girlfriend – Bangalore. I knew it was not right, but I couldn’t resist. The constant thumping beats of Ganesh Chaturthi music throughout the year. The characteristic personalities at every nook and cranny. The flurry of people in a daily race to the finish.

A spirit of adventure was coursing through its veins. Or probably, it was the bass heavy ambience of this organism that was simply contagious.

Bangalore my love, Mumbai my mistress.

While I was studying in Pune, and was bereft of the worldly pleasures of either of them, a friend had naively asked me a pertinent question, “So, If you had to choose…”, and then of course, you would figure the dichotomous discourse.

All said and done, I had stoically concluded how each of them holds a place in my heart and mind. Every scenario has two sides to it. A bright one and the other dark. Each of these two cities had the caliber to nurse either side. An amalgamation of both their abilities would result in a utopia.

It would be outrageous and unreal.

Imagine a person, having a dual personality. And, no, I’m not talking about the pop fiction ‘Evil Twin’ concept. A person who tries to please everyone, and ends up pleasing no one. Could that be the case if I happened to find a diabolical contraption to conjure an ideal city, one with Mumbai, Bangalore and everything nice?

Too good to be true and too good to finally end up in decadence.

As I move back to Bangalore (With an endearing pain of leaving Mumbai behind), I try to pacify myself with these thoughts. Each city has its own specialty and carves a niche which we ought to respect.

However, I feel like I’m completing a vicious circle. Going back to square one, shall I pay for my sins committed in the city of dreams; is this some form of Karma? Or am I just over thinking this.          

Socially potent - In the most unlikeliest of places

Six days in and I was already cherishing the experience. We were well integrated into All Children Together Trust (ACTT) and the kids were starting to get bored seeing us everyday. Not the other way round though. The fourth day began with the arrival of Dr.R.K. Das, the regular physician in ACTT. He seemed a little annoyed at the beginning with a bunch of media students peering over him as he lit his probing torch into the ear of a 9 year old kid from the home. Later on, however, we shared a jovial conversation as he told us about the glorious times he had examining the children there.

The day had in store for the kids, a very special event organized by another foundation called 'Crayons for hope' which involved creative letter writing for the kids to the kids in other such NGOs. The first time I heard about this, I had only one thing in my mind, why did we not have this kind of a thing when we were young. The topic was 'My Wish' and how all these children could paint and write to their counterparts in other NGOs. A plethora of creative sanity in this otherwise insanely modern world. And creative they were, considering their age, I would've highly doubted my own abilities at the same.  

The next day we met Mustaqim. Almost our age, if not older, he once used to be one of those painting, playing and learning kids of ACTT. He made his own place in the corporate world , through various struggles and menial jobs to make ends meet. Now, however, he is well established and pursuing his further education. But, it was good to know that, no matter how busy he gets, he does end up making time to come visit the kids and contributing in whatever way possible.

The next day Mustaqim took us to the slums around Dhakuria bridge. The main source of ACTT's rescue operations. Dingy, dirty and unlivable, it was a host of families who in their disheveled state needed a helping hand to take away the burden of a child. We also learnt that most of the children were  abandoned by eternally inebriated fathers or mothers on the verge of killing themselves. It was difficult to imagine coming from such a hell, these kids have such a positive outlook on life and can come up with such wonderful creations of art. Maybe it is the heavenly hand that ACTT is providing.

It was mesmerizing to speak to Kavya, a working girl, having a splendid life of her own, and trying to share her joy with the kids in ACTT. She was a volunteer for 'Make a difference' , another organization of the same league as ACTT, She told us about the fervor and excitement the kids show when she teaches them and the immense joy she receives after a monotonous day of work. One thing that she said wrung true, that, 'You would be surprised to find a store-house of talent in this home.' That we all were, as a group of girl children who learnt arts and crafts from her, came to us with their creations. It was a treat for us media students. For a moment we thought somewhere out there somebody would pay a lot of money for it, but then again, these kids, they did not care for such things, that was the beauty of it. True art.

The next day I was in conversation with Biswanath Kanjilal, the head of a school called 'Uttarayan'. It was the official arts school for the kids and we were pleasantly shocked to see extreme discipline among the kids. Later we learnt that it was out of respect for Mr. Kanjilal as a teacher. He was a creative artist at a big time ad agency and left all of it to come inspire these kids. When asked why he had left his spendthrift life to come do this, he merely said, 'This is what I always wanted to do, this is what gives me mental satisfaction and peace.' Finding such talent as Mr. Kanjilal and the enthusiastic bunch of children who wield their brushes like magic, I was reminded of a great saying from some hazy source, 'You can find talent in the most unlikeliest of places.'


Visit their page and donate heartily : http://acttindia.org/
Like, invite, share and promote through their facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/AllChildrenTogetherTrust

Follow them on twitter : @acttindia

Socially Potent - The beginning

I am writing after more than a year. My handful of readers would be shocked and amused that I still muster the courage to write another post. This sudden appearance was most certainly called for -- a beckoning.

As some of you might know the fact that I have started studying again. Through my college's noble efforts and will to give back to the society, I have found an opportunity to work with one of the heartiest N.G.O's in Kolkata -- All Children Together Trust(ACCT). This post is the first of many posts that will document me and my team's journey with ACCT and the humanitarian takeaways from it. Believe me, two days in and I've already started growing a bigger heart.

Honestly, for a cynic like me, it would be difficult to find a place in an organization like ACCT, where Love is the only vice. As we made our way to the humble building with anticipation and a lingering sense of guilt for having not taken up this initiative earlier in the past, our nerves were soon alleviated as we were greeted with two exceptionally brilliant paintings made by one of the children there. Appreciating talent and in one of the unlikeliest places gave all of us a kind of natural high, a desire to return the favor.

Soon after we were introduced to Chandan Das, the very amiable secretary of the society. The next few minutes were spend in discussing and deliberating all the various ways by which we could help them reach out to the world. We understood they were people in need for help in any which way but were not desperate for it. Respect. After much talk, and reaching a consensus on the various things that we would be doing in the course of our time with them, all of us in the room seemed equally satisfied.

We were getting a little agitated sitting in the small office room for such a long time and knew it was time for the tour. Our tour guide, two of the senior boys of the home. They seemed to be quite excited about it, having got an excuse to skip their chores. The home was divided in two buildings one for the boys and the other for the girls. Both the buildings had three floors, for three age groups, all of it seemed to be quite cozy, but what caught our attention the most was the 'bunk beds'. It reminded us of our childhood, when we used to fight with our siblings over who gets the top bunk.

After having got our much needed dose of childhood nostalgia from the home, we headed to their school. The principal, Anupa Mukherjee was the first person we met, who gave us a brief of the entire academic system there and how they try to be as strict as any other school, and treat these abandoned children as their own. We could notice the sincerity in every teacher and their aspirations for giving these children a future to look forward to.

In a way, we realized the importance of a childhood and how we, at this age have completely forgotten its value and the people responsible for building that for us. I think it's high time for us to take up the responsibility for signifying these children to our friends and families through whatever platforms necessary and we strive to achieve the same in the following days here.  

Visit their page and donate heartily : http://acttindia.org/

Like, invite, share and promote through their facebook page :  https://www.facebook.com/AllChildrenTogetherTrust

True Calling—the Great Indian Dream

So, finally I had reached. Or had I??  In life, you are always reaching for something, whether it is your Mom’s hand when you’re young and pampered, or whether it is that last joint your best friend has so gratefully been passing around, 19 years later in your hostel dorm. Or even that rainy night when you’re reaching for the only piece of protection and you don’t find it! We are not at peace till we have reached. This is the pursuit of happiness Thomas Jefferson had once spoken about. What he didn't speak of was how it is a bitch. So, at every stage of your life you have a destination, and obviously I am not talking geography.

 As I wander through the streets of this topsy-turvy of a metropolis, a Cosmo-polis, filling my mind with all these different personalities, these different cultures, notions, people.  I stand to wonder if they had all grown up to do this ‘one thing’, their sole purpose, their destination; and with actions that eventually culminated in them accomplishing it. Or bizarre still, were they not even aware of it?!

Life is like a washing machine. What I mean to say is, there are stages—wash—spin—rinse and finally the clothes are set to dry. At some level you might understand that, like the clothes reach their destination, i.e. ‘to be clean’, we ourselves are in search of our aim in life.

What is the purpose of your life? Who do you want to be? Who are you right now?

The answer to all this is destroyed by one word—‘India’. When you’re born in an Indian middle-class family, as I am sure most of you reading this are, throughout your life you are presented with a certain set of protocols which in all probability will ruin your opportunity to find your true calling. They say if you have to survive in India, you got to love three things – Technology, Cricket and Bollywood Music. If you like none of them, then please accept my condolences. If you like either one or two of the three, don’t be under the impression that you’re safe; the others will come and bite you right in the back. And of course, if you like all three, then congratulations, you are an ideal Indian; life will be as smooth as your favorite item girl’s moves. You see, life for such Indians is like a Bollywood mainstream film, there is a formula, barely minimum twists, and the guy wins the heart of the girl at the end while satisfying his parents with his unbelievably high paying job.

 To survive as a typical Indian belonging to this particular section of the society (the majority), you have to be mainstream, you have to laugh at jokes not even remotely funny, you have to react to the obvious, appreciate beauty in the small things, and be an alien to sarcasm. In short, you may just end up forgetting your true destination spending your time pretending, unless of course you’re the hero of the film, in which case your reactions are quite genuine.

I am in a storehouse for innumerable software professionals in the company that I work for, waiting to be assigned to slave labor for a client; to answer our ‘call’. This place is called ‘The Bench’, more like ‘The Pit’, considering the humongous amount of people here that pile over one another. Encountering various kinds of middle-class Indians here, I realize their diversity first and the kind they are second. I find them both, the Indians and the ‘The Indians’. The funny thing is both of them want to be the other, so there is mass confusion. The mainstream thinks the contemporary is cooler and the contemporary thinks the mainstream is the winner. This leaves them all in an state of utter disarray. Contemplating where they wanted to reach in the first place, they once again fail to answer the question, who do you want to be? Who are you right now?

Woody Allen had said and I quote, “In life you can either be miserable or horrible, if you’re miserable, consider yourself lucky.” Well I got to admit, he summed it up pretty well. The fact of the matter, hence, can only be a single solution—“You”. Decide what kind of an image you want to portray, and what you would really like to do, no matter how uncanny. In India, people misunderstand you: yes maybe I liked that song of ZNMD, but I still think the movie was pointless. Stop pretending so as to make friends, take a stand, and most of all, stop giving a fuck.

Easier said than done. I truly agree, but what’s life without taking a risk for your own true calling. Like Kevin Costner says to young Clark Kent in ‘Man of Steel’—“ In Life , you have to choose the kind of man you want to be, whether it be good character or bad, it’s going to change this world.”

The Last Of It.....

It was the 3rd of this month, 2 years back that i had first thought of penning down my views of the movies that come out in the present. What had instigated me ? Maybe i was caught in a strife with my friends about whether  'Love aaj Kal' was actually worth watching.... or maybe it was just my blind commitment towards cinema, and expressing that in a literary form.... I'll never know, but the blog you read today is definitely a conclusive product.

2 years went by as a charade of mind-boggling entertainment went on in the industry.... as i was left figuring out what is right and what is wrong... what to watch and what to skip.... who you should look out for , and who you should snub. It was, but only, a mere attempt to point out to those really interested, as to where things went wrong, and how it should have been done.You always gain from any kind of analysis, and it was nothing different for me.... i gained too... it was knowledge.

I'm not writing this after coming back from any theatre after catching the first show, I'm not writing this to complain about a noisy crowd breathing down my neck, I'm not writing this to tell you about the headache i had after coming out of the hall playing 'Tashan'.....no... I'm writing this because i realised something...  
a knowledge that i gained.

Those who have followed my blog, and are probably reading this depressing post right now, know about the fact that i have been making short-films for the last two years, and have successfully completed 4 such films. It was an optimistic start for us (my team) as we made 'The Boy Who Smelled' and 'The Story Of You'...we really didn't think anyone would want to watch something with no dialogues in this day and age, but the people had proved us wrong. It inspired us to make our next two films, 'Sab Golmaal Hai' and 'Meet Retro Raja' both of which were widely appreciated in our social circuit. we thank you all for that... you guys truly rock !

In the course of making these films, i had spent all the knowledge that i had gained 'analyzing' the films that i had seen and i realized , that making these 3-4 mins short films were some tough shit, imagine what those people must be going through who have to direct an entire 2 hour film.... much tougher shit !....As this realisation  hit me.... we had just finished making 'Meet Retro Raja'.... and i was left with the thought that i can never view movies in the criticizing manner as i did before.... that was when i knew i couldn't review them anymore...when i couldn't write here anymore.

However, i continue having a strong personal opinion about the movies i watch, but have learnt to comment lesser and appreciate more which contradicts the sole meaning of this blog. I raise my rock fists to all those who believed in what i wrote(who were merely a handful) and i still read their comments on those rare occasions that i opened this blog.

As you read my last of it.... i would like to sign off in a positive note suggesting you to go for 2 upcoming movies, the mainstream's back in Yash Raj as it comes out with Maneesh Sharma's next : 'Ricky Bahl vs The Ladies' starring the extremely talented Ranvir Singh. And, veteran director Terence Malik is back with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn starring Oscar hopeful 'The Tree Of Life'.

This last paragraph is dedicated to one of my forever buddies' Sushmit Mitra Mustafi whose proficiency in the English language has finally cajoled him to start his own blog (finally !!).... so it would be awesome if you read his blog, i assure you, you wont be bored.
www.sushmit-rivendell.blogspot.com

ADIOS AMIGOS... meet you on the other side....!