A word from the author
The following is an attempted spoof at one of the Masti –Waale scenes from the movie Rang De Basanti. This did not turn out as I wanted it to be. It is not humorous (as much as it was deliberated). I had doubts about posting this. But over an hour spent without outcome is a big no for me.
So I want to tell you this:
1) First, that this one post is long, and if you have to read it, read it at one go.
2) If you have not seen Rang De Basanti, you might not enjoy it as much (or even those who have, might not enjoy it. See, I am honest about this.)
3) Instead of presenting humor, now that I see it, this stuff is more of a collection of vices of people, non harming verbal utterances of others, or just an exxxxxxxxxxaggeration from my side.
4) Take this all in good spirits. Don’t feel offended and stop talking to me if you feel so, despite my (polite) request here.
5) I think more than anyone else, Saksham will understand this the most.
6)Please Please Please, do not leave without posting a comment or even an insult.

So here goes, RANG DE BASANTI – The classroom.

The Cast
Sue: Matrix Dasgupta (Oh! We want someone slimmer)
Srishti Bhutani (Hahahahahahahahaha!)
Geetika Kaushal (Well, if she uses a fairness cream)
Soniya: Khushboo
Karan: Utsav Sharma
DJ: Tushar Dutt
Sukhi: Aman Hora
Aslam: Jyotaditya Singh
Major Ajay Rathod: Saksham Leekha
Laxman Pandey: Rohil Sinha

Special Appearance
Mehak Kapoor (as Mehak)
Srishti Bhutani (as herself)
Ritesh (for no defined or justified reason whatsoever)
Abhinav Goel (thanx abhi, for being there)

***Please visualize this as you read.
(On the way from the airport to Delhi University)
Sue: I am Sigmund Freud’s great great grand daughter. I have his personal notes and diaries. I have come all the way from Kanpur to New Delhi to make a documentary on Human Behavior.
Soniya: Don’t worry, we’ll do it together.

(Both reach Delhi University)
Soniya: Lets go to the classroom.
Sue: Yeah lets!!!

Scene 1 - The Classroom
Mehak (Dancing): Apni to paathshaala, Masti ki Paatshaala
Apni to paathshaala, Masti ki Paatshaala
(Aslam, Soniya and Sue)
Soniya: Meet Kaviraj Aslam, Sue.
Aslam: Hello…
Sue: I can see that you are suffering form acute inferiority complex.
Aslam: Huh?
Sue: Just look at yourself. Vibes of negativity, hatred and lust (lust???) are gripping everybody in your proximity. Ego centrism, conscious negligence… Oh heavens.
(looks at Aslam’s jade ring) Clearly you are suffering from acute Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It’s etched into your soul window. Attitude of yours is what that is wrong.
Aslam: What the hell are you talking about? I don’t think it is FAIR. WELL…

(Mehak pops out of thin air…. Starts dancing)
Mehak: Did you just say “farewell”?
“Apni to paathshaala, Masti ki Paatshaala
Apni to paathshaala, Masti ki Paatshaala”
Aslam: Liste…
Mehak: Hey, I know Richa ma’am.
“Apni to paathshaala, Masti ki Paatshaala
Apni to paathshaala, Masti ki Paatshaala”


(DJ and Sukhi are drinking beer. Sukhi goes TUN and collapses. Aslam and Karan rescue him. Mehak helps.)

Sukhi: Oye Aslam. Tune meri jaan bachaayi. (kisses Aslam)
(pauses… gratified)
Oye Karan, Tune bhi meri jaan bachaayi. (kisses Karan)
(Mehak looks up suggestively)
Sukhi (disgusted): Oye soch bhi mat. Wahaan jo kuch WHITE hona chahiye, woh YELLOW hai.

(Ritesh pops out of thin air and joins Mehak)

Ritesh: Mehak and I are just friends.
Mehak: A grumble of incomprehensible words…
(pauses… then smiles erringly)
Hey, I know Richa ma’am and I will report this to her.
Karan: Grunt. A rich grunt.

(Mehak and Ritesh… Dancing)
“Apni to paathshaala, Masti ki Paatshaala
Apni to paathshaala, Masti ki Paatshaala”

(Srishti comes along, hopping)
Srishti (singing): I sent a letter to my father and on the way I dropped it….
(to Karan): Yaar kaisa hai?
Karan: Bas tu bata.
Aslam: Aur tumhari VM ki classes kaisi chal rahi hai?
Srishti: Kya Bataaon. Raat bhar padti rahti hoon.
Aslam: Koi baat nahin. Raat ko Ullu, Saksham aur Khushboo bhi jaagte hai.
Srishti: Bilkool ZERRO masti hai. Bas jab shaam ko apne bhai ke saath cycling karti
hoon to.. (looking towards Karan, who conjures a large Louis Vuitton briefcase from nowhere. In this briefcase are 10 stacks of thousand rupee notes, A N-GAGE mobile phone, the entire music collection of Himesh Reshamiya and 10 lollipops.)
Karan: (handing the 10 lollipops to Srishti.)
Srishti: Thank you yaar. Good Bye.
Karan: Bye sir.
Srishti: Sir?
Karan: Oh! Sorry my lady, my liege, my queen (Bhutan???), but I learnt this habit from
Sir Karan Chawla.
Srishti: Okay. Bye then.
Karan: Hey listen.
Srishti: What?
Karan: Bye sir.

(Srishti slaps Karan, and feasting upon a lollipop, hops away)

Karan (Crying; To Aslam): Brothers Under The Sun.
Aslam: Grunt. A modest grunt. Not a rich grunt.

(Mehak and Ritesh)
“Apni to paathshaala, Masti ki Paatshaala
Apni to paathshaala, Masti ki Paatshaala”

Laxman: Band karo ye nanga naach. Kitni baar samjhana padega tum sabko ki is duniya mein Angelina Jolie ke alaawa, koi cheez achi nahin hai.

Aslam: Arrey Tujhe aur koi nahin pasand to idhar mat aa naa.
Laxman: Abbey Pakistani Joodi.
Ritesh (unable to control himself now): Do you know that Mehak and I are just friends and that she knows Richa ma’am?
Listen (Laxman) Pandey, and about nanga naach and Jolie, Have you not seen Original Sin?

(Aslam, Pandey, Karan, DJ, Sukhi and Major Ajay Rathod join together in chorus)
“ ummmmmmmmm oooooooo aaaaaaaaaa huhaaaaaah mmmmmmmmaaannn****@#*!@#$@#$@%^$&**)

(Laxman, overwhelmed at this turn, cannot channel his ecstasy, falling into a deep trance as he falls short of words and steps; he collapses there and then and presumably enters a vivid dream)
Laxman: Haiiiiiii, Angelina Jolie…………..umumummmmmmmmm,,,,,,,,,, Katrina Kaif….haaaaaaaaaaummmmmmmmmmm ummmmmmmmmmmmmommmmmmmm.

Abhinav (ad-libbing): MONEY IS POWER, TIME IS MONEY (TIME=MONEY x [GOEL’S quotient]), MONEY IS GOD, MONEY MONEY MONEY.
Matrix: Savvy, Farewell?

(Mehak and Ritesh join again with newfound zeal and exhilarating vigour)
Mehak and Ritesh (in chorus): Did you just say farewell?

“Apni to Paathshaala, Masti ki Paathshaala
Apni to Paatshaala, Masti ki Paathshaala”

TO BE CONTINUED.....

It’s nice to write again after quite some time and I have a reason for not doing so in so long. I wrote some things and then deleted them for I didn’t find them suitable to be posted. But here’s something I’ve been feeling very strongly about for quite long.
WARNING: I might sound like a forwarded e-mail, but you know, I’m writing this because I’ve begun to feel it beyond those e-mails, for real.

Movies. We watch them, love them, hate them, criticize them, and publicize them. But of late, I’ve been doing something that we seldom do (for the easy fact that some movies aren’t worth it). I’ve begun to feel them. It may sound funny, but before you laugh it off, listen to what I have to say. I watched a few movies recently (well, yeah, during the exams) and some of them have touched me very deeply. I don’t know if those movies did well, nor do I care. I don’t know if the actors are famous or not, I don’t know their names nor do I know when those movies were released and I don’t know whether they are classified as good movies or not. But the fact remains that they have penetrated me and have changed the person that I am.

I don’t know what you watch movies for, but as for me, I know I watch movies for anything the movies want to tell me. And most movies I watch tend to teach me something abstract. It is extremely like telepathy, something that is understood and cannot be explained by words. I’ve begun to fall in love with characters that make me feel life is good and hope that I meet someone like them for real. I’ve begun to appreciate life’s irony that is conspicuously hidden in these movies. I’ve begun to understand life and people much more than I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve found new meaning in my life after quite a few years of being absolutely disappointed. I’ve come to introspect and realize that things that I paid importance to were insignificant. For instance, all these years, I thought (out of innocence, obviously) that I am supposed to respect age and older people. But now I respect traits like creativity, humility, intelligence and charm more than age. I valued artificial applause more than heartfelt criticism. I valued those numbers on the report card more than what I learnt. I valued extraordinary-ism (if you know what I mean) over normality. But now I understand anything normal is equally extraordinary.

Yesterday, I watched a movie that stands out. And for no technical reason whatsoever. It stands out because it made me love it. It made me think about whether I really love the ones I must. The movie is called ‘If Only’ and it’s about how a British man in love with an American violinist has a dream about having broken her heart and she, after their verbal duel, gets into a cab which crashes at the very next junction in front of his eyes. It is this crash and her death that make him realize that he needs to love her more. And surprisingly, the entire dream becomes his next day. Everything begins to happen the way it did in his dream although in a different order. Which of course means that the cab she would be in would crash. So he does all he can to make her realise how much he loves her. Well, it might be very immaterial a thing for you to relate to, but I don’t know why, I could sense the intense emotions flowing between the lovers. I could feel his helplessness at knowing that the cab was going to crash. And in it all, he does all he can to make her day, her last day. The thought of knowing death so closely, the thought of facing it, the grief, the sadness, I could feel everything.

I’ve learnt to sink in heart-shattering things like defeat, frustration and death. I’ve learnt that they are the realities of life and the triumph of coming out of them is ‘beautiful’. Innocence and not ignorance is bliss is what I think. I think we must spread as much happiness around as possible. We must spread prosperity and (if you won’t laugh) must live a ‘feel good’ life. There are people in our lives all around, who come into our lives for a purpose. Our parents, siblings, friends, teachers and even people walking by us on the street – they’re all there to give us something, and we better take it if we think it good enough.

Most importantly, I’ve begun to understand that thing they call love, at an age when it is easy to misunderstand it. Things have been said about love, and repeated so many times that we fail to take notice of them – of it not being bound, of it not being discriminative, of it not being only sexual. But now, I think I am grasping the gravity of all this. In most Indian movies, love is shown to be a sort of madness that sparks up between two people at a bus stop and ends up in their fighting the society to prove its truthfulness. But truly, love is much more conscious, it is more calm and more intelligent than any other emotion. Its very existence is divine AND it is not necessary to prove to the world that you’re in love by jumping off buildings or doing mad things.

But hey, why am I telling you all this? There is a reason.

We’ve been studying these things about how life must be lived fully in the present and we must spread smiles around and all that stuff in English textbooks. But it seems they’ve been ineffective. Because we hardly remember them let alone put them to use. And perhaps I know the reason why. Because they’re not told as subtly as in the movies. These things are taught to us like E is equal to m c square. But I think they’d be more effective if we were shown visual stimuli that could generate natural and passionate feelings about life. And these visual stimuli could well be movies. Whatever we’re watching in those one-and-a-half or two or three hours is much beyond just entertainment. It’s developing us every moment. And after all, all education seeks to develop the body and the soul. Another reason for telling you all of this is that if we all harbour an attitude of trying to learn from these little things in life, how wonderful everything would be. Because it is in these little things that life’s most intrinsic secrets are hidden.

I’d like you to give it a serious thought and tell me what you feel. If you think this post is trash, so be it; if you think it’s worth a thought, please give it one. And then tell me what you think about the same, about learning our lessons (in life) from something so ‘routine’ as watching movies, or any other thing, like observing a small child or the skies or anything.

My congratulations to those who've passed with great marks(srishti,abhi,rohil,mehak etc);those who didn’t flunk in any of the exams and barely survived the finals(me,khushboo,maitreyee etc);those who flunked in one or two but
wont be taking the retests(jyot,aman hora,tushar etc); and those who flunked and are a part of the retest thing but have decided to work hard for the same .Jyot's "Naked We Stand" was exceptionally good and true.
Talking about Jyot, thre’s one thing that always come to my mind...
Before you start reading the rest, my sincere apology for not using words as beautiful and complicated as Abhi and Jyot do. The following is in very simple language but without any exaggerations.
IN DDA SPORTS COMPLEX WITH JYOTADITYA SINGH
I know, Jyot, you are happy about me writing this. Well one of my and Jyot's most favourite hangouts is the nearby sports complex (not as near to Jyot’s place as to mine. and Jyot always has a complaint regarding the distance)
I call him up or he does, decide to be there at 7 pm or sooner. One of us is always late (which has been me since the last 4 times).Reach there, play badminton for ten minutes or less, and the rest is the best part of it.
Well, if we two are without BUTI or ISHAN,the rest is bound to happen. Well, we buy four Pepsi bottles each, leave the badminton courts and walk into the field. And there we talk n talk n talk. Talk about everything and anything. Anything at all.
Why VIII class was better than XI ? What exactly Srishti meant by saying a particular thing about me or Jyot? What is the difference between Abhinav,Rohil,Srishti kinda people and Me,Jyot and Tushar kinda people?
How are they better than us?how are we better?(and Jyot has no point on this generally, though I have many)How badly we miss Geetikas and X class?Why do people think i am neglecting my old friends and making new popular ones?
And why has my attitude towards some people changed in the past?Well school affairs are not all...Why me into rap and lp?jyot into gladiator, tlotr and Lion King music? and technology is another theme we usually discuss. And Jyot knows about that much more than me.
This is not all. The discussions are endlessly long. And we actually speak our hearts out to each other. And the most beautiful part of it demands more visualization from those reading this than any of the Wordsworth poems. Nighttime.. Just the two of us around..
Sitting by the pool side(The pool is not in use. so no major distractions).... Light wind blowing. Or we two lie down in the field.. My head on Jyot's arm...faint orange light from the swimming pool side ..Observe the stars while talking about the things mentioned..
And then we get up(neither of us has realized that we have been lying for more than an hour).And nearby there's a Chinese food stall from where we buy two full noodles. Sit on the red stony thing and enjoy the food.(if we've ordered only one plate, we fight for the plate with more of them)
Stand up, Jyot looks for a rickshaw. I wait till he finds one. And we leave for our places. While going back on foot, looking around, I wonder “Were these the best two hours of my life?”. And I reach home; mom gets me a glass of water thinking that I am really tired after playing for two hours.
Something she doesn’t know is the cutest masti I’ve had with this surd who's been willing for five years not to be one.
Perhaps the above doesn’t seem as beautiful to you as it actually is. A part of it because of you not being there and seeing the things happen. And partially because of my over simple and inexpressive language.
SAKSHAM

“NAUTANKI”- this is what was Saksham’s immediate reaction with the slightest mention of my boyfriend. Not that he doesn’t believe in this b.f. /g.f. stuff as he himself has a girlfriend, (I know I need not mention her name as everybody is aware of her,) but because of some other reasons.
Sometimes, I feel as if my identity is now synonymous with the word “Nautanki”. I mean yes, I know I tend to overreact all the time and I do overreact sometimes. All my worthy friends know that. But what they really fail to understand is that it’s a completely involuntary course of action. I mean I know I talk loudly, not deliberately but because it’s my habit. If I jump and go out of the class because of a stupid lizard, that’s not my Nautanki but my fright for reptiles and insects and all other tiny, slithery and loathing creatures. If I shouted at Jyot when he revealed the climax of “the angels and the demons”, I did so because I knew I was justified. I am sure any person would have felt the same except that they would have expressed it in a different and may be in a more sophisticated manner. It’s just that me-shouting-at-him-at-the-top-of-my-voice is classified as a Nautanki. If I say that my bf is sweet I say so because he is sweet and not because I want to make a fool of myself.
The difference is just this much that as I express my feelings loud and clear, it qualifies me as a nautankibaaz. But let me make it clear that I am in no mood to change myself. So my wonderful friends, I am afraid you have to tolerate the nautankibaaz matrix another year the way you have been tolerating since the last three years.
As I am writing this article, I could have head on accused some people and could have written about their traits, but I am writing this on a more of a defensive note, because I really don’t have the mentality now to pick up a blog fight which is quite common in our blog. And Jyot, finally i am back.

I don’t know how to begin, so I think writing that I don’t know is a novel way.
I told Abhinav, I am writing NAKED WE STAND. He thought I was gonna portray my shower(ing). But it is not about me being naked literally (you wouldn’t have relished it even if it was, of this I am sure), it is about the system that has fuc*** us and we who have let it fu** us. Not because it is invincible, but our lameness, our inactiveness and our lack of will to work has landed us here.
I don’t know if it is a good idea to write this here. Perhaps its not even justified. When you commit a mistake consciously, there can be no excuse for it. And as it happens, these mistakes are insanely hard to ‘leave’ and forget.
About the mistake – I fear that I might not touch the 33 boundary in Chemistry, that surely gives an insight.
The reasons that I can formulate now for this disaster are such utter-nonsense-things. Watching Lord of the Rings over and over, listening to the scores of the Lion King, When and where James Braddock fought in Cinderella Man, What was the sarcasm that Mulch Diggums slapped on Julius Root in The Eternity Code,  The number of hits on Blogger Marauders, ‘Chemistry Sucks’ in all Chemistry periods, Harsha-Humour everyday.
These are NOT the reasons for all the crap life has brought me. But all these gave me a very clumsy approach, acceptance of performance scrape and complacency in letdown.
Gross, yeh kya ho gaya yaar?
I sometimes feel that all you people whom I call friends are repelled by my incompetence. If you aren’t, then I am thankful.
Please, listen to this carefully.
To all you people who I consider more sensible (Abhinav, Rohil, Matrix and others), please keep tabs on me. Keep me checked and down-trodden.
I never have had any positive thoughts about myself, but there is something that I know, that I am more than what I have become.  

Hey folks,

It's a new season. We're going into class 12, a new year and a newfound seniority. So when everything's new, how can bloggermarauders stay behind! It's just got itself a swanky new look. Tell us what you make of it and whether we should make any changes to it. Also, if you can suggest some good websites where we can get great templates, please do.

Psst... if you don't like it, tell us right away. We're on the look out for improvements, but I think it's a pleasant change.

Abhi