These days am obsessed with human nature, the way people behave differently to a particular situation. This started after watching the Charlie Kaufman movie 'Human nature', although the subject matter of the movie is entirely different. So, what do you think is the situation or object that I selected for this interesting and confusing study? Yes, its none another than my stitched woodland shoes. People who have met me might have noticed 2 ugly stitches on top of my shoes. How it came there is a story that goes back almost an year, around the time I bought the shoes. One day I woke up to see this shocking hole on top of my shoe, kept in a shoe rack. Obviously, a rat attack. Me not being a crorepati, I didn't throw away the shoes. Instead got it stitched from the cobbler. Some months later the other shoe met with the same fate. Now it started looking like an intentional stitch with both shoes sporting almost the same stitch. Anyway, my unclean shoes with those 2 stitches looks highly repulsive and doesn't like anything like an office goer's shoes.

So, let me get into how this is related with human behaviour. Its how people react when they see this particularly repulsive thing I proudly wear on my legs. When I walk along the street or stand somewhere or sit at the foodcourt, I've caught almost everyone passing me looking at the shoe. I'll classify the various reactions.

1. The slow and secret look- This is my favourite. These people strain their eyes and steal a glance at the shoe out of the corner of their eye. Some try too hard that their eyes almost go inside their ears. Some people end up with a look of contempt. Some just laugh privately at this beggar wearing a tie and listening to an ipod. These are the introvert, sometimes narrow minded people. They keep everything to themselves and form their own opinions without knowing the complete facts.

2. The In the face look- These people are mostly strangers to me. But they don't think twice before staring at the shoe and giving me 'The look'(called 'neglect look' in our local dialect spoken by a maximum of 10 people). They are the people who think themselves as perfect(while themselves wearing a torn socks or u/w) and appoint themselves to judge others.

3. The loudmouths- 'Man, what the hell are you wearing?', 'Is this professional?', 'Can't you buy a new shoe?' are some common reactions from loudmouths, mostly people I know. The trick is just to avoid the questions with a sweet smile. Its the same in everything in life. Just avoid this loudmouthed people. :)

4. The BBCs- If your mother-in-law's auntie's daughter's long lost friend rings you up and asks you about your torn shoe, chances are that your shoes have been noticed 1 minute back by a BBC(Bitching broadcasting corporation). These are the people who will tell whomever they meet about your torn shoe.

5. The straightforwards- They just ask "what happened to your shoe?", hear what you say and leave the matter behind. As simple as that.

6. The blabbermouths- They ask you about the shoe and gives you a history lesson on their own torn shoes. The talk will end with some 'gyaan' on the shoe thrown at George Bush or P Chidambaram.


People who find themselves in a classification they don't like, please forgive me. Its not your fault, its all because of my torn shoe. More studies will be done using more such objects. And now you know the reason why am still wearing that one year after it was torn. Here's a snap of the legendary shoe..

PS- I feel this is a very boring post. I was dying to write something and could come up only with this. Anyway I posted it...

your crusader Praveen

Octoberfest 2009, the annual rock rock fest of Bangalore modelled along the lines of the famous German Ocktoberfest was a veritable treat this time around. 23 of India's best bands were in town to give a treat to Bangaloreans over 3 days. Due to my trip to Manipal for another rock fest, I could catch only the last day of the fest. I missed out on bands like avial which played over the first 2 days. But that one evening was enough to satisfy my apetite as 3 of my all time favorite bands played on the same stage one after the other on the final evening. motherjane, Thermal And A Quarter(TAAQ) and Indian Ocean made palace grounds the place to be on oct 25 and left the audience craving for more.

I've no more words to say about motherjane. They've used up all my words with show after show of unparalleled brilliance. The story was not much different here. We, the janeheads, went with our faces half painted and wearing our custom made 'AMAJANIAC' T shirts. motherjane's following has increased manifold over the past year and it was evident from the big crowd which was there screaming out their names and singing along the lyrics. As always, it was a clinical performance peppered with their trademark friendliness and warm vibes. There were many moments when I thought of hurling the camera away and jumping to the middle of the crowd. Yes, concerts are best enjoyed when you are right in the middle of the pandemonium rather than just walking around clicking from inside the press box. Towards the end of motherjane's show, vocalist Suraj came down from the stage to meet the audience.











The second band of the night was Thermal And A Quarter(TAAQ). Bruce Lee Mani and his funky band is easy on the airs. Be it the song that describes the life of a software engineer or the funny drinking song sprinkled with bruce's burps, they had the audience in a 'forget-everything-else-and-chill out' mood all the way. Their regular bassist was not available but the replacement guy was also as precise as a machine. A highlight of this year's fest was the visuals that accompanied each song in the background. motherjane's visuals were a shade better than the others because it was mostly exact representations of the song's theme.






The final band of the night was Indian Ocean. From the time I heard Kandisa many years back, its been a dream to watch this socially conscious band live. And that long wait was worth it. They were missing their lead singer cum Tablist Ashim Chakravforthy rom the line up because he suffered a heart attack and was in a coma back in Qatar. His deep vocals were surely missed in this show. But the stand in vocalist and the tablist did a good job. Rahul Ram was oozing with passion as he sung his throat out and at the same time churning out those majestic bass lines. Hearing him sing the lines 'kise kaafir kahega...' from the black Friday song 'Bandeh' gave me goosebumps. Anyone who has ever heard Indian Ocean won't have any doubts on the brilliance and uniqueness of their guitarist Susmit Sen. All those legendary solos were reproduced to perfection on stage. And Amit Kilam, the drummer sometimes left his drums to play some weird percussion instrument(the name of which I dont know), most notably in the song 'maarewa'. And, he proved to be an allrounder as he played the flute in one song too. The crowd went berserk for the most popular song of theirs, 'Kandisa'. Surely this was one of the best ever nights of Indian rock in Bangalore.






The only bad thing was that the 'great indian rock fest' also happened on the same day at the same venue. We could hear the sounds from there when the music stopped here. And sometimes the lights too. The GIR also had a great lineup including international bands from Norway and Sweden. But it was never hard to decide which fest to attend. Yes, Indian rock is too hard to resist. And it has begun its much awaited rise...

Now to the posing part!!!I switched off the cam and gleefully posed with the stalwarts!


me,Sanjeev Thomas(Guitarist-A.R.Rahman,Rainbow bridge),motherjane Clyde,John,Nikhil,Navi

Its been a long time dream to write a cookery blog but I didn't want to repeat the same fish molly and chicken jolly that you see in every other recipe. On the quest for the perfect cookery recipe, I chanced upon a vegetable which will help me make an innovative recipe. This vegetable is called Karundathi Broy. Its usually grown in the inner parts of Kerala, most notably in Kottayam. The peculiarity of this variety is that only one of this kind is produced in a 100 years. It is as sour as a bittergourd, as hard as the toughest nut and makes your mouth itch like a pineapple, after you consume it. And taking its skin off can produce the same effect as peeling an onion. This peculiar dish is of the same ilk as of the famous karimeen ulathiyathu and doesn't have anything to do with the literal meaning of the popular malayalam colloquial word 'Ulathiyathu'.

Keep all the above ingredients ready on top of a newspaper(preferably a foreign one). All the operations in this preparation should only be done with your right hand as the human right hand can bring out special qualities in the vegetable. Wear gloves, eye protecting goggles and an apron. Wash Karundathi Broy in boiled water and spray some axe deo(because it stinks so bad). Now cut the top hairy portion of the vegetable and remove the part that looks like a human brain. It is useless in this particular preparation. You may use it as a football or yo-yo. Put the stove in maximum flame mode and heat the 'India bashing oil'. Cut the 'maoist support leaves' into small unrecognisable pieces and fry it in the heated up 'India bashing oil'. To reduce the flaring up and smoke, the 'army bashing concentrate' should be added at regular intervals during the entire preparation. Pulverise the 'knowledge seeds' and mix it well with the 'unpronouncable words paste'. The mix should be in the ratio of 5:95 of the former to the latter. Now put this mix into the frying pan containing the oil and leaves. Take the uncut boneless tongue and paste it all over with chilly powder and salt. Put this in the 'itchy character' bowl and mix well. Special care must be taken to ensure that the tongue is not harmed in anyway during the process. Add this also to the frying pan along with karundathi broy. Take a closet cleaning brush and mix the ingredients well. For added effect, the 'convicted terrorist support'powder can be spread over the mix. And when the mix gets a perfect uniform feel, take 'holier than thou attitude' from the closet and pour uniformly on to it. Keep it in the stove for 30 minutes.

This dish is best served hot. It is most enjoyed by people with a 'publicity hunger'. This dish is a preferred one in high society gatherings of human rights activists where they bitch about how bad India is.

Pic courtesy- Flickr

PS- Been out of blogs for a long time. My BSNL net connection is still down after 3 weeks. And I was also bombarded with a hell lot of work. And to top it all I lost my dear mobile phone which knows every secret about me in the last 4 years. The pain of losing so many contacts was pacified by the thought that I used it to the maximum. It has 3 missing switches, lots of lost paint and a hell lot of other malfunctions. Still I felt helpless when that idiot thief stole it from me last sunday at the majestic bus station in Bangalore. And to console myself, I ended creating a quote- "A lost phone is anyday better than a lost p****s". :)

Watching something grow from nothingness to an all pervarding force over a period of time is a particularly rewarding experience. Watching Chaos, the heavy metal band from Kerala over the last 5 years, is one such experience for me. Back in 2004, I was there watching amused as 2 skinny lads came and asked my friend Raja, "Heard you bought an electric guitar. Can you play with us?" And there started their journey together. Nikhil, the skinniest of them, was playing the leads, barely pulling off the simple leads of songs like 'whiskey in the jar'. Pappu, as lazy as he's at present, was leaning on the bass and trying hard to keep up pace. JK, the vocalist with a 'tilak' on this forehead and mic in his hand looked nothing more than a petty ganamela singer. Raja, the rhythm guy was best described by the T shirt he wore which said, "A(Chord) B(Chord) C(Chord), Lets start a band". All he knew was 3 or 4 chords. And then there were the legion of drummers, which kept on changing in this band. And they started off with the worst possible drummer one can ever get anywhere. Luckily, they threw him out after one show. They were called 'aakrantham' back then. It was just another startup college band in an already crowded field. The level of crappiness can be gauged from the fact that the first original they tried to make was a developed version of the popular avenger bike ad song.

One year down the line, the deviations from the expected script were getting clearer. They were now winning competitions on the trot with almost perfect covers of songs like 'Sad but true' and 'seek and destroy'. And there was their sole original song 'coup d etat' which had the shades of their current brilliance. One more year down the line, they were covering perfectly even tougher songs like 'Cowboys from hell' and 'Lucretia'. They had morphed from a force to reckon with into an unconquerable force in the local rock circuit. The boundary walls of the state were ready to be struck down soon. They continued their winning habits outside too. And then came the long break. The reason being the rigours of everyday life and the boring corporate jobs. They were all in different places and the juggernaut came to a stop. Months passed on. You can't keep the passion to rock quiet for a long time. And as it happens in such cases, the universe conspired to bring them together again, for the comeback of the season, heavier, louder and faster than ever.

The mindblowing comeback gig happened this weekend in Manipal. Chaos were back at this energetic town for the 3rd time after 2 superb gigs last year. They were supposed to judge the rock competition and do the headlining act. Its so much fun to hang around with these guys with no rock star airs. On the contrary, they are the quintessential 'thara' malayalis cracking those legendary 'neeeglect' jokes and doing all sorts of goofy things. After a day of heavy drinking and smoking, sweating and judging, they strode on the stage to do what they know best. The skinny lads I mentioned at the start, Nikhil and Pappu, were as skinny as when the band started. Only thing, Pappu had longer hair and Nikhil had grown balder. And they didnot forget their usual habit of doing something crazy. This time, they removed their shirts with just the guitar strap to cover their upper body. JK looked not even like a distant cousin of his old 'tilak' clad ganamela self. His physique had grown heavier along with his vocals. Vibhas, the drummer of 'eccentric pendulum' was behind the drums. The blast started off with a cover of Slayer's 'Raining blood' transitioning smoothly into 'Seasons in the abyss'. The sleepy crowd suddenly came alive moshing and screaming for more. Then flowed their originals like 'game', the godhra riot protest song 'Merchant of death' and the short n heavy 'Violent redemption'. These were perfect examples of how much this band has changed in the last few years.

The sound of chaos had changed from heavy metal to 'heavier than the heaviest of metal'. JK's vocals with that extra bit of distortion and aggressiveness is one of the reasons behind this change. He's surely on the path to giving his idol Tom Araya a run for his money. The next reason for the transformation of this band is Nikhil's mindblowing guitaring. He has left behind the 'whiskey in the jar' days for sure. Having composed almost all their original compositions single handedly, this guy is the pillar of strength of this band. Just a listening of the tough but groovy riffs are enough to seal his brilliance. And added to that is the out of the world solo playing. Anybody with doubts on this would've been kicking themselves hard after that 3 minute solo he jammed at the end of Paranoid. His playing was so complete that we forgot the absence of a rhythm guitar. His stage act and attitude is an added advantage. I only had one word for him after the performance-'respect'!!! Pappu has also improved vastly on his bass playing. He certainly has put in a lot of effort to keep up with the frenetic pace of the new original songs. Vibhas, the drummer was a revelation. A self taught drummer, he never missed a beat behind the vessels. And the funny part is that he made it all look too easy. Mind you, its not an easy job drumming to these super tough songs.

Chaos is still on the rise. With rhythm guitarist Raja set to come back soon, they are sure to get heavier. And they still haven't unleashed their full reprtoire of originals. With the band set to take a giant leap soon, keep your eyes glued to this heavy juggernaut that is crushing everything in sight. And wait for the confirmed news on a big concert that is round the corner. This guys surely gonna take the Indian metal scene by storm....pretty soon!!!!

PS-Special mention must be made of Sabarish, the ever efficient manager of Chaos who ran around negotiating, organising, talking and doing everything imaginable by a manager. And the added attraction was his 'right round' dance steps. Another unmissable personality is 'grass balaji', high on grass round the clock but still staying sane. Worth mentioning is his grass making tips. The video will be provided on request.

Year 1996
Indian satellite tv space populated by a handful of channels. It was bliss to be freed from the boring clutches of doordarshan. Then, out of nowhere, a channel burst on the scene much like an adolescent guy's first discovery of his own indigenous rocket launching capabilities. MTV India was a boon for the Indian youth and the Indian kids. And a bane for the Indian parent. You didnt have to rely on the radio or your cassette player anymore for your load of daily music. And you could hear it anytime you switched it on. And it was not Indian music alone. There was the occasional Michael Jackson and the rock numbers thrown in for good measure. It was also the channel where I waited for the repeat play of the 'awesomely-indescribable-pleasure-inducing' videos like 'Tanha Tanha' and 'hai Rama yeh kya hua'. Non stop hits meant literally that. Along came channel V and it was fun all around. You could throw away your remote after switching into one of these channels. It was when MTV still meant music television. And it was when we all had our devil horns up for \m/tv.

Year 2006
MTV's got a snazzier new logo. I switched it on in the morning on january 25. I waited. I waited. Days passed. weeks passed. Its february 25. Still I see no signs of music. I rechecked the channel number. I manually tuned it all again. Stil the same. All I get to see is a group of guys and gals sitting on beds and talking non stop nonsense. Some sissies with 'gabbar like' voice where hiding behind bedsheets. There was talk of voting someone out, pulling someone's pant down, pulling someone's 'some clothing accessory' up, beating the hell out of somebody else, twisting someone's arm, poking someone's eyes and what not. There's 'roadies' written on top. But there's no road and there are no bikes. All I get to see is the boring indoors and some utterly boring souls. And there is some bald lunatic screeching his throat out at them as if someone stole his wife on their first night just before the first touch and put a beep machine in his mouth. I also saw the spineless contestants tolerating the bald guy's lewd comments on their girlfriends in the name of stress interviews. I still kept on waiting for that one song played once in a month. One more year down. Now more of reality strikes. 'Splitsvilla' made me split my ass to spray my senses out. 'Where's the music, u morons??', I screamed at those skimpily clad non sense damsels running around 2 absolute losers. I wondered whether they have parents and are they real people. Hopes receded. The next song was heard in MTV after one more year.

Year 2009
MTV suddenly decides to play music. They decide to eat their share of the 'rising Indian rock' pie. And they start yet another reality show, this time 'rock music' is the casualty. Barring a few talented souls, it takes the cake for one of the worst music programmes in history. And there's the 'I know it all-I am cool-you suck-I rock' Nikhil Chinnappa using his DJing knowledge to judge rock music, not that there's anything worthy to be judged out there. And, thus we have the last thing we wanted, commercialisation of India rock music, which was luckily away from the prying eyes of the bollywood bandwagon till now. There were horrible rock reworkings of already pathetic anu malik and Himesh songs in MTV's 'rock on'. Pity on the other 2 learned well respected musicians who accepted the job of being judges in this. Thus was driven the last nail on MTV India's coffin. And yesterday comes the landmark announcement from MTV India- 'We are rubbing off 'music television' from our logo'. Yeah! Do it, now only you are left to do that. We did that some years back. And thats exactly when our proud devil horns changed into that single raised finger of contempt, of pity. I raise it up again to crass commercialisation, to the unreal reality shows, for the bosses at MTV and above all to the music less MTV. Thanks to all for killing the music in MTV.

Unrelated PS(Maybe fully related)- Lalit Modi's shameless idea to get more twitter followers-'Follow me and get Champions trophy final tickets' ! A raised finger to him too! Have some shame, man. Even an LKG kid would think twice before doing such self promotion...

your crusader Praveen

Haven't you all heard of those 'rules' whereby we are supposed to behave in a certain way at a particular age? We are supposed to behave with an air of maturity the minute we cross 18 years and get our license to watch adult movies. People will start rolling their eyes if you show any traces of the kid in you. And what if you are married? The air of dignity should have double thickness. Its time to throw away your metal t shirts, cut your hair and be a model family man. What if everyone followed those rules? Would we have Iron Maiden and ACDC still playing with their almost 60 year old banf members? I dedicate this to all those spirited old rockers who din't care about 'what others might think'. This is for men like ACDC's 55 year old guitarist Angus young who still wears his school suit on stage and jumps and rolls like a kid. Yes..its never too old to rock n roll.

AMAJANIAC- Its a word that symbolises many things. A collective spirit. A sense of belonging. A sense of being part of something big, but which is at the same time small, when compared to what it will become in the near future. An amalgamation of several minds who happen to be swayed by the same magiC, the spell of which is more powerful than the heaviest drug in the world. Its the magic of timeless music fron five unassuming gentlemen, collectively called motherjane. And when each of us in the audience scream 'AMAJANIAC', we just mean, 'am a die hard motherjane fan'.

It was the idea of Navi, the youngest Janiac amongst us, to come up with a T shirt that screamed to the world how much we love this band. And with his artistic cousin Raja, they set out the plan. Me and Nikhil joined in the plot. We had half portion of our faces painted in the Kathakali colours signifying the half human- half spirit idea of motherjane. After almost a day of painstaking painting, most of which was done by Raja, all of it was photographed individually. Then we had it printed on black T shirts. The backside had the chorus part of the new motherjane song, 'Amajaniac'.
All of it was a top secret operation. We planned well to reveal it as a surprise during the motherjane concert in Hard rock cafe,Bangalore. On the rainy working day, we set out to HRC with normal shirts worn over our prized T shirts. Me and Nikhil reached there after doing a submarine trip on my bike through the half submerged Bangalore roads. Both of us were behaving like stoned idiots as we kept on laughing on our journey wading through water, splashing it head high. HRC is an awesomely designed place with rock memorabilia all around, though we had our own doubts about their authenticity. The majestic stone structure used to be a church.
So it was time for our surprise. We called all 5 of them from motherjane together. Then we removed our shirts in a flash revealing our face painted T shirts. The look on their faces was priceless. Surprise, joy, everything was on view. And we were happy too at the success of our perfectly planne doperation. They put up an awesome show as usual winning over new fans in the process. The icing on the cake was when Suraj chettan specially mentioned us diehard fans in between the show. Other similar diehard janeheads were present, like the guy who listened to the 'maktub' album for 65 days staright and the guy who bought the first copy of motherjane's first album 'Insane biography'. This concert also happened to be the anniversary of the release of 'maktub'.

The rocking day ended with a triples trp on my bike with Nikhil and Raja on the Bangalore roads infested with 'bribe hungry' lawmakers. And we almost got caught as a check point. Thankfully Raja did the escape act before the police noticed. Though later we had a hard time running for food all around Bangalore, this will surely go down among the list of 'best days of my life'.

Adding some lines from the new motherjane song, 'amajaniac', which also appears at the back of our T shirts.

your crusader Praveen

In economics, austerity is when a national government reduces its spending, to pay back creditors. Austerity is usually required when a government's fiscal deficit spending is felt to be unsustainable.
(source:wikipedia)

Its the season of austerity. The Government's austerity drive is being promoted to the hilt that I doubt if the promotion campaign for the same might have eaten up atleast a few crores. And the drive itself is said to be a costly affair, an example being the Italian holy cow's economy air travel costing crores of rupees for extra special security. So, to make up for this extra expense which is needed to support the austerity drive, there ought to be some measures to balance it all out. So, the axe falls obviously on the common man. What might be the possible measures that wll transform India to an 'Auster India'? Lets take a look.

1. All government run schools should be moved out of its present buildings into unused farmhouses. The classes here will be henceforth known as 'cattle classes'. This measure will reduce the un necessary current and water charges incurred at the present buildings.

2. The films division documentary team should be revamped. Unnecessary clothing should be avoided. Same has to be done with the state run Doordarshan. This will reduce the spending on luxurious clothing and also bring in more revenues because of the resultant adult content.

3. Austerity need not be in monetary terms alone. Its applicable for spermitary matters too. Anyone having more than 5 kids(post 2008) should be made to operate a public condom vending machine in front of his house.

4. The loss making Air India be exchanged with Vijay Mallya for a carton of Kingfisher strong. Its a profit making deal for the government, mind you.

5. There's no need for streetlights. A packet of happydent white should be supplied to all families through ration shops. With this, every person will become a travelling light source.

6. Reduce the amount of veg and non veg items in the Indian railway meals. Right now, we are getting the luxury of a quarter leg in chickn curry, half a vegetable in sambhar and eggless egg bhurjis. Instead of giving coffee in cups, its better to pour it straight into the passenger's cupped hands, just like in olden times.

7. Free all the terrorists in Indian jails. There's no point in spending so much money on luxuries for them if you dont have any plans of killing them.

If you ask me who's the world's greatest artist, I would never say the names of Picasso, Ravi Varma or Michaelangelo. Because all of them might have spent months or even years to create their masterpieces. They spent a better part of their lifetimes using high quality canvas and paints in pursuit of this art. There are some other type of artists who create masterpieces on any surface with any object they can get hold of, that too in a very short span of time. Most of the artists of this kind lets their imagination fly only in the confines of public toilets or inside the 'cleanly' toilets in trains. Just as We call those who sing only in the bathroom as bathroom singers, we can call these elite group 'bathroom artists'. Most of us think only of somehow getting outside fast when we enter the horrible public toilets. We must salute these guys who think and draw up amazing lines and jaw dropping artwork inside this place. Now, wherever I go, one of my hobbies is to read and observe all the graffiti in the public toilets. Afterall, you gotta have something to make yourself happy when you are doing something so boring.

The number of people who use the maximum of 5 minutes that we get in a public toilet to create world class art work is increasing day by day. If you have any doubts, just get into one of those filthy looking toilets. Both in trains and public places, the bathroom walls are now so artistically decorated that there's a shortage of space for new artists. Drawings which rival M.F.Hussein's in perversion to female drawings matching Ravi Varma's in artistic brilliance can be seen here nowadays. There are some who get philosophical on seeing the toilet. They scribble an one line poem or a world shattering truth on the walls before leaving. Recently, I saw something written in the opposite wall while I was busy using the closet- "India's future is now in your hands." On seeing thiss, I suddenly raised both my hands as if someone was pointing a gun at me. Guess the sudden thought on India's future made me do this.

There are some big time fools too among these artists. These are those who scribble mushy romantic lines for their sweet hearts. Some examples-
"Oh my dear Thankam"
"I love you kamalaakashi"
"You are my fire, but here am smelling bad air"

And the guy who wrote his and his lover's name inside a heart symbol takes the cake for ultimate stupidity. I donnow whether these romantic fools had any notion of their sweethearts getting into a gents bathroom to read all these lines. Also, only God knows which 'kamalakshi' is going to read it all.

In this 4x4 cube called the toilet, we can also see exchange of dialogues between strangers. There are some who scribble replies to some lines written by others. And yet another will give a reply to both of them. Recently I saw something like this in a public toilet in Alappuzha. Someone had written almost a long winded essay in malayalam on life's unpredictability and the vastness of the world. Just below that someone has scribbled- "Stop the gibberish, do your task and get out idiot"[translated from the original line in malayalam]. Someone else had written in english-"When you have the gun, shoot, don't speak", obviously a brilliant inspiration from the famous line in 'The Good, the bad and the ugly". There are some others who find out the mistakes in such lines, correct it and award marks and grades. People don't even spare toilet ceilings- "Stop sitting there and staring at the sky. You better start shitting and get out", is a line I saw in a train toilet. I wanted to tell this guy that I was just pointing my nose upwards to escape from the unbearable smell that is common in our public toilets.

I've seen some writings in hindi too. This one's my favourite- 'Philip ke dick'.[People who know the author Philip.K.Dick and have a basic knowledge in Hindi and english will understand the brilliance and wittiness of this simple line].

Toilet is the only place where man shows his real face outside. Its where he becomes himself. (Adding, 'she becomes herself' also to avoid the feminist wrath). And its the only place where the creativity that is sleeping inside him is out in full flow. People who are scared of proving themselves in front of the whole world become 'creative' inside the toilets, sometimes even forgetting themselves. When I conducted more studies on this, I also stumbled upon a site called 'Bathroom graffiti'. Its a collective effort to collect all the bathroom graffiti around the world. So lets keep our eyes glued to the public toilets[pun intended], where some of the dead artists resurrected themselves. Maybe, the next Ravi Varma might be born in one of these toilets. I love the art of these unknown artists than the craps worth crores of rupees churned out by the pervert M.F.Hussein.

Take a movie that you watched recently or just think about one of your favourite movies. What comes to your mind? The lead actors? The director? The script? The cinematography? I bet not one of you thought about those beings called the 'extras'. Yes, the ones who does the bit roles, the blink and miss ones. The watchman who had just one line in the whole movie, the lady serving tea at the restaurant, the gardener who delivers roses for the romantic lead lady, the cleaner who gives a smile and 'good morning' to the lead guy, the guy setting up the funeral pyre of a main character, the driver who takes the villain to the climatic scene- not one of them must have come into your memory right now. No, It won't come into mine too. Because they are just the 'extras', just like the embellishments to a wonderful jewellery, the index pages of a classic book, the cotton cloth used to clean a precision camera or just plainly they are people to fill up the screen so that the protagonist can shine delivering his punchlines.

But, are there 'extras' in real life? You, the greatest person in the world(make no mistake about it, most of us think so about ourselves...yes, I do), sees so many of them around you as extras. Whatever you might be, self-centric, eccentric, poly-centric or centreless, you must've seen atleast a few people that you came across in your life as 'bit players' or 'extras'. The old lady to whom you asked the way to an obscure location is an extra for you, a tool to know the direction. The driver of the volvo bus you travelled last week is another extra. Same with the guy selling popcorn on the roadside or the cobbler stitching your worn out sports shoe. They are just the bit actors that you need so that you can dazzle the life's stage as the lead actor.

One moment, before you go into the self congratulatory excercise of being the lead actor on world's stage. Think for one moment from the shoes of one of those extras that were mentioned above. Where do you see yourself? Don't you see an 'extra' in you? The lady, the driver or the cobbler is the lead actor now. You have just an one minute screen space in the movie of their life. From the heights of being the lead actor, you are being relegated into a faceless, nameless bit player. You are just one of the 100 men who stitched their shoes at the cobbler's shop today. You are just one of the thousands whom the volvo bus driver drove from one place to another. You are just a passing nuisance asking for directions, while the old lady was busy enacting the climax of her life. So, who really is the extra and who is the lead actor now?

The fact is that there are no extras in real life. Each one of us is a lead actor, including the plain faced inconsequential characters that you meet in your everyday life. Each one of them is enacting the role of a lifetime. Even the people who plays the 'extras' in films play the lead role in their lives. And, when it comes to these extras's life, Kamal Haasan, Mohanlal or Al Pacino is just an extra. So, there are now 6.781 billion(the world's population as of yesterday) lead actors around the world acting in an equal number of movies. The real good ones go on to win the oscars for lifetime achievement and the real bad ones covet for themselves the razzies for utter failure. Whatever it is, its unimportant. The only important fact is that there is not a single unimportant person on earth. Go and play the lad role of your lives. Put in the performance of your lifetime and make Al Pacino an extra in your life. Also, give me an 'extra' role too. :)

Inspired from a dialogue in the movie 'Synecdoche, New York' by the brilliant Charlie Kauffman(about whom am planning to write a big tribute). The dialogue goes somewhat like this- "I know how to do this play now. There are nearly 13 million people in this world. I mean, can you imagine that many people? And none of those people is an extra. They're all leads in their own stories. And they've to be given their due."

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your crusader Praveen