So guess what....

Ummm...guess what what?

I don't know...ummm...yeah! ummm...sure....er....yeah, you know....umm...you're right! (slight shake of the head, slight tilting of the head to the right, a smile and then the almost embarassed sheepish 'I don't know, help me out here' look and wonder of wonders, the audience applause).

Just a scene from Oprah Primetime when she has a tete-a-tete with any one of her celebrities.
(Pssst! Secret confession - I wanna be on Oprah!)

So I had a few questions raging in my mind as usual and of course by the time I sit down to pen the blog er..sorry, I mean key the blog it's all flown over the cuckoo's nest. Tee hee hee!

Let me see if I can remember any - and forgive my fading memory, I am a fading star, an ageing star.

a) What does it take to be Amitabh Bachchan? (There's a piece waiting to be written by me on him..nothing in depth and well researched, the usual layman's piece, and I will do it)

b) Why do celebrity antics make it to the front page of the TOI? So Aishwarya slipped off a bicycle whilst shooting and suffered minor bruises...so? Front page news? Does a nation like India have nothing else to offer India's premier rag? Oops, sorry, I erred. It's a rag because of this, or else it'd have been a newspaper that delves and informs the public matters of note. But who are we to judge what's important eh? One man's meat after all is another's poison eh?

c) A noted politician (right-wing may I add? oh, someday I need to be schooled into the idioms and definitions of right wing, left wing, securlar, republican, etc...) was shot in the abdomen by his own brother for having been slighted so to speak and humiliated and for not having been treated well. Ticker tapes on all news channels except the foreign ones have the news beeped out and he's in ICU. The brother is deemed 'touched in the head' and seems the perfect excuse a la, a 3rd grade English movie with the probable motive for murder being the pouvre man's reason for instability. Hrmph!

But what shocks me is my very own desensitisation to the man lying on the threshold of Heaven and Earth (or Hell as may be deemed fit by the Gods that be) battling for life. I ask ma after coming out of the shower and hearing the TV news channels blaring in the background, 'Ma is he dead?' and she says no. So matter-of-fact, so simple eh? And then of course it hits me. Not the enormity of the question but the manner in which it's thrown, just like you'd throw a ball playing catch during some inane practice session. So regular, so shorn off any horror, so horrifyingly simple and insensitive. Is that what we mean by the desensitisation of the common public by the media, of matters that would normally have any human being feel a sense of shock? I have no answers, I am imbued with a hopelessness that I do not have the power to undo.

d) To forgive is when you let go of the hope that it'll get better or come back or heal. Quote by Oprah on Oprah. True.

e) Uma Thurman's movie 'Prime' should be seen. Especially as it deals with an older woman falling in love with a younger man. Maybe it'll throw up some answers. But then again, like Meryl Streep says, you don't have to have it all figured out, because mystery is beautiful (that's what I've said in my profile descriptor...yeah! Meryl Streep and I have something in common...yeah!).

f) Two life-changing books as rated by most men - Albert Camus's L'Etranger/The Outsider and J D Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Someone I once knew and fancied wouldn't be surprised by that and might gladden his heart too. Wonder how he is and if he ever remembers me...I'd like to know that. Aren't there some people about whom you'd like to know if they think of you occasionally when they're out of your life, and wouldn't it kind of give you peace if they thought of you fondly and felt an emotion that was akin to yours when you decided to let go? I guess it's about closure. But then these are people over whom you waste so much valuable time and energy and hope and pray and want and need and urge and what not. And they don't give a damn! And then the piece de resistance is to realize that you give a flying f&*^ or how some people say it, a 'rat's arse' too. About matters that some time ago gnawed at your insides and caused you pain of such magnitude it'd fill the Grand Canyon. Oh man, what a sucker I was! But life is all about living and hoping and erring and mending and hoping and fouling up and learning and crying and yeah...you know the drill.

g) Taller = Richer. Now that's almost the last straw for us midgets. What the bloody hell is going on in life? Are people hell bent on shunting out the supposed Imperfect Wholes? If you were dark, it wasn't on. You had to be Fair & Lovely. If you had less than a Elle MacPherson body it wasn't gonna get you a better pay-check. In fact till some time ago if you had balls and wore a bra it wasn't on. And now this! So what do all the dusky skinned, short, fat, with dark spots and screwy hair and glasses but with a heart of gold and brains so sharp it'd slice through glass, supposed to do? Just disappear or blog I guess. I guess there'll be statistics to show that blogs by high cheek boned, blondes with perky breasts and toned calves and thighs and washboard abs are read more. How does anyone know the identity of bloggers? Oh with RFID technology maybe there'd be a face to every name, nickname, password selection and topic of blogs chosen. Zounds!!!!

Ok that's the 7 Deadly Sins (a - g is 7 alphabets you %$#@&, never mind).

Enough chest-beating for the day. It's a Sunday. I have a dear dear dear friend coming down from Mumbai to spend a couple of days with me. I have my closest bosom buddy flying off Down Under for a 3-week vacation on the Gold Coast and wherenot. And I have plans of going to Ladakh or the Valley of Flowers.

Can life get better? It sure can...it sure will. Keep the faith!