Still alive

15 days too late, but not shamefully late to put my one and only resolution to practice. To keep this blog I so cherished writing all my last year on, alive. That’s it. No more putting my blogging off. And no more procrastinating. I am back with a vengeance and I promise to flood with crap from TV and movies which I just so devilishly enjoy. What’s with Bollywood suddenly? So much activity, the going-ons beg to be commented on.

No seriously, I mean Shilpa Shetty on Celebrity Big Brother UK?!?!? Its like the most outrageously bizarre phenomenon on British TV this side of 2000. I remember how her posing on the red carpet as she stepped out of the Beemer in a sari made the whole of Britain gasp on the night and then the next day when the poses made it to the front page of every British daily. Actually I remember strangely feeling smug-to-be-Indian first morning back to the university when crushed between the peak hour crowd on the Central Line, a Bollywood beauty on Metro’s front page for a second or two gave enough motivation to gear up for the year ahead. Please don’t ask the semantics of this weird association. This is 7.30 AM I am talking about when my brain’s concept of complex emotions like rationality and motivation are really messed up. It felt good to see an Indian’s face pasted everywhere. Period.

The chick’s got me hooked to this stinker of a reality show though and watching the white chavs like Jade Goody and dumbhead-football-wives like Danielle gang up against her does make for some engrossing TV. My sympathies with apni desi leggy beauty, but what was she thinking when she signed on the dotted line? She’s an A-lister through and through back home and probably the only true “celebrity” in there and it really pained me to see her go through all that she has. She just didn’t deserve it.

For all her sashaying down the red carpet in a gorgeous sari and elegant namastes, her stint in the actual house has actually poked a deeper vein of the society than I had ever imagined. The disgusting show of the fellow British catty whiteheads and vile bullies has really brought about the age-old socio-psychological occurence of culture shock, alienation, and the much dreaded R word. Racism. Yes, its all there in its shining glory–the name calling, the swearing, the bullying, the singling out, the catfights… and its not of any subtle, implied variety. Its the crass shmuck that can be heard on every public school’s playgrounds. My utmost sympathies with the otherwise genteel (if at times annoyingly apologetic and I-like-to-please-everyone) Shilpa, whose short and curt comments are really quotes to behold (”This is your claim to fame… so good for you” & “I represent my country, is this what today’s UK is?”) and whose personality plus the way she has dealt with it all (okay she really does only know the tip of the slagging-iceberg meted out to her, but still) I have become a fan of. Go Shilpa, win this CBB… you deserve the booty, the fame and the applause more than anyone in there!
After bullshitting such obvious appearances like going to shrines all year together etc etc and scoffing plus denying galore, the fact that finally the Baby Bachchan has proposed to Aishwarya Rai even as their fourth cinematic Titanic together sinks made me frown a bit. Something as private an affair as engagement nicely timed to a movie release takes away some genuinity. But what the heck, maybe its my subconscious jealousy for the junior Bachchan to tow away one of the world’s most beautiful woman talking. Oh well!

And from one Bollywood beauty to another! Finally, Madhuri Dixit’s back! After years of religious googling (yup, no matter how much it pisses the Google head honchos, I love saying googling rather than “searching on the net”) on her name first thing in the morning, I almost fell off the chair last month when she landed in Mumbai. The ultimate diva is all set to scorch the silver screen very soon, and boy, if I said I am counting the seconds to the movie’s release, even that’d be understating it. My fanship for this ultimate stunner knows no bounds even after 16 years.

Damn I forgot, this post was supposed to be on movie reviews. And here I am, rambling away like a Page 3 freelancer! Oh well, this whole dual personality thing (for all those still clued in, I am still a hardcore medic by the day) is supremely cathartic but very soon I hope to throw in some philosophical nuggets (read whines and moans) from my own field of study. Very soon.

So that’s that. A comeback, full-of-vain post to convey that yes, I am still very much alive and kicking. Keep reading folks!

Anyone with one good reason why I still shouldn’t be mad about her? Man, that smile…..