Movies- Of good and bad ones!

I met one of my friends from my Under Graduation College after a long time. After getting over with the prerequisite talks about latest movies, we got on to other topics. Now mind you, when I and my friends discuss about movies, it’s not always the same. We are students of Visual Communication i.e Media Students, so we can discuss anything about the movies and it won’t come under the category of useless time pass talk!

My ever inquisitive father was sitting there to get to know more about the field. This friend of mine- Hari Krishnan holds PG Diploma in film making and had one and a half years experience in the field of video editing after training under Editor Lenin. Now, he is trying his hands (Well hands, legs, body and eyes in this case) at acting.

My father asked him about his work timings when he was being an editor. Hari Krishnan told that there is nothing called as work timings, you go there, get the work done. That is how it is done. He further told that there were times he would be spending 3-4 days completely in the studio. And the sleeping time averages around 2 hours per day. Obviously I asked him what if he decides to sleep for more time. He told that the assistant directors would come and give so much pressure that they won’t be able to sleep!

I asked him how much time it takes to finish the editing of one song from a movie. Here is what he told- The editor gets a 3-5 hour footage for one song, Every dance step would have around 5-6 takes and more than one would be shot OK. So, the editor essentially has to go through the whole footage. Then the choreographer comes in, sits with the editor and the editor has to go through it all over again. This process goes on and on for days till the song is done. Then he has to go through it all over again while doing the audio sync!

This is just for a song and the process of the whole movie is just an even more tedious version of the same. Mind that we are looking only at the editing part of it. Imagine how much time and efforts it would have taken for the shoot, the set-up, the makeup, location shifts etc.

And what do we do, we watch the whole effort presented as a capsule- The movie. We come out of the theatre and say- ‘Dude, it’s a bad film, very badly taken/bad story, don’t go, it is such a waste of time’. I agree that we have our own tastes of everything. But still it would be very unfair on our side to totally ignore all those efforts that went behind a movie. Logically, a bad movie doesn’t take any less effort to produce than the supposedly good ones. So, next time you got a movie irrespective of how you liked it, take a second to appreciate the work that went behind it.

P.S: Hats off to the editors and their patience! Hari told me that essentially an editor would have seen the movie 50 times over before the whole editing work is completed. When my father asked him whether the editors would know whether the movie would be successful or not considering they watch the movie so many times, he told that they would have a fair Idea. But wouldn’t any movie taste sour the 50th time??!!

My One Day at IIT

I was in my happy college days doing B.Sc. Visual Communication, away from my dreaded PCM subjects. Life was only about being creative. I was enjoying it. One day, I got a call from my school friend –Vaidhy. He informed me that IIT becomes an open house for the coming weekend and asked whether I could join him and other two friends of mine there. I thought about it. IIT was perhaps the most allergic location to me – Full of brainy geeks and Departments that could give me nightmares...

But, I agreed to it, after all it was a rare opportunity. The last time it was an open house was 25 years ago. That time my father visited IIT. He said it would be a nice experience. So, I thought of trying it out. What is the big deal? After all, I would get to know how interesting subjects seem when I don’t have to study them.

So, the coming weekend we went there in our two wheelers. I rode to IIT in my XL Super! It was the only moped in the whole campus! Perhaps I set a record by riding the first moped into IIT.

I and my friends went to various departments. At the start I was sort of feeling nauseatic seeing the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, Maths and various other heavily technical departments. But as time went on, I started to love it. It was like viewing a Discovery channel, where you get to know amazing things. There was this Astro-Physics presentation at the Physics Dept. It was really amazing.

Vaidhy was registering himself for some paper presentation in the biology department. In the meanwhile I continued to explore various departments. It was when I saw the Mathematics department, I felt pathetic about myself. IT was as if I remembered absolutely nothing in mathematics. Not one formula. All I remembered was to add, subtract, multiply, divide.

My other 3 friends joined me at the Maths Department. It seemed there was a Maths quiz that was going to happen. My friends wanted to do it. As I didn’t know how much time it would take to finish and as I was bored of wandering alone, I decided to wait in my much hated department.

It seemed the first round was a written objective questions round. Something inside me wanted me to attend it and have some fun. So I too got a paper and sat next to my friends. There were about 50-60 people on the test hall.

When I saw the question paper – *FLASH*, my mind went blank. I knew that I had studied many of the formulas needed to solve the paper. But I became dyslexic, I understood nothing in the paper, it seemed to me that all the questions were animated and was running all around the paper. There was this particular question that was still on the paper in an un-animated form. I looked into it. It was a probability question. If you apply one simple formula to it, it would be over. But alas, I didn’t know the formula. But then there was the advantage of solving the probability question the long way – tallying. I decided to do that to while time. I was pulling my hair with frustration while trying to solve it- the simplest question in the whole paper. It took 3/4th of the total exam time for me to finish it. At the end I was really confident that I had done it right. I was sort of proud of it. We were asked to give the sheets on which we did calculations! I gladly gave mine. It had nothing but scribbles of the longest route to answer a question. If any IIT staff saw it, he would definitely have searched for me. For it had no other answers worked out.

Then I looked at the other questions, understood absolutely nothing and then I did the Magic- The world famous ‘Inky Pinky Ponky’ on the IIT Maths paper. I was so happy to do it. I rejoiced it. I was smiling and laughing while doing it. It was such fun. After the exam, as my friends were discussing the answers amongst them. I found that I answered right to the probability question. I told them that. They were all very surprised. After all they knew me and my skills only too well. I winked at them. After half an hour the finalists listed was pasted on the wall.

*BANG* It hit me right in the head, My name was amongst the 18 finalists of the Maths quiz. I didn’t believe it. All that Inky pinky ponky worked!! I had the brain and technique that no other contestant had!! I was laughing after seeing the result. I had beaten a lot of IITians in the process.

One of my 3 friends did not even make it. He glared at me. I was feeling awkward. If I get teamed up with 2 IIT guys, I would be in hell. I thought of running away from IIT that instant. But my friend asked me to stay and have some fun. I was totally embarrassed. But I stayed.

The quiz started, I was glad that one of my friends was in my team along with an IIT-madras guy. I told him with an embarrassing face that I don’t know anything and I got selected because of luck. He said “No problem mate”. He was obviously thinking I was being humble. He knew little about me. We were placed in the first row. I felt awkward. I sunk down my seat, dipped my head down and half closed my eyes!

The questions were fired and the big brains around me went to work. 'I understood the questions as much as an illiterate understands Shakespearean English'. I hung my head down and let the others of my team answer. Apparently I found the questions were a bit tough even for them. The IIT guy with me was totally funny; he wrote a few steps to solve the question and came up with a wrong answer every time when the question was targeted at him. Not only that, Every single time someone else answers their question, he just wrote down that answer alone in a corner of his sheet, showed it to us, banged the table and said loudly “Shit, I got that”. My friend and I exchanged glances and smiled knowingly. The quiz came to an end. Our team scored a rightful ‘Zero’ and held the prestigious last position!

I was so glad that there was no embarrassment but all the same it was such a hilarious experience for me. Who would have thought that a teetotaler at Maths like me would make to the finals of IIT Maths finals? This was an unforgettable experience for me.

How I dealt with a Cell Phone Harasser

When my sister was in her college a few years ago, she used to receive messages from an unknown number. The messages were really dirty and cheap.

At first she thought, some college mate who hated her was doing this. But it kept on coming. She asked who it was and what he/she wanted with her. Apparently the reply came claiming that he is ‘Pradeep’ and is an unemployed graduate of mechanical Engineering.

The messages had stopped for a while. Then as time passed on, sister finished college and started going to work. Suddenly, the messages started to sprout up again as dirty as ever. My father messaged back asking him to stop being a rogue or he will take serious action. He replied something like- ‘Wow! It is a pleasure knowing you Uncle, let us be great friends.’ We called up customer care and asked them to block that number. But, they told that was not possible and they won’t do that. So, my sister was left with only one option ignore and delete. It was getting on her nerves

A month passed like this. I thought of taking up the initiative. I spoke to him from my sister’s cell, saying that I bought this sim card recently and that I received certain wrong messages from him. I hoped to persuade him to believe.

He said sorry and added that he knew the previous owner of the number very well. I was surprised, but then I asked him to stop messaging. He told he wanted to be friends with me!! I thought about it and said that I am going to give this number to my father, so asked him to contact me through my so and so number. After all it was a chance I could get to know the rogue and bust him. Also, in my cell there was the option of blocking numbers in case of excessive messages.

After a week, he messaged the same dirty messages to my sister’s number as if nothing had happened. I attempted to call him but he never attended. As my sisters phone number was her official contact number, she had no possibility of changing the number. After some time it again stopped.

Suddenly, around a month back from this day, the message came again. I was totally angry, although there was little I could do about it. We thought that going to police might just be too harsh and for all we knew, it would only mean more time waste. Sister told she would rather delete the message than walking to and fro between home and police station. I had to agree with her.

And 3 days before this day, I thought of calling up a recently acquired friend of mine working at Vodafone. I did and I asked him whether he can help. He was very kind and willing. He gave me the details. The guy’s name was actually ‘Samson Pradeep Raj’. I had his full address and his two landline numbers.

I called up my sister and asked whether I can take this to the police now that we had done everything in our hand. She being soft at heart said no. I asked her at least whether I could warn him. She permitted me to go ahead.

I called him and he attended the call. I kept my voice stern, angry and menacing. I told him I am Varun and a friend of the person whom he used to send his dirty messages to.

He replied with a soft yes that was like 'what is the big deal about it?'. I told him that I have his full contact details and mentioned to him his full name and stated his address. In a flash, his voice took a pleading tone. He said thanks for calling him up before going to the police. He said sorry, and said his actions were because he was mentally affected because of some family problems of his. I told, I don’t care about it and I don’t think the police would either.

He came to the verge of tears. If I didn’t know better, tears would have been rolling off his cheek, considering the way his voice wavered. When I asked him whether he knew what his punishment was, he said he knew that he would be sentenced to jail for 7 years if he is caught (Man, he knew the exact years. All this time he thought he couldn’t be traced). I asked him to stop this nonsense hereafter and if I get one more stupid message, he is going to the jail and I meant this from my heart with a menacing tone. He got it and was definitely very scared. He pleaded sorry. I asked him to call up my sister and beg for forgiveness. He agreed to it.

And so he did, I informed my sister that she would get a call from that rogue and he will be pleading for mercy. I asked her to use the record call feature in her phone. He called up and that conversation was recorded. She was too soft on him, all she said was ok, I told her that she could have scolded him badly for the mental trouble he had caused her for such a long period.

I wish I had recorded the conversation between me and him. But all I have is what happened between my sister and him. You can listen to the conversation here-

When I became the Police- Real Incident

A REAL LIFE MOBILE PHONE ROBBERY INCIDENT

During my semester holidays, I paid a visit to my Aunt's (My mother's younger sister's) home in Bangalore. I had a great time there. My Aunt (Called Chitti' in Tamil) showed me her newly bought Samsung Handset. It was simple and elegant. The model's cost was around
Rs.4,000.

In Samsung phones, there is an feature called as Mobile tracker, which allows notification to any two numbers if the SIM card is changed on that phone. This helps us to track the cell phone, in case the phone gets stolen and the new user puts in a new SIM Card there. I found that the feature was not activated. So, I activated the feature and hoped that if at all it is stolen, we can always call Samsung security center and they would help us. So, I gave her husband's number and my number as backup numbers for safety. After a week's stay at Bangalore I left to my home in Chennai.

A few days went by; one fine day I heard from my mom that 'Chitti' is going off to Kerala for a few days. That was just normal news to my ears because they used go there 2 to 3 times a year. I carried on my daily routine of going to college, having fun and coming home and then complaining of boredom! Yes, at 19 years of age, I felt that staying at home bores me very much than spending joyous time with friends at college.

One day in the middle of my sleep in Tamil class in the college, I was woken up by a vibration that my cell issued. At the end of the hour, when I had the break time, I looked into the cell as to who sent me a message at that odd time of the hour. I found that the message had come from my Chitti's cell notifying me about the change of SIM in that cell. I thought, perhaps Chitti's husband (Called Chittappa' in Tamil) has inserted a Kerala SIM for the time being to avoid roaming charges.

In the afternoon, I got a call from my Chittappa. "Hello, Varun?"

"Yes, Chittappa, How are you, How is your Kerala visit?"

"All are fine. We are on our way back, but there is a bad news and consoling news!"

"Well, what is it?"

"The bad news is that Chitti's cell phone has been stolen in the train and the consoling news is that I got a message stating the new SIM number, thanks to your activating the notifying feature"

"Oh! I too got a message, but I thought that it was you who put in a new SIM!"

"No, it must be the thief's number; just send me the customer care centre number of Samsung so that I can contact them for help. I am in Cochin
now."

"Sure, I will message you the number in 5 minutes."

I messaged him the number in a few minutes. I was waiting for his call in the night. At around 9.00 PM I got his call;

"Hey Varun, I contacted the Samsung care centre. They said they can't help me, but they advised me to give the number to the Police, so that they might help. But the problem is I am in Bangalore and the Cell is most probably in Cochin."

"I don't know, I thought they might be able to help you, anyway, just give a name sake complaint to the police, we will think of what to do later."

"I have a friend in Bangalore, I will ask him to complain to the police of that area, if I don't get any updates from the Bangalore police in a week."

"That a good idea Chittappa, All the best. Good Night!"

"Good night, Varun!"

That night I was unable to sleep, my mind was revolving around the Cell phone theft. That was when an idea occurred to me. The next day, the first thing I did was to call my Chittappa. "Hello, Chittappa? I just got an Idea!"

"What is it?"

"I will try to speak to that Number as if I am the Police; Let's see what happens, we have got nothing to lose."

"Hmmm....I tried to call that number, it was switched off, anyway give it a try!"

"Ok, then I'll call you later."

In the morning, I tried to call the number; I got the recorded message saying that the cell is switched off. ''Oops, dead end.' I thought. Then, anyway I tried to call him after a hour. The number rang and I got tensed up; I never expected it; I did not even plan on what to speak to him. The phone kept ringing, on the last ring a voice answered,

"Hello?" I heard a heavy Malayalam accent in his voice. ''Oops, I don't know Malayalam' was the first thought that came to me.

"Hello, this is Dinesh, Sub- Inspector of Chennai Police."

"What? Yes, Sir" a tensed voice replied.

I thought ''Wow! My harsh voice is after all useful. He believed me!'

"I have got a complaint that the user of this number has stolen the cell phone"
"Sorry, I don't know much English, speak in Malayalam"

''Dead end again' I thought.

"You know Tamil?" I asked him.

"Yes, I know it somewhat!"

''Thank god for the similarity between Tamil and Malayalam' I thought.

(The following is translated to English, but was actually spoken in Tamil)

"Well, I got a complaint that you stole a mobile phone. The model number
is......."

I told him the details of the phone, its content and the owner.

"Sir, I am afraid; I don't know anything about it"

"Well then, if you lie to me, you will be tracked by the Kerala police and the consequence will be severe!"

"Oh! All right, I will accept, please don't do anything to me; I am a owner of a mobile shop where we buy and sell second hand mobiles, I think I got your model; I will check and tell you."

"Well then, I want the call within 10 minutes, else you will be busted!"

"I will sir, I will."

All this happened in the privacy of my room. I didn't know whether he was lying or telling the truth, but I knew one thing, It was funny to have him believe me as a police. I was giggling to myself thinking over the shock, fear and respect in his tone while speaking to me. Only after 10 minutes I was able to stop giggling. Then that too was because, to my surprise, my cell rang and in the caller ID it was written 'Thief' - as I stored it. Only then I remembered that I never asked for his name,

"Hello, tell me" I said over the phone.

"Sir, I have that phone, what am I supposed to do with it?" the voice came.

"By the way, what's your name?" I asked to get a reply ''Mohammed' something.

"Sir, how am I supposed to send the phone and where should I send it?"

"You send it by courier to the address I say." I told him the full contact details of my Chittappa and then added "If I don't get it before day after tomorrow, you are gone!"

"There won't be any necessity like that sir, I will send it". It was said in a tone of such fear and respect that I thought I am going to give out myself by laughing. Then thank god, he cut the phone. I laughed heartily. After 2 minutes, I got a call from him again,

"Sir, I don't believe in courier, what if they lose it?"

''What a brilliant escape route for him!' I thought.

But to my surprise he added "A friend of mine is a van driver and he has a work in Bangalore, can I send it through him? He will reach the City market there by 6.00 A.M; can you ask the owner of the phone to collect it?"

"You speak to the man who gave the complaint"

"I will do just that
sir!"

"Ok! Hope you send it alright."

I disconnected the call. The excitement made my fingers go numb. Who would have thought I would come up so brilliantly? Also, this was going on as a secret - none of my family members knew it. I made a quick call to my Chittappa and told him that the thief would call. He understood. In another 15 minutes, My Chittappa gave a call and told me that all went fine and he would collect the cell from the driver the next day.

The next day, when I woke up late, my mom told me that Chittappa had called me when I was sleeping. She told me that Chittappa somehow got his cell back. Somehow? ''Wow! That's my effort' I thought to myself happily.

I called Chittappa after I felt refreshed.

"Hello Varun, what a surprise, thanks a lot!"

"No problem Chittappa." I replied.

"You did so much for a cell phone!" he exclaimed.

"No Chittappa, I did so much for a rare oppurtunity for adventure and of course a special treat from you!"

"What treat? Oh yes, I will give you, you definitely deserve one!" he spoke and laughed for sometime happily. Then he gave the phone to his wife and then their children, they all congratulated me. I felt so elated.

Later, during the breakfast I told my parents the real story of the coming back of the cell phone; they were totally amazed to hear it. They all praised me for being intelligent and smart. I was so happy because people at my home rarely ever appreciated me.

"Wasn't it hard to maintain the tone?" my sister asked.

"Yes, especially when I had to control giggling when he believed me totally and spoke tensely" I replied.

We all laughed together on hearing that. Well, this would be an incident that would be etched strongly in my mind. After all, how many people would have a chance to act up a police and have some thief believe completely in them?

MY DAYS WITH THE PUPPIES

MY DAYS WITH THE PUPPIES

Golden yellow light was pouring in through the window. I was standing near it, deep in thoughts. I had always wanted a puppy. Whenever I spoke to my father on the topic, I would get a reply that generally ties up my tongue. That day the urge was some what uncontrollable.

I asked him in a stern voice, Father, I want a puppy, cant you afford one? My father gave a sarcastic look and said It isnt money that is the problem. Then what is it? I asked.
It is the puppy that matters. Dont wonder how! Having nurtured a dog named Varun for 17 years, I and your mother know what a pain it is to have a dog in the house! . This was followed by a serious bark (angry retort) from me proving his statement right. But still.... I whined.
There is no use talking to a dog which doesnt understand my mother intervened. My father had a hearty laugh, which made my mood go even worse.

Suddenly the sky darkened as if expressing my mood and the rain started to pour down as my emotions. I went and stood by the window looking at the heavy rain with a heavy heart. My friendly street dog started to bark. I thought it was because of the rain as the dog usually barks whenever it rains. But the barking continued for a long time. Out of sympathy and to divert my mood I took an umbrella and went downstairs to have a look at the dog. After going down I saw the dog standing under the roof of our opposite flat, staring at my house. I went out to the street and looked around for the reason. There were two cute puppies, stranded alone under the tree adjacent to my house. They were the sort of puppies I used to adore. After seeing me, the two puppies came and rubbed my leg for warmth and started to yelp, no wonder out of hunger. I felt very pitiful and wondered whether my parents would allow me at least to give the puppies a temporary shelter.

I ran upstairs in despair and explained the situation to my parents.
Thats how they learn to survive, remember Darwin s theory? they told to me. It was hopeless to argue with them.

I tried to divert my mood by reading a story book, but the thought of the two cute little ones refused to go away. The rain did not seem to stop. So, I paid frequent visits to see the puppies. The puppies kept on yelping and the sound was quite audible at the first floor. My parents mind also got affected by the pitiable yelping.
Varun, see here, you can bring the puppies in and keep them near the stairs but you have to leave them outside as soon as the raining stops my mother said.

That was enough for me - after all something is better than nothing. I ran downstairs and lifted the two puppies carefully taking care not to hurt them. I kept them near the stairs of my house. I sat near them patting them; soon one of them fell asleep. The other cuddled near my legs. My heart was ecstatic. I sat looking at the two puppies with little heart to return them to the road after the rain. I wished that the rain would continue for a long time.

The Adorable Puppies

My next door neighbor who was watching me offered a help. Seeing my plight, she said, If you can take care of the puppies for some more time, I will ring up Blue cross; they will collect them and take care.

I gladly accepted the offer. She called up Blue Cross and they informed that their van would come only the next morning. That was actually good news to me! Surprisingly, my father and mother came down to see the puppies. They too were charmed by the beautiful puppies. My mother immediately went upstairs and came down with a bowl of milk which utterly surprised me. As she kept it near the puppies, I waked up the sleeping puppy which later joined the other to drink the milk hungrily.

While I was seeing the puppies going to sleep, a call came from my father. I realized it was already dinner time. Only then I realized that my stomach was growling which I had failed to notice in my preoccupation with the puppies. I gulped down the food hungrily like a dog. I tried to have a little chat with my father about puppies, but, as usual he was least interested in such silly topics.
Why dont you go down and talk to the puppies, I would doubt whether they would bother listening to a bore like you!

I scowled and went down to see whether the puppies were still sleeping. I saw that one puppy was awake and one was still sleeping. The one sleeping seemed to be ill. As I just patted the sleeping puppy it opened one eye and gave a look that seemed to say Oh, its just you! and then continued to sleep again. The puppy which was awake just sat near my leg for a few minutes and slept very soon. I also started to feel sleepy after seeing that. So I went up and brought a cup of milk to the puppies and kept it near them so that it could drink it whenever it wishes. Then I went upstairs and slept well.


The next morning I woke up and after doing my morning duties, I went down to see the puppies and found something brown floating on the milk. On questioning my parents about it I heard a pleasant surprise that as the puppies whined in the night, my father fed them a few biscuits by softening them in the milk! Oh! They managed to soften my Dads heart too!
I took my breakfast and it was time for school. Before I left, I asked my parents to take care of them and return them carefully when the blue cross van comes.
I got the reply I expected Do not worry; we have 17 years of experience in growing a dog! Thats all I wanted. I left for school with a mood not so good.

As I returned tired, I heard a bark. I saw that the puppies were still there and I wondered whether my parents had changed their minds about me having the puppies at home. I also felt that it was a step next to impossible. When I enquired, my neighbor told me that the van would come only at 6.00 in the evening. It was already 5.00 pm. I sat with the dogs waiting for the van with a fervent hope that it wont.

But soon it came. I handed over the dogs Half-heartedly to a grim looking man from the Blue Cross, wondering about the type of care the puppies would receive. Suddenly the street dog started barking at me angrily after it saw me handing over the puppies. I saw the puppies being caged and taken away along with my hopes of petting them.

Then as I thought of handing over the extra milk to the street dog which was usually very friendly, it ran away at my approach, as if completely hating me. It was so surprising! After all, the puppies had been abandoned by some other stray dog and this friendly dog of mine had no business what so ever connected with the puppies. Even among animals, there is so much of compassion about their clan!
How can I explain to the dog about my predicament? Will it think of me only as an un-trustable person who hands over hapless puppies to grim looking strangers whose treatment to the dogs remains unknown?