Posts

Of humiliating humor

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There seems to be a new kind of humor on the rise - the art of degrading. As per the social conventions or societal norms of the past 2 decades, nothing is sacrilige or nothing is sacred. And this is subjected to the terms and conditions of who is offending and who gets offends, basis which the interpretation will vary. With social media, everyone with a phone and data connection is judge jury and executioner across every topic and every personality under the sun. It has been the case since last couple of decades, but with SM replacing Mainstream media as defacto news channel for many nowadays, the problems arising out of such uncensored adaptation or aping of western culture breeds to several powder keg situation in countries like India where libel laws are at best non-existent or un deployable or used less. The thing with comedians being, they can degrade, make fun of in their words, anyone and anything from god to godmen to conmen to politicians (and i repeat myself) to personalitie
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Life and times

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There are certain movies that leave an invisible mark in your mind that you, even without realizing your mind keep going back to things that struck you when you first saw the movie and possibly over repeat watches as well. 2012, Final destination are two such movies that have literally scared the wits out of me and even though the scenes are quite familiar, they keep haunting the mind, whenever i come across any news or event that are remotely related. When 2012 was launched, the doomsday-end of the world-apocalypse news items were quite popular and that December was supposed to be the end of the world as predicted or left unmentioned per Mayan calendar. In the movie, even though the graphics are quite low level as compared to what we have now and what we had even then, the tsunamis that engulf the regions, the violent land slides and volcanic explosions and earth quakes all scared me with nightmares for several months to follow. I often get dreams about me surrounded by flood water an
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The final curtain by Keigo higahsino - book review

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 As mentioned in previous other posts, there are few authors i diligently follow for their latest releases. James Rollins, Matthew Reilley, Peter Swanson, Jo Nesbo and above all Keigo Higashino. In case of Keigo, i believe his books are already released in Japanese and its the English translations that are finding their way to the market now. Nevertheless, any book that i get to read of Keigo is an happy occasion for he is one author who rarely disappoints.  For someone who writes murder mysteries, by the time the plot unravels, the first time reader may mistake it for a mega serial transcript. In my limited exposure to books of this genre, seldom i've come across plots that are so full of human emotions and love playing a prominent role. In fact, the more you delve deep you will end up supporting the perpetrator as much as the police, who go about as careful and as meticulous in dealing with case, as if taking dealing with a delicate flower that may crumble if pursued any harder.
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The apartment - movie review

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 This is possibly the oldest english movie i've ever seen. Except for Shirley Mclaine, whose name i've come across in couple of novels as some reference, none of the other cast are even vaguely familiar. Billy wilder, the director, name does ring a bell, but again quite sure not because of this movies and mostly from any reference on articles or posts about some movie. How i ended up watching this movie is all thanks to an interview by a tamil director who was mentioning "It's a mad mad mad mad world" as his favorite comedy movie and luckily it was available on Prime. Even within the first few scenes it became quite familiar for the number of times the movie has been plagiarized, remade officially, scenes lifted left right and center across all possible languages. While looking at similar movies, ended up with "Apartment". Again, within first few scenes, i was drawn to it because of a favorite hindi movie of mine "Life in a metro". The director
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Memories

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Few days before my mom was talking to her elder sister on phone and they were reminiscing about their childhood days, like how they used to walk for several kilometers to reach their school, their lunch boxes, how risky it would be during rainy days when the river would be overflowing, how terrified she would be to cross the cemetery on the way, the different kinds of fruits that were freely available on the way that are no longer available now even in shops. She used to mention often about power cuts or lack of electricity to be precise, during night times, which used to scare the wits out of them. There were problems of robbers as well it seems, who would remove the tiles on top of their house during the night and would steal whatever was there in kitchen. The menace of monkeys who wouldn't just make a mess of the food cooked for the entire family but also would defecate there and make a mess of the whole kitchen. She would also mention about their garden at their backyard and th
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Resident alien - review

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 Resident alien is a new drama series launched in Netflix. It begins as yet another sci-fi series where aliens crash land on earth and except for that part, they have tried to go against every other situation that are previously seen in any series or stories involving extra terrestrials. This alien, takes the shape/structure/body of a human whom it kills by accident. The mission of that alien is to destroy all human kind on earth and when i crash landed on earth, it looses track of its ship and also the killer device. While searching for that device, it tries to adapt itself to the town where it crash landed, as the town's doctor. What follows is several quirky situations that it somehow manages to escape. Even though it has taken human form, there is a kid whose mutative power makes him see the alien in its true form. Initially, the kid and the alien are at loggerheads with the alien trying to "eliminate" the kid in several inventive ways. Eventually they form an allianc
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The Opportunity Paradox

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 It has been exactly 100 days since i had that fateful discussion. Life has gone through quite a churn in past couple of months with almost every day being an emotional rollercoaster. It feels as if i have had a near death scenario or some severely strong scenario that has released all pent up thoughts that lay hidden in some remote corners of mind, waiting for their turn to occupy the thought space. Mind has been wondering and wandering a lot about "what if" scenarios a lot off late and it has been a virtual pattimandram happening inside pondering over the "if's" and "buts". On one hand it feels too arrogant to even think about long term when situations are so dynamic and become volatile at the click of a trigger. In this particular case it was more of wishing against reality, that was clearly visible from long for a while, just delaying the inevitable in mind while refusing to prepare oneself for it. On the other hand, we can't live everyday thin
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