close your eyes

how sure are you?
when you close your eyes to sleep
how vulnerable are you?
when you hold your lover's hand

to dream without waking up
is what eternal sleep offers
why do we open our eyes
only to die another day

if our ends are similar
why care about our differences
when everything is said and done
we do things; to sleep well.

Content Torture

Have you ever been tortured by content generated for mass entertainment. Earlier it was the radio’s job. I am talking about the likely scenario of walking into a shop to buy something important all the while listening to the person or program you hate the most. Now with the onslaught of mass media and giant displays the torture has been given a whole new dimension.

Most of this torture occurs in hair saloons, gyms, and cafes where it is rude to tell them to switch the damn thing off where as in other places like shopping malls you have no control over what will assault your senses.

Another instance of the torture happens when you make a visit to a friend’s or relatives’ house and you are forced to watch that horrible reality show or that dreadful anchor, who doesn’t have a clue about what he/she is talking. One should rather grin and bear it than insult a relatives’ rather awful taste of entertainment

I believe a lot of people suffer silently through these kinds of tortures of intelligence and sense of humor every day. People are note aware that these kind of incompetent content are often made to fool the below average person and it deprives them of their valuable time and in some cases money (the horrific sms system in reality shows)

To some extent the internet is a blessing in which it taught people to choose what they want to see and hear. But still many torture spots are just waiting offline for you buddy.

Confessions of a movie theater fanatic

I don’t know if anyone else had these feelings about a movie theater. For me, it’s always the same, I love the theatres before the movie and I hate them after the movie regardless of the nature of the movie.

In India most of the theatres open their gates only half an hour before the screening of each show (refer opening scene in the movie ‘Mantrikam’). This is before the onslaught of multiplexes. So people have to wait for the theatres to open their gates, I have done my share of waiting too. Of course, there was reservation but I think normal people liked the anticipation and adventurous nature of obtaining a ticket. I think most of them enjoyed their sheer luck, I did. What happens when they open the gate is a battle of entertainment proportions with flip-flops flying, shirts tearing, hair pulling and shouts of ‘heave’ thrown in at some time. Balconies are expensive so one has to be as fit as an athlete to get into the queue for first class tickets for which there are no reservations. One peculiar nature of first class ticket counters are that in most theaters they are located at the end of a tunnel. So once you enter the tunnel with your fellow ‘shouting at the top of their lung’ queue mates, you are in. Don’t even think about going back. Leaving the queue is considered as cowardice. The sheer joy of coming through the other end of the tunnel victorious with tickets crumbled in my hand with some buttons on my shirt missing always gave me a boost than any energy drinks that most of the children are addicted to these days. Besides the smile and appreciation I see on my friend’s faces were well worth the effort.

It is when the movie (good or bad) is over and when people try to file out from the theater that I experience my deepest love for my home. I am always overcome by a panic to get to my home as fast as I can. I have tried many times to analyze the reason behind this obsession. One strong candidate is that maybe that’s when I realize the artificial and impersonal nature of the theater or else it is because of the selfish nature imprinted in every human being that when the movie is over the theater has nothing more to offer. I have noticed that most people come out of the theater with a blank face. It doesn’t matter if the movie is good or bad. All of them have a blank expression on their face. They don’t even stop to answer politely to a potential moviegoer who probes about the movie. I think all of them want to get back to their home as much as I would like to get to mine.