Over done.

I happened to catch the movie ‘Outsourced’ a couple of weeks back.
What crap!
I assumed the movie would be one of those easy-watch ones where they show you an ideal idea about how people find their true calling or see past their own egos and find their soul mate all at one time. You know those kinds don’t you?
I was put off -actually not just put off, quite angry at what they still perceive India to be. For those of you who don’t have an idea of what I am talking about, the movie tries to present a picture of lousy India which an American concedes and grudgingly accepts because he finds himself unable to do anything else about it.
I felt in this day and age when the west is all ga-ga about our Indian sciences and our holy men and our yoga and our brains and let’s not forget our music, its time the director woke up and realized there is so much more to show about us than showing half dressed urchins and fat aunties who ask about your marital status or over eager rural turned urbanites who ask your’ good name’.
The notion was so absurd that all India is about is its poverty, backward traditions and outdated idea. Wake up people!!
They show a call centre employee who flirts with every female caller he has. And another female with double standards for morality. Does that happen in India? It very likely does. Does that happen only in India? Definitely not.

Next time you want to make a movie on India, do your research well. Or maybe visit this country and see for yourself. That beside the slums world class malls have come up, that even behenjis here can speak English better than you, that for a nation of a billion plus people we are still pretty open hearted to welcome you in our midst.

On Hyderabad

The topic of discussion had been the various cities around the world and their allure.This was a poem I had written in defence of my home town Hyderabad.

City Loved...

To see the world from your chair
Was certainly an idea to share
To hear and feel what she has to say
And globe trot without a dime to pay
So many places I have sensed now
Though another's eyes, thats how
It makes me want to tell
About hyderabad's sounds and smell
Its a place which I did not choose or see
And yet had to make it a home for me
Its the picture that it brings to the eye
Of bejeweled hands and towers high
A cradle to the nawabs was what it was
Of Mosques, muezzins and houz
There is still grandeur left of the past
Enough culture of the nizams to last
Legacies left and manners taught
A way of speech and thought
And then when you turn the leaf
Be spellbound by the other side of the sheaf
Crane your neck to see structures as you go
Or just study the people and the show
There used to be rocks there ages back
Now dazzling steel makes up for the lack
Heard of our slang, have you not?
And still admired our charming lot...
There is a divide we maintain here you see
Of the city’s beauty that’s the key
How one place makes faces two
Blending the old and new
It’s the food and the clothes they say
Which makes worthwhile your stay
But there is something more to it
Something that makes it a perfect fit
No matter from where or who you are
Hyderabad’s welcoming spirit is without par
It will encircle and grow upon you
You shall then sing it’s praises too.