CULTURAL CLASH

I am not much into cooking (I wonder if I can even boil water), but there is one thing I know for certain. And that is for a perfect dish the ingredients should be in the proper proportion. Being a hosteller for the past five years I have come to the realization that hostel life is a nice blend of various ingredients mostly mixed in an imperfect way. There are many sort of unsolved debates that rage in the four walls of almost every hostel. Of course in a boy’s hostel the discussion of the history and geography of girls takes precedence most of the times but I am not going to discuss about it as I feel there is nothing new to add. The guys know everything inside out. ;)
Now that makes me come back to the question I am going to put forth – “which is better- english or hindi movies? English or hindi songs? Linkin park or Strings? Nickelback or Jal? Enrique or Sonu Nigam? Spiderman or Krrish?” Who is a better actor-“Tom Cruise or Shahrukh Khan? Tom Hanks or Aamir Khan? Brad Pitt or Hrithik Roshan? Al Pacino or Amitabh Bachaan?” Who makes your heart run faster than Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari-“Angelina Jolie or Katrina Kaif? Kate Winslet or Kareena Kapoor? Halle Berry or Deepika Padukone?”
Before I attempt to answer these unanswerable questions let me cut back to 2004. This was the year when the seeds of these questions were sowed in my mind. Before that I had unflinching loyalty to everything that was even remotely Indian. I loved Indian songs, Indian movies, Indian actors …..i mean I loved everything india had to offer. Let me remind everyone that before i-pod nano and music edition phones became a rage, there existed something more beautiful. And that was the good ol’ walkman. Being in Bhagalpur the only cassettes I could lay my hand on was that of Bollywood films. And I did love it. But winds of change were destined to flow and it was here that I began my tryst with Delhi and my innocent mind was corrupted. Visits to Planet M and Music World made me know that there exists a world beyond Hindi music and movies and this world was without doubt a big one.
Linkin Park was the first band whose music completely hooked me. Their versatility was amazing. They could sing hard metal and soft ballads with equal ease. The shelves which used to contain songs of Kaho Na Pyaar Hai, Devdas, K3G, K2H2 were replaced by cassettes of Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory, Meteora and Reanimation. I began to feel that if there is music then this is it. Whenever I used to see someone listening to hindi music I used to give him the look as if that guy was the most useless creature God could ever create. Things didn’t just end here. After discarding hindi music it was the turn of films. The guy who grew up on QSQT, JSWS, DDLJ, K2H2, KNPH now swore by MI, Matrix, and Spiderman. This shift of faith was clearly synonymous with the life phase I was passing through.
But clearly the honeymoon was short-lived. The English overdose became more than I could handle. I returned back to my first love. And I can’t tell you what the feeling was like. Its like chocolate melting slowly in your mouth. And also hindi music and movies had clearly changed. Clichés had made way for out of box thinking. Anti-hero was no longer the villain. I embraced my ex with all the love I could rake up.
But it wasn’t that I had divorced English stuff. If hindi was my wife English was very well the mistress. And howsoever caring your wife may be you never forget the mistress. So that love continued to linger. And now I have come to the crossroads where I feel that I should make a decision. Should I become a two-timer and love both my wife and my mistress or should my loyalties be concentrated upon one of them? And it is here my friends that I was plunged in the maze of this debate.As far as I think it is entirely an individual’s choice what to like and what not to. But I will tell you a secret. The guys who tell you that hindi movies are crap secretely watch Karan Johar’s movies when their friends are asleep and the the reverse is also true.
English movies are great no doubt. Everyone of us knows in our heart of hearts that English movies are probably a step ahead of us. But I know one thing, if I had 150 bucks with me and I had the option of watching either Spiderman or Krrish I would not follow my head and watch Spiderman but rather I would follow my heart and watch Krrish. So for me the debate is properly settled – When the push comes to shove for me my friends, I would scream at the top of my voice- ‘hindi rules’. Aur jaisa ki hamari hindi pictures mein hota hai-“All’s well that ends well.” Raise a toast to that. Cheers.

IT'S MY LIFE

Its not everyday that you feel like praising yourself. At least not me for sure. Most of the time I am pre-occupied thinking that there is something wrong, something missing. That something which would have made me the best among the lot. It is in pursue of that ‘THAT’ that my idle thoughts are mostly concentrated upon. But no, not today. Today is the day of celebrating me, celebrating my very essence. Today is the day of giving my ode to AVINASH OJHA.

Take out any page from an average Indian student’s diary and it would very well describe me. I have been an average student right from the word ‘GO’. I have always believed that there are two kinds of students in this world. One, who are gracious enough to have been bestowed upon a great brain by the almighty god and two, who have to fight their way up without having the luxury of having a five-star brain. These students in my language are the underprivileged lot and ones who are in dire need of the so-called reservations of some sort. (Un)fortunately I was destined to belong to this second category. But Avinash Ojha decided never to bow down. He knew that he would have to wage a war against the world to claim his share of the pie. I know the above two lines are quite melodramatic and cheesy so I would request you to ignore it but I must admit I couldn’t resist penning them down. But somehow or the other I managed to get decent scores in almost all the exams I ever wrote.
My parents always knew that I was an average student and they never really had any sky-high expectations from me unlike my more illustrious sibling who was the rockstar of the school. To be really honest my introduction would be grossly incomplete without mentioning my brother. By ‘rockstar’ I don’t mean that my brother was some kind of a ‘don’. In fact far from it. He is the kind of guy who Gandhiji would have loved had he been alive today for my brother is a complete non-violent soul. He was the class topper and the cynosure of every teacher’s eyes. But his being a rockstar had nothing to do with his being a class topper. It was his personality that set him apart from every other soul I knew. Even when he was a grade 5 kid everyone in the school knew him, right from the principal to the peon. He was an artist when it came to delivering speeches and he possessed the aura of a leader. In my school I was never known as ‘Avinash Ojha’ but always as ‘Amit’s brother’. Not that I didn’t like it. In fact I loved it for it got me the attention I would otherwise had not been able to afford. Right now he is in a different college to mine and I always wish he were here.
Things however began to change as I completed my class 10 board exams. I was one of the lucky guys who had the honour of being called a ninety percenter. To this day I credit my neighbours and over-zealous relatives for my class 10 heroics. Had it not been for their constant sarcastic comments about my abilities I would never have got the inspiration for climbing Mt. 10. Now began the hunt for a 10+2 school for me. My parents luckily zeroed down to DPS Mathura Road, one of the most celebrated delhi schools where the sons and daughters of the who’s who of delhi study. It was here that I began the most memorable two years of my life. It was here that I realized I was more than just ‘Amit’s brother’. It was here I began a roller-coaster ride of self-discovery. In my subsequent blogs I will talk more of these two years but the time spent in DPS gave me back my self-confidence in ways I couldn’t even imagine.
This wave of self-confidence had just reached its crest when a term called ‘entrance exam’ triggered its downslide. Now let me tell you this- even though I had regained a bit of self-confidence I always knew in my heart of heart that ‘AVINASH OJHA IS NO IIT MATERIAL’. This was one thing I always knew about myself. So I had to search for easier alternatives to become an engineer. Not that I had a desire of becoming one but my mother always wanted me to be one. So I thought ‘what the heck’ I will get in an engineering college. But it was not as easy as I had thought it would be. Finally with a very small bit of hard work and looooaaaaadsss of luck I got into one. The college was KIIT and I felt lucky to be able to get into it. It was here that I finally understood the famous line which Batman as Bruce Wayne says to his lady-love Rachel-‘Inside I am more’. I found out that Avinash the underdog is a bit better than what he thinks he is. Initially I kept a lot to myself because its always difficult to adjust in any city after you have tasted delhi. But I guess I opened up slowly and was very lucky to have the company of crazy, good-for-nothing but gold-hearted friends. I was a nobody in the first year of my college. I didn’t have any prized possession (read girlfriend), didn’t have a heart-stopping SGPA and neither was I a DON. But to be honest I was at peace with myself enjoying the company of my friends. It was however the third semester that winds of change started to blow. With the support of my classmates(read classmates with balls), I was somehow elected the CR. Now howsoever hard I try to deny it to my friends, it really felt good after I got elected. But the final straw was yet to come. Avinash the underdog had climbed Mt. 9. A staggering 9.38. More than I would have ever bargained for. It was like a windfall. And I hope this continues……………………forever………..