Me & Duke

Love wasn’t new to me. It had happened thrice before. And every time, like everybody else, I too believed that my love-story was unique. But the fourth love story was a tad different – it was with a beast. An Austrian beast of a machine.

I’m not among the lot who falls for worldly pleasures or materialistic gains. For me the definition of a vehicle is simply “something which displaces you from point A to point B.” No wonder my first bike was a Bajaj Discover chosen on the truly Indian “mileage kitna deti hai?” philosophy. So was my first car. A Daewoo Matiz, chosen just to take my then pregnant wife from home to office. Even now my car is a 2008 Fiat Palio, wiped out of the market for over half a decade. But then I’m like “The engine is smooth, the body is rock solid, it doesn’t require hospitalization, what’s the need to change the car?”

On the contrary, my wife is an enthusiast. My mother-in-law introduced me to my wife with an Outlook magazine supplement on biking clubs and the rise of women bikers; she was on the cover page. She began her riding stint with a RE Thunderbird. For her a bike is the second best thing to have between the legs.

My fourth love affair was actually a rejection of my wife’s. When she went back to biking clubs once our daughter was old enough, we got a Karizma ZMR from my cousin, which is still a great sports tourer – good looks, not too aggressive, comfortable riding position… But soon she got bored of the meagre 19 bhp motor. The black and orange Duke was getting popular those days. It was sheer coincidence that my brother-in-law’s friend wanted to dispose a 6 month old 2000 kms run KTM 390. Just for the records, my bro-in-law is a bigger biking enthusiast with another Karizma & a Kawasaki Ninja 650 in his stable. So it was but natural that my wife had to buy this KTM on offer.

This KTM went sight-seeing to most hill stations around Pune – Lonavala, Lavassa, Mahabaleshwar; courtesy my wife. It had packed weekends until it’s rider had a ligament reconstruction surgery and doctor forbid riding for 6 months.

That was when I started dating the KTM390. I just couldn’t let it rust in the parking. Grown on the strong foundation of engineering, economics and efficiency, I was not ready to burn fuel on jolly rides. So it became my office commuter. Once a week.

No. It was not love at first sight. There were too many cons: The seat was too hard. The engine would heat up a lot despite being oil cooled. The 44 bhp engine wouldn’t listen to me below 4000 rpm, always wanting to jump ahead. Slowly, once I learnt the tricks of the trade, I began taming the beast.

And love blossomed.

Initially, I started playing games with it. I would clock my rides to office. The 7.8 kms stretch would take me 10 min. And I haven’t gone beyond 113 kmph, cos I’m always riding in “office hours”. (My cousin borrowed the bike to ride to Mumbai and he claimed to have plateaued at 165!) That became a routine. I was deciphering the racing DNA of the bike. And more avenues were opening up.

Although the bike boasted of 0-100 in 5.4 seconds, I couldn’t do it before 11 seconds on the city rods I tested. The 375cc naked (no fins) engine was built to be in a hurry – the idle rpm is just under 2000! Put it on gear and it roars over to 4000 leaving the other gaping at the traffic signal.

With the shifting of house, I could get a 16.8 km stretch to office. I could play more games. By now I had mastered the logic behind providing twin Bybre disc brakes and Metzeler wheels. The rubber just bites the asphalt while cornering and the ABS sees to it that the wheels don’t lock up and avoid skidding. With this seated in mind, it became easier for me to needle my way between long container trucks and buses – it is cake walk when your bike is listening to you and there is sufficient reserve power. Also the bike has no bulky exhaust pipe – it is neatly concealed under the belly, so you have one less thing to worry while cornering. And humps and pot-holes? Not a hurdle. The mono-shock under my butt and the inverted forks under my hands are trained for off-roading too.

One of wicked games I have come to love playing is with the fellow bikers who modify the exhausts of their Yamahas and Pulsars to get a louder howl, and who feel godly by zipping through the traffic – all this without wearing a helmet. All I need to do is to give a gentle twist of the wrist and I accelerate ahead without batting an eyelid, silently conveying “You don’t play games with a Duke”.

So? Did the bike change my philosophy? Yes, to some extent. Now I enjoy the displacement from point A to point B. No. Cos I still don’t go on joy rides, barring a ride to Lavassa when the car got full with in-laws. I have got a spare set of off-roading wheels – but the time has not yet come to put it to use.

If I have to give a verdict like the ones published in the auto magazines, here’s what I’d say: If you think 44 hp is too tough to handle in the city, you are wrong. Although there is a perpetual sense of urgency, the beast is ready to listen with its ABS assisted brakes and exceptional tyres. Slowly you’ll love the way you can “sleep-walk” at 85-90 kmph. And all this happens at a moderate 5000 rpm. If you are planning to have some fun above that speed & rpm, then the primary task would be to look out for the empty or less populated lane. The bike would simple respond, “Master I’m game, just show me the freeway.” Coming to my foundations of economics: Yes, the hare is meant to burn more gas than the tortoise. But this doesn’t hurt at just over 30 km a litre. The clincher is that at around 250 grand, this is the cheapest monster your buck can fetch. And for that you get almost twice the power of the rage among bikers: the REs or almost as much power of the entry level Harley. But then cruisers are a different ball game – it’s fun can be experienced only on long unpopulated highways. KTM is at home with traffic as much as it is with the highway.

Will it be a lasting love affair? For now, yes. The KTM690 is far from coming to India. And I have to become an entrepreneur to afford the KTM1290.

Money & Mind Matters

Anything for money

Would lie for you

Would die for you

Even sell my soul to the devil

-          Michael Jackson in “Money” from HIStory: Past Present & Future

It’s a big bad world out there. And money is a big bad demon you got to befriend. The so called basic necessities for survival: Food, clothing & shelter… all need money to obtain.

Whatever means it is accumulated, the colour of money remains the same – black & white are just notions – both fetch you what you want. Moralities are just games people play in their minds. It gets side-lined: the bait varies from person to person; some would give in for millions, some would convince the mind that “it’s not that big a sin”, others would say “this much is allowed”.

There are those who slaughter, kidnap, hijack for money. And those who bend the rules, cook up scams, siphon off from development funds. There are also those who bear the brunt: someone sticking on to a disliking job for the sake of that much-needed pay packet. God can be a good cover-up. People are ready to spill out money for something as obscure as God, rather than to help the needy. It’s all about how one perceives things or manipulates their minds to accept their deeds as the right way; manipulating the law is just passé.

Speaking of needy, we are always flooded by people in distress: Traffic signals offer a variety of down trodden – kids selling trinkets for small change, Moms carrying infants, handicapped people, eunuchs etc… Our reaction may vary depending upon our moods.

I get struck by myriads of “needy” people. A taxi-operator in Bangalore, whom I was using regularly, borrowed Rs.24,000/- stating he was undergoing loses. That was 2 yrs ago, and he doesn’t seem to have recovered. A drill operator came to me looking for a job, stating reasons that the iron ore ban had eaten up his job. In the past 3 yrs, I have got him 4 jobs apart from lending Rs.25,000/- for his family needs. But till date he continues to remain jobless. Almost every week I get calls from some NGO stating a child is in need of a urgent surgery & the parents are not able to afford. I donated couple of times before wondering how do all the NGOs get my contact? There was one time when I was the needy: I had to shift my vehicles from Karnataka to Maharashtra and needed a NOC & Life time tax refund. I tried the straightway with the RTO, but realized it is going to take ages and I didn’t have time on me. I paid Rs.15,000/- to an agent. That was one year ago. I still don’t have NOC for my car, no refunds and I’m shelling out to the traffic police in Maharashtra whenever I get caught. Atleast a dozen times at Bus or Railway stations, I get approached by people asking, “Hindi maloom hai?” Earlier I used to listen to their dard bhari daastan where they had lost their money and had to go to a faraway place, but did have the means. Nowadays I just walk away saying “Hindi nahi maloom.” Yesterday, a young well-dressed lad came up to me as I was waiting for a train at Secunderabad railway station, reading Robin Sharma’s Family Wisdom from the Monk who Sold his Ferrari. “Someone has stolen my purse. I came to write NTSC exam, I have to return to Patna..” I assessed him top-to-bottom: Spectacles, branded T-shirt, jeans & Puma shoes, a backpack… and concluded this should be a genuine case before giving him Rs.400/- (he mentioned the ticket was Rs.390/-). He invited me to join him. My train was due anytime & I didn’t accept the invitation. He said he’ll buy the ticket & return to me in 5 min. My train got delayed I was standing at the same place for the next 75 min. But the young boy never returned!

Sometimes I wonder, am I being too kind? Have I forgotten the value of money? Have I lost my analytical abilities & become vulnerable? Or is it simply that I look like an easy target?

Fear is the key

….with due respect to Alistair Maclean and Iron Maiden for stealing their title.

Imagine living as a Jew in Germany 75 years ago. You’d sleep every night thanking God for not getting ambushed and landing in a Concentration camp.

Imagine living in present day Syria. You’d not know when someone would barge into your house and do unmentionable things.

Or perhaps waking up in the Guatanamo Bay.

Scary? Are your fears justified?

Cut to the present day corporate world. Swanky offices, flashy gadgets, polished language, impeccable attire, elaborate reports, sense of pride... very easy to miss out the underlying fear behind every action undertaken. Or rather fear is camouflaged well behind curtains of either arrogance, authority or obedience.

The ultimate goal in the corporate world is to keep the shareholders assured that their money is not sitting idle. When you go to the micro-level, it boils down to showing growth – year on year, quarter to quarter, month over month the graph should keep pointing north. Any other direction and the alarm starts ringing. The game is in convincing the stakeholders that the company is doing everything possible to multiply their wealth. Lest they face the same fate as Yahoo, whose value eroded from an all-time high of $125 bn to a tad short of $5 bn when it got gobbled by Verizon. And the only ways the shareholders decide on a company’s fate is through favourable news flashed in the media or the quarterly reports emphasizing growing numbers or rising graphs. If Microsoft had not gifted the Excel to the world – perhaps it would have been a much peaceful place…

So here they are: clear, more or less monotonous & clichéd, directives trickling from the top to the grass-root level: inflate the order books, increase the revenues, maximize profitability. Period. Shareholders are not bothered about other aspects of business like market share, employee satisfaction, healthy work environment, transparent operations… unless it is proudly announced and published by companies for whom people die to work for – Google for instance.

The grass-root level is in closest contact with reality – What’s happening in the  market? Who are the new players? How’s their killer instinct? Why they are sounding attractive? What customers want? What’s the ground reality? Where is the money lying? Perhaps such vital information was well received by the top bosses in Amazon and they transformed from an online book store to a full-fledged retailer on both web & mobile platform along with last mile connectivity. Full marks to them for listening.

What if the market place is changing and the feelers from the bottom of the hierarchy are ignored by the top – or maybe the top is too obsessed with the “We are indisputable?”, “We don’t change our rules?”, “How can the customer ignore us?”. Well, Nokia did just that before going down the bottomless pit.

Here’s the catch: The ground staff and sometimes middle management are in a dilemma. “Do we voice out our opinion on the changing rules of the game?” “Will management take it negatively?” “Will we be targeted?” “Will being honest cost me my job in the long run?”

Enter Fear. And Fear can change a person in multiple ways. It shuts up criticism – constructive or otherwise. It quashes new ideas – silly or earth-shattering. It compels a person to hide vital information – good or bad. It forces manipulated projections and market share figures. It over- shadows creativity. All of these and more because the top-management has extensively used tools of fear as motivators: “Perform or perish.” “Your bonus is at stake.” “Your presence is not making a difference, perhaps your absence won’t too.”

Rolf Dobelli in “The art of thinking clearly” gives ample examples on how our decision making gets distorted by the circumstances under which it is made. In a non-conducive environment, every action tends to influenced by fear. Voicing out opinions gets shadowed by speaking what others want to hear. Healthy communication gets affected. People tend to hide facts. Slowly fear makes way for sycophancy.  If none of these are identified on time, gradually the entire organization will be filled with pretentious relationship and superficial respect. More so in countries like India where respect is demanded by the title more often than  earned by their attitude.

Deepak Chopra says, “Fear does many things to a person, but fundamentally it makes us feel insecure. Feeling secure is a most basic necessity, because without a sense of safety, the mind is preoccupied with threats instead of possibilities. If you go to work worrying that your job is on the line, it's nearly impossible to look for ways to be better at your job and approach the future creatively.”

Does that mean once you are in the corporate world, you are stuck in the spider’s web till eternity?

Need not be. Think about it: Fear is YOUR response to the stimulus. Whether you want it to come up or not has to be totally under YOUR control. All it takes is to honestly tell yourself, “I’m doing my job to the best of my capability. Me succumbing to fear is not going to increase my efficiency by any means. What is at stake? They can, at the extreme, take away my job. Not my confidence.” APJ Abdul Kalam said, “Love your job; not your company, because you may not know when your company stops loving you.”

Picture this: You are toiling in the corporate world for the well-being of your family. On a certain day you get a threat from both from your spouse and your boss. Choose the one you would prefer to ignore.

Paradox!

Get real…

Open letter to AirIndia Staff

Dear Sir,

This is to bring to your notice the treatment of Air India passengers.

The AirIndia flight from Udaipur to Mumbai AI644 was delayed on 10th Feb'16, due to technical snag, this after the aircraft started moving towards the runway with passengers onboard. Instead of letting the passengers wait on board or just outside the aircraft, everyone of them was deplaned, made to exit the airport & then wait in a long queue for a new boarding pass.

When passengers questioned what happens to our connecting flights from Mumbai, we were told that if it is AirIndia, it will be rescheduled, but for other airliners they cannot help.

We had passengers hopping through AirIndia to Goa, Bangalore & Hyderabad via Mumbai. We were told that incase there is a long delay we would be provided hotel accommodation & transport to & from the hotel.

We finally landed at Mumbai at 22.30, delayed by 4 hrs. There were no connecting flights till the next morning. Flight attendants told that there will be AirIndia staff at the baggage claim who will guide you to hotels.

At the baggage claim, the staff re-directed us to a customer service desk.

Now, there were only 2 executives at the customer service desk trying to address about 40 passengers who were waiting for clarity on the next course of action - this included foreign nationals, mothers with infants and aged pleople among others. Next 1 hr was total chaos. After waiting at the counter for an hour, we were told that they were issuing only a food coupon and no accommodation can be arranged.

So all of us were stranded at the airport for the night. Some couldn't go out as their baggage was already checked in. They said there is a lounge beyond the security check which can be used on payment. I couldn't go through security check as my bag was not checked in & the check-in counter was closed till morning.

This is sheer indifference in attitude towards customers. If some facility cannot be given, it should be told beforehand, so that people can make their own arrangements. Making the people wait at the airport till midnight & then saying we are helpless is pure unprofessional.

I'm sure private airliners would have dealt with such contingency in a much better way.

Regards,

Sharath US

Why so serious?

“Why so serious?” He sticks the blade in my mouth… “Let’s put a smile on that face!” And…

-          The Joker in the movie “The Dark Knight” (2008)

If we have to narrate a modern day fairy tale, it would run on these lines: He studied hard, scored good marks, gained some experience, got himself a beautiful wife, earned himself a job in his dream company – one of the top corporate magnates. And he lived happily ever after.

Reality check: We see these corporate bees buzzing everywhere – in airports, restaurants, swarming through city traffic, Coffee shops… We can see them pouring over their laptops, talking frantically into their phones, jotting stuff into their notepads, drowned in a serious debate with their colleagues… Now give them a second look: what’s common among all of them? There’s one thing missing in almost all the faces. The look of content. The smile of satisfaction. They are all looking tensed – as if they are walking through this like in bonded labour, like this is not the situation they would love to dwell in given a choice, like they are just caught in this black hole & have nowhere to go but to get sucked. In short there is no bliss visible in any of their faces – well, atleast most of them; these days they are used to wearing their plastic smiles the moment they get out of bed.

What does that lead us to believe? That corporate world is a maze of tension? That you got in there and you’ve lost your peace of mind? That you’ve forgotten how to flash a genuine smile?

Is this the example we want to set to the outsiders on how the corporate world works?

Is it a pre-requisite of the corporate world to wear such serious looks and stay under tremendous tension? Have we lost the way somewhere along?

Why are we tensed in the first place? The work on hand is not getting completed. The market is not favourable. The competition is getting stronger. Our colleague did not deliver upon the promise he made us. Our colleague is enjoying more than we are. We are losing out in the rat race. We are getting scolded on behalf of the firm you are working for. The customers have become more demanding & we have no option but to bend to their whims & fancies. The salary hikes are not happening the way we expected. The inflation curve is soaring much higher than the increment curve. We are not getting the much desired 30 hrs work day. We are unable to strike a work-life balance. We are unable to pursue our passions.

Now how many of these get resolved by our getting tensed? How many of these are totally under our control? Can we really do something about it? Are we trying to prove to some imaginary onlooker that we really care for what’s happening and giving a false assurance that we can take charge of something we have absolutely no control on?

Let’s face it. We, as humanity, are a tiny spec in this vast expanse of Milky Way, which in itself is a tiny spec among millions of other galaxies of its kind that constitute the universe. Now you and I are just one among the 6.5 billion other human beings within the tiny spec called earth. If we get this perspective right, we should be able to start accepting that the amount of control we can exert on our surroundings is infinitesimally small. In this arrangement of things, every human being feeling that he is a big creature striving to take charge of all the happenings around him… the path to chaos is laid.

We agree to take up responsibilities which are humanely impossible to accomplish, just for the sake of looking good before others. We wear masks that hide our true emotions, lest others feel that we are incapable. We say things that others want to hear, as we feel truth is a bitter pill which is not good to offer. We do things to gain temporary admiration & happiness, deliberately ignoring the repercussions. And when things start slipping out of our hands, we frantically look around for reasons to justify that this was bound to happen in spite of our herculean efforts. When we don’t find a fair justification, we try and throw the blame on others.

Anything that goes against the natural flow of things ends up in a mess. No wonder we end up entangled in a maze of confusion, stress, restlessness… No wonder our family gets the brunt of our office garbage… No wonder involuntarily the body responds with hormonal changes leading us to impulsive eating, compulsive smoking, habitual drinking… No wonder we end up with pot bellies, erratic blood pressures, hypertension and sugar problems… No wonder we get used to carrying pouch full of pills & powders… And only then we realize it’s time to slow down. Pause. Introspect. And resort to healthy eating, workouts and meditation. Sometimes the realization come a tad too late. Sometimes it fails to come.

It’s best to one preaching of the corporate world today: Gone are the days when you got a chance to make a mistake and learn from it. These days, you got to learn from others mistakes.

Sunday date with Ms.Lavasa

The plan was made well in advance, on my cycling trip to Sinhagad. I was searching the map and Lavasa caught my eye. Well, anything which shows green on the map draws my attention cos it means a green belt. And cycling in greenery can be fun.

I zeroed in on this Sunday. I had fine-tuned the brakes, oiled the chain and adjusted the seat so as to make the ride comfortable and eventless.

The plan was simple: Start before sun-rise. Reach Lavasa for breakfast. See whatever is there to be seen. Return home for lunch. Take rest for half a day. Be fit and fine for the week.

Unfortunately was chatting with Suzie till late in the night and could hit the sack only by 1.30. I couldn’t wake up before 6.30 and I was geared up and out by 7. While Sandeep Maheshwari’s lecture on Law of attraction v/s Law of love running in my earphones, Microsoft’s HERE maps was giving me directions. Once out of the city I switched off the maps and GPS so as to save the battery for pics n music later in the ride.

I met Jyoti, with whom I had cycled to Lonavala couple of months ago, on the way. She rode with me for about 5 kms before she stopped and decided to return. That was sad. Company on long rides are not only fun, but essential to keep the spirits up when you hit the wall.

For the next one hour I just rode – the weather was pleasant, roads were more or less flat, the lecture was giving lot of motivation… When I noticed that there were no milestones reading “Lavasa” I stopped to ask a shop-keeper. It was shock when he said that I had to take a deviation 20 kms earlier to go towards Lavasa.

I started the map just to ascertain that I was not being conned. I wasn’t. I had 2 options, go back 20 kms and then ride on to Lavasa. Or I could ride 20 kms ahead to a waterbody, which my map told was Mulshi reservoir.

I chose the second option.

As I rode on, I could see lots of people overtaking me on bikes and cars, most of them couples. I decided that when the time comes, I’ll be riding here with Suzie.

Mom called when I just spotted the water in a distance. The conversation that ensued can be summarized something like this:

“Where are you?”

“Riding to Lavasa”

“When will you be back?”

“By lunch-time”

“Is it a proper road?”

“Of course, full of tourists.”

“Don’t go to lonely areas or jungles”

“Sure”

I had some corn and onion pakoda at a small petty shop. After 60 kms of riding, this simple breakfast tasted heavenly. The maps told me that if I go 15 kms more I would hit a small path leading to Lavasa. On cross-checking with the shop-keeper, I understood that there was indeed a path, but it was not a proper road. It was under construction and leads through hills and forests.

“Just what I needed”, I beamed and registered a mental apology to Mom.

I took the cycle off the road towards the lake. After resting for a while in the cool breeze, I hit the road again.

The next 15 kms had intermittent drizzles. As long as it was not too heavy, I would enjoy the way it kept me fresh…

When I reached Tamhini, I realized what the shop-keeper meant by “under construction”. There was a weather beaten road, complete with pebbles, potholes and boulders disappearing into the hills. It didn’t deter me. I rode on. After some distance, the path was too steep and the terrain too rough to cycle even for a mountain bike; and mine was only a hybrid. So I began pushing…

Little did I realize that this exercise was to repeat several more times during the day.

The hilly stretch between Tamhini and Lavasa was arguably the best ride of my life. Deserted, green, hilly, drizzle, calm, selfies… it was a perfect concoction for adventure. I had my share of speeding downhill, passing through tribal villages, crouching under trunks when it rained heavily… Somehow I made it to Lavasa. For those who want to try it out, this particular stretch of road does not figure on Google maps.

I expected love at first site with Ms.Lavasa. But first sight was a disappointment; I was entering from the wrong side of Lavasa and all I could see was lots of construction work and a dry river. As I rode further I could spot the real Lavasa, the so called modern smart city. To put it in one sentence, Lavasa is just a small township built around a river on the lines of Italian architecture. There were loads of eateries and games for kids and families. I decided that when the time comes, I’d spend few weekends in here. 

After a quick Biriyani, I shopped at Mapro’s for a variety of fruit chews and Crush. This was a mistake – it added some 4 kgs to my backpack (which is quite a lot on such rides) and I had no idea what was waiting for me…

I had done some 90 kms since morning. Stomach full, body relaxed, I decided to start on the last 70 kms home. I asked a passer-by, “Which way is Pune?” He pointed and said, “But you can’t go on cycle. It’s steep uphill.” I had no choice. I had to reach home for the night, so as to be in office the next morning.

For the next 2 hrs, I just pushed the cycle up the hill. It looked never ending, as I could see the road snaking its way up the hills and into the clouds. To make things worse, there were these couples zipping up n down the hill on bikes. It was 6.30 in the evening when I reached the summit, fully drained. I stopped to click a pic at “Welcome to Lavasa”. I could barely force a smile.

Once up the hill, I got a steep downhill descend for 5-6 kms. I just zipped past all those bikes and cars, a childish avenging gesture, after they had climbed past me up the hill. I trusted my repair skills on the effectivity of the brakes, cos one failure on the brakes would send me flying off the hill into the inviting but deadly dam below...

The ordeal was far from over. Pune was still 50 kms away and as I went on, I encountered 3 more hills to be scaled. I guess I must have hiked some 30 kms, pushing the cycle along in the whole day, apart from over 130 kms of cycling. My thighs were crying for mercy and my shoulders felt like it was carrying the earth like Atlas.

I stopped for a mango milkshake just at the outskirts of the city. That was refreshing. But the last 15 kms through the city to reach home was on pure zombie mode – I was just mechanically pedalling devoid of any kind of emotions or feelings. All I wanted to was to reach home and crash on my bed.

By the time I did that it was 9.30 in the night.

The last thing I remember before dropping into a trance like a corpse was making a rule: No more long rides alone. I have to hunt for company now.

Bollywood Blues

Our wild estimates on the depth of our connections with Bollywood would most certainly be far from reality. Involuntarily we have grown up getting heavily influenced by the multi-billion dollar show world. We wouldn’t be very wrong if we conclude that most of our personality has been shaped by filmdom.

Let’s begin with our kids: With formal training or not, the next generation of kids appear to be born singers. The songs are usually the chartbusters of that month. We all know about the immense grasping power of children. Feed them with any kind of stimuli, it just sinks into them. And exposure to Bollywood has never been more easy & full-fledged; what with the 24 hrs movie channels, posters all across the city & also on the public transport, newspapers offering reviews, timings, advertisements, interviews related to Bollywood… Mostchildren exposed to Bollywood in the early years (3-5 yrs) talk flawless Hindi without the parents even contributing! Of course there is the current sensation: Mr.Yo Yo Honey Singh whose lyrics always linger around pubs, party, daaru and vodka… A very clear invitation for the teenagers – who adore his tunes. (Yes Sir! He has a fan following!)

From singing to dancing. Here we are not limiting to kids. Whatever little dance we display, be it just swaying of arms or gyrating butt in the bathroom & pub (those are the safest places to save yourself from the embarrassment) is learnt thanks to the choreography of Bollywood. The flow of dance steps is easier with couple of pegs down the throat. The supple among us try to ape Prabhu deva, Hrithik Roshan, Shahid Kapoor or the latest sensation Lauren Gottlieb, while the josh walas are more into Govinda. There are the high inertia ones who settle for Sunny Deol or Big B. Well, the ladies are at a disadvantage – the dancing standards are quite high among heroines (it’s a question of survival; cos most heroines survive on dance & glam quotient)

Our fighting skills – both verbal & physical – are somewhat polished by filmdom. These days we come up with out of the world logic to counter someone. And what better way to pick up abuses than the movies? Also without wearing any of the colourful belts, we know the nuances of martial arts and can faintly dodge any onslaught, without letting the attacker get away with whatever he / she intended to…

The dialogues, oh my god! If only words could kill, Indian population would be less than half of the current billion. While some lines have a short shelf life, other lines, perhaps from Mr.Bacchhan or Rajani sir, are always greeted with whistles & claps. Some of these dialogues have attained immorality. Try the variety: “Tera kya hoga Kaalia”, “Maine ek baar commit kardi, toh khud ke bhi nahi sunto..”, “bade bade deshon main aisi choti choti baath hote rehte hai”, “Don ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi namumkin hai”, “… aap purush hi nahi… maha purush ho, maha purush”,  “Dosti ka usool hai madam, no sorry, no thank you”… These dialogues, apart from teaching us pick-up lines & humorous one-liners, often give us a moral to get enlightened & to live by.

Style. The single main source of styling ideas are the movies. The tiny patch of beard below the lips in Dil Chahta hai became a rage and still is. Ajay Devgan’s mush in Gangajal or Once upon a time in Mumbai, the C-O-O-L chain of Shah rukh in Kuch Kuch hota hai were all short term fashion statements. It’s lot more intense among girls. We see frocks & chudidaars named after movies selling like hot cakes in garment shops. The hairdos, the colour combinations, shape of blouse, design of kurtis are just some of the items inspired by films. Some husbands may have got furious after the behavioural changes in their wives after watching Sonam Kapoor splurge in Aisha. If only girls could ape size-zero or the perfect hourglass figures…

In a country where love & love-making is not a popular topic of group discussion, the best tutor for these are the movies. In the past couple of decades falling in love has become a mandate among teens or those in early twenties. So much that if you don’t flaunt a girlfriend or a boyfriend, you are looked upon as an alien and slowly you sink into a complex. Who else can teach us how to patafy a girl, flirting skills, flowery talks, chivalrous gestures… not just the skills, the intent & the courage required for falling in love & standing for it, against all odds, is also drawn from the movie powerhouse. So what if there are a few who are into bhaag ke shaadi karna mode? All is fair in love & war.

That said, lovers have actually started going against all odds to make their love stories successful – and why not? When the movie stars can do it, why can’t we? Where they fail is when they don’t get to see much on what happens after marriage (most Bollywood movies end when the boy & girl have run their marathon and tied the sacred knot…) or are they trying to ape their idol’s off-screen life? If Aamir Khan & Hrithik Roshan can get out of wedlock, why can’t we?

We can go on and on correlating our lives to Bollywood. Ultimately the take away is that life as portrayed in the movies is not always close to reality. Like Morpheus says “The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this...” Although there are the likes of Anurag kashyap & sometimes Ram Gopal Verma who try to show real life on screen, most screen stories are predominantly fictitious and made larger than life with a sole purpose of entertaining the audience (& reap the harvest out of the box-office in the process). It’s totally up to us to choose what is good for us, what inspires us, what can be adopted & then shun aside the unwanted stuff… If we do not want to get into that kind of dilemma, we may as well just sit back, relax, pop a corn & enjoy the offering.