Shomprakash Sinha Roy's Blog

I’ve never been good with statistical data recall. At this point, I don’t know what the exact population of India is. But I can care to guess, as much as anyone else would, and place the number at 1.2 billion. Maybe 1.3?

That’s a lot of people. And as the postmodern world gears up to christen us the world’s largest elected democracy, I can’t help but marvel over the paradox that surrounds us in our way forward. Until they come up with another word for ‘forward’. I think I’m not that great at establishing context, either. So I’m going to take a deus-ex-machina and start with a narrative. Earlier this month, I was in Jaipur on business, and I ended up meeting a whole new bunch of people – people who hadn’t ‘existed’ on my radar, right until now. And a lot of those people became interested in my story, the ups and downs of my career, and I had to make up a lot of bullshit about ‘determination’, ‘focus’, ‘energy’ and all that crap. Truth be told, I don’t think I’m any of those things. If there’s one thing that I do – I think clearly. I don’t make irrational decisions or pretend to sell something short of genius on the subtle pretext of mass conversions. And I cherish every moment that I spend in the company of  like minded individuals. That, more than anything else in the world has helped me so far.

That line of thought helped me convince my parents that I was doing the right thing by dropping out of my engineering degree, it helped me navigate through a tedious work schedule and write the books that I wanted to, it helped me when I though I was sick enough to give up and die, and yet I couldn’t.

But it’s very rare – that line of thought. You don’t see it around you all the time. What you do see, though – is a fantastic mix of people driven by their own idea about how the world works. A remarkable number of people who have no idea how the goliaths of the world are duping them with the pseudo-saintly tools of publicity and marketing and massively emotional statements. A billion strong population, whose needs are now defined not by them, but by the blindfolds that they have willfully accepted as cushions.

A billion people, really? And it’s so strange – My father took a lot of precaution while arming me with the literature of the free world, lest I should grow into a snob. And to be fair, I don’t think this is being snobbish – I don’t know if it’s the general insensitivity of people that bothers me or their lack of knowledge, or their catastrophic denial of simple human facts.

The idea of religious singularity is currently driving a sizeable majority of my peers, and it kills me. The idea that the same kids I grew up with are blindly siding up with religious groups, that they are somehow capable of finding solace in the arms of completely illogical behavior, bothers me. The idea that ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ has been reduced to an anonymous quotation, bothers me.

But that’s not the worst part. What bothers me most, is that after sixty seven painfully long years, Indians are still driven by the dreams of easy success, of easy jobs, of easy ‘wins’. Why else would you vote for the creation of obsolete railway jobs? Those jobs will be automated in the next ten years anyway. Why else would you fight over a quota system that you can easily beat by excelling at your own thing? By letting the well-tread path… go?

Hardik Patel? Really? You want additional reservations because you feel the government is unfair? Boo Freaking Hoo, man! The world was never yours to judge for fairness. As Oliver Emberton said, the world isn’t unfair – that’s not really the problem. The problem is your broken sense of fairness. It’s a darwininan world my friend, it doesn’t matter which international border you’re protected by. If you’re still dependent on the government for ‘assuring’ you a job, or are driven by the dreams of a ‘stable’ job (read: a job where you go to work, do nothing of any importance in your 9 to 5 and expect to be paid by the exchequer at the end of every month), you’re just as pathetic as the guys trying to justify reservations.

That’s what bothers me. That there’s a strikingly low number of people who made up their minds to let go of what the world had to offer, and instead chose to sacrifice blood, life and limb towards the pursuit of satisfaction. That’s the unspoken minority. The number of Indians that I can place my hopes on, is very limited. And the ones that do exist, are being prosecuted. And there are others in that despicable majority, who support these prosecutions.

I used to be a big fan of Kurt Cobain’s suicide note, until I read this. This kid looks like he could’ve been a real change maker. His words echo power, the kind that can save this country. Or, to be politically correct, could’ve. He had the spirit to live beyond his own life, and the majority paradox killed him. He’s not alone. Stand-up comics are getting arrested, the FTII is being manipulated with, and the people who are supposed to protect us, are silent. I’m not sad about that. I’m just sad that our majority units are totally resilient to change. That there are still weird dowry transactions happening, that there’s still faith on completely baseless religious practices, and that nobody seems to be angry enough to change themselves!

This isn’t a democracy, it’s a failed democratic state. This is a state which doesn’t deserve to be democratic, because for a change, the majority’s needs aren’t in the best interest of social upliftment. The educated minority is bleeding, and between these two pillars, we have a bunch of weird, smiling faces that are laughing their way into oblivion.

Also – that Jaipur story? This guy I met, drew a comparison between me and the protagonist of ‘Three Mistakes of My Life’. Yup. That’s right. That’s how much the planet hates me.

Peace.

This is it! The big one before thirty. The infamous twenty five. Every year, when I sit down to do this, hours before the clock strikes zero hour on my birthday -I usually think about the year before. I wonder if I’m doing any better than last time, and honestly speaking, this has become a ritual that just…. sticks. (Also, It lets me pretend that I’m a blogger.)

Twenty Five. Shit.

Technically, this is the last day of my life when I can proclaim to be a young twenty-something guy/kid in his early twenties. This moment onwards, adulthood discontinues being a distant fetish and transcends into sad reality. Cometh the time, when grey hair will not be a matter of surprise, but patient discovery. But. Having remained an optimist for a better part of my life, I think I might just be a tad too paranoid about all of this. So – let’s do a relative checklist of the things that I’ve really worked on, the  things that have improved, the problems that I’ve ‘vanquished’. Let’s get down to business and figure out the pros and cons of my premature aging phobia.

Birthday 2014 vs Birthday 2015. Bring it on!

One – I was hopelessly lovelorn last year, trying to fight writer’s block and weight management issues at the same time. I guess I’m still doing that on so many levels. And I’m yet to see her again. On the plus side, I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo 2015, which hides an extremely subtle effort of trying to be young again. I’m pinning my hopes on getting into the whole 2012 wacky-kid mindset, maybe that’ll work.

Two – Upgraded my writing hardware, but the results are yet to appear. Perpetually frustrated about that. Every day that I don’t write feels like the burden of a lifetime, but the edge of the rainbow is just too slippery to hold on to.

Three – Working at a much cooler office now, so that’s a one-up (I guess).

Four – I was hospitalized about four times this year, the last instance being near fatal, but my oddly designed body seemed to pull through.

Five – I think I have realized more things that make me a bad person, than things to lift my spirits. For instance, I’m gradually getting closer to the realization that I’m probably not the saint/prodigal son/savior of mankind that I once thought myself to be. I’m just as selfish as the crowd that I’ve despised all my life, maybe in different ways but selfish nevertheless. I have some excellent books, movies and guest lectures to thank for that realization. I’m not sure if that gets birthday 2015 a hit or a miss, but I feel weirdly ‘light’ knowing the other side of me. What’s better – an idealist who lives in ignorance of emotions around him, or a slightly bent brat who has the privilege of being loved by wonderful people? I’d do my life all over again the same way in a heartbeat, thanks to the people out there who care for me. Because even as I rant and rant and rant about how miserable my life is and how this early mid life crisis syndrome stuff sucks balls, fact remains that there have always been people to catch me and push me back up and assure me that all is not lost. Yet.

So, birthday or no birthday, Thank you.

And then there’s always John Green with the best collection of inspirational words in any.video.he.makes. That singularly is an anti depressant. And I have my parents. And I have my friends. And I have MSR (Yech!) :) What more does a 25 year old guy need, anyway?

Bring it on, 2016. I’m going to rock the shit out of you.

Sincerely,

Shomprakash Sinha Roy

“Stories should be simple” she used to say. Although a startling discovery at first, the clarity of her words eventually found a small passage into my mind on a rather breezy rain-kissed night, sitting through what can only be described as a false siesta on my bed.

My immediate response to her requests of simplicity was usually a moment of silence followed by a distracting display of affection, and it almost always worked. There was never any damning evidence of my silent betrayal. Her lips would curl into a grin, too honest for satire and too happy to be ‘happy’. There have always been these turbulent phases in which my mind yearned to forget and learn seemingly irrelevant things about life, love and other ridiculously simple mysteries. Words have often rescued me from my perpetual abyss. It was difficult to imagine how, then, I was so irrevocably in love with her and jealous of her simplicity all at once. Sometimes at night when she looked away or breathed in the air around us in adorable little puffs, I would stare at her for hours, wondering where the labyrinthine walls between us collapsed.

I could recall a million instances when she had asked me about the kind of girl I dreamed of ending up with. I corrected her every time, with the playful innocence of a new lover in scorn. I told her that it wasn’t who I would end up with, but with whom I could share a clean slate. And in my head, I believed it too. My idea of romance was lined with an eternal beginning. I had heard stories of couples who claimed to be at the twilight of their relationships, and I was too drunk on positivity to even stop for a moment and measure the audacity of my hopes against the dredges of history.

After all, how many love stories really have happy endings? It surely wasn’t a hopeful number – for most of the angst surrounding us was driven by the rage that follows lovers’ spats. She & I had witnessed in equal measure the destruction of spirits among friends, disconcertingly content in their solitude. Every time a man lost the love of his life around me, I would shudder and thank whoever was listening – that my soul had been spared the misery of the simplest of failures known to humans. And at that same instant, a voice in my head would remind me that I was heading down that same path, driven by the general insecurity of all humankind. It became a punishment at first, knowing that my mind considered the act of shunning loneliness a sin in my world of anarchy, and that yet – my hands didn’t seem to want to let go of her hands.

“Mmmmm puchapuchu gggggguubbugaaa purrrrr….mmmm mm” She made an illegible and wildly cute noise as she turned in bed, her face devoid of the wrinkles that carry desperation in mine. Whether by a figment of my imagination or otherwise, I felt her grip around my arms strengthen. It was as if she knew that her simplicity could protect me from my never-ending questions. And that’s when I stopped studying her face and just looked. I looked at the beginning of what can be, at the tip of an iceberg destined to haul my ship into an ocean of bliss. As the wings on my mind fluttered and writhed in the agony of losing my questions, the answers melted into me, moving inside me like liquid hope – creating sensations that I had never felt before. I held her closer.

“Stories should be simple” I whispered into her ears, and imagined her lips curling into a complete smile and then added on. “Ours is.”

And as I kissed her good night and drowned myself in the undeniable glory of the moment, I told myself. This is the beginning. 

Fin.

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Hi All,

This is a neat little fix for an OS X Yosemite issue which has plagued me for quite some time, and it appears others have had this issue too.

Issue Description : Safari refuses to open web pages after your Mac goes to sleep and resumes. This can also happen if you close the lid and pull it back up. All other web functionalities remain operational (Mail, Chat, Other browsers).

Solution :

1. Open the Spotlight Bar (Command + Space)

2. Type “terminal” and press return.

3. Copy-paste the line below (click thrice to select)

sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags -h nouchg,nouappnd,noschg,nosappnd {} + -exec chown -h $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -h -N {} + -type d -exec chmod -h +x {} + 2>&-

4. Press return

5. Enter your login password (It won’t be displayed on screen)

6. Wait for the command to finish processing ($ sign will appear once done)

7. Exit the terminal

8. ….and, done.

The command saved a lot of my time, and hopefully it’ll help you too.

As a child, one of the earliest memories that I have of a short story – is one where Ruskin Bond describes an encounter with the spirit of Rudyard Kipling, over a bar-counter in Dehradun. My best guess as to how old I was back then, is eleven. I found the story in Swagat – which was an Indian Airlines in-flight magazine back then. (I don’t know if the magazine still persists, I haven’t flown with those guys ever since.)

One story about a confused writer – looking at the pale, distant face of a legend – that reeled me in with the simplicity of a knife slicing through cheesecake. And right then, I discovered something about myself. The traditional concept of beauty is not something I was familiar with. If it takes a little more persuasion to drive the point home – I was never excited at the on-screen presence of “Timeless Beauties” like Madhuri Dixit or Karishma Kapoor, as most of my peers were. I wasn’t into it, and that sense of departure from how my friends reacted to various objects of beauty- was liberating for me. To an extent, I admit- it gave me some weird form of ego-boost to imagine & understand that I was different from the lot, I wasn’t built or programmed the way other people are designed.

It is believed by many wise men & women, that the things we get really irritated by, are the things that we hate about our own selves. For instance, when we traditionally get angry at a person or upset over someone’s behavior – we’re not really angry at that person. We’re upset with the predictions that we make about that person, based on how we would have reacted to that exact same stimulus. I remember being angry a lot, as a kid – when my friends would get excited at the prospect of watching a Bollywood Award Ceremony on television- or a dance by the ruling Bollywood diva. Was I angry because I hated their interest in the concept of traditional beauty? No- I was angry at the idea of me being excited by that exact same thing. And today – when I imagine those millions of people looking at simple, beautiful objects – walking past on the streets, ignoring every flower, ignoring every stream of clear water, ignoring every cleverly crafted billboard- Am I angry at them? Not in a million years. I’m angry because I can’t do any of those things. I’m blind. Should I say – blind-ed by that accident so many years ago? I don’t know. And at this point, I don’t think I even remember the details.

Sorry, Mr. Keats. Your poetic words of wisdom about how we can enjoy a thing of beauty – I don’t believe that theory applies to me. I was very weird as a child, and my weirdness has paid off every inch in the form of thick, dusty stacks of paper which nobody wants to read.

“Still thinking about the past?” She whispers into my ears, bending over my shoulder. I can’t see, but I can sense her odor wafting through every inch of the air that surrounds me. It’s a decent combination of wood, chocolate and wine- I suspect she has been doing it for years just to please me, and I’ve never complained. Truth be told – I don’t think I would’ve allowed this connection to exist between us, had she not met me before the accident.

It was different back then. Everything was – brighter. A shrill voice in my head reminds me all the time – that my effective distaste towards beauty could very well be a direct result of me not being able to see her face anymore. Once again, strengthening the theory that I don’t detest beauty – I’m angry at myself because I can no longer see her.

I don’t want her to know that I’m upset. Mainly because she hasn’t cried in so long, that I’ve forgotten how she looks like when she’s sad. I cannot, for the love of god – begin to visualize her face when she isn’t happy – in the darkness behind my eyelids. The easiest part of my day begins and ends with the moment when she smiles at me. I can’t tell for sure because I can’t see; I just know. It’s hard to describe how I can sense her joy. I think it has something to do with the fact that her smiling face is the last living memory of my non-blind self. In my short-lived career as a physically able writer, I had met several women – encompassing & surrounding them with adjectives that would have put Shakespeare to shame. And somehow, when I met her – All i could manage to talk about was my inexplicable attraction towards the mahogany bar-stool where Ruskin Bond claimed to have met Kipling’s spirit. She took it rather well, I must say.

Ah, the day when I first saw her. She came to me with the innocence of a leaf that hasn’t bloomed in a thousand springs. It’s one thing to look at someone and say that they’re beautiful – and an entirely different thing to look at someone for the first time and be transported into your childhood, standing at the exact same spot on the side of the road for hours at a stretch, looking at a billboard that fascinates you. When I saw her for the first time, with absolutely no idea of how her touch felt like, on my skin – of how fast her veins could pump blood, of how easily she could pierce my heart and put it back together – I knew that she was the billboard and I was the child.

I think it was a hot day when I saw her. Partly windy, judging by my memory of her hair fluttering within the careful entrapment of a black & silver scarf. Hiding behind a truck, I didn’t see much reason in peeping out too obviously. The child & the billboard have ever since, enjoyed a silent relationship of mutual admiration, or so I have come to believe. In the conversations which had preceded our first meeting, she had jokingly spoken about this little tooth which stuck out a little bit, when she pursed her lips and smiled. She had remarked that it made her look like a vampire.

“I love Vampires.” I had said. I know that sounds corny when you play it back, and it doesn’t make sense when you’re talking to someone over the phone. But when you look at someone (Child, Billboard) and you’re ready to imagine that the human barrier of blood doesn’t exist, the remark holds good.

Behind that same truck, when I managed to sneak a glimpse of her lips, the idea of dissolving into her veins, making my way through that mouth and then inside her- seemed like a journey which I should pursue. That’s the thing about not meeting someone and drawing a mental picture of them based on what they say or what they sound like. Over the phone, her enthusiasm in meeting me was too compelling to ignore. In person, she resembled an invitation to glorious disaster, walking on two legs, one frail step at a time. She was wearing those wayfarer glares that didn’t let me look into her eyes right away. But it added an element of foreboding, when she turned her face around to look for the entrance to my house, and I couldn’t tell where she was looking.

Spying on her was the kind of thrill that told me it was dangerous, and yet there was no turning away from it. For about five minutes – that’s three hundred seconds – four hundred and fifty hurried heartbeats – a hundred footsteps – she kept walking, and the voices in my head kept fighting over who gets to admire her first.

You know how some girls add little shades of henna over tiny streaks of hair? In this care, most of the lit streaks fell on her face. She has sworn to me, and I have believed her for years – that it always happens by accident. But in one mischievous corner of my head, there’s a voice that still believes that every particle of hair on her head knew that I was looking at them, and that instant when I first noticed her face, had been planned a million years in advance.

At present, she leans in a bit closer to the couch, reminding of the time when I could see, and could pull her over myself – enveloping her in my arms so that I’d never let her go.

“Hey! You need to tell me, what do you keep thinking about all day?” She complains, breathing into my neck.

When a person defines your idea of passion, can you really tell them that you hate yourself for not being able to see them?

“I’m thinking of the time when you touched me for the first time.” I lie.

It’s not a cruel lie – It’s a pleasant memory, warped into those areas of my head, which have now been damaged beyond recognition. I don’t know how my face looks in the mirror anymore. The only cognitive link between my appearance and my thoughts, is her innocent laughter.

I was still watching, hiding behind the truck. I don’t know what I was thinking – is it possible to keep yourself hidden for an eternity, trying to delay one moment so that forever gets to be a little longer? I mean – with terrible things like technology creeping into our lives with such unfathomable speed, it’s hard to defer such moments of glory. Within about three minutes, she had pulled out her cellphone and dialed my number. “Where are you…. sssir?” She had managed to utter when I had answered.

My phone rings now, somewhere in the vicinity I assume. I can feel her lifting her chin off my shoulder, and the tresses of her hair brushing against my face tell me that she’s turning her head to look. My hand reaches up, to feel her lips and I tell her – “It’s okay, let it be. Just stay here.”

Right after I had jumped out from behind the truck, I think it had taken her a while before she could digest the fact that I was that same man she had been speaking to all this while, in flesh & blood. And I was as excited as a little kid, delighted to meet every flavor of candy I had ever craved for, all at once. I don’t think she had realized back then, how much of a nutcase I was.

After exchanging courteous pleasantries, when we went back up to my room – she remarked that she liked my honesty. I had informed her that the room was worse than Delhi Belly standards. It was a bachelor pad – I think the seventh one I had stayed in, during my days of liberated vision in the city. I blended in pretty well with the surroundings, dressed in a T-Shirt that said “Don’t sleep, meditate” and a red pullover and a pair of black, dusty shorts.

She was dressed like an Arabian Dream. A black shrug around her shoulders (I have to credit her about my knowledge of women’s clothing. I didn’t know what a shrug was, until she told me), a black sleeveless top underneath it, and a pair of pink aladdinish harem pants. (Once again, the knowledge of the term goes to her credit. All I could manage to come up with, was “Nice Aladdin Pants”)

And then she had taken off her shades, and looked into my eyes.

At present, she bends over and looks into the curtain of darkness where my eyes should’ve been. Maybe it’s fair that a cynic gets to spend his last days as an invalid addition to the world, as the thing he craves the most, is staring right at him.

I can smell you. I can see your eyes in the darkness. I can reach forward, just a little bit and feel your lips entwined in mine. I can gladly lose myself on your slightly slippery tongue. I can reach into my dead, black heart and pull out that side of me which yearns to excite you, feel you bite into my neck and think of that one seductive tooth, rupturing my skin and pulling me into yourself. Yes, I can hold your hands in mine, let our fingers melt into each other and I can feel every inch of your nails digging into me.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Right now, I’m not this blind guy, dreaming of mahogany bar-stools and cursing award ceremonies, nonchalant about where my phone is. Right now, I’m looking at you, in your Aladdin pants. Right now, I’m the child and you’re my billboard. Right now, I’m Ruskin Bond and you’re Rudyard Kipling. Right now, I’m twenty two and you’re twenty one. Right now, you’re taking off your glares, sitting down on the bed, shivering, asking me to look away. Right now, I’m that boy, happier than the happiest man he’s ever seen, more enthusiastic that he’s ever been, a little more hyper than charlie sheen. I’m that boy. The hungry kid who leans into his candy, breathing in a little whiff of ecstasy, tasting a nibble of his fantasies in you, dissolving into you.

I’m not the guy trying to find my own tears with my hands, searching for your face anymore. I’m not blind when you’re around me.

“Did you say anything?” She asks me. She must’ve noticed that I’m clasping her hands really tight now.

“Nah… Could you come a little closer?” I murmur.

My Mahogany Shrine.

The End (?)

About the Author: Shomprakash Sinha Roy is a bestselling author of Fiction & Non-Fiction in India, winning accolades such as the Whistling Woods Young Achiever Award in 2013 & Getting nominated to the Forbes Influencers List in 2014. He is 24 years old, and a Tongue-in-Cheek Sly Devil who doesn’t fail in the act of weird repartee. He lives alone, in Bangalore & spends time criticizing his own books, most of which are available at http://tr.im/shom

He rants on Facebook, at http://facebook.com/BrandShom.

Twitter : http://twitter.com/thenewauthor

In 1999, Edward Norton and Brad Pitt (Sexiest Man Alive, blah blah blah) gave us a gem of a movie – in the form of Fight Club. And as Heath Ledger’s now-immortal character would comment – Everybody went crazy. Not because the movie was about blood & gore – enough to inspire a minor riot (it was… in retrospect). But also because the movie went beyond the “Awwww sho cute” of traditional cinema.

I was nine years old at the time, blissfully lost in the romantic escapades of SRK in Single Screen Movie Halls. We were acutely aware of the existence of this distant concept called Hollywood – the only connection in essence being the fact that Bollywood was Hollywood with a B.  And the Academy Awards – now conveniently retitled as The Oscars (I suspect that the Indian Colloquial Influence factor played a role here) – were a set of awards from which our own Filmfare must have been inspired. At least, that’s what my nine-year old self was aware of.

Then I grew up. And again, as Heath Ledger would say – I went crazy.

I discovered Martin Scorsese, Guy Ritchie, Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan and this whole new breed of rebels behind IMAX Cameras (Funny story- My friend Gaurav was telling me the other day, about how Anne Hathaway managed to crash one out of the only four IMAX cameras in the world during the Rises shoot. But then – come on. She wore that leather suit. She can be excused!). Anyway – these directors & storytellers did not seem to be bound by the laws of simplicity which had come to govern modern cinema.

Case in point – The recent Bollywood flick featuring Varun Dhawan (Badlapur). I thought the movie was doing really well – until the frame where the director decided to include an element of uninvited righteousness. For years at a stretch, we have been obsessed with this weird fetish of Happy, uninspired, simple endings. The hero must win, Good must prevail over evil, and all that jazz. And then on the other side – there’s the new bunch.

Blood Diamond – The main guy dies. The Departed – Everybody dies. And Fight Club took it a step further. They didn’t tell us if the lead guy lives or dies. Edward Norton clasps Helena Bonham Carter’s hand and says “You’ve met me at a very strange time of my life.” and the music kicks in. And the buildings start blowing up around them. The credit system falls to ashes, celebrating the rise of independent lunacy.

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a Cinematic experience which is as powerful. (Those probably are just overwhelming thoughts – I mean, yes. I cry when I watch Titanic Reruns and Rose has to let go of Jack’s hand.)

But the point is – it’s tough to beat that kind of cinema. And if you have seen the movie, I think you’ll interpret the rest of this article the way I want you to. All said  & done, since Fight Club established itself as a thinking man’s erotica, it should have won the Oscars – right?

Apparently not.

In 1999, beating Fight Club to take away the golden lady, was none other than the Kevin Spacey flick American Beauty. Why? As per a series of Quora Answers here, one user has excellently observed that the Oscars have always been about neat, crisp, clear scripts- ones where at least one protagonist lives, ones where romance/patriotism are overtly justified at the end, and of-course, ones which are simple enough for a larger section of our audiences to understand.

1999 wasn’t a one-off setting either. As recently as today – in the 87th Academy Awards (or Oscars) – The superbly crafted Interstellar by Christopher Nolan wasn’t even nominated in the category for Best Picture. And that might just have been the reason for this outburst. So if there are any American Beauty fans out there – I think a simple sorry will do well to rest my case.

For others like me – dear fans of Nolan, Scorsese & Ritchie – if you, too think that there’s something fundamentally wrong in the acknowledgement of one section of cinema by mere virtue of it’s simplicity – and the total ignorance of another section because it’s different and takes a little more grey cells to comprehend – be angry with me. Let’s be angry together. Let’s go apeshit crazy. Let us….. remember that The Dark Knight didn’t win in 2008 either. And of course, our man Leo is still to get his hands around the golden lady.

Do you have a list of movies that should have won an Oscar according to you but didn’t? Feel free to add your thoughts in comments.

About the Author: Shomprakash Sinha Roy is a bestselling author of Fiction & Non-Fiction in India, winning accolades such as the Whistling Woods Young Achiever Award in 2013 & Getting nominated to the Forbes Influencers List in 2014. He is 24 years old, and a Tongue-in-Cheek Sly Devil who doesn’t fail in the act of weird repartee. He lives alone, in Bangalore & spends time criticizing his own books, most of which are available at http://tr.im/shom

He rants on facebook, at http://facebook.com/BrandShom.

Twitter : http://twitter.com/thenewauthor

In 1999, Edward Norton and Brad Pitt (Sexiest Man Alive, blah blah blah) gave us a gem of a movie – in the form of Fight Club. And as Heath Ledger’s now-immortal character would comment – Everybody went crazy. Not because the movie was about blood & gore – enough to inspire a minor riot (it was… in retrospect). But also because the movie went beyond the “Awwww sho cute” of traditional cinema.

I was nine years old at the time, blissfully lost in the romantic escapades of SRK in Single Screen Movie Halls. We were acutely aware of the existence of this distant concept called Hollywood – the only connection in essence being the fact that Bollywood was Hollywood with a B.  And the Academy Awards – now conveniently retitled as The Oscars (I suspect that the Indian Colloquial Influence factor played a role here) – were a set of awards from which our own Filmfare must have been inspired. At least, that’s what my nine-year old self was aware of.

Then I grew up. And again, as Heath Ledger would say – I went crazy.

I discovered Martin Scorsese, Guy Ritchie, Quentin Tarantino, Christopher Nolan and this whole new breed of rebels behind IMAX Cameras (Funny story- My friend Gaurav was telling me the other day, about how Anne Hathaway managed to crash one out of the only four IMAX cameras in the world during the Rises shoot. But then – come on. She wore that leather suit. She can be excused!). Anyway – these directors & storytellers did not seem to be bound by the laws of simplicity which had come to govern modern cinema.

Case in point – The recent Bollywood flick featuring Varun Dhawan (Badlapur). I thought the movie was doing really well – until the frame where the director decided to include an element of uninvited righteousness. For years at a stretch, we have been obsessed with this weird fetish of Happy, uninspired, simple endings. The hero must win, Good must prevail over evil, and all that jazz. And then on the other side – there’s the new bunch.

Blood Diamond – The main guy dies. The Departed – Everybody dies. And Fight Club took it a step further. They didn’t tell us if the lead guy lives or dies. Edward Norton clasps Helena Bonham Carter’s hand and says “You’ve met me at a very strange time of my life.” and the music kicks in. And the buildings start blowing up around them. The credit system falls to ashes, celebrating the rise of independent lunacy.

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced a Cinematic experience which is as powerful. (Those probably are just overwhelming thoughts – I mean, yes. I cry when I watch Titanic Reruns and Rose has to let go of Jack’s hand.)

But the point is – it’s tough to beat that kind of cinema. And if you have seen the movie, I think you’ll interpret the rest of this article the way I want you to. All said  & done, since Fight Club established itself as a thinking man’s erotica, it should have won the Oscars – right?

Apparently not.

In 1999, beating Fight Club to take away the golden lady, was none other than the Kevin Spacey flick American Beauty. Why? As per a series of Quora Answers here, one user has excellently observed that the Oscars have always been about neat, crisp, clear scripts- ones where at least one protagonist lives, ones where romance/patriotism are overtly justified at the end, and of-course, ones which are simple enough for a larger section of our audiences to understand.

1999 wasn’t a one-off setting either. As recently as today – in the 87th Academy Awards (or Oscars) – The superbly crafted Interstellar by Christopher Nolan wasn’t even nominated in the category for Best Picture. And that might just have been the reason for this outburst. So if there are any American Beauty fans out there – I think a simple sorry will do well to rest my case.

For others like me – dear fans of Nolan, Scorsese & Ritchie – if you, too think that there’s something fundamentally wrong in the acknowledgement of one section of cinema by mere virtue of it’s simplicity – and the total ignorance of another section because it’s different and takes a little more grey cells to comprehend – be angry with me. Let’s be angry together. Let’s go apeshit crazy. Let us….. remember that The Dark Knight didn’t win in 2008 either. And of course, our man Leo is still to get his hands around the golden lady.

Do you have a list of movies that should have won an Oscar according to you but didn’t? Feel free to add your thoughts in comments.

About the Author: Shomprakash Sinha Roy is a bestselling author of Fiction & Non-Fiction in India, winning accolades such as the Whistling Woods Young Achiever Award in 2013 & Getting nominated to the Forbes Influencers List in 2014. He is 24 years old, and a Tongue-in-Cheek Sly Devil who doesn’t fail in the act of weird repartee. He lives alone, in Bangalore & spends time criticizing his own books, most of which are available at http://tr.im/shom

He rants on facebook, at http://facebook.com/BrandShom.

Twitter : http://twitter.com/thenewauthor

You’re different.

You’re not the same as people who surround you.

Where people see shades of black & white, you spot that filthy little gradient.

That’s your little curse.

You didn’t want to make a  lot of money when you were growing up.

You wanted to be really, really famous.

You didn’t play Cricket or Football like the others did.

You didn’t play with Barbie. You stayed away from Teddy Bears.

You had your eyes set on Woody Allen. On Arundhati Roy. On Salman Rushdie.

You got bullied in High School.

You were pushed into little restrooms and held by the collar, by people who demanded that you stop being a creepy smart-ass.

You didn’t want that perfect score in English, you never craved for it. But you were good at it, and the blissful ignorance of the administrative forces of this world ensured that you were labelled as an unnecessarily good guy/girl.

You never faltered on the stage. You owned it.

The world tried its best to bring you down from the stage.

You stayed awake for the Late Show with David Letterman.

They pulled the plug on your Broadband Connection.

You grew older, realized that you didn’t have to follow the crowd.

They said you couldn’t be different, but you chose to do it anyway.

You didn’t view money as an object. They used it like a weapon.

You thought your creation was the purpose of your existence.

They told you that the purpose of your existence was a face free of pimples and a body free of fat.

You didn’t like cheesy poems by cheeky poets.

They loved the cheeky poems. Adored the cheeky poets.

You took a stand. They forced you down.

You took a liking to that new Politician. They trashed him.

You thought of John Green as a literary savior. They turned him into a fashion accessory.

You thought the stage was your world. They kept repeating “The world is a stage”.

Their faces looked like zombies, and you kept quiet. They applied mascara.

You went out on a limb and sang to the world. They distributed earplugs.

You made a mistake. You thought death was the worst outcome of Life.

They showed you how wrong you were.

You’re different. Nobody cared.

You’re different. Nobody understood.

You’re different. Everyone’s indifferent.

You hate the fact that most people don’t know the difference.

Once again – They don’t care.

Time out.

About the Author: Shomprakash Sinha Roy is a bestselling author of Fiction & Non-Fiction in India, winning accolades such as the Whistling Woods Young Achiever Award in 2013 & Getting nominated to the Forbes Influencers List in 2014. He is 24, a Tongue-in-Cheek Sly Devil who doesn’t fail in the act of weird repartee. He lives alone, in Bangalore & spends time criticizing his own books, most of which are available at http://tr.im/shom

He rants on facebook, at http://facebook.com/BrandShom.

Twitter : http://twitter.com/thenewauthor

You’re different.

You’re not the same as people who surround you.

Where people see shades of black & white, you spot that filthy little gradient.

That’s your little curse.

You didn’t want to make a  lot of money when you were growing up.

You wanted to be really, really famous.

You didn’t play Cricket or Football like the others did.

You didn’t play with Barbie. You stayed away from Teddy Bears.

You had your eyes set on Woody Allen. On Arundhati Roy. On Salman Rushdie.

You got bullied in High School.

You were pushed into little restrooms and held by the collar, by people who demanded that you stop being a creepy smart-ass.

You didn’t want that perfect score in English, you never craved for it. But you were good at it, and the blissful ignorance of the administrative forces of this world ensured that you were labelled as an unnecessarily good guy/girl.

You never faltered on the stage. You owned it.

The world tried its best to bring you down from the stage.

You stayed awake for the Late Show with David Letterman.

They pulled the plug on your Broadband Connection.

You grew older, realized that you didn’t have to follow the crowd.

They said you couldn’t be different, but you chose to do it anyway.

You didn’t view money as an object. They used it like a weapon.

You thought your creation was the purpose of your existence.

They told you that the purpose of your existence was a face free of pimples and a body free of fat.

You didn’t like cheesy poems by cheeky poets.

They loved the cheeky poems. Adored the cheeky poets.

You took a stand. They forced you down.

You took a liking to that new Politician. They trashed him.

You thought of John Green as a literary savior. They turned him into a fashion accessory.

You thought the stage was your world. They kept repeating “The world is a stage”.

Their faces looked like zombies, and you kept quiet. They applied mascara.

You went out on a limb and sang to the world. They distributed earplugs.

You made a mistake. You thought death was the worst outcome of Life.

They showed you how wrong you were.

You’re different. Nobody cared.

You’re different. Nobody understood.

You’re different. Everyone’s indifferent.

You hate the fact that most people don’t know the difference.

Once again – They don’t care.

Time out.

About the Author: Shomprakash Sinha Roy is a bestselling author of Fiction & Non-Fiction in India, winning accolades such as the Whistling Woods Young Achiever Award in 2013 & Getting nominated to the Forbes Influencers List in 2014. He is 24, a Tongue-in-Cheek Sly Devil who doesn’t fail in the act of weird repartee. He lives alone, in Bangalore & spends time criticizing his own books, most of which are available at http://tr.im/shom

He rants on facebook, at http://facebook.com/BrandShom.

Twitter : http://twitter.com/thenewauthor

My blog hates me. It’s true! I don’t blame it either – If I was my blog, I would feel like the neglected half of a dysfunctional relationship. And to think that I only return here on occasions, only makes it worse.

So, about twenty minutes before my 24th birthday, I want to say sorry to my blog. And to my dream of writing, because lately I’ve let the elusive and leisurely idea of a ‘block’ influence me into not writing. What made me change my mind?

It’s something I heard earlier today. Something my colleague told me about. See, the whole reason I started writing apart from a childish fantasy of mine, was because I believed in the power of human empathy. I’m someone who cries at an emotional movie. I cried while reading ‘Three mistakes of my life’ – the part where Ali says he’d rather be an Indian for all his lives, rather than bowing down to the great Indian aspiration and get rich.

Since this is an honest disclosure, I’m not going to lie and tell you or my blog that I’m innocent in this context. Like many people I know, I too have a knack of running after money. It has been built into me like a way of life – although I did not grow up in abject poverty, I have seen a phase of life where I couldn’t buy those little luxuries for myself because we didn’t have surplus money. And for the last few days, I’ve been avoiding writing something potentially spectacular only because I had my doubts about how much it would hold out financially.

Anyways, back to what I heard this morning. There was a 3 day old baby boy found in an open dustbin behind Orion Mall in Bangalore recently. With a slit throat. Evidently, somebody left the baby to die for reasons which we’ll never know for sure. In my country, in the country that you & I live in – both you and me know, that in the absence of divine intervention, this baby is destined to die. But that didn’t happen.

A 19 year old college student found the baby. He didn’t ignore the situation as many of us ignore road accidents. He did not flinch before dropping everything on his schedule. He carried the baby to the nearest hospital, which reportedly denied being involved in what they called a possibly shady affair.

This college kid then took the baby to the Ramaiah Hospital. Upon knowing about the sky-high price for treatment, he went out and pawned his gold chain to raise the money. Again, he did not have time to stop and consider this, which was a boon. He just did it anyway. He raised the money. The baby lives.

My love for literature began as a selfless journey, and then somehow got entangled in a web of aspirations. I cannot promise that I will fix myself on that scale completely over the next one year, but I will try. I will try to be less narcissistic, more understanding in my work. And I will get back to doing what I started. Writing for a reason, however obscure and far-fetched that may be.

Maybe the spirit of halloween will forgive me then.

Happy Birthday, Shomprakash Sinha Roy.

And Happy 5th Birthday to Pedestrians, the band.