Victory & Defeat

“If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.”

– Jean-Paul Sartre

As they say, your mentality, perseverance, and sometimes a stroke of luck is what makes winning a win and losing a loss. Just like a magician, if you reveal the secrets behind your success or successful demonstration of the magic trick, people are eventually going to lose their interest in your supposed success. Likewise, if you tell your story of your achievement in great detail, it might trivialize your victory by making it look like a child’s play and cause the line separating success from failure to fade away in the process.

 

 

Saying Goodbye to College

A year ago I would have died for certain people. A year later, half of them are dead to me.

I know it’s not the good way to remember your college. But it’s a harsh truth. We create things and we destroy it. It all changes so quickly. We change. Our life changes. Our college changes. There are new students, maybe some new teachers as well. But two things that don’t change are ― the change itself; and, of course, the speed of light in vacuum.

Bidding adieu to your college is really a hard thing not because you really loved studying and going to college but because you have got the people there who seem to care about you, listen to you, or just make you shut up— a crazy bunch of people who were once strangers, now seem like one. Anyway, it’s all good because sooner or later you’re just going to live with a selected few people who can stand you. A college is a place where you created memories— some good, some bad, and a lot of embarrassing ones. Also, some boring and detestable moments which are slowly assuaged by time seem to float around your eyes as you think of going to college in the lava-like hot and incinerating summer days. Or in other words, waiting-dating-elating-separating-mbating-frustrating days.

No matter how much you hated waking up in the morning, facing the seemingly never-ending chain of exams, deadlines, piled-up work― everything was and is destined to last some day or other. One tension takes over the other. You could say life is a box full of tensions, you never know what you’re gonna deal with. In the end, we can just take comfort in the fact that it once was a part of our life.

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Unearthed some hilarious pictures while cleaning up mobile phone

Storytelling gone wrong 1

Storytelling gone wrong 2

Just another file page

A random painting of mine…

Sigh of Serenity

 

 

 

Call Me When You Need Me

Contributing Subtitles and CC on Youtube

Ever since Youtube rolled out the option of adding captions/subtitles on Youtube videos, it has been a lot easier for the viewers worldwide to watch and understand what they otherwise probably cannot.

Now you can watch Youtube videos with captions in Hindi and also in some other Indian languages like Bengali and Tamil. These subtitles for multiple Indian languages are only available in a handful of videos yet— especially videos of popular channels with millions of views. But the future is very bright for regional languages.

You can also help Youtube and eventually the general audience in this knowledge-sharing initiative. You can follow the link given at the end of this post to make your contribution matter. You can also help in reviewing the already contributed subtitles. What’s more, if your content gets approved, you can get credited for your contribution on the video.

Catch this popular science channel Kurzgesagt’s video in Hindi.
Subtitles provided by yours humbly.

– BPC

Click here for more information

ग़ज़ल: एक प्रयास

अंतर्राष्‍ट्रीय मातृभाषा दिवस पर मैं भी कुछ साल पहले लिखी पंक्तियाँ ग़ज़ल के तौर पर पेश कर रहा हूँ। ये बहुत ही निम्न दर्जे के मिसरे हैं लेकिन फिर भी थोड़ा बेशर्म होकर इन्हें आपके सामने रख रहा हूँ।

साहिल के भी किनारे देखे हैं
कुछ सितम उनके भी प्यारे देखे हैं

देखने को तो बेख़बर हैं मगर
नज़रों ने उनके इशारे देखे हैं

मंजिल तो आज भी दूर है लेकिन
सपनों ने कुछ सहारे देखे हैं

उलझनों से घिरी है सबकी दुनिया मगर
दिल ने कुछ खुशनुमा नज़ारे देखे हैं

डूबे रहते हैं जो अपने ही वजूद में
आईने ने वो शख्स बेसहारे देखे हैं  

#InternationalMotherLanguageDay

Reflection 1 – days and dismays

We’ve got Friendship Day for friends, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day for parents, Valentine’s Day for couples, and for singles…um…there is
SAD (Singles Awareness Day). We also have some really weird days like today it is Do a Grouch a Favour Day. There are days and days…this day and that day— someday there’ll be a day when we’ll run out of days to count or acknowledge the days that really matters.

As a restrained introvert, I am the kind of guy who feels that he’s being watched over by people all the time. Even if you give me a mask, contrary to the popular quote of Oscar Wilde, I’ll be hesitant enough to tell you the truth. It is after a lengthy course of persuasion and sweet-talking that someone gets the truth (especially an unpleasant one) out of me. Even on this blogging platform, where I guess, no one from my real life knows me or has ever seen me— I feel rather uncomfortable when it comes to writing about my everyday activities. Sometimes the ‘watching-over’ thing is sort of overwhelming like when nobody is around and you try to sing or dance.

This kind of temperament, however, is really helpful when it saves me from taking an abrupt decision or more often when it holds me back from saying something stupid or offensive. But most of the times, this does not help me as much as an individual as it does to others. Group Discussion (GD) is one such kind of activity where you need to drain yourself out to fake yourself as a social butterfly— it’s truly nightmarish for guys like me. To get through one such activity you need two things— bad grammar, and lots of dominating confidence. I am pretty good at the former though thanks to the guys I meet at such occasions. Living in a time where you can’t help but participate in at least one such rat race is an absolute travesty of what you deserve.

Now when I meet some of my friends who have me on their who-can-do-this-for-me-real-quick list, I get thoroughly questioned and sometimes assured too. In a really caring way, they usually end up saying, “If I were you…if I had this and that [quality], I would have aced all the rounds of the selection process.” Does that really seem reassuring? I guess not. However, it is their concern about me which is actually comforting— or frankly speaking, if I may say so, it is the failure of others which is the most assuring thing of all for us.

Jolly LLB 2 Review: Muskuraiye aap Lucknow mein hain

Movie: Jolly LL.B 2 (2017)
Genre: Black Comedy
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Huma Qureshi, Annu Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla

I’m not much into watching recent Bollywood movies— you can get the idea by the fact that this is the first movie I watched at a cinema hall. I haven’t watched its prequel film Jolly LLB as yet that has Arshad Warsi pit aginst Boman Irani.

However, I do have watched several courtroom dramas. But this film blends the elements of black comedy, drama, suspense, and a little bit of action and romance— a typical recipe for a Bollywood masala movie. Two things that instantly grabbed my eyeballs was the excellent characterisation set up in a typical backdrop of UP with a satirical approach towards the Indian judicial system. The dialogues are aptly written and weaved around the plot. Punchlines and quirky onliners are probably the strongest points of the movie. The transition between a joke and the ongoing melodrama is quite smooth except in a few places where it mismatches a bit.

There are several moments throughout the film that gets your adrenaline rushing around in no time like the scene where Jolly (Akshay Kumar) was attacked just before the intermission. It touches on the hot topics like Kashmir riots, terrorism, corruption, moral values, and most important of them all “justice”. Upholding the maxim “Justice delayed is justice denied”, the movie takes a jibe at the waiting-game prevailing in courts. The ending pumps you up with the energy of a being a part of a larger society and reinstates your belief in the judicial system despite taking a pessimistic view of the situation.

Akshay Kumar drives the whole movie on his fancy scooter with sleek hairstyle wearing a  white shirt, black trousers and sports shoes which he wears all through the film. In the latter half, Saurabh Shukla as Justice Sunderlal Tripathi takes control of all the comedy. The dialogue exchange between Mr Tripathi and Annu Kapoor as a relentless bigwig lawyer is a total laughing riot. Music and cinematography are above average.  The background music near the end of the film is chilling. Direction leaves no window to critics. Niche audience expecting an intense and complex black comedy may find it unfunny.

Overall Jolly LLB 2 is for everybody. The movie demands a joint viewing with your friends and family.

Iss duniya ke sabse bade jaahil ne kaha hai ki ishq aur jung mein sab kuch jaayz hai kyunki… 
(The most ignorant person of this world has said— “All is fair in love and war because…”)

My rating: 8/10

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PS Now you can also find me at mytrendingstories as a content writer.

What should we do on this Republic Day?

When money talks, nobody corrects the grammar… is a real-life farce. But I’m not here to talk about why we seek fulfillment in being powerful and wealthy. I feel today we need to draw a line when it comes to being nationalist and liberal— or being a liberal nationalist or a nationalist liberal. We need to redefine the word patriotism, but first of all, we need to get rid of the intertwined word ‘riot’ here. We need to choose the right spot between the left-right spectrum. Today is the time when we need to not only start appreciating our culture, heritage, and language but also devote our time for the same.

Sharing the same old pictures or message, changing profile pictures of Whatsapp, FB, Instagram merely for the sake of it will not serve any purpose.  I don’t know why we aim at getting validation from the people we don’t really know. Being a sensible person and then a sensible citizen will surely benefit everyone.  It’s absolutely necessary that we take some time in our busy life to realize whether are we really living this life on our terms or we have become a marionette spoonfed by the world around us. We need to install a filter in our mind to separate trash from treasure, else one day we might find more garbage lying in our mind than in the landfills.

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.
– Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space (1951)

Here it is important to quote this famous and venerable Sanskrit verse.

अयं बन्धुरयं नेति गणना लघुचेतसां उदारचरितानां तु वसुधैव कुटुम्बकं 
One is my brother/friend and the other is not- is the thinking of a small minded person; for those with magnanimous character, the entire world is a family.
– Maha Upanishad (Chapter 6, Verse 72)

Happy 68th Republic Day!

PS One of the strange thing I came across today on Whatsapp is where a forwarded message reads, “It’s sunset now. Please take down the flag from you Whatsapp Profile as a sign of ‘respect’.”

*facepalm*

– BPC

Shy Snail

Now that I have changed my blog address to ShySnail from the original address unpopularceleb, I feel somewhat positive and well connected as I can identify my personality with this new title. There a funny story behind this title, my friend asked me for some quirky titles for his Youtube channel, and I came up with some odd names and this name caught the attention of both of us. Then I had to ask my friend to let me use this title. This was like asking a gift back.

This year seems to be more successful in bringing failure than last year. I, however, believe failures are things to treasure, for they are a token of the effort and time you invested in the path of achieving something. Failures remind me of this quotation by Epictetus:

What would have become of Hercules do you think if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar – and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges?

Obviously, he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules.

And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul, without crises or conditions to stir into him action?
― Epictetus

A random sketch on mobile phone #ShySnail

Rolling Riot

There is an old saying about those who forget things, I don’t remember it, but it’s good. Whew! It’s been a long time since I wrote a post here.

Today is our 70th Independence Day. And this makes the person pretty old who was luckily born in the independent India on her first day of the woeful separation that marked the much-needed freedom for generations.
I’m very grateful and proud of this grand day like every other Indian, however, at the same time, a little bit ashamed of our history. Because there is always a bad person behind every good person. The irony of today’s world is: there is ‘riot’ in a supposed patriot.

“The world is a problem and an atomic bomb is a solution to it.”
– Mahatma Gandhi, 2010-present 😀

I have discovered that if you’ll be allusive in expressing your thoughts, you don’t have to apologise later. Some people may find me being mean or smarmy, but they won’t understand that I’m friendly in a different way. But be careful in using rhetoric language, there is a high chance of your being ignored. Sometimes you have to be apologetic for the sake of it so that you don’t feel stupid later.

I like big-hearted people for that matter— you can use every bad one-liner on them. You can target your gags on them, in that way your vulnerability is least harmed. They are powerful, yet one of the most harmless creatures in this world. And thankfully they forgive you positively without a hitch.

When people tell me, “you nailed it!”. I say freely to them, “Well, that’s my job. After all, I’m a prospective mechanical engineer”. 

Rolling Riot