i WANT TO BELIEVE

Coping up with Mulder’s disappearance was very tough. it took a while for me to decide to go for the season 9 , where there’s almost no screen presence of Mulder. But then i somehow started watching the x-files season 9 episodes. Agent Dogget , Monica Reyes have a unique persona of their own. And added to that the matured “noveau believer” Scully. Gradually i got used to Agent Dogget and Reyes , so much so that i almost did not miss Mulder though ,  BUT then  his presence/absence was always implied upon by some means or other in many episodes and it used to bring back his memories from past seasons .
 
Its harsh to compare Dogget with Mulder, whom we have been watching for all these years throughout the 7 or 8 seasons. Still then , the man who played the T-1000 aka mercury man in terminator-2, has carved a niche for himself, i must admit. His baritone voice does half the work. Being in police as well as marine corps in the past , Dogget is a firm non believer and more assertive.
Agent Reyes on the other hand , dons the role of the new believer, though the portrayal of her character does not seem as poised as it could have been. Scully’s character has become more like that of a consultant. To sum it up the trio have put up a good show in the 9th season much more than i had expected and the best part is that they have brought some freshness as well , mainly by the stubborn and rationalist Dogget and his mannerism.
 
X-files, i guess arguably has been one of the finest ever shows produced for TV viewing. Hats off to Chris Carter first for conceptualizing this great series and also maintaining the tempo for most of the episodes. Credit must be given to him for creating such iconic figures like Scully and Mulder. The subtle romance between them which is displayed very rarely though by the subtle brush of hands or a casual glance, a hug or a peck on the cheeks. The characters reflect various self-contradictions. A devoted spiritual Christian who’s a non believer and a person least bothered about religion , but believes everything from ghosts,  poltergeists and the supernatural  and divine elements’ . One starts respecting the characters as you watch the episodes.
 
The essence of the series was probably these two characters whom we have loved for all these years. Their screen presence was captivating to say the least. Specially the way Scully used to react when Mulder would hurriedly jump  to an absurd sounding conclusion pointing to the supernatural i loved Mulder’s desk and the way he would throw pencils at the ceiling. it would be harsh not to appreciate other characters as well like, the lone gunman, skinner and the sinister smoking man. i felt sad on the demise of the lone gunman in one of the episodes in season 9.A tribute to X-files is incomplete without a mention of the mesmerizing X-files theme by Mark Snow. it has rocked music charts in many  countries and different tracks have been belted out by remixing it. Goes without saying it’s  one of my personal favorites.
 
i started watching X-files in my teens. And i admired Scully and wished to be a Mulder someday.That adulation and respect  for those characters still exists. There are other good TV shows on air as well and which have been well appreciated by audiences worldwide. Heroes, Lost, etc. But what makes X-files special is the human touch in the characters which is lacking in other sci-fi, paranormal serials. For me , and i believe for X-files fans all over Mulder was perhaps the personification of the quest for answers we ourselves are looking for and Scully was the embodiment of the ideal partner who  empathizes. Given the present screwed up condition of politics and conspiracies across the Globe, it really seems that most of the Governments are indeed guarding “dark secrets” about human beings , about oil, about terrorism, about religion if not about Aliens or Super soldiers and you need not be a PhD in conspiracy theory to infer that. And arenot we all “Fighting the Future” in soem way or the other?
  
i had a whole lot of expectation from the large screen version but unfortunately it was not half as good. Nevertheless…..
 
i WANT TO BELIEVE that the brilliant series would be back in the near future.
i WANT TO BELIEVE that Mulder would be back someday
i WANT TO BELIEVE that Mulder would find his missing sister
i WANT TO BELIEVE that THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE.
 
 
You must be wondering why i am in such awe of the series and characters in particular.
 
i would like to borrow a quote from John Fitzgerald Byers, of The Lone Gunman fame:
 
“That’s what we like about you, Mulder. Your ideas are even weirder than ours”

Hacchi!!

Haaaachhhiii…there went another , wettening enough to blur the screen of my PC
We are humans by nature, and by nature humans are bound to sneeze, have you ever pondered seriously what sort of an effort the body exerts  while sneezing and the whole sneezing phenomenon, and the facial expressions that come with it?? i guess its the only action of the body where each and every muscle of our body unites and acts in unison leaving aside every other task at hand , how important they may be .
 
 
i wonder at times, if we could only harness the power of sneeze we could have moved mountains
Sneezing is funny at times and equally irritating as well. imagine at times, you are holding a cup of tea , and also anticipating a powerful sneeze which could blow out with debris from a blocked nose.U keep thinking let me vent out this great force of nature first, or should i take a sip of hot tea.Matters are worse when you are visiting someone’s place and you donot want to end up looking like a moron.U keep
anticipating about the sneeze, with bated breathe, your ears and eyes ignoring all the happenings around you, and your mouth opening up in an anticipatory act. BUT alas,it never comes.You carry on , start sipping the tea and behold…haaachhhii…oops..the hanky is tucked too deep inside the pocket to guard it now.These small events also need sound decision making u see.Whether to wait for the sneeze or to face its wrath like a man when it comes. Infact this is how the saying”storm in a tea cup” must have evolved u see

Worse , when you try to supress a sneeze.Just imagine how much effort it takes to do that.There are beleifs, not sure how much confirmed they are but, that supressing a sneeeze might just rupture you blood vessel.
 
Scientists where are you , tap the great potential, it will save us from going for the nuclear deal under the pretext of cheap energy, the Marxists just might realise someday.
 
Poeple have various types of sneezing habits.One of my colleagues, who used to be quite well built used to go a timid “cchi” “cchi”"cchi”…as if admonishing someone .On the other hand i had an aunt , who could almost move chairs and tables with the full blow of her nose.infact i have noticed that Culture , region and upbringing also play a part as how ruthlessly or docilely you sneeze. Then there are people who sneeze in a medly, 1-2-3 pause, 4-5-6 and pause and so on and on. One of my allergy stricken cousin says that regular sneezing keeps her healthy and slim .My friend PP is also a very entertaining  sneezer.
He makes a howling noise while drawing the air before opening his mouth before the final sneeze to such extent , which could even shame RAHU, KETU of solar and lunar eclipse fame While sneezing his limbs operate involuntarily and anyone around him stands a chance  to be seriously injured.
And summing it up , it wont be just , to forget my  wifey, her sneezing noise scares me most as i feel shes callling out my name with anger!!!
 
Sneezing is infact the human body’s reaction towards some irritaion , which helps to blow it out. We as a nation perhaps need to sneeze now, we need to flex in unison and throw out the evil irritants that are palguing india these days.We need to sneeze..seriously.
 
Well getting back to the serious business of funny aspect of sneeze, i leave you with a very absurd thought which i donot remember where i picked up..but it goes like..there are beleifs in certain culture that sneezing 8 times continuosuly without pause, causes orgasm.

And just like the daredevil stuntprograms flash these days on the TV screens , i have an advisory message
too: DONOT TRY THiS AT HOME….he he …sneeze awayyyyy

The Nonsense Box

i planned a tryst with my TV last sunday evening.it turned out to be a ghastly 2 hour affair of scanning through all the channels offered by Tata Sky.i began with the news channel.The likes of NDTV, TiMES NOW ie: the more responsible ones u see;) where busy
airing the nuclear deal , Singur’s NoNo to nano or Govt failure with the Bihar floods, for upteenth number of times, that day.The “sansani” channels where busy showing usual scandals, or carrying reports about a scientific experiment that could create a black
hole in earth if it goes wrong, and was predicting that 10th september will bring on the “End Of days”. i moved on to BBC which was tracking Zardari’s story and CNN was busy with Palin.

i switched to the Entertainment channels.Again a flury of bloody reality shows with a stubbled Chunky Pandey and Malaika Arora judging a dance competition of TV artists(are they artists really??)The other channels where no difefrent as well.Family tearjerkers or fixed up Reality Shows is this the best indian TV can offer?What happened ?.We have so many channels , but theres nothing that just makes sense.
i suddenly felt so nostalgic about the good old doordarshan days.How eagerly we used to watch those serials like Humlog, Buniyad,Byomkesh bakshi,Tehkikaat.Even there used to be very good serials for kids ie indradhanush, Captain Vyom,Neev and so on.

Sunday evenings where so cool.We used to stop our cricket matches half way (often depriving the fielding team of their batting innings) just to run home and cuddle with family to catch up the Hindi Movies.We had so less , yet it was so fulfilling.Movies and cricket matches without the ad breakes, where the girl with curly hair and her pug, no where around to irritate us!!
There used to be a single news break for the doordarshan news with the likes of sarla maheshwari (my favourite then )
We used to wait in front of the TV with hope, suspense, anticipation and expectation as the Doordarshan Logo used to uncurl with Pandit ravi Shankar’s mesmerising theme playing in the background, praying side by side , that the electricity department

spares us from power cuts.Equally dreaded where the “Rukabat Ke Lie Khed Hai” messages.Suddenly the program would just stop and the screen would be filled with 7 columns with all the colours from ViBGYOR , and the dreaded message comming after an impatient
wait of a minute or two if not longer.
Those where anxious times.What would have happened in the story by then.We would discuss and analyse the story till then.We cursed our luck that we didnot have chance to view anything else.Now we can do that.We can shift channels at the speed of our minds, but we donot have anything we can get glued to.

My sunday evening anguish continued, as i strated scanning the channels again determined to find something interesting.Aah the movies my favourite ..and what where they showing??sarfarosh, Nayak etc were getting aired probably for the 100th times that week.Where have the art movies gone, which where aired in DD , which we cursed at that time, as we were too young to comprehend ,but our parents used to lap them up.

Finally i gave it up.My wife took her turn to scan the channels again, and finally zeroed on to a serial strangely named PaniPoori.The serial was ok, it was no match to the golden oldies but it was the God amongst the goats!!

Its high time i guess, the Idiot Box should be rechristened as The Nonsense Box now.

Wet Back

Wet back is what they called me when i was in school said Jose. Jose was the support engineer for the hotel where i put up at Milpitas, US.
My friend Jose is from Mexico, with a mixed italian and Spanish ancestory. He drove me one day to my office , as the chaffeur was absent that day. On the way he asked whether i was indian, and was more than pleased to get an affirmative answer. The garrulous person as i am , i was equally thrilled to find someone to talk to . We talked about culture and history while driving through the lifeless freeways at half the speed of sound, zipping past huge stretches of open land. Mexico he said has culture , traditions and history but the white americans have left no stones unturned to destroy it. That part of california was infact with mexico, before the foolish mexican king sold it off to the americans. No doubt San Jose has so much of Mexican influence. Jose’s parents had settled in US when he was a kid. Wet Back is what the other kids called him, a slang for mexicans who swim across to US illegally, and develop skin infections on their backs due to prolonged stay in water !! i could imagine another “Joker” in the making!!

The pain of being “wet back” still etched hard in his soul, he plans to settle one day in Europe after hes made enough money. Hmm…everyone has the same honest intentions, i thought. Mexicans he thought were more American than the white Americans as they belonged to the continent much before than the latter had arrived. He had something for Europeans too :intellectual Snobs

America is cool, but thats it. You donot connect with any place in America, because it has no history, no culture, no traditions he said. i wondered how we get asphyxiated with the burden of culture and traditions which you find in each bricks, pebbles and trees in india , how people fight over the them.
We talked about movies, and we had a looong discussion on “Apocalypto” and i liked the very feeling that we shared the common outlook towards the theme of the movie. its a small world…really!
The journey got over, and i reached my office. We exchanged pleasantries and parted.
i kept brooding about something he said: There s lot of racism in America and i still cant think like a white man , as they dont think i am one. i respect india’s culture ,tradition and colors!.

“Colours” he said, how true, we are so colourful….we are not only black , white or brown but also saffron, green, blue….and counting….

To “J” or not to “J”

Tryst with the missing J began when i heard Cronje being pronounced as Cron-yeah.
So is San Jose..its San Hose.Ignorant ,  that San Jose is San Hose, i had pronounced San “J”ose with much gusto only to be rebuked by my boss.Stunned i looked at him, he returned the gaze with an “elementary my dear Watson” look !
Destiny brought me one day to San Jose itself, and man i was thrilled more with the missing “J”s everywhere and jokes circulating about Indian professors calling “H”onathan .Strangely though “J”ustin was still Justin. What i found out after conversation with Jose(read Hose), an american citizen ,actually hailing from Mexico with Italian and Spanish lineage (shall write about him in my next blog), this is how names of mexican origins are pronounced, San Jose having a large mexican influence, and why not, as it was part of Mexico once upon a time , hence the way they sound.

Thank God we still have the “J” intact in India , otherwise, how would you call “J”ug Suraiyya?