Right To Education

 By Sahil Mehta/Nishant Boorla/ Shaonli Nath

One of the most important bills to be introduced and passed in the parliament in the last decade was the Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009. First introduced in 2005, the amended act was passed as part of the 100 day programme of the UPA government in 2009 and came into force on April 1st 2010 (The irony of the date of implementation was lost on our dear lawmakers). In a remarkable step, elementary education remained not just a dream but the constitutional right of every child in India in the age group of 8-14 years, just as quintessential as the Right to Life. Education wasn’t just a privilege anymore; it was compulsory and empowered each Indian child to demand education.

Among the highlights of this act is that it requires all private schools to admit children from weaker sections of society and disadvantaged communities in their incoming class to the extent of 25% of their student strength. The government reimburses expenditure incurred by the schools in this regard. Also the school cannot ask for donation or capitation fees as part of the admission process and neither can they interview the child or her/his parents as part of the screening process.

There are other provisions within this act and the complete act can be easily found on the internet. At first glance, this act comes across as a messiah for the ailing education system in the country and it certainly does puts us on par with many developed countries in the world in terms of emphasis and priority given to education. And while everything is debatable, the RTE Act, for certain looks good on paper.

It has been one a half years since its enactment. And while no government policy’s effectiveness can be judged in such a short time especially one that has been implemented in India, this short time period is sufficient to gauge whether the policy has had the desired impact in bringing about change. Sadly the RTE act has failed to live up to its promises and expectations.

Although the RTE makes education free and compulsory and sets qualification standards for teachers, in a myopic treatment of the problem of education, the act lacks any defined provisions for addressing the acute shortage of teachers, and particularly of skilled teachers, faced by the country. The HRD ministry estimates the shortage of school teachers in India at a whopping 1.2 million. These numbers ignore the teachers in government schools who are themselves poorly trained and ill skilled and delivery of quality education by them is unfathomable. There are thousands of teachers who are on pay-roll of Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan yet it is once in once in a blue moon (or perhaps never) that they turn up to teach a class. As much as we try to minimize dropout numbers among students, what about the non-attendance among teachers, what about the non-attendance among teachers?

Kapil Sibbal made a statement about how the brightest minds in all countries went into teaching and that it isn’t happening in India. Therefore, more incentives are required to attract bright young people into this profession. While this is a very noble idea, it’s practically impossible to meet the shortage of teachers in elementary education.

The brightest minds in the country are not going to end up teaching basic counting and alphabets in rural areas. We can expect qualified people to take up teaching, especially for government schools, only when the social status associated with the profession rises. “Social status” is an ambiguous term but it can be interpreted in the following manner: Out of an engineer and a primary teacher who will receive greater respect in a social setting? The answer is obvious and self-explanatory. Increasing the pay would help in bringing in more teachers but will not do much to increase their quality.

The quality of the teaching profession can only increase when people taking up teaching are driven by passion for this profession, when people are driven by a desire to bring about a change. It is sad that while in ancient India, Guru came right after God, the situation in modern day India is dismal. In the absence of a conductive environment for teaching as a profession, the promise of compulsory education remains a farce.

Another widely documented problem with Indian education, especially in rural areas has been the large number of dropouts. Every year a significant fraction of our student problem drop out, for many reasons including, yet not limited to, making money by working jobs to make ends meet for their family. The boys assist in farms and the girls accompany their mothers as domestic help. The fundamental problem of dropping out cannot be addressed by just a static enforcement of education.

No sensible man will believe elementary education is sufficient to get you a job in this world. So unless higher education is within the reach of a person, they wouldn’t see sense in sitting through elementary education. For someone who has to spend the rest of his life working on crops in fields, education will come via experience not by sitting in overstuffed, dimly lit classrooms. The approach should be to devise a sustainable model which will provide a holistic approach for children to continue their education while vocationally being involving in their own social ecosystem. How? That is yet to be seen.

One of the most controversial points about the law is the reservation policy in private schools as discussed in the article earlier. While there is a genuine dearth of both schools and teachers, shackling private schools with reservations might end doing more harm than good. The law makes provisions for the government compensation but the compensation will be in line with the costs incurred in educating a student at a government school. Indeed, a vast majority of private schools are apprehensive about receiving any compensation at all. A better solution will be to encourage the establishing of more private schools in rural and semi-urban areas via public-private partnerships.

These are but some of the problems associated with the RTE Act. There will be major challenges in constructing more schools, financing them, training teachers, ensuring attendance and monitoring the compliance of rules by private schools.

All in all, the RTE Act and its implementation leave quite a lot to be desired. Over the next few years it will be very interesting to see how RTE’s active implementation takes course. Till then good education remains a distant reality for most Indians. And if that concerns you in the slightest, please do not hesitate to join movements like Teach for India and The Guardian Circle.

A Foreword To Education

By Sahil Mehta

It’s a little funny and ironical; 30 days of studying, fretting, late-night mugging etc. for exams – all of which are sort of components of my education - made me forget the reason why we chose “Education” as the theme for this issue. I’ve been scratching my head on this for days and all it took was 30 minutes on reading up on the internet. Some education we have, huh!

Back to topic. What does education mean to Indians? I think it’s an incredibly difficult question to answer because everyone has a different interpretation of it. Nonetheless, I shall attempt to list down as many interpretations as i possibly can. To the poor and underprivileged, education is a way out of their miserable lives. For the middle class, it forms the backbone of their day to day lives. For the politicians, it is an important election agenda. For the political activists (like Anna Hazare), it is an issue to screw over the government. To the economists, it is the foundation of ever growing economy; for the students it’s a pain in the ass mostly. To the cynics and skeptics, education (or the problems related to it) is the cause for many of India’s problems. To the optimist, it is the key to a better future. I’m sure you will have your own definition of it too. But to me, it was a mystifying question.

Education in the simplest, and yet most complete definition, is “the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills, and values from one generation to another.” – Wiki.

When you put too much value on the outcomes of an act, you can easily forget what it means to you. I for one have found myself in that position time and again. And I do not think I’m the only Indian who has sought the true importance of education. There is no doubt that imparting quality education is the key to solving many of India’s social problems but at the same time it is important to recognise that education is product of humanity’s thirst for knowledge. It is imperative to understand that the fundamental reason for education is for us to evolve as human beings.

Please Don't Hold My Nation To Ransom

By Sahil Mehta

To be honest, this whole furore about the Lokpal/Jan Lokpal bill is not very surprising. If you see corruption being more rampant then stray dogs in the streets, of course you’ll be angry. Throw an honest, well-meaning Gandhian activist backed by an organisation called India Against Corruption with a whole bunch of popular and controversial figureheads into the mix and you have what is now becoming a typical day in the life of an ordinary Indian. Soon we’re shouting all kinds of slogans and protesting all forms of government oppressions. College going kids with hardly any idea as to what’s the real issue jump into the mix truly believing this to be their opportunity and duty to set the nation right. And if you’re still not happy, what the hell, declare a fast-unto-death to really get the shutterbugs clicking and a frenzied media hanging on every sound bite before literally doing more analysis on it than is done on any scientific experiment. Do you know what’s wrong with this all? EVERYTHING.

This whole drama of public protests has become too commonplace. Every other day we have someone or the other protesting something. Every other person has some grievance or agenda and the only way he knows how to get his work done is, ironically, stop any useful work that is going on by sitting on a dharna. It’s okay to a point. If you’re sitting peacefully and raising slogans it doesn’t really cause too much of a problem. But when you decide that you’re going to be ones to change the law of the country on the pretext that you represent the people, I have a problem.

 See, the thing is, we chose our government. We chose to go and vote for the leaders who would represent us and our problems in the governmental bodies. So if my elected leaders aren’t doing the job properly how in the wide world am I supposed to trust people who I did not choose to represent me! You can’t just start sitting down on fasts and blackmail the government. Sad though it is, we as a nation chose this government. So if you’re gonna call insult the government and abuse it and basically try and supersede it you’re insulting and abusing the will of the nation. Sure, there are problems with the people we elect. They are corrupt, inefficient and sometimes just plain simple morons. But we went and voted for those morons. Who’s the moron now? There is no problem with the system; the problem is with the people. And the people are you, me, the leaders and every fricking Indian. 

There is the wonderful anti-government sentiment that Anna Hazare’s arrest was un-democratic. First things first, Hazare was not arrested. He was detained because he refused to obey the law. He was given limited permission to protest, which he did not accept. Subsequently he was asked to remain at home which also he refused. Later after he was offered freedom from prison, he refused again. A bloke going on blatantly breaking laws as prescribed by the Indian constitution is democratic but the government trying to maintain law and order by allowing a limited right to protest is undemocratic? If you think protests are peaceful and harmless, go and find out the amount of destruction and damage caused when K. Chandrasekhar went onto a fast unto death for Telangana or when the gujjars sat down on the railway tracks to demand OBC status or when people protested the setting up of the Nano plant.   And don’t compare with Gandhi and call this a second struggle for freedom cause most of you weren’t even born in the 1940’s and never faced a day of violent British oppression.

What’s amazing are these messages and updates I keep getting about how Anna is India and how I’m not a true Indian if I don’t support him. That’s pretty much the biggest truckload of bullshit I’ve heard in a long, long while. I’m not against Anna Hazare and his fight against corruption. The world is witness to the fact that we need stronger laws and better people. But to be adamant to pass a bill that has no public consensus and is certainly incomplete is not right. To paralyse and threaten the democratically elected government is not right. To mislead the thousands of individuals who are supporting you on blind faith is to betray their trust. Because no matter what law you pass, there is no magic wand to solve India’s problems. Raise awareness about the problems. Spread your views and encourage people to change. Have public debates on the Lokpal and raise your voice against corruption. But please don’t say I’m not a true Indian because a true Indian would accept that at the heart of the problem is the fact that every Indian somewhere, somehow is a perpetrator of the problems we find ourselves in. And please don’t hold my nation to ransom because democracy is not an individual’s right to do as he pleases but the collective right of the nation to do what it thinks is right.

Games That Take Your Breath Away

By Sagnik Choudhary

While games are in theory, supposed to be able to whisk you away to a different world of their own, how many of them do a good job at it? If developments in technology, graphics hardware in particular, are anything to go by, this is one thing that we can expect a lot more from in the future. Of course this is not to say that this is something games haven’t already achieved in the past. And we’re just not talking about good graphics; we’re talking about game-worlds that actually have a life of their own. Let’s take a look at a few examples shall we?

1.   Italy - Assassin’s Creed 2

When it comes to recreating Renaissance Italy, Assassin’s Creed is pretty easily the franchise to beat. You can row gondolas in Venice, ride a horse from Tuscany to Florence, climb mansions in Forli or free run across rooftops almost anywhere. You can also explore underground tombs, which might sound a little boring, but is actually among the most interesting parts of the game. It is hard not to get overwhelmed with the sheer level of detail that the developers put in, whether it be shopkeepers sweeping the floor outside their shops, thieves running away with your purse of gold or minstrels and beggars singing and following you around. Albeit Rome makes a very brief appearance, you aren’t left wanting as there’s plenty to see and do. Like watching the sun set over the water from a rooftop in Venice for example.Delightful.

2.   Rome – Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood

Though it would probably make sense to list Assassin’s Creed as one franchise, the Eternal City does deserve a place of its own. All the more so, because it was well worth the wait (Brotherhood was released a year after Assassin’s Creed 2).  Gameplay is never dull and looks super always. Escaping from pursuing soldiers for example, could involve climbing to the top of a Borgia tower or church, jumping down to the back of a waiting horse and riding away through green pastures till you reach your safe house. The Vatican, the famed Roman aqueducts, The Colosseum, The Sistine Chapel are all places you can visit (and scale) in all their full glory. Lairs of followers of Romulus constitute the equivalent of AC2’s tombs. The music is very good too and blends with the environment very well, though this is something that all AC games have prominently featured. There are few games that you can have fun watching other people play; Brotherhood for sure is one of them.

3.   Panau – Just Cause 2

Though a majority of gameplay in Just Cause 2 involves creating chaos and blowing stuff up(and this happens in a million ways), exploring the island of Panau has its own rewards. Unique to Just Cause is a grapple gun (think Batman’s grapple gun, only more powerful ), and this is used to reach places otherwise inaccessible. You can also ride about a hundred different vehicles to get to places, ranging from rickshaws to boats, military choppers and Airbuses. Panau itself is beautiful and has regions with dense forestry, to high altitude areas with snow cover. Personal favourites are the ‘Mile High Club’ a brothel/club suspended from a large gas balloon in the sky, and a small island in the North that is a reference to the island from Lost and the Bermuda Triangle. Airports, Military Bases, Communication Stations to Ancient Ruins, Panau is one island that has it all. The ultimate holiday destination?

4.   Forest? Limbo? – Limbo

It could be a little tough to believe that a game that’s just about 100 megabytes in size holds a spot in this list. But make no mistake; it’s definitely not something undeserved. After all what could be a more mystifying (and unnerving) environment than one that’s not explained to you, one that you cannot comprehend or make anything of? Though the game is in grayscale, this is hardly a downer as some of the effects more than make up for it. Plus, this adds up to the ghostly look and feel that Limbo tries to achieve. Not only must you outwit the hostile inhabitants of the forest, you must escape the plenitude of traps and dangers that lurk in every shadow and save your sister from a fate both terrible and unknown…

5.   Africa – Far Cry 2.

Far Cry 2 boasts one of the largest game worlds in the history of gaming, and most of it looks outright amazing. Gazelles and Wild Buffalos graze peacefully, and run helter-skelter when they spot you, sunlight streams through holes in the forest canopy, storks catch fish in lakes, and deserts are prone to random sandstorms. You could watch forest fires burn everything to cinders, or paraglide from a cliff to another looking down upon the awesome world that is Far Cry 2’s Africa. As far as the plot goes, riddled with infighting and power struggles on the other hand, this is Africa in all its glory all right. All in all, Far Cry 2 has enough to keep you hooked for quite some time.

And speaking of an authentic African experience, you happen to catch malaria and have to take pills every few hours. Authentic enough huh?

6.   Middle Earth – The Battle for Middle Earth 2 and The Rise of the Witch King 

It could be surprising to many, that a strategy game makes it to this list. The people who aren’t all that surprised, would have played BFME 2. Rendered beautifully with an artist’s eye for detail, hardly has a Lord of the Rings game done better justice to Middle earth. Locales like Minas Tirith, Helm’s Deep, Ithilien, Lothlorien look superb. A personal favourite is Argonath, with huge statues of Isildur and Anorien on either side of the river Anduin.

7.   Empire City – Mafia 2

While Mafia 2 has been written off by many as a GTA clone, the fact remains that Mafia’s Empire City is big, and beautiful. Though not as open a world as GTA’s Liberty City for example, the game does a pretty good job capturing (correctly at that) various shades of the 1940’s-50’s era. The music on the radio matches the period; the weather changes are subtle and affect the environment you interact with in more than one way. Like for example, snow accumulates on top of the hood of cars, and this slowly melts away as you drive. The cars you drive too, are of about 20 different kinds and are a nod to the 50’s. All in all, Mafia 2 is a nice excursion to an America in the past, definitely worth a play through.

Let’s wrap up with a few notable mentions, the underwater world of Rapture in Bioshock, Jerusalem and Acre of the middle ages in Assassin’s Creed 1, Detroit and Singapore  of the future in Deus Ex Human Revolution and of course, Liberty City of the GTA series.

As far as upcoming games are concerned, the future does look pretty bright. Do keep an eye out for Far Cry 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations in particular

Meet The Guardians

Last issue, we told you about the activities of the TGC Amity Delhi Chapter. This time we go down south to Thanjavur and talk to the TGC Chapter there. TGC Thanjavur chapter recently visited a government school and interacted with the kids.

About The Guardian Circle

The Guardian Circle is an initiative taken by students to help give back to society. It is an NGO which fully understands the importance of education. However, they are also aware that some children cannot afford it. TGC strives to fund such financially handicapped children so that they too can have the opportunities rendered unaffordable by their financial state of affairs.

Q. What was the event about? What kind of activities did you organize?

The main aim of the event was to help the students of PUNIDHA ANTHONIAR School by providing uniforms which they were apparently lacking and make their learning experience interesting by giving them crayons and other stationery items. We also wanted to create awareness among the students with respect to the environment. So, in that respect, we played an animated video that shows the ill effects of pollution, deforestation and usage of plastic. We also taught them how harmful consequences can be prevented by recycling and tree plantation. We conducted a drawing competition as well to make the event entertaining. The students showed great enthusiasm throughout. We concluded with a tree plantation session.

Q. Why did you choose that particular school?

The primary reason for selecting that school was because it is near our college and is the most under-developed school in the locality. It has only two class rooms for classes I through to V. One can imagine the way classes would be held for all of them together.

Q. How many of your volunteers were present?

As TGC-T (the Thanjavur chapter of TGC-India) is newly formed and this is our first event, we had few volunteers. Nonetheless, we had good number of supporters for the cause. We were a group of 9 students all from SASTRA University.

Q. Were there any difficulties you faced during the organization of the event, particularly with respect to funding and co-ordination?

 For funding the event, we the volunteers of TGC-T invested money initially and then approached people who were willing to donate for the cause. We received donations from several students in our college. Planning and work distribution were done 5 days in advance. We have two girls among us who local language Tamil fluently and so it was their job to communicate with the students on the day of event. Other members indulged themselves in interacting with the students and help them learn something by different means. It was not too difficult to organise it as this was a comparatively smaller event involving a fewer number of people. Every team member was aware of his/her responsibilities and executed tasks to perfection.

Q. What was your aim? Do you think you’ve been able to achieve it?

As mentioned earlier, our main objective of the event was to provide the students with new uniforms and secondly give them necessary stationery equipment that they require. We were able to achieve it and we can say that with pride because the feedback given by the students and the teacher was satisfactory.

Q. How was the experience with the kids? Was there something that particularly stood out for you?

The one sentence that everyone in the team had after the event was “Today’s the best day of my life!” The experience was so great that we are unable to express in words. We actually enjoyed ourselves and felt the joy of giving. It gives us the motivation we need to continue working towards our final goal.

Q. What kind of activities do you plan to hold in the future?

We’d like to spread the cheer by celebrating Diwali at an orphanage nearby. We also have decided to visit a children’s cancer hospital to do what little we can to make their lives that much better.

Q. What kind of impact did this even have on you personally?

The whole team was just moved by an incident which took place at our first event.

A kid coloured his apple diagram violet. When asked why he had coloured his apple violet he answered in the most innocent way, “I have never seen an apple.” One tiny statement that rendered our whole world topsy-turvy for a while.

Q. How many members do you have in the TGC Thanjavur Chapter?

We have 12 enthusiastic guardians including me currently .We made our presence felt through social networking. Spreading the word to acquaintances and friends.

Q. Is it only in SASTRA university or outside colleges too?

We are just a fledgling organization right now. But we have the backing of TGC-India and the Head Quarters in Hyderabad and that’s a start. We will cover all the colleges in our district in the near future. The publicity blitz is on.

Q. How did the Thanjavur chapter start? How long has it been in existence?

Most of our team are active part of NSS. We thought why not start an organization which could really help the needy on a regular basis and is a sustained manner, unlike the NSS which was organized once per academic year by our college management.

Q. Have you undertaken any activities before?

Most of our core team is a part of NSS organized every year. But this is our first independent effort and it sure is a start. We look forward to expanding our workforce and helping as many under-privileged children as we can.

Poking The Past

By Swathy K 

This was going to be an article about how I would go way back in time, wipe the idea of cultivation and agriculture out of the heads of men who got it first and save the earth of the identity crises it has been having for a while.

How? It is quite obvious that agriculture led to settlement, expansion of settlements, and then man got time to think because he wasn’t always hunting or drawing on walls. His brain grew and he invented the wheel (ta-daa, such a genius). Everything rolled downhill from there in my opinion. He just wanted everything to be “better”; meaning “easier”; meaning “bad news mother nature”. I’m not going to tell you about all those civilizations and revolutions that followed. Please refer your history textbooks for a thorough read. So, if that one idea didn’t crop up, man would be living in harmony with nature, as some would put it, the way it was meant to be. I also wanted to put in a word about how Superman should’ve done exactly that, instead of spinning the earth backwards and turning back time to save his girlfriend.

Then I got thinking about all the physics, practicality of time travel, space-time-dynamics mumbo-jumbo that I could get my head around, which is very little, because as I said its mumbo-jumbo.

If I did go back and change history, there’s a great possibility that I wouldn’t be born because of the alteration, which would lead to me not having changed history, and the earth being the same terribly battered thing it is now. Then again, if history doesn’t change, I would exist and I’d go back and try to change it...some loopy loop that would be.

Another definite possibility would be that if I just stop a few people, there would be a number of others like them in distant lands who would get the same idea about growing crops. Then whole point of the exercise is lost, because I can’t do it twice, since I wouldn’t exist the second time. Or, I would require some thought-scanning and teleporting powers for efficiency.

Or, my doing that may split the universe in to two parallel universes. One where the change didn’t occur and the earth lived on and is what it is now. The second, an alternate universe, which I generated by poking around. I’d invariably be stuck in the past, alternatively, cease to exist.

There’s another OR. It could have been one of those “meant-to-be” events where I travel back and nothing happens as planned but I affect a change that leads to the present state of being. How guilty would that make me? :S

So, what finally dawned on me was that if I did travel back, I’d rather just go to be a silent spectator. Also, I can’t really ask evolution to retire; he is on the run to becoming the best employee in existence.

Maybe I’d watch a couple of dinosaurs, watch the pyramids being built, listen to some brilliant musicians live, watch great artists at work or as one of my friends wished she could, document Indian history better.

Time travel is no longer a myth. Although 99.9% of the big brains think it is impossible, the rest are absolutely optimistic about it. Maybe there will come a day when time machines will be introduced into the market like the newest PlayStation or android app, with consequences unimaginable. The universe does have billions and billions of years ahead of it.

Superman wasn’t all that dumb after all.

Summer Of No Romance

- By Rachina Ahuja and Nishant Boorla (commentary in blue). Two platonic friends who agree to disagree. Always.

Summer is an exciting time for movie lovers. A lot of big ones release during these months. Personally, I don’t care for action flicks and I live with a cherished hope that rom-coms will someday get smarter and I won’t be looked-down upon for watching them. Summer is usually a good time for the romance genre because people have a lot of time on their hands and I assume the target audience is couples (where women drag men along) and single women (the depressing truth). This summer however, was pretty bad for the genre. Why, you ask? I’d LOVE to elaborate:

No Strings Attached, even though it wasn’t technically released in summer, was like a harbinger of what was to come. One of the most unintelligent, unimaginative movies I’ve seen in a while. And this coming from a person who likes ‘chick-flicks’! The only buzz surrounding that movie was something on the lines of “Ooooh sex between friends who aren’t dating!” And it left me feeling greasy thanks to the load of cheese they freely heaped on such a ‘daring’ scenario. 

Now these movies hardly ever have a twist in the tale. Even when the girl gets pregnant you know they’re working towards a mushy happy ending. Happily Ever After.

Basic principles of a rom-com-

1.Boy+Girl - They’re people whom you can usually identify with. The film-makers are supposed to make the characters likable. You should want them to live happily ever after. The screenwriter (I consider it sacrilege to even call them that. If you’re a screenwriter who writes only rom-coms, you’re the oompa-loompa of the screenwriting world). Ok, I have to start over. Writing screenplays for rom-coms is as sophisticated as writing Zodiac columns. Just pick random points everyone can relate to and build a character around those.

2.Conflict - There’s something keeping them apart, usually their own issues. IMPORTANT: This has to be believable! No one likes a heroine who is stupid or a hero who’s just being an A-hole.

3.The big resolution- Even though we know how it’s going to end, brownie points for film-makers who surprise us. We’re just saying be a little different. The airport/wedding scene has been done to death.

Even more points if you’re the guy who made 500 days of summer which was enjoyable even though it didn’t necessarily have a happy ending (which actually is a matter of opinion, because I didn’t think the ending was sad at all). Brickbats and cow dung for the guy who made P.S I Love You for writing a story so manipulative, trying to wring tears out of the viewer with every new scene. And failing miserably.

4.The process- This is why we go watch movies that have no suspense. We want to see HOW it all unfurls. We want to be told a story without being stressed out that it’s all going to end badly. Everyone loves a story, right? Most importantly, it should ring true. We shouldn’t be walking out of the theaters grumbling about the idiocy of the characters and about how ridiculous the premise was.

There. Now you have it. Now let’s take a look-see at what came out this summer eh? I am STRICTLY talking about the romance or the romantic comedy genre. I’ll leave it to Nishant to bash the genre (as he will) and talk about other movies. Not to take off on a tangent, but there’s an interesting article Meg Cabot (really, people, the author of The Princess Diaries and many more fun books) wrote on why men don’t watch rom-coms but more on that later.

Right then. Movies.

Something Borrowed-

*ing: Ginnifer Goodwin, Kate Hudson, Colin Egglesfield, John Krasinski

Okay, so I read the book and that’s why I needed to watch the movie. It’s a thing. I’m sure it happens to everyone, right? Not really, no! Not with every book anyway. I wouldn’t watch a Brer Rabbit movie if it ever comes out. Unless it has a graphic novel feel to it and is directed by Zack Snyder.

Anyway, it was a nice movie, one that I’d watch when I don’t feel like taxing my brains. It suffered from the usual flaws though, for example: Rachel is supposed to be plain, who in their right mind would call Ginnifer Goodwin that? But it’s a movie so I forgive them. Oh right, the premise is slightly different from the usual, except not really. Made of Honor comes to mind as well as 27 Dresses (although it plays out differently in that) and a dozen others that involve weddings. Protagonist is in love with someone who is getting married (wow…radical!). That someone is getting married to her best friend who has overshadowed her all her life. How she gathers up the courage to take what she wants, for a change, forms the rest of the movie (Yawn). I thought the guy was a HUGE idiot (They’ve sucked Rachina in to the rabbit hole and now she has formed opinions of the characters). Anyone could see Rachel wanted to go out with him but he asked her friend, Darcy, out instead, even though HE LIKED Rachel! (What a plot! Puts Fight Club to shame huh?) Gaaaaah. Not the shiniest fork in the drawer, if you ask me. The resolution was what you would expect. Nothing big or surprising about it. Moving on.

Bridesmaids

*ing: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, John Hamm, and a bunch of other people

This movie was pretty great. I walked in not knowing what to expect (a movie with a strong SNL influence); I mean it’s a bunch of 30 somethings and their love lives or lack thereof, you’d think it would be depressing.  Nope! I laughed myself into stitches. The best part? These are real women! They’re NOT glamorous, NOT skinny and NOT perfectly put together all the time. They get drunk and create havoc on airplanes, they say stupid things, they eat bad food and um “get sick” in public and also apparently steal puppies. The message that you get if you think about the movie after laughing yourself sick is - ‘All that glitters is not gold.’ Corny as it sounds. It’s all very lightly delivered, just in the way you should take life: with a large dose of humor. (Look who’s getting preachy!)

Crazy Stupid Love

*ing: Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling

When I walked in to the theater, I was a bit alarmed because I barely saw anyone near my age sitting in there. I braced myself for a preachy, oldies romance, but soon I began to enjoy myself in earnest. Who can resist Steve Carell? He’s great as usual with his deadpanning. Julianne Moore was good too. Marisa Tomei was very entertaining, even in her tiny role. The scene-stealer for me was, of course, Ryan Gosling (He looks like a cross between cricketer Praveen Kumar and Hockey stud Dhanraj Pillay, only fairer!).

The climax of the movie reminded me a bit of a silly Bollywood movie: there are a bunch of misunderstandings and a scene ensues where all parties involved are in the same place and there is confusion galore. We do enjoy those, though, so no complaints! Also, Emma Stone was, as usual, wonderful but old Kevin Bacon was kinda weird and unnecessary (I still think of him as Rex from Footloose) (And I think of him as Capt. Jack Ross from A Few Good Men.)

Friends with Benefits

*ing: Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis

Sigh. Just when you think No Strings Attached has properly ruined the premise, another one comes along. Awful acting helmed by the same guy that directed Easy A, which is why I thought this might not be so bad.It wasn’t bad, it was much better than No Strings Attached. It was self-deprecating and yet trying to be sweet at the same time.

If sweet is what you can call it. Best part? Very low amounts of cheese. That’s all we want, guys. That wasn’t so hard, was it? (For the record, this movie made me want to kill myself. This sucked just as much as No Strings Attached. At least they had a better lead pair for No Strings Attached. They got Natalie Portman while these guys got Mila Kunis AKA Poor man’s Black Swan!)

One day

*ing: Anne Hathaway, Jim Sturgess

YUCK.

They put us through hours of Jim Sturgess’ awful, irritating character for this! Seriously, he smirks his way through the ENTIRE movie. I liked him in 21 but halfway through this, I wanted to punch his face. The movie shows us one day (July 15th, if you care) in the life of these two people for 20 years of their lives. The fact that the story mostly flows even though it’s just one day at a time tells us what? THEIR LIVES ARE NOT THAT INTERESTING. I don’t know about others, but I sat through all the crud: through Emma dating some guy she doesn’t like, through Dexter being a jackass and doing nothing but womanizing and smoking up, through their friendship which was basically her whining to him about her life and him DDing her and them talking about what they could be and should be but never doing anything about it, sat through all of it hoping that things would turn out to be okay and I can leave the theater with a sigh of relief. No such luck, it just got worse. Ugh, just stay away from this crap. (I don’t think I need to add anything here. We at LTGTR do all we can to avoid using foul language and so I won’t comment.)

Sunk without a trace:

Disney’s Prom

Monte Carlo

Hits?

Blue Valentine

Water for elephants

A note on Meg’s article-

Here are a couple of quotes that pretty much say it all-

“Straight guys won’t go see a “romantic comedy” (or any movie featuring a female main character, unless it’s Megan Fox) unless they’ve been dragged to it by their significant other (or their mom)(BTW Meg Cabot – If a guy watches rom-coms with his mom, he’s not straight. No don’t give the ”he’s sweet and compassionate” crap. He’s not. He’s GAY!)

This is why, for every one Bridesmaids, we have four Die Hards, four Terminators, four Pirates of the Caribbean, three Transformers, and two Hangovers. I have seen all seventeen of these films (plus Bridesmaids), so I know the real reason they were so successful isn’t because men don’t enjoy a good romantic story (Men enjoy good love stories as much as women. As long as the emotions are real. The story doesn’t have to be realistic, just the emotions and scenario. Which is why Wall E worked. And that is also why “He’s Just Not That In To You” bombed! Most women who watch rom-coms almost exclusively still haven’t grown up, or so it seems.They crave fairy tale romances with plastic emotions all centered around the one woman no guy wants to marry. No premise, no futuristic setting, the same crap over and over again with different actresses.) Strip away the roofies, explosions, and talking robots and at the heart of each of the above franchises is a hero who will do anything to protect (or get home to) the woman he loves.

Perhaps it’s simply that because these more expensively made, man-centric, special-effects heavy films (I’m counting Mike Tyson as a special effect) tend to be so widely promoted, while romantic comedies are released in so many fewer cities, on less screens, with the only pre-release buzz centering around whatever real-life romantic travails their stars are currently enduring, that makes the “guys won’t see a romantic comedy” thing a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.”(No Excuses now. Those films are promoted so much and are given such huge marketing budgets because the studios know they’ll make all that money back. Not the case with rom-coms. Too tiny a target audience. Single moms, single girls, end of story. Whereas as with action flicks you attract all men without exception. Yes even the gay ones who come in droves to gawk at Chris Helmsworth’s body in Thor. You also attract women in relationships whose boyfriends drag them along. Since these films interest men, most single women will watch them too so they can talk about what guys want to talk about. And here’s the best part – Almost all these films are rated PG-13. Studios make sure it’s a PG-13 and not an R. This means lots and lots of kids at the movies all dying to watch your movie first. This also means lots and lots of parents accompanying their kids to watch Transformers movies. Can’t beat that killer combo.)

”This isn’t to say movies with exploding talking robots, roofies, or pirates shouldn’t be made.  I would never say that, because I’m a fan of those films as well.  I just think we need to be honest and admit that all of these stories, like all of us, have something in common: We all yearn to watch others fall in love, as we have; struggle to find themselves, as we have; and of course be publicly humiliated by an adversary, and tortured by a domineering matriarchal figure, as we have.” (Class Dismissed!)

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Rachina Ahuja
Writing about myself is an annoying task because I’m never the same. I like change, I’m used to it, but when I go to my favorite restaurant, I’ll always order the same thing. Why take a risk? My ideal occupation would be Captain of a pirate ship with a pet orangutan but I’ll settle for making animated movies.

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Swayamvar: The Top 5 Candidates

By Swetabh Kumar 

Yeah, it’s understandable if you’ve already seen something like this in your inbox. . Yet, please allow my claim of a futuristic work to make sure you keep reading this (Note- my way of saying that this isn’t spam!). I say  ‘Futuristic’, because every stint with Ms. Rakhi Sawant as the  protagonist always has a future, on page 3, in the  rumour mills or simply in the ‘recycle bin’ of the public’s memory. But then ‘Rakhi Ka Swayamvar’ did achieve jackpot TRP’s . It was so much of a hit that the next instant, you had an obsolete creature called Rahul Mahajan giving off his handsome self to one of the 11 ‘crazy’ girls who were game. And after weeks of all the ‘suspense’, the climax was one you could’ve bet your wages on: Rakhi dumps the finalist, and lets loose another controversy to bid season 1 adieu. About the 2nd matrimonial season, a birdie reported Mr.Mahajan finally got a girl…and that’s plainly the last heard of him and her!!

Clearly, with ‘high-end drama’ being the sole call, my imagination can’t resist visualising possibilities for the coming sequels. And looking at what sells on small screen; some of these alternatives can indeed make for an interesting watch.  So join along as we seek 5 ‘best-seller’ guests for ‘Swayamvar’, 5 eligible singles who can actually drag you n me into watching them ring the wedding bells on screen…..

Right then, here we go 5-1 on the list of ‘omg’ bachelors (!!)

5. Karan Johar:  Right then Karan, seems like your fans just got satiated with excess ‘Koffee’, or maybe SRK wants a termination to the long streak of ‘touchy’ jokes both of you starred in. Either way, the message is clear: For long, we’ve seen the million-dollar director question celebs on link-ups and fall-outs. And with your niche in family dramas Karan, we’re sure you’ll end up with the most ‘sanskaari’ girl of all, the ‘perfect bahu’ of your cinemas. But then, it’ll be interesting to see how many of each gender compete for the garland. After all, no one would be surprised if you won the prize for the perfect metro sexual!

4. Priety Zinta: Alright, Ms dimple, we understand movies aren’t exactly your forte anymore ( I really don’t remember a hit after Kabhi Alvida naa Kehna....wait, was that even a hit? ). Plus, the sweetness, the smartness, the coolness and all ‘Ness’(read Ness Wadia) declared ‘Astalavista’ long back, changing the headlines from ‘Bombay Dyeing’ to ‘Priety crying’. And to add to agony, your last heard venture, the Kings XI, haven’t quite made news at the IPL ( the cheerleaders get more attention than the team) . So Ms.Zinta, this advice comes from me ‘DilSe’ :take heart from the fact that if Rakhi can gather a dozen contestants, you’re too not completely forsaken by men  yet, plus the swayamvar would remind people that you did do films ages back,so go for it Ms eligible, enjoy seemingly your last doze of limelight, get your man and settle down for good.

3. Ekta Kapoor: So finally we run into the  serial killer’ of the small screen, the effigy of all that can make you weep while watching Star Plus. We’re talking of a lady who’s made her millions through scripts that somehow glues all household females to television sets from 7 to 10 everyday. A lamenting ‘bahu’ in a sari, a mother-in-law resembling Satan and a dozen wailing people on each side make up what EktaKapoor popularised as ‘Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki’, or a ‘Kusum’ or some other random crap . So with her craze for ‘rona-dhona’ , what preferences  she lays down for her Mr. Perfect is what remains to be seen ( we’re guessing he’s  rich, successful, handsome , seemingly emotionless and yet sensitive at the same time). For, a lady who can challenge family emotions so dramatically on reel, she  might as well act equally dramatic and chaotic in reality to reach the zenith of ‘parivaar’ values from her ideal suitor. Statutory warning for viewers : Its EktaKapoor after all, keep that handkerchief close to your eyes.  If you don’t cry into it, you can at least take the easy way out and strangle yourself with it

2. Himesh Reshammiya:

Here’s introducing to you the victim of most puns in the past 5 years ( even though he hasn’t released a good song for the last 4 of them). The jokes, the spoofs directed at the guy and his music compositions have defined a genre of sarcasm by themselves, and might as well amuse people indefinitely. Nonetheless, the man does sell, and in huge numbers too. On stage, he’s said to be a phenomenon; on reality TV, they call him a ‘blatant egoist’, but what is Himesh like when he sheds the microphone and holds the wedding ring in lieu. No doubt his ‘nasal’ image has been stomped and ridiculed by you and me, but hey, the ‘EkBaarAaja’ croon might still drive a herd of maidens to his ‘swayamvar’, following which a fan might just get to spend the rest of life with her idol. What’ll be actually exciting to see is how controversy’s favourite child ‘pokes his NOSE’ into marital affairs, and how his wannabe brides react to his ‘Suroor’ .P.S. It will of course, go a level higher on viewership if he withdraws his cap on this one (nothing beats the odds than a nasal sounding bald dude who gets a hot chick).

And finally, we reach the numero uno. From koffee caterers to nasals, from ‘limelight seekers’ to emotional aatankwadis, we’ve had four powerful nominations to grace the ‘Swayamvar’, each with a unique flair. And after an intense mano a mano,I managed to get the ‘unique-est’ of all flairs in the man getting the #1 crown here….

Fine then, for starters, he’s by far the ‘most influential’ single of them all. RakhiSawant once called him ‘hot’ in a tabloid, he’s got ShilpaShetty going gaga over his art. Clad in just an orange ‘lungi’, he’s no less than a national icon today. Friends, no prizes whatsoever for guessing, the man in reference is none other than our Mr. Naturopathy, the ‘Pranayaam’ maestro, Baba Ramdev . (again, be sure to keep a handkerchief by your side, for reasons mentioned above) With followers and believers counting in lakhs, this man will most definitely take ‘swayamvar’ to a different level, as the audience will be super-curious to see the role of the ‘Khapalbhaati’, ‘Anulom-Vilom’ and his ever enigmatic smaller left eye in determining who walks out as ‘baba’s gal’ after the finale. A definite MUST WATCH!!!, the first ever health-cum-masala show….wow!!

I’ll be frank. We’re reached that vague point where we’re done with the climax, but not with the entire story( if this were a movie, there would be a make out scene now) . But yup, we ultimately get the 5 ‘oh-so-desirable’ individuals, any of who can turn TRP mills rolling sky-high, because  it’s drama that catches the Indian audience like nothing else. The idea of a TV-based matrimony implies new levels of scripted broadcasts, no Arjun has to hit the eye of the fish to get Draupadi here, its all come down to public entertainment. Sure, you might believe that there are others who deserve to make it to the top five. People like Arindham Choudhry, Rahul Gandhi and others sure seem like safe bets, but do mail us if you think of any others!