Cocktail: A cock's tale

Last night I watched the Hindi flick by the same name "Cocktail". Starring Saif Ali Khan, Deepika Padukone and Diana Penty I sat down to watch it with a critical eye like I usually do. A Statutory Warning appeared in the beginning that cigarettes and alcohol consumption is injurious to health but the background voice omitted speaking about alcohol [duh! yeah it appears on cigarette packets as well with the images of cancerous lungs on it, as laughed at by smokers who buy it.]

Saif Ali à an overconfident playboy. You will not know what his profession is, except that he’s some successful business associate who’s skill run on his erection…coz he’s also shown flirting with a woman of high stature in office (Chinese maybe and pretty). Well that seems to be his part-time job cause it seems like his full time job is chasing girls and playing lascivious schemes in connivance with his Mamu (Boman Irani, who has a white wife in the movie), who for some strange reason refers to his sister, Saif’s mother (Dimple Kapadia), as “jiji”. I didn’t know Punjabis referred to their sisters as “jiji”!! Well maybe some exceptions do. Dimple Kapadia's acted well with that heavy unnatural Punjabi accent but still she was pretty palatable. You wanna see more of the ol' babe in her prime, watch Bobby. She'd beat the new girls out silly.

Deepika  is Veronica...Veronica? why not Sudha or Pushpa? If she's Veronica, then why is Saif not Archie and Diana not Betty?? Why why why??? Anyway, she is a do-gooder slut. What does she do in London; I don’t know…maybe she’s a prostitute coz she doesn't do anything else in the movie except for making moves. All that’s been told is that her parents don’t give a shit about her and she’s on her own. She goes to clubs, gets piss drunk and catches a random guy, places his hands on her ass and starts doing the grind. Apparently people at the club like her a lot when she jumps up on tables and start moving the booty.

Diana’s a software professional who got married to a conman but doesn't realize it till she come to London to meet him. Heavens know how she lands up in London from India Without telling her husband that she’s coming over (How the hell do these women get visas?). On the plane she’s kinda harassed by a fat Punjabi guy (Manoj Pawha takes these roles to put bread on his table…shucks!). I don’t understand why that scene was made, why, why, why? Anyway as if that wasn’t enough, when she reaches London Airport, she’s spotted by Saif Ali. Who gets enamored by this simple beautiful Indian girl, the kind that he’s probably never taken to bed.

COCKTAIL:

The first half is plain nonsense aimed at the reckless youngsters who wanna watch people having booze, dance on a high, talk about great sex and watch big stars lead their own messed up lives (like they either do or fantasize about doing). LOL! That song in the beginning, with Deepika dancing in the background, has lyrics that actually had a line something like this “…dass tera rate ki aa” (Slut! Sure!) Everybody is having sex and boozing except for Diana Penty, who always keeps her panty on and dutifully bows down to a miniature statue of god.

So Saif and Deepika meet via a prank she plays on him. The club and then end up having  sex, lotsa sex and get into this casual relation. According to her, he’s great in bed…ah! That sure must’ve stirred the plain Jane Diana somewhere deeeep inside eh! heh heh heh! Anyway, they have lotsa casual sex and talk like teeagers and have a good time with popular songs playing in the background (daaru desi and other shit!!) At the same time, this sono fabi tch is also eyeing this simple girl. He’s hell bent on telling her that there’s nothing wrong with her. LOL! I’ve heard so many despos who wanted to take a random sad girl (who’re trying to make sense of their messed up lives) to bed, tell em that.  

Somehow, these two sleazy people, Saif and Diana manage to steal a moment and kiss and claim it is love. I cannot understand how a playboy can fall madly in love with a girl by giving her a peck on her lips. Psychologically (and pathologically) speaking, that fucker just wanted to make-out with her coz he hadn’t made-out with a non-bitch ever.  

Following the Bollywood formula, the second half of this movie was serious and actually got me hooked on after a bit apart from the fact that Saif casually tells Deepika about how cool it was for him to shift focus on her friend coz they were after all just having Casual Sex and that he is actually in love with Diana!

What I still irritating, yet amusing, was Saif constantly telling Deepika that their's was just a casual screwing around so it’s OK for him to fall in love with her friend. Saif's always telling Diana how much he loves her and constantly telling her that she's in love him too. Deepika's constantly crying that she loves Saif and that he loves her too. Who loves who?…who cares?…just have threesome (like Deepika suggests in the movie) and move on and cut the crap.

Then slowly towards the latter half of the second half the story starts to become a little less nonsensical.  Realizing how intensely she hurt her friend by sharing a private moment with her boyfriend, Diana goes back to her husband and confides in him. Deepika gets run over by a big car when she’s drunk and trying to tell Saif how much she loves him, all the while the other two are in denial about different things. One of the stupidest part of the movie was when a white girl approaches Saif with interest and he start to blab in Hindi about strange stuff about love coz he's so hopelessly in love with Diana. In doing that he's actually making fun of her and that scene is in bad-taste. 

Saif starts to take care of Deepika as she recovers and there seems like there’s something going on between Diana and her estranged husband. For the first time sitting through the torture, I thought I’ll forgive them if even now they give me a good story.  I just loved that song JUGNI, it is just awesome and well picturized in the movie, for me the rest of them nothing short of emetic despite the fact that they're popular. The movie started to take a mature turn and I liked it. So what if a thirty-two year old guy is being an ass all the while, when you see him start to understand the situation and respond in a mature way, you say, alright, they all make it work now. It seemed like Saif, while taking care of Deepika, will realize what true love is, will realize how much she loves him in return and let Diana be with her husband as they try and work on their new beginning.

………BUT THEN…..CRASH BOOM BANG…suddenly near then end you find out that they’re all the same A ssh oles and bi tc hes. The situation is still the same. Deepika, once she recovers from her injuries, still in love with Saif, now want to play goody goody and get Saif and Diana together, all the while expressing her love for Saif. Saif the so nofa bi tch, gives a shit about Deepika's feelings, is still seeing Diana in Deepika and chasing her with his shlong dangling in sadness. And last but not least, the placid Diana turns out to be the biggest psycho when her estranged husband (what an as sho le he was anyway) expresses his interest in giving it a shot in a polite way, she leaves for India saying that it can’t happen anymore because she has Saif on her mind-- c’mon you sissy psycho, the guy’s changed and what the f uck are you going to India for? To become a nun?

Meanwhile Saif and his new agony aunt Deepika, rush to Diana’s husband’s place only to find out that she’s not there. For some strange reason her husband (who has a li’l bandage on his nose…and we’ll never know why coz it had nothing to do with the story) wouldn’t clearly tell them where she is, he keeps saying stupid stuff like “yeah go ahead, check the bathroom too, she’s not there either.” Then the inevitable happens, the all-muscle no-brain Saif goes berserk and pounces on him and…dhishum dhishum dhishum…after all you’ve gotta give it to the guy, at his age, he’s playing the role of a 32 year old. He is so well maintained, yeah we do like to see him banging a guy on the couch…OH! I’m talking about punches. Well after the good beating, the guy finally tells them that she's left for India.

It ends like this, Diana reaches India and is greeted there by Saif who’s reciting his trite playboy dialogues in a pensive mood. SURPRISE! Deepika is also there teasing him and bucking him up! How shameless is this man and how stupid is this woman. How crazy is this trio!! They just suck!!

Much of the movie was shot in London; I feel sad for London. There's not relevance of London or Londoners in this movie. Deepika's character hasn't even put a mild effort to sound like a Londoner and that would be too much to expect from Saif Ali Khan anyway. I neither understand why he keeps talking to everybody in London in Hindi, even at his workplace when he's flirting with the Chinese woman he talks in Hindi and asks a guy to translate it; all that is mystery to me. 

The movie neither talks about reality, not is it palatable fiction. It has trite and stupid jokes interspersed throughout. Cheap talk between Boman Irani and Saif sure is funny but generally out of context (well! where's the context part anyway). Saif may pass for Playboy material till the time he shuts his mouth and opens his shirt (that's the only time he appeals when he resembles Rahul Dev a bit). Deepika acted well, Diana character didn't have much to prove in the movie cept remain shut with a pout. This movie had the potential to be made into something great but it ended up being just the opposite; what a shame.

Here’s my verdict: there’s no cocktail, it’s a Cock’s Tale, if you know what I mean.

Har ek friend

Honestly I think most cell-phone (CP) connection ads are interesting. Say for eg Airtel's "har ek friend zaroori hota hai" (translates in English to "because each and every friend is important) in which they talk about cheaper call rates/free talk time that they offer so that you can keep in touch with your friends all the time. Apart from the fact that I do not understand the importance of keeping in touch with all your friend unless somebody's paying you for it, I know that in following them you will be paying a heavy price.

Yes I shall bring to your kind attention the trite topic of cell-phone induced damage to the human body. The internet has a deluge of information about this topic and also about some people debunking

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1392810/Mobile-phones-CAN-increase-cancer-risk-Shock-finding-major-study.html

http://www.cellphonesafety.org/health/ : This website will ask you to shed your fears. It will tell you that CPs can be dangerous but not as dangerous as some people make it out to be. In fact they go on to encourage you to debunk "scare tactics" created by some people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_radiation_and_health
Wikipedia page on risk of CPs. It is an interesting compendium.

http://voices.yahoo.com/laws-regulating-cell-phone-while-35873.html?cat=27 It is an established fact that using a CP while driving does cause distraction and reduces your reaction time to a situation by a couple of times. It even reduces your attention to the traffic around you. Of course I've had a first hand experience of "near-misses" while driving and talking and on the CP. This is equivalent to being drunk. It is funny to see so many people using CPs while driving. Maybe they think they're immune to the attention distraction syndrome for they've never met with an accident....yet.

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/top_three/article_dcab06b6-6614-11df-9e65-001cc4c03286.html Talks about how using handsfree while driving is just as dangerous.

http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2007/aug2007_report_cellphone_radiation_01.htm This is an important article. I suggest you go through the whole of it.

http://voices.yahoo.com/are-risk-cell-phone-radiation-3467501.html?cat=5
Discusses the diametrically opposite ends of the alarmist and CP companies who are hell bent of saying that their gadgets are harmless.

http://voices.yahoo.com/the-cell-phone-controversy-potential-health-risk-4954778.html Gives you a few tips about how to use your CP to reduce risk of damage by radiation. Some of them are quite impractical.

http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/pdf/1478-4505-8-2.pdf Finally this article discusses the issue in depth. It is a very interesting read, not very technical, not very abstract either.

Final word:

It is clear how CP company giants that can flex muscles with the enormous amount of money they have, influence studies conducted to check the effect of CP usage on harm caused to the body. There are a few important videos that have been eye openers for me. I'll share the links in a while...

Last but not least, har ek friend zaroori nahi hota (not every friend is important). Even if they are, they're not so important that you grow tumours, damage your ovaries and sperms and other body parts for them. Live healthy, take care. Don't let these companies fool you in frying your brains by making cool ads...What an IDEA sir ji!

Flipped

Love this one, especially the way it ends. Just when I thought that the little boy gonna name some cheap item number...he says something that just brings a big smile to your face and you end up thinking that there are some ad-makers out there who have a good head on their shoulders.

Unsure of Sure

I abhor the SURE deodorant ad featuring Akshay Kumar. Firstly I detest the way he sounds when he speaks throughout the advertisement. Of course I also don't understand that what kinda sand storm would blow up buildings like an atomic shock-wave but I guess that can still pass considering that it's shown to be "shooting" itself.
Next...most importantly...people people people if Sure deo's gonna stop you from sweating even at 58 degree centigrade, you really need to keep away from it. Why? Because the whole concept of antiperspirants is stupidity. We use deos to ease the smell generated (mainly in the underarms) by prolonged sweating (and if you're one who doesn't bathe regularly, your deo dosage is bound to go up substantially). Of course there are other places that smell but if you bather regularly and properly your private parts won't smell horrid and yes, they'd never smell like lavender either so just let them be what they are. When we feel hot, we perspire, it's essential that we do because it is the body's way of keeping the core temperature controlled to 37 degree centigrade. if you stop sweating, you'd basically cook yourself to death. of course I'm not saying that just stopping the sweat from underarms wouldn't cook you but understand that usually when most people apply deos they just spray it around their torso.
It's good to sweat and it's good to bather regularly. Please don't stink, use a deo but then don't go berserk following this misleading fad of anti-perspirants either.
Freaking ad mad world...they want money and they won't think twice making you unhealthy for it.

Cadbury's Bournvita

In my house, I've been the Horlick's kid and my sis has been the Bournvita kid. We've seen great ads of both the companies over the years but the new ad takes competitiveness to new heights. India's bursting with people & money and everything is becoming competitive. Understandably, this has been well depicted in the new Bournvita ad which shows two kids in a judo match. One kid get pinned down by the other and his mom watches on. In what seems to be a massive adrenalin rush, the pinned kid turns the tables on his attacker and pins him in a great comeback move. His mom smiles at him and he looks back at her like a possessed maniac while he slowly pumps his fist in the air. The voice behind says that when you prepare your kids to compete, nothing can stop them, not even you... (not even you?? why'd you stop em if you're preparing them?). I find the latter part of the ad a little weird, firstly the kid looks like a freakin psycho and secondly the words of the ad seem to be for a lion cub growing up in the African grasslands but that's ok growing up in India's very similar.

I don't like the ad but I don't dislike it either but if you put a gun to my head, I'd say it's rather avoidable. I don't understan what kinda kid judo championship would be held in India a dojo and has the kinda audience that looks like it's an Olympics match. The just the expressions on this kid and his mother are a li'll strange. It tries to portray a kind of psycho killer instinct...hey save it, he's gonna have it later in life anyway.

I have nothing against martial arts, in fact I love them. I don't have anything against bournvita either, I think it's yummy, I just don't like the ad above. Here's another bournvita ad about martial arts (karate) and is really cute:

Here's another nice bournvita ad:

The new COMPLAN advertisement

"mummy mai bada to ho raha hoon par badoonga kab" translates to "mummy I am growing up (age-wise) but when will I actually grow-up (height-wise).

Another lame kid worried about his vital stats.

In a weird race to promote their health drinks, Horlicks, Bournvita, Boost and Complan are coming up with atrocious ads that suggests that if a kid consumes their product, he/she is bound to be a constantly-charged up all-rounder or taller or stronger or sharper that his/her peers. They're using stats as a tool to promote their drinks without anyone questioning them about how they carry out these trials and how do they normalize the various groups for genetic variation for tallness. It is really sad that there's no one to question their methods and consequently use the self-generated information to promote their product.

I dislike all other ads as well but this ad by Complan really make all my body hair (oh so many) stand in irritable attention. The Stupid kid talks as if he's keeping a tab on his height:weight and genetic aspects and is disappointed with his growth which should be greater.

I think Complan ads of the yester-years, when we were kids in the 1980s and 90s weren't abhorrent where a cute little brother sister duo would compete to do difficult physical tasks and if the little sister wasn't able to, the bro would jump in and help her, with the song playing in the background "yeh hai badta baccha dekho kaisi kood lagaye, yeh hai badta baccha kapda chhota hota jaye" the ad was also shown in English and the song went something like this "He's a growing boy, look how he's shooting up. He's a growing boy his clothes are just not keeping up." and the boy hold out a cup of Complan in his hand and says "I'm a Complan boy" then his sister jumps in, elbows him gently and says "I'm a Complan girl". So it was about boy-girl equality in out son-possessed society and also about the happiness of parents watching their children grow up. Now it seems like they're competing with everything around them. I hope we don't have a Complan ad in the near future with kids trying to outgrow trees. I won't be surprised!

This is, in one way, another way of promoting lame ideas into our megalomaniac society. Everyone should be that tad bit taller, stronger, sharper and last but not least, to possess white skin.

I'm not against kids consuming health drinks, I'm against these companies promoting their products the way they are. It's doing no one any good but only adding to the muck in the heads of the nouveau-riche Indian citizen who's already bombarded with a plethora of advertisement convincing him that something is wrong with his height, his hair, his colour and his body and that all these "faults" can be mended using particular products. It's a shame because companies do nothing but cash in on the thinking of the public. They'll survey and find out what the common thinks and what the common will buy if the product is projected a certain way.

Therefore before I say the they suck (the companies), I'd say We Suck!

COMMUNITY MATRIMONY DOT COM

Mammals are known to extremely good parents, they take care of their young ones to ensure that they genes they transmitted in them are passed on successfully their offsprings and so on. Thus they say that our bodies perish but our genes live on in our children and their children. Immortality, or at least the concept, is thus accomplished in some way.
Humans take it to quite another level and chase their genes with zealot fervor. Such fanaticism about the genes that they’d disown their own offsprings and at times even exterminate them if the latter were to dare transmit the genes to an individual other than their own type or a type they consider inferior to them and thus they accrue discrimination in yet another form. This is seen around the world to some degree but none to an extent as in our motherland. How wrong it is to do so might be debatable but let us see how someone, once more, used it as a business strategy.
The advertisement starts with an old couple spotting a young girl exiting a building with a big guy with long curly hair. The two seem to be happily conversing and sit on a bike and move out from the scene. The old man watched in disbelief and inquires from his wife if the girl he just saw was someone by the name Nisha; he asks "is that our Nisha?". The old woman, alarmed as well, breaks out into flurry of sentences. Meantime there’s a decently dressed young man right behind them eavesdropping into the conversation. The old woman tells her partner that they should have consulted the “community” temple, “community” astrologer and the “community” elders. The young man behind them suggests that they should check up “community” matrimony dot com (communitymatrimony.com) as well. The old woman snubs him by saying that it would be another “dot com” but the ad goes on, in some vague way, to quickly say how useful this website would be to find partners in your community. The ad ends in the old woman resting peacefully on a chair, a big smile embellishing her face, while she looks with the contentment at the happy picture of the aforementioned “Nisha” with a decent looking guy, I can’t say if it was the same guy who suggested the website to them, in which case it made him a nifty man.
There you go, communitymatrimony.com, if you have some girl in your family who’s seeing a guy outside the “community”, you should definitely refer to this website. I do not how it would be different from shaadi.com or bharatmatrimony.com but sure there has to be some USP there.
Let us see what the ad, subliminally, enforce in one’s brain. Firstly the girl appears decently dressed and therefore, maybe even well educated. What’s wrong with the guy? He’s dressed in western outfit, has a western hairstyle (unless maybe you wanna call those hair a la aghori baba style). From his attire and appearance, he could pass for a student. That he owns a bike, also strengthens the presumption. What can possibly be presumed is that the two are seeing each other. Now according to the societal norms, a nubile-girl, again a debatable term, shouldn’t be allowed to exercise her free will to choose her partner. There are “values” that are very skillfully imbued into a girl’s psyche from a very early age. The ad underscores the fact that in our society it is not decent to have a boyfriend and be seen in public; someone’s gonna see you and you’ll bring a bad name to the family and therefore the “community”. Also that it is totally unacceptable to have a boyfriend from another “community”. Girls, when seen indulging in acts like roaming around freely with a boy, worst case scenario a boy from another community, must be married-off in earnerst. There are innumerable examples all around us of well-educated middle class, even high class families doing this. Married-off is more like disposed-off; off you go, keep our genes in our community.
The old couple shown in the ad is well dressed and conversing in English. Very smartly the ad doesn’t represent any one community as the decent well-educated old couple could belong to any “community” or religion. They’re definitely neither the filthy rich nor smelly poor, they are people who want to live in the society according to the rules laid down by the community, they’re people who educate their daughters, daughter who’ve studied with people like us, daughter who’ve been “arranged” to be married within the “community”, sometimes with, and at others without their consent. These are people who have access to the internet; these are the modern Indians.
The ad also plays to the fact that people from one community look down upon people from another community. As is shown by the fact that the “community” boy is shown to be more decently dressed, more appealing and appears to be the more acceptable of the two. They’ll sell what you want. If this is what you want, they’ll make it and make money from it.
A well-meaning ad for a society with good intentions but then did someone not say “the road to hell is paved with good intention”.