My name is Khan

Being a teacher is hard work but it also have some perks. Every now and then the kids get vacations and even though teachers are suppose to work preparing lessons, the flexible schedule means we can work extra hard before and after and such allow ourselves a vacation as well.
Shukran Allah for that because this winter it allowed me to go to NY.
I'm in the red money wise thanks to that trip, NY is so cheap compared to DK. But it was worth it. I got to see MNIK on the big screen - happy happy me!

I read blogpeople's reviews of the movie and they are surprisingly negative. Or maybe not surprisingly, it's just that I don't think I watch movies in the same way as many other people do.
Movies are for entertainment purpose only and even the crappiest of movies are entertaining (not that MNIK is a crappy movie). Instead of being ticked off at the ignorant portrayal of USA I found it hilarious to watch KJ version of an African American community in the south. The flood had me rolling on the floor laughing, the entertainment value of those scenes scored a 12 on my tickle bone list!
I'm sure it wasn't KJ's intention to be funny but I can watch a movie anyway I want, regardless of the directors agenda and if I want thought provoking facts I read news papers.
I do not take movies seriously. And hence there are no bad movies in my book!!!

Of course I'm not so foolish as to think that movies can't affect peoples views on things but I hope/believe I'm educated enough to know the difference between fact and fiction and always when in doubt DO RESEARCH! If only everyone was like me (irony, sarcasm and satire does not translate well in writing).
Should ignorant/uneducated people be banned from watching movies? is it to dangerous? will they take anything literally? Now there is a whole new blog topic to explore!

Not really relevant to MNIK:
When in NY I met a guy who had heard that DK was the happiest country in the world. I have heard that before and I have read the research behind the statement and according to that happy in general means healthy, wealthy and educated. The research fail to mention that DK is on the bad end of the list when it comes to suicide. So what is happy? and a worldwide search involving 80,000 people is that enough to measure happiness?

I liked the NY-waley very much because instead of just taking the statement for a fact he was interested in the whys and I like people who ask questions instead of expressing absolutes (this sentence work in danish not sure if it works in English).

Veracious (sotheydance.blogspot.com)

"It's always weird to learn through movies. Not in the sense that you think whatever a movie portrays is reality, but to be inspired to find out what actually happened and what the movie did differently, or what circumstances made the movie as it is"

She has written an entry, that made me think, it is not what we know that is important, it is the awareness of what we don't know that is important.

or as Richard Cecil puts it "The first step towards knowledge is to know that we are ignorant".

Wow that was a long one I need a nap now, still suffering from jet-lag.

six degrees of separation.

In Parineeta Vidya puts a gold chain around Saif's neck and boom they are married, in Mujhse dosti karoge Hritik drops sindoor on Rani and dhoom like music starts and in Hadh kar di aapne Govinda starts a fire walks around it with Rani and oops they are married.

And since it is so easy to get married in the eyes of Bhagvan how do they cope with all these marriages in real life? Bollywood must be the the most polygamist "sect" in the world:)
It gave me the idea of making a giant "six degrees of separation" map kindly inspired by The L word. But I also realized that I'm to busy/lazy to do so - No blog homework for me thank you!

India (in theory-bjp: damn the orange extremists of that group) welcomes all religions there is law making concerning each faith. The one particular law I'm thinking about is the one that allowed Dharmendra and Hema to get married.
D was/is a Hindu and a married one at that, he fell in love with Hema, wanted to get a divorce and marry her but his wife wouldn't divorce him. His solution was to become a Muslim and marry Hema anyway because according to Indian law Hindus can have one wife but Muslims can have four. Interesting concept na?

But how do they deal with on screen marriages? don't they care about the easiness with witch they can get married, are they secularised in their thinking or do they say a couple of sorry mantras and hence annul the marriages?

I have no solution, I'm just thinking out loud!

after thinking!

I have been doing a lot of thinking!
It started out as thinking about the paradox of the mangal sutra and the sindoor and it ended up revolving around homework.
Being a teacher I have a lot of homework and I really don't need any more.
And while thinking this blog entered the dreaded box of homework in my head. I blog because I want to rant about whatever is in my head not because I want to add to my already busy life, by doing research, finding screen caps and movie clips. I am to busy/lazy to do such things.
Therefore this blog is about what is already tumbling about in my brain. Keeping up with the Jones' in blogland is not for me!

To come

Doing some thinking about:
The paradox of the Mangal Sutra and Sindoor.

The actress I hate to love

Thank god for the movies Kambakkht ishq and 3 idiots they finally made me feel that my irrational love for Bebo is justified.
In almost every stinking (yes stinking) movie she has made she plays "Poo". An over the top bubbly and very irritating dits. From "Refugee" to "Yaadein" to "Khushi" she demonstrates the acting range of a nat.
I watched Chameli a role that was supposed to show more than just Poo, she even won a special performance award, but she still comes across as a dimwitted daughter of an actor. Nepotism is truly not great!
In Asoka she is good but I thought it to be a fluke in Omkara she looks good but the movie didn't really require anything else from Dolly since she hasn't many lines to deliver.

So why is it I have 20+ movies with Bebo?
She is Bollywood at it's best and worst. She is the perfect actress to whom you can switch of you brain and just enjoy the inconsistencies from a film industry that favors family and looks over acting ability.

Bebo is the perfect illustration of how I feel about Bollywood. There are no bad Bollywood movies there are only good ones and funny ones. Funny not as in slapstick comedy but funny as in "I thought they were in Delhi, what are they doing dancing on a mountain top in Switzerland?" kind of funny.

In kambakkht ishq there is finally a role that is perfect for Bebo. The role of Simi requires a pouting hair flinging "blonde" and she surely knows how to deliver. Which she should, because she played that role before even when the movie didn't call for it!
As for 3 idiots, I can only say that I liked the movie so much that Bebo didn't bug me and that must surely mean that she did a good job, right?