Saturday, January 31, 2015

Extremely Short Stories - Part I

Stories In Two Sentences

Dear Diary,
Today is a very important day of my life, Last year same day I lost my legs in an accident when I was on my way for final selection of players to represent my country in Olympics track and field events. All hope is not lost yet, they said with some good practice soon I will able to represent my country in Paralympics, it’s just till then I have to bear the cost of all my treatments.

Mom!!! When will Dad come back, now I have become a good boy too? His mom said “Very Soon” and that moment glanced to the hanging picture frame of her deceased husband and wonder what lie she will tell next.


Stories In 18 Words


They died for their love, to meet in heaven. Unfortunately, their Karma took one of them to hell.
They agreed for the duel, and died. She, once loved by both and now conquered by none, smiled.



Stories In 15 Words

Today, I met him. My friend, who my Parents said was imaginary in my childhood.

I heard about the man who killed me yesterday, his soul is reaching hell tonight.


Stories In 8 Words

What will you have, Tea or Coffee? 
"Blood".

They struggled hard to become the strangers, forever.

What you expect from life? 
Nothing, Just Love.


Stories In 7 Words

The End is The New Beginning, Recursively.

Daily Status Of Vikramaditya: Carrying Betal...Again
(Inspired from Vikram Betal Indian Mythological Stories)

I lost inside the jungle, named city.


All these stories I had originally wrote in my Quora answers for respective question categories.

©Tapas Majumdar, Not for reproduction without Author's permission.

Saturday, January 03, 2015

10 Best Bollywood Movies Of 2014

2014 is now over and it’s time to judge the best movies of that year. So who will going to judge that, it will be yours truly? Hence, my choice of best movies of 2014 from all the movies released last year will be:

Ranking
The Chosen One
Show Me....Details
 Phata Poster
1.
Haider
I assume this will be voted unanimously among best movie of this year. The closest competitors may be Queen or PK.
2.
Queen
A movie that redefined storytelling and also a welcome change from hero dominated industry and this is the core reason to place it above the third choice.
3.
PK
This nanga punga dost delivered magic, with all the controversies and release issues will place it as third best movie of the year. I know it’s a hard choice between second and third place.
4.
2 States
A movie from bestselling novel with all ingredients that Bollywood movies are famous for.
5.
Highway
The story of Veera and Mahabir was very well written and directed. A must watch for this year.
6.
Mary Kom
A biopic which becomes the first Hindi film to be to be screened on the opening night of the Toronto International Film Festival, do worth a mention here including the review or acceptance it received after its release. Even choreographers in Gujarat had incorporated "Mary Kom" punching-style in Garba for Navaratri this year.
7.
Ek Villain
It’s high in this order because of the song, music, melody, dialogues and performances. Whereas the script and story is also not that bad and probably one of the highest earned movie among most of the movies in this list.
8.
Finding Fanny
A movie with cast as Naseeruddin Shah and Pankaj Kapur can't go much wrong and it did received many critical acclaims to be in this list.
 
9.
Bhoothnath Returns
Story of Bhoothnath played by Amitabh Bachchan at his age of 70+ years do need a mention in this list along with the child artist Parth who naturally fit into his character. This is definitely a must watch movie for children and adult alike.
10.
Khoobsurat
This is a Disney product and they did what they do the best, to churn out a happy go lucky movie. You can't do much and only enjoy this movie with your "Maa Ka Phone Aaya". You know what I mean.

Mentioned below are the ones which missed the mark, eventually there are place for only 10. Here the respective roles are played by unknown or not so known actors and people still liked those movies. It’s definitely the victory of cinema as a whole. Included them as they were the underdog releases of this year and still performed best to their potential. Also the movie Youngistan can be remembered for last performance by the legend Farooq Sheikh





Some of the money minting machine at box office, like Bang Bang, Kick and Happy New Year which also released last year would have found a place in this list too but I tried to find a genuine list in terms of Quality not Quantity.


Let me know if you agreed to this list or not.

©Tapas Majumdar

Friday, January 02, 2015

New Year's Impossible Resolutions



I never made any resolutions, so thought why not this year. It’s another new year and good time for making new resolutions. Keeping up with the pace of this year old traditions, I thought of listing down top five resolutions this year. Only difference, they will be impossible to achieve.

I know many of you may think even if I make a simple resolution like waking up early in the morning every day whole year and probability of failing is very high and can also be listed under impossible resolutions but I believe in thinking something more impossible.

In positive note, many of you think there is nothing is impossible, I believe the same “Nothing Is Impossible ….Theoretically” hence are my resolutions below. To all those who believe this as ridiculous idea, let me tell you, if you raise your aim by throwing stones toward Moon there are very good chances you will hit your neighbor’s bare head. So let me know what will be your impossible resolutions for this year. Some foods for thoughts are mentioned below.

1.       To Be an Astronaut – Why to throw stone to moon when you can actually land up in moon. You can extend your resolution to become an astronaut and find yourself landed in one of the lesser travelled stars too. If you think this is not possible in one year time frame then didn’t I tell you earlier “everything is possible”? As this falls under impossible resolutions to achieve so please note this resolution will not consider accomplished if you are an Astronaut by profession. Also if you are in any other profession but do daily conference with your team members or client in conference rooms named “Astronaut”, “Moon”, “Star” or “Sun” etc.
 
2.       Exercise Daily – I can guarantee this resolution is the most popular resolution the day new year starts. It’s the reason due to which Fitness Center memberships are highest in the month of January than in any month of the year. There will be various variety of this resolution at your end like exercise weekly or exercise at least 3 days a week etc. Many of you may able to achieve those resolutions or struggle hard to achieve that too. Which so ever category you fall the impossible resolution will be to exercise at least 1 hour daily i.e. 365 Days of the year, no matter what. You can do exercise of any kind and also more than the allocated time every day but the extra time will not get credited to any other day. To ease this up, if in any given day this year you encountered Tsunami and did swimming to survive yourself (Swimming is an exercise) or got caught in landslide and climbing back to the land (Mountain Climbing is an exercise) will also fall under that particular day exercise. If you did this kind of surviving activity more than an hour on that particular day, you still have to invest an hour in exercise very next day.

3.       To Laugh Every Day – Impossible, if you add 1 hour every day to it. The first resolution was imaginary, second one was practical and this one is emotional.  I think this is the easiest resolution to achieve in any year but most tough to accomplish. If you are part of laughter member club and you think this is too easy for you to achieve, then you can introduce complexity to this resolution by laughing every day at particular time outside your laughter member club time. E.g. Laugh every day at 1.00 PM. Please note this resolution may have its own drawbacks either choose a legitimate time or apply intelligently. Like if you heard that your friend fell from bed and broke his leg can tickle your funny bones but it doesn’t looks well if you visit him after his accident at 1.00 PM and started laughing in front of him, to achieve this resolution. Worst if you are attending a funeral and your time to laughter starts now.

4.       Travel to new places – Yes, this is also a popular resolution for most of the peoples but how about every day. Yes, each day you will travel to new place which you have never visited before. Which means commuting to office, to your mom’s place or to your girlfriend(s) place will not count unless they had changed their location in 2015. If you are giving interviews and you have to visit different companies at different unique locations everyday then congratulations, this is actually covers the intricacies of this resolution. Although, I will feel pity on you if you have to continue your job search for 365 days, just to achieve this resolution.  

5.       Daily Dosage of Love Making– Yes this is also kind of impossible now a days. If not for you then first thing first, Hats off to you. You definitely need to share recipe of success to many peoples who love to be like you. So especially for people like you and to make this one impossible, you need to do it in different unique position every day. Warning: Kamasutra has only 65 positions and you need to invent 300 new ones to cover 365 Days of the year, so kind of theoretically impossible. To those who find doing it every day itself is challenging will suggest to do it with a reliable partner(s) only, no animals should be harmed in this resolution. Yes, you can do it with clothes on, lights on or can even use Red or Green light in place of boring white or yellow home or street lights. If you are trying to achieve this resolution with Green or Red lights on then don’t blame me for this suggestion, in case you find a hard on, the moment you approach a traffic signal. I know, every country use green and red lights for traffic signal so no escape based on location.

Do let me know if you actually tried any of them, as you can find none of them are impossible to start it’s just the continuity and ending, you know.

©Tapas Majumdar