Disappointment with a hint of Homicidal Tendancy

So I just returned from the Mumbai Film Festival. I had been attending this lovely treat for cinephiles like me for the past two years. This year was amazingly terrible.

To begin with, the management was just as average as the previous years. I don't understand how they could fuck up after having fucked up before. I almost lost my life in a stampede for a film. This is the level of our peoples' stupidity. And to top it all up, there were ads being played. ADS. Are you fucking kidding me? Ads in a film festival? That too ads that are 15 minute long and eat up the time of the film? Seriously, someone needs to be spanked on the ass with a white hot iron rod. After this, I know for sure that I want to destroy the ad industry as horribly as I can.

But that isn't even the wort part of the festival. The worst were the people, the pseudo-cinephiles. Honestly, the crowds were fanatics in the last few years; people who would begin a riot if there was a disturbance. This year, the crowd was the biggest disturbance I faced. Not one film was watched without a phone ringing, or someone chatting on WhatsApp. People were talking, people were laughing at the Korean accents in a film (nothing funny, in fact they laughed at a guy dying just because it sounded funny), when I voiced my opinion against the annoyingly horrifying ads that they were playing, this same crowd asked me to shut up, defending the management's mistakes. This is what this festival has come to.

The movies were decent, the management was average, but the audience was worthy of hell. It is, I believe the fault of the management. Had they not commercialised their festival so much, it would still be catering to the niches that respect cinema, and not to the Facebook-WhatsApp generation that disrespects the film, the filmmaker and true-blood cinephiles.

Hope this festival never happens again. The crowds did not deserve it. And for those who actually deserve it, they cannot enjoy it as long as these assholes keep disturbing them. So what's the point anyways?

May the Darkness consume you in your Light, MAMI! You were a big disappointment. 

Celebrating Existence

Just my last post, I mentioned the first anniversary of my film ‘Désespoir’. Today, I’ll mention something even more intimate. Today I finish 20 revolutions around our lovely sun.

Well, this might seem like a ‘Hey its my Birthday. Give me attention!’ post, but its not. I had some thoughts that churned in my mind. As the day passed by, with the societal rituals being followed, candle, cake and gifts being happily consumed, I began to think of a more deeper issue. I had finished almost 20-25% of my life, assuming that I would live to be at least 80 in this disease trodden world. With that, I understood, I entered a new phase of life. One where things will, and I too should, get serious. A new Phase. A new Chapter.

So many have been born on this very same day. So many have died as well. But I spend the day in lovely companionship with my friends, not caring about any of that. And no matter how dark and black I may be on the inside, I cannot but help it. I love them all. They got me the best gifts ever. A tiny army knife, many books, and loads of other things. To be true, these material gains I received have terribly overwhelmed me with a great wave of happiness and joy.

And as these thoughts cross my mind, I believe that the coming year is when I will, and I definitely should, begin my steps, from walking to sprinting, towards my goal. This is the second time I have done the same type of post. But this one is mainly to thank my friends for their blessing good wishes and to pay gratitude to the Gods that may or may not exist, for all the good and bad that has happened. For I am what I am because of everything in the past.Today, I truly do celebrate. Not the anniversary of my birth, but I celebrate my very existence.

The Past be a Prequel,

The Present its Sequel,

While the Future, an announced production,

That has yet to be planned.

It cannot exist without the Present’s presence,

Which in turn is nothing without the Past’s existence.

Life is a cyclic force, living with rules of causality.

It is our Dharma, it is our Karma,

To be what we must,

And to seek what we are,

for better or worse,

Through the Darkness, that envelopes us,

To the light we all seek,

But you mustn’t look for light,

Instead, embrace the darkness,

For Life is exactly that,

A meaningless concept,

That is full of Abstracts.

A Year Later...

Time so flies, like dust and its grain,

All seems meaningless, yet nothing goes in vain.

Exactly on this day, one year ago, I did something very close to my heart. I uploaded my first film on YouTube. Titled ‘Désespoir’, the film was our most ambitious and probably our best piece of work in the whole of last year. As I sat today at Cutting Chai, watching several films in their film events, I realised the fact that an entire year had passed since I had done something so fulfilling. One year and five films later, Ixius Films, our production house, was standing idle, waiting for it’s next project to come by. And today, it struck me what I wanted. The films I saw at the festival, that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I could not picture myself making any of those films, and even if I was, the film would turn out to be very different that what I saw. Something was amiss.

A year ago, I was naive, going through an existential crisis, just overcoming it by the turn of the year. Last year began with a great surge of positive energy. I did so many things. But had I moved away from my own path towards something just flashy and appealing? No, what I find appealing is very different from what mainstream and hipster culture features. I don’t like to see what stupidity the masses worship. Neither do I want to do something corporate like the very education that I have been unwillingly pursuing. No, I want to spread ideas, emotions and evoke harmonious horror into peoples’ lives. Not being sadistic, but I have a different perception of things that can get people to think, to explore ideas in an unconventional way. Then what went wrong?

Nothing went wrong. Sometimes you need to go through a dark tunnel to understand that the light you live in is actually a precious gift. So think twice before you blow it up with your ignorant godforsaken soulless endeavours. I cannot explain the purpose in life for our lives to be true are meaningless. And maybe that is the pursuit of life, to find meaning in that which seems meaningless. To fill the void that you have yourself created for your own sake. Live for whatever time you must and do so, without once diverging from thy path. And if the divergence is needed, well, it is but an experience you need, for it is important for you to grow and evolve into what you must be before you depart for a place much larger and higher than our own.

And so, with such not-so-dark thoughts, I begin this blog. I always wanted to do so. This is my step forward into doing what I have always dreamed of. This blog has no meaning, and yet is full of it. Understand and it is good. Don’t understand and well, it matters not. For now, I must say, to whoever bothers to read this, ‘Death is the Ultimate goal  of Life. So Die, but only after you have done Justice to your Life’.

May the Darkness guide you to Your Light