The hypocrisy we believe

There’s perpetual talk of how banal the bollywood outfit really is and how oblivious of reality and fantasy prone it is. One self proclaimed king of bollywood, shahrukh khan has inevitably never escaped this callous criticism. I, for one, have never been an unabashed fan oh his exuberance or his presumptuous self. And I actually don’t find myself a loner in this thought. You’ll always come across people who claim to find Khan’s antiques ludicrous and his sense of cinema bunkum and inane. A person of this nature will also pride upon voicing this perception ardently. It is a different matter that he invariably never misses any of his movies nor his interviews or his over the top shows. Again, it is a different issue that he in turn seems to be his greatest critic. As most of us although, he too enjoys the ostentatious glamour and glitter, which by all means is snobbish in his cinema. The women are unbelievably pretty, the locations and backdrops out of this world and the costumes seemingly straight out of Armani’s personal closet. The plot, though, is a little obvious and superficial and the emotion bluntly honest and in your face. This person thus will come out of the cinema hall grumbling and complaining how awful the plot was, how ‘insipid’ the acting performances were and how in your face the glamour was. The truth is he enjoys it; he never fails to catch in on the promos of his upcoming films and always keeps a keen eye on his releases. No wonder in one of his interviews Khan nonchalantly exclaimed “People who say aren’t my fans are plainly lying”. No one could have put it any better. His honesty is appealing. His high spirited confident soul brings in a rare energy. His flamboyance is hard to miss and yet his sophistication shows. It also helps that he’s well educated, well read and also very well informed. Thus, it's never that Khan plays the character on screen but represents various other characteristics, which appeal to larger masses. We’ll always have the Naseeruddin Shahs and the Aamir Khans and the Rahul Boses whose screen presence always mirrors the character, who have exceptional acting capabilities. .Shahrukh Khan himself, though, may not be playing the character in the movie flawlessly, he may not seem to “Get into the character” and he may always seem to be Shahrukh Khan playing Raj, Shahrukh Khan playing Rahul, but it appeals and millions adore him for that. Just for the sheer exuberance and the energy he portrays and the sophistication he manages to bring along with it, like me, it has been a treat for millions to watch him.

Midnight's children

Bread earned from the sweat of strife and the persistence of a transfixed rapt goal is by far the most satisfying form of reward. It sounds a little less extravagant if your transfixed rapt goal is to survive in a demeaning mob of filthy gluttonous creatures(read NiTkians) and the glorified sweat of strife is from a person( magnanimously referred to as SwAmI. I’ve deleted the hyperlink to SwAmI, coz he needs his privacy) who is indeed serving you the bread (read vadapav, half fry, Singapore fried rice etc). People familiar with this obscurely painted picture (in turn read filthy gluttonous creatures) can take solace in the fact that they’re now equipped to handle the greatest of obstacles, the most insurmountable of physical challenges and simply the art of ordering food in a night canteen at peak hour 00:00:00, when all reasonable clocks reset, but the werewolf within a hungry NiTkian come to life. It’s an enterprise in which the mob has shamed the prehistoric barbarics and the SwAmi has challenged the nuances of the famed six sigma.Yup.The famed Night Canteen.

The constant flurry of ‘swami swami’ notwithstanding, SwAmI nonchalantly delivers fried rice after half rice after vadapavs. (For those wondering who/what SwAmI(S, A, I are capitals) is, it’s an NiTk innovative way of addressing of, quite literally, any person in the world). At SwAmI’s helm is another slight grizzly haired sWaMi (notice W, M are capitals here, for brevity and clarity of anticipative mistaken SWAMI identity), whose exploits of preparing Chinese (read INDIAN) dishes is legendary(read not so legendary). As if to complete the package, a sordid Kannada song complete with morbidly obese heroines plays on the screen. In all this frenzy does the process of satiating one’s hunger is successfully achieved.The average NiTkian thus is fed.

Now, is it me or does the food there ironically taste good?