Aatif is NOT STIFF (...yet!)

Keeping the promise in my last blog, here I am - back with some of my matchless and mediocre thoughts! Before you think that this is some gossip related post related to some celebrity, let me clarify – This is not about Aatif or any singer or any celebrity for that matter – This is about a concern way beyond that! So read on… And decide for yourself…


Today I feel like writting about the very first line that I heard from my wife at 4 in the morning! I don't go to gym that early - the reason behind me being up at that hour is that this, being the holy month of Ramzaan (Ramadan) - my wife has to do her Sehri (have the first meal for the day) before a stipulated time! And then, she fasts for at least 14 hours at a stretch every single day, and this would go on for the whole month!!! God bless her strength and courage, coz honestly and shamelessly admitting - I would literally go insane if I do that even for 5 days at a stretch!


Anyway, so I stepped out before she even woke up today morning to get some stuff, and after I was back home, like a true gentleman I greeted her with a sweet "good-morning" kind of a sugar coated soothing phrase. To which, she responded appropriately, again like a true gentle-caring-lady. And then, her first line - the beginning of our daily conversation - was an exclamatory remark: "YOU KNOW WHAT??? AATIF ASLAM IS DEAD!!!"


I don't like to boast about myself, but I would like to coin here that after all that I have done, seen and been through in life, there are hardly any news that genuinely surprise me. I have become "placid" (love that word) to an annoying extent. So obviously, I was not like "Whaaaaaaaaaaaat!" after hearing this, but I responded with a curious looking "What? How?" to this note! (Although, I admit I would yell a biiiiiiiig "WHAAAAAAAAAT" if someone tells me that Droid 2 would NEVER get launched in India!)


So, she told me that one of her friends, whom she considered a "probable-reliable" source of information had sent her a text breaking the sad news! I don't usually accept and digest this sort of information without verifying it. Hence, I googled it and found various more "reliable-reliable" sources claiming that Aatif Aslam was very much alive! You probably won't believe, but since morning, at least 5 of my buddies have forwarded similar text messages to me confirming the sad demise of Aatif Aslam!

Hence, the idea behind me sharing this incident with you is - why do we always accept variety of information just because it has the right amount of spice in it??? I can give you countless examples of myths as this one, which have been so widespread just coz the rumour pressed the right buttons in people's minds. The biggest example is the "Do Not Use Your Cellphone" sign at any petrol pump - Yes... This is sheer bullshit and you can verify the same with reliable sources like mythbusters (Click here to to check if you'ld like to!).


Other examples like why are all the clocks/watches set at 10:10 AM in their display ads? Many people believe its because the first atom bomb was dropped at that time (I used to believe this for quite a long time!). Many think because some legendary person like Mahatma Gandhi, JF Kennedy, etc. was shot/died at that time. But all that is a sad lie! The truth is that its just because if the watch hands are at 10:10, a.) the manufacturer's logo is displayed properly and b.) this way, the hands resemble a smile!
Check this link to verify: The watch fact!


So, my only point is that we land up gathering and distributing incorrect and irrelevant information many times and this exclusively holds good in sensitive cases like world politics, celebrity gossip and the most critical topic - Religion!


Being your well-wisher, and a strong supporter of UNBIASED-LOGICAL-FAIR information in its true sense, I would like to request all of you to check your facts before you start spreading them! This way my friend – the world would be a less complex place!!! If you still wanna cross check that Aatif is really really not stiff, Click Here!!!


One more fact you might wanna know, is that when you hold a Sea Shell on your ear, it’s the sound of your blood surging through the veins what you hear – and not the sound of the ocean! You can very well hear the same sound even if you are sitting in your drawing room in Bhopal or Texas or Cambridge!

Many other facts like these are quite surprising, but all true nonetheless! So, keep doing a reality check and spread the knowledge worth spreading!!! If you would like to share any such surprising fact, you are most welcome to post a comment in here - for all you know, I might have to write an entire blog on it! Hope to hear some "whaaaaaaaaaat!" kindda stuff from you guys!


God bless!!!

Dissection de la Inception!

Note: ***The following blog may imply that I have purchased and viewed pirated vids! Please don’t file a complaint:)! Hope the CBI doesn’t come looking for me after I publish this...But you know what? I will happily surrender with a smile on my face once they have arrested AAAALLLL the video rental shop owners in India and the owners of a thousand different websites providing free torrents for EveryThing imaginable!

And after all, me - being a "seeker" of information would definitely grab anything and everything available which is of my interest!***

So, first of all, my sincere apologies to my dear readers {I know there are just 34 members on my blog - but it feels awesome to write this line!;)} for not posting anything for the last soooooooo many days!

Loadz of things have happened in these last few days which are worth writing about. But the one thing that I really cant wait to share is this latest flick that I watched last night on a dvd for the second time - After watching it first on big screen about 20 days back!

Yes, my dear friends - I am certainly talking about the “5 starer” - fully loaded - sci-fi - future 10 academy awards winner (I assume at least 10) – movie of the Year "INCEPTION"!!!

There are 2 reasons behind writing an exclusive post about Inception:

A. I had to watch this movie for the second time to fully understand it!

B. I have N-E-V-E-R seen a movie for the second time for the sole purpose of fully understanding it since 7th August 1986 (My inception)!!!!

Now, I have discussed a little bit about the plot of this flick with some of my most intelligent friends (Ok, go ahead - have your grin and give yourself a pat on the back if I discussed it with ‘YOU’) - and not to my surprise, even they dint fully understand the details. Hence, post my second session, I thought I would better share my personal understanding, since my understanding is usually ‘understandable’ by masses!

Many of you may think that you understood the movie, or at least the basic concept, but trust me - The devil as always lies in the details! So, if I ask you something like “Who's subconscious was the second dream??? or Who's architecture and who's dream was it really???” or may be “When and Where was the idea actually incepted in Fischer’s (Clillian Murphy – the recently orphaned poor tycoon) mind???” You may have to ‘guess’ rather than give a confident answer!

To remove this guess-work, lets understand the basic deal - One person designs the architecture of the dream (I know you know that – don’t be too happy about it!) - that's Ariadne (Ellen Page) for all the 3 levels of the dream; except the fourth one – the ‘Limbo’, which has no architecture technically. To make things quite simple, the architect only designs the very basic layout of the whole dream. So, this chick designed the city in the first dream, the hotel in the second and the fortress like hospital (YES - that was a hospital in d snow - watch it again before you bet!) in the third one...

Now, there is one more dude who's subconscious is used to populate that layout... This creates the special places in the dream - like the safe in the hotel from where Arthur (Joseph Gordan) pulls out the dream-sharing machine and the detonator charges in the 2nd level or the vault in the hospital where Fischer meets his dad in the 3rd level.

So, its kindda simple - first dream is populated by Dom Cobb (Leonardo), second by Arthur, and the third by Fischer. The catch is, that for the third one, Fischer is not aware that he is populating the dream. He think it is uncle Peter’s subconscious (Peter Browning played by Tom Berenger). The fourth one - the "Limbo" as we know it is only the subconscious of Dom, no architecture there! I know that you probably know most of this!

But what you don’t know is this - Our dear uncle Peter (Don’t jump thinking you know that he was forged by Eames(Tom Hardy) in level 1)… So, I was saying that our dear uncle Peter was forged by Eames only in the first level of the dream! In level 2, he was a projection of Fischer’s subconscious. The REAL “inception” happens in level 1 itself – when uncle Peter simply induces the idea of a second will of Morris Fischer to his son when they have a li’l handcuffed chat!

This simple idea leads Fischer’s subconscious to give himself the information through his own projection of uncle Peter in level 2 of the dream! What I mean is, that the uncle Peter who told Fischer that his dad dint want him to lead the company - was NOT the one forged by Eames, but a projection of Fischer's own subconscious!!! Since by then, he has already started doubting his dad’s intentions about the future of his company… However, again the small catch in level 2 is that he is motivated further to find out some “positive” reason behind his dad’s such decision. Fischer assumes he is going to find this secret buried in uncle Peter’s mind, but actually – he goes looking for it in his own spine – unknowingly though – coz Dom tells him they are going in his uncle’s dream, but they finally land on Fischer’s!!!

So, the plan works and Fischer finally finds what he WANTED to find! That his dad dint really want him to be him… The idea which he only vaguely perceived so far is backed up by a concrete motive now! Bingo!!!!

The rest of the Limbo thingy and Mall (Marion Cotillard) stuff is quite simple to understand… So I won’t go in a lot of details about all that.

Having said all of this, I think the movie was simply fantastic. I liked it better than Avatar as a matter of fact! (Don mind James, I still admire your creativity and technology…) Just so that you know, James Cameron spent 13 years only in researching on the technology that he used to create Avatar! But Inception takes the cake simply because of its marvelous idea and the way it is presented with minute detailing. I personally like the concept so much coz I have always fantasized that this whole life is a dream and after sometime, I am going to wake up in a different world! So to make the most of this dream, I should try and learn the most out of it!

This all goes parallel to concepts like life after death, re-incarnation, the idea of going to “heaven” after death, death being just a phase, etc etc. One more thing you may like to ponder about is our embryo stage. Imagine, a child starts feeling its surroundings even in the embryo state. For him/her, the womb is the world! Where it is being fed automatically, where it breathes through direct intake of oxygen from blood rather than through air, where it grows and even learns quite a few things!

The mind of any embryo is not so developed, but speaking of that – It is only our “perception” that our mind is developed or is it??? So, after some 38 weeks, that life form finally comes out of that environment which was so far its universe! And then it realizes that the world is way way beyond what he had assumed till now! Then it realizes that those 9-10 months were just a mere phase of its development! So, based on all this, my fantasy is that what if this whole life is a phase just like that only??? I know it’s a very absurd idea, but you never know!!!

Talking about dreams, the concept of shared dreaming is also real, and is quite possible (Go on... Google it if you don't trust me...)! The actual difficult task is Lucid Dreaming, where in you are aware that you are dreaming and you consciously navigate in your subconscious! This is also possible, but extremely difficult, coz you see the subconscious paradigm is a very tricky business… Our tiny conscious simply doesnot posses sufficient processing power (RAM) to control such a powerfully creative and dynamic thing! I have once or twice experienced lucid dreaming, but the dream hardly lasts for a fraction of a second once I realize I am dreaming.

Ultimately, as an ending note, I would like to emphasize that don’t underestimate the power of your subconscious. It can make you do things which you have never even imagined! And, the most important – the basic input to our subconscious is after all our conscious, our real world. So try and feed positive, good thoughts to your soul – that is what will connect you to your dreams, your faith, your heaven or even your God!

Signing off, with a promise to post back soon!!!

Please feel free to leave comments if you dint understand any part of this or the whole thing thing seemed crap!!!

God bless you and your dreams!