Luck And A Little Love~ The Zoya Factor

The Zoya Factor~ a book I randomly picked up in Crossword on a lonely day in 2008 (Landmark wasn't open then) simply because I realised I had never really read anything by Indian authors and that was a shame, considering how I want to be one. The cover wasn't exactly striking but what I read at the back made me smile and I was willing to take a chance. And I'm so grateful I did. Because three years later it still is one of the books I cherish the most.
And irrespective of how many times I've read it, I still smile when the NZ engraved on the charm bracelet that reminded Nikhil of Zoya implies "New Zealand" famous for its sheep because he bought it in New Zealand. Or when they talk about the Nike Warrior ad- which should really be made into an ad as soon as possible because it is simply fantastic. Or when Nikhil Khoda says "How about a lucky kiss?" Or when they go on their "cheap" date and their arguement over 'mongrel' is so intense and sexy; and at the end of it he says~ 'I really want to kiss you, you know. But I'm not going to, okay?' And she idiotically whispers 'Okay' Or when in the end he says "I hope you've noticed that I took care not to park in your esteemed Gajju Chacha's slot."
I can't help but bite my lip in exasperation when they fight over luck and captaincy. I can't help but sigh when Zoya texts him before the semifinal asking if she should come for breakfast. And two texts later, completely out of context, Nikhil- fed up with the war- says- I miss you. I grin when they say, "Who said I wanted to talk to you?" I can't help but smile ruefully when Zoya stupidly doesn't go to him after they win the semi-final vs England.  And I can't help but die a little bit like Zoya when he signs off with "Love, N." And just like Zoya, my heart breaks a little bit too, when she overhears him saying "I miss us too" exasperatedly to god knows which one of his many girlfriends.
I can't help but laugh everytime anyone says anything remotely witty which is just about every two minutes.
The line that stays with me is this one- "Nikhil chewed gum and basically stood around at second slip looking like the grimmest, most intense Boost ad ever."  This line kills me. It does. Because that is how awesome it is. Anuja Chauhan is a genius. And no, its not just because her descriptions of Nikhil Khoda have everything to do with ads; which btw is a stroke of genius because who, who would ever say 'Boost brown eyes'? Its simply the best way to describe his eyes.
Its Bollywood, melodramatic, stupid, wickedly funny and has SRK in it. Zoya has gorgeous hair- I can see it in my head- and her stupidity is what I can identify with. Because we all are that stupid. Nikhil- headstrong and stubborn, talks like a Nike ad and as a PYT puts it- he looks so intense- like he'd let you flirt with other guys all evening and then take you home and make passionate love to you to show you who's the boss. Nikhil is just marginally smarter than Zoya, but it is their childish arguements, their ego, their stupid texts and the constant bickering (Do me a service Zoya from Servicing, Little Miss Fix It, Surely you didn't think we were winning because of you, You're pretty cocky for a skipper who's lost every final he's ever played) that makes them work.
Lokey and Monita are characters that will stay with you because of the way they've been written. The email between Vaishali Paul and Sanks, the Zing! ad shoot at Dhaka, the 'Nike' shoes for Rawal, Zoravars epiphany at the Zoya Devi ad shoot and Eppas curse , the Benito's pizza incident/accident, the jealousy with Zahid and Miss Sultry South, the constant puns, and the crazy head of the IBCC and his guru add to the entertainment. Not like the book needs it considering how every time Nikhil and Zoya are together, the reader cant help but smile or sigh at their witty banter, idiotic fights or wicked romance.
An unputdownable read by one of the greatest writers I've ever come across, The Zoya Factor is a book that combines an ad agency, cricket, luck, loathing and love. What more could I ask for? Really? Its been a love affair that's lasted three years and I know it'll last a lifetime.
Now that I've got that out of me, I must go read the book. Again. For the third time. In two days. *sighs*
In Zoya's words~ Loathing 10%. Lust 90%.

What's The Weather Like?

So there's a lot of things that i should be doing right now, instead of typing this post out. Like writing things that need to be submitted tomorrow, or cleaning the perpetual mess that my room is in or even trying to study for my practical exams which being on Monday, isn't all that far away but no, no all my stupid head can do is think. And I don't even want to think. About anything for that matter. And especially not about how its been six months since I went on a holiday because I just want a vacation. I want to go away to some place where no one is going to tell me what I should be doing, where no one really wants me to do anything. And where my mind leaves me alone as well, because clearly it is rather stupid. And clearly also rather stubborn, because I cannot seem to stop thinking about this one thing.

I hate when I run out of things to talk about with people, especially -no only- when it’s the ones I love- the ones I generally can't stop chattering nineteen hundred to the dozen with. Because I know I talk a lot, or at least that I can, depending on the circumstances. But people drift apart, and all of a sudden there are no words, no words to say what you feel out of the many million words that exist, and the many zillion that are invented on a daily basis- Twitterati, Twitterverse, Tweet-up and Twestival being excellent examples. Yes I hate Twitter, clearly.
 
Anyway my point is that how can we possibly not have any words for someone when there is no lack of words in this world? How do two such bloody close people drift apart so much that even a 5 minute conversation ends up being awkward and filled with long, seemingly unending pauses? Why does it become so hard for us to tell the people we love what it is that we really need and what would make us happy? Because honestly, wouldn't it just be so much easier if they knew what it was that we thought and felt?

Is it just a phase, is it growing up and growing apart or is it just a necessary step in every relationship that will ever be a part of our lives? And most importantly how do you get back to what you used to be?

And yes, I know that there is no right answer for each of these questions and it comes down to those two people and what they believe in, but i still cannot seem to stop thinking. I think its because I've watched way too much of Criminal Minds in the last one week. And there's only so much of that show that you can take before you go insane. So, Grey's Anatomy- will you hurry up and get done with your spring break already? 

Cricket, Coke and Changing The Game

I've been meaning to write for a quite a while now but it just hasn't been happening even though everyone keeps asking me to. Maybe its just that now that the exams are done, I don't have anything to bitch about. Oh, no that's not true.

The new Coke ad- Like what the hell were you guys thinking? Are you absolutely out of your mind? You follow up the Shadow ad which was very Strange Love-esque with this? This? Really? I mean I love Imran and detest Ranbir (Sorry Cookie, he is hot, but he's a cheat and they aren't my type) but I can't help liking the Pepsi Change the Game ad campaign so much more. Even though I cannot stand Pepsi and will NOT drink it. But the campaign, you have to agree is fantastic.

The Cricket World Cup is here and like every other soul in this cricket loving, crazy and obsessed nation I too breathe, eat, and sleep cricket. Truly it is the cup that counts. I love the nail biting games, the start-to-finish gripping your seat, closing your eyes, and feverently praying games. But what’s also fascinating is the kind of phenomenon it has become, especially when it comes to advertising. Even the advertising industry is so united at this time. Every ad, every product and service irrespective of what the product is, either features cricketers if they can afford it, or focuses on a cricket theme. Suddenly everything has a connection to this game- Be it obvious products like shoes and televisions or the unusual pizzas, telecommunication services, cements or even bathrooms.  [Parryware- Wow what a bathroom. I swear. I never said the ads were good of course. This one is just ridiculous.]

Some companies go to the extent of even changing their tagline for this cricket season- Tata Sky Plus substitutes the word cricket for life in its tagline, but after all when it comes to India they are synonyms right? Sony Bravia has modeled a campaign based on “The Incredible Game” but the one campaign that does make you sit up and take notice is the Pepsi- Change the Game.

A series of 7 ads with world class cricketers including five Indian players- Mahendra Singh Dhoni,Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Virat Kohli, and Suresh Raina. It’s an eyeball grabbing campaign, and extremely heartwarming because it talks about the hope of a billion souls and it happens to be so extremely catchy. What’s more is that the ads are extremely Indian, true to the flavor that makes us who we are. Whether it’s the helicopter shot with MSD or the Switch hit with Kevin Pietersen, or Ranbir Kapoor teaching Virender Sehwag, the central theme is that of the common man- the average Indian, being such a huge part of this significant game. The campaign changed the game and how, setting a benchmark in Indian advertising. (Just as a point because I can't not say this- RK, like really first of all your name is like a take on the most amazing person alive- SRK, so stop copying his hairstyle. Because that supposedly cool pony you sport in the ad was something SRK did long ago with Don. So really, stop acting off screen and do something that's worth talking about apart from your many low battery "conquests".) So anyway I don't quite know if Coke did what it did, out of desperation, or because just like everyone, they've lost it. I'm praying its a phase because I cannot wait for this ad to be pulled out.

Second best of course is Airtel because they have the afore mentioned amazing person- SRK. Simple, to the point, endearing, heartwrenchingly good looks, and that dimple. Who cares what the storyline is? But they do have one, and a good one at that. Because before we had alerts on phones, and internet on our fingertips and all of that the only thing we'd ask every single person who had a chance of knowing was the score. Because like the ad says- There is only one question. And I know I'm talking about the World Cup here but the Airtel-BB ad is just simply too good too. And no, I'm not just saying this because I love my BB now and i'm texting 24X7 and therefore end up promoting the BB every minute that I'm awake but because it really is a great ad.

But the best undoubtedly is Vodafone. The Vodafone Zoozoos are back! The teasers featured people going crazy, fighting over what they saw. Bird or Plane? Fact or Fiction? Alien or UFO? Dream or Reality? And I for one couldn't wait to know. The Zoozoos not only are absolutely original and endearing, but they also happen to have some of the best storylines in advertising. And this, this was so totally worth the long wait, the intrdoduction of Vodafone 3G as a superhero- changing in a phone booth, saving the world, swooping out of the atmosphere, stopping trains, solving complex Maths (Calculus in all probability), racing a bullet ala Rajnikanth, working out and charming his girl all in a matter of minutes was just mindblowingly good. They got the script right, the music is outstanding and the Zoozoos as usual are not annoying but rather extremely heartbreakingly fantastic.

This ad, this ad makes going to college at 8am because Telangana decides to have a half day bandh- 1-4 completely okay. This ad just brightens up my day somehow. And all of a sudden, very much like in the ad, all is right with the world again. So maybe they really are superheroes. :)

A Year Of Getting Away With Drama~ Courtesy TUCS

Because Fiction reveals truths that Reality obscures- Jessamyn West

TUCS- Pinnacle Shall Run~
 
What it’s supposed to be:
The destinies of two companies remain entwined much like the hearts/lives of their owners. A novel about the highways and bye lanes of corporate India, revolving around Pinnacle & Shall Run Planes and their young, not-so-naïve CEOs- Karan and Zoya. A book that constantly flips between the past and the present, and some dreams and hopes of the future, to reveal the journey of their incredibly irrational yet delightfully endearing team.

What it actually is:
Crap.

*****

TUCS turns one today. And I’m grateful because this is a perfect excuse for me to turn hyper, to get some sinfully good chocolate cake *fingers crossed* and do plenty of drama and get away with it- not that I don’t every other day but well today I have a very valid reason. =] But more than anything else, what I’m most grateful for is the fact that I had something to turn to every time college started to annoy or depress me which it did just about every second day.

TUCS isn’t just a book, for me, it’s become a reason to live- to stay happy day after day despite the fact that I have Banking as a subject and my textbook is a curse that destroys all happiness; despite the fact that the Spewing Rubbish Bitch teaches us the only subject I care about; and despite the fact that I will fail in my fourth Semester exams because I don’t know anything. It's given me something to look forward to every time I've been disillusioned and disappointed, and it just somehow makes my mornings brighter.

TUCS got me through what could have been a very very bad year at college and so I’m more than grateful. I’m grateful for every word that I’ve ever written for TUCS in the many million places I’ve written it- irrespective of whether it’s still a part of the storyline or not, irrespective of how dramatic, foolish or impossible those incidents may have been; irrespective of how stupid or how smart I may have sounded. I love how at the end or middle of every notebook I’ve used in the last year there will be a word, a sentence or a page, and especially a moment, a memory that has everything to do with my baby.

I’d like to thank Fate for somehow making this happen, and my Accounts teacher in the second sem- for the life of me I cannot remember her name- for making accounts so boring that I actually started thinking and my thoughts led me to TUCS. And all the gorgeous views that are slowly disappearing because of this city’s unending need for “development”.
And obviously my Mom and Dad for reading TUCS over and over again, the words “airport fiction” only challenge me to write better and for basically never giving up on me despite my stubbornness.

But more than anyone else a zillion thanks to-
Ayesha- my Cristina superhero Yang, who was the first person ever to read it and for being my very rational editor. You’re my person.
Mash- for loving the kiss, for being my Thesaurus and for not complaining every time I decided to ignore you and furiously write in that black book of mine.
Apeksha- for NOT saying “It’s too long” and actually reading it instantly every time I asked you to, which just surprised me too much, and for being my BB Bitch.
Because through all the toads, the dodos, the raw potatoes and the wolves, I know we’ll be okay because we’ve got each other, and because our girlfriends really are our soul mates and boys are just people to have fun with <3
Now if only I could finish it instead of writing eulogies for all you bitches.

And Francis- yes I’m actually going to thank my college- for being the horribly boring and depressing hellhole it is because otherwise I’d never get motivated to do what I really love doing. A certain absurdly small footed Cruella- Vaishali Aunty- for making me believe I can write and for just making me who I am today.
Manu- the moronic bodyguard brother- for rolling his eyes every time I mentioned the book- my lack of experience in the corporate world being his bone of contention along with the fact that (he believes) I can’t string a few words together to sound sane even if my life depended on it.
Kriti- for wanting the happy ending, making me want it, and making me want to believe in it. And for saying all the right things, and for that one heartbreakingly right text =]

Also the unrivaled, unparalleled, incomparable Anuja Chauhan- for being the greatest role model ever and such a huge inspiration.
Grey’s Anatomy- because there simply isn’t anything quite like you. And in your seven seasons you’ve given me SO much to think over, and you gave us Mc Steamy.
But most of all Shah Rukh Khan- for existing, and for that dimpled smile, and all those extended romantic scenes in the overdramatic Bollywood movies I worship and live for.

Anyway so the point is I couldn’t have done it without you’ll and you better pray that it doesn’t take me yet another year to finish it because then I’ll continue to be the hyper, rude, cranky but awesome bitch I was this year.
Much Love.

Holding On

“Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves and then we have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos.”
-Snoopy, Peanuts

I detest goodbyes. Honestly I do. Yes, if it involved running to the railway station just as the train was pulling out, to see the girl you love one last time simply because you realise it’s the last time you’ll ever see her (Love Aaj Kal) then I’m not complaining. Those goodbyes- the overdramatic and filmy but so heartbreakingly good ones, with some running involved obviously, the very old style ones that filmmakers today are too ‘cool’ to make, I love but otherwise, in real life I hate them.

Goodbyes generally mean that people are going away and that never is a good thing really. I hate the Departures terminal; love the Arrivals- I think it’s the one place that’s always so full of love, to quote an airlines heartbreakingly good ad campaign- "All for that one moment"- and yet I have quite a reputation, a penchant in fact for running away from things, especially problems, and complicated awkward situations, which if you think about basically implies life. I’m known for resisting change even though I know it’s futile. I’m famous for my stupidity especially when it comes to dealing with change. Goodbyes also mean waiting and I’m not patient. I’m not rational or practical or even the shutting-up-and-suffering types. I’m the moody one, who can’t to save her life figure out what sort of a mood she is in.

Also I think I hate goodbyes because they mean the end of a time- the passage of a series of moments that I’m not quite ready to let go of yet- they imply change. I’m a hoarder, I don’t like letting go. Whether it’s the notes we’ve written to each other over the years, or just random scraps of paper with meaningless lists, or even bills- I can’t bring myself to throw it all away. I write down lines, I don’t delete some texts, I love photographs. I collect unnecessary things, keep empty shoeboxes, and generally hate letting go of any kind of book- unless its Banking- that is one book I’m dying to get rid of. But I can’t just let go of it yet, I have another 2 months to be cursed with its presence. And there are other things that I wish I never had to bid goodbye to- the best example being the almost 18 t-shirt I adored- but I didn’t really have a choice.

And that’s the thing; all of this sometimes just isn’t in our hands, saying goodbye isn’t up to us. Sometimes it’s just what’s already been written and there isn’t anything any of us can do about it.
But still for once I wish time would slow down even though I really want it to fly by, because I’m really not ready to let go of my teenage just yet.

The 'D' Word

Death is really all around us. Blatantly all around us. It doesn't lurk in the corners any more, it just snatches every third person right before us. I've never given much thought to how exactly I would die but all of a sudden, being the paranoid person I am, I realise that there are an infinite number of ways that that could happen.

Everywhere I look, any topic I pick, I find a hundred reasons, a thousand things that blatantly point out our mortality- how fragile we are. We fall down, we fall sick, we lose our minds. We break our bones, sometimes we break our hearts, and sometimes we just forget it all. We eat too much, or we eat too little, sometimes we just have our sweet tooth to blame. Sometimes I just hear about people who simply never woke up.

Every time I read the paper, I hear about a new disease- a disease without a cure. I hear about people and their inability to control their minds. I hear about another disaster- environmental, nuclear, or just man- made. I hear about terrorism and war and turmoil.

At the end of the day, even if we are superheroes in someone else's lives, we are only human. And irrespective of how strong we feel we are, or how cautious, or how vigilant, someday it will all come to an end. It will all disintegrate before our eyes and the only thing we'll be able to do is look helplessly as we see someone we love disappear before our eyes. And all we'll have are the moments that have already gone by, leaving us, alone. Alone to die.

Fridays, February, Finance and the Future

Its February finally. And it's Friday. Thank God for that.
Contrary to popular belief constant interruptions like the doorbell do NOT inspire me. Especially when it happens to ring five hundred frigging million times in the day. And I just had to say that for some reason.
Coming to what I wanted to say, my eternal confusion- I didn't attend a 2 hour presentation on shares and debentures by Swaroopa Ma'am yesterday, choosing instead to write TUCS. Fortunately there was no attendance taken. But see the real reason is I'm scared, terrified even that I'll get swayed by her ecletic presence and promptly switch to Finance for my specialisation. I want to do Marketing, but there's no denying that everytime I sit down to write a page in TUCS promising myself to make it a purely Pinnacle page- full of ad campaigns and photoshoots and taglines and press releases, I get distracted and barely 400 words later I give up. I stop and start rewriting the same concept, the same dramatic turn of events and the same dialogues only now they happen in SRP and have everything to do with cash crunches, and revenue problems and loans and debentures. Not to mention the idea even of Marketing seems exhausting right now.
I'd like to use the line "Innocently, and inadvertently intrigued me." but I don't quite know where to use it. The idea of stringing together all the small bits, all the many many pages of TUCS and its many babies and editing it to see if it makes sense is exhausting to say the least. Its daunting and terrifying and it's too precious. TUCS is my baby. Which just makes this whole thing scarier. And every time I see the number of documents that have accumulated I die a little bit, well a part of me does. But I know that I can't not write it. TUCS is something that I need to get out of me, it's something, a story that I believe needs to be told, irrespective of what happens in the process.
I think I'm a closet olive lover. The other day I shockingly picked out only four black olives from my sandwich and just about died when I realised I had eaten the many zillion others. And I do remember eating green olives in my pasta and loving them the other night. I shock myself.
This post is rather random I realise, but well it's all I have to say right now.