Star struck, who me?

Hindi cinema is no more about the art of expression. It's just become what they call it, an industry.

There's a wide difference between being crazy about movies and being crazy about celebrities. I love watching movies and discussing them. But I'm barely ever interested in the life of an actor/producer/director beyond that.

I've never been crazy about celebrities but have always found myself in situations that keep me surrounded with them. Be it living in Bombay, hub of the Hindi film industry. Staying in Juhu, the Beverly Hills of Bollywood. Or working at Zoom that eats, breathes and sleeps celebrity gossip.

Out of all the things I've heard, read and watched I'm fond of a select few.

I pretty much like Salman Khan not only because I share my birthday with him, but also because I feel he is one of the most genuine of the lot. I prefer not to judge him based on the events of his life. Beating up girlfriends, poaching, going to jail, driving over people on the roads, etc, etc. I just feel that he's a great human being. I've decided that some day when I meet him, I will tell him two things:

1. I share my birthday with you.

2. My friend Saket, is your biggest fan ever

I like Aamir Khan too. I admire how he demands perfection and wants to be involved in everything relating to his work. In one of his interviews, the reporter asked him why he only made appearances in the media when his movie was about to release. He replied, "If I spend a whole year working hard on something, I have full right to go out and promote it."

Then there are a few like Rahul Bose, Konkana Sen and Rahul Khanna who I have always liked. In fact Rahul Khanna in his twitter bio introduces himself as a Bollywood Struggler which I found very humble of him. Ranbir Kapoor makes me go weak in the knees. But that's about it.

I don't like Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan, Akshay Kumar, Aishwarya Rai, etc, etc. Amitabh Bachchan must have been a great actor in his time, maybe he still is but for some reason I feel he is a very arrogant man. I HATE Shahrukh Khan. He's popular only because he treats the people/media too well so that they keep liking him. Akshay Kumar is just a made up super star, nothing else. Aishwarya Rai. Let's not even get started on her.

What I hate most is how people go completely berserk about these celebrities and when their glittery but empty lifestyle is romanticized by the media! Those people who come from far away villages and wait outside Amitabh Bachchan's house just to catch a glimpse of him. I really wonder if these celebrities would still be admired if their reality beyond the glitz and glamour was known by the public.

Being a performer is different from being a celebrity. According to me, the life of a celebrity is the worst life ever. It's just a superficial life. How they maintain their sanity and survive the whole media frenzy is beyond me.

Blog Break

Taking a break from blogging.

Don't know when I will be back.

Until then enjoy my earlier posts.

Goodbye, Take care!

That Feeling

It's that feeling I get when he puts his hand around my neck and kisses my forehead.

It's that feeling I get when he pulls me to him and holds me with full pride and authority.

That feeling when I feel One Third of Him.

Thanks to a few petty gossipers, I came to realize, it's not so much the attributes of a person that you love but the 'feeling' you feel when with that person.

On the Edge

I've been pushed on to a roller coaster I didn't want to be on

I can't see what lies ahead, but looks like a long ride

The highs that come make the lows steeper

I'm all by myself and I'm getting scared

I'm dizzy and I can't see straight

I scream for help but it's my battle

It's going to be tough but I will come out stronger

I can go through the ride or jump off mid-way

Trying to make up my mind, on the edge

- Henna Achhpal

Guide to Mumbai’s BEST Service

After my Richshaw story, let me hereby introduce you to my most favourite way of commute which also makes for an important part of Bombay's identity - the B.E.S.T. bus service.

If you're a traveller and want to get to know Bombay, you must travel by B.E.S.T. It will give you a better view of the city than those Mumbai Darshan tours and definitely much more economical. They not only get you familiar with the tiny lanes and big roads of the city but also give you a feel of the city's diversity. The buses go through glamorous areas that house the most famous Bollywood celebrities and on the same route you see areas crowded with people struggling for space to walk.

The local trains are definitely the best way to commute in Bombay but the B.E.S.T. is a personal favourite. My best experience to date being my Tour to Trombay.

They keep coming up with a lot of new modifications in their service (with a few loopholes) every now and then. For example, earlier the bus stops looked something like this...

People were expected to sit on the rod while they waited for the bus.

Then, bus stops were upgraded to look like this...

The bus stop is now silver and has more ad space but unfortunately does not solve the main issue of seating in fact makes it worse. You can barely fit half your derriere on this upgraded seat. Eventually you will get so fed up trying to fit yourself, you will just prefer to stand as you wait!

They also came up with things like Vodafone bill payment drop boxes (the only thing they gathered was dust), pay phones (which never worked), CCTV cameras (that faced the entrance and exit areas of the bus), 2 TV screens (just another medium for OOH advertising) which alternate between showing people getting on and off the bus, short documentaries with social messages, adverts and a few random (boring) songs. A few months back they used to show Prabhu Chawla interviewing Malaika Arora Khan. I'm sure every man on the bus would get a *ahem* every time this interview played. Imagine Maliaka Arora Khan in a black tank top with a plunging neckline with her assets in your face.

They also introduced air conditioned buses for a few special routes though I barely travel by those as they take a long time to arrive.

Since I stay in Juhu, the major halt of the buses I board is Juhu Beach. At anytime of the day, the bus will be full of couples/families excited about visiting Juhu Beach. It's irritating because...

1. They're usually huge families who occupy the whole bus and there will never be place to sit and they all get off at Juhu beach so it's no point because I get off at the next stop.

2. The women are dressed in shiny/sparkly clothes to go to the BEACH!

3. These families consist of a lot of babies that keep crying their lungs out.

4. If you have the misfortune of sitting next to one of these families, they actually insist on fitting their irritating/fidgety kids on a seat meant for two. Once I did have such a misfortune and to top it, for some reason the girl kept staring at me. Either she had never seen a girl with an ipod and earphones or I appeared to her as a clown who had just run out of a circus!

I yet love traveling by the bus because there's nothing better than grabbing a good window seat, plugging in my earphones and watching the city go by......

P.S. If you landed on this page by actually searching for a guide to B.E.S.T, you can find it here.

* All images from Google Image Search

It's That Time Again

It’s that time again
When I begin the day to awful reality

It’s that time again
When I’m physically there but emotionally lost

It’s that time again
When anything can get the tears flowing

It’s that time again
When my heart is shattered to a million pieces

It’s that time again
When I pick up the pieces, all by myself

It’s that time again
When I go to bed hoping for a better day


- Henna Achhpal, 24.02.09

Materialistic Li'l Me

It’s a materialistic list of things that I obviously cannot get by 27th December 2009. But, putting ‘The Secret’ to practice, I’m hoping to get each of them on my future birthdays :D

(Not in order of priority. I want all equally bad!)

1. No, I don’t want Isla Fisher for my birthday but the Pink Macbook that she owns in Confessions of a Shopaholic.

2. It’s funny how I would want a phone, a Blackberry at that considering how much I hate talking on the phone. But the specs of the Blackberry along with the idea of blogging, posting pictures and tweeting on the go continue to impress me every time.

3. A shopping trip to Bangkok :D

4. My Dream home. Even a small apartment would do.

5. Clothes, bags, shoes. (That doesn’t really need a mention)

I thought I wanted a lot of things. Perhaps this is it. Might add more stuff later.

Twitter for Dummies

Most people yet haven't come to understand what Twitter exactly is and find it totally pointless.

I had a few of my classmates along with my professor ask me why would they want to know a minute by minute update of somebody's life. Thus resulting in an argument. Thanks to my exceptionally bad conversational skills, I couldn't argue as there were 4-5 of them going at me all at once, I decided I would blog about it!

Firstly, to clear the biggest misconception of all - TWITTER IS NOT MERELY 'WHAT ARE YOU DOING?' - I agree it asks you that when you log in, but it's much much more than that!

Initially, you may find it pointless (even I did) and similar to Facebook's status updates, but once you start following (sensible) people and you have people following you, you will understand the beauty of the creation.

Your experience on Twitter mainly depends on the kind of people you follow. There are all kinds of people on Twitter.

- Spammers (nothing new)

- People who take 'What are you doing?' literally and tweet every minute of their lives and flood your timeline with useless tweets

- Celebrities who use it for PR

- Celebrities who use it to be in touch with fans (bullshit)

- General people who talk about things/events, share interesting links, post images, etc.

You may ask, why not do all of that on Facebook? Twitter is different from Facebook or any other social networking website in many ways.

- Twitter is not for making new friends or for keeping in touch with old ones.

- Twitter is not the place you will find 'will you make fraaaandhsip with me' kind of specimens. (Hoping the species never invade Twitterverse!)

- It is more of an information sharing tool.

- People discuss things happening around them. You might get to know of a book sale in your area or another event which you wouldn't have been aware of otherwise. During the monsoons, there were constant live traffic and flooding updates, train conditions, etc. You get those on the radio/TV too but it's even more credible when you're getting the updates from common people who are in the situation/place at that moment.

- People share their thoughts/views about movies, books, restaurants, various services, anything at all!

- Following Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Pritish Nandy, Shashi Tharoor, etc. keep you in the loop of the latest news and other affairs.

- Adding a # in front of a word can start off a discussion immediately which can be viewed by anyone on Twitter and they can join in as well. An example would be the recent #bigboss3. And if the keyword is a global point of discussion, it soon turns into a trending topic.

- Interesting or informative tweets are spread to all by retweeting (RT)

- People who know each other on Twitter or otherwise also organise Tweetups. Some go for Beer festivals, some go on weekend trips and some like me and my set of Tweeple meet for rounds of Taboo every Sunday.

It's a whole separate world for me. I have a separate set of people on Twitter who I don't know personally but who I have good conversations/discussions with. Even though I don't read the newspapers or watch the news, I know what's happening because of the tweets people post. And I definitely consider Twitter a more reliable source. It's not limited only to your area/city. I follow people from Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Gurgaon, Chennai, Kolkatta, Bangalore. You get to know what's happening in those cities, locally. It gives you a bit of everything.

Besides, I found my most important person on Twitter. I have no reason to complain at all!