A Perfect Stranger

I was strolling my way back from UCSD after a not so productive day of work. Walking silently, listening to Jagjit Singh pouring his mellifluous sonority through my ears, I almost failed to notice a voice which seemed to be calling me. I had just crossed an intersection and the voice seemed to be coming from behind. I turned to notice a car stopped at the intersection (it was not a red light, just a stop sign) and a lady waving at me. Thinking that she needed some directions, I approached the passenger's window of the car and removed my earphones to help her with the directions to whichever place she might have wanted to go.

Lady: Are you from India ?
Me: Yes.

That was how it all started. A conversation between 2 perfect strangers which lasted for half an hour in the middle of a road. For each of those 30 minutes, she sat in the driver's seat, I stood beside the passenger's window, her car's engine kept burning gas and other drivers had to maneuver their ways around her car. She seemed to be in her early thirties, gracefully dressed in a black dress with an overcoat and quiet charming in her overall demeanour. I enquired whether she had ever been to India when she asked me about my specific origins and seemed to know where places like Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra are. It turned out that she was married to an Indian guy and had been in India for about a month in 2005. At this point of time I started thinking if all of this was getting too personal for either's comfort but what followed really swept me from my feet. She started by lamenting that her husband (I think his name was Shobhit from what I could make out) had asked her to come to India but she couldn't really move so he had left her for good. He had married again in India. She on the other hand still felt deeply for him and regularily kept checking for his well being in India even after 2 years of his going back. She said that all she wanted was his happiness and that she, after all these years, had started giving up on those cherished times they had together. I am not really an emotional person, but this really made me feel very sad for her. Here was a lady who obviously loved her husband but now all the contact she has with him are weekly phone calls maybe. On top of that she knows that he has remarried but a faint, continuously dimming hope is still evident in her eyes. She is trying to laugh but her laughter is not able to hide the fact that she is really sad. On more than one occassions, I distinctly detected signs of her almost breaking down and on each of those occassions she tried a fake laugh and reprimanded herself for sharing too much with a stranger. She told me all about her husband's home in Ranchi, his relatives, the places they had been to, the Saris she had tried, the bangles she had worn, Taj Mahal, his mother's religious nature, the hot weather, the spicy food, her broken hindi, some salutations in Urdu etc.

Generally, I am not at all comfortable with strangers and it would be wrong to say that I was comfortable at that intersection. I wanted to leave but she was so engrossed in her past world that breaking her innocent trance almost seemed like a crime to me. I stood there, nodding my head in silent approval, indicating that I was sorry at whatever she had been through, listening to her excitedly talking about her little memories. I waited for the time she gave me permission to leave and left her hoping that she overcomes her situation and that no other Indian is born again with such a cold and possibly vile heart as Shobhit.

UCSD Research Expo '07

I am sure that each one of you in your lives have had atleast one of those days when nothing seems to go right. Its the day when you envy the luck of the dead chicken in your plate, or when you are almost ready to bang your head on the sidewalk for things could not go any worse than they already have. I had one of those days today on the occasion of the annual UCSD graduate student research expo and poster presentation.

As pointless as the act of presenting your research to unsuspecting victims in a 10 minute seminar is, it only gets worse and more difficult when you have to do it on a 36/48 inch poster. So when an email regarding an announcement to the effect happened to wander into my mail address, I did what any self-respecting sane graduate student would do: prompt deletion with another addition to my spam addresses list. Just when I was smiling smugly to myself at having done another task with aplomb and satisfaction, my mailbox showed another mail from my advisor asking me:

"Would I want to put up a poster."

Did you notice something in the last sentence ? It has no question mark. I am not a stickler at formalities but I know when a question is supposed to have an answer and when it is brimming with overwhelming rhetoricism. With extreme inertia, I agreed to make a poster. Then came another mail from my advisor where he asked:

"Would I want to volunteer for the expo." (Notice the absence of '?')

Almost on the verge of strangling myself, I consented to his wish. I would have silently suffered in the misery, had I not recieved another mail from the volunteer committee in which an overenthusiastic official chirped enthusiastically: "Thanks for volunteering. You get to wear a red shirt embossed with a UCSD logo on the day". Can you believe that ? A RED SHIRT for god's sake. They could as well have painted it fluoroscent lime and written "Stupid inside" and attracted less attention.

So well, the day I had been dreading for so long finally came today. Dressed in my immaculate red, I stood besides my poster, surrounded by a host of other posters. I noticed something very peculiar. There was an unusually high density of humanity surrounding each and every poster which surrounded mine. Mankind, due to some reason or another, found it extremely inhospitable to reside anywhere in the vicinity of my poster. Being the eternal optimist I am, I found a perfectly rational explanation for this phenomenon:

"According to the law of conservation of homo sapiens in a closed environment like a poster exhibition, the number of people will remain constant through time. Now when a lot of them are clustered at a few points in space, there are bound to be some spatial coordinates where their density is less. And today those coordinates happened to be those which supported me and my poster. Simple, eh ?".

Seriously speaking, I would like to believe that the human density function today was less a reflection of the hideousness of my poster and my obvious academic ineptitude but more a reflection (well, literally) of the eye scorching piece of crap I was wearing in place of a shirt.

Desh Raag

For an Indian who has spent the memorable and nostalgic parts of his childhood waking up unwillingly to the sounds of Vande Mataram being played on radio, raag desh should not really be something unheard. This Bankim Chandra's masterpiece is set to the mellifluous tunes of deshraag and although many varieties of the song came during subsequent years, the one that endears to my heart certainly is the original one. Part of the charm of the original track lies in the inherent beauty of raag desh itself. I have started listening to eastern classical music in a pretty engrossed way lately and to say that I have been overwhelmed by the immense beauty and depth of the music would be grossly understating the fact. I would like to believe that I have developed a preliminary understanding of the field but I am certainly not blind enough to claim anything more. Nevertheless, here is my understanding of a raga with special emphasis on raga desh:

I read in a book recently, "To say that a raga consists of notes would be like saying that a painting consists of paints and a poem consists of words". As incomplete as this description is, a raga does consist of a set of notes but that is not even begining to tell the full story. For those who are comfortable with the Indian musical notation, desh raag consists of the following notes:

आरोह (Ascent) :
सा रे म प नि सा'
अवरोह (Descent):
सा' नि(कोमल) ध प म ग रे सा

As can be seen, गंधार (ग) and धैवत (ध) are not used in ascent whereas a flat निशाद (नि) is used in place of शुद्ध नि in descent. If you just play out the आरोह on a keyboard you would be able to make out the underpinnings of Vande Mataram. The beauty of the raga emanates from the various sur combinations in particular the potent role assigned to रिशभ (रे). A raga also outlines some rules or directions in which a set of notes within that raga should be played. These combinations play pivotal roles in evoking the feelings a particular raag is supposed to evoke. Some of these combinations for desh raag are:

रे म प ध म ग रे, प (म ग रे)

रिशभ in this raag serves as the center of melodic gravity. The intonation of ध म ग रे is crucial and (म ग रे) refers to a changing the sur from म to रे in one continuous sweep, just grazing past ग. This can be done only in continuous or stringed instruments like flute or sitar or violin etc. but I am trying my best to replicate the effect on a synthesizer.

रे नि(कोमल) ध नि(कोमल) ध प, रे म प नि, नि, सा', रे', नि(कोमल) ध प, ध म ग रे
सा रे म प नि(कोमल) ध प, रे प म ग रे, (रे)ग, नि सा

I think my limited understanding does not allow me to speak any further in the subject. The only thing I would like to say is that listening to great masters play and playing some of this myself is almost a mystical experience. The beauty of this music can not be described in words and can only be experienced. Unlike western classical, there is a soul to our music, a throbbing life which permeates every composition, a live heart which resonates with every note and I cannot really expound on it enough for it is too personal for lengthy discourses.

Not so Starry Night on the Kukrail Sewage pond

*update: Item posted on ebay.

Its not technically a post. I have painted something which I consider is an epic. I got inspired by Van Gogh's 'Starry Night on the Rhone' and I think it is as good if not better. So now that we all know what a great work of art this is, I am ready to sell it to the highest bidder. Any art connoisseur's there ?



Can you believe that I managed to make this masterpiece in just 2 hours!!! Just as a comparison, I will put Van Gogh's painting too, just so that you guys could get a frame of reference. Do you also think that Van Gogh could have done so much better? *Smug glow of self satisfaction*, no one should be allowed to rule so much !!!:



Also, I have made a new site. Please do pay a visit if you have some free time. Its pretty preliminary:

Ankit Srivastava

New Resolution

No more posts for atleast a month. Possibly more.
Reason: I have, in some sense, started writing for those who read, something that I never intended to do.

Care to be politically incorrect ?

So many people during the last few days have told me that I criticize too much and that I should, for a change, praise something. So I decided to look into the things I could praise and came up with this extremely comprehensive list :

1. Federer (you know that alpha male of human species)
2. Cricket vis a vis Soccer (man, cricket rules so much, soccer does not even hold a candle to its greatness)

and then I ran out of ideas. The fact of the matter is that there are so many other things to praise but in all those cases, I just cannot be radical enough to piss off atleast some people and till there are atleast some people whose egos are hurt while I praise something shamelessly, where is the fun ? I could praise hindi poetry and classical music but why should I do it if everyone agrees with my point of view ? It will be just like 10 people sitting on a table starting to argue whether Hitler was right or wrong but everyone believing that Hitler was wrong. Such a discussion can never be interesting, far less informative and thought provoking. If I had been at that table I would atleast have started by praising Hitler just so that I could hurt some pointless egos. Its extremely interesting to see how easily people get threatened by a difference in point of view and how easily they assume the status of moral police just so that they could bring normalcy to a world gone haywire by the innocuous opinions of one random guy. I would ofcourse have been mercilessly mauled in that group but I would consider that a bargain. The fact of the matter is that we have far too many conformists pottering about in the society who would rather be politically correct than be themselves or atleast a bit of a sport. They think too much about what should be acceptable social behaviour and are far too afraid to have a radical, even a different point of view (and don't go shooting around with allegations of my being an elitist. If you did get offended by the last sentence then you probably do belong to the generalization I talked about and I can't do anything about it but if you did'nt get offended, so much the better. Its just my opinion and no one needs to go ballistic over it. If someone does go ballistic, I can only have a laugh.). I am not saying that mocking someone in a social gathering when he is demonstrably uncomfortable is right because it is not. If you do that you need to be sent to the gallows in my book because then you are one of those jerks who, in the ecstacy of hogging the limelight, tramples upon the emotions and sentiments of those who are too polite to hit you in the face with a hatchet then and there.

So this brings me to the crux of my discussion. Why do I criticise so much ? Its simple. Its a lot of fun. I am not necesarily a cynic although I do believe in everything I say to atleast some degree. The rest of it is just, what do you call, garnishing. It just so happens that most of the things I do not like (or hate) happen to be things which present ample room for scathing sarcasm on account of their overwhelming foolishness or stupidity. I am principally against them but all the spicing is just so that I could get a humurous point of view. So I decided to make a list of things that I do hate. Its a pretty comprehensive list and I am sure that some of it atleast is going to piss off each one of you but don't develop a hatred against me on account of it because this is what you expect from two different human beings: A difference in opinion in atleast some fields of life:

People who:
1. dye their hair, drink 8$ frappuchinos, wear extreme clothings or baggy pants, follow trends mindlessly, belong to Generation X, buy the latest gadgets, eat meat filled burgers, smoke, drink not because they want it or like it but just to prove some stupid point. Nobody cares. Atleast I don't.
2. sell their morals and principals too easily for money. Most of us have a selling price but still it doesn't stop me from hating it. I might also have a selling price and I hate that possibility because I know that there HAVE been some mortals who never sold themselves from money.
3. are pseudo feminists, "socialites" (what does that mean anyways), pseudo humanitarians, pseudo social activists, pseudo moralists, religious extremists, fanatics (I approve of nationalists though). In essence all those who are trying to be someone they are not. And believe me, it is much easier to spot them than they ever thought possible.

4. Obnoxious, shrill, misbehaved children. There are far too many jerks in the world and I assume they all used to be obnoxious, shrill, misbehaved children. I don't dislike these children as much as I dislike their parents who are just nurturing another future jerk. And did you notice how easily I managed to be entirely politically incorrect !

5. TV shows like Friends, family soaps, american football (man, did you ever see another game which required lesser skill to play. Even Ludo needs more skill), movies like Independence day, KKKG IAALYF Yo!, Titanic etc. They are far too insulting to a human being's intelligence to even be considered for release. I cannot comprehend how they manage to do so well.

6. immorality, dishonesty, too much conformism (as it kills creativity and free thinking), girls who talk about feminism but take undue advantage of their status as girls to move up in society by pleasing their bosses and who would expect you to leave your seat in a bus for them (equality my foot), the bosses who are so stupid to fall in the trap, boys who would rather take the course of empty praise to move up the social ladder than talent and hardwork.

I haven't even scratched the surface and I have so many things. There are surely many more things but you do get the idea why I criticise so much. There is far too much matter out there to make a delicious recipe of humurous bashing. Meanwhile I have decided that I will be updating this only on the weekends unless ofcourse if I decide otherwise :-).

P.S: Oh by the way if you did not get it, I was joking the whole time !!!!!!!!

BullSh*t

I was going through my daily motions of reading the articles on rediff, flinching at every next mention of 'Abhivarya', posting some stinging comments on the 1032nd report analyzing the utterly pointless and quiet disposable event of Shilpa Shetty derogated on Big Brother (Seriously, how can people be so jobless as to have the time to read those junk articles. Now I am sure some of you would say, "But Ankit you also read that article, LOL!!!", and I would say, "So What" and look shamelesly in the other direction)... You know, minding my own business as usual when I came across this article which mentioned this word bullshit and wrote it like bullsh*t and immediately, in the capacity of a self-appointed ass-kicker of hypocrisy, my bullshit detector started ringing like crazy.

I just don't get it. I can almost picture the man who wrote the article. When the moment came to vent his basic anger at whatever he was dissecting, he must have thought:

"hmmm, what should I write, what should I write... Oh yes... bullshit... but that won't be acceptable to the society... hmmm... hmmm... hmmm... how about bullsh*t !!!... Ingenious, Brilliant, Innovative... Man, I rule so much"

and he would have smirked a little, just like Edison would have smirked upon getting his 1022nd patent. However, in all the ecstacy of his stumbling upon this entirely genius plan he forgot one thing: His readers are not unicelled blue green algae and most of them possess enough gray matter to come up with the word bullshit when presented with the word bullsh*t. I assume that he expected one of the two scenarios, either of which will render his stance pretty much void:

1. I hope that people will figure out that what I am trying to say is the word 'bullshit'.
Argument: First of all, thanks for showing so much belief in the mental capacities of fellow humans but my point is that if most of the people ARE able to decode your elaborately encrypted code, doesn't it defeat your whole purpose ? If most of the people can add 2+2 then I contest that bullsh*t is as offensive as bullshit to all those for whom it is offensive. And seriously, we are talking about humans here. Not jellyfishes, not logs of wood, not Ekta Kapoors. Lets give some respect to their intelligence.

2. I hope that people won't be able to figure out what I truly meant by writing bullsh*t.
Argument: Do I even need to present an argument ? Nevertheless, whats the point of using a word in an article when you are wishing that no one will be able to get its import ? And I am sure that you are not doing any justice to your writing skills if you are writing for those who won't be able to make out bullshit from bullsh*t.

Nevertheless, the point which emerges from all this rambling is that if you do not want to offend people (which should depend entirely upon your set of ethics and your own social considerations) by writing some offensive word, don't write it at all. Don't go through the pains of encrypting it in a laughably moronic code only to end up getting decoded left, right and center by most of the humans and even some trained dogs and cats. I could delve into the psychological underpinnings of such an impulse, but I would rather save my and everyone else's time by terming it asyet another shining example social hypocrisy.

Pandit Ravishankar and Ustad Allarakha at Monterey pop '67

If you are music afficionados of any kind whatsoever*, you have to watch it. Full Stop:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1BqAfNKb0Q4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UApLjfmJGbw&NR

Pandit Ravishankar and Ustad Allarakha in a mindshattering performance in Monterey. Combined video length is 18 minutes so watch it when you have ample time. Look at the spiritual rapture at the end and extended standing ovation. I am floored. Completely floored. I should just shut the hell up here because I don't even have words to adorn such a fantabulous performance.


*well if you like Britney spears or her ilk and your age is in double digits, in my opinion you need to evaluate your life right now. And yes, do tell me so that I can send you to my quarantined list.

Junk Mails

Disclaimer: Everything I say (ever in life) is probably said in a dazed state and probably does not mean a thing and probably is here just so that I (or others) could get a laugh. Please don't go marching on the streets protesting my arrest as an anti-social element. Howsoever crazy the idea seems, I want to tell you that you do have the right to NOT read it if you don't want to.
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Lately I have been getting so many junk forwards, I have seriously considered wielding my hatchet over those unsuspecting innocent souls who, I guess, do not realize that just by pressing a send over the "Forward" button in their mail browsers, they are helping in dumbing down the Internet to levels I had not thought possible (Yes, I have a hatchet. I keep it for emergencies like burgulary, street fights, terror attacks, if I meet Karan Johar or Ekta Kapoor some day, if there are too many children blasting off my ears in an an airplane etc.). The situation has become so bad, I have had to make a mail filter which sends mails with subjects having the word "Fwd" or any of its variants straight to Trash. I had thought of sending an e-hatchet as an auto reply to such mails but realized that I still live in a "civilized" society so probably that won't be taken in the right spirit. Nevertheless, here are some of the common types of forwards people keep inflicting upon humanity even though I am sure they have not had abusive parentage or exploited childhood and the world does not have anything against them:

1. 26 things a boyfriend should do to make his girlfriend love him: Just when you are rubbing your hands in excitement at being in the possession of the greatest set of gurumantra ever, you read the first point and are forced to break your Television just because you would probably have inflicted fatal wounds to your head had you not had some inanimate object to vent your fury upon. It reads, "Say ouch cutely when she hits you". Seriously ? Isn't that supposed to be spousal abuse and violence ? How about my making a video of the hienous crime and dragging her to the court so that I could extract some money out of the incidence upon charges of manhandling, mental trauma and violence and then buying some Round Table cheese slices, which by the way rule so much, I sometimes have to wonder if even God has them in his lunch (because I am pretty sure that God is a vegetarian).

2. Help a child dying with cancer. Pass this email : This kind of mail is probably written by someone (I will call him the 'Hacker!' in the spirit of the 'Dude!') who, I am guessing, flunked his computer course in his undergrad. He is not good enough to code-up a virus which could go to people's mail boxes and kick everyone's ass by transmitting itself to all those present in the address book, so he just makes up a laughably foolish tale of a cancer child who would be saved miraculously, if only you could forward his mail to all of your friends (thereby bringing the tally of your friends to ZERO). How pathetic ! you 'Hacker!'. THE ONE THING YOU HAD TO DO!!!. Even if I wanted to help that poor child, I am too lazy (and probably wise) to send it to all of my acquaintances. You could as well have coded a virus and named it "I-am-a-malicious-virus-but-I-believe-that-you-are-foolish-enough-to-still-fall-in-the-trap-and-open-me-for-I-have-been-effectively-disguised-to-take-advantage-of-your-bleeding-heart.vir" and be sure that with the amount of intelligence I have been gifted, I would easily have opened it. Seriously. Does anyone ever send those mails forward ? Oh wait! How did I get this ?... Where is my hatchet ?

3. Send this to 3 people, you will have your wish........... otherwise.............: Ooooooooooooooooooo. I am so afraid, I could not even sleep properly and had to watch KKKG IAALYF (for those of you who could not decode it: Kabhee khushi kabhee gham, Its all about loving your family, Yo!) just so that I could sleep (too bad that I almost choked upon suffocating mediocrity). I am so damn scared about the possibility of the curse of a junk mail ruining my life, I almost decide to do the impossible and the despicable i.e. send it to 3 friends atleast but then I wake up. The worst part of such a forward is that you see that the person who has sent you the mail has sent it to either 3 or 6 or 9 persons (or whatever number the mail mentions) and realize that homo sapiens is no longer the cleverest of all species. Seriously, I have stopped making donkey jokes. If donkeys ever come to know about this, they will kick some serious human ass.

4. From the desk of Mr......, Burkina Faso : These are one of those mails which claim that they are willing to pay millions of dollars for nothing and the worst part with them is that their subject does not contain "Fwd" so I cannot delete them automatically. But guess what. Their premise is so overwhelmingly foolish, you would believe that all the foolishness in the world has been used up by this one mail, but then you watch "Kyonki saas bhee kabhee bahu thee" and start believing in the infinity of foolishness. These mails are so stupid, they could as well have contained "Fwd" in their subject. Their subject would have read "Fwd: You have won 13 million dollars" and you would have wondered how come such an important and personal news comes to me in the form of a Forward. But if you think like this, you deserve to get scammed by those people. Here is what you do when you get one of these mails: DELETE THEM. Personally, I always send them an e-hatchet in return just because thos fools did not include an "Fwd" in their subject line and wasted my precious time.

There is so much much more but I am bored now. Rest for later.

Sensuality Misinterpreted ?

Ok. Pop Quiz.

Q1. What the hell is wrong with the world ?
Q2. Why are people like Mallika Sherawat, Koena Mitra and Rakhi Sawant still alive ?
Q3. What right do they have to be so damn stupid ?

I was just watching this KBC episode on youtube when my room-mate happened to click on Mallika's new year stage performance. Just as I was watching her shameless antics, I realized that we as a society might be closer to chimpanzees than we think (or perhaps Jellyfishes or donkeys). Nevertheless, I couldn't figure out how on earth could it be broadcasted on national television. I mean, where has all the decency gone ? For god's sake, freedom of expression is one thing and jiggling your undraped body over national television (NEWS!) for the viewing pleasure (or displeasure) of general public including children, parents and elderly is an altogether different ball game. Last time I heard, sensuality was supposed to be expressed more in subtlety than in crassness. When did they change that ? When did the general public lose all its taste for quality ? I would like to answer some of the general arguments in support of such shows that we face :

1. Its a feminist revolution.
Argument: No kidding. Seriously ? Lets just ask Rakhi Sawant what she understands by feminism some day. I have a pretty good idea about her IQ (after reading those interviews) and I can safely say that she won't score better than a mentally retarded earthworm who has had 3 tequila shots. The problem lies in the fact that too many ladies today are ready to climb up the ladder by selling their bodies and are too ashamed to admit it and would rather attribute their behaviour to some screwed up notion of feminism. They have no idea what injustices the feminist movement struggled against but are all too ready to take the shelter of 'feminism' when asked uncomfortable questions like 'Was it so necessary to take your clothes off for an action sequence ?". Why won't they just stand for their beliefs and principles. I guess they don't have any.

2. Its a matter of personal choice. Don't watch it if you don't like.
Argument: First of all, I can safely say that such an argument would either come from one of those metropolitant youths who have far too much money to have any rationality left in their heads or those college kids who, I am sorry to say, have only a preliminary idea of reality because, lets face it, between all their breakups and romances and classes and picnics and parties and discos, they hardly have any time left for rational inquiry (I was not very different so I don't blame them). Nevertheless, do I mind ? Hell yes I do. It would have been fine if Mallika had done an X-rated video and sold her CDs but who gives her the right to come dancing in my living room in all her transparent glory, completely uninvited ? Personal choice, my foot. The next person who tries to be diplomatic and "open-minded" and tries to teach me that I am one of those few orthodox fools who have been left behind in all this modernistic wave will have his hair pulled off and his foot in his mouth.

3. Have it. Flaunt it. (Mallika said this once I guess)
Argument: Agreed. But I am sure you have more. Why not flaunt that. Or am I crossing a sacrosanct territory ? Why this hypocrisy ? Why don't you flaunt it in every possible scene or party or movie ? Because somewhere down below you want to be seen as a serious actress, right ? Well get this, you are not. You probably possess as much acting talent as a charred log of wood. Only you are more annoying.

4. The scene (situation) demands it
Argument: Boy I have heard drivel. High quality insanity. But this line takes the cake. Who are they trying to fool. Agreed that as a society, we have failed miserably but still the average IQ of the nation would be atleast 20 points higher than any of those random actresses. Your veil is as transparent as your dress, missy.

I yearn for those days when sensuality and sexuality were implied. It doesn't have to be gross and visible to leave an impact. Too much detail kills the feel and the emotion of a situation and renders it disgusting. So while I understand that crass sexuality is a reality I have to live with, there is an easy solution which could remedy the situation. Instead of using garbage for making landfills, we could as well dump immoral hacks like Koena Mitra, Neha Dhupia etc. there. Although our environment would start smelling foul with all the garbage around, I for one is ready to live with that. Besides, I am sure that howsoever worthless the lives of such people are, they will atleast make usable manure.

Manos: The Greatest Movie Ever. EVER

If the title, "Manos" The hands of fate, does not strike cold fear into your heart then seriously dude, you need to see a doctor. This is one of those movies which comes once in a century, kicks incomprehensible amount of ass but no one notices because everyone is busy either crying buckets in KKKG (IAALYF) (for those who could not decode it: Kabhee khushi kabhee gham, Its all about loving your family, yo!) or racking their neurons on occult and ultimately futile endeavours like Mulholland Drive or going "Yo! America" in movies like Independence Day and God-bless-America-for-saving-the-world-again-for-everyone-else-is-supposedly-pusillanimous-enough-not-to-be-able-to-stand-on-their-own-feet.

The movie was written, produced, directed and starred (stop laughing) by American fertilizer salesman (I said stop!) Hal Warren as the result of a bet he made with his friends wherein he intended to make a successful horror movie on a shoestring budget. The movie was a complete failure at the box office but later scientific analysis of this phenomenon revealed that it happened because the theatre going public was still caught in the post-modernistic era and the frontal lobes of their brains were not developed enough to appreciate the genius of this great piece of art. Its like Vincent Van Gogh. He did not sell even a single painting all his life but look at the scene now, huh? Who is laughing his ass off now ? I would love to see the sullen faces of those who refused to buy his paintings then. Same is the case with Manos. 3 milleniums from now when homo sapiens will have developed enough to ragard story, coherence, dialogues, direction, acting, screenplay, edition and music as not so necessary elements for a good movie, this movie will kick some serious ass.

The movie starts with a 13 minute sequence where a camera just keeps on looking out from a moving car towards green fields and mountains. It was supposed to be the time when they had to roll the credits but basically those guys forgot this small detail so we just have a moving car for 13 minutes. Now don't think even for a second that this is a complete waste. Boy oh boy. Believe me, you will need to get settled for this movie. You will need each one of those 13 minutes to sink comfortably back in your chair because once the kickery starts, you will have your face rocked off forever. You will have to deal with one corny dialogue after another, one incoherent scene after another, one ham-act after another until you are left gasping for air, your hair all wet with perspiration, your voice barely making its way out of your parched mouth, your life begging for mercy. But mind you. No mercy shall be shown for Manos, the evil master, does not approve of mercy.

Man, I could go on and on and not be able to capture the glory of the movie in words. Lets just say that "Manos" The hands of fate is probably the most interesting event in the history of the universe after big bang i.e. if Big Bang ever happened. If not than "Manos" The hands of fate is THE greatest event ever. Here is a wikipedia article (written by some ignorant moron) about the movie. Don't believe even a single word. You have no idea how far off the mark, the article is :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Manos%22_The_Hands_of_Fate