Why do people watch a movie multiple times?

Why do people watch a movie gazillion times? 
Really liked a movie and want to see it a couple more times? Sure. Want to enjoy it again with different sets of friends/family/relatives? Definitely. Feel like watching it again few more times after gaps of some years? Of course. 


But.. Watching HAHK 17 times? 
Madhumati 25 times? 
And, watching DDLJ a freaking FORTY ONE times? 

These are actual numbers shared by real people. Exasperated, I ask: "Pray tell me what changes? The script? The acting?" And they are like, "No! Nothing changes, but... You won't understand."


Perhaps. I don't understand that. But what I do understand is this: 3 hours x 40 times = 120 hours. 

Folks, you spent five day-nights of your life watching the same thing over and over... And, you're not gonna get those back again.

Sales drive

I always make it a point to read the pamphlets/brochures that come along with the newspapers; not for the products they advertise but because of the awesome language they use. Here are some choice examples of amenities shown in various housing schemes.

• First Come First Possessed (!)
• Freedom from pollution, air and water. (poor souls)
• Members Clubbing House (the place where folks club each other?)
• Lawn 70000 sq ft (shown in the list of individual amenities for each flat)
• Full sunlight during day (Aww... Not during night?) 
• Children Parking (What? Ah, they meant playground/park.)
• Entry gate light (What this means, someone enlighten me please)
• 360 degree lake view (is this building right in the middle of a lake?)
• CCTV camera for each room (each and every room?!)
• Fiance from nationalized bank guaranteed (Wow!)

Relativity!

Einstein's theories of relativity (special and general) are often cited as examples of something that's extremely complex; but there's yet another, more complicated form of 'relativity' that makes me apprehensive about attending marriages and other social functions. I always run into someone who takes pleasure in conducting interrogation sessions by linking family genealogies.

"So you are related to Girish.... That makes you cousin of my sister's niece. Right? Arre, atleast do you know that your father is related to my uncle's younger cousin? अरे, तुझी मावशी म्हणजे आमचे साडू आहेत ना त्यांची मोठी सून. ...."

When it comes to decipering relations, I am dumber than anyone else. It is only with tuition from Arti that I can differentiate between a भाची and a पुतणी and am yet to learn by-heart the chemistry between a जाऊ and नणंद. And, these relations are not symmetric. For example , if Gauri is my आत्तेबहीण then conversely I should be Gauri's आत्तेभाऊ, right ? No! I happen to be her मामेभाऊ!!

B. Sc.

He was depressed. 
Blame it on the pathetically low number of engineering colleges in his small state, or the meager of seats available for his category, the fact remained that he would have to forgo his dream of pursuing computer engineering. His worried parents sent him to meet his high school headmaster. 


Walking towards the cabin, he avoided looking at the Roll of Honour on the wall. It featured his name in the list of Meritorious students of SSC... Thinking about it made him even more guilty.

"Sit down, it's good to see you after a long time," welcomed the elderly headmaster.
"Couldn't make it to engineering, sir," said the boy, "Have enrolled for B.Sc. I am useless, totally ashamed of myself."

"Son," said the kind teacher, "I am also a B. Sc... So, I guess you think am useless, and are ashamed of me as well?"

When the boy left the cabin a short while later, he was determined to value knowledge as something over and above just a degree... And he still does.


(Based on a true story)

Life in a.... Park

Go to any public park, and you'll see the following default entities:

• Overprotective parents: Usually seen as a couple. While their kids are willing to adjust and take turns at the sportsware, these parents are like "no beta, don't leave your place, let others wait."
•  Mobile Moms: Always deep into their smartphones or talking on phone. Totally oblivious to current location of their kid in the park.
•  Middle-aged house wives: Seen as a bunch, always gossiping about husband, saas, and stuff. You don't even have to make an effort to listen to them; their sound waves are all pervasive.
•  Health freaks: Running on jogging tracks, looking condescendingly at us pot-bellied creatures.
•  Senior citizens: Another bunch, discussing what Modi or Obama need to do and passing judgments on the folks in the park. They usually have a 'preferred bench' in the park.

Good morning!

As a kid, my morning routine was rather messy, doing things haphazardly, out of sequence, wasting the time. Very inefficient. 
Then, I read about boot loader, the program that loads operating system when you start up the machine. It performs many tasks in an elegant sequence, an orchestra of files being executed in an optimal manner. I was fascinated to see a machine working so logically and rather embarrassed about my own booting up process every morning.
Since then, for the last 20+ years, I have tried to stick to what works best for me. Of course, marriage has added some subroutines like PREPARE TEA, but otherwise it remains unchanged.

A case against 'short and sweet'

The current trend of excessive fondness for 'short and sweet' content is quite disturbing. As soon as people see four or more lines of text, they start frowning and squirming. 

Don't get me wrong: Brevity is good, but in its proper place. Excessive verbiage must be avoided. However, there's something wrong when witty one-liners start replacing a paragraph of meaningful thoughts. This seems indicative of shorter attention spans.

Shakespeare didn't become The Great Bard by spewing out catchy quotes; he had to write reams and reams of poems, sonnets and plays. Einstein didn't become The Genius of 20th Century by simply declaring E=mc^2 and walking away; he had to solve pages and pages of differential equations and tensor calculus to prove his theories. Tim Berners-Lee didn't invent the World Wide Web by casually typing WWW one fine morning; he had to support it with a markup language and protocol specifications and stuff.

As a junior software programmer, you need to hammer out scrollbars and scrollbars of code before you get to become a CTO or possibly even a CEO where you can demand one-page executive summary.

You can get away with a "Hey hi, what's up, b'bye", and still call it 'being social'… But the real conversation happens when both the parties have the depth and breadth to carry on the dialog beyond that.

TLDR: If you want to do some real reading or get some actual work done, then 'short and sweet' is probably not the best approach to go about it.