Pornywood

Have you had any embarrassing computer moments? Read on if you have. And if you haven’t, you can just laugh at my awkward moments!

No I don’t watch porn. Blasphemy. And no I wont judge you if you do. (ok maybe just a little)

So I was in class today (yes I’m one of the privileged few who has class on most weekends) and spent an entire day working on my features assignment which will be on the continuing Rise of Bollywood in the West.

So naturally the majority of my material would come from the internet. And like the majority of ethnic sites, the Bollywood site I went to was infected with a virus.

So picture this:

Me sitting in a studio at school. Frantically researching for my assignment and recording off youtube.

Then the computer freezes and says I have a virus.

Then all of a sudden, all these porn pop ups start opening one after another on the screen.

*dodgy baw chika wow wow music*

The homepage then changed to some generic porn.com site and the pop ups continued to open and fill up the screen.

Stab me. I wanted to die. Now its one thing when you have a virus, it’s a whole other story when your teacher and classmates think you have looked up porn during class.

So a normal calm person would try and come up with an intelligent practical way to fix the problem, but I panicked and quickly turned the screen off.

Anyway, so after running around frantically and aimlessly because I was in a panic, I finally found the lecturer and she called someone from IT. She said it was fine and would get sorted, but I wonder if deep down she thinks I was looking up porn during class! Because I know if I was her, it would cross my mind.

I was one step away from doing an assignment on Bollywood to invent the new concept of Pornywood. A mix between Bollywood and Internet porn.

Oh dear. What a disturbing concept.

Your Zone - My Zone

So I don’t use public transport often. Yes still living at home with parents and in the Hills is a bit of a treck from civilisation…so sometimes I’m forced to. I just prefer to drive – eventhough apparently ‘My zone’ is supposed to solve all our public transport issues…but that’s a whole other blog for another day. (Eventhough I’m not going to lie, I don’t really understand how my zone works)

Being a student has forced me to get a little more intouch with the inconvenient and at times awkward method of travel….public transport. I say awkward because I find myself standing on a bus having uncomfortable staring competitions with the freak standing next to me...or being asked very random personal questions by rather interesting people at the train station because I’m in a work uniform.

Have you ever had the person next to you open their oversized newspaper leaving you very little room to move around, forcing you to glue your face near the window because you have a massive piece of paper over your face. Or what about when 50 other people in the carriage can hear the same person's entire playlist and you just wonder how their ear drums are still in tact. Oh dear now I’m starting to sound like my parents.

So I have very little patience for inconsiderate people… but my absolute pet hates are when people speak really loudly on their phone when its quiet, or when they eat or drink really loudly on the train or bus. Ok so I may or may not sound like a bit of a nutter and get annoyed pretty easily. Whatever, I bet you hate it too.

So I was on the train the other day and had a bit of a journey back from the city. Being the fidgety worm that I am, I was going through my handbag and found a nail polish I had left in there a while ago. Without even a second thought, I took out the nailpolish and started painting my bare nails on the train. I honestly didn’t think twice about it, but it only took a couple of minutes before I started getting filthy stares from a couple of people around me. I didn’t realise painting my nails on the train would actually annoy people. Did they not approve of the colour i was using? Was it the smell? Or was it just that i had found something to occupy myself with and they were secretly envious!

I didn’t stop of course…I couldn’t leave half my hand painted and the rest bare. My image was at stake! So I continued painting and could sense a few raised eyebrows around me. I'd like to think of myself to be quite a considerate person and I’d hate to be that annoying person on the train or bus. But there are so many strange yet boring people on public transport that I thought I’d add a bit of colour to their lives. *boom tish*

So basically after that rather awkward experience, i’ve decided that I’m going to be a little more patient with all the irritating strange people on public transport. I guess we just need to learn to be more patient with them because i realised after my experience there is a very fine line with public transport etiquette. To each their own i guess. After all, public transport is Your Zone.

Welcome to Maz blog Land - Catch my Bollywood Disease

So this is my first blog. I wanted to start with writing about something current and topical. Topic of Burqa ban perhaps, Hype of Jessica Watson, Food lovers from Masterchef or even Bieber fever. But I thought some of those topics may be a little too intense for my first blog. I really should be doing my assignments …

So I’m officially welcoming myself to blog land with a topic that never lets me down, something that is current and topical – something that Is literally so hot right now. Yes I am talking about Bollywood.

Haven’t heard of the term Bollywood cinema? Surely you’ve heard of Slumdog Millionaire at least or even the recent Pussycat Dolls song ‘Jai Ho’ that was from the movie. If you haven’t heard of either of those you have been living in a rock and need to get a little more culture in your life. And yes you thought right, Bollywood is rather uniquely named after Hollywood when it overtook it back in the 70s as the world’s largest film producer. Unlike Hollywood though, Bollywood doesn’t actually exist in a particular place.

Bollywood is not just huge amongst the Indian Diaspora but also in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. They release about 800 movies a year.

For many Asians, Bollywood movies tell stories that they can relate to both personally and culturally. Like many other central Asians, I grew up in a household that watched Bollywood movies which is where I also picked up the hindi language aswell.

If you’ve never seen a Bollywood movie, and if I could describe it to you in a nutshell then I’d say they are : extremely long – usually 2-3 hours. Musicals, lots of singing and dancing – usually running around a tree. And quite melodramatic – involving lots of drama about forbidden relationships, underdogs rising to fame and success and greed, corrupt politicians,underworld deals and villains, or just comedic movies with a much different sense of humour to Hollywood movies.

The phenomena of Slumdog Millionaire was recognised universally, winning eight Academy Awards. Slumdog Millionaire simply scraped the surface of the potential of Hindi Cinema. Coming from someone who has watched countless Bollywood movies, there are plenty of other movies just as good as Slumdog Millionaire but didn’t get the recognition that Danny Boyle did.

The hype of Bollywood Cinema in the west perhaps also has a nostalgic factor for many expats. The glitz, glamour, melodrama and fantasy of Bollywood Cinema is also an escape from reality. I love watching them simply for the unique blend of music and dance and drama of Bollywood and sometimes simply because it takes you to a fantasy land, even if it is for a few hours.
After exposure to world cinema and movies like Slumdog Millionaire, more recent Bollywood movies seem to be a little more realistic – following real world themes. Some of them don’t even have songs – booo.

So if your looking at being a little more cultured or want to be exposed to something new, then try watching a Bollywood movie. It might be slightly painful to watch initially until you get your head around the drama of it all, but you’ll become addicted and soon enough will catch the Bollywood disease I promise.