OPM*
Presents – Aap ka Common Nouns


The Internet has made the world a much smaller place, though Stephen Hawkins says that it only appears so, as he has it from reliable scientists like himself that the Universe all around is actually expanding, which, come to think of it, explains my growing girth. Leaving that expansive topic aside, the Internet is only making the world a much smaller place, metaphorically. So there is no danger of your house shrinking and bringing untold losses to your real estate portfolio. And even if there appears to be such catastrophe in offing because of a shrinking world, it is easily set off by the expansion of the universe.
This expansion-shrinkage is a terribly confusing business and experts in the field including the world’s best Shrinks and Sexologists gather every year to discuss shrinkage and enlargement in a sterile space (Space is often sterile. If you are a man, you know how sterile it can get when she asks you for space).
I decided to use the Internet’s metaphorical powers to find some school and college friends I have lost touch with over the years. After numerous hours of downloading porn, er, searching for them using tools like search engines, social networking sites and blogs I had more or less given up when, by quirky probability I chanced on my friend Kushal Pande’s blog. Only, he had changed his name to Koolshal Pondy and it took me a while to figure out that it was indeed, my friend. Why had he changed his name? Numerology.
What is numerology? Numerology is any of many systems or beliefs in a mystical relationship between numbers and physical objects or living things. This goes beyond the physical relationship that young schoolchildren associate with bowel movements. Yes. Actually. And the damned ‘science’ is driving me insane because of Numerological name alterations. I have realized, to my utter dismay, that forty percent of my friends and several relatives have or are considering changing their names after visiting a numerology consultant (just like Management Consultants, but with other bullsh**)
Numerology, I found, is a counteractive force against the metaphorical powers of the Internet, because said powers are pretty useless without the right data. To illustrate: When Gopal becomes Sugopalen and Vivek, Vivacuous the original names are worth nothing to a search engine.
Post these debacles and being aware of the phenomenon (no, not the Malayalee called Pheno Menon) I have observed a dangerous trend of numerology creeping into language and spelling.
OPM this week deals with a movie that has been similarly affected, Himesh Resham-Miya’s debut, Aap Kaa Surroor – The Moviee, The Real Luv Storiee.

Himesh’s friend, Prashant Chadda who is also responsible for his baseball cap, trench coat and big buckle belt wardrobe malfunction, er, look directs him in this abominably named motion picture. With words that look like they have been in an accident involving mangled steel and a shipment of Oxford Press dictionaries appearing in mainstream media titles, one despairs about a day where a future generation will abandon Spelling as a course and all words will become common nouns. This only magnifies my worries about the future of the Language; worries that have been around since I was introduced to the Sms Generation and Compulsory Regional Language in school with English as an option.
The advent of Himesh Resham-Miya as a film actor overshadows such worries for now, though. I am filled with a mixture of pale hope and indelible dread because of what Himesh- as- movie star throws our collective way. An explanation is in order.

Let us start at the beginning, which is where we should begin considering that Flashback or flashing any other portion is illegal under the Immoral Traffic Act.
Primarily a music director, Himesh Resham-Miya later became the phenomenon (no, not the Malayalee called Pheno Menon) he is for his vocals, which have a distinctive high-pitched nasal twang. Over the last year Himesh’s, unfortunately prolific, musical output has caused my senses untold grief on the Tele and the Radio, in auto rickshaws and from baraat bands (baraat: different from Borat, the movie, but often as grotesquely funny, when relatives of all sizes decide to shake, nay, flail their limbs in joy, allegedly dancing).
Unexpected and inexplicable success as a singer having gone to his head (and symbolically having stayed there as his trademark cap), Himesh now tries his hand, and the rest of himself (he will try his Hand alone, later, on a Puppet show) at being an actor.
Partly based on Himesh’s own life, the movie opens to a Utopian world where Himesh is being thrown out of music directors’ offices, where he is looking for work.
On being thrown out he lands on a terribly plain fifteen-year-old child artiste called Hansika Motwani, injuring her badly and worse, breaking her set of Talking Barbie and Ken Watanabe in Japanese Embrace. The rest of the story involves Himesh playing the forlorn lover and trying to win the minor’s affection by fixing her Talking Barbie set. In frustration he records himself in a squeaky falsetto to substitute Barbie’s talkie microchip. Hansika falls in love with him immediately, injuring herself again trying to break the fall. A desperate and partially deaf Music Director finds the recording and gives him a singer’s job, thus turning him into a huge success before the night is out.
Why should you see the movie? Himesh reveals why he always wears a cap, and it is not a plug for a hair care/growth brand.
Why do I have pale hope when I behold Himesh, the actor? I hope this movie is a blockbuster and he stops singing. It is more likely though, that he’ll both sing and act. That explains the Indelible Dread, huh?


* Objects in the Preview Mirror may appear sillier than they are.
Disclaimer: Characters in the above story are not based on any characters in the film. Any resemblance or humour is pure luck.
**OPM appears in the Thursday edition of Bangalore BIAS and previews a Friday release