Koffee with Orry

I don't watch Karan Johar, in fact he puts me off.

But I happened to watch the latest episode, the first half of which features Orry, since the wife, who is a Koffee fan ( don't ask me why, I think it is a form of escapism, anything serves to escape from the rest of the family), was watching it. 

Now you don't know who Orry is? Poor poor you. You are  an antediluvian junk piece who has lost their relevance in this world. 

Orry is the thing. He is the goods. Everyone talks about Orry. He is everywhere. Since he is everywhere, everyone talks about him, and vice versa. What exactly did he do to achieve fame? I already told you just now! 

That twenty minute Karan interview of Orrie is one of the best I have seen. You can't make out whether he is misguided, delusional, or just  off his rocker. Then you realise that it is the others who are misguided, delusional and off their rockers and he is merely taking advantage of it. And he makes no bones about it. 

After watching the twenty minutes, you don't know whether to pity Orrie, pity the rest of the world, or both. 

Watch it, it's worth it 

The balance part of the episode features four well known comedians who are supposed to be roasting Karan. Very cringey, avoidable.

A ZOMBIE WALK

A Palki Sharma video on how weight loss drugs are becoming the New Nirmal. 

https://youtu.be/HNiJ8Tho3Fs?si=YTBdMPKC4kBGj4fU

Everyone is barking up the wrong tree.

Obesity and associated lifestyle illnesses are rising. Rather than attack the root cause of the problem, which , by the way, common sense will tell you and so called doctors won't, you introduce weight loss drugs. 

Screw up your body with bad food, lack of exercise, and bad lifestyles. Then screw it up further by taking medication which directly interferes with the body's metabolism. Need we mention, these drugs are expensive, and they have to be taken life long. 

The holy grail for the Pharma companies: life long medication that is patented and that ensures that you never get cured. 

And what is it that people want ? They want these drugs to become cheaper and more accessible. Under the assumption that all lifestyle diseases will rise , that they are the new normal. Of course. The food corporations will ensure that. 

And we accept all of this as normal. 

As an individual you and I need to take that call to return to sanity. It starts by rejecting all that the medical industry and their handmaidens, the doctors and scientists are telling us. And getting back to common sense. Following the basic rules of healthy living. 

But we won't do that, will we? 

Oh no, we won't. It's far easier to just pop the pills, and reduce ourselves to an unthinking zombie state. 

We human beings are unbelievably self destructive creatures.

The rise and fall of Byju's

👆 Byju Ravindran even today can crack a CAT or similar exam with a 99 plus percentile score - he routinely does it in fact. 

He started by taking CAT  classes and was very good at it. 

Then he expanded into school, college etc education. With excellent course material. And he scaled up. 

Then ambition, and  VC funding took over. The money came by the truckload. Now, a VC who gives you money wants you to expand, and expand fast. The focus is mainly on the topline. The entrepreneur who is drunk with all that easy money goes bar hopping, with a string of drinkers in tow, and at every place he visits, announces that drinks are on the house. The top line skyrockets, based on which the VC's increase the valuation of the company in the subsequent rounds.

When the VC's increase the valuation at which the new round raises money, the value of the investment is marked upwards in all the funds that invested in the company. Now the VC's get drunk on euphoria. 

The entrepreneur meanwhile is under severe pressure to expand, expand, expand. 

Byju's has received 5 billion dollars, that is 40000 crores , in 28 rounds of funding so far. 

The pressure to increase the topline was so high that Ravindran's army of sales people started mis-selling the products, and the accountants engaged in questionable accounting practices to inflate the topline. 

Obviously, this was not going to last for long. The backlash started, and everything started winding down, correcting. 

Our man Ravindran, I believe, has run off to Dubai. 

And now, the company, into which 5 billion dollars have been pumped in, is worth 1 billion. 

The perils of excess. The perils of debt. The perils of unchecked ambition. The sin of greed. Every scripture has earned us about it, and said it will bring ruin. 

The scriptures are right, but with a slight twist. In today's times, it does bring ruin, to everyone but the promoter. 

He is partying in Dubai, while everyone else is cleaning up the debris.

Why is aging associated with ill health?

This automatic assumption that one will be always  "sick" when one crosses 50, 60, or whatever and , and will  need medication ... Where does that come from? 

The "modern" medical system has effectively ensured that. 

Medicines are meant to be taken when you are not well. Being "not well" is not a continuous condition. 

The human body is designed in such a way that we will always be well. There will be brief periods of illness when we need to pull back on activities, give the body some rest, maybe take some medicines, and allow it to recover. This is irrespective of age. 

The default condition for the human body is wellness, not illness. Modern lifestyles, food lobbies, and Pharma mafias have ensured that the reverse is the case

Review of Archies

Just saw Archies on Netflix.

An OTT only movie directed by Zoya Akhtar, it is surprisingly watchable. 

The three leading characters , Archie, Veronica and Betty are played respectively by: 

Agastya  Nanda, grandson of Big B, 

Suhana Khan daughter of SRK, 

Khushi Kapoor, daughter of Sridevi 

Nepotism anyone? 

They all play 18 year olds in Riverdale, a fictional town in the hills of North India. Conveniently, they are all Anglo Indians, something that suits their upbringing and accents. 

For posh mamas and papas providing a launching pad to their laadlas and laadlis - the Archies brand, story and settings are ideal.

Like in the Archie comics, which people of my generation have read a lot of, the problems these kids face are not real world problems. They have their small little world and their small little problems, consisting of things like what to wear for the next party and why did Archie kiss that girl and not me.

The picture could as well have been titled Barbie World, for that is what the whole set ( the whole film is  shot on a set which is Riverdale village) looks like. 

Given that background, the kids fit right into their roles. It is unlikely they had to practice much to be the fun loving,  anglicised, detached from reality kind of teenagers that they are playing. A lot of current generation teenagers from SoBo and such areas will identify with them. 

The kids, being star kids, have obviously been through a lot of training in acting and dancing, especially dancing. They can really dance! The movie is made in the form of a Western musical, not very usual for an Indian movie.

The script is fairly trite, but when was the storyline ever important in an Archie comic? The director has done a good job of taking these kids through their paces, and keeping the screenplay fairly engaging throughout, with just that little bit of suspense about what will happen next. The sinister plot of Mr Lodge, conspiring with a local wannabe politician, to tear down the town's Central Park and to build a hotel there is thwarted by the kids, and they endear themselves to the whole town in that process. 

I don't know if these kids have it in them to make it big - very difficult to tell with this movie - but they all have done a fairly good job. Of the three, Suhana Khan is the most impressive. Khushi is kind of damp, and Agastya is good, like Abhishek, but also like Abhishek, seems to lack that extra something that say, a Big B has. 

In terms of acting, Mihir Ahuja who plays Jughead is good. Vedang Raina playing Reggie is eye candy material, I can imagine all the girls watching the movie swooning over him. 

On the whole the movie is a nice, light, entertainer. 

Worth a watch