Bleed Blue - De Ghumake

I would be crazy if I didn't write a post about Indian cricket team's dream run in ICC World Cup 2011 after the spectacular win against Pakistan. Before even I write something, I would like to scream aloud once...

Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy..India defeated Pak in WC Semifinal...OMG...I've been in this hangover for the last 10 hours; could not and don't want to get normal anymore in the near future..atleast till the team lifts the big cup on Saturday.

It would not be an exaggeration if I say that Indian cricket brings the nation together than anything else. Celebrations after Indian victory eclipsed Diwali, Holi, Id, Christmas put together; emotions charged up, people went berserk, patriotism crept in from nowhere and the very name "INDIA" brought goosebumps.

During Ind Vs Pak match, I screamed so much that my voice went mute for some time, my wife went berserk and danced like anything for fall of every Pakistani wicket, my mom wore her lucky mascot saree and chanted vishnu sahasranamam before and after the match, dad's frenzy had no limits, my sister came out of office to be on phone with me to listen to the live commentary for a couple of hours, friends in Facebook, celebs on twitter had a post and comment riot. Never did I experience this kind of delirium and mania.

Bleed blue is an apt campaign as everybody's veins and cells sport blue blood.

1983 was a distant history and nobody from the current generations have seen that. We are sick of finding solace and pride in Kapil Dev's 28 old year glory. This is the right time. NOW is the time for the team to bring that glory back and pamper the 1.2 billion maniacs for the unconditional love and support they have been rendering.

On paper, technically and practically, this team has everything to get to the pedestal and bring the cup home. Sachin "God" Tendulkar doesn't need to prove why is he the only person in this world who is called the God. He has been proving himself over and over again. But this is his last world cup and possibly his last big tournament. An era is soon going to end. He has seen every situation from the last 20 years and is immune to all kinds of bowling attacks. He has the capability, temperament, technique and love of billion plus people on this planet to deliver good result.

Otherwise too, the batting squad is formidable and its a proven fact too. Sehwag, the most intimidating batsman in the contemporary cricket world, Yuvraj, the soon-to-be-man of the series, ably supported by Gambhir, the sheet anchor, Raina, Kohli, both agile fielders and dependable batsmen.

Bowling, though not starstudded, is working fine with Zak at the helm with Yuvraj as surprise package, supported well by Bhajji, Munaf, Nehra (his last over against SA can be forgiven after his performance against Pak). Fielding has been reasonably good.

Dhoni's batting form has been the cause of concern. But in a team full of superstar batsmen, his failure in batting can be tolerated because of two reasons: His wicket keeping has been immaculate and his captaincy is working. A leader should always be a master strategist with his every decision, player selection, field placements, bowler rotations affecting the outcome. A captain should be a driving force for coherent team where players support each other and stand by each other. Thats exactly happening here.

Captain cool has been maintaining his dignity and calm in every situation, never getting into ugly and embarrassing situations, not engaging in rhetoric like Ponting or Afridi. He has proved himself as a better captain than most of the captains Indian team ever had, including Sachin Tendulkar (series of bad tournaments during his captaincy coupled with his own decline in form) and Rahul Dravid (2007 World Cup - India's worst performance after 1979 world cup). Kapil Dev, Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni are the kind of captains who build teams and get things done and co-incidentally all three took the team to the finals of World Cup, irrespective of their individual knocks or what critics say. Captain's efficiency is not directly proportionate to the runs he puts on the score board or his individual brilliance.

Coming to the imminent opponent, Srilanka could be a good team but they lost against Pakistan, didn't play against Aussies, defeated Netherlands, Kenya, Canada (all minnows) and NZ before getting into QFs.

Now Indian team has a band of batsmen who can deliver, pack of bowlers who started raising up to the situation, an inspiring coach in Gary Kirsten, an able leader and strategist in Dhoni, immense confidence after victories against Australia and Pakistan, first world cup final at home (Mumbai), blessings and love of 1.2 billion Indians - There is no reason, why Indian cricket team can't be CHAMPIONS 2011.


In Ind vs Pak match, history repeated as India again defeated Pakistan in WC. In Ind vs SL match, history is again going to be repeated (remember Ramayana ??? India defeated Lanka)


Think Blue, Act Blue, Bleed Blue


Jutaa Hosla, Badal Faisla, 
Khel Jamale, Kasam Uthale, 
Bajake Chutki Dhool Chata de.........


DE GHUMAKE !!!!!!

Generation Shift Through My Eyes

Am getting older and when I see back, all I have done was completing my education, getting married, struggling for career and did nothing else. But when I look back again, I realized that I have seen a complete generation shift or rather a couple of generations during my growth and settlement.

When I recollect various incidents and lifestyles in the past three decades, I realize that some things have changed so drastically that the current generation would only listen to my words in awe, just like I used to listen to my parents or grandparents. Oh my God..am I so old ??  :(

My childhood was completely devoid of technology. No phone, no computer, no video games, no color TV, no dish / cable TV connection. Most of those who grew in 80's would relate when I say this. Only form of major entertainment was radio with a couple of stations which made our days and holidays with all those dramas, song programmes like binaca geetmala, man chahe geet, vividhbharathi, ceylon etc. The anchors of those programs were almost rockstars and celebrities those days. Radio of those days was completely different and milder than current radio mirchi "idi chaal hot guru" types.

Tape recorder was another good source of entertainment because thats the only devise which plays what we like, where we can play cassettes. I remember recording every good song played in radio into my own blank cassettes. The first cassette which I bought with my pocket money was Aashiqui (much later - 1989) and all other cassettes before that were not my kind :D. Walkman was a posh-er way of showing off the taste in music.

Black and white TV entered the scene close by and the TV we had, had a wooden door to shut when switched off. Wow. It had a knob to tune any of the 12 availbale channels, but I never understood what a channel was because the only channel the whole world (for me) saw was DD-1 which we used to follow religiously. There was an antenna on the terrace which we had to turn around and adjust whenever the picture quality diminished :)

Cable TV came into picture much later in early 90's and thus started a revolution of multiple channel color TV's and then bigger TV's, plasmas, flatrons, LCDs and other hi funda technologies. Number of channels increased, quality of the content increased (and diminished in some cases). But now we live in a completely different TV world.

Another facet which the current generation may not even know is a concept of inland letters (blue colored  letters) :). Thats the best and only mode of communications till telephones and internet took the world by storm. Uncles, aunts, cousins, friends used to write me letters and I was on cloud nine whenever I got a letter addressed to me :) It would be surprising for others to know that I used to write and receive these inland letters till final year of engineering (2001) as I didn't have a cellphone.

I also witnessed the era of telegrams. We got some telegrams when some urgent message had to be transmitted. Since it costs much, terse shortcut words were used very similar to the current sms lingo.

Roads were full of bicycles and scooters-for the well off people. Cars were a rarity and even if one is seen, that was either Maruti 800 or Birla Ambassador. Premier Padmini was be a costlier alternative. This was because in pre-1991, Indian economy was not liberated and no foreign carmaker was allowed to market its models in India.

Early 90's saw an emergence of telecommunication sector and telephones, STD / ISD booths were prevalent and flourished until early 2000's when cellphones were introduced.

The most commonly known softdrinks were Goldspot, Citra which are no longer available. But Maaza, Thumsup, Limca are still available. Coca Cola and Pepsi didn't arrive while I liked Thumsup a lot and my mom used to hate it as it looks like alcohol. Lehar Pepsi which came as a competitor to Thumsup became Pepsi. Coca Cola which was banned in India earlier returned and there started a cola-war endorsed by stars. Pizzas, burgers were non-existent when mirchi bajji, paani poori and ice cream were the only junk food available.

There were no multiplexes. Maheshwari theatre in Hyderabad (Kacheguda Cross Rds) was the only theatre with an escalator and we would travel hours to play around that. Every theater had a mirchi bajji bandi (mobile stall) outside the main gate which was busier than stock exchange during the intermission of a movie. Popcorn and softdrinks as a movie snacks came in much later.

Computer was supposed to be the device which only high end offices use and a computer needed a complete air conditioned room with a condition that shoes be left outside. The first time when I heard that a computer was bought by my friend, I kind of felt weird as computers, lathe machines were supposed to be in offices :) Some other guys used to boast that they had a computer at home when their parents bought them a handheld video game :)) Later on playing video games was cool and if you had high scores in Mario or Contra, you are a hero of the school.

Many more such anecdotes flooding across the memory lane :)

I don't know if the current generation kids still feel proud to hold a pen after 4 years of using pencils in school; if they still construct a house made of book-covers after the final exams; if they still play sword fight with broom sticks; if they still play marbles and marampeet; if they still ask two wheelers for lift to reach home faster; if they still play eyes press, lock and key; if they still say shame shame puppy shame if anybody unknowingly exposes their private parts :); if they still collect sportstar cards which they get with a bubble gum; if they still rent bicycles on hourly basis to learn riding; if they......goes on.. Nostalgic

Those were the days which will never come back. Those were the experiences which will be locked in memories and blogs like these but the current and next generations can never experience. But thats life.

• Tape recorder gave way to walkman to iPod
• Inland letters and post cards gave way to emails
• Telegrams gave way to telephones to cellphones to smartphones
• Rotary dialing telephones gave way to push button landline phones
• Computers gave way to laptops to smartphone again
• 12 channel BW TV gave way to 300 channel color TV to LCD to LED to Internet TV
• 35 mm and 70 mm theaters gave way to multiplexes;
• Mario gave way to Wii, PS, XBOX and what not
• Hard photo album gave way to webshots to picasa, flickr, orkut to facebook
• Cassettes gave way to CDs to DVDs to Blue ray disks
• Books gave way to internet; Libraries gave way to Google & wikipedia.
• Bank passbook gave way to ATM card and to web / phone / mobile banking

......and again, thats life. Every decade would be a new generation and this change goes on. Those who don't change with time will be struck in history and remain in oblivion and those who don't remember the history will remain ignorant of the development, progress made and the experiences which would add value to life.

I tried and will try my best to race with the time. Thanks to my older friends, I grew wiser, but thanks to my younger friends, I grew more knowledgeable and more street-smart. The more I interact with people younger to me, the more I know about the newer rules of life they change. Sometimes teenage kids around me make me feel archaic and obselete by their flamboyance and flair in whatever they do, but I promise, am here to stay. I'm observing you, learning from you and will get there very soon :)

Remembering College Days !

2001 - the year I completed my engineering. Its already been a decade and yet everything is so fresh in mind (not subjects and concepts though). After a mediocre show in EAMCET - 1997, my dreams of getting into Osmania University engg college fell flat. With some 4000 odd rank, I had to find solace in admission into GPREC, Kurnool. Counsellors consoled me that its one of the oldest colleges and blah blah, but my dreams of vrooming on a bike in OU campus and putting the city on fire remained dreams.

I was in a beautiful dreamland imagining how my classes, friends, lifestyle would be after admission. But the reality was completelyyyyyyyyyyyyyy and diagonally different :D

When I saw the college campus, I was so excited and felt my dreams were going to be fulfilled there. I felt it was almost as good as OU campus. But I didn't realize that a series of shocks were in store for me :D

First shock: Girls of all branches were made to sit in a single class and boys of two branches each were clubbed to form other sections. nahiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnn.....all my steam got ejected with a thud. To add to this, seniors warned us not to talk to any girls in the campus as faculty and college administration are ultra-protective about girls. Girls had a separate college bus, separate canteen, separate class and every non-student in the campus is their protector :(

Now you can imagine what a 18 yr old guy would go through, especially after the kind of rangeela dreams about engineering college I had. But if you think thats the rudest shock, you are mistaken. Stay tuned !

My another dream was to get into a company of a cool dudes as I thought I was one. I found a house-to-share along with 3 more students. My room-mates were all much more studious, intelligent than me (all of them got below 1000 rank in EAMCET out of some 1.5 lakh attendees) and all three of them belonged to pakka rayalaseema faction families (one of them even lost his father in faction murders of Kurnool). I felt like a fish out of water, eskimo in a desert, child in a strip bar; Thats how my first year started.

But eventually realized that my roomies were always sweet, protective and supportive to me. I learnt a new way of life through them, a new slang, new words, new attitude, new thinking process, raw energy. Though there were some conflicts in lifestyles and priorities, I came out of that big city snooty guy hangover and started thinking differently. I don't remember what I learned in the class, but I started learning about life as thats my first-time staying out of parents' wings.

Later I befriended few like-minded, like-cultured guys and moved to new house in the second year. And girls were my classmates from then. After living in that city for an year, I slowly got acquainted with the town, and with friends as roomies, life became easier and there was no check on me. Gradually a kind of street smartness crept in which turned into arrogance and over confidence. I was literally on rampage for the next 2 years.

Except studying and listening to professors, I have done everything else under the sun. Some 200 friends to chill out with, pocketful of money sent by parents every month, a cook and a dhobi to serve, access to everything or anything. Life was crazy and wild !

Watching second shows once in 3 days, passing letters to girls in classes, writing 10-page love letters to help friends in their love-stories, spending hours in archies / hallmark stores, spending evenings at KC canal savoring mirchi bajji, waiting for girls at a temple near the girls hostel, befriending receptionist at their hostel, one-hour exam preparation, night-out combined study-turned-gossip sessions, long walks (covering two ends of the town), long trips, silly fights, ego clashes, sulks, immature groupisms and all those silly stuff done by every student were part of the routine.

Those were perhaps the most crucial days of my life. I was 19-20 years old, nobody to keep a tab and was exposed to variety of situations: good, bad and ugly; Everyday was an experience and every situation demanded me to decide fast and act smart. I'm sure if I was in Hyd with parents, I would not have grown 5% as wise as I was then. More than academic education, I guess that phase taught me how to live and how to react to situations.

Its said that friendships that blossom during that phase would last forever. I'm guilty of not pursuing some relationships, with or without my knowledge; few are in touch, few aren't. But I feel good whenever I think of them and the experiences, days we shared together. I don't know how many of them will check this post of mine but a tight hug to all those who ever liked me or treated me as their friend: Shyam, Pavan, Ranjeeth, Sushma, Ravi, Raghu, Praseeda, Siva, Srinath, Uday, Srinivas, Kishore, Kavitha, Upendra, Naveen, Aruna, Prem, Sireesha, Chaitanya and many more.

Love, Pyar, Prema etc

Warning: This is a long post aimed at all those single / committed / unmarried boys and girls who have to know a lot about love, marriage, life. Please don't bother if you don't have much time or if you are not interested in this topic :)

Love makes life beautiful and saying this now is a cliché. The word love is a euphemism for a variety of emotions and expressions like liking, affection, infatuation, impression, care, attraction, lust etc. In one of my previous posts (Love Marriage vs Arranged Marriage) I presented my thoughts on what love is, but in this post am referring to the kind of relationship boys and gals enter into before marriage.

Almost everybody close to me has been in some kind of relationship / feeling before their marriage. Some acknowledge and some don't :) There were four consequences for such relationships

1. Converting the relationship into a successful marriage
2. Converting the relationship into a marriage, but not so successful
3. Could not convert the relationship into marriage and got depressed
4. Could not convert the relationship into marriage and are happy now :)

Interesting part here is that those who failed in their love stories don't know that option 2 ever exists and those who converted their love stories into successful marriage don't know that option 4 exists, which mean to say that options 2 and 4 are far overlooked, especially by my unmarried friends, and hence this post :D

Those who are immersed in love with somebody before marriage always dream about a happy fairy tale kinda life post their marriage and thats quite natural. Love really makes their life beautiful because of these dreams of togetherness and a lifetime of bliss. 

Its not very easy for every couple to convert their beautiful dreams into reality because a lot of times, when a boy and gal fall in love with each other, they are so attracted to each other that they subconsciously never put their worst sides before their lover. Both present their best sides and thus made to believe that their partner will be the same throughout, which is not the case in most of the cases. To make their dreams a reality, they have to understand that getting married is not the only solution for this, but they have to continuously understand, accept, support, respect each other after marriage too.

This works and worked for me, touchwood !

I was browsing through the news websites and saw that Chiranjeevi's daughter Srija's marriage is in trouble. After that cinematic revolution and hoisting the flag of love, something has seriously gone wrong now. This is not a rare situation. We find a lot of similar cases in our day to day life. I have seen my very close and loved ones going through this. Hence its not certain that if a couple gets married after their love story, they are happy. Hope all my friends out there who are going through failed love stories find some solace out of this :)

So I take the liberty of reiterating the same old golden rule to all my unmarried / single / committed friends out there. If you like somebody, if you love somebody, be yourself and present your good and bad sides, see if you can accept your gf/bf's good and bad sides before getting into any commitment, because you can't act or tolerate something for the whole life. Its better than going through a bad marriage or a bad break up.

Another rule is never assume you will be happy if you are getting married to your love. The person may change, may show his/her other side, other colors which you may not appreciate. So if you revolt against your parents and loved ones who accept you for whatever you are, just think twice. Liking somebody and being happy with somebody are completely, ridiculously and insanely different. Not understanding this silly point is the reason for the option 2 mentioned earlier in this post.

Break-up management:

It sounds like an MBA concept, but its pure common sense. Not everybody would be lucky to be successful in their love story, but that doesn't mean they are unlucky. May be they are lucky that it didn't work :)

I always feel good for people who break up before even thinking about marriage. Its a blessing in disguise rather than realizing that after marriage and kids naah ! If a boy and a girl like each other, get into a relationship and later face compatibility issues, its better to break up. If you try harder and make it work somehow, both have to live along with such incompatibility for the whole life. Life is too short and too beautiful to waste for somebody you can't live with.

A promise of love and even some physical intimacy should not be hurdles for breaking up with consensus. Lifetime of pain is not worth anything. Yes, it hurts to part ways but a relationship of few months or few years is not as important as your life in next 6-7 decades. Just understand that the person you are going to marry is somebody who is going to give you identity, security, stability, responsibility, love, support, family and everything in your life. Thats far far far more important than ANYTHING before marriage.

Its a happy ending for a love story if both break up with consensus. But the real pain lies in a break-up from one side and agony on another. Thats a real hell.

But just understand that if somebody didn't feel like spending their rest of his/her life with you, its not that you can't be happy with anybody else. It definitely doesn't mean you are not good. You are judged by somebody possibly based on some very unimportant thing. If somebody judges a fish by its ability to climb a tree, whose mistake is that ??

Realize that love stories that end up in marriage are not always successful and love stories which don't end in marriage are not always failures. Life is too important to worry about a silly relationship or commitment you got into for few months. Everybody is destined to get his / her soul-mate who is made exclusively for them. If your love story is a failure, realize that the person was not your soul-mate and you are lucky to realize that before hand. Just wait for the best to happen.

Love as what you understand is not love in the first place. You fall in love only with the person of opposite sex who belongs to your age group only because you dream to live with him / her and lead a happy life. So you don't know if your reality would be as good as those dreams or worse or better. Its a hypothesis. If dreams are shattered, would not you wake up ??? So ruining your precious youth, family life, friends, affection you are coming across from various ends just for a sake of a looser who ditches you is very unwise and immature. Understand that there would be lot of people out there who want to see you happy, smiling and playful.

Your reality may be better than your dreams. Who knows :)

I really wish all those who get married with your love lead a successful married life and all those who could not convert your love into marriage also to lead a successful married life (with somebody else, who turns out to be your soul-mate).

Demolition of a Culture

I remember when I was a kid, my parents used to take me to tank bund almost once in 2 weeks. That was a perfect getaway which gave a holiday kind of feeling then and I guess its the same even today. The lake on one side of the road and statues/park on the other side always attracted me.

Later my telugu teacher inspired me to see the statues at tank bund as a part of our education tours. At that age, I felt so happy and informed to see Gurajada Apparao, Kandukuri Veereshalingam, Alluri Seetharamaraju, Kavitrayam (Nannaya, Thikkana, Yerrapragada) and various literary, political, social and cultural icons of Telugu heritage. Thus the statues became a part of my education and childhood memories.

Demolition of these statues caused grief and a kind of unrest and uncomfortable feeling in me. Its like something close to my heart was destroyed. Statues will be reinstalled for sure but this mad act has created a friction and lack of confidence and trust among regions yet again, only much deeper this time.

Demolition of statues is a direct rip off from Talibanized Afghanistan. Now this is happening in my city. This is unacceptable and unforgivable.

Relating the demolition of these statues to success in Telangana movement is completely insane. Those 33 statues include statues of Pothana, Rudaramadevi and few eminent people from Telangana too. Even if the number of Telangana heroes' statues are not proportionate, it doesn't warrant for demolition of other great people. Those icons don't deserve this mistreatment for the very reason that none of them committed any injustice to Telangana. Potti Sriramulu when started a movement for Andhra Pradesh, never suggested any discrimination against Telangana, neither did any of the social workers or respected cultural icons whose statues were demolished. Issues propped up later due to mismanagement and vested interests.

Telangana movement started with the pretext that Telangana, its people, culture and identity are facing injustice and insult. Now the so called upholders of Telangana identity are committing the same injustice and insult to people of other regions of Andhra Pradesh. Victims have become oppressors now. Tables turned big-time.

If those who participated in million march or whatever feel they are marginalized or discriminated, they should understand that the same treatment should not be inflicted on their Andhra or Rayalaseema counterparts. Cursing Andhra people, destroying their property, heritage, respect don't only widen the gap but also dilute the sympathy of fellow Telanganites.

In my previous post about the issue (Who Developed Hyderabad ?) I wrote about the heart-burn of Telanganites, but its become irrelevant now as the movement has turned into a revenge seeking platform and I would hate to associate myself with people doing such acts.

Other side of the coin, media should not incite hatred among masses because they were attacked by some goons during million march. This propaganda will only put two regions on opposite sides of a huge chasm. Politicians, especially those who never raised a voice against much destruction that happened in Telangana and Seemandhra in the last 2 years, should observe restraint by not adding fuel to fire by referring to the same incident again and again. Goons who committed this vandalism must be brought under scanner, but the government has to avoid witch hunting during the process.

Bottom line: Everybody has to understand that movements should aim at showcasing their issues but not demolishing culture, vandalizing heritage or physically, mentally or verbally inflicting other parties in contest.

Pakka Filmi

Before you think this is another boring post about my favorite movies, actors and actress, Hold On ! It may be boring but not about actors and actresses :D; Few days back, one of my friends accused me of being an acute movie buff (I'm just a movie buff, btw :P). He doesn't like the idea of living on movies and strongly feels movies and entertainment industry diminish productivity of any individual.

I can't agree more but was thinking what would we be without movies and television. Just thought to account all that I learnt from or all that I would have missed if movies were not there in my life.

• I would never have built my english, hindi and in a way my telugu speaking skills if I was not exposed to movies of those respective languages. Even if I wanna learn a new language now, I'd start watching movies of that language first :)
• I would never have laughed so much in my life without watching comic scenes in the movies.
• I would not have known about the concepts of love and romance at right age if I hadn't watched all those love stories and scenes in movies :)
• I would not have known how to communicate, impress, flirt, talk, convey, express my mind eloquently if I hadn't imbibed so many witty lines I heard in movies.
• I would never have known the beauty of poetry, asthetic values, richness, creativity hadn't I seen these in movies
• I would never have listened to any kind of music, if filmi music, songs and singers didn't attract me with their haunting melodies, soulful renditions and foot tapping numbers.
• I would never have imagined the beauty of Swiss alps, American skyscrappers, Niagara, Eiffel Tower and other exotic locations if I didn't see those in movies.
• I would not have known most of the socially and culturally sensitive issues, if those were not portrayed in the movies I watched.
• I would never have understood the way things work in various businesses, communities, societies and industries, if they were not shown the way they were in hard hitting movies
• I would never have seen all those beautiful women, handsome hunks, cherubic children in awe if I didn't have chance to see them in movies.
• I would never have known what spoilt lifestyle was if I hadn't watched those movies filled with opulence and elitism.
• I would never have known that dirty under-bellies, underworld ever existed if I hadn't watched all those gansgter and crime related movies.
• I would never have become matured if exposed just to my circle without knowing how world functions which I understood from movies.
• I would never have known the intensity and magnitude of negative feelings like anger, revenge, frustration if I hadn't watched those revenge dramas.
• I would never have known the history, heritage, religion and culture better just by reading, if they were not depicted by mega TV soaps or period movies.
• I would never have learnt that world is full of good, bad and ugly people if I hadn't watched heroes, villains, heroines, vamps in movies.
• I would have remained naive if I hadn't seen scheming, conspriring thrillers.
• I would never have understood what fashion, trend and vogue were if thats not portrayed in movies I watched.
• I would not have dreamt of a luxurious and successful life if I didn't watch movies because I saw luxury and success in viual media before aiming for that.
• I would not have written this blog-post if there was no topic such as movies :)

As said in Telugu there are 9 emotions; haasyam (humor), roudram (anger), srunagaram (romance), bheebhatsam (disgust). bhayankaram (terror), karunyam (mercy), veeram (heroic), adbhutham (wonderful) and one more which I don't remember. All these emotions and reactions to these emotions are built in any human with the kind of expereinces he witnesses, watches or faces.

Movies or any visual media are so popular because they inject one of these navarasas in the person watching something on the screen. Most of the audiences identify themselves with the situations they are in or they would (or would not) like to be in and if that identification clicks bigtime, the movie will be a blockbuster and the actor will become a superstar.

It goes without saying that movies form a very big influence in everybody's life (with or without knowledge or acknowledgement). Life is all about being PAKKA FILMI !!!!