So my good friend has added me to this challenge of listing out 10 of my favorite movies over 10 days and tagging 10 other poor souls to carry forward the chain; 10 movies – 10 days – 10 friends, that’s a pretty darn good acronym, maybe I have a future in politics! But Facebook, why did you really have to do this; don’t you have enough captive (nowadays, we’re literally captive) audience already? Remember some of the other challenges; the plank challenge or the one that started it all; the ice-bucket challenge. I mean, how shitty might one be to dunk oneself in a bucket of ice-cold water, even if it’s for a cause.
But let’s admit it, we still fall prey to these games. We have little else to do, why would one be on FB otherwise? Coming back to this one, I’ve been seeing this 10-movie challenge for a few days now. Remember that feeling when as a child, you see the other kids already busy at a game and you wonder, when will my turn come. You’re cheering them on (in this case, pressing likes and heart emojis) and hope someone invites you. When you don’t get that invite, you turn sarcastic, say it’s a shitty game anyway and you try moving on. I was at that stage when I got this invite. Initially watching others post I’d go; Oh, that’s a dear friend, but the MF hasn’t tagged me! Then you see another with a lousy collection and smirk, thank heavens I’m not tagged there. Or you look at another and wonder, when did this dude have a list of Top-10 movies? It should be more like a list of Top-10 subtitles cos that’s all they would’ve seen.
Not sure about you’ll, but that is how my tryst with English movies began; trying to read the subtitles at a pace fast enough to also get a glimpse of the damn scene. That was Godfather – Part 1 for me, the first 3 times. The next 10 times were spent aping Al Pacino. So what if you didn’t know a word of what he said, you could still be him. Eyes would strain at the frenetic pace of having to glance up and down between the scene and the subtitle. I am pretty fluent now, eyes have got used to the pace. Well, comfort with the language took a while to develop, years of painstaking effort reading books, watching movies, talking to colleagues and friends; you develop a taste, a flair for the language. You’re kinda proud of yourself and then this happens. Yesterday, while watching Space Force on Netflix, I noticed my 5yr old also watching beside me. She hadn’t studied a bit that day, so I ‘gently persuaded’ her to work on her spellings. She gets up, walks across to her books, turns around, gives me a wink, and says “You g’t it, bruh” and struts off with swag. She doesn’t know to spell ‘Tomato’ but she’s got the attitude. You’ve spent years and failed to try to develop that and there your Lil one struts around effortlessly. Shit, I am proud of my genes!
After you’ve gotten a friend nominating you, at first, you’re happy at getting in the game but then you freak out. It’s the same feeling as before when you get called into play but know you suck at it. You then give sore excuses and fake injuries to try and stay out. Similarly, on this challenge, do I really have to do this over 10 days? To think of movies I’ve liked, search for the bloody images to post and then find another friend to tag! The fear of having your choices judged, the same way you judged others, the stress of having that perfect balance of Hollywood, Hindi, Regional plus throw in some Adoor or Ray to add that touch of classiness. Not too much, but just a little, so you don’t seem to be trying too hard. Lastly, do you even have 10 friends to tag?? You got to be clever about it, you just don’t tag the first names that come to your mind. For all you know, they’ve been tagged already, or the smarter ones aren’t even on FB or worse, they just don’t care. Then you just look stupid, don’t you? So now you need to think of whom to tag, so you don’t appear stupid doing something crappy. It’s bloody too much work. But you can’t ignore this challenge, lest your friend takes offense. You are a good friend after all. It’s pretty smart actually, FB has you trapped and that’s the beauty of these challenges. It’s like Hotel California, you can get in (eventually) but you can never get the f*** out. Unless…
Unless you break the f****** chain, break out. So thank you @Bijoy for adding me to the chain. But I’ll be damned doing this over the next 10 days. Here’s my entire list in one go
P.S <> Creating a collage is more effort than just posting one at a time. FML.
P.P.S <> There were other classics too, however, those didn’t come with posters and were stored in a secure folder that has now been lost to time!
But let’s admit it, we still fall prey to these games. We have little else to do, why would one be on FB otherwise? Coming back to this one, I’ve been seeing this 10-movie challenge for a few days now. Remember that feeling when as a child, you see the other kids already busy at a game and you wonder, when will my turn come. You’re cheering them on (in this case, pressing likes and heart emojis) and hope someone invites you. When you don’t get that invite, you turn sarcastic, say it’s a shitty game anyway and you try moving on. I was at that stage when I got this invite. Initially watching others post I’d go; Oh, that’s a dear friend, but the MF hasn’t tagged me! Then you see another with a lousy collection and smirk, thank heavens I’m not tagged there. Or you look at another and wonder, when did this dude have a list of Top-10 movies? It should be more like a list of Top-10 subtitles cos that’s all they would’ve seen.
Not sure about you’ll, but that is how my tryst with English movies began; trying to read the subtitles at a pace fast enough to also get a glimpse of the damn scene. That was Godfather – Part 1 for me, the first 3 times. The next 10 times were spent aping Al Pacino. So what if you didn’t know a word of what he said, you could still be him. Eyes would strain at the frenetic pace of having to glance up and down between the scene and the subtitle. I am pretty fluent now, eyes have got used to the pace. Well, comfort with the language took a while to develop, years of painstaking effort reading books, watching movies, talking to colleagues and friends; you develop a taste, a flair for the language. You’re kinda proud of yourself and then this happens. Yesterday, while watching Space Force on Netflix, I noticed my 5yr old also watching beside me. She hadn’t studied a bit that day, so I ‘gently persuaded’ her to work on her spellings. She gets up, walks across to her books, turns around, gives me a wink, and says “You g’t it, bruh” and struts off with swag. She doesn’t know to spell ‘Tomato’ but she’s got the attitude. You’ve spent years and failed to try to develop that and there your Lil one struts around effortlessly. Shit, I am proud of my genes!
After you’ve gotten a friend nominating you, at first, you’re happy at getting in the game but then you freak out. It’s the same feeling as before when you get called into play but know you suck at it. You then give sore excuses and fake injuries to try and stay out. Similarly, on this challenge, do I really have to do this over 10 days? To think of movies I’ve liked, search for the bloody images to post and then find another friend to tag! The fear of having your choices judged, the same way you judged others, the stress of having that perfect balance of Hollywood, Hindi, Regional plus throw in some Adoor or Ray to add that touch of classiness. Not too much, but just a little, so you don’t seem to be trying too hard. Lastly, do you even have 10 friends to tag?? You got to be clever about it, you just don’t tag the first names that come to your mind. For all you know, they’ve been tagged already, or the smarter ones aren’t even on FB or worse, they just don’t care. Then you just look stupid, don’t you? So now you need to think of whom to tag, so you don’t appear stupid doing something crappy. It’s bloody too much work. But you can’t ignore this challenge, lest your friend takes offense. You are a good friend after all. It’s pretty smart actually, FB has you trapped and that’s the beauty of these challenges. It’s like Hotel California, you can get in (eventually) but you can never get the f*** out. Unless…
Unless you break the f****** chain, break out. So thank you @Bijoy for adding me to the chain. But I’ll be damned doing this over the next 10 days. Here’s my entire list in one go
P.S <> Creating a collage is more effort than just posting one at a time. FML.
P.P.S <> There were other classics too, however, those didn’t come with posters and were stored in a secure folder that has now been lost to time!
