Good Days, Bad Days: Part Two: Cleveland

Warning: I strongly urge all the readers NOT to form any false opinion and NOT to have any suspicion about the intelligence of the students representing either Drexel University or Case Western Reserve University. I also strongly advise the readers to completely understand and bear in mind that even PhD students as well as highly educated and 'corporate' individuals could have a child hidden in them; and they could go crazy sometimes. Socially avoiding the below-mentioned individuals or recommending a mental-healing treatment is left to the discretion of the reader.

If you are not an Indian, I request you to kindly discard rest of the blog.

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Well, if meeting old Clemson friends was fun; meeting my very old pals from Bombay the following weekend was a total epitome of stupidity, absurdity and lunacy.

As I was returning from Novi, I got a call from Shubham saying that he's planning to be in Cleveland next weekend with his gang. He also told me that 6 of them (Rohan, Hemang, Ruchita, Shubham, Surendra, Sameer) were planning a road trip over the weekend and the plan was to explore Cleveland. I was hoping to have a sunny and warm weekend, so that we could go to the Headlands beach in Mentor. Its supposed to be a very good lake-side beach, and I was looking forward to visit the place.

But come Friday, and it was fairly clear that the weekend was going to be a cold and rainy one; the beach outing was totally ruled out. So we had no option but to explore Cleveland downtown and surrounding places. Since I am still relatively new to Cleveland, I was kind of excited as well as skeptical about next two days.

Well... they reached Cleveland late on Friday nite, and it was a total riot thereafter for next day and half. We started the next day with a healthy brunch at IHOP, then explored the Coventry area for a bit, then went to lakeside Edgewater Park. After spending some time on the shore of Lake Erie, we moved on to explore the Great Lakes Science Center, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Tower City- Public Square. After spending lot of time in Cleveland downtown, we moved on to Parma and visited Cleveland temple, had dinner at Jaipur Junction. We spent most of the nite at Youngstown Lanes enjoying bowling and sipping some beer. And just before returning home, we stopped by the nearby Baskin Robins for a 3-scoop Sundae. And after returning home, we saw a Govinda- Raveena movie: Dulhe Raja, which is a completely laughing riot.

Cleveland downtown is much more enjoyable than I thought it would be. It was total fun roaming around in the Science Center as well as the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame. And for a bunch of Indians, and especially for Bombayites, it was a very good outing. However, the above mentioned description was the most boring part of the day. The main and most interesting part was making of the movie: "Srimaan".

These guys from Philadelphia are heavily influenced by Hindi movies, Mithun Da, Govinda, and Rajni Kanth. They talk hindi movies, walk hindi movies, eat hindi movies... and if that's not enough, they make Hindi movies.

If you have some spare time, you have nothing else to do, and you are really suffering from extreme boredom, have a look at the snapshots of some of the movies they have tried to make:

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3

Clip 4


And they even take interviews of the audience (this is too much). Check this out:

Clip 1


And these guys were in a process of making yet another movie, and they chose Cleveland as the backdrop. The shooting started in my apartment, it continued in my parking lot, it also took place in the downtown as well as in the temple and the bowling alleys. The most interesting part of the movie and what totally amazed me during the shooting was that they didnt have a story in mind. These guys work in opposite manner. They first shoot different scenes, record fight sequences, write dialogues, and then write a story that fits all these things!!... How amazing!!

Well, they shot emotional (!!!!!!) scenes in my apartment. The dashing entry of the hero (ShahRukh Khan style) was shot in my apartment entrance. The fight sequences as well as the hero-villain climax was shot on the slope of the Science Center. The romantic (!!!!) sequences and dance parts were captured in the backdrop of Lake Erie and The Hall of Fame Museum. These guys don't yet have a heroine for the movie. But that didn't deter them from proceeding.

Apparently, I am also acting in this movie. They told me that they shot me while I was sleeping. And then we enacted a "parting" scene, which was full of emotions and melodrama. I have absolutely no clue how these two clips are going to be incorporated in the movie. For that matter, I still have no clue about what and why they were shooting a few scenes.

If this is not enough, take this: This movie also has guns and all the ammo. We bought the guns from the dollar store. The hero actually shot a couple of bullets at the villain in downtown itself. There was so much violence!!... We also kidnapped our own driver (Rohan) and his navigator (Surendra) with the guns, demanded water bottle as ransom, we negotiated, and released the navigator only after we got one!!!

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As people grow up, we see two types of people: some people become mature and act responsibly. Some others dont grow up and refuse to get mature. I'd never imagined that there were third type of individuals as well: people who grow up and yet act like kids !! (This dialogue is inspired by one in Rang De Basanti).

For a day and half, I guess we all were in the third category.

On Sunday morning, these guys left; and I returned to the first category. Wish I could stay longer in the third one.