A Box of Chocolates

Atonement ("The story can resume...")

2011-12-25T10:19:00.000+05:30

“Find you, love you, marry you, and live without shame.”

Could a man's life, at one point in it, be summed up in the above sentence? Would that be an indifferent oversimplification or just doing away of the trivial burdens of the rest of the life.
For the past week I have been taken in by Atonement. As it happens with me, I am always "taken in" .... bewitched, by one film or the other and it is a compulsion to watch it again and again till the parts of the whole start becoming smaller and smaller , till they become mundane. The progression is, the parts of the film become bigger, (vis-a- vis the whole) in repeated viewings, reveal themselves, enchant me, and then in further viewing start becoming smaller and mundane (which is sad and I wish I could consciously avoid it. Its possible to avoid it and i'm, working on it) So, I've loved Atonement, the movie. I am reading the novel and haven't finished it. While I'm reading it, the things I instinctively felt about the tragedy, the story of the film were confirmed by the first seven chapters of the novel (that's where I'm at right now). I cried a lot. A lot. And I havent felt this way about a hero, the way I have about Robbie Turner, and Briony Tallis. I am happy that a character like Briony Tallis was created and am more than pleased with its portrayal by Ronan.
I was in love with the music of the film, especially, Elegy for Dunkirk and the four and a half minute long, uninterrupted shot, a single shot. I cant put into words (that is the reason I have started the study of literature, sentences and words and enrolled for a degree in English) how this single shot made me cry (of course) and touched the unseen parts of my heart. I am now thinking if the fact that its single shot worked against the film in some ways. The shot led me to explore its beautiful and powerful soundtrack and I somehow ended up listening to a lot of soundtracks of many films - among them - James Newton Howard's Sixth Sense. I thought, Atonement would very well fall apart in front of external logic (Do you see how the Robbie being accused of the crime is treated illogically, how can he be raping Lola if the cousins can testify he was the one who found them? Its lame how a bee draws Briony to witness the fountain encounter and a fallen ornament to the library.) But Shyamalan's films are enthusiastically accused and suffer this very argument and are disliked because it seems he's losing his touch and critics seem to take pleasure of this sad progression or decline of his career unfolding in front of their eyes.
Never let me go (2010) and now Atonement. I like these movies because they give me pain. Just give me eternal pain and sorrow, destitution, desolation, misery and most importantly, misfortune. A sense of pre determination, fate, loss of control and power over life, something shared by us all, Robbie and soldiers of war - a war which plays dice with lives of courageous noble men of honor. I thought of that part of our heart that says, this is it, this is the misfortune I've been given, because I have done something wrong - a mistake by the library - what my body made me do - the impulses of the body felt so strongly and uncontrollable in the moment. The part of our heart which makes a different choice of emotion - of pain and misery. How can we choose to be sad? unhappy? When Robbie talks with Cee in the cafe before leaving for the war, he confesses his guilt - he wishes he hadnt done what he did in the library to her, and now that act will haunt him and ruin his life.
The case of the film Atonement descends into tragedy because the initial premise of languishing well being and comfort wasn't going anywhere in the first place. What with swims and wasting by the pool...Cee and Robbie were a class apart anyway and Robbie was in debt of Cee's father and that's just not man enough of him. Cee and her mother have nothing to do around the house and what is Robbie doing gardening around after a degree from Cambridge? Who the fuck cares what I think about any fucking movie that comes out in the horde of movies every fucking year? But no-one cares what you think about movies or about what you think about my opinions either. So- what its really about is one's expression and venting. Its a very selfish exercise and nobody should expect to make a living out of anything remotely like this or writing as a whole.
Robbie sees many 13 - 15 year old school girls dead and laid in front of him (it had to be little girls not a random agglomeration of dead bodies) and nobody held accounted for murder of innocent while his life and lives of millions of soldiers of nations are expendable.
Children. Someone has to pay for the negligence towards children. For, no-one understands how frustrating it is to be a child (Remember what Clementine said? ...that was in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, by the way) and there is loneliness and helplessness when nobody understands your experiences as a child. The judgments about sex and love, intimacy, relationships that children -like Briony - derive, are misguided; but they were taken for granted, always, in the first place. When a child sees the act of love making by chance, he/ she is almost always alone and its always upto him what to make of it. How to deal with the horror or the otherworldliness of it. Thanks to McEwan a story is constructed so that people pay for taking for granted a 13 year old's perceptions. I mean who cares about the perceptions about sex of a 13 year old? Her mother certainly doesnt. Nobody cares to shape them, guide them and show the proper way. I am angry with this world of self help and religious buffoonery which is at your service for your problems of life when you are adults. Sixth sense was about fears, healing and purpose of life and actions and conditions of a little boy. With stories of tragedy or premise of supernatural writers want to bring to light the confusion of childhood. A play is how Briony is dealing with the concept of love and everything surrounding her - as it turns out writing is the tool of dealing with childhood travesties for her and for the rest of her life, a support. Music of typewriter deftly conveys brutal snap judgments - it is Briony's language. In the end she,- a coward till the very end - a prisoner to the 13 year old self confesses she could not confront neither her sister nor Robbie. She could make a gesture of atonement the only way she knew - through writing. I think our inability to deal with children can be the single most important crime and the source of all our undoing.
The ending is the kicker. What is real? Have we been seeing the narrative of Briony herself? The ultimate vanity of a novelist? Did Briony decide,all along the narrative of Robbie and Cecilia's love that we see on screen? How will a happy ending change you? What purpose will be served by reality or honesty? Who's escape is it, the writer's or the reader's? It was she, the god, who gave them their happiness. In the face of Venessa Redgrave you see the 13 year old who hasnt changed, who still says it like it is, to the brain of a writer.
Could this film touch those who lost dear ones on the last day of evacuation of Dunkirk? Lives which were changed by chance cruelly, simply swayed like a branch of a tree and a lifetime of love and longing was decreed.

David Fincher's two sequences

2011-09-04T02:48:00.001+05:30

Your honour, take a look at what David Fincher has done. If you look at the second halves of his last two films - The curious case of Benjamin Button and The social network, you will find sequences. These two sequences seem different and they, according to my keen eye, are there for a reason. A reason different than just telling the story of the film.
Most important thing to note is that they are sequences. They are like mini stories, they have a beginning, a middle and an end.
Secondly they're quite distinct from the flow of the story and yet connected to it in a very integral way, as my evidence that will follow, shall inconclusively prove.
They seem to give a new lease of life to viewers' point of view. They rouse their curiosity and give them an experience that is a bit slanting, for the lack of a better word, from what they've been having for the last hour or so.
They are strategically placed in the second half of the film because that is when, its my suspicion, that the attention of the audience is most susceptible to wane.
So first I present to you the Henley sequence from the Social Network.

This is the easier one to talk about. Quite clearly Mr. Finchers' skills as a music video director have come very handy here. A little introduction - till now in the film, Mark Zuckerberg has left Harvard and is working with Sean Parker on is start up. He seems to be in the hold of Sean's billion dollar ideas. Out of nowhere this sequence comes in. Dark blue and cloudy skies, lush green fields and great music to boot. The audience realizes that this is a complete change of scene from the academic environment of the film till now. Literally a different continent altogether. And it has no clue where and why we're here. Music slowly creeps till we see the Winklewii. Artistry of Fincher is in showing the intensity grow. For authenticity's sake Armie Hammer and his body double prepared like a real row crew member for the sake of this less-than two-minute sequence. We feel the intensity of competition grow - the theme of the film.
The idea of the start up is like floating in the air among individuals and teams of Harvard. Question is who will make the most of it and get there first?

Second one is my favorite, its beautiful and its heart rending. This mini story has been narrated like Benjamin is a preacher, a very humble one at that..God, you gotta love Brad Pitt's voice. The shot shows him feet to the head - waiting for Daisy. We dont know why she's in a hospital. Things go in and out of sequence, depending on occurrence of the events. The director controls the experience that is being delivered to the audience and I have never seen a better example of this ever before. See for yourself - 2:20 to 2:50 - these moments have been hair raising for me. See how ambient sounds of a hospital effect our emotions at 2:50 - 3:00. In this period I felt pain because we get to see how it could have been. If only! A dancer would know the world of pain a broken leg can give. Sharp editing - voice over and shot of Daisy's broken leg in the hospital - that is the first sight of her. David Fincher you are genius
This film is about letting go. "Whether its because of accident or design. there's not a thing that we can do about it." Its a small demonstration of the uncertainty in out life. The question is the same that Forrest Gump asked his Momma at her grave. His life was the parable of the same - is life luck or fate or maybe both? On the other hand Benjamin Button's life is about being different - and letting go of the questions and comments about his age, his appearance.
Quite simply Daisy has been hit by a taxi, her ballet career is over. There's nothing she can do about it. But there is a way of narrating the incident. In doing that, David also demonstrates the inexplicable and absurd nature of life.

Come to think of it Bollywood director's use item songs, or songs of any kind to give a new lease of life to the second half of the film. Take a bow David Fincher - you do it so much more craftily.

The grotesque playground

2011-08-10T02:43:00.003+05:30

Lets turn everything upside down.

If I am never able to be aware about my deepest fear, my weakest link, my bleed... What is it? If I said something and some one understood it. If I loved a film and someone loved it - shared my feelings about it, asked me questions.... If nobody understood what I wrote... So I refuse to make sense...

If I could say it all. If I died and all the people who knew me died then you know what would happen.

And she had pain. And now everyone is living. You were there for me.You scolded me and shouted at me and fed me and treasured my first movements and my voice and my tears. Where did it all go? What is it that I dont know? What is it that you had kept hidden in your heart? Maybe it wasnt there. If I could have been there. And you told me many more things. About your pain. About your memories. Then there were others. And there will be others. I listen and sway and time and its love and care and joy and anxieties and worries and pain are all gone with it. And there will be other loves and people who will care for me. Or maybe I will be alone and broken plastic and bags will obstruct me from moving. There will be no sunlight in the house and no one would know who were the ones who loved me.

There will be rainbows and dew laden gardens across the fences.

Even the mightiest lick feaces on a busy cackling narrow road. There is no justice. There is no god. I dont know anyone. Nobody knows me. Music, images, and words forget me. I never was. But I was given so much love. So much love! Unbounded, pure and unconditional. There was beauty and freedom. All for me. Nobody else. I didnt realize what hit me. I didnt know what I did? I landed on the other corner of the room. I got bruises on the leg. I was terrorized. I was confused and alone. I knew the faces of the walls. I fixed upon the rays of unlight and wooden edifices of my precious and cared and lonely life. Music came and went. Friends came and left.

There are reasons. There are obstacles. There is courage and need to do things which one doesnt want to do. To compete and make a mark. Achieve. Earn money. More than others. Prove to others. Show them. Work.Work.Work.Fight.Fight.Fight.Fight.Fight.Noble reasons.Upward motion. Goals. Courage taunts. So that you can have. HAVE. Want - the person, the things and the money and the house and the things.

What happens with books vaporizes. Films - basterds, vaporize. Music weeps, vaporizes. I turn away. There is another person. What could I say? The words about what? What matters, why this? I could say what others said and I could do what others did.

Authority and 'good,honest,innocent men'

2011-07-13T01:46:00.002+05:30

The most important message of a crucifix, was how cruel supposedly sane human beings can be when under orders from a superior authority.

- Kurt Vonnegut

Charles Xavier: Erik, you said yourself - we're the better men. This is the time to prove it. There are thousands of men on those ships, good, honest, innocent men. They're just following orders!

Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto): I've been at the mercy of men just following orders... never

again!

- X Men First Class

What would my Dad have done?

Vinnaithandi Varuvaya

2011-07-06T22:40:00.012+05:30

If I were a 22 year old and saw someone like Trisha day in and day out near my house I too would probably fall head over heels for her. But I'm me. Its hard to tell why people fall in love and whats that all about. How is physical attraction love? If people couldnt agree on the life's fundamental questions or were'nt humble to accept the differences then how can there be love? no matter how attractive they are. I'm way past that phase of love at first sight. how the hell does that happen and how do you know. geee...

But the film was very beautiful. I have become cynical about romance films. The one closest to my heart is Eternal sunshine.... anything shallow and pretentious just goes for a toss. and whats shallow you ask .... different blog post for that.

This film has good acting by the two leads, for most of the time in the film. Such films make me optimistic, that probably there's something real to romantic cinema.

This was my first Tamil film that I watched with subtitles. I had seen Anjali and Alai Payuthe. but that was not watching the film in the exact sense of the term.

Anyway, the film is good because it has a soul. A kind of craziness which few i ve seen to have the courage to be honest.

If its Bombay we destroy cinema halls cause we just cant stand that muslim and hindu got married. So the film says yeah its really difficult for such couple to survive. Its got the soul because it goes a couple of layers deeper in portraying the weaknesses and struggles the two have to go through. So the two will conform and will listen to the heart but wont withstand the pressures. They will live with broken hearts because nobody always gets everything. They conformed the way society and families wanted them to.

Towards the end I started loving the pain of staying apart. Its beautiful the way they are apart. No, dont live happily ever after. Thats not your fate. You be there incomplete and broken and in a gaping hole. You see the love which will never be yours and you stay there in your melancholy.

the heartbreak is what works for the film.

If you have to have everything you really need to take tough decisions. If your girlfriend needs to come down to be with you thats a personal front. On the work front you know you're learning the trade of filmmaking as a nobody, the producer may not allow his girlfriend to be on the set. Here I felt the dude really had to step up. That was the point where Jessie lost the struggle and caved in to family pressures. You know what, you want to chase your dream and have the girl of your dreams, you gotta step up. I love both of the characters precisely cause they are so human.

I was hoping that when Jessie says she doesnt like films, for the first time I thought she's just saying so as to repel him. Later it turns out she was serious, which was a bit confusing.

Dont get me wrong I loved the ending. I just hope the director showed some style in the way he showed the shattering the illusion of the two living happily for the rest of their lives.

This reminds me a quote from the movie A single man:

"Sometimes awful things have their own kind of beauty."

This beauty in weakness and struggle and just the fragility of being human is what I like in this film as I did in the eternal sunshine. As opposed to run of the mill films that worship how heroic the heroes are.

I was chuckling most of the time that I was watching because how frank the film was. I mean how do you just say "I love you" wierd. Regards to the very first line - In that age its difficult to separate the physical attraction from a solid relationship. The guy acted very well. Amazing in fact, the longing, the restlessness im sure many can realte to. As the time passes, where is the "chemistry" that he talks about when he was courting her?. To avoid fooling yourself and your loved one is a challenge.

i was also chuckling because i recalled the fond(?) memories of my time in kerala.

As always rahman's music defines the colors of emotions in new ways. Every song of his teaches me something new and there is a lot I can write about. And I love this tickling as I giggle and listen to 'Anbil Avan' right now - how these songs convey emotions to me when I cant understand a single word.

I love this poster too.

PS: I might as well have addressed this post to Keeths.

Guys I'd go gay for

2011-07-02T15:31:00.006+05:30

No necessarily in this order

1. Matthew Goode

2. Ryan Reynolds

3. Billy Crudup

4. Marlon Brando

5. Al Pacino

6. James McAvoy

7. Jesse Eisenberg

8. Jake Gyllenhaal

9. Will Smith

10. Patrick Wilson

11. Colin Firth

12. Colin Farrell

13. Brad Pitt

...... Im sure this list will be updated

the update i was talking about

14. Vincent Cassell

15. Armie Hammer

16. James Franco!

17. Patrick Dempsey

18. Leo Dicaprio

I'm lost,my time is lost

2011-04-24T19:58:00.003+05:30

"How many days have I lost?

How can I get back
to the place where I started?

I'm outside a house.
Trying to find my way in.

But it is locked and the blinds are down.

And I've lost the key.

And I can't remember what the rooms
look like or where I put anything.

And if I dare go in inside. I wonder...

will I ever be able to find my way out?"

- Proof (2005)

My pointer - the moment.

A long weekend of my life

2011-01-16T23:27:00.021+05:30

Sometimes there is a moment in life when the things start spinning around you. You start seeing something. People are walking, doing their stuff and you have just had a moment. You know something and see something. You dont need a verification. You see it in your mid's eye. All is going on on its own. And the definition of what you see what you believe in and what all is has just received a major overhaul. I dont want to call it a name. The moment I talk about it it starts to seem different to me.

Its something like a concept in quatum mechanics. What the thing is - an electron for example - its existence - changes depending on its observer. Where are YOU when you observe it? Its not the thing - its the thing and the observer - the system between them. So this blog post which you are reading right now, may, may have a different effect on different people on different times that they read(I mean the reading 2 days from the first time that you read it). Just like AR Rahman's music has a different effect and good films have different effect on multiple viewing. This is the biggest funda in life and it applies not just in science.

It happened to me because I read. If it had happened to me sometime earlier it may not have had the same effect. Thoughts grew to that point and when I read a few sentences I had a smile on my face. I was a little delirious.

I had a lot of time on my hands. The school had Annual Day function on Thursday and Friday, so I had four big days. What did I do? I am not going to reveal all that I did but some of that I spent reading and thinking and writing. And this activity sent me into a little jolts of depression - depending on what I read and also a moment about which i mentioned in the beginning.

I want to do here is to give an incomplete description of what I feel and enlist all the resources from which I read, the books the blogs and quotes. It is my ambition to get published someday. And all these are endeavors in that direction.

Long time ago I read this blog post and it set in motion my thoughts about work and purpose in a more focused way. Here is the essay by Hardy. The most important notion I feel is similar to the quantum mechanics thing is that talking about the work you do changes your purpose and your work. Then will the work of your life keep changing once you ask questions and you mind seeks new horizons to explore?

Paul Auster's Invention of solitude sent me into depression for a day. Then brought me back. He showed me the images in Pinochchio. Images from my life and the thoughts about my father were swimming in front of my eyes and it gave me a certain freedom. It showed me how fragile life is. More quotes from this book, here.

Reading Catcher in the Rye the second time wasnt as entertaining. but you see a lot more. you can see past the words. A line struck me, as it happens again and again, I started seeing things.

"Almost every time somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad."

J.D. Salinger has this rambling way of making Holden Caulfield tell you a story, full with 50s American slang and style, these gems are embedded in the middle of loneliness and aimlessness. I thought its been a decade that I have been struggling with guilt. Even when something good happens I am guilty about it. Why? Because there is this feeling that I dont deserve it. Maybe as the only child I got things, all the things I wanted very easily. So if its heads I'm guilty and if its tails I'm guilty. I love guilt and I wallow in it. This saves you from doing something - anything to get ahead in life.You like being that victim and you persecute yourself. Persecute! Cut to -

Dom Cobb: I know what's real Mal.
Mal: No creeping doubts? Not feeling persecuted, Dom? Chased around the globe by annonymous corporations and police forces, the way the projections persecute the dreamer? Admit it, you don't believe in one reality anymore. So choose, choose to be here, choose me.

I love Inception not for what it is, but for what it means to me. Its not what the movie or anything in life is – it’s the projection that is there in your head that matters. We love to cuddle some projections in our minds. They persecute us, we let them. The game goes on for years! The game will consume your life if you let it. First be aware that all this is there. Then conquer it.

"Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called brain-washing." - Germaine Greer

I visualize that projections in my head are like bubbles or soft cushions from which I constantly keep bouncing off my actions and decisions. These bubbles you create reactively for yourself. What you need to create for yourself are powerful projections for execution, creation, development and growth of skills. You invent these and they in turn will invent your character. As the above quote says - you have the right to invent yourself. Immediately picture in my brain is that of a mad scientist that is me in my lab, putting projections together - they are chemicals red, blue bright silver and they mix and i start the engines and they rn wild and explode and i control them. I invent a new me. This notion I find very powerful. Dont accept others' opinions without questioning. Protect the projections from getting adulterated.

I get the freedom to let it out spell it out and say yes - it is true. I admit and then comes along another thing that gives me strength to admit the fuck ups.

I was in the book shop and browsing I chance upon two books, completely unrelated and the situation mentioned in the beginning of this post presented itself. i didnt have to open the books, the blurbs gave me the breakthrough.

First I saw House of Cards, it’s a book about the big financial crisis. Written in bold letters was “We all F***ed up!” I said to myself if Nobel prize winners in Economists, Harvard an other Ivy league business and management gurus sat and watched the fuck ups then I think I am allowed to fail. And I said “yes, I admit I wasted my parents’ money doing an MBA that did not amount to anything much. The teachers didn’t teach me anything in Information Systems and I didn’t learn anything. More than anything I am the one to blame. I shouldn’t have taken up the job. I should have taken marketing. I shouldn’t have taken MBA if I didn’t want it. I shouldn’t have taken MSC (Hons) in Chemistry if I didn’t want it. I should have stuck to Medical if that was my passion. Only I am to be blamed if I fucked up. I admit. So there. The truth as it is. So I say if these big guys can get away with billion dollar fuck ups and thousands of job losses, if politicians can swallow crores without burping, if thousands’ deaths can be justified in the name of race, religion and blasphemy then I sure can be given a second chance for the fuck ups of my life.

Then I found a book and got the second jolt. The blurb on a book called Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse reads as follows:

The unhappiness that I need and long for, is of the kind that will let me suffer with eagerness and die with lust. That is the unhappiness or happiness that I am waiting for.

I had to stop doing anything and sit down for this to sink in. This made me write and write and write. All which I cant put up here.

I spent considerable time writing, not just this weekend but the Christmas vacation as well, as I mentioned in my last post. It has given me so much space in my mind. You explore new meaning in life by writing. Its essential for a good memory to write. Meaning of things and purpose crystallizes by writing. You see things more clearly and plan things well. One must devote time for writing, reading what you have written and plan accordingly. At a level of ideas, your mind is muddled, you have this incomplete definition of things and for me this definition is completed by writing.

In the course of last 9 months teaching communicative English at a school in Kochi I have had tremendous change in my confidence. I have gained this love for my voice and I know for sure that I want to teach. I remember this video lecture by Larry Lessig and it reminds me that there is such power in good presentation. I want to be able to do that. That is my aspiration.

I have no qualms telling that I am quite a socially underdeveloped individual. For a major portion of my life I was and probably still am pampered and cared for as the only child. I never had to wash my own clothes and do other things like that. I have spent a lot of time in my childhood being alone, and having nothing to do. It may sound a bit obvious and simplistic but the biggest problem of children is the lack of activity. I see in the school LOTS of children spend HOURS in the school doing absolutely nothing. This is sureshot recipe for all kinds of trouble, bad habits, low self esteem and zero skills just to name a few. I am prone to jealousy, guilt, anxiety, nervousness, little depression maybe (I don’t know), very reactive. I realize the pattern of things happening in my life. Writing helped me find my way of dealing with my persecutions. Films helped my find my way out of the lack of social skills. My friends like Monica, Jammy, Piyush, Jassi, cousins, Ameya dada, Sneha, Sonal, Babbu, Chonki, Appu, Priyanka, Sapna, Hrishikesh, all, just by being there have given my such a support. And after writing I started doing the necessary. Step by step. I stumble, get up, go back, make mistakes again, go down then get up again.

In the Christmas holidays I read Doris Lessing’s autobiography Under my skin. Most important thing I learnt was you don’t need education to teach you life lessons. Her and Ray Bradbury’s lives bear testimony that you learn by finding you own way. Education from books is not even half the learning. That being said, I find once people start working they cant go back to books. They seek answers in self help books because they seem to give instant answers. Never go for short cuts. One needs eye for brave writing, different from mollycoddling inspirational self help, mind open to ideas and comprehension of all kinds of writing. In real life one gets disillusioned by events, nothing seems to make sense. One needs to synchronize book knowledge, principles, opinions with the real life.

And as I teach in school I learn that telling is useless – showing and taking a person through a process is most important.

From Lessing’s life another fact that strikes the most is health – the connection of the mind with the body – the confidence that one derives by the strength of the organs, muscles, by being close to nature one tunes into the rhythm. The sun, the rain, I think I have tuned off from these.

I found that asking the question “what is life? What does it mean?” is futile. Jumping in is the best way. Make mistakes, read, ask questions and listen. There is nothing right or wrong. Once you get some answers you have to live in circumstances, do the deeds, make things work, trial and error to see the meaning of the answers. There is no use knowing. You have to see it in action and I then see the beauty of life. It can’t be described. It’s just to full of chaos and uncertainty and colors and sparks. Everything can be turned on its head and it’ll still be true.

I will conclude by quoting Ray Bradbury. He tells me that each day has these infinite possibilities waiting. Nothing is impossible. Every moment there is the next level of awareness to be achieved.

I get out of bed every morning and explode.

PS: I have told a lot of things in this rambling post. Telling never works for people. Note to self: Even after this you may go down but you know how to get up again. Dont worry if nobody reads your blog and if they do then find it bland and repetitive. We knew this all along Nik whats so great about all this? The usual inspiration crap....... Telling never works.

They threw me out of the coffee shop.

2010-12-27T16:24:00.006+05:30

so the christmas in Oberon Mall of Cochin looks pretty neat. This is the the first time I have seen Christmas celebrations.
So I sat in the coffee shop on a Monday afternoon because it was a Christmas holiday. I had a Mocha and the coffee shop guys should take it as a compliment that theirs is one of the best brews I have ever had. And I wrote in my notebook. I had a good time writing. Amazing. Awesome. Terrific. So good that I wrote for three hours.

And then they kicked me out. He said something in Mallu but I got the gist.

I walked back home. I said it looks very barren and bleak and dull and hot and suck-your-life outta-you urban. So I said take photos of this

scene and put it up online. Take all your anger ou

2010-12-18T21:36:00.004+05:30

in life good things are very rare. Interestingly they can be abundant too. It depends on your point of view. The thing is life is full of uncertainties. I believe in that. The chaos, the absence of rules, the improbability, randomness and sometimes unfair and ruthlessness of life and nature. its scary. and its unavoidable. It is so scary and every decision we take we stare at darkness and wonder if we can have faith in something..... something. our gut instincts, god, parents, friends. So randomly we stumble on good and bad things. I recently had a feeling after watching Band Baaja Baarat(BBB) that there is this abundant amount of happiness and love and joy and energy in store in life. Its all out there. Its such a delicate matter. Even as i type this my perspective is walking along a very thin edge. I say its matter of perspective. To be happy and find contentment. Once we have that point of view we can see the abundance.

.. but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst..

Was Lester Burnham or the writer Alan Ball from American Beauty talking about this? this very same feeling that i got when I saw a particular scene in BBB? perhaps...
Nikhilesh you take movies too seriously. They are just movies- thats all and nothing more. but nothing seems real. nothing lasts and nothing is worth keeping faith in. real people are as dramatic as filmi characters and just as unpredictable. so whats the harm in deriving pleasure from the film characters? its all maya. (You seriously lack social interaction niks.)
So I love this movie. in a way that i have never loved a hindi movie before. not even dev d which i cut open and it cut my brain open. This one left me with a little pain. I felt sad, i dont know how to describe this feeling. A little miserable. shruti kakkar and bittu sharma had so much life to them that the movie did not seem to contain it. maybe the pain had something to do with loss of innocence. it had for me elements of friendship, cuteness .... things that have nothing to do with sex. but when the story took the turn towards the conflict, it kills me. there is something raw about them when they fight. the rustic delhi style is of course delicious("Aur bhai Bittoo!?") but that probably has given me the pain i was talking about.
ok i seriously feel there was so much more to the relationship of bittu and shruti. director maneesh sharma showed tremendous promise with the first half but somehow wrapped up pretty quickly in the second half.the song dum dum wasnt even half as good as avain avain. again its painful to see anushka wearing that dress. the end was an anticlimax. i hoped we could see them working together in love - they never do that in the film - they re either working as friends or as rivals but never as a couple in love. what i wouldnt give to see that. maybe maneesh sharma wanted to show how the girl helped shape an aimless loafer like bittoo. in the end again its what bittoo wants - she shouldnt marry chetan because bittoo loves her. but why didnt bittoo apologise in the first place.i wish we could see shruti hurting more than what was depicted. after the break up the characters become caricatures. they are not themselves anymore. anushka had a good scene with the mirror - that was the pivotal scene of the film and kudos to her for that. she has amazing acting talent - we may have in her a comedienne too. a rarity in bollywood.
ok i cant write anymore

HP 7.1

2010-11-21T17:38:00.000+05:30

I watched the social network last week. HP 7.1 the day before yesterday. I will write in detail about the social network experience shortly but right now about HP 7.1. I really wasn’t much looking forward to it. It has been widely acknowledged that the HP movies have been disappointing. The trend which started since prisoner of Azkaban has been disrupted only in goblet of fire. I think movies 3, 5 and 6 have been terribly disappointing. I wish someone did to HP films what Jason reitman did for up in the air. Characters seem soulless. They all seem to be following a trajectory dictated probably by the producers or movie studios. There seemed to be magic in the script only to amuse the 6 year olds.
But 7.1 finally has a bit of soul. Not all. It was the very first film with a really soulful beginning. And I took it seriously. After looking at all three of main characters reminiscing in their homes, I became hopeful and it promised to be a good film. In the film David Yates used handheld camera for close ups, sepecially for Daniel radcliffe giving a really nice and intimate connection to that character. Or so it felt to me. Now most important reason why hp movies succeed or fail is how they are written. And the movie is faithful to the book. What set this fil apart from others is the photography. I am sure everyone was looking forward to how the three would be picturised in the wilderness. I was hoping for more green, dark, damp and mountainous woods. But that’s just me. The job done in open areas here is admirable too. It looks beautiful. The director succeeds in depicting the void among the friends. He has succeeded in inducing realism in this fantasy movie.
I was begging in my mind, please tell us the story of the three brothers. And they did. By Hermione no less. Her voice is amazing I really enjoyed the little animated sequence. The pace is a tad slow. Using a slow pace he has succeeded in making it realistinc but it just climbed a couple of notches for me. Insead they sacrificed detailed accounts of e Gregorovich and the elder wand. Most of the viewers were obviously baffled by such subplots. In the ministry of magic they did not show how ron solved the raining problem in the minister’s office. The movie could have been more dense and detailed and yet slow in the places where it needed to be. It deserved to e slow when they are in the woods. Now audience will always crave for more screen presence of many beloved characters. Director and writer cant always fulfill such wishes but they do have to work hard. We know its hard to squeeze in more time for ginny, snape, bellatrix, draco, lupin and his wife. But you have to! Just look at aaron sorkin’s beautiful work in the social network. All the characters are not only well developed but also deliver a coherent account of the story. Each adds a dimension which is unique. Each has a color and flavour. But we have ginny just asking to zip her dress and snogging. Off you go. Snape with his measured quivers of lips and dead straight eyes delivers two dialogues. Draco reluctant of the dark side is simple terrified to open his mouth. Lupin is in the “save Harry Potter” party hardly speaks apart from shoving want in people’s faces to detect imposters.
Writing j k rowling’s books into 2 hour movie is a tough task. But they signed up for it and they got paid too. So we the fans should be angry for such a shallow job.
One line I liked the most was by ron. The three are preparing to gulp polyjuice potion
“this is barking mad”
“absolutely mad”
Ron: “the whole world’s gone mad….”

A very observation which should resonate in muggle world too. Things hitherto considered crazy are happening daily and that has nothing to do with magic. A very wise quip made me happy.

Glengarry Glen Ross ... one of those films

2010-11-01T21:56:00.000+05:30

who knows what salesmen really are? what kinda work they do and what they go through?I have immense respect for them. For the good ones i mean. i am in awe of them. but i cant be one. it was not like i gave up, i just made a choice, albeit one year in to the job.
long time ago i saw the trailers of the film rocket singh salesmen of the year, and i thought these guys have no idea what salesmen do. real salesmen would watch it and laugh. i guess the diro of tis movie is the same as that of chak de india and i have seen neither of the 2 movies. he should see glengarry glen ross. that film was made way back in 1992 and it was about real estate salesmen. life of a salesman aint fun. by now i shouldve learnt movies dont depict life. its so much more complex than that. but check out al pacino and jack lemmon in gleengarry and it ll blow your mind. interestingly both glengarry and rocket werent financial rockets. its a mystery, what works for films. if rocket singh didnt work because it didnt portray the life of a salesman accurately then glengarry didnt work because it was too honest in its portrayal and in turn it became too bleak (and for audiences like indian too much of a headache )to be enjoyed. pursuit of happyness on the other hand was not so much about salesmanship as it was about hope and perseverence. the two things are required for salesmanship but the portrayal of salesman's qualities itself was a small parrt of that film. but i believe somewhere the film (happyness) transcended real life and took us to places of joy and hope and achievement and thus it succeds.
glengarry is rare coz of many reasons - in a matter of less than 24 hours it takes you through lives of salesmen, small glimpses reveal just the fraction of what salesmen deal with day in and day out. its fascinating. the "moral hazards" and personally the fact that its all good ..... there is nothing right or wrong, nothing good or bad. just the targets that count. either you get them or you dont.
me on the other hand just dont wanna play the game.
all these things about morality are on a bigger scale, philosophical or something, but at little scale of moments between people, tricks and unnamed glances exchanged between wolves - thats the beauty of this film. all the gems are there especially al pacino and lemmon. watch it here

2010-10-10T23:05:00.002+05:30

a paragraph from Alice in wonderland, full of loneliness (in my opinion)

`Come, there's no use in crying like that!' said Alice to herself, rather sharply; `I advise you to leave off this minute!' She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. `But it's no use now,' thought poor Alice, `to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!

first pointed out by Bibliophile

2010-09-24T22:31:00.002+05:30

saw beauty and the beast. and i thought how these film makers can have such a sense of uniiversality of stories. how come in the final sequence of the story, when gaston attacks the enchanted castle and tries to kill the beast, he has been given a bow and arrow. a bow n arrow!! how unusual i thought. and guess who's known to use bow n arrows among hindus??
and i thought, man, beauty and the beast is the story of ramayana turned upside down. and of course the gigantic way in which details of ramayana and its sub plots are another issue. but from a simplistic plot of a ove triangle the two stories are anologous.
am i the only one who thinks like this? coz im still pretty baffled by the ingenius gesture by disney of giving gaston the bow n arrow.

PS: the instances of subliminal imagery in Disney movies have made me paranoid, sort of. so every time u see disney, you wanna look for some chinks.

i try to breathe.... just breathe as the song ends

2010-09-18T22:25:00.002+05:30

.....some day i'll be an old lady
with a big dress and an apron
a babushka and bare feet
i'll be out in my garden
on my hands and knees
and i'll be singing a song
that is really sad and sweet

mommy and daddy your baby is grown
and the smell of the cold, wet dirt reminds me home

from Chemistry written and sung by Kimya Dawson

2010-09-18T16:29:00.002+05:30

2010-09-10T21:30:00.002+05:30

Detective Somerset: Gentlemen, gentlemen... All these books, a world of knowledge at your fingertips, and you play poker all night.

- Seven (1995)
made by David Fincher
written by Andrew Kevin Walker

never a break

2010-03-13T13:33:00.003+05:30

my favourite part of rab ne bana di jodi is the one which does not feature any of the leading actors of the movie. nothing is happening in that part. maybe no one gets excited by it. since it was a yash raj super starrer everyone was excited for obvious reasons. but what stays with me to this day is the first minute of the movie. the first minute shows the land of punjab, rural landscape, yellow mornings, sandy eyed dirty linen clad rustics. i can go on and on. the north indian rural landscape is my sweetheart. i hated it first. but back then i was a child. i had a craving for cleaner, greener and better smelling places to live. but things come around and their meaning for us changes.
i stumbled on jai arjun's review and it brought back all the memories. he makes very good observations about the movie. very fine acting by shahrukh occasionally. the film has some rare gems by shahrukh. which makes me think highly of aditya chopra. but that thought last only a while. you feel, how is it that someone who has all the financial backing of a legendary movie studio, sharp insight into the indian psyche and good movie making skills fall prey to song and dance frivolity. you need to have at least one meaningless multi starrer belly shaking, cleavage plunging, pelvis jerking dance number. we do have some good things about our movie but that wont sell the movie. the song does.
what else sells in india? religion. i was bleeding from my ear every time i heard the word "rab" in every possible context from love to vegetables. interestingly the word rab is used in different religions for god. and i believe the tendency of people of relating most aspects of life with god has been exploited. lot have criticised the movie for plot loopholes but they did enjoy it. because its amusing - songs, jokes, gags, style. our movies are focused on maintaining the size of brain of indian masses, especially the youth, at the size of a pea. that is true for more than half of bollywood. but what is interesting is this movie is non elitist, gives victory to the geek and yet is hit coz of reasons same as any other masala flick.

of death and noodle salad

2010-03-01T14:28:00.004+05:30

i have never seen anyone die. i did lose my grandfather in 2000. i realized how much i loved him and respected him long after we lost him. in small things his memory crops up.
in 2000 he had gone to dubai and didnt return. and back then i dont remember how i was. maybe i was arrogant. i didnt love people as passionately as i do now. and i have never experienced loss. when we lost him i didnt feel any stabbing pain or loss. i am 25 years old and i feel time is volatile. the most mysterious thing. things get closer and move farther away in a swift way, like they are dancing and its meaningless.
if i were to see a dead person i knew what would i feel? i have read about people who died of no reason. millions die for no reason. millions for a higher cause, a divine cause. but what will i feel if i were to see a dead person? all the life behind is gone. love sorrow grief thrills money sins.

"Some have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that's their story. Good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is not that you had it bad, but that you're that pissed that so many others had it good."

We have stories of the past. boats, trees, cool breeze, sunshine and noodle salads. dark corners of our loved homes. faces of loved ones as they change, wrinkles and lumpy skin and flesh and hair ignored. surfaces, tears and edges of living things. colours shine and weights of objects. gravels and specks of dust. green grass on heavy rains. i remember. some judge them to never consider them. i have grown to love all of them. and on a dead man's face their life would all be lost.

Travel of the idea

2009-04-18T21:06:00.003+05:30

John Nash had the idea first which he worked hard on. Imagine his times in classrooms racking his brains and talking to his colleagues. Then he wrote thesis and much more of which i am not precisely sure of. forgive me to be so flippant right now i am not so motivated.
so he dazzled the math world. struggled with his own mind, walked through the world as a mad man.
sylvia nasser wrote a book on his life. the book is a stupendous work and won the pulitzer prize.
Akiva Goldsman wrote a screenplay based on that book and won an oscar for it.
the creative geniuses ron howard and russell crowe portray the story on screen. the film is a huge success.
Since then economics professors use the movie as a tool to explain game theory.
back to where the idea began from - the classroom.

the turning point of the travel is akiva goldsman. he is the one who removed the complexity and brought it to the palate of the layman and made slots for the creativity of ron howard and russell crowe to fit in. in that sense i will say akiva goldsman's contribution is a penny more than that of sylvia nasser.
i am sure if you google and search into economics lectures you will find many professors giving lectures with the help of the scene in a beautiful mind. again i apologise for being so flippant, there are also some who say ron howard made fun of audiences' intelligence because he did not really get nash equilibrium and the portrayal in the movie is wrong.
but my point is - it is the movie makers who have more than monetary gain on their mind - who value creative achievement (and i believe this movie was made in that spirit) who contribute to society by portraying the obscure in a simple way.
even if nash equilibrium was wrongly portrayed in the film, then what is the right explanation? and you will find yourself flipping the pages of the economics text book, and believe me - the movie made you do that. and hence i salute these people - ron howard, akiva goldsman and russell crowe.
(I am not insane to be watching so many movies! that too again and again! - some good thought comes every now n then and i m sure there is more to this, even more, which maybe i will learn someday.)

on a similar note
I go to a shop in the neighborhood and buy butter, he charges me 20, i see mrp on it as 19.
"You cant charge more than the MRP, its against the law"
"it needs refrigeration so we charge 1 re extra"
"i can go to consumer court"
"i dont know my boss asked me to charge, so i do"

why is honesty the best policy?
next time i wont buy butter from him, the shop next door sell on mrp. whats more i ll also buy cola drink from the honest one.
there is something called the opportunity cost He lost on the sales he would have made in the future because he made the decision to earn an extra rupee today. we dont know the name opportunity cost, but a small shop owner in a village too can ask himself this question "will he come to me the next time? I am i losing out on future opportunities by making more profit today?"
given huge population in india losing out on one customer in mom n pop stores is not a big deal, he eventually makes same amount of money each month. but there is no such way of thinking which makes him realise the amount of money or faster rate of growth he would have made if he were honest.
one needs time to see economics in life, when its taught in mba classes its lost in the pile of assignments.
or even worse i just talk about it in an obscure blog post.

Wake up

2009-04-14T18:33:00.003+05:30

I HAVE been living under a cave. I confess, i realized it so late in my life, but i guess its never TOO late.
I realized that policemen dont have any honour. its another job, like that of a autorickshaw driver. On the pre-paid auto-rickshaw stand on MG Road,Bnagalore, you will observe the racket of the rick drivers and road traffic policeman. both make sure they earn their money for the day.
I confess i dont have a voter's ID and neither do i give a damn about the country's elections.
I read The white tiger, and watched Delhi 6, Gulaal (the most excoriating one)to start looking at my environment and my past in a new light. and see the darkness.
links - arvind adiga's interview

2009-03-21T21:14:00.003+05:30

Last movie I saw: Gulaal

i could write a lot about it, but then.....

Book i'm reading: The Terminal Man, Michael Crichton

i could write a lot about it, but then.....

Music on my mind:

colour on my mind: the rajeev ravi red (also seen in the above video)

The Sluts meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

2009-03-09T19:35:00.005+05:30

"Everything is true, only the opposite is true too; you must believe both equally or be damned." – Robert Louis Stevenson

“Works with obvious meanings cease to be art” – Edgar Allan Poe

Yet again. It was a coincidence that I read “Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” after the previous post.
And also I had forgotten to talk something about Dev D which had confused me. I was praising it too much and was very much in love with Chanda / Leni. What I didn’t understand back then was what role did sex play in the story? And peculiarly towards the end I thought how can dev fall out of love from paro? Or accept to himself that he never did. Because I believe when you think you are in love with someone or are infatuated with someone and ask yourself “is it real? Do I really love him/her”, you feel guilty. You cannot give it up. I may be wrong. But I said there are two separate things here, dev realizes –
1. I don’t love her
2. I m wasting my life / money

Both can’t come simultaneously.
I got my answerers, I remembered that there is a scene when both Dev & Chanda are in towels while C talks about her past and gets support from D. I interpret sex is there for the namesake, and the towels are its evidence yet there is no more allusion to it. Just one more; where after a disagreement C shuts the door on D saying “Goodnight!”(keeping him away for the night) In the span of less than 8 minutes I suppose AK has depicted lot of things in a subtle way which I think was too subtle. D makes an inquiry into C’s life(her past hurt and how she came to be a prostitute). D sympathizes with C. C falls in love with D. C realizes D is beyond repair. D holds the ring(meant for Paro) in a wonder. Now this is a turning point because this is where he asks the question to himself about which I talked earlier “Do I really love paro?” Yet it lasts very few seconds, hence I think it was too subtle. I guess a little projection would have helped. After that I am not sure what happened, D left, which is a dialog less part between D and C. Please go see.
This style of a narrative heavily dependent on dialog less performances and music has been challenging and sometimes its impossible to know what’s really going on. So it has taken more than few views of the movie for me to write this.
Ok, but that’s not my point. Since I realized sex has been relegated to background, then what’s in the foreground? And a subtle fabric, something I had never experienced, revealed. All along that I had been drooling over the smile of C, her “Tum boss ho” and “ye tum mere liye laye the na?” Oh! It had been sitting in front of my eyes.

C is a prostitute, sex is her job. She falls in love with D. she finally unloads burdens of past and showers love.
P a village girl is the childhood sweetheart of D. Guess what, she has carnal cravings. She is boisterous.
As it turns out, the perceived images of C and P have been reversed. Nothing is what it seems. We would like to see paro in the age old mask of a coochie-cooing cutie pie whose love flourishes in the hills of Switzerland when two flowers kiss each others’ petals. Or better still she will dance with a diya in the longing for love. No touchin no nothing.
No wonder Dev D is gaining popularity from ladies; in the theater there was a row full of women next to me, all working in same company maybe.
After P washes clothes and cleans room for D, few minutes later you see C caressing his hair and taking his shoes off. More an image of “Dev” of both women, I don’t think he ever was “Das” to either women (I change my stance from the previous post). I said that the clothes washing scene between P n D is terrific because she calls him, she comes to the dingy hotel, she cleans for him. She really loved him; those were the last gestures of love for him until she pushed him away and moved on. Dev doesn’t look keen as she calls him. And the twisted logic of this dialogue should make the audience doubt the authenticity of Dev’s love –
P: “ye kya haal bana rakha hai, nahaye kabse nahin?” (Since when have you not taken bath?)
D:“Bahut pyaar karta hun tumse” (I love you a lot)
But that’s how we sluts do stuff, not so twisted in our minds. “I made a wreck of myself in your love!...Or for that matter because of any other injustice that happened to me.”
Because what is visible is opposite to what he is saying. This contradiction of what seems and what really is has been brought out by AK and it seems its been million years since something like this tried to adorn 70 mm in India. This is the point at which I find Jekyll and Hyde and dev d similar.

All this I brought together after I read TSC of Dr.J & Mr. H. The whole conversation of identity and struggle is beautiful. Thanks to Dr. Jekyll’s narrative and mulling over it the above interpretation of Dev D was churned out.

What made me love the novella was something different than the split persona. . An eerie feeling was gripping me. There were scarcely any female characters, only two women that too in servant roles. Looking back the image of a hypocrite housemaid secretly celebrating the news that her master Hyde is police’s suspect freaks me out.
Middle aged men spending lonely evenings. Its even more eerie if they spend their life like this without complaints. And on the penultimate page, he talks about growing up holding his father’s finger. That clinched it. I was speechless. This can’t be just a matter of chance. And I firmly believe this is an allegory for homosexuality. By not mentioning particular evil deeds of Hyde, its wide open for interpretation.
Quite frankly it disappointed me a bit to find out nothing in there, in the evil of Hyde. The reason for a murder he committed isn’t even clear. That probably is such an arbitrary event to shape the story, which disappoints me.
But it being the first literary feat popularizing multiple personality (and me being the zillionth person to interpret this allegory) I guess its laudable for the beauty of the prose. Thanks to which I get Goosebumps thinking of a dank and gloomy world devoid of any women where two middle aged fellows go for a stroll down a decrepit street; just as much as it makes me delighted to see a movie like Dev D which is also multi layered and poetic and has gained success from the masses.

PS: I respect films like American Beauty and Taxi Driver more than Dev D, then how come I never got to talking about them? Maybe it’s overwhelming. Just to begin would have me embarking on a project or something. I also feel like a small truant, throwing labels at them, they are sacred. Maybe some day.

PPS: I asked AK on his blog a question and he replied! In the last bar from where Dev gets kicked out, the protagonist of Gulaal, AK’s next film, was sitting in front of Dev. AK confirmed my hunch. Scroll down for comment no. 140. :D My first communication with a celebrity! Yippie!

The Sluts

2009-02-16T12:07:00.001+05:30

I never knew there was a word “shajar” in hindi. Anyway, your highness, the true nature of the crime of the accused Mr. Devender Singh Dillon, aka Dev. D. is illustrated with the sequence in which things happened. He started smoking before he had any love problems. And as it turned out it was not love, just a lot of hot air, which was this time coming out of smoking marijuana. He desperately wanted his head to float. Morals, responsibilities and tomorrow can go to hell.
You can find dev in your neighbourhood maybe. He doesn’t respect elders, lacks decision making skills, doesn’t accept his mistakes, makes fun of others, unpredictable with his tongue, sexed up, unsophisticated, generally immature, hairy packs and all that. What needs attention is that his process of wasting life by smoking and drinking had already started, love or the lack of it was just an excuse.
With all due respect to the unfairness happened to Anurag Kashyap, I wish he always remains disappointed. If Anurag becomes content I’m afraid he will lose his fire which has fueled every inebriated scene of Dev. D. The Indian film industry will grow and evolve thanks to movies made by such people. Our society will get to see its scum, not just from films made by British directors released in India by Hollywood studios.
Devdas here too plays both master and slave to both Chanda and Paro, living up to his name.
I would like to interpret the presence of Devdas visuals through the movie not as a tribute but something sinister and more interesting. This movie interpretation of the novel is in a contemporary setting of the society. Characters are younger – they are immature. It’s set in rural Punjab and goes on to Delhi. When real people face dilemmas similar to those faced by characters in the novel, they are terrified. They don’t have poems to describe their state. They give in to addictions, are shameless and gutless in front of elders. They are too terrified to handle emotions, responsibilities of relationships and can’t make the right decisions. Songs and visuals from the movie Devdas made by Sanjay Leela Bhansali sit on the sidelines as ornaments when real people struggle. When chanda has nowhere to go she prefers blows of air outside the window on her face rather than getting amused by “dola re dola”. Gyrations of Madhuri Dixit inspire CSWs and Shahrukh’s handsome suit welcomes drunkards to the lairs. Characters from that film are pretty, handsome, red and embroidered, loved by masses just like Anjalis and Poojas which don cleavages and melodramatic sequences on costly sets in filmistan studios.

Most beautiful story is that of chanda. Her character gave an opportunity to the writers to uncover the urban route of a teenager to prostitution. The scenario that a girl could be studying in Delhi College and be working as a sex worker was never known to me. How quickly her intro became nightmarish. Kalki Koechlin made a great debut. I liked the way she delivered “Tum boss ho.” to Dev. It was not a punch line of a prostitute but a genuine quip to a friend. The audience squirms when anurag talks about randis, touching yourself, drugs, sex, and much more. Some move out of the hall. They would rather live in a happy world. It’s human. But there is no reason why any board should keep us from unpretentious depiction of scum, as it happened in case of Paanch and Black Friday. Anurag had no release in seven years. I found chanda a very touching character, especially in the end my heart goes out to her. Acting by all three was very good. Just that there weren’t as many aspects to paro’s role as there were to the other two. There isn’t much depth to the mind of dev. Which is new to us bollywood audience because we would naturally want the central character to talk a lot of meaningful, powerful and inspiring stuff. So Abhay deol has done one hell of a job portraying a character which wastes his life under the pretence of lost love and pain but is actually shallow.

The film is beautifully littered with instances of dark humour, irony and ridicule.
1. Chanda is on a grey Hero Honda and Chunni, the pimp, on a Pink car.

2. After his father’s death the driver who is taking him back to Delhi is named Satpal – same name as his father’s. Satpal is with him, and Satpal just died. He is still on his path of self destruction. Goes on drinking, touring places, unaffected.

3. When paro is getting married dev drinks and falls down in front of celebrating crowd. The song emotional atyachar, is plainly directed at mocking him. When audience watches two elvis look-alikes blare this tacky song – “Ho gayi dil ke saath, tragedy!” its hard to sympathise with dev.

4. the sweetest irony - chanda asks dev about the ring “yeh tum mere liye laye the na?”
I wished the film was tauter in the second half. Sometimes I required patience with the drinking capers. And it did get once on my nerves when he carried the carton of liquor and I had no idea what might be on his mind. The three guys didn’t help with the story, apart from the dances which were superb. Especially when dev leaves chanda, instead of getting a clear reason we get close ups of long faces of three men singing “Areyaooo”; irritating.

Soundtrack HAD to be brilliant, there weren’t dialogues. Excellent acting coupled with music conveyed the situation and audience were free to make interpretations. The narrative has cycles of wordless musical depiction and some brilliant conversations. The music by Amit Trivedi is a feast. I think his is the best debut after A.R. Rehman’s and that is saying something. This is because of the range of compositions. There are 18 songs and each is very different genre. Bhangra, girly romantic number, rock, jazz, Hindustani classical, and for the first time in hindi cinema – the brass number – emotional atyachar.
Add to great music flamboyant cinematography, it makes you dizzy, romantic, disgusted, numb at the right times. At certain moments in the movie audience is like looking into their lives from a camera placed on their rooftops or walls in the room. I love movies that stage that level of life-like authenticity. And when the story is so much “in your face”, it stings.

The two women in his life loved him, he never loved anyone. This was brilliantly showed in the scene where paro come to his hotel room. You have to watch it to believe it. Maybe you’ll have to watch it once more to really get it. I know I had to.
Looking at the end which the movie directed dev to I believe it’s a movie about realization of a young man. How did Dev the slut come into being? He was a teenager calling his father “Sattu” so he sent him to London to live. He returned as you see him now. I don’t think there is anymore to it than that. Let’s just stop here and not point fingers.
What will we do with sluts like Chanda and Dev, your honour? Send them to jail? Beat the hell out of them, which will infuse sense in them? (“Mera agar tumhare jaisa beta hota to main uski maar maar ke akal thikane laga deti”), Chop them into pieces and bury them (“Kaaat ke zameen mein gaad dete hain”)?
Only they themselves can take control of their life. Nothing external works. Maybe youth not as rich, addicted and messed up as Dev who waste money on food films music books etc. will identify with him and learn a lesson.
This is one of the most well crafted and socially relevant films to have come in the recent times.

Dev D. rocks. Period.

Three

2009-01-27T15:04:00.010+05:30

Three

Some lucky two know certainly what bonds them.
Two hearts won’t even need words between them.
But three is a treacherous crowd.

Ignored, third may sit in between or on the sides.
The two play games in his head.
His head, so cynical of the wordless that divides.

“Scheming for goodies…their gang conspires in whispers!
Can't stay here.Can't run.
They are two and I'm one.”

- Nikhilesh

I request you to read the poem above fully before even looking below.

The making of “Three”
A moment in Slumdog Millionaire inspired the poem, “Three”.

Jamal let latika in without salim’s approval. Brothers lost their mother in riots and now Latika forms bonds of friendship with Jamal.

The moment slipped me by because all I kept thinking of was Latika, making circles in rainy mud. And the moment that hardly lasted showed the birth of a way of thinking that guided Salim's actions. I kept looking at the snapshot I took from the movie. I kept looking and let feelings flood and wrote what came out. First I thought I would write a descriptive something, like I did earlier for Yeh Rishta.
I thought I could write a poem.

Three lines per stanza came all by themselves. I was more focused on the sentiment of alienation. When for the first time I consciously assessed what I had written I found four stanzas of three lines each, none rhymed. Only one stanza, the first one, had a slight possibility of two rhyming lines. I saw three lines in the stanzas and I had a eureka moment. I compressed emotions and changed words more than jillion times to fit constraints and rhymes. It’s the same what Carly Fiorina says in
this lecture which is funny because she’s a “businesswoman”. But I was very happy with the idea, almost giddy. And I realized how I can represent the same emotions in far less words, conform to self imposed constraints or rules. (I wonder if I can write Haiku) I felt the urge of keeping the rhyming two of the same length, which I still think is an unnecessary far stretch of the original idea but I still managed it. I was apprehensive if I was compromising on the delivery of the original message. I did lose it, but then I brought it back by changing words.
On a different one I think Salim is the best kept secret of the Slumdog hoopla. A jealous Muslim boy keeps the lovebirds apart. In the end he gives in, sacrifices his life so that they can meet. In current scenario this is a pertinent message.

Cotton Swabs

I wass returning from the movie theatre after watching slumdog(to listen to ARR with good sound) and i was sitting in autorickshaw at the signal. Now such situations attract me or i attract them - a street urchin asks me to buy cotton ear cleaning swabs. I shook my head to refuse. In the afternoon heat of Bangalore she put her forehead on my knees. Normally I would be repulsed but this time around I was blank. Would it make sense to you or help in any way if I said that she was in despair, and she was almost fearless in connecting with me by doing what she did? You would say "It’s just you, nike, you saw the movie and got senti." But I bought the pack for 10 bucks.

Yuppdate

2009-01-25T17:13:00.005+05:30

Last week I was at Aicha's place..... who is like elder sister to me. I am appreciating how we have become greater support to each other. But sometimes I am scared that she is totally different and difficult. And very much cynical. .... anyway we were watching TV and she asks me what is so great about Asin. As with Aicha many times before, she says she is just trying to understand what guys like and how they think. And I gave her a quick answer. Now I guess it can make for a blog entry.

Even if I have seen Asin only in Ghajini, I thought she was fabulous. At first sight I thought long hair - check, big eyes - check. OK rest of the features I am afraid it gets a bit risque to mention but check for those too. I was watching her interview and I appreciate how she rolls her eyes every now and then. The best thing is she isnt trying. The way most women on TV try too hard to be sexy / cute / glamorous; she isnt doing that. Vey much like Heath Ledger, he just WAS The Joker. He wasnt trying to project particular features of the character like cruelty etc. (May the The Joker have the last laugh, the oscar i mean) But I digress... Next she was funny. Essential that she makes fun of herself - half the movie she was funny. One particular scene she is jumping her ass off in front of Amir (go figure which that one is). It speaks very much of a girl's confidence that she can pull off being absolutely un-sexy and stupid on screen. Which is the reason why all three girls in FRIENDS win on all fronts. Lisa Kudrow being the best for me. I have a bit of a lower opinion for Jennifer Aniston, she seems too pumped up to be the glamour icon. Its almost like she killed the funny goofy, a little fat Rachel Green.
Its funny how women like Aishwarya rai and kareena fall flat when it comes to public life. Many others too i think they rehearse being in public eye and entering a beauty pageant like they are preparing for an exam. When it comes to extempore they show their real blunderous self.
I like these :

Next, I have seen Slumdog so many times (I procured the pirated copy) that I have now grown to find it not as good as I thought the first time around, a little bit. But no, I have also grown to realise that its a matter of perspective. Its enjoyable on many levels. It sure is old wine in new bottle. But the bottle is the backdrop of Mumbai which needs recognition. It rides of so many features, excitement of the gameshow, "bizarre plausibility" of events that enable him to answer the questions, the music, the romance and great cinematography. In the process we come to see the cruel truths of life of slums.
As jobs are being lost in the IT industry, "survival" is in perspective. Humans will survive their environment. The two slumdogs survived their environment, with nobody to take care, they survived, by whatever means. The director Danny Boyle used a great phrase - "lust for life" of these slumdogs. With nothing to lose at 18, Jamal wont give up love of his life, he has had enough experience of getting by, getting food to survive one way or the other is not an issue at all. But unlike others he stood up to fight for love, i dont think there was any other stimulus in his life. The ones who play the game to get more than just survival from life are the ones who achieve.
I know A.R. Rahman will win oscars, one for the original score and other for the song "O Saya" (Original music written for motion picture). Its true ARR has done better work before, but its funny how confluence in life brings laurels only at a particular point. Not before, not after. It had to be the confluence of movie, director, availability of resources this year that his work has reached oscars.
My personal favourite is the vocal by Susanne called "Search for Latika" or Latika's theme. It brought tears to my eyes every time it played, just not the last two times I saw the movie (which is why i say that now the effect of the movie is waning on me). That brings us to the issue of marketing. A comment I read says that slumdog is the perfect example of how an OK film is made into excellent using marketing. I say films like slumdog deserve and require terrific marketing. Emotion is a dicey affair. Judging the film is difficult because it banks heavily on romance, music, drama etc. Some might be touched some feel its too touchy feely crap. Some might be touched by the ending some might not. So its difficult to judge if its good or not. Its human. So all the movie makers can do is get it seen by as many as possible and hope it touches those who are touched (by the romance etc). Most critics too have given excellent reviews to slumdog.
My short story can sit on an HTML page and nobody will read it unless i get it published , do some marketing etc. Similarly blogger like gaurav sabnis recommends salaam bombay to viewers who would like a taste of real mumbai but this is a very small effort which doesnt do much good to salaam bombay; even if its an excellent work it needs a trumpet.

O saya is great too. I love how the percussion rises. Its not just that the percussion is great its how it evolves in the first 20 seconds of the song, like a monster rising.

Update

2009-01-15T07:33:00.005+05:30

I had something unpleasant for a meal, bread and butter, to be precise on thursday. As it turned out, when I reached home in Goa, my Mom tells me that the butter was pretty old in its standing. So thats the reason why I was shivering with cold on the footsteps of Yeshwanthpur railway station on friday night. I had to wait for two hours in the chockablock railway station as I had reached early. As rural as a city railway station can seem, I felt like a loser, my head was getting hammered from the inside, my eyes were aching and I finished a bottle of water hoping water is the best thing I can do to get rid of the fever inducing stuff in my belly.

In the train as I was curling up and ignoring my shivers, I overheard young gujrati chaps. Their gujrati sentences were ending in machcha and da. Funnily so. Which reminded me of an incident in namma bengaluru. In the only Darshini style hotel near my apartment in sultanpalya, a rajasthani woman holding a kid on her waist was talking to another woman in pure Marwadi near the counter. Then she turns around and places the order for idlis and dosas in pure Kannada.

Only in India.

Ok now Im proud of Slumdog Millionaire. I watched it and felt like watching again and again. Beautiful movie. Thats because it switches from romance to irony; sentiment to the lack of it; very fast, before you get a breather. I LOVE THIS MOVIE!! So many things....... its really a nice movie, it contains so many foul words that have never been uttered in hindi cinema but were integral part of every day of my college life :). Its colorful, vibrant, sad, innocent and spirited. But at one point I did get a feeling like things are getting repeated. that was near the second half. But it was a great experience. Good thinking to keep the song and dance sequence in the end, those who like it can enjoy, the others who liked the movie till then can leave the hall, they would still feel good. I love it when movies talk about small pleasures and deep wisdom of life.

Tarsem has made another movie!!

2009-01-01T12:04:00.006+05:30

I read a post by Jai Arjun Singh....... and midway my eyes stretched wiiide, Tarsem Singh has made a movie named "The Fall".
In 2000 I watched The Cell and was mesmerized. I found out all that I could about Tarsem Singh. And kept a tab on his next release. Only to be disappointed in the next few years.
I oughtta watch the fall!!!

Tarsem Singh is gifted. Review of the cell deserves a completely different and detailed post. But I would like to mention that I thought Jennifer Lopez was mostly bimbo - ish sexy and a bit over the top, but in the cell she is "Beautiful". Thanks to Tarsem. The colours, the curls, winds and textures of The Cell (all pleasant, unpleasant and the unspeakable) have never appeared again on the movie screen.

Whats in store in The Fall?
There is a taj mahal above a butterfly in the movie poster of The fall. When will this film release in India? :(

Three strands

2008-12-25T20:12:00.010+05:30

The mumbai terrorism shook us all....

some days later I happened to recall the song "September/The Joker (by Earth, Wind and Fire)

then I watched the movie "The day the earth stood still"

It was amazing yet saddening for me to have made sense of the meaning I interpreted from the three sources; for them to have come together like this, given my state is ironical.

I cant say much about the terror attacks, we all know what happened. But this time I felt it was so much more horrifying. the frequency, unexpectedness and impact on the landmark of the city struck most.

Then I was just selecting songs from my laptop and dug out a song I had heard long time ago. This song - September, the joker, is fun, fast and pacey. I remember it, and had downloaded because I saw it in the movie "Babel". The song is pretty long and it has been featured in the movie the complete length of it. And the song reminded me of this haunting and psychedelic imagery. I felt the shocks and the silences and sorrow of being alone in the crowd. The sorrow of being unable to communicate and the unfairness of the whole situation.
The song has been featured on Chieko, who cannot speak and hear. She is in a club where the song is playing and there are intermittent moments of silence when we get a glimpse of what she might be experiencing. Its arousing as the music is great, thumping, fast and people are dancing in the strobe lights. In the silence we feel the ugliness. ( A digression from my message, this scene has invoked a serious negative impact in few screenings). But I cannot put a name for how I felt when I watched it for the first time. The music sent my pulse racing, Chieko made me sad, the fact that she is yearning for attention, trying to dance to a tune she cannot hear made me hopeful, when there were moments of silence I was shocked, when her heart broke I was sad. When she starts walking as the last vestiges of club sounds faded, there was a moaning in the silence which i still feel. It was the reason why i watched the movie a couple of more times.

In the context of the movie, when I watched it the first time I was unable to make a single conclusion out of it. I was a bit disappointed too. I was exhausted experiencing all the events, the ups and downs in the elaborate scheme. But there are people – the humanity shines from different nationalities. An impersonal look at food, languages, and ways of survival brings the audience closer to them. Sometimes we wince too. One word screamed in my head was "unfair". And maybe yearning for love, the basic human desire misleads us, as it is true for the characters in the movie.

Then I watched "The day the earth stood still" recently which had a pertinent message. We have to change the way we have been living. Either we will kill this earth or kill each other. There is a reason for us to wake up from our routine. How many generations of majority of the population of the earth will follow this fixed path for their life:
Spend childhood learning from the best school possible in the city
attend the best classes - develop all round personality - swimming, dances, art, music, sport, hobbies - all sorts ...... be good at all these, you are a gem of gift to this universe
go to the best possible college get degrees
work for the brands, power through the rungs, claim the rocking salary
bring happiness to the lives of your young ones.... love someone, he / she will love you back you are done for life
the direction is always upwards for you, everybody says i m fine. You’ll socialize, travel, fill the online profiles and one sad day die.
In the process you didnt give a damn about the poor and needy, use up tonnes of natural resources like fuel, spread plastic, smoke, noise, and other poison on this earth.
But there is only so much we can do. Wasnt it great that i earned this amazing salary gave my parents and my children all the comforts of life? That I live in this reputed locality and work on a gem of a technology, manage a team?
Lives of majority on this earth will follow the same trajectory. Earth will suffer and one day we are doomed to be destroyed. Am I being paranoid? We know it will happen. Either life from this earth will be sucked out by the humans or the humans will kill each other. Mumbai blasts tell us the uncertainty of the timing/ location/ severity of such destruction.

What can we do? I think first thing is to realize that the capacity of human life is infinite. I can not just take care of my life but also am responsible for the community / country / earth. It is our responsibility because we live on this planet.

Secondly we have to unite, individual actions will die out. All of India adored Lagaan, proud to be in management case studies; very few among common people show an inspired initiative in life. If, as in Babel chain of events can spread terror, grief and misery why can’t it be the same about positive thoughts and actions? Can my acts of compassion here, ultimately bear fruits in some other country? Do we have capacity and will to cooperate and heal?

Which generation will see the last sunset of a healthy and peaceful planet? How close is it?

But I am just writing a blog.

I felt about the soul of earth - its like Chieko, she cant speak, has no ears to listen to our reasons or excuses and in the end of the film is naked, yearning for help if someone ever can listen to her. We are confused like the character of little boy (jaden smith) from TDTESS. Our motives are selfish, we are more geared for survival, will kill the stranger just to make sure it’s not a danger to us. A moment in TDESS stands out for me when jaden smith asks the alien (keanu reeves) to show him the way home. Our species is just unaware and lost in the path that we have chosen towards modernity.

2008-12-21T17:24:00.003+05:30

I am 24 and I stand at crossroads. I feel that life is full of cumbersome trivialities which suck time and energies out of it. I think only 20% of life's activities count for 80% of life's meaning. There is no fun in most of my life.
I am in love with zooey deschanel, anushka sharma, lauren gottlieb, and some other girl that i dream of that leaves me positively befuddled.
I am passionate about dancing, and i dont do anything about it.
I have spent large portion of my life talking, thinking, writing. I wonder if I could really empirically find of the % of time of 24 years that was spent staring the movie screen, listening to music with eyes closed, reading a book, staring the void, walking...... going nowhere.
My time spent has not led me to any concrete outcome, which leaves my parents disappointed. They want things to move faster - so that they can reach a place where everything is in place. And i dont want to be "in place".
And life is passing me by.

Inspiration

2008-12-12T18:48:00.002+05:30

Inspiration is what I need right now. Many links on the link below...

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Randy/

The person who has opened my mind in so many ways, Randy Pausch.

And so also the universe needs such souls which live on, show us the right path.

2008-12-01T17:40:00.000+05:30

I am here now.

2008-10-07T19:37:00.002+05:30

I have collected a lot of stuff stuff on GTD - time to make execution.
I feel distinctly unsettled after seeing "Stay Hungry Stay Foolish" as a title of a book. No matter how inspired you are from Steve Jobs, staying original should be a priority. I put the book down at blossoms, last weekend.
Lot of things to do, learn, talk about.....
less people to talk with.
obviously i am not going to speak here no matter how friendly the url www.envydee.blogspot.com might seem to me after so many years of camaraderie.
Interestingly i experienced a second instance of backstabbing.
"Did my back hurt your knife?"
as rachel would say.
i hate myself when i cant say things to people .....
but what good is it to hold bitterness in your heart ? ..... i calmed myself down by watching "City of Angels" the magic of touch, fresh air, sunlight, good food, fresh fruits, love, "music in the sunlight" compassion, is what i feel after seeing this movie.
also bought the lake house cd at jassi's recommendation.
Time to prioritize, be selfish, let it flow ......

2008-09-30T14:27:00.002+05:30

I think roger ebert reveals a LOT of the plot of a movie. The first time i read his review of the dark knight and i thought "gee, whats the big deal with this review? he has revealed so many parts of the story!" Review of Transformers didnt help.
then i read his review for adaptation. and i was impressed. and i thought American beauty should be the real test, and he passed it. A very objective point of view but written with great wisdom.
But it did irk me that he tells the incident blatantly, really a dampener if you like to not know before watching. If secretly he thinks that revealing would make people happy then i would say its a cheap trick.
I reached his site because i was reading about alfred hitcock. i read about the "McGuffin" and i was surprised that there is a mcguffin in transformers.

A long way down ......

2008-09-24T14:27:00.003+05:30

Oh i should tell you this! i had such a good time.....
my head felt light and i am currently feeling giddy at the thought of its memory.
Today morning, an hour before i left for work, I read first 37 pages of "A long way down" by Nick Hornby. and it turned out to be just what i needed. it is a very good read. nick hornby is unlike i have ever read; he is 'soo' good. i havent read anyone who uses mundane language spoken by the not so smart people of his novels. it is such a fine experience listening to four completely different people. the authenticity is unmistakable.

yet every now n then i did feel nick hornby getting reflected in each of the four. and a couple of times he struck gold with simplicity, carefree flow of thoughts .... it was smooth and real. it felt purgatory to me. maybe that was my state of mind. i needed that.
thanx a million nick.

2008-09-23T13:32:00.001+05:30

since when did boundaries between

managing a team
managing people
getting work done
manipulating
using cheap tricks and short cuts

fade?

2008-09-16T19:08:00.000+05:30

THIRST

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: crisis design)

2008-09-10T13:53:00.000+05:30

Tietoenotor sounds like a gay cousin of terminator.

2008-08-28T13:09:00.003+05:30

the mad world song is ringing in my ears. i am doomed to have not seen donnie darko.
in the morning i was listening to all these songs .....
mad world
streets of philadelphia - bruce springsteen
philadelphia by neil young

long ago i had seen the youtube video of the streets of philadelphia, i dont have access to youtube, and the pictures haunt me.
and its bad that i havent seen philadelphia either.

the need to be sad and calm and be let alone.

wassup?

2008-08-22T13:46:00.002+05:30

wassup with all these people making sales?

wassup with all these people going to US ?

wassup with esellerate, and reg now n cnet?

wassup with amazon?

wassup with all these guys who think it is all right?

wassup with barrack obama n mccain?

wassup with these people going head over heels for gmat?

wassup with 9.4 / 10 or 3.97 / 4? ( i mean what the hell is that all about???!!!)

wassup with people not inviting me to parties?

wassup with those carcasses hanging in shops?

wassup with these auto walas?

wassup with reading books and listening to music and love, and writing blogs and talking and wanting and knowing that its all gonna be alright?

2008-08-18T12:23:00.003+05:30

i am in the office and my back tingles with a little pain. the long weekend has definitely refreshed me, yet at the same time i feel sad. i thought a lot and the thinking, like most of my endeavours was not to a certain end. it was as puposeless as it ever was. and i wasted time and lied and worried. and oh dear god, so much time wasted walking down the kutchcha roads, riding buses, watching umpteenth time the episodes of the "friend"ly sitcom. i figured so many hours and days of the 24 years of my life have passed pondering, listening to music, singing to myself, thinking, looking and seeing into some unknown. and i wonder if there is some romance to such purposeless meanderings. sure, what i know for sure is that i am like that only. and i do see some beauty if not much else. do i learn? on some levels yes, on some others no. some time ago i was sad doing what i did, now i am not, doing the same old love.
on friday i had lunch at jeevi's place. we had pretty engrossing discussions about what goes on in our respective companies. we touched on so many matters about the way work goes on, and that people stop learning, and the ones who taught us have been so .... and the ones around us are so..... and we ought to be so.....
then we talked much more and then there wasn't much to talk.
then i saw the dark knight again.
the next day i bought books from blossoms. (the shop is way better than its website) i cannot begin talking about the shop. but it has made life so much better and richer and livable in bangalore.
i was wondering, what if we make a cumulative sum of all the homeworks that we have done in our life. yes, the school homework, starting from kindergarten. a small task that someone (supposedly) older and wiser than us asked us to do. and ask ourselves, if i did all those homeworks with twice as honesty and completeness of PURPOSE, we would be different people. again lets go back to a moment. there was a moment when we were fresh, and we didnt have these webs in our minds. the next moment our approach to doing work changed. someone asked us to do something and the way we agreed to it, the way we did it, and how much of it we did changed completely.

2008-08-14T17:59:00.002+05:30

but it has to be said, dark knight could have been more enunciated. it irks me that it is twisted in terms of evidences, the reasons for particular turns of events, particularly of course in the second half.
and now i m sad.
there always is some factor, some piece of the puzzle that is missing. there isnt ever a PERFECT movie.
but kudos to nolan brothers who have managed to put such moral complexity on screen that also has the popcorn entertainment value. the visuals are the most lucrative asset of this film. add to that the uneasy position of the hero. not enough can be said about the villain, so i wont start again, but that is the reason why the movie needs to be watched again and again.

the dark joker

2008-07-21T14:14:00.005+05:30

"Why so serious son?" is ringing in my ears still.
will the real heath ledger please stand up? now everybody knows heath ledger, unfortunately , though.
you are haunting my head.
the nolan brothers must have read thomas harris and of course much more because they have put The Joker right up there with Hannibal Lecter and Francis Dolarhyde.
Harvey Dent and Batman are left stunned by the joker. he has brought out the other side in them. very much like will graham harvey dent falls prey to the devil inside him. the joker takes menacing pleasure in tinkering with them. he doesnt plan, he just does things. "you are the schemers - and look where your schemes got you. i just do things and show people like you how pathetic their attempts at controlling things are.i am an agent of chaos. and chaos is fair."

the batman legend, the gadgets, the technology, the aura of evil and the icing on the cake - the joker.
this joker is a completely different animal. totally blew my mind. and its my stomachful of satisfaction that nolan brothers could identify that joker and made a part of the batman movie. superb job.
i ll write more when i have time.

If you know it or not...... doesnt make a difference.

2008-07-14T18:50:00.007+05:30

Jaane tu, yaa jaane na.
it was a very real and intelligent movie. not mushy mushy n emotional at all as i had suspected. after seeing the film i realized that there really hadnt been much depicted about what people felt as opposed to what people did and behaved and affected lives of others. that is very real and true and someone needed to put that on film. much part of the film is comedy. and it works! its a heady mix of old and new actors. comedy relies in calculated amounts on the oldies - ratna pathak, naseeruddin shah (cool couple in film as wel as in real life) and paresh rawal, while the group of youngsters is funny and cute. good choice of young actors. they look like people next door. very real and they speak without pretense. though lack of finish shows a little bit in the dancing but thats okay, they smile very sweetly.
the good thing is its not a one sided affair. the diro abbas tyrewala who has also written the dialogues and lyrics doesnt focus on a same concept in all the scenes. there are sub plots which are very independent and interesting yet connected with the main theme (guy-girl - good friends - care for each other - never know if its love until .....) its amazing to see that each and every character has a story ..... so a very intelligently written story by abbas.
the film doesnt sound loud in the sense it doesnt boast of being too much in love with the story it is trying to tell. its not intense in its depiction of love or friendship or how sweet n cute these group of young people are. the story and the turn of events speak louder than the characters or the music....... the music! how many times has it happened that a r rahman's music was too good while the movie bombed? i think thats happened a lot. here a r rahman does the work only when he requires to. pappu cant dance, nazrein milana, Kahin To Hogi Woh, are hummable yet arent exceptional. the jazz drums wala song Tu Bole, Main Boloon sets such an amazing tone to the film that its nostalgic. Aditi doesnt need words to describe.
i looooooved the movie. can see it again. wont need any company.
still havent seen the room in hebbal. the new office feels good. the changes now smell exciting as oppsed to the dismal. still too many loose ends to tie. need courage for that.

Changes

2008-07-11T14:26:00.003+05:30

i have tried hard not sound like i m complaining.
on the monday, two weeks ago, my bosses, g and h call our team for a meeting.
"is it good news?"
"of course its good news"

i will never forget how their faces seemed. g had a mischievous smile. and he was pacing a bit swiftly. h was not letting any expression slip out much from her face. i think she was thinking a lot and was making calculated communication.

from july g and h are going to be the premium partners of our company. my bosses are leaving the company and forming their own company. they will be doing pretty much the same job, selling the same software but that just wont be done being in the same company.
the location of my company office is going to change from infantry road to hebbal. i am looking for place to live near hebbal. i was got this place near infantry rd in may. no i cannot commute from viveknagar to hebbal. i answered this question far too many times in my head.

on 3rd july i came to know that my dad had urinary tract infection and is admitted in hospital. he had fever and low bp. diabetes and a heart attack 7 years ago dictated caution. i went home over the weekend. i lost my mobile phone.

a from my team has left the company. s was taken into their company by G n H. from august new associated directors shall be in place. new teams. anything is possible.

2008-06-16T12:15:00.004+05:30

the sunday before yesterday was very memorable, jeevi n rekha madam came to meet me at my place. i showed them my little "casa de nike" (yeah i borrowed that from joey, die hard friends fans shall recall).
we had lunch at "grameen" rural ambience, north indian food. really good food. authentic. then the proverbial "shopping" followed, which was a first for me. then on, my first salary has been thoroughly drenched, exhausted, squeezed, sucked, squashed out of all the crevices and pores of my pockets. rekha madam and jeevi gifted me a t shirt!!! (then i bought two for myself). the place is the Forum mall in kormangala.
i think i live in the epicentre of the axis of shopping, eating and money spending. from viveknagar (where lies my 1 room kitchen) garuda mall, forum mall, bangalore central, hyderbadi biryani, blossoms book house, higgin bothams, oasis mall, empire hotel and other places that i havent visited yet are equidistant and 10 minutes ride from my place.
anyway, we saw sarkar raj which we shouldnt have.
i am a patient man, very very patient man. and i have two ladies to certify that. while they are talking hard on the colours and quality of cloth in westside i was patiently observing what they were doing; and on other times i was on the lookout for birds. and the other times i captured the ladies on the camera.

2008-06-06T16:20:00.002+05:30

last sunday i watched indiana jones

the week before that, 21,

the week before that, Prince Caspian,

the week before that, Iron Man,

this week i will read High Fidelity by Nick Hornby instead of going to "Sex & the City"

2008-05-26T09:32:00.002+05:30

A month ago, my agent showed me some really horrible places to live in on a saturday. on monday morning he calls me in office hours to tell me that he has found a "beautiful" place to live in. i took it. thats the place i m living in now. i love it as a matter of fact, it really is good.

but thats the game they play, they will show the ugly ones first. i got the picture that there really isnt a good place easily to be found. i got desperate.

maybe i m stretching it a bit too much, maybe i ll sound too old for my age ......

a regular middle class father of a girl will get ugly ones first for her, so that she doesnt have much liberty to be choosy. "Handsome young men are difficult to come by.......... or what is it?"

and here's a bad one, the one after seeing the first guy "How can my dad think that i m worth a man this ugly...?"

2008-04-28T15:58:00.003+05:30

2008-03-14T10:41:00.002+05:30

I now live near K R Puram Bus stand. The bus stand does not exist.
Every time i am waiting for the bus i am under the threat of being run over by the bus, mini bus, truck, mini truck, autorickshaw, motorcyclists, vegetable vendors and many more high speed heavy machines which are running. the road disappears into the dust and people like me are standing at the side only to be shooed by these big guys. for the fear of being run over we run helter skelter.
there is no place safe which is meant for people to stand and wait for the bus, a place where any vehicle cannot go. apart from the fact that buses come to this place there is no other sign which indicates that this place is a bus stand.
but why am i complaining? life is good now. but as always i complain and doubt.
have been religiously reading black swan when i get a seat in the bus and the bus is stuck in the notorious bangalore traffic. this book is life changing. many ideas corroborated with what i had learnt in landmark education. Corroboration! Now that is something to learn about from this book! check it out to understand what i mean.

2008-02-03T15:58:00.000+05:30

i just now remembered the movie swades. the memory of good movies is super. the music of ar rahman makes me feel the cool breeze, bright sunshine, green landscapes. authentic movies come by rarely. what i dont understand is that why does every movie need to have the hero fall in love with a beautiful woman. even the best and well made movies with a powerful message as in the movie swades, has the hero falling in love. cant they consider the possibilty that the movie has no love story. the message of entrepreneurship and love of the motherland should have overshadowed the love story. because the message deserves undivided attention from the filmmakers to make the impact on the audience.

Update: lets talk about realism. swades is an awesome movie. but if it talks of the real situation of our country its not realistic on the human front. mohan and gita are two strong personalities. why is it that they will surely fall in love? in real life shit happens. the finest of the young people never get along. the best of the entrepreneurs, managers, life saving doctors, benevolent evangelists, are gonna have shitty personal lives and broken relationships. i watched too much dr. house a month ago and while watching i got this feeling "life is unfair and genuinely impartial. and that is usual"
or maybe i m not so much concerned about swades, its just my current state of mind.

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I have understood that there is a world of difference between doing business successfully and doing a profitable business. creating value for your customers is not every business's ball game. earning money, amassing wealth has nothing to do with creating value.
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two of my friends have started blogging. i m not permitted to disclose one url, the other one is this. welcome moi3.

Randy Pausch, the Tigger.

2007-10-24T19:29:00.000+05:30

I have been besotted by Randy Pausch. the speech is mind boggling.
the complete last lecture is here

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=362421849901825950

shorter versions are here

http://youtube.com/watch?v=k0aO64aKqek&feature=bz302
(On Oprah Winfrey show)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utwFZsSFke0&NR=1
(he is ABC's person of the week)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWIT8x4b4gU&NR=1
(on CNBC)

his home page

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/

at the end of one of these interviews he says "I like living" and that is from the mouth of a person who is going to die in the matter of weeks. that was the defining moment for me, when all his words made a synergy, a whole new meaning, when for a second my heart stopped beating and i thought every living moment is a gift.
i thought at the end of the oprah winfrey show he had become feeble when he mentioned his children.
i think his story is remarkably similar to richard feynman's.

i feel it in my bones...

2007-10-10T00:01:00.000+05:30

last night i had a tough time breathing, long time since i had that sick feeling like the balloon in my chest is poisonous. it took me a fair bit of time to go to sleep. but today evening i felt a pleasant presence in the air. i think winter is approaching. its a nice feeling. the air feels silky, yes i think its silky coz its not cold or chill. i feel a slight electricity in the air, and a similar feeling i have every year around diwali.....

holiday

2007-10-02T19:20:00.000+05:30

today, was a holiday and i slept like a log. all my plans for the day went in the drain as after a hearty and satisfying lunch, i slept quite easily. now, a point to consider here is since i called my lunch "hearty and satisfying" it could not have been in the hostel. i have not always been so skeptical of the mess food, but lately i observed that not having a good meal made me irritable. but in today's case it resulted in quashing of all my plans.
as i was going out today i suddenly loved seeing "houses". yes, a bit queer as it may seem, i observed different types of houses and homes. in this locality of puttappa colony, thippasandra, houses are small, mostly. there are flats and individual houses. sunshine is plenty and the wind was blowing very nicely. the whole environment around the urban households is very warm, energetic and something is happening all the time around the houses. and two ladies were up in the balcony keenly observing and chatting about whats happening. clothes of all kinds were hanging from windows and balconies.
probably i was getting homesick. i so wanna be at home and eat the home food. these homes could be small to live in i fear. i was reminded the time when i was searching a one room kitchen for rent. hated that time. but people live so happily i thought. the whole business of living in small abodes in busy city. small neglected existences involved in their own chores with such renewed enthusiasm over and over again, everyday.

the people out there

people dont always mean what they say. what they say often hurts us. if i look closer, it is just us, ourselves who is letting ourselves get hurt.
a benevolent, compassionate view of the world is difficult to come by. if i say that all the people of the world, my friends, my colleagues, teachers, parents, small children playing in the street, shopkeepers, waiters, etc. are actually very nice people. they are innocent. they do and say things on accounts of reasons beyond my knowledge. that i will never know. there is something out there which i dont know that i dont know. but i just gotta believe that the world out there is GOOD and innocent, but its not how it will physically appear always. so, what i am saying is -
1. world - (the people, essentially) is good.
2. it wont always APPEAR that way
3. why is it so? you' ll never know, so dont break your head over it.
4. believe in the goodness, and get your work done (the key to success and happiness)

you will continuously get the stimuli that will puzzle you. people shouting at you, challenging you, make you angry, tease you, beat the hell out of you, invite you to be nasty, compete with you and what not. you gotta succeed, and keep your self esteem in tact. but at the end of the day you have to keep the faith that they are all good. you have to be compassionate. stop trying to understand. you can never understand any person fully, ever!
but the happy, good, benevolent view of the world is inspiring. i had this experience when i was presenting a case on Walt Disney in the international business class. it was my first presentation of the second term. and before i started to walk towards the front of the class, i recited in my head many sentences something to this effect - "the audience are my friends. they are eager to listen to me. they want to know what i have got to say."
when we are in a negative spiral, we neglect the positive stimuli. i remember in my past i refused to see the good things in myself. i refused to see the opportunities i had. i just wasnt happy about what i had. i sulked about what i didnt have.

in a positive spiral, you identify the negative stimuli. you dont turn blind to them. you say "what i see is not the truth." smile and believe that the reason for this might be beyond my knowledge, but my faith in the goodness of the world and the people around me is ultimate and strong as a rock. he is saying or doing this because of something which is beyond my knowledge. but i will not get influenced in a negative way because of this.positive spiral is not reactive. it is not outside in, it is inside out. my actions are not a response to what others say or do but my beliefs and integrity in action.

an impulse post..

2007-09-13T12:40:00.000+05:30

i think probability is one of the most potent forces governing our lives. or uncertainty, so to speak.
am i being ignored? left out? No, its just your feeling. its chance working on you. you were left out just by chance, like maybe few others. but we fall prey to this and create our beliefs, misunderstandings and judge yourself and others. its a trap to which i fell many times. its tempting if you are in the self victimizing mode.

pleasant change

2007-09-11T06:08:00.004+05:30

I am on my own. Finally.

Now I can open the window and once and for all let the sunlight come in, even if its limited in amount. The problem is that the window opens in front of another apartment, so there isn’t direct sunlight. But till now, in the last seven months my roomie, lets call him khatauli, must have let me open that window for number of times that can be counted on fingers. So, there was hardly any sunlight and no air circulation whatsoever. The arrangement in the room was terrible. I had to keep my table in front of my bed because there want enough space. There want enough space to move around.
But things just got a hell lot better! My roomie left for a single room, and the room for two is now all for me!! I immediately made the changes and now I cant stop admiring my room. It seems like there’s a new lease of life. I now have lots of space to keep my things, which have grown every term, I think. I even pasted inspirational quotes and photos. I pasted a photo of Richard Feynman, articulating in his classroom ("what do you care, what other people think?" he says) this man’s life and thoughts are sheer inspiration, even if you don’t much care about physics. the life of ER doctors i feel is inspirational. and the part in the movie "city of angels in the end, meg ryan rides bicycle on a serene road.

I did not sleep in the last 24 hours. This is serious. I don’t have much workload, and there isn’t much to read either (at least not now I am not reading) but why did I not sleep? I kept thinking a lot and reading random stuff. Its not like I did not feel sleepy, at around 2.30 I made up my mind not to sleep. At 4 ate bread with chesespread and drank coffee (that now keeps me alive and makes sure I leave for college at 8 30 in the morning.

Max martin is an amazing musician. Most of the backstreet boys, n-sync songs are composed by him, love those thumping techno music. In the night I was reminded of the days in my high school when I used to listen to those a lot. Its fun.

current music :"get another boyfriend" by Backstreet Boys - (attack of the cheesy cliche!!! i know but the music is awesome)

the moment

2007-09-09T23:02:00.000+05:30

There was a moment.

A moment which was precious. I don’t know how everything around me must have been. The same sun must have been around; the same wind must have blown softly. In my head all must have been milky white maybe. White clear, I must have been breathing much comfortably back then and feeling so much lighter. Back then when I had no past.
There was a moment, when I had no past. My life was a clean slate. And all that I turned to were my parents. And I listened to them. And I did not ask any questions. No doubts in my head, my world was infinite and encapsulated in their words.

I don’t remember that moment. But it was the seed to the world I am now living in.

from darkness to light

2007-09-04T22:36:00.000+05:30

my sympathy isnt for free.

so keep all your things to yourself, i spent my time, energy and words into the void, but not anymore. i have decided to be more honest from now on. its better others and far more importantly for myself. i remembered i had read the following in a blog -

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered; Forgive them anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

god, its so painfully difficult to implement. this process of letting go is very difficult. but THATS IT!its not wise enough to waste anymore blogspace on it either.
i did not have any class today, i took rest, completed my quota of sleep. fixed the room and washed clothes (first thing in the morning)
last time when i was at the doctor's i chanced at "men's health" magazine which i thought was good. i bought one today and planning to start exercise from tomorrow. ah, well this isnt first such plan, but i am starting afresh. nothing is obstructing me right now. everything is just the way i wanted and i have no complaints. i have my landmark forum on 14th. the whole course is of 3.5 days friday to sunday and the tuesday evening. i am really excited about it. something concrete which will change my life. i pasted some inspirational stuff on my wall today. the warden probably wont be happy but wtf.(we were not allowed to paste anything of the wall - for the fear that it would discolour or damage the wall paint) but i badly needed to change my surroundings to make things work for me. i started with database management systems today, also read about the appreciating rupee, how the indian government needs to be more proactive at handling inflation keeping the trade balance healthy for the domestic industries, take a lesson or two from china which has pegged its currency at a lower value to the us dollar.
tomorrow i am going to attend the international economics - amir khan class. long time since i listened to that crazy genius talk. tomorrow morning is going to be special - exercise - first thing in the morning. i watched "ER" religiously all the days while i was at home. hospital as an organisation, doctors as groups and teams are amazing. lots to learn. the program is amazing, performances are real and stories are engaging. kudos to the genius crichton who himself a doctor, conceived it. the lives of the doctors inspire me. the environment in the er is electric. the oft spoken "decision making under uncertainty" used in management is seen here, along with risk, teamwork, conflict resolution, negotiation, stress, not to mention courage and strength of character(i particularly remember the episode in which maura tierney's character is kidnapped by street fighting gangsters to take care of bullet-shot killer, which involved racial issues too, apart from the issue of definition of the doctor - she takes care of ANY person who is at her desk, no matter if he is a gangster, no matter if there is a danger of her losing her life after she treats her patient. that episode was riveting) i learnt that human mind has infinite capacity. physical capacity however is limited. its essential that you take care of your body, nurture it, provide proper nutrition, i need to exercise to be strong, that it will pay huge dividends to take care of my body right now before its too late. in 24 hours of the day, all the things you wish CAN be done.
someone said, the way you take bath everyday, you need to motivate youself every single day, every waking moment is in your hand - create it the way YOU want it. push yourself - or look for the magnets which pull in the right direction. make the complete efforts which take you from darkness to light.

examz over

2007-08-18T19:44:00.000+05:30

and the worst one was finance. but nothing about that. i am going home tomorrow afternoon - yeshwantpur - vasco da gama express. relief!! thank you god for this feeling of relief.
and i will not be online or reply to mails and scraps and write blog posts, though their frequency has dwindled anyway. but i am gonna eat read and sleep at home. read and finish good books i left incomplete and plan for the next term. the killer term. god, i want this one to be perfect. no excuses. its now or never. in a way its good that i am going home before the term starts on 31st, i will come back refreshed and recharged. clear away all the webs of doubts and the shit that accumulated over years. thanx to mrs h i had an evaluation of the shit in the past two terms. things became clearer. now its time to act. and plan for the improved plan of action. seriously, each of her class had been very stimulating. i used to look forward to each one with specific expectation with certain enthusiasm. i have had revelations. her classes is one thing and the other most important thing that happened to me was the dance performance. felt great about my stamina, given my assignments, rehearsing for the dance, i think i did a pretty good job :) i couldnt post all the photos of the dance last time because of some problem with the blogger, as i had mentioned in the last post. i am posting them now. this term my people skills improved many times. i had good conversations with many people - subbu, jhango, sarkar, jhingon, suri, cheevi (my groupie in most of the assignments who dealt with my irrational moodswings very well - thanx a lot! :)) i am now feeling satisfied, as i feel i have become much better at dealing with people, but still there's hell long way to go. this sem i had bitter experiences with people too. i learnt about attention seeking behaviour, self pity, emotional superficiality........its kinda sad and we cant do anything about it. (yes, i said we) and we wasted a lot of time talking about something which is apparently incurable! much to our frustration. and we never saw it coming. it was sad because it hurt and what seemed like good friendship took a new dimension. but we learnt and took a lesson about how to deal with such behaviours, its not completely their fault, but we need to be careful.
the hostel is deserted. i need to pack all the stuff. and i am so damn tired. more coffee, one last time. really really looking forward to an out of this world term, the next one. i really have no words about what to expect out of myself for the next term. i plan to work harder than ever before. its gonna be a great term - finally things are gonna fall in place. i need to start reading when i am at home. i need to recharge and also cultivate the right frame of mind before the term gets started. i have made a list of books i need to skim through in my vacations and a set of goals to be achieved in these 9 days. so next stop - home!
tata!

2007-08-15T03:09:00.000+05:30

i have international business exam tomorrow. and i need a vent to the chaos in my mind. the exams are such a time when blogging gets a chance, dont know why, happened before also, its 15th august and i have a holiday to prepare for tomorrow. this post is going to be a ramble, total vent to my feelings over past one month, rather the whole godforsaken month. god, my roomie is studying like hell and here i am unable to focus.
so, i had problems..........with blogger too - apart from the real life problems - i wrote a huge post last time i was feeling like blogging - i wrote it nicely with stuff about mrs h and mon and the goings on of this term. but there was something seriously wrong with blogger, all my post went down the drain even after i pushed the publish button. not the net connection problem or anything - it just didnt publish. i got even more disappointed as my last resort of expressing myself also got ruined. i guess that was a bad patch. it seems to be getting better. i suggest that readers of this post, if there are any, take all this stuff with a pinch of salt.
lately i have been having all mixed feelings. mostly depressed, low enthusiasm, rut. well, i need some pill.
mrs h has been the most important person i have met in this mba program. i tell her almost everything and learning for me has been tremendous. i mean my point of view might now have changed totally but my vision got clearer. started seeing things a lot better after quite a few jolts, shocks. i learnt that solutions to almost more than half the problems of my life lie in telling the truth. its not as simple as it sounds. i learnt that too. telling the truth needs courage and introspection. go deeper. deeper still. and tell the truth to yourself. accept it. dont make assumptions. i did make a lot previously.
i have a pain in my neck and ear. i need exercise, and i am not so disciplined to be doing it. i have my landmark forum on 14th of september. i got it changed from august because i had evaluations. i need an overhauling for my life. need to tighten the screws.
i need to tell people things. my pattern has been very random. either i disclose to my friends a lot in a haphazard way, more personal details or i just dont speak at all. either i get too confident - overconfident or i give up totally. and its this thing about "all or nothing" which has been the reason for my failures. its all or none. i make elaborate plans - huge ambitious and apparently intelligent. but i falter again in the execution.
i am going home this sunday. i am just dying to get home. just for few days. the biggest term of my life, my specialization term starts from 31st.

update

2007-07-18T00:27:00.000+05:30

i watched hp 5 on a pirated dvd, no time n mood to write a detailed review but i loved the movie.
n ya amit, spew really might not be significant, while watching the movie i got another idea, extrapolation of the previous one actually -
house elves
centaurs
giants
will join forces - sequentially to fight death eaters. the idea is to surprise and amuse by bringing in these groups to fight against death eaters in twists n turns of events. its similar to LOTR - the hobbit's ending when the eagles surprise in saving in the end.
by the way, apart from many twists and turns in my own life, the most significant one was the dance performance, a little one, medley of three songs - dil dooba, nach baliye and appadipode.

a butterfly was also witness to the proceedings

brainwave

2007-06-27T22:08:00.000+05:30

i just few minutes ago had a brainwave. i think SPEW will come back into action in hp7, they will unite the elves and the elves will form a rebellion against the deatheaters. just a thought.

2007-06-26T22:08:00.001+05:30

Do I need help? Yes,I think I do.
I have had pain in my neck/shoulder/back for more than two years but I did not address the problem in any seriousness, until a month ago. talk about hurting yourself.
So I registered for the Landmark Forum, not just because of this but due to several reasons that make the indigestible nike. this means i paid 5600,.....four days out of my MBA week,no study, no meeting other people, only ........improvement, hopefully.

PS I wanna go home, I miss Aaaii, Baba. :( ...the goa breeze, calm green highway that takes me home, bright sunshine.......

An update on my life...

2007-05-20T22:28:00.000+05:30

Work expands.
Thats the worst thing about life, i can see that happening. The first week of the second term of my MBA is over. Two assignments to finish by 25th and I have much free time, i think I can say that. And I have been listening to too many songs and thinking about a sad story I heard a few days ago.
Do you believe in the lines you have on your hands? What if you knew the time you are gonna die?
I was very sad last week, even if it (the story) had not much to do with me. I felt such gloom spread over my days, and a real first in my life that I was feeling so sad for someone else.
Ok, lets not talk about it too much.
So I have made, what can be termed the third most important decision of my life, I am specializing in Information Systems.
What do I wanna do in my life? I will end up in academics, sure I can feel it in my guts right now. But first, gotta earn money. And though, not many thoughts stay in my mind so long, this one says that it would be really great if i could retire at the age of 40.

Poof!

2007-04-23T00:40:00.000+05:30

I am still hesitant to call this news article lame; maybe because there could be many things i dont know about cancer research. I hope I defend my case on the basis that studied chemistry for four years and had taken biology courses two years before that (11th and 12th)

The study about which the reuters report talks about reminds me of the "projects" used to be done in my college.

The study wants to say that there is a gene in humans - caspase 8 (CASP8) which controls cell death or apoptosis. So this dude is the one which will stop the goddamn virus from running amok in a body.

What they did was take DNA samples from 10,000 Chinese guys over 6 years between 1997 - 2003 (4 years ago) . Half of them were suffering from cancer and half of them were not. So we suspect that since caspase 8 is so brilliant, it should be, if not outrightly beating its chest belligerently,but at least holding some swords in the cells of most of the 5 thousand cancer free people. But the stats are that this gene's variant is found in just 25 % of the cancer free people while this figure is 20 % for the cancer patients. A meager difference of 5 % .

That means that 20 % unfortunate cancer patients are not getting any help from the gene even if its there in their cells.

ahem ahem!.....the population of china is 1.3 billion and here every year cancer claims 1.4-1.5 millions lives.

what does 10,000 mean at all when 1.5 million have been dying of cancer per year since your four year old study.

It got published in the journal nature genetics, the report says. Kudos!

I feel good to have finished two reports, one on the national income of India and the other on the growth of service sector in India for Amir Ullah Khan in economics Confidence level is up and my point of view has changed!

PS : I would like to welcome my friends to my friends list - Vishal, Anuraag and Arpit!!
Blogging rocks!!

food

2007-04-16T01:43:00.001+05:30

I have started eating outside here in bangalore. the food doesnt seem to get any better over here in the mess. so i started scouting and found chaat place nearby. for the past three days i have tried all the dishes he had to offer. the pani puri was good. i get so much less for 10 bucks! alas that was bajaj nagar road in nagpur this is thipsandra in bangalore. that was 6 years ago! i used to love the burp after a dahi puri which cost just ten bucks. i used to get such a plateful, this thing which i got for 15 bucks was bland and quite mild, chillywise i mean. today i checked out dahi samosa which was much better. curd was thick and not sweet, samosas were freshly fried and crisp.
good food is bliss. i found my bliss one freezing winter morning in pilani. it was 8 am. my probability and statistics class got cancelled. so i headed to the cafeteria. the mild and milky sun was filtering through the neem leaves and me fully covered in the woolens was hungry. i remember the practically empty IC (insti cafeteria).
steaming hot idli sambhar made my day. i have never ever had a better breakfast in my entire life.i have no words to describe what that single idli did to me.
mind you, the quality of food in the ic too hasnt always been consistent. yes, i admit that i was lucky that day.the timing was perfect, early morning the food is absolutely fresh, the most important thing, sambhar was very well made. i love, love, loooooove the little red dal sort of pieces which occur in the idli which is served over there in ic. you feel very satisfied with just one idli (which you get for 4 bucks) the second one actually makes me a bit too full. after that its coffe for the winters and for summers its the heavenesque shikanji (sweet lemon juice).
how will i ever forget pilani, this was just one of the things which clasps me so hard to that place. the stories of my childhood in that that place are far too many and indescribable.
i love south indian food. i love the sambhar which my mother makes. the taste of sambhar changes so much from place to place that i am very much disappointed. the sweet ones i tasted in delhi and pune, a bland one i tasted right here in bang, just across the street from my hostel.......why why why, in the name of hell are the chefs all over the country are hell bent to ruin this blessing of god?seriously i will never get better sambhar than the one my mother makes. or of course better than the one Malathi aunty and Poonkuzhali Tai make.

Current music: O saathi re - Omkara
Current Mood : Hopeful/ Determined

finally,all by myself.

2007-04-14T12:11:00.000+05:30

Its a saturday morning and i am all by myself. good, thank god for this gift.
there was this marketing event of BMA in collaboration with times for which they needed volunteers.
no sir, thank you. nothing matches freedom and leisure on a saturday morning.
the week slipped away in a jiffy. felt nice. many night outs, upset stomach,tests and slippery deadlines of the assignments. all went well. now is the time for some flow of nike consciousness.

last saturday i watched the namesake (the movie) with arpit. but i was so upset with the sunday that i couldn't express my gratitude for the saturday in my last blog.
you watch such films and feel good about living. life is so many things good and bad, that we don't know. but living, you create it every now and then. its who you are and what you create.
i wanted to see ashoke ashima and gogol on the screen. see the life that ashoke and asima made.
it is too much risk i must say to put your trust on mira nair. after i have read the book, ashok and ashima and gogol live so vividly in my mind. they are delicately placed. i look at them with such compassion and longing.
where will irfan khan,tabu and kal penn be? yes, it is quite a risk. but there was this smidgen of hope.

the movie satisfies me 90 % perhaps. and thats a lot. i wouldnt critique the film, its a well made film, with meticulously written script which stuck with the sequence of the books events and caught all the little emotions and of course the big ones as well. i loved the photography.
all the three actors pass the exam. though kal penn doesn't with as many of those flying colors as the other two do. sonya is exactly how i thought her to be, maushumi however isnt. its a beautiful movie. please go watch it.

review of the movie is here.

we could talk about gogol though.
some people just dont get gogol. the fact is, its very difficult to understand what gogol went through. the same way that its next to impossible for people in general to listen to Chieko in Babel

was ashoke unfair to gogol?
was gogol in turn unfair and ungrateful to his parents?
these questions popped up in my head last week in the middle of my quantitative techniques assignment. and i thought of something which i had similarly said about some other people.
they are simple people, not heroes. they are susceptible. they should be allowed to be weak, make mistakes, do what their heart screams out. what ashoke and asima did was the best that they could do. the same for gogol. if gogol fell prey to the dilemma, it was not his fault, things were decided for him before he was born.

Just yesterday I got photographs from vishal which were snapped four years ago from my own camera. they scanned it and put it on picasa. they are amazing. us, barely out of the high schools, the first semester at bits.

by the way, yesterday was aks's birthday!!
you are one of my best and oldest friends......
happy birthday once again aks!!

current music : new york nagaram - a r rehman
current mood : planning/ thoughtful

I feel sick........

2007-04-08T17:56:00.000+05:30

Today was such a fine sunday. Now its a depression.
It started out like every other beautiful sunday, bright sunshine, fine breeze, slow hours of leisure. I live in a spacious building, lots of air and sunshine flows in unobstructed.
All I wanted was good food. Could we please not have red/brown/orange or all these in one coloured pulpy masala gravy curries for the battered palate? I knew it was coming my way before I went downstairs for lunch. sigh. My stomach is upset. Please dont try to make north indian food. I dont mind idli sambhar,dosa or utthappa. i really don't. but bland oily curries with rubbery maida chapattis are playing havoc with me. i am at my wit's end. I am not healthy.all the time i feel like there's something wrong with my stomach. I feel uncomfortable all the time.
Since yesterday night i wanted to blog. there was no wifi since morning. passing the day without the net was yet another torture.
I couldnt eat more than 3 chapattis and was hungry 2 hours later.
i got another item of a roomie. we dont talk much. well, really not at all. Its far less than the amount i used to talk with the one i had during my internship at GRASIM. Its the nutcases like him that put me off. Please never try to tell me what to do and what not to do. Please dont try to kill me of suffocation by closing all the doors and windows of the room! all the time! Please dont hiss under your breath "oh shit" 24 times a day. superficial concern for perfection.
I am socially unfit. Last week I had yet another bout of misanthropy. felt like blasting cowdung at the faces of the people around me.
I realised that my behaviour in the face of competition changed radically. yes, its very positive most of the times but sometimes i am not able to control my temper. at the PDW (personality development workshop) i almost blasted smokergirl. she was absolutely aghast! "why are you yelling at me!!" ...gosh, we lost the last PDW exercise. i was in a state of numbness. i will probably be able to put the video of this exercise; my friend siezed the opportunity and recorded it on his mobile.

current mood : uninterested
current music: Nelly Furtado

2007-03-22T01:00:00.000+05:30

How can lance armstrong and kik be separated?? aagh! ..they divorced way back in 2003 and i am coming to know about it now, in 2007 after reading the inspiring book. i feel wierd, wish things were perfect in life...a littel bit more, please! Tomorrow i am going to speak for four mintes about the inspiring life of lance armstrong.
i love the personality development classes. awesome. i gotta speak, i must express otherwise i will suffocate and die. again, why do i give so much importance to what people think.
its very important that i speak.
but i give too much importance to how will people react.
i need their response.
what do you think??
why do they matter so much??
i hope the personality development workshops help me fix this,.....fucker sidey is smoking....ugh!
mba is so much more if you decide to transform yourself for the better
if you want to stay the way you are, you wont be able to perform that much better
imagine what you could have achieved if you changed the way the context of mba was initially set.
onus is on me.
soobs and crusher think i am a psycho.so does uns.
severe emotional problems.
but they also admit that they like my company.
something is happening all over again with me, but i am prepared to handle it. i am seeing the patterns , they are directly related to who i am. nikhilesh vishwas deshpande.a name i did not choose. a body i did not choose. parents, country,pilani,nagpur i didnt choose.
(bulleh ki jana main kaun??)
who am i?
a question which has haunted many, but to only those who asked that question in the first place.
those who cared to think that way.
those who stop and look at the path ahead, to the path which they have travelled,those who thought that asking questions is right.
think. THINK. this word isnt what you think it is. i dont know how deep this word goes.

i have to tell tomorrow positive and negative triggers i ever felt in my life.

i dont remember positive ones so vividly.....................

what if a seventeen year old six feet tall, lanky boy that was me, could not walk?
my feet were at right angles at the knees when i tried to stand up after the dinner on the floor. my feet wont straighten up. helplessness. panic. hopelessness and feeling miserable about life.
it happened again last year; you are doing internship at GRASIM as you limp you way to the office.
(but at the hospital you meet a little angel named ananya. )
at the age of 13, after getting an EEG(electroencephalogram) done on you, you come fuzzy out of a dinghy and darkly lit lab out into a room full of patients.half of them start laughing at you. an elderly woman with thick lips is laughing at you , so is her son sitting in her lap,eating donut. until you start crying and your mother grabs you.all that is because your hair are tied into a number of ponytails using rubberbands and sticky white claylike glue. they think you look like a joker.
but the eeg is because you survived a stroke and kidney failure when you were 7.
ironically at 7 that was hardly a negative trigger. the seven year old dude calmly survived the stroke and didnt mind his body swollen twice his size, and the iv drips and other pipes running down places. didnt mind living on bread and jam and halwa and ......blur.
sunshine, crows and stretcher. shadows of nurses and smells of the hospital.
that was hardly much pain. pain was what followed, and has been following since.
the seven year old now seems like a sage who observed his parents who were in pain. who saved his life. i lost that seven year old.

new

2007-02-24T19:47:00.000+05:30

I am so full of mixed emotions,i dont know what to reveal.
But like many times before, yet again i am intimidated,but more confident and hopeful than ever. Its a time for me to hang on,work hard sincerely one big year of my life HERE
One of the most enlightening days of my life were among past few days, gosh, I sound cheesy maybe, i dont know, but yesterday i was amazed,yesterday's last lecture by Dr. Amir Ullah Khan was an eye opener.

"One of the basic instincts of man is to kill, go to war. This instinct has sublimated over the years, and so we play sports"

I dont know how many would believe it at first,sounds crazy but the way he brought it out was amazing. This guy sure is a smooth talker. The places he has been to are amazing.
His way of explaining the evolution of man's social life from the beginning of time till now was amazing. The explanation for origin and evolution of "family" particularly in context of economics was intriguing and insightful.
The first day he showed us a small film he had made, actually a collage of clips to demonstrate impact of films on government policies and the society and the dynamics. (Naya daur, do beegha zameen - - awara, johnny mera naam - zanjeer, deewaar.....many more till we reach to the nonsense of our era)
Next thing we knew he was rattling off figures of india's economic and corporate situation with ease. He also happens to teach us organisation behaviour and leadership (apart from managerial economics) and we had to prepare organisation chart for a franchise, which turned out well but the whole organisation structure which he had asked us to prepare yesterday for a college turned out to be a huge huge disaster. The reason being that I was in a team of four, we spent the hour telling each other how the OC shouldnt be. The structure of the college's organisation is of course far more complex than a franchisee, and I hadnt read anything on organisation charts after i had made that OC for the franchisee without him having taught aything at all. In case of franchise it was a team of three of us, we sailed along smoothly, also because going to pizza hut and dominoes helped.
We are all fans of Dr. amir khan, no doubt about that. He doesnt always reveal anything extrodinairy about economics always, but just the simple way in which he explains all dull concepts and terms such as GDP, GNP, FDI,FII, that was awesome.
It is essential that I revise and read before I reach Aamir khan's class. I have rarely done anything like that ever but i dont think there's a way i could survive going the way i went on for the past week. For organisation behavior,in many cases he wont explain much, he would straightaway push us to the deep end of the swimming pool.
Now thats where I am right now, the deep end of shit. 500 word essay on Durkheim and two other assignments; scarier one being haldiram bhujiawala's for marketing.

Its still chaotic in my head. cause its chaotic around me.Shit.

PS From here onwards I shall try to steer this blog towards the MBA life of mine, provided i get time to blog and dreamy and hyper tedencies dont grab me when i sit down to write.

PPS Now Nike has reached Bangalore, but he wont be able to roam around much in this hyped city because he goes to school at 8 30 in the morning and its 7 30 in the night when he's back.

Current Music : Two beds and a coffee machine - Savage Garden

Sudden Recall

2007-01-15T23:06:00.000+05:30

The befuddled Nike.

"What the!.........ouch!"

"AAAIII! ....I look hideous!"

My thread ceremony.

1994.

Alice

2007-01-02T11:12:00.000+05:30

Through the looking glass,and what alice saw there, concludes with this poem.

A boat beneath a sunny sky,

L ingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July--
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear--
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die.
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream--
Lingering in the golden gleam--
Life, what is it but a dream?

Opinions. Labels. Sad.

The Joy(?) of Giving...

2006-12-28T11:46:00.000+05:30

It happened on the day of Christmas.
You see, my vehicle is a dirty little thing. I call it a rickety wuss. It is not a motorcycle. It is a pity. That thing is a very sad sight with me, a six feet tall guy on the road. Ah, well I was parking it on the side of a relatively quiet road in Pune,believe me it was a peaceful road,such a rarity in Pune. At this point I must tell you that since four years my vehicle (ok ok! its a Hero Puch! ..a deranged species of two wheeler no more manufactured in this world!) does not have a handle lock. I carry at its backside an iron chain with a lock to put it around its tyre (pathetic, I know). So generally on such peaceful roads I let go of putting the chain around the tyre. I got down from the vehicle,put it between two handsome,robust,macho motorcycles.As I was just about to put it on the stand, a man started to say something to me from behind.

"What?" I said, my baby still in my hands.

"Oh,sorry,please put it on the stand first.........." He said in marathi.

"Oh boy...there we go again."

Bewildered, I put it on the central stand.I had not locked the iron chain around the tyre. I turned to him.
"Sir, I have to get to "Sangavi" ....I dont have any money .....when bad time dawns upon a man it leaves him stranded like this without money ...without food ...my thekedaar was supposed to come but didnt ....."

It turned out exactly what I had feared. I dont remember much of what he said. What's above is a vague idea that I am giving to you. I got it that he was begging me to give him five rupees. He was about 35, looked a respectable man, sort of. Clothes were okay, clean. He had in his hands a polythene bag which had a plastic tiffin box in it which told me that he would have set out from his home with the food. But his face did not look fine as many of his teeth were broken. As he talked, his tongue moved one of the two teeth on the side. Obviously he consumed tobacco or some such rubbish which ruins your teeth. So he did not much take care of himself.His hair were dishevelled. I was suspicious. But surprisingly he spoke a few things in the middle of his sentences in english.

"Please Sir,... help me..i have to go to sangavi..please give me five rupees..."

"What will five rupees do?"

I knew that Sangavi was a colony on the outers of Pune. He would need more than five rupees to reach sangavi,why was he asking me for five rupees?

"Yes sir, bus ticket to sangavi is twelve rupees....i will mange somehow..."

It was sad to see him plead. My wallet had many coins, a few notes. I gave him a two rupee coin and three one rupee coins. It looks even more ridiculous to give someone money in coins like that. I was still suspicious. I was like, " Okay i will give you the money, but i dont believe you, i still think you are lying.Go! do whateve you want with the money!" The moment the coins landed in his palm he started saying good things for me. "May you be successful in your life....all that you may wish..." ......and all that. .....

I cut him out!

"How are you going to sangavi now?"

"..I'll walk to Chatushringi bus stand..."

I sharply turned away,half listening to his reply, and walked away very fast.

I had this irrational fear that this guy was a thug and he would steal my two wheeler! This fear struck me while i was walking on the road and took a turn. There I looked back to see if he was following me. I did not see him anywere. When I returned I was relieved to see that awful little wuss of a vehicle.
Maybe after I gave him the money he might have started crying and was walking very slowly. How was he going to get the rest of the money? He would have probably begged to someone else, by the time he reached the bus stand. At that I was just anxious to get over and be done with him as soon as possible as I was suspicious. What if he was lying? What if he bought a bottle with that money and lied in a heap of garbage? No one can know. But there are things for which you dont have evidences. I just have a gut feeling now,after two days that he was a good man.Now I feel good that i helped somebody in need, only because i was not harmed.
Last time,on J.M. Road, there came to me a stranded woman with a child in her arms who had to go to some village. I had given her 20 bucks. I know you must be thinking I am a fool. But how the hell do they all find to me?? Gosh, maybe i could have given him 12 bucks.

I did not give with any feeling. And I did not accept his feelings of gratitude and blessings.

Honey,we fu**ed our world.

2006-12-21T12:06:00.000+05:30

yeah honey, its all going down.
the case of medical injustice in Libya is shameless.A petition of 100 nobel laureates could not save them from death sentence.There was no epidemiological proof that they were responsible for the outbreak of HIV virus. Now tell me, why would doctors be willing to travel to such countries voluntarily? thus such countries would further their own isolation.

Next thing i read in today's newspapers is that iraq govt is making public the execution of men. 'making public' is horrendous !Iraqi government will provide video footage of the executions to national and international media. Men wearing their uniform of death, their heads covered at the gallows. 'Making public' means anyone cane see it, even your 8 year old, honey. And all will know that how ruthless world has remained, because these are all the atrocities of our world history all over again.

gosh, i am hit again by such mood, last time it was due to a different perversion of mankind.

I am shivering as i recall what i saw online three years ago. First there was an anonymous appeal on an orkut community (yeah, orkut, the same place we use for cheesy indulgences) to sign an online petition to save his/her relative being executed in iran, in public by throwing stones. then the anonymous dude laid a link in that post to where it was shown how its done. And bloody yes i saw the whole thing. hundreds of people gather to watch someone die so cruelly. somewhere in their heart maybe they like this cruelty. Poor thing is covered from head to toe in white cloth and loud prayers from the speaker are said before he is buried into the ground upto his neck. then stoned. i cannot bear to recall anymore.
Its bullshit. 'making public' is akin to spreading this poison that you have in your own head. what conviction of devil do you have in your head when you walk up to a ground to watch someone die as he is getting stoned to death? "Hey,lets go see how that guy is getting stoned to death,its nice to see the blood frow from the head of a guy buried in the ground totally helpless!!"you love to see it dontchya?

life seems fucked up people, there is no compassion left in this world.

PS. would any of those devout followers of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar want to travel in Deccan Queen? ever? I would like to see their faces when they do.

A good year

2006-12-09T20:39:00.000+05:30

A quick post, I watched "A Good year". And I dont care what film critics say,they are "wankers", I feel that its one of the better films of this year. It solved a few problems for me.Ah, well I just dont keep from problems do I? but it changed my perspective. I love life like that. It doesnt mean that one must follow Max skinner and skit off to a life of clamness, but its a question of maturity. I remembered the punchline of the movie all the time I watched the movie("Everything matures,eventually") and in the end learned how max skinner has matured, and the aweful tasting wine of La Siroque is just a metaphor.After the film I felt such an urge of well being,I said to myself,there's nothing more important in life than family, friends, love, the people that care about you the most, let go of the trivial matters!! I called my parents and then my best friend and then talked just about anything for a long time on the phone.

You would say i am crazy but i believe the smile of russell crowe in the poster is about maturity. Its like saying "I understand, I dont mind" sheer satisfaction and immunity to any doubt, self-doubt or otherwise. This movie is magical.
This week has rather been enlightening. The gyan:
1. Words are deceptive purveyors of truth. Dont cling to thiem, try to see through them, that requires maturity. (Dont say that the word which once left your tongue can never be taken back)
2. So let go of the pain caused by the words, people dont mean what they say always, all the more when their blood is boiling. (read maturity)
3. Forgive them. they wont ask for it but you have to somewhere they love you too (read maturity again)
4. Do what you love, very very crucial, its never too late, joy begets joy, and if fate asks you to do something you dont like then take pains to make it likeable, loveable, try to see through the crap and imagine it to be something related to what you love. its all part of the same system (the alchemist)

...and now a great song to groove to! dont mind the fat lady people! she sings heaven! and the tabla is heavenly fluid,(God, a millionth time, WHY DID I STOP LEARNING TABLA!! *sobs*)

My return to Sweety...

2006-11-26T11:42:00.000+05:30

"Our USP is Sweety."
" Sweety is disappointing us for past one month....."
So said my friends in Pune.
Just as you might be wondering,I said..."who's sweety? ...is she cute?" They started laughing. "We call our dabbewali aunty,Sweety!" The first flat in pune where i lived was awful but dabbewalya kaku (tiffinbox aunty) used to bring us food in tiffinboxes which was quite fine. She used to give us salad alongwith chapatis and plain rice and dal which she made at her one room, kitchen flat across the road in front of our flat. Sometimes the curries were bland sometimes spicy, sometimes she served egg curry for the ones which asked for that, sabudana khichdi for the ones which had fast on saturdays, thursday nights had specials where we got hommade sweets such as gulabjamuns along with pulav.
Then our landlord asked us to vacate, we were more than happy,I mean what with the broken tiles on the floor and the beer bottles heaped in the attic and all. So we had to leave sweety as well.She was sad,she was serving tiffins to just two flats. Her husband is an autorickshaw driver. He gives her a hundred bucks per week, the rest he keeps for his liquor. She had given tiffins to that flat, all the tenants which came and went away for around 6 years i heard.When she was busy her 12 year old daughter used to drop off the lunchbox on our flat before she reached her school.Sweety is a small plump woman, with round chubby face, tucks the end of her saree tightly around her waist.She used to point finger and wobble her head with concern as she used to tell us which item was in which box. She was now left with tenants of only one flat.She started weeping when we left.
Then I lived at two other places. I heard she got order of 20 people of a company where one my friends worked,he helped her get those 20 customers.Now I got a flat on rent just above hers.They say the quality of her food has now declined, I dont mind.
Mothers are generally left with their children,mind you.From beggers to dabbewali baais,to upperclass people,children are left with their mothers. I have so many examples, I just cant think of them right now. But this is seen at many places,even in movies and tv. Shit, I lose my connection again,I guess this post will end abruptly.
PS: In the past 3 months I had swung my opinion aboutJames Frey's A million little Pieces whenever i leafed through it.Sometimes I think I need to read it(just from the cover,and excerpts).That the worl is not a great place to live in, it is full of cheaters and decievers and its not all worth a damn.I want to see a guy's bleak journey trough pessimism and dealing with suicide.get a taste of the hell.Then my mood improves sometimes,I say "Why are such books written? they arent of any use, people want to become optimistic, there is no use reading such stupid book. Look at great bright people like steve jobs,jack welch etc etc.
Whenever I have held these two opposing opinions, I have called myself stupid.

2006-11-22T16:04:00.000+05:30

There are some songs which you like at the first note that strikes your ear. Just the first sight of this song made me feel like i was here i dunno in last life maybe ..:P ..lol ....but there have hardly any such songs i can tell you that have that ethereal quality. I was small when i first heard this song but even today when it falls on my ears i am spellbound. check it out!

oh man, after seeing this video i feel like getting there, bake in the yellow sun, smell that sand in the air, beautiful, special and simple.

Watch that smile.

2006-11-11T17:10:00.000+05:30

I hate you so much that I will not tell it to you. You dont deserve that.I will fucking fake a smile and self destruct.

Teri Deewani!!

2006-08-24T14:29:00.000+05:30

24/8/06

2006-08-24T10:27:00.000+05:30

We were a scene to watch on the road.
I was seeing hazy intertwined circles if lights in water as it poured down my spectacles. My fingers were slightly chilled with the cold water continuously dripping down. Though my head was a bit protected as i held the plastic moulded chair above my head. I was sitting behind Pawan (my cousin's friend and my current roommate (non-smoker)) who, quite curiously tied around his forehead his hankerchief to avoid water dripping down his face, on his yamaha. Between him and the handle of the bike was a leather briefcase which he was balancing with his stomach or arms every now and then when the omnipresent potholes of the pune roads threw us all up in the air.
Three times the motorcycle slipped. I do not have any plaster on any of my limbs today. Oh I thank you Lord Ganesha so much! (He is the one who draws the most attention right now out of the huge array of the Hindu dieties. The preparations for his worship going on on the scale of a war through out this city.)
People on the road looked at us with expressons on their faces. I didnt care. At the petrol pump we were served much anticipated Punekari comments / taunts / wisecracks which normally border on insult.
Well, i dinn give a damn, it was our last instalment of stuff being transported from older apartment to a new room. Yes! finally I am free! Table, chair, bed and food is all i need right now. Unfortuately there was no chair so i had bring my cousin's. There's this gradual acclamatisation with the Punekari ways and means.
Current Mood : Praying

Solitary Sunday

2006-07-30T19:07:00.000+05:30

Today I decided to lie my way to soltitude. Yes, got ready at 10 am (very early by sunday standards, if you ask me) and lied to my cousin and other roommates that I was going to Piyush's apartment. Off I went to watch "Lady in the water" , my second movie in last seven days. More than watching the movie, being all by myself was so heavy on my mind. I can almost feel my breathing outrightly erratic when I am surrounded in a room by 5 people (just people, okay, if 4 of them are smoking, I am dead). When I am on a road, filled with, no matter a hundred people walking up and down on it, all by myself, my breathing is relaxed. Sometimes there's this compulsive need to let thoughts flow random and wild and be alone...just naturally as they would like a river.
Anyway, so I watched lady in the water. I realised that the common motive of m night shyamalan movies or of his main character is emotional healing or physical salvation. In sixth sense, a small boy provides solace to dead souls, bruce willis is a hero who will help the needy in unbreakable, mel gibson will save his family thanx to his spirituality/beliefs in signs. Pardon me, I still havent watched the village. In each of his films however his style has been markedly different, the means to the salvage in the climax have also been different. It was communication with the dead in 6th sense and extra terrestrials in signs while unbreakable was more general in context of superpower and also it was different in the sense that it brought out the fact to the viewer that samuel l jackson and bruce willis stand at the two opposites. It is easy to confuse yourself and say that sixth sense was just a horror movie and signs was yet another movie on ET. The endings of all his films fill me up with immense warmth. The portrayal of the act of healing is very nice. It should fill the audience's heart with hope and peace. The scene in sixth sense when haley joel osment sits in a trolley and his mother pushes it and they both run on the road is one of my favourites. He opens his arms and breaths relief, with a wide smile on his face;its relaxing and invigorating.
Lady in the water is different again because the means to the salvage are different, its a bed time story this time but what sets it different still is that the savior (the Narf named Story) has to be protected. So its interesting when the savior is not superman, very human and touching. In all his films the heroes, haley joel osment,bruce willis,dallas howard, mel gibson, have their own dilemmas, problems, weaknesses, sufferings,they are not perfect, they too need to be helped (physically in the case of the latest one). Pace of this movie is faster than his previous ones. I hoped for better cinematography though. The film needed more meticulous work on the screen play. M night shyamalan is a good actor as well; Paul giamatti was amazing with the stuttering. But I do feel the movie could have been made a lot better. I know I am probably gonna end up watching it a couple of times more.

PS: I have finally realised that I cannot say a lie with confidence. gotta practice to be shamelessly forthright.No doubt written form of communication suits me better.

Current Mood: Pro active
Current Music: "Where's the party tonight?" - Kabhi Alvida na kehna ( I am just gonna listen to its songs ...i swear!)
"My Hump" - Black Eyed Peas

I have been tagged!

2006-07-28T12:40:00.000+05:30

lol! ...
1. Do the following WITHOUT complains
2. Choose 5 person to do this after you completed yours
3. Leave a tag on the person's tagboard to say he/she have been tagged.
4. Start your post with "I have been tagged!" then do this.

I HAVE BEEN TAGGED BY LOONS!

Currents

Current Mood: Anxious,annoyed,restless.
Current Taste: chocolate
Current Clothes: casuals
Current Desktop: Chandler Bing,of course....though i havent seen my own desktop for a long time.
Current Toenail Colour: none! duh!
Curent Time: 12:44 pm
Current Surroundings: A net cafe. Empty comp carrels,its just me and its raining cats and dogs outside.
Current Annoyances: My roomies! :S
Current Thoughts: How soon will I get a new apartment?

First
First Best Friend: Chaitanya (UKG)
First Crush: In 4th or 5th std ....I cannot name her or i'd be dead
First Movie: Kayamat se kayamat tak, perhaps.
First Lie: I dunn remember but i did lie for the first time when i might have been 11 or so.
First Music: Malgudi Days song playing on Doordarshan "tana na tana nana naaaa!"

Lasts
Last Cigarette: I don’t smoke
Last Drink: I dont drink either, but whatever i drank last time except water was pepsi.
Last Car Ride: To the railway station.
Last Crush: A girl I saw in Crossword yesterday.
Last Movie: Watched POTC Dead Man's chest y'day.
Last Phone Call: mom.
Last CD played: Assorted songs.
Last song played: "Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho" from Arth.

Have you ever...
Have you ever dated one of your best friend: No
Have you ever broken the law: yup, cyber laws for porn in college.
Have you ever been arrested: Nope.
Have you ever skinny-dipped: eew! no..
Have you ever been on TV: no…
Have you ever kissed someone you dont know: No

5 things you are wearing: Blue jeans, orange cotton T shirt,two rings on my fingers,spex.
4 things you done today: Read newspaper,called one "TIME" coaching classes for mock CATs, ghoted reciprocal percentages and other cat stuff,watched TV.
3 things you can hear right now: the rain, a dork speaking loudly otside, little children playing.
1 thing you do when you're bored: Search for a book to read.

I TAG AKS,GAURAV,RICKY,JUBA AND TEESU.

2006-07-25T12:21:00.000+05:30

You Should Be A Cancer

What's good about you: you're incredibly kind, caring, and generous

What's bad about you: you can be too moody and impossible to understand

In love: you enjoy wining and dining the object of your affection

In friendship, you're: likely to depend on other friends for emotional support

Your ideal job: historian, marine biologist, or religious figure

Your sense of fashion: you dress to match your mood

You like to pig out on: classic home cooked meals, like mac and cheese

What Sign Should You Be?

2006-07-25T11:39:00.000+05:30

You're Totally Sarcastic

You sarcastic? Never! You're as sweet as a baby bunny.
Seriously, though, you have a sharp tongue - and you aren't afraid to use it.
And if people are too wimpy to deal with your attitutde, then too bad. So sad.

How Sarcastic Are You?

Nikhilesh is choking....

2006-07-21T11:15:00.000+05:30

I am choking! ...suffocating!! ....SUFFOCATING!!!!
ARGH! ARGH! AAAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!
*cough* *cough* *cough* .....*puke* *puke*
I hate smoking I hate smoking I hate smoking I hate smoking I hate smoking I hate smoking I hate smoking I hate smoking I hate smoking I HATE SMOKING!!!!!!!
even incense sticks now evoke horror in me ......i cannot breath this shit anymore... fuck all the smokers in the world!!! ...aaaarrrrrrggghhh!!!!

Pu La

2006-07-02T15:44:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I properly listened to him. The last time was when I was in 8th or 9th standard. Back then i wasnt allowed to see anything other than the regional marathi doordarshan channel, during dinner. He was standing on a podium, speaking with such poise and eloquence. Mr.Purushottam Laxman Deshpande was an amazing orator, comedian and writer. At that time I was very lazy to wake up to marathi language. His presence on screen was very charming but i hardly understood eighty percent of what he was saying. And now I am in Pune, surrounded completely by marathi people, talking marathing all the time during my day, and i am loving it to be finally where I belong.
But listening to pu la yesterday was an amazing experience. He talked about Nagpurkars, Punekars and Mumbaikars, and then I realised I might not be exactly where I belong! .. lol because I actually belong to Nagpur and in that half an hour speech PLD talked what it means to live in these three different places in maharashtra, marathi people can be yet so different in lifestyles, the traits of people in these three marathi cities are markedly different and his description makes for a riot of laughter. I was amazed ...I am practially getting real life experience of the punekari life here, day in and day out and hearing it from his mouth was even more enthralling. The way he has put the day to day marathi life under microscope is amazing, he does meticulous study in the seemingly ordinary cores that make marathi urban lifestyle and speaks with such eloquence, in a way to make it seem easy. His literature seems so rich, beautiful, i feel tempted to compare him to P. G. Wodehouse, but then I havent even read anything close to half of things by PGW ....and have just listened tp Pu La twice or thrice.
Ok, ok! i admit! in some corner of my heart i do feel proud ...lol.. i mean its very unlike a 22year old and uncool to believe in such things...but its really amazing to LISTEN to him! and know that he too is a Deshpande.
Know more-the wiki article
official site

Ananya

2006-06-09T08:09:00.001+05:30

In the last week of January, at the physiotherapist's, I met Ananya for the first time. First I heard her voice, small and sweet little girl I reckoned, but she was asking questions and there was this air about her that hinted maturity.

I heard the caring voice of the physio as she said with a little mischief, but no departure from love,

"Anu!...humein jaldi jaldi exercise karni hain ....February end tak humein chalna hai na? .....kitne dinon se hai tu yahan par!.....mujhe pareshan kar diya hain!"

"We have to exercise and get well and start walking by the end of Feb,you have troubled me for so long!"

And then I knew she couldn’t walk. It didn’t strike me as anything sad right then but I was little curious. And then I saw her as she tried walking, her both hands held by the physio and she took small steps. She was 7 years old I think, round chubby face and had her hair tied in a little ponytail, and had big black eyes. I was looking at her and she was trying to walk. She was looking down at her legs (they had no sign of any deformity, btw) and then she looked at me observing her. And she smiled and blushed and turned down her face again. As in the case of a little child who is rehearsing her first play on any stage, for the first time when she says her dialogues and sees people listen to her voice, she feels a little sense of joy and giggles in her heart. The same feeling i saw in her eyes.

And then seconds later, the fact that she was completely oblivious of her incapability struck me like a heart attack. She is not sad right now. And thank God for the fact that she is so small that she doesnt mourn her incapability. Sits in her own little world uncaring of other children who run and play. Maybe at some level she is sad that she cannot walk, but not as much as a grown up is when he can't walk.

And like a Marathi poet had once said, I am reminded to pray to God to give me back that childhood, when i cared so much less.

I thought, later in her life she will understand things and realise what she had been through. Will enter a new life when she starts walking ......and everything will be alright. But as a grown up maybe she will repent about that time when she couldn't walk and run while others very well could. And also feel very good about herself, that she could come back from some bad place and achieved something greater than others which cannot be quantified, and is her very own power for life.

A month ago I had to go there again. She was still there. I heard her crying a few cots away.......and I had no answers.

I see a great gulf. Some people suffer and suffer and suffer. Others balk in amazing physical well being. Of course they worked hard to stay fit and exercised daily. But what about those who were "born with it" ?

For how long Ananya will not be able to walk, no one can say.

I read somewhere that every man is an end in himself and that his goal in life should not be tangible gains, exactly, but to get to that point where he has poured his best effort and spirit in his life's work.

And then I think everyone has been allotted a certain quota of pain and suffering, of health and all the rest of the things. That pot will be filled in the due course of your life, sooner or later; in installments or in continuity? Nobody knows! But it blesses you with a unique point of view and value of simple things of life. It is your obligation, so long as you live on this earth to face, perform , and achieve despite of everything and whatever that lies for you in your own path.

Its not worth believing...

2006-05-23T17:04:00.000+05:30

I'm completely down-to-earth!

Find your soul type at kelly.moranweb.com.

You are the most in touch with knowledge. It's the tree of life from which you tap the sap. You know what you want and you know how to reasonably get it.

Virtues: You respect people with plans. When someone has their head on their shoulders, you know that they can see straightforward and keep their eyes on the mark. When it comes to looking at the future, you take a logical approach: what's within your ability? A fortunate attribute that you have is the ability to set a goal for yourself, higher than maybe you feel possible, but still keep yourself within reasonable bounds. You take the time to appreciate those surrounding you and they do appreciate you in return. Decision-making comes naturally to you when you take the time to consider each option. People only come to talk to you when they are looking for a logical, reasonable solution.

Aspirations: You have an idea of what you can do with your life, but you push it up a notch. You need a profession that you can enjoy, so work towards it. You want to live near your friends and family while being as far away as possible. You also want to settle down while working in excitement and variation.

Quirks: You don't appreciate drama queens and they don't appreciate you. When they need help, they won't seek you out because of your ability to see through their overly dramatic predicaments. You have leeway for humor, and sometimes love to participate in it, but when it becomes irrational behavior, others can count you out. Loud noises are bothersome, except when they come from you or your friends.

Factors: Reach for the sky! Don't decide to do something because you're merely good at it, but choose something you might like to do, despite whether you're sure you can master it or not. Don't only save room for a few empathetic friends, but open up to everyone.

Future: When looking for a job, if you work in all of your talents (logic, decision-making, planning, and definitely humor), you'll find yourself happy. Come to a compromise for location; live nearby your friends and take periodic vacations or live farther away and take frequent return trips.

* * *

The last day.

2006-05-10T07:53:00.000+05:30

I was hardly done with my packing. I had just written the diary of Arpit and was still unsure if I had done justice with it. I was sitting on a bed on which thousand things were spread. I had gone to the mess before in the evening and had dinner. Jassi, Piyush, Joe, Dallu had gone to C'not to eat but I couldnt because I had this huge packing to undertake. And I was losing my nerve. Suddenly I realised that I didnt have any locks for the trunk. I called Jassi and asked him to get locks for me from C'not. Then I continued with packing at which, honestly, I suck. At 10 45 or so the guys came to my room and were shocked to see the situation. Then Jassi scolded me for the locks as well. Then those guys helped with the packing. I seriously think without them I dont know what I would have done. Piyush taught me about the punglis of papers which he had thrown out of my trunk along with copies and registers. Then we had an awful time with the computer cabinet and monitor. It started freezing in the night. Then we were done by 12 and called the courier service truck and they took all my luggege. By 12 30 I was done with the courier service payment etc. Then I had to get a seat for myself in the next morning's student's union bus. So I went to talk to the guy.
Then I went to 256 Vishwakarma Bhawan for the night out.Jassi, me, Piyush, Joe were up all night talking.We came to know that Madu (Abhishek Agrawal, who was on the same bus as I was) has a fever. He wasnt done with his packing had was having a sound sleep.We talked and talked and talked. All the stuff that we usually do I guess. That night seems to me so dark, as if the darkest night I ever seen. I tried to be as normal as possible. At 5 30 or so in the morning we slept. Were woken up by Madu at 7 who by then was feeling better and had done all his packing. I had my breakfast in the mess. Went to my room took a bucket full of plastic bathroom accessories to give it away to my trusted rediwala - Munnaji. Then I took my suitcase and stuff and left the room unlocked. A sweeper appeared out of nowhere and started cleaning that room whch used to be mine and started looking for some stuff i might have leftwhich he could find useful. I left the room and headed towards the exit of the hostel On my way I met Rahul Hedau and he smilingly hugged me and and we bid adieu. Two guyswho were my so called wingies smiled at me. I didnt knw them personally but being in the same wing we somehow were linked I guess. They said goodbyes to me.
I remember that chill in the air. The sunshine at 7 45...pale and silvery yellow, and the neem leaves had such electricity in them like they always had.
I headed for the bus and tried not to think too much.
I wished I could go with all the guys. But I had to leave early.While all left the next day. On 12 th of Dec 2005, I left Pilani. Of all the people I never thought I would travel out of this place with Madu (gived the bitter things of the past).
All the people reached there - Ricky, Jassi, Joe, Piyush, Anurag, to say goodbyes. Jassi had written my diary just while walking upto the bus from the hostel. Madu was talking with Nazneen. We waited till the bus left, and till then people advised me to be careful while travelling in a bus and not to poke my hand out of the window during the journey. And then it was time.I tried not to look outside from the windows.

2006-05-08T08:23:00.000+05:30

The thoughts in my head seem colourful and amazingly bright. However the moment I speak them I myself feel they lose their potential, - sound silly or wierd or naive. Something is lost in translation. I feel, for me the space in my head is completely sacrosanct. I just cannot do justice to the thoughts by lending them words.
Its the worst when people don't care to listen.

RDB fever is still on. I don't want it to end. I recently realised the amazing power of these songs-
Luka chupi
Tu bin bataye
Ik onkar
Khoon chala

"Oye Bhain de Takke!!"

2006-05-04T08:28:00.000+05:30

"Ek pair past mein to doosra future mein daal ke baithe hain, islye to aaj par moot rahe hain"- DJ (Aamir Khan)
"Tumhare maa ki aankh"- Sue (Alice Patton)
the dialogues which touched the hearts of millions ..ok not all the millions but those like me who would rather like to talk like that.
I saw RDB!!
better late than never really..I mean there are bad days and there are good days but I didnt know they came absolutely one after the other ...this movie totally perked me up(from the sad mood of which previous post bears the testimony)- and made my hair stand on an end- a mini post mortem of the movie - wont write much but lotsa fotos!

People who rocked-
Aamir khan - DJ- obb..
- Sidhdarth - THE Dude!!
- Sue - Alice Patton- cute hindi talking brit
- Prasoon Joshi - the dialogues and the lyrics rock!! ....I am his fan I mean he is an MBA working for coke and writes amazing lyrics and hindi literature - thats the stuff.
- The misc- ARR - the diro - ROM- The story writer - Kamlesh pandey - two thums up to all of them ..and most brilliant- photography- binod pradhan - four thumbs up to him
sequences i loved -
- the salute to amar jawan and India Gate with the rap on Paathshala
- the falling down choreography on Khalbali
- the dhaba
- the climax

RDB trivia (by Nike the nagpuri deshpande)
which book was DJ (Aamir khan) reading/ had in his hand in the song tu bin bataye, just before he wraps his jacket around sue?
Answer - Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

If I could say it...

2006-05-02T07:27:00.000+05:30

Yesterday we had to go to the railway station to book our tickets out of this place to our homes. And in the hot and bright sun at six and quarter in the evening we took a bus to the railway station. The heat is getting unbearable here day after day and I have started getting headaches due to the leathal mixture of heat and the foul smells from this rayon plant which strikes me always when I have to enter or leave the plant. Anyway, so we were on this small bus ride of seven minutes and we observed that a small child, six or seven years old was sitting in the other row of the seats in the bus to the left of us. He was wearing striped stony black and white shirt and pants made out of same cloth.He was contantly looking outside with enthusiasm and such curiosity from the window of the bus. A minute after the bus had left the grasim staff colony,in a moment of my utter wonder and amazement,he turned to us with a huge smile on his face,he started talking loudly in a peculiar madhya pradesh accent/dialect about which I am not sure. I couldn't understand what he was exactly telling us but he was so full of expression on his face and loud with his voice that we couldnt help but laugh.Monu and I made funny faces and made him laugh.The woman on the seat in front of him turned around with a smile and then we knew that she was his mother. She was wearing dark yellow saree and long dangling gold earrings. In the next moment I realised that he was telling us perhaps about what he was seeing from the windows outside. Then he stopped talking, sat still and shot a calm look outside through the window. Then after another minute had one more fit of sorts and animatedly talked again and this time I heard "Train gadi jayenge!" and I realised he was far too much excited about his train journey.After having a good laugh, something sunk in and I felt the convulsions in my brain harden, and I couldnt breathe,my mouth was open and the breath caught halfway in it.I wished I could say things from my heart without that hesitation. I left those days behind of uninhibited flair...when I treated even strangers as friends. This faithlessness, suspicion, confusion,doubt and evil has filled my head.It stops me from opening my mouth in front of all, close ones and strangers alike.
Then we reached the station stepped out of the bus and he left with his mother, talking so loudly about the train that we could hear from a distance.
I am in a cocoon I can never get out of.I want to go back.......I dont want all this.

A Monday morning session

2006-04-22T08:21:00.000+05:30

What the PS mates(Nike,Monu and Teesu) did on a Monday morning, instead of going to the plant and working....

Its thewindow just above my bed, and we opened it to let the fresh air in and found on the edge this dead, dried but uncrumpled little thing, lying on the carpet of powdery soot.

Current Music: One of the best songs i have ever heard in my whole life. Its magical, heavenly, hypnotic....ohh so many more things! Its Teri Deewani by Kailash Kher ...actually by Kailasa, the band formed by the three guys Kailsh, Paresh, Naresh. The most important thing is that the video so matches the beauty of this song.The backing vocals of Paresh and Naresh are good ..and in Kailash's voice you can catch the taste of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan time and again during the whole song.Piano, flute, percussion, guitars and of course the voice are a sublime combination.

enter the psycho

2006-04-12T16:03:00.000+05:30

..wish i really knew ....I AM I AM I AM!!! ...TERI,Delhi.."it will take 10 days for the mail to reach ok?" ...the 8 page long letter made the child happy ....and someday stopped writing ...i lost you .......he cannot give up and neither can we .....and we cried on the phone ..."make enemies of friends and search for the ounce of friendship" and .........why do you do this ?? its the end of time and crap thats all that has remained .......thats the way you run from piller to pole ....the cd ....why? ...call centers ...Discovery Travel and living ..."among evil strangers"...sigh! .....but thats the price you pay ...and you go on and on ....why do u write this?? .....the macabre void ...the humm of the machines ....the roomies ....i am sorry ...does that suffice?? DOES SORRY SUFFICE?? ...but thats what you do ...but i am sorry .......it ends tonight .....tamaso ma jyotirgamaya...carl brashear ......john nash ....akiva goldsman ...naval chief sundae ....i dinn check the mail .......blog ...will call you ... flatliners .....that space in my eyes i see ...between nowhere and goodbye .....joel schumacher ....fire on the amazon...the pitiless venom dragged it back ......you were different back then you cannot expect that from them ...they did their best ....Maggie,...i got nobody but you frankie....the cousins...be proud...the big brother...one year.....time between the breaths the little pump cudnt help so she helped herself ....bit her tongue ...nearly bled to death....felt no ure to move....danger, there's no such thing as a stupid question ....anyone can lose one fight........ the little angel .....fought her way out of this world ....that was her destiny .....hatwalne.....exams are over..books are coming by parcel..thats the way you come and i am sure thaers no different way to leave .......you trick everyone like this......but that way you are still the same.....the three ...they were ordinary people ...Mr Krishnarao S/o Gunawantrao.....marathi crosswords in Tarun Bharat.....sanskrit...sit sit sit!!!........d/o SSR ....... coimbatore ....Patvardhan High School ....nagpur ........ i am sorry i said so about it .........blink.. nikhilesh vishwas deshpande ......can i get a cup of coffe? no sorry...

New!

2006-04-06T08:48:00.000+05:30

Ricky and saikat join my friends list this week ....just glad that the gang members are waking upto blogspot ...and Sandheer has also started it seems but i wont link him until i get to know that he's gonna blog regularly and not just leave the blog with just one snap of his (sandheer rulz hfjsgf!!... get out!!) ....
sigh! i wish i was with my friends on their trip to goa aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggghhhh!!!! damn damn damn!!!...i hate myself!!! ohhh i so so soooooo wish i was there.
Anyway, gotta get back to quant.

current music: Bhagere Man -Chameli , sunidhi chauhan's voice is heavan man, cant believe it ...amazing ...does listening to this song make me a bit girly? i think so, so i switch to Ya ali- Gangster, damn cool song.
Current passion: My story, i love love love writing it! ..and i seem to be thinking about it maniacally and the sentences play in my head like an AR Rehman song..ahh heavenly bliss.

Current Mood: Pissed ......still.

2006-03-18T08:31:00.000+05:30

But for less trivial reasons this time around.
Why is my blood boiling?

1: Justin Berry:It all started on the holiday - HOLI day and i had nothing to do ...i could have slept but no i had to turn on the tv and watch Oprah interview a dude named Justin Berry which kicked off in my mind a sick whirlwind of sorts.Read about him, if you must, here

2: Shobha : Next day I got ample of internet time coz 3 outta 6 of us guys had gone home so noone was on the comp.And i reached Shobha's blog from Pooja's and read her(and others' even worse)story.I have linked her on both my blogs.These stories (Justin's and shobha's) make me sad as much as they enrage me.
Read the particular article here

3:Manadel al Jamadi- And today i read( a bit too late) about al jamadi and this isnt the snap i saw in the TIME (old issue,the GRASIM club library had loads of em heaped like junk) mag,in tht snap it was just his son and his eyes were shut with grief,which had a sickening effect on me.
He shall live a life of a loser,rot in the deserts of uncertainty and weakness and impotence.You lost your father to a bunch of whackos,kid....macho hunks and men and women of such courage ...they had so much fun with is body,froze it like candy and had a gala time with his corpse on the camera.You are destined to rot in this hell kid,you have no future.
the wiki article

4:one other thing i cant name but hell lot worse than these,and unfortnately on the same lines......sigh..

One other line i read in TIME review of the book Two Lives.This is one of the concluding lines of the book...

Behind every door, on every ordinary street, in every hut in every ordinary village on this middling planet of a trivial star such riches are to be found.
-Vikram Seth

Sir,i opened a door of a house in a shady street in an Indian small town which was not very different from the small suburbs of the big cities and know what i found? teachers,lawyers doctors fathers engineers ...seemingly ordianry people which a genial smile on their faces ..interacting with children girls and boys and other people in general with a caring pretence.They had demons in their heads.The alley that leads to such houses is very dark Mr Seth.Apparently very VERY normal people turned out to be psychopaths and paedophiles.And this world is turning out to be much more murkier place and i see no light in this hellhole.A total catastrophe.

And some trivial things which make me awfully irritable these days

1 Asha Bhosle - What the fuck is wrong with her? Go grandma stay in your house and enjoy the respect you have gained over the decades with hard work.Dont go on losing it on MTV dancing on 1 2 cha cha cha.... i think some people no matter how old,or of what status need to be taught some lessons ....some like her dont know when to stop and accept the fact that your time in the limelight is over.Havent you heard of dignified exit ..as in tennis?
2 Himesh Reshammia - the black capped dog goes ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo huzoooooooooooooooooooooooor on every channel.
3 A new smokey smokerson around me...
4 My awful new haircut.
5 The fact that people around me fuss about food ..i mean just the second the food arrives on the table Monu goes "Ye bhi koi khana hai!" tht fucker! i could have just slapped him then and there coz he totally ruined my appetite...ugh!!

And NO! I havent yet seen Rang De Basanti so i wont say "I'm a Rebel!!" and am yet to "Lose Control" ..coz of the fact that i am stuck in yet another creepy tiny town without a decent cinema theatre or a cd rental....just gotta wait for Aug i guess till i am off to Mumbai!! ..hmm..ok..

Current Music : Pure Indipop to cool off my head- Dil Samandar....dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba.......................(infinite loop)
from Garam Masala

Oh so funny...

2006-03-12T14:27:00.000+05:30

I guess i'll try to shrug off all the anger ..

"Sometimes only the subversiveness of comedy can do justice to the extremes of horror"
-Amy Tan
"The secret source of humour itself is not joy,but sorrow.There is no humour in heaven"
-Mark Twain

Current Music:Maut-Lucky Ali

Current Mood: Pissed !

2006-03-12T13:59:00.000+05:30

Fuck Grasim Fuck Birla and fuck all the firewalls and dimwitted internet admins all over the goddamn world...
the tagboards on both my blogs have been blocked ..son of a bitch...
now i am gonna hve to enable comments on the other one and ask you people to type "hdffgd" or something worse to comment.
fuck it i can see the tagboard on Luna's blog but on mine i see "IWSS Security Event (Proxy-55)...." ..wtf is going on?? AAAAAAAAARRRGHH!! ..I could kill Aditya fuckin birla rt now ..but guess what ....he's already dead.

Ye pet nahin koonwan hai

2006-03-04T16:01:00.000+05:30

Either that or the mess food sucks big time OR God save my appetite...

It was just another evening in Nagda ..i had my dinner with two of my PS mates ....had 4 rotis I guess with chole ...ya man its first time I am eating chole with rotis ..anyway ...so we had our dinner and I had gone to my room...was just doing my stuff ...till 9 in the night until Monu barges into my room ...wearing a white Hutch T shirt (which he got for free from the Hutch stall during oasis .in some basky kinda game ..poor hutch guys dinn know he was the basky team captain :P)and shorts, completely drenched in sweat and badminton racquet in his hand..

" ...played like mad today man ..cant eat here now! ..food left over here must taste awful at this late hour ...you have to accompany me to the dhaba ...right now..come on ..lets go!"

"NO way dude I ve already had my dinner.."

"not asking you to eat ..just give me company over there."

"I cant just look at you and truckwalas while you eat PBM and those delicious rotis! "

"then you too can eat if you want"

"No man I don't think I can eat again"

"O plz plz plz!."

"O no no no!!."

"o come on man you know the food is great out there....lets go.."

"its 9 rt now ...by the time we reach there it l be 9 35 or so .and by the time we will have food in front of us it ll be 10 10-15 ...my stomach will be fucked be ...and then we ll probably be back by 11 or so and..."

"ARE YOU COMING OR NOT???"

"...well okay ..there isn't anything worthwhile in my life to do I guess ill go there ...wtf.."

and so we went on feet down the dark and dreary and dusty awful road to a dhaba ....and by the time we reached the tin tappar dhaba .my stomach probably made some space by itself for PBM I guess or what heavenly force made us order 2 plates PBM (Oh ya thts Paneer Butter Masala) ....to my utter surprise i ordered one more plate of PBM which we shared among us I ended up eating 10 delicious butter rotis more (a yumyum yum)......amazingly so.

And guess what ..the next day we got stipend so we were just too glad tht we had money so we again ended up on the same dhaba.

but out here ...there arent many good places to eat ....maybe later on ill do a ps1 vs ps2 analysis...foodwise.

Current Music: Lucky Ali-Sifar..!! that smmooooth heavenly voice is back in my head God bless Lucky Ali ...i have listened to and revered every single song that he has sung ..i seriously think his songs are waaay beyond the appreciation of the indian audiences ...i dunno why but somehow i do.I wish I had songs of his other albums mostly Aks (the album i mean) which had more romantic ones...someone plz go tell hi to make more songs!!! ..like these ...though i have to admit the lyrics seem OHT more than often...

Musafir ko mile raasta
Zamane ko mile waasta..

Current Music

2006-02-19T11:13:00.000+05:30

Ode to my family:Cranberries
One last breath:Creed
A New day has come:Celine Dion
Heal the World:Michael Jackson

I wrote a little something here

Current Goddess: Lisa Kudrow - Phoebe Buffay - Regina Felangy.