Three

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

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

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!!

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

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.

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

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.

I am here now.

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 ......

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 ......

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.

since when did boundaries between

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

fade?

THIRST

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

Tietoenotor sounds like a gay cousin of terminator.

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?

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?

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.

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.