One of the lessons swimming taught me…

Posted in 2013, Heart-Mind Talks, Hostel Fun, On Lovely days, Ramblings, Scattered thoughts, Self Help, Swimming by

I don’t know whether you swim, but if you don’t try it because it’s an experience to be in a space of a pool of just water, so deep that our feet never touches the floor, far away from the walls that our hands don’t reach the railing, all you have is water around, and the only way out of it is to swim your way through and reach the other end patiently, with the presence of mind, your breadth in your control, letting go of yourself completely, believing the water and feel at one with the water around you to enjoy the ride.

Letting go is the most difficult of experiences in life as well, sometimes painful because there are memories, people and things dear to us associated with this letting go. Also, the future is one vast horizon out there and nobody accurately can predict the next minute. At many levels we are scared of the next moment, because it is an unknown world. Hope therefore is what every religion teaches us and asks us to internalize because it is hope that makes us go on and on reducing that fear of tomorrow.

Swimming taught me to let go of myself, my ego, the people around, my life, it taught me to be free and to take charge of myself. It taught me that it is only when I let go and believe in the other, here the water, that I enjoy the activity, otherwise with doubts in our mind, we never ever will swim. Let go of that float, let go of that sinking feeling in your heart; after all, even if you drown the life guards are nearby all geared up to jump in to save you.

The best part of the pool activity other than swimming from end to end and jumping into the water is to float on the back. Place yourself on the water, close your eyes, the ears are already inside the water closed, the peace that consumes us while looking up at the sky, is blissful. Every noise, every light, every thought cut out, we learn to breath normally and we concentrate on keeping the body afloat. That single point focus creates all the difference to coming closer to that elusive peace of mind, concentration, meditation and all variety of terminology the different ‘-isms’ use to attain Shanti…..

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Something very close to me…

Posted in Between people, Blogadda, Blogadda WOW by

Something very close to me

I’m letting it go

Just like that

I’ll pain

I’ll pine

Still it has to go

Something very close to me

I should let go of

Never was mine

Never will be

Oozed away slowly

When held tight…

Something very close to me

that something

inside that cup

of coffee

Maybe it’s hot

Maybes– the cold, the lukewarm

Maybes stayed so long

Maybes, you cheaters!

Something very close to me

I have to let it go

useful if I  let you go

in somebody else’s hand

Something very close to me

I will let it go

Time, I depend on

Forgetfulness, be my friend

Memory, go away for long

Something very close to me

I’m almost done, I have let you go..

Go on.. live your life…be free…

 

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda

PS: All the pictures are taken from Google Images

Sometimes I Wish …..

Posted in 2012, Blogplicity, Meme, Sometimes I wish by

Sometimes I wish, life was that cupboard door to Narnia

To walk out into another world, into the snow…

Into its harsh winters, into the lives of those magical creatures

Fight battles, grow older, be mature,

And then one day,

Walk back through that cupboard door

Into our summers, into our shoes,

Wake up from that magical dream…

Stronger in the mind, abler bodied…

Peaceful…

How often do we forget ourselves in this crazy world… so caught up in its motions. Why an hour of exercise or a few minutes of meditation, oh yes, closing out the world by shutting our eyes is also called meditation, you see :P  a few precious minutes of ourselves in a day. When we give our ears and eyes to ourselves… talking to our bodies, maybe it wants a nice soapy bath with aroma oils in warm water, may be a splash of cold water from the shower to wet the scalp, may be a little cup of steaming hot coffee to awaken the senses or an undisturbed power nap for 5 minutes…or just be  be seated a minute longer ;) Just not to rush…

Sometimes I wish we observed a little more…

The play of dust particle in the ray of light

The little drops of water on the grass

That spider in the corner of the wall …

Those dancing balls, when light falls on water…

Read the words on the page of a fellow traveler

Stop to feel the breeze on our faces

Wait to see the milk rise

See the water tickling the tissue in a finger bowl

Say more than an “I am fine” to a “How are you?”

Our ever so busy lives… ;)  There is always some work – at home, in office, in the garden, in the market, with other people, on television, on the net, in FB groups, we forget to observe… observe those fleeting moments when the sun peeps out to see whether we are waiting with our coffee to say good morning, or those little insects that live in our garden, we overlook their colours, their patterns… because we have bigger work to do, better work to do, because we get money… and we forget to read those faces in front of us, buy the superficiality and carry on, we fail to appreciate and many times acknowledge… such as, we may just like a post and not comment, type in a colon and a bracket to spell an emocon but never say a word more… we are so used to be busy, that everybody understands… thank god somebody else commented, we just had to say I do…. or click the I like….

Sometimes I wish, and I genuinely wish now for all of us, that we all love ourselves a little more…

Take out those 10 minutes to speak to ourselves

Purge an overload

Pump in some joy into the marshes

To give a 101% daily to others, to ourselves

To feel lighter from inside, confident to walk ahead

To fall asleep at the sight of the bed at night :) :D :P

Blissfully and dream of more wishes…

And never to regret that life raced away even to carve a memory of it…

let this be our mantra – Make time, make space… 

I go to Narnia sometimes, or climb up a Birch.. where do you go… for some extra magic…

Blog Tag ...You're It!The “Sometimes I Wish” passes on to Bongo Is Me. She is third in line, among 28 of us for as many days to come to pen out on  the theme – Sometimes I Wish… I’m sure she is going to delight us  with some verse… Hop on to her site tomorrow – 17/9/2012.

In the meantime, hop back to Dangerous Linda’s inspiring post on the meme, she lit the torch yesterday, she passed it on to me, and I pass it on to Bongo…. until it comes again back in 28 days ;)

This post has been selected as part of BlogAdda’s Spicy Saturday Picks – Sep. 22, ’12. Thank you Corinne :)
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Whisper Stayfree Carefree stories-woes :)

Posted in .....On Campus...., Between people, Blogging, India, Mass Concerns, Society, Thoughts out loud by

I was shocked when my current roommate asked me to pick up a carefree for her on my way back from the market! Carefree in this day and age! I couldn’t pick it up because Carefree was not available in the two-three medical shops I looked up… even the shopkeepers said, who in this day and age! and mind you this in not Health & Glow kind of shop I visited, but the local medical stores where you get everything from the sundry tic tacs to capsules of higher grades!

When I asked the girl, she said, she was comfortable using these rather than any other, a reverse phenomena to mine and many stories I can say from memory or if you ask around!

Personally speaking I remember using Carefree only the first time, when I had my first flow! But the belt was so uncomfortable to wear, it itched! and the pad never stayed in place, remember asking my dad to fix it once when mom was not around… MJ still muses at the scene and says, “I can never imagine my father helping me out in this!” So we changed to Whisper and others like it… My brother was all of 5 or 6 when it started for me. It was this little fellow who came home every month with a new variety of a sanitary pad, every month for us, mother and daughter and explain the special features of the wings or the double lining or the package colour. May be I should ask him now whether he understood the difference and comfort the new features made to us…. and whisper became the synonym for sanitary napkins. It could be any of it, but we still refer to it as whisper

And there were the whisper girls, whisper seemed to rule, wherever I went from school to college to university … all I knew were comfortable using it. My maiden workplace had bottles of different kinds of pads in the ladies restrooms…. the importance of which we understood when we went into a restaurant restroom in an emergency and did not find any at all, and the shops were a mile away from the entrance driveway!

Came here a year back and then came to know people who couldn’t use Whisper or Stayfree or anything with that plastic/synthetic lining, it caused skin allergies, it caused itching. Younger girls who started with the whisper types…  and changed over to cloth ones or paper ones or some other itchingless material…

The very first thought that came across while attending the meet was, it would be sacrilegious to utter Whisper :P :P Jokes apart, one thought that stayed through the meet and after, the Stayfree Indiblogger Meet at Mumbai was begin the change with yourself…

I find it very difficult to digest that a little daughter in a lot of pain is asked to wash her own clothes, bed sheets, beds and the rest she uses when the she bleeds monthly! Not to touch anything and if they do, it goes bad/impure/unclean (the English language has neutralized the effects, “ashudh”, the word, gives the impact which bad does not).

When I came back after the meet and discussed around in the hostel, many of them said, they were used to it, “so what, that’s how it is” “it is only 5-6 days every month,” asked if they felt bad initially during their younger days, they said, “they did,” asked if they will follow the ritual with their children, “many said yes… ! What will society say” some said “no”. Though small in number, the voices were forceful.  They reason out with religion, rituals and society and bring in the change, the future hope :D :D

“Where to break the cycle, where to bring in change…” the snappy answer I received was, “you will not understand your religious practices are different! ours demands it!” with a kind of force, a defensive stance when the R word was spoken and all the chatter was directed to that one line! Nobody can touch anything with religion it seems… education does nothing to core internalized thoughts is it!!!! Or do they not think! I do respect their views but there is an itching to pounce on inseparable why along with it!!!

Mind you, these are girls of all ages, ranging from 17-60 doing their higher education, post graduation to Doctoral degrees in one of the premier institutes of the country in an Indian metro which prides about its modern ways, and cosmopolitan nature!

Reminds me of a story MJ once said,  A cat created a helluva lot of trouble in a gurukul when the guru taught his students. Therefore, one day the guru decided to tie the cat to the pillar near his throne or peetam. The guru died, the cat still made nuisance and was tied next to the throne, years passed, the cat died. The gurus changed, a new cat was brought in to be tied to the pillar to resume studies…  Years and years passed, and cat became an inseparable part of the guru’s throne while he taught. And they wrote treatises on the cat’s presence and its affect on the studies in the gurukul :D To the why the cat was there, the new gurus, the managers of the gurukul and the new students replied, it is auspicious, a practice from time immemorial!  Farce of the first order :P :P More on the Guru’s cat :)  http://www.firstparishnorwell.org/sermons/cat.html

I leave you with these writings from blogs and posts …. to continue the thought, discussion and change :)

……….. I love you…

Posted in Carpe diem, Heart-Mind Talks, Love, Marriage, On Lovely days, Ramblings, Spousing around by

….. does it mean I love you so much that I need to say that every time I meet or talk to you.

Or you need to tell me those 3 words in that order whenever  you, talk and write to me. I’m confused.

What if I don’t tell you ‘I love you’ today and you forget to tell me too, then how do we know that we love each other today?

I thought words were the best way of expression.

Is Action better! Some PDA… a hug at the airport, a kiss at the balcony….

 what happens to those who do not say it at all or too pressed for time to say or act!

Those who think that love is more that these three words

I love you, over the phone, over chat, over the email, 100 times, 1000 times…

does that make you love me more…

Does a DP with the two of us mean I love you, …

Or writing a post on my blog ;) ;) :P

what does I love you mean at all in a relationship nearing a decade, a silver, golden jubilee of togetherness…

By that way, they would have said I love you so many times, each day, each time so the marriage has lasted ;)

What if I love yous stop… after the first few months and years of falling in love and marriage, does the marriage fail, does love vanish?

Or does Love translate… from those three words to the unsaid, the unseen, to the untold…

as felt in the presence and the absence of the other.

In the trust in the other,

In the belief that even if the earth shakes, or soil erodes,

there is one who will run to you to pull you out of the shambles or meet you at the equator…

it is that warmth… it is that makeup after a fight…

or that smile after some good food, early in the morning…

or that touch that drives away all woes…

Or those outstretched arms to run into for comfort…

Or the feeling that we are one…

Or just the relief at seeing you every time you walk in

of knowing that no day goes without thinking of you, far or near, or right beside…

So, Do I love you… when I pester you for I love yous all the time…

With my childish ways followed by tantrum days…

What say you, do you love me…

Better do, for love is a madness that grows on you …

Something for your ears… from my fav, Mr. Reeves :)

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It’s Awesome, really?

Posted in Between people, India, Mass Concerns, The Lit Student, Thoughts out loud by

MJ was telling me the other day that people use the word‘awesome’ so much these days to describe anything and everything, from the relevant to the irrelevant, that the word has lost its meaning and charm for her. I saw myself nodding to what she said. I really don’t know what to discern if somebody says awesome after every word or sentence they speak! I don’t know whether they mean the slang or the meaning !!!!
American culture catching on us fast, may be… we talk like them at least, use their spellings, their punctuation style and we think or even better, are made to believe that those are the correct forms of language, decorum and dictum. Common problem. But nobody cares! another common problem again!!
For people who are schooled totally on British English and Indian English as a extension, American English sounds a little offish. Take no offense plzzz… Only in the usage, let me remind you, in pronunciation to be precise and vocabulary in general, nevertheless I enjoy their literature and their spirit of pursing the dream.So most of us mix together all the englishes when we write and speak, and if you are submitting a written document to a university professor who specialises (is that z or s;-), or somebody with strict rules on the lanuguage,  they will tsk tsk at it and jot down at the margin in red ‘to stick to one form of the English!! Plzz!!’

Let’s make things clear here a little, otherwise I may be in some danger of being misunderstood. And the clarification is, I have absolutely nothing against the Americans per se and I fully understand why they rebel today or have rebelled in the past against anything remotely British.
Hold that thought there and come to India… Does it not make you wonder why most of the Indians, that is, us, revere even the tiniest of ants imported from the West! Always!!
We have a similar history …We went through the same tortures of colonialism. We were exploited and used, we were divided in the name of region and religion under the reign of the great queens and kings of the English monarchy, to be given Independence in 1947 and labelled as what, a part of the third world!! And still we are using this global language. See the catch, it is the language of the globe even though Mandarin Chinese has a larger number of speakers according to statistics.
Without hesitation or shame, we can say that the introduction of the English language was a blessing in disguise, a blunder at the hands of the then British govt. It opened the floodgates to its literature, all kinds. And we in turn won our freedom. We have to profusely send our flowers and deepest regards to Thomas Macaulay for his vociferous Minute against the Orientalists to make his mother tongue as one of the subjects for our instruction.
But the downside: we neglect our mother tongue …yes, the tongues spoken by our mothers… However, mother tongue can be a wrong word in the context because our mothers would be using more of the English language therefore, we speak the same and in the purest literal sense, follow it!So, native tongue may be an option… whatever the terminology, this is an oft vocalised debated, our neglect for our own languages favouring English because English is the language of power and status and to many of us, ease….

Ok! Put up your hands, eh… comment, that is, how many of us think in English or find it easy to think in English rather than our so called native tongues… I’ll tell you my case, there are times when I think in all the languages I have been trained in and at times, I forget a particular word in one language but remember the same or the synonym in the other. That’s when these English-English-Native Languages dictionary comes in handy ;) Are we born translators!!

Would love to know your take :)
Enjoy your ThursdayPic Cout: usmansheikh

 

Film Review: Bombay Talkies (2013) | 100 Years of Indian Cinema | Karan Johar, Zoya Aktar, Dipakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap

Posted in 100 years of Hindi Cinema, 2013, Celebration, Film Review, Film Reviews, Films, Imax Becons by

The stories of Dipakar Banerjee and Anurag Kashyap stole the show. Kashyap‘s finale was the show stopper :) Nawaz … that man can steal the show, loving him more and more. Vineet Kumar Singh… when he emoted, he cried we emoted and we cried, we would feel it, goosebumps…

Don’t Miss, If you miss it, then it is a real miss :) Celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema.. one of the ways…

It is an anthology on Bombay, urban Bombay interspersed with characters from different classes and age groups,  with an underlying love for Hindi cinema — evocative of old melodies, (that little girl sings so well Ajeeb Dastan Hai ye…… Story 1), I would say only a hindi film illiterate would not react to Babumoshai… (Story 2), tap your feet to Sheila Ki Jawani….. in Story 3, story of fans and fan following in Story 4. While watching Bombay Talkies it matters to know that Dilip Kumar was a screen name of a man born as Yousuf Khan and a lot of tid bits about Hindi cinema that has collected in our grey cells through cultural pool we live in . The stories narrate day to day issues of doubt, clarity, acceptance, approval, dreams, lies, hypocrisy, realization….. The last line of the film is classic….. and there is magic in dreams….

If I spill anything more, it would spoil your experience as an audience. Well made… the background scores sink in … and speak volumes by creating the mood.  Well thought out… and entertaining …and finally we just stood up and clapped.

Bombay Talkies… with a cursive calligraphic Bombay and a typographical Talkies on screen when it flashed as the title, The tails of all the letters going done were elongated to show the way to the next. In reality it would be the Talkies which usually carries the regional taakies accent and Bombay would have retained the universal name unless pronounced as Bombayaa…

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The Saturday Morning Mix…

Posted in .....On Campus...., 2013, Mess Conversation by

Friends are lifelines, and good friends who make merry are awesome lifelines.

We have this practice of missed calls/calls early in the morning to the group of us who are now serious fitness buffs making our mornings sweaty in various ways on the field, courts and the pool. There is quite a fitness buffy-ness in that word which none of us are, hopefully and we will not be that serious ever, but want to take it up as part of our routine life, like brushing teeth and taking a daily bath….. :) Ask around and you’ll find, there are students who do not have the ‘time’ to even do that!!

Some of us here, friends and some who became friends in this journey, are trying to maintain a routine of early to bed and early to rise, and not get entangled with the routine and bad practice of overworked-ness,  late night working hours -ness, going to bed in the morning -ness, kind of easy routine we can fall into and have fallen into in the past which is a mandatory rule once inside the campus. Mandatory as there are piles and piles of work, and just 24 hours to finish and submit . Time management goes for a toss, sleep goes to the moon to give us insomnia… skipping breakfast becomes a routine….  mornings are at noon, we start following English time in the Indian clime …  all this are part of the life at an academic institution. Especially when the lecture slots are in the afternoon, or when there are no lecture slots to attend, the pain of making the timetable falls on our shoulders and we carelessly go on to mismanage our lives.. such is a lot of our lives… here

We also have our 11th hour sleepless nights before the submission deadline, where every meal and sleep are skipped to submit that work on time! Rare cases now, as working has become systematic with a schedule put into place with mornings inserted into the routine.  Mornings are such a pleasure to be in… the green of the grass, the dew drops, the mist hanging about the tracks, and the people silently running along their favourite exercise or just meditating in the open on the stands..

It all stated in December when some of us started our morning walks.. Sun rose late at 7:45, it showed above the trees late is what I mean.. and this campus has huge trees… it continued on to breakfast, a group was unconsciously formed, we smile, met, encouraged each other and now in the thick of things…

Today was a late morning for me, but yes how can breakfast be missed, I got my calls… went down half asleep to be woken by hindi songs… we sang out merrily in the mess over bread and butter, sandwiches and coffee… kishor kumar was the mainstay…. with actions with the voice modulations, a little girl smiled listening to us, some may have been irritated, some enjoyed, there were smiles in general all around… we had fun… we clicked ourselves… it was another good Saturday morning, a new day, some new work… new hopes..

@With the two Ns at the corner table near the window at the mess hall :) that is if you want to post us some reviews or ask us to sing some songs for you, make dedications ..

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One of the best feelings in the world…

Posted in .....On Campus...., 2013, Carpe diem, RAPO - Read and Pass On by

is to set an alarm for 5:45 am, but wake up at 5 or even 5:30 am and wait for the alarm to ring… and end it. Yes! I’ve beat itto see the morning today … :)

The body clock is so tuned to wake up at 5 these days so that I can go jump into the pool and do that butterfly stroke… My coach tells me, that’s my stroke… as breast stroke is N’s and free style is R’s … the day starts well, we shower after the swim at the pool, head for breakfast to the hostel, be part of our stimulating conversations over cups of coffee and newspaper and food, and by 9 am the work day begins, some are off to their labs, others to their departments, studios, some to the library, some work from their rooms…. the noon appears some of us meet up for lunch, ….. evening walks and juice meetings later.. we are off to bed at 12:30 or at least I am.. my eyes are half closed by the time it is 11:30 pm still I go on to work for some more time… just that little bit more to end the day and be satisfied that I have done a little extra today, and then to relax with an extra page of my night time book reading… I start Julie & Julia today, somebody Rapoed it to me, received it today … :) :) will read a page or two and doze off into dream world..

 

 

If I had a Pug for a Hostel Pet ;)

Posted in .....On Campus...., ..100 miles away from Home.., 2013, Bombay, Carpe diem, Mess Conversation by

I want a dog for a pet. Even a pug would do in my new room at the hostel. It is the very first time I am allotted a single room in my long hostel life up until now; the perks of it are beautiful, the downs are not that bad either, but now without a roommate for company and in need of some quieter company I would love to own a dog for a pet.

The problem then is how will it work out with the hostel council, the hostel community and the hostel office. They could very well give me an ultimatum – either throw the pet or leave the course! That, now sounds a little gross doesn’t it not… But valid choices because technically a single room is for a single person not for two … and here the pug, if it is a pug, is the second roommate who would need to use the washroom, the corridors and the mess hall. It would be too difficult for Pug to use the drying areas… too high even for me now. They could even ask me to pay the hostel fees for an extra member ;)

Pug could then come along to the pool with me in the mornings, then there needs to be a pool for pets as well… oh!ho!! Pug could join me on my walks in evening, for breakfast and may be join me to meet my supervisor, she could offer him a special seat if Pug is ready for a looooooong meeting… and the department, the lab……

Pug’s presence could create a furore in the hostel (I’m not thinking about the department now, we already have our very own Tipsy, she may feel happy to have company ;) , But there are so many dog lovers, dog haters and dog neutrals here at the hostel … There are cat lovers…. there are mice lovers… there are mynas and parrots who fly in and out many times, there are the pigeons…… and our own hostel dogs, Sony and Beauty..

If Pug comes in then there could be a mess table assigned for just dogs, like the vegetarian table we have now…..there could introduce a new  set of mess timings for pets, built pet restrooms beside ours, tubs for baths… pet lawns… pet corners for food, may be a wing just for pets and pet lovers :P …. what if it is a dog and not a bitch…will they have to give a paw print in the register every time they enter?

I would love to own a pug now, of course a trained one, … the most loyal of all friends in the world … now that a single room allows me the freedom to just be me (as if I was ever somebody else) and not ask around for another’s preference or permission…. a dog/bitch is a good choice for a companion during the lonely days of writing long drafts towards a dissertation…

Location: In conversation with two of my colleagues, A & R from the department … where else, at the mess tables this evening over snacks :)

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The many levels that bind you to someone….

Posted in .....On Campus...., 100 years of Hindi Cinema, 2013, Films, Friends, Hindi Cinema, Mess Conversation by

Yes, there are many many many levels below the surface up in the head deep in the heart that binds us to another. And most of the time or initially we realize one or two or at the max say 5*similar interests.

Let me start with something basic.  How do we start smiling, chatting, talking and being comfortable with somebody, I say comfortable even being in the vicinity of-, in the presence of-around some people, some folks who we love to bump into for their refreshing nature, their sanguinity or just to feel motivated from a distance, awe at their energy levels …. talking comes at a later stage … the vibes most of the times, do I see you nod for that :) . Sometimes it is a welcoming smile, at times it their welcoming nature, some people are so grounded that you feel like attaching your unstable self to them to share some of their stability by osmosising…:), some times it is talk, the chatter…

There are infinite possibilities as to why we are attracted to another human being and begin to form a relationship…. from a distance or at close quarters-………..people we call friends, we call colleagues, team mates, lovers, soul mates, people whom we call acquaintances, the stranger who ceases to become one in our daily commute to the office or the market or on our morning walks ….there is a magnetic field of attraction wielded that brings us closer to some and repels certain others at first sight or from later meetings… and by the word magnetic field, nostalgia strikes… I used to love doing that experiment in the Physics lab in class XII.

Bloggers like us, how do we bond over ‘just’ comments, as Susan Deborah asked yesterday in a group, what was it like sharing thoughts pre-FB, when the blogger’s name mostly was a pseudonym, with no face and no sound, the identity was marked just by the words strung together  in the comment section, its logic, the to and fro responses; sometimes the formatting talks to us, to communicate I feel is a more appropriate word in this case.

Yesterday morning over breakfast, three of us had this amazing conversation over 1950-70s Hindi cinema. It started with an article from a Sunday Newspaper supplement on the villains of Bollywood, with Pran to be specific. The conversation which started over breakfast at 7:45 odd went on till 9 or so… it is not about the time frame of the conversation or the conversation itself. The three of us are loquacious by nature often pushed out of the mess by the workers when it is over time, many students here think we are glued to the mess chairs, take their plates and sit elsewhere as they find us too loud and excited over many a trivial matter… we are many times referred to as the blackholes, there are more to the group as you will come to know!… nevertheless we have stimulating conversations almost everyday over breakfast… or anywhere we meet during the day. However none of us knew each other’s love for Guru Dutt or Joy Mukherjee or Rajesh Khanna… our liking for Shatrunghan Sinha or Pran, some old movies were revisited… the famous No 17/LION villain scenes, the vivid images from the oft telecasted film Burning Train… flowed….

Loved it!

And so new unknown levels surfaced beyond our talkative nature, beyond our smiles, beyond our bossiness..beyond our love for people…. our work, … our love for our beautiful pleasant green breezy mornings …

*don’t take me up on that number 5, its a random number for some rhyme ;)

PacMan, Inkey, Pinky, Blinkey & Clyde

Posted in 2013, Between people, Games, Self Help by

While playing Pacman, trying to move around eating the dots and dodging Pinky, Inkey,Blinkey and Clyde, there are times when I get stuck between two of the four or all of them together and suddenly there is no way out. All of a sudden a smooth ride along the maze eating all the smaller and the bigger dots comes to a standstill, if it is without a life at a higher level of the game, it spells the end. I confess I have been eaten many a time, however hard I try to maneuver and stay away from the 4 enemy “-keys” when they are alive and running behind me in their colours although I love them best in their bluest of the blue…

Pac-Man (パックマン Pakkuman?) is an arcade game developed by Namco and licensed for distribution in the United States by Midway, in October 1980 and first released in Japan on May 22, 1980. The player controls Pac-Man through a maze, eating pac-dots (also called pellets). When all pac-dots are eaten, Pac-Man is taken to the next stage. Between some stages one of three intermissionanimations plays. Four enemies (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde) roam the maze, trying to catch Pac-Man. If an enemy touches Pac-Man, a life is lost. When all lives have been lost, the game ends. Pac-Man is awarded a single bonus life at 10,000 points by default—DIP switches inside the machine can change the required points or disable the bonus life altogether (Wikipedia Information)

Life throws up such situations and challenges as well, when there is no door or window immediately visible to exit or run out of or a wall to just merge into (like in the film Dhoom 2), no portkey is visible to hold and fall into another place. That’s the time we are called up to face it.  True, not true…

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Of Comfy Films… Yodha, Jab We Met, Julie & Julia, You’ve Got Mail, Harry Potter … on a Holiday

Posted in .....On Campus...., 2013, Imax Becons, Malayalam Movies, Mohanlal, RAPO - Read and Pass On by

Cover of "Julie & Julia"

Cover of Julie & Julia

English: Jagathy Sreekumar മലയാളം: ജഗതി ശ്രീകു...

English: Jagathy Sreekumar മലയാളം: ജഗതി ശ്രീകുമാര്‍ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Godfather (1991 film)

Godfather (1991 film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Caveat: Too many asides do spoil the flow of a post, but couldn’t help it today… one it is a holiday, two I just finished watching Yodha yet again, three, I am on the verge of watching another Harry Potter film for the nth time… heights of joblessness or relaxation on a holiday.. take it anyway you want… enjoy the post, feel free to crib.. :)

Ways of reading this post: One way of reading the post would be to skip the asides, I’ve colour coded them.. the other most tedious way would be to read it all together

Pins/Ashes Pins N Ashes :)

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One of my favourite past times is to watch a film from my comfy list on my hard disk. One of them is of course, Yodha, a 1992 Malayalam film set in Kerala & Nepal starring Mohanlal, Madhu, Jagathy Sreekumar and a little boy, the child artist Siddhartha Lama, scripted by Sasidharan Arattuvazhi and directed by Sangeeth Sivan (that’s Wikipedia information, I’m sure about Sangeeth Sivan’s direction, the other name I’m lazy to check will do in sometime, as of now I believe the Wiki).

I don’t have memories watching this film in a cinema hall back in 1992 during its release, could have couldn’t have, because my parents were steady movie goers.….Aside: there are stories of the family movie tradition going when I was a baby of all 100 days, watching intently the goings  on on-screen, such is the family = exaggeration, but you get the drift, don’t you… like the other crystal clear movie going memories I have of other films with my parents and the brother. One such memory is of Kakkothikkavile Appoppan Thaadikal.….Aside: Strange again, I always thought the title of the film was a singular Thaady, as opposed to the plural Thaadikal :) (Again, Wikipedia information) ….

There is no why to why I like Yodha. One of the answers I can give you is I don’t mind watching it any number of times, over and over again, with the knowledge of every line in my head, the sequence, the scenes all of it in a little box up there stored in some corner of my memory box in the head. I can just keep it on in a player and do something else, and still conjure up the scenes and what happens next … That seems to be the definition of comfy films.…Aside… when Priyadarshan, the director adapted Siddique-Lal‘s 1991 Malalayalam film Godfather into Hindi as Hulchul in 2004, this was the same goings on in my head. The adaptation was a literal translation of lines and scenes from the Malayalam version set in a  different landscape and language; the scenes towards the resolution were filmed with a lot more Bollywood Masala than the Malayalam counterpart, but during the entire course of the film in the theatre, Prasads Imax in Hyderabad, I knew as if like a sage-like premonition the next scene, the next line, the next joke. As a result the laughter and the tensions came a notch second or three before it actually happened. That is when I realized that I had seen the Godfather more than some 20 odd times in the past so many years and loved it, the proof it is being a part of the comfy film list on the hard disk :) ……..aside within an aside …  the longest aside of this post…

Jab We Met is yet another such film. There was a time when I used to watch Jab We Met every day while I had lunch.. I remember boring many a soul with many lines from the film randomly, boring to them and amusing to me and a couple of us, friends, because we had caught it a number of times before, were over familiar with it and the other poor soul/s never got a chance to see it anytime. Such goes the story of my obsession with films.

Julie & Julia, yes I love the scene where they indulge in that chocolate almond cake everytime I see it. It inspires me to cook… need to read that book, something I will have to ask the Rapoers to pass on… and the list goes, on…

Yodha.. even after writing 4-5 paragraphs above, deviating into asides more often that concentrating on the content proper, I still can’t figure out the why of I love it again and want to watch it again… Let it remain a mystery for it will come back some time…

The Ball in your court time… You tell me, what’s your bunch of favourite films in that comfy list…

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