open season....

This time i celebrated my diwali in bangalore at my uncle's place. It was difficult for me as mom wanted me to come to ahmedabad and i was bored of going to that place besides i think she had some hidden motive of getting me to work for our house shifting. I somehow tried to convince her but you know mothers, she kept on passing veiled cribbings on my not coming and being utterly hopeless and irresponsible. Travel to bangalore that day was right out of hell probably result of ignoring my mom's wish. Route to bangalore from mangalore goes through beautiful ghat section which during night journey you cannot experience, but that day because of some accident or something the whole route was jammed and as a result we were stuck till in the morning instead of reahing to bangalore. The view of the ghats was breathtaking, nature had weaved such an awesome fabric comprising of hills, clouds,mist and morning sun-rays that it was worth the trouble. I reached uncle's place 8 hours late feeling sticky and constipated. This was my worst bus-journey i ever had. That day my aunt had fixed the programme of watching the latest movie 'don' and eating outside. Well 'don' experience will require one more blog so i wont delve into that. After that we had long discussions about who would have played the role better and was the earlier don better than this one. I forgot to tell you one thing, being in bangalore means loads of discussion for me, i have two uncles over there and both of them are what can be said as discussion-maniacs, they can discuss anything to everything. As a tradition in our family discussion is encouraged, as a rule when they sit at the dining table for anything long and open-ended discussions on politics, movies, bollywood, history and family issues takeplace. So this stay it was nothing new. My stay was for six days and i had divided it equally to stay at both uncle's places. First i was in malleswaram and then i moved to koramangala, in malleswaram i celebrated diwali: did lakshmi pooja, burst crackers ( after a long time) and ate our traditional food and sweets which my aunt made. I think every hosteller will agree with me that only after eating mess food you can understand the importance of home food, and when u go back home after long time family members give special attention and take good care of you. So i enjoyed every bit of it and hogged all the sweets.
Then i moved to koramangala where my other uncle lives. He is one amazing personality and i really admire him as he is widely read and has a nice collection of books. Discussing with him makes lots of things clear besides his father ie my dadaji is also widely read and is from the same field as mine , so he engages me in long discussions realted to electronics and technology. He has cool sense of humor and good to talk to. Being in koramangala the other advantage is that the friends are nearby so we can hang out together. So after one day of stay at my uncle's place we made plans of meeting at 'forum' which is a huge muti-plex nearby and a good place to hangout. Chikkadi (smart fellow) was the guy fixing the whole thing up and was optimistic of getting don's ticket but obviously we got a kela and ended up watching open season an animated movie. Let me first tell you that i hate watching animated things as i want human element in it. But this movie elbowed out this non-sensical notion of mine and from then onwards i have started appreciating animated movies. The movie had a hidden theme of wild-life protection and all the animals home is there natural habitat. The movie had a wild bear and a uni-horn deer as the protagnists. With some unprecedented chain of events both of them come together. The bear had a care-taking and sensitive female known as beth in the movie. He was well pampered pet. But due to some unfortunate circumstances beth is forced to leave boog (bear) in the jungle well beyond the reach of hunters. boog becomes emotionally attached to beth after she leaves him tries to find his way back to town where his home is. But during his journey through jungle he meets various animals and various funny incidents happen. Towards the end they have shown that all the animals get together under boog's leadership and wage a war against all the hunters and kick thm out of the jungle. During all this beth also misses boog a lot and goes back to jungle to get him back home but it was too late as he had found his new home in the jungle....

dor.....

our mid-sem exams were 3 days away and i was feeling restless because i didnt know the course for the subjects i had taken and knowing the schedule for the exams was a far cry. So i decided anyway studying or not wont affect the result lets watch some movie not in the room, away from the college so that slogging environment around wont depress me furthur. besides this i had to meet my school friend who studies in mangalore whom i had not met for quite a long time. I went to adlabs at mangalore which is 45 min journey from our hostel. but the condition of the road is so fucked up that your journey becomes a bumpy roller-coster ride. besides drivers in this region are in such a hurry that more than half of the time you will be in air.
when i reached adlabs my friend hadnt arrived . wait before that i forgot to mention one more reason to go to adlabs is that we get to see some hot-chicks which is much needed respite from the non-males in our college we are forced to see.
i was tempted to sit in CCD (cafe coffee day) for the above mentioned reason. well obviously you have to take something , so i ordered mango-colada with whipped cream, but the whole experience was worth it. in the mean-time i called my friend and told that i had bought the tickets for the movie DOR...which he agreed skeptically. dor is the latest nagesh kukunoor movie and i had read a very positive review of this movie so was hell bent on watching it. anyway i finished my colada by the time he came and we decided to go towards the theatre hall.

the movie was about lives of two woman which gets connected due to some series of events, if you believe in synchronicity i wont call it coincidence but here husbands of these two women go to saudi to earn money and happen to share the same flat. due to some unfortunate circumstances one of them dies and the blame is put on the other one whom they have shown to be having good relations with. having no witness he is awarded death-penalty. but according to saudi law if widow( ayesha takia) pardons the accused by signing some document his life can be saved. now wife( gul panag) of the accused (talapade) goes in search of this widow to convince her of his innocence.
gul panag is shown to be living in HP whose picturisation is very beautiful but is nothing as compared to her. in simple clothes she looks awe-some. lets not get distracted, she goes in search of ayesha who lives some-where in rajasthan where she comes in contact with one con-artist (iqbal hero) who is the humor element in the movie. he helps her , i still dont know why , in her quest. ayesha's in-laws are extremly orthodox and are shown to be following old practises including women ostracization. in order to get her sign she befriends ayesha but begins to like her actually and feels that she is cheating on her. i wont reveal the climax....if at all you can call it that.
but the movie is really beautiful and rich with human emotions. the only problem with the movie was its pace, it can even put you to sleep. besides it was too feminist in nature. anyway
gul panag and ayesha takia's acting was amazing with brilliant direction of nagesh kukunoor.
you can watch it once........

the famished road

finally i am done with this ben okri book which has left me famished of imagination. the author is not a conventional writer he belongs to the category of 'magical realism' writers.for one and half weeks i was living in the world of magical realism. the whole novel is oxy-morornic in nature. he moves in and out of reality so fast and comfortably that you are left wondering whether it was dream in reality or reality in the dreams. i am confused even as i am writing. its a nice excuse for booker-winner. its a story of azaro the abiku child (spirit-child) who has not left connections with his previous spirit-world and through out the book he keeps going back to them. he sees things which are not real but definitely have some meaning with the spirit-world. the story is pre-independence days of nigeria where people are living in abject poverty and are fighting for their survival. amongst this azaro's father who has a sensible character tries to fight against the corruption and becomes successful eventually. the story is filled of characters and inferences having symbolic meaning to the lives of many people and country but definitely this book is no breezer you will have to spend some time to understand it in an holistic manner and put it into perspective. i am unable to form an opinion on this book whether i liked or not. maybe you can read and help me with this.

why i wanted to be born ?

.....these paradoxes of things,the eternal changes, the riddle of living while one is alive, the mystery of being, of births within births, births within dying, the challenge of giving birth to one's true self, to one's new spirit, till the conditions are rigth for the immutable star within one's universe to come into existence, the challenge to grow and learn and love, to master one's self, the possibilities of a new pact with one's spirit the probability that no justice lasts for ever, no love ever dies, that no light is ever really extinguished , that no true road is ever complete , that no way is ever definitive, no truth ever final, and that there are never really any beginnnings and endings ?.....

from ... the famished road
by ben okri

lage raho....

yesterday we went to see lage raho--munna bhai. actually it was an excuse to get away from the election atmosphere. yeah yesterday we had our elections (i will write about it later actually it was quite surprising and learning experience) and the result was that i came to know my incapability of making good decisions and getting caried away with superficiality. anyway it was too much for me to stay there, besides we were going to adlabs so it would be amazing to see some good chicks, frustrated freaks like me should go to that place once a week to keep the mental balance....
i wasnt hoping too much from the movie, i thought it will be a good time pass. But to my surprise it turned out to be one of the best movies i have seen recently. obviously i wont reveal the plot, but i would definately try to induce interest in you to see that movie. It has the right combination of humor and morality. its woven together in such an intricate fashion that it looks brilliant at the end when u can see the bigger picture of the movie. The movie with the help of superb direction and applealing cinematography left me awe struck. vidya balan has carried herself beautifully in the movie and sanjay dutt though he looks like her father has again given magical performance.Basically director is trying to prove that gandhiji's philosophy still holds true in todays modern framework....it wa quite impressive. i would recommend you to go and see this movie in theater and do justice to it.

the kite runner...

recently i read khaled hosseini's kite runner...actually i came across this book first at my uncle's place who is widely and well read...i was casually book browsing on the bangalore airport....that day on airport the security was a real farce for the excuse of being a day before independence day...when i came across this book and recollected that my uncle had recommended this one or i had read some good review about it....anyway i took the book as an excuse to kill time on plane...i wasnt sure about the book initially but it turned out really nice....it was very emotional, well-researched and beautifully written....the author has initially described the life at kabul before the invasion of russians and how he tried to win his father's heart because he believed him being the reason of his mother's death during birth....after invasion they had to flee the place and move to america....the hardships, cultural shock and adjusting to this new life was quite moving....then author has to go back to kabul for some family work after 15 years....the way he portrays the change in kabul and its original life which can never be restored back is something which is the most moving emotion of the whole novel...i am writing this because in todays world this holds a lot of importance...when any country invades other country for whatever reason (like israel in lebanon, america in iraq) they just simply destroy the whole traditions,lifestyle which cannot be restored back...this holds importance in todays political environment as america is dictating terms to gain oil benefits and not realizing that they will end up making more enemies then they can handle...

being yourself

the life which we lead is a result of choices we make....most of the time we are influenced by others in our endeavours and as a result we forget what we want and what we are capable of...we always try to emulate somebody or the other and forget our own unique identity which is special in its own way...therefore i feel we should take some time out of this rat-race think what we wnt and be yourself....