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Hi Samiksha, I thought of getting back to you, meet you at the place I met you first! I know, I had kinda broken up with you, but we patched up didn't we? And then, the way we patched up will be worth recollecting when we're together and alone ;-) For now, let me only recollect the last few meetings we have had here. I spoke to you properly last only on this day, last year! The two other times, I have only exchanged trivia with you really! So, lets ignore those two exchanges and recollect our meeting of the 24th March, 2007.. This time around, last year, I had been off for a couple of days from work, at CompleteGood Associates as I was preparing to be in the place I right now am in... When I spoke to you that evening (24th March 2007), I had never imagined what I would be doing 1 year from then. May be I had a vague idea, yes! Dreams die hard, don't they? And having given up other options, this was the only B school I could look forward to being in back then. Its a year from then, and its really hard for me to sit back and think about how a full year has passed! I am not complaining about having lost a year. I hadn't imagined that these months would have seen me here, sitting in a Bschool,or that my keystrokes would be from a Lenovo TP R61 instead of a Dell Latitude D610.. How do such things ever matter you ask Samiksha? They do matter a lot don't they? I had my interview on the 23rd of March last year, and I remember having done only reading, reading and more reading...nothing serious, nothing intriguing either...Reading to fill time and the space (vacuum is if I may say so, inside my big head!) That Friday was something I could not even talk about to you, tight lipped as I was supposed to be! And then, I cant forget how I had watched two movies back to back that weekend - Water, alone due to some confusion, and Little Miss Sunshine with LightBoy and TheOriginalVishwas ;-) The three of us had a great time that Sunday, with a Dinner at Kobes Sizzlers after the movie and dessert at Corner House..My account book tells me I was feeling too heavy and happy for a Death By Chocolate and had settled for a Hot Chocolate Fudge instead :) I guess that day had been sooo good that I did not even come back and talk to you about it! The Day, including the movie, had been a real great time! At the risk of coming across as a sentimental idiot, which I very much am, I cant help remembering two other friends, more than just colleagues from Thorogood - Mr. Congratulations, and Mr. Handsome (This year will see yours truly playing Hanuman when Mr. Handsome gets married, with the Ramayan being an apt analogy since Mr. Handsome has a biological brother already!)... I had been recently thinking of how the Past Value of friendship is much more valuable than Future Value, or Net Present Value...But had also subsequently been thinking of how Net Present Value is also important, since it can play an important role in determining Future Value or Past Value in the future... Since this can be quite confusing and even personally exhausting, let me now stop... As I promise to continue blabbering to you like before (or may be even better/worse than before), wish me farewell for the day while also wishing that I fare well tomorrow in my re-re-rearranged Statistics for Management exam... So long....Take care! And please enjoy the good things in life before it is too late and then you start missing them! We may choose to meet here, at your place, or at mine ( http://vishwasmysore.blogspot.com/) whenever you come visiting....And then, we can talk no end! ;-) Tags: getting back, nostalgia, the village
Current Location: My desk, My room, only that this room is in The Village...
Current Music: I Walk the Line (Yes, I have been, since Saturday!)
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Hi Samiksha,
You know why I haven't been able to keep in touch with ya...Yes you do... :)
I have been off this Thursday and Friday...Fridays been a D day ..and I aint sure at the moment if it was a Dooms day or a Dhooms day ;)
Whatever be the case...the only thing I have been doing since Wednesday evening is reading...And I have been loving it as usual...Friday was ok I guess...I can describe it and ascribe attributes or adjectives to it only in retrospect...so for the moment..lets hope yesterday went off well...Sounds weird eh ? Never mind....But do think about it...You might end up seing the paradox in hoping that yesterday went off well...And given that I am hopelessly in love with hope...Quixotic to be precise...I for one will hope....
For now, let me tell you what I did today...Another movie review....
WATER
Watching movies alone is actually sometimes more enjoyable than with friends...I dint manage to get company for this movie...even Mom and sis said they had better plans - watching a Kannada play at Ranga Shankara; its another thing that they dint end up going to the play coz sis dumped mom and went out to meet friends at a Cafe Coffee Day..never mind...I wanted to watch the movie..and I liked it...thats more important than anything else...
I dint know too much about the movie; hadnt read a review. But I can vouch for the movie being well made. Brilliant piece of acting by the child artiste; she was better than even Seema Biswas, John Abraham and Lisa Ray.
The movie was a bit slow paced I guess; but it was indeed well made. I am not sure why Water did not win the Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards. And its a real shame that there was a controversy around the movie in India due to which it was released with a "U" after 20 months of releasing elsewhere.
Anyways, coming back to the plot; there aint too much of it. The story is not about the state of widows in general; it revolves around a particular ashram on the banks of the Ganga and makes suggestions about how the society looked at widows in the 1940s.
Chuhiya, the girl who loses her husband at the age of 7 is central to the plot. And the child artiste has done a wonderful job. There were a few sequences of the movie I can recount. The one where she and Lisa Ray (Kalyani) are on the balcony and drop water on John Abraham walking on the street below...
And the other scene...where she thinks she is being taken across the river to play...and doesnt detect the foulplay...I have to confess...that the latter sequence was very touching.
Lisa Ray and John Abraham have done well....but Sima Biswas was even better I thought...
The music was good...A R Rahman has done the Holi song really well...and then the theme song was good as well..
Overall the movie was very good. It got me thinking about how as a society we still have a long way to go. Lot of us live in a time warp. The laws of Manu are arcane to say the least and in terms of marriage, we still live in the 1940s. Even to this date, its not common for widows to marry again. If you ask me, it doesnt make things better or worse for widows even if they arent sent to an ashram like in the 1940s. We still dont accept widow remarriage as normal. We are a nation of hypocrites. We may think we are now a liberal society. But I am sorry to say we arent. We still either violently oppose inter-caste marriages or automatically label it as abnormal. There are honour killlings in India that happen even to this date.
We are dogmatic and justify gross social injustice in the name of religion, tradition and culture.
The movie talks about one of the many aspects, in fact that diseases that continue to afflict the Indian society even to this day. Let us put to rest all the campaigns of "India Shining", "India Everywhere" and "India Incredible".
The fact of the matter is, if this movie was subjected to controversy by the society's self proclaimed moral police, it is indeed a shame. India is nowhere. We have a real long way to go.
Current Location: My desk, my room.
Current Music: None
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I actually believe that too much of a good thing is not really a good thing. So, first up, maybe updating my blog this quickly, I mean in less than a week is not such a good thing..I mean good idea..but then...what the hell, if I feel like it, I almost certainly should!
Today is March 8th, International Women's day and I would discover this only during reading the paper while simul;taneously having breakfast (Avalakki) .
Instant flashback......Almost 12-13 years ago...Mom would take part in International Women's Day celebrations..She would actually book stalls at the Fairs held at the Palace Grounds as part of Women's Day. During those years, Mom would spend her leisure time by doing something she liked - making bags, purses, keychains out of drapery material. She was...and certainly is very very enterprising..The things I could recollect instantaneously were the fairs which would run on March 8th and weekends close to the date. On weekends, my sis and I would spend time with mom at the stalls..Well I remember only myself being there really..coz as far back as I can remember I would be the more patient yet active (as in not lazy) kid. :)
So, I would pocket the tenners, leaving the big bucks for mom (or was it mom ensuring that the big bucks were safe???!!!) And these tenners would be "well" spent on cool drinks..I can remember having tasted all flavours of Nandini Flavoured Milk and drinking the favourite flavours no holds barred! The grounds...I mean the stall and the colour of the grounds....barely any grass...and the flavoured milk were the only things that came to my mind..
But, as I key in the letters now...and think about mom being enterprising, I can remember that the drapery she used for her smart hobby was actually something that was left over after a huge cloth material had been cut for making curtains or sofa coverings. And, one Mr. Shanmugam (he passed away a few years ago we were told) used to visit us regulalry at our earlier residence opposite Ulsoor Lake in order to sell the drapery cloth to mom...He worked at a wholesale drapery material cloth in Shivajinagar and over the one or two years that I can remember, had purchased the first few "pagers" in Bangalore..This was even before cellphones were known to exist...Well I guess I wouldnt know even if they actually existed...barely into my teens, it could just be limited knowledge of the latest tech gadgets back then, or my limited interaction with people who possessed and used a cellphone back then....
I remember having registered the new device, the pager in my mind, without having completely understood how it worked and so on...Well...so much for enterprising..and the nostalgia I am undergoing right now as I type into the journal entry.
But, in the morning, while driving Yana (my Santro remember!, and I ll revisit this bit in a while), I was recollecting things that Mom would do even earlier than these fairs. Her interest in tailoring, and how she used to stich wonderful frocks, dresses and skirts (including hats and caps to suit them!) for my sis...and then...the days she learnt among other things, block printing (for bedspreads and even dress material) at the Chitrakala Parishad (and how they used to smartly let all kids play with synthetic clay)..I was recollecting all this on the drive...I was driving Yana to office after quite a long time..and had the 4 speaker stereo turned on to a more than ever loud volume level..I had made half the distance to office and at the traffic signal near Urvashi talkies, Zara Zara sung by Bombay Jayshree was playing and a biker on my right said "Nice song"..I took the sarcasm expressionless, nodded and turned ahead, continuing to listen at the same volume level and suppressing a smile :)
Well..work was not bad today in the sense that by mid day the client would discover that the development database was corrupt and this was the reason for my application and other older applications failing to work. Quite a few women colleagues had turned up in sarees and went out for lunch leaving the men behind. On closer observation and analysis, I realised that women not used to wearing sarees almost always wore heels to avoid the event of the saree touching the ground and/or hence tripping over it. And the combination of heels and the saree would make it difficult to even walk around, let alone cross the road! What a bad idea to eat out I thought!
Anyways, I did my bit by sending an email to all women colleagues early on, at around 9 30 wishing them Womens' day. Some thanked me for the wishes. Some others did'nt. And some others commented :D I also SMS ed a few people wishing them; and of them quite nicely wished me the same!!! ;(
Since the development database was corrupt, I could do some other work on the project which was low priority and had been on the backburner.
And yeah....I almost forgot this...one of my old friends from high school through junior college pinged me at around 10 am. It was quite a long time since we had chatted on IM apps. Nostalgia again!
During the course of our conversation, he made me realise that we had been really good friends back then..I mean sit next to each other in class during junior college. Our junior college was quite well known for its "oomph", "cool" factor and in general as being hep...This guy and I were the only ones in our class (Electronics concentration) who cycled to college during the first year and carried food from home instead of eating out at the nearby restaurant or the college's junk food counter.
He even remembered that my bicycle was a "Trailblazer"..It was a cool looking one really..with a crossbar (could double up as a ladies bicycle in the remote event of my sis using it!)...He just had to mention "Trailblazer" and I could see the scenes so to say....Making 5 kilometres in 15 minutes...every single day! Wear hand gloves..and others ridiculing the fact...it was only a bicycle and not a bike u see!
Well..Vij and I chatted for a looooong time...we understand each other's situations, aspirations and ambitions perfectly well. The fact that he was sitting in Wisconsin and was online preparing for a Phd qualifying exam alongside his MS..and me, sitting in Bangalore...did'nt make the least difference. It was almost as if we were talking...exactly like how we used to during junior college...
Anyways, I got back home early..I mean I left on time to reach home by 8 and after snacks and coffee, read The Times Of India and The Hindu. Had dinner..spoke to a few friends...and surfed....some analysis using Excel on data flicked from a website! Man, Business Intelligence Consulting has quite deeply got into my head...I think its time to drop a word... ;)
And "drop a word" reminds me...I set out to see for myself if I can attempt at making an ordinary day's events (today was not ordinary though if u ask me!) seem interesting...I am not sure If I got there..But I do get the feeling that I have gone a distance...Current Location: My Desk @ My Room
Current Mood:  nostalgic
Current Music: None (the fluoroscent lamps silent now!)
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Hi Samiksha, I am not gonna apologize for not having kept in touch with you..Firstly, I have been aloof and running away at times from myself in the recent past..I am not sure if I am running after something or away from something...Only time will decide with retrospective effect ;) I wish I could really tell you what I have been upto apart from Office and badminton(only on Sundays)..If you were to come home you would realise that even the newspapers have piled up for about a week and I havent been able to watch the news on TV either for the last few weeks...But..gimme another fortnight Samiksha, and you ll come to know yourself.. Works been quite hectic...hasnt been any different actually come to think of it...has been this way for over 2-3 months now..Still manageable..and Quixotism has no cure...Things can only get better...Wel..apart from what I have been doing, I havent been doing too much really..This weekend was the only one well balanced in terms of variety of activity after the last time I updated you.. Wait a second....the trip to Kumta was a welcome break..How can I forget that... On Friday I attended one of my sister's high school classmate's wedding reception at The Woodrose, Brigade Millennium..I decided to go after various parameters like work being complete on time to whom I could potentially meet and generally taking a break all looked favourable and compelling enough..So...I was meeting quite a few people after 10 long years! These were the people who had seen me and our entire gang grow at the colony where we stayed..We used to play with marbles, tops, bicycles, fire (yes! and even when it wasnt Diwali) and indoor games when it would be really sunny...One of the girls who had lived in the colony got married recently and I attended the marriage at a place near Mangalore...We could have gone to Goa, Gokarna, Murudeshwara or Yana..None of these happened for reasons beyond my control...I wont complain...people are people..and if I really want to holiday I should probably go it alone..In fact if things turn out favourably, I almost certainly will in the future get away on a lone wolf journey..We played UNO that day in the hotel room after the marriage..Even the onward and return bus travel was enjoyable with our stupid jokes...Now...enough of flashback...forward to Friday....In all the opportunity to meet people some, after a decade and some after what felt like a decade ;) was a Friday evening well spent... Saturday was not bad...Saturday evening I could make it to Nishabd at Urvashi with sis..Mom was going out of town else Mom and Dad would definitely join.. Nishabd
I wish I could say I am out of words and stop...But I for one like talking no end and blogging is sure no small evidence to the fact that only a few listeners like you would actually listen to me with even an iota of interest...Now..back to the movie..The movie, if I would have to rate it..is a must watch...No doubt in my mind..How many real hatke or non mainstream Bollywood movies do we get to see these days?
Nishabd doesnt have either songs or item girls to sell the movie...The storyline may have been "inspired" by other known movies or stories...
But, the point is that, if we disregard for a moment the originality of idea behind the script,, the movie is brilliant...Amitabh Bachcan is a School of Acting in himself...His acting is admirably awesome...The screenplay and adaptation of storyline have also been good, but there was definitely scope for improvement there....And Jiah Khan...I am Nishabd ;)
Sunday morning saw me through a few games of Badminton; I dint think I played too well...given that I had been running all over the court and had ended up injuring a knee and an ankle...This was was fine..But definitley could have been better...Sunday evening was dinner with Trilogy, Microsoft, Tavant and Juniper....I was meeting Juniper and Tavant after a real long time and I was too lost in the conversation to notice the name of the restaurant as I walked in...The American chopsuey was quite bad...especially because it tasted sweet.... We were talking about HP..and the characters we came across there..And then for some time, and invariably so...about fellow interns and other friends...Had an Ethiopian Kahwah at Coffee day...but what I do remember is that Trilogy asked Thorogood to revisit decisions and told me about he thought that somethin esle would be better for me than whatever or I am pursuing at the moment. I was forced to think and was almost about to agree with Trilogy...But, patience is really a virtue...and theres no way of finding out now about what moves is going to be ultimately good...For now, I am at Thorogood. Time just slipped as we spoke..and it was 10 45 before I realised....I reached home at 11 30 afraid that Dad would have been quite anxious and could have potentially become angry! It was comical actually....becasue Dad was under the impression that th eonly useful thigns I had done today was playi ng badminton, taking a seconfd bath for returning (full stop!) So, he hesitatingly attempted to express the point about wasting an entire day....There are two aspects to this...one of concern and love that Dad has for me in terms of wasting time...and the other of my feeling bad on such things being pointed out to me...I am defintely out of words and ideas about how a father can balance the two concerns so well....Am I lucky or am I lucky? For now you have enough Samiksha...I should hopefully be in a much better position to talk the next time around.....Untl then, bye!
Current Location: My bean bag at the bed.
Current Mood:  bored
Current Music: None
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Hmmm...I have been for quite some time thinking about how I can apply Steven D Levitt's idea of insufficient information in making purchase/consumption decisions to other scenarios. I have also been thinking about how I have myself been a victim of the problem of mediocrity..generally I guess I am an ok ok guy..Not too bad..Not great either! Well...and this applies to most (mark it Samiksha, I am saying MOST and not ALL!) aspects of my personality...I mean attributes to the dimension that my personality is ;) There is no point hiding this..so admission..confession if u insist is the way to deal with it really..I am not good enough for some people, places and positions and some other places, positions and people are not good enough for me..In this context, provided I have the opportunity, how do I really convince someone that I am just the right guy for the place, person or position I desire..but may not exactly deserve! What does it take? Some amount of marketing..I mean highlighting (exaggerating if you insist!) some information and hiding some amount of information that may go against me (important bits sometimes)..In all..marketing (cheating if u insist!) goes a long way in getting what you may not otherwise deserve..But I for one think that some amount of marketing is acceptable..and necessary..I cant sit in a corner like I am a treasure waiting to be unearthed or a marvel to be discovered...Especially because I know for sure that I am not a treasure or a marvel ;) In this context, I do market myself or aspects to myself when necessary...and even in the absence of marketing opportunities, I do nuture desires, dreams, aspirations and ambitions and work towards them..mostly to do with the Ps of people, positions and places. Of the 3 Ps, I have been in the pursuit of 2P s really of which one has been more important than the other for 3 years now! The 3 years have been really hard really, with having to manage academics, extra curriculars, work and life in general alongside. I am myself surprised at how I continue to be motivated in my pursuit of this P. The motivation has waned off a bit right now..but if it means that the pursuit will slip into the fourth year, I might just be able to find within myself some fresh sources of motivation..Call it quixotism..call it romantic hope..call it idiotic hope..whatever it is..the truth is that my pursuit of this P will have to culminate in victory. My own friends may opine that its not victory really...But I dont really care..My perspectives and priorities are never going to be perfectly percieved by the best of friends...Luckily for me my parents have always told me that they are with me coz they think I best know what I want... Now, what triggered this post in my journal was that the less important of the two Ps extended an offer to me! The offer was from the wrong P in the first place...and there again it was not an irresistible offer..Though it was from the less important of the 2 Ps I am pursuing currently, if the offer had been of a better quality I might have just accepted the offer at the cost of the other P...I might sound like I am a complete idiot Samiksha; but then this is how I am....At the end of all this, I have made it clear to myself and my parents that such offers will take a backseat now....not until the most important and pragmatic of my pursuits culminates in success...The journey involved in this pursuit has been a tough one, tiring me out completely at times, leaving me dejected on quite a few ocassions; Some people feel I must compromise on one of the Ps...And then some amongst these people think I am actually compromising on one of the Ps although I dont agree with them..The truth is that I would never want to compromise on any of the Ps..The third P is currently the least confusing..thankfully! But good times may come to an end once two of the Ps are all well..The 3rd P is a sleepiing giant really! Now, after all this crap that had been waiting to get out of my mind has found its way out..I ll close this post here...And return to the one P I am pursuing now :) Current Location: My Desk @ My Room
Current Mood:  good
Current Music: Pal, ye hai pyar ke pal.
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I am for some reason feeling thus today... That you are the one who is/was mine.... That from the land of dreams you came just for me... Ahaa...what a sweet pain! Girl, kill me once..(Chumma)Just like that! I am for some reason feeling thus today... The rain is filled with ur fragrance... If you go to someone else's dreams...I ll be shaken.... The full moon has sought to apply for leave The moment he saw you....(You ll be more than a substitute!) I am the prisoner...You are the prison.. What if its by accident? Hug me for once.. (Chumma) Just like that! I am for some reason feeling thus today... The flowers that your lips are..they're sweet with heavy words... The pages of my mind have your signature on them... Your name, (though) not written on my forehead, I have engraved my heart with your name... Do you have even an inkling of this? Call my name aloud once... (Chumma) Just like that! Hold on....before you pass judgements about the declining standards of my poetry (your judgement, being your opinion, may or may not be right; but thats besides the point), let me please tell you that what you read above...(assuming its poetry?), is not original... For some reason, I needed to hold onto something for the next couple of days...I mean a song is always better to hold onto than holding a cigarette or alcohol in my hands( I have never held or held onto the latter two in my hands...nad hopefully will never in the future...) So...just when I was trying my luck with editorials and other books and ideas..this movie song caught on...its from Mungaaru Male...a Kannada movie..romantic/sentimental fare...I had watched the movie on the Saturday of its release...But when I again heard of this song a couple of days ago..the song seemed like a good thing to hold onto...I bought the audio CD on Saturday..and have been listening to it on repeat...And what you see above is the song lost in translation...If you know Kannada, I ll try singing the original track to you...I have no words to describe the song! Current Location: My Desk @ My Room
Current Mood:  lonely
Current Music: Anisuthide eko indhu (kannada - Mungaaru Maley)
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Friends have such an amount of influence on us...A new friend got me onto the Rocky series...It started with my fancy of associating the idea or myth of Seizonsha with myself..I have always loved this concept..of Survival..and the "Eye of the Tiger" was the first link in the chain really.. And then...at the risk of generalising, I was today thinking about how recommendations from friends often are more powerful than mere recommendations.. Some of the good things I could remember some of my friends have suggested I can remember...or I like to remember...like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance written by Robert Pirsig, and then The Fountainhead written by Ayn Rand...more recently...Rocky! I have watched Rocky, the first in the series...and have watched one half of Rocky 2.. Rocky Balboa, (last in the series?) was the logical next step...and when a set of office colleagues looked like we could go...we got together and watched it this Saturday at Inox.. The movie was really good...and I would rate it as Must watch..whether or not u have seen the earlier Rocky movies.. For one, Sylvester Stallon is a true stallion..The man in his late 50 s will still put many young men to shame...And not to forget the good acting that he does with such an amount of ease that the character seems real...the characters bigger than the actor...Larger than life...really...even literally!!! Especially the sequence of scenes with Rocky talking to his son about searching for something to blame...and then about how its not about how hard one hits...but about how hard one can get hit.. Apart from that...the talk about how if one is at someplace long enough one becomes that place..These are something I could have read a book for! With plenty of time before the movie, we went to Scary house at Inox...which was...er...not so scary...except for......Man! I mean...woman!!!...Actually, I couldnt figure out! ;) Sikandar had a waiting time on that Saturday night for 30-45 minutes, so Pub World was the next logical alternative... and Mr. Hi fi dint join the rest of us...Well....excuses excuses... Pub world had some real loud music playing and lotsa smoke was around...Nothing really exciting about the place or people really...So, just had the food as quick as the service afforded and reached home at 11...Thankfully, folks werent asleep having been out themselves...I wouldnt mind missing a family marriage reception for a movie! Never mind....talked for a while with Dad..Actually, all of us had one of those discussions..about life in general...the only specific things I can recall amongst what we discussed was marriage, discipline in upbringing of children, self discipline, values...blah blah...And then all of us were tired...So, checked mails..read about TATA steel's early days...and dozed off when I couldnt be up any longer! Current Location: My desk, my room.
Current Mood:  blank
Current Music: Anisuthide eko indhu (kannada - Mungaaru Maley)
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