I had thought....

I watched some 3 movies over the weekend and Monday... starting with Sense and Sensibility, A Wednesday, The Last Lear and ending with The Lives of Others. Each of them was very much a revelation and a thought-provoker in their own way. I am very happy by the evolution of the storyline in hindi cinema. Each one comes out better than the previous.... very different.... very down to earth and realistic. Ofcourse this is all minus the constant commentary of my brother that there are infinite loopholes and how could I have EVER overlooked them.

But each is an interesting viewpoint nevertheless. An interesting viewpoint of the director, the story-teller....... more so the story-teller and that is the point of my whole blabbering actually. I don't know how I become indoctrinated to stories... I remember somebody, Maa, Baba reading out to me. As it is, it seems I was this talkative little brat who would never stop talking. I remember vaguely ... like those one or two childhood memories which become embedded forever and are the only ones you can recapitulate..... sitting in my little frock with my legs outstretched and hands holding on to the balcony railings....
there was a wide expanse in between me, the balcony and the next building..... the wide expanse of the park where I spent my every childhood evening.. playing and swinging ... boy did I love to swing.

But I am digressing ..... as I said, it seems I was this talkative brat ... maa says my talking would fill tapes and tapes... funny all those words somehow disappeared as I grew up. :) Well anyway.... that one childhood memory that I guess I will never forget is how I would spin up stories about actually belonging to that house across in that other building.

I had this entourage of dolls whom I loved. They would be set up in a line and be scolded and fed and made to sleep and then told stories. They would also have birthday parties with doll size luchis my "mashi" would especially make for them. How well they played along... dressing up everyone in their most pretty dresses and having a doll birthday party.

I also had this lovely kitten book. Each page had the most adoring kittens staring out at you. I can still recall each picture and how much of Johnson's baby powder I would have spent on each of them, just prettying them up. I don't know which story-world I used to live in. But I don't think I ever grew out of it. Even now ... I can fall back on a story anytime. No wonder I get mesmerized by movies... because it communicates the thoughts of someone who thought about the story ... how the characters would act, what they would say, how the relations between them would interwine and disentangle and join together again.

Relationships, that's one topic I'll never grow bored of. Even when I think I have deciphered how and why people act the way they do, I still let myself be surprised or hurt. Funny huh!! Not to say that I am not always to blame... as it is every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Every person builds up the world around them as best as they know how. They adapt to it as best as they think they can. And then they spend their entire life living it .... I guess my point is that that's how I arranged my life. Some things happened, the rest I arranged and here I am. But if I did look in the mirror today and ask myself (blatantly copied from Steve Job's commencement speech at Stanford) "If I were to die today, is this the way I would like to spend it ? " ... I think my answer would be yes. I wouldn't want to change a thing, (except maybe being in India at home :) ).. there was a time when I used to detest working. Believe me, the very thought of having to go to work from 8-5 was distasteful to me. But then something happened, that it became my escape and my existence. So much so, I really don't mind it anymore because it defines a part of who I am. Ok, either the philosophy or I have become a workaholic. .....

In any case, I think somewhere in the mush above, I made my point... a little bit of trying to define who I am and a little bit of who I have become.

Me myself and myself - one liners

The following are my rants followed by my rants :). Caution: do not read at risk of losing mental sanity.
I wish I were a positive person - like the one who sees silver linings on every cloud kind of thing.

I have heard somewhere the first step in turning your wishes to reality is turning the word wish in the sentence into do/am.

I wish I was not turning into my worst nightmare - an 8a.m - 5p.m cube monkey who finds solace in work, who finds that work is the only means of shutting out the other pieces of life he/she is not able to tackle..... who doesn't know life without work ...and who would rather work than be anywhere else.

I wish I could still be a child, see the world through rose-tinted glasses. (My post, my space, I can write what I wish .... and heavens knows why I needed to justify that).

I wish I could protect those/that I consider the most pure in my life. But I do a bad job at this, mainly because of the subject line.

Nothing seems to happen the way you thought they would, nothing turns out the way you had EXPECTED them to.

Expectations are the root of every or most problems.

Very nice saying from my friend's status message: he who has a why to live for can bear almost any how. I wish I had the why, then the how's would be easier, but the point is the why is an eternal never-ending search for me. (not to mention use of both never-ending and eternal is redundant).

Elizabeth Taylor had said: nobody can make you feel inferior unless you let them. I do just that.

I don't think I am marriage material yet if anybody knows what that means. maybe I will be by my marriage date.

I consider myself damned lucky in some ways and damned unlucky in others.

There must be at least one person in the world right now who understands why I am saying what I am saying.

You are a lone reed (courtesy You've got mail) even when you think you are not.

"You were born a street rat , you will die a street rat and only your fleas will mourn you"...in the Zafar like snarl courtesy Aladdin.

The solution to half the world's problems is having A sympathetic ear, who is willing to listen and tell you where you are wrong.

The solution to the other half is a warm hug.

goodnight.

Power of Love

I was moved to tears after a long time on watching The Notebook. I have been planning to watch it since I don't know when, and after a bit of ABC , and 2 bits on my laptop I finally watched it in totalum. To me the movie boils down to just three words, the power of love...(that's four words but who's counting). Believe me, I have gone through so many times of believing and non-believing in love...... it's almost come a full circle for me. :) (I'll leave it to you to guess whether the end was as a believer or non-believer.)

I was just talking with a friend and whining to my mom, about how life is without motivation now. I live this day of getting up, going to work, coming back, eating and sleeping..... it seems such a meaningless existence. Once I wake up, all I wait for is to get through the day and come back and then the next day and the next day.....

:) I guess I should get out more. I started this post with something totally different in mind but it's becoming more remorse as I write. I guess the amount of time that I have been out of touch with writing... I have probably ended up sharpening my expertise in short to the point business mails ... no wonder it's difficult just letting a clean flow of thought get on the paper, or rather my monitor.
Soon I would have also lost touch completely with writing with the pen as you would call it, having gained the power of speed on the keyboard.
Ahh ...life... :) it remains so much the same and yet so different.

Starry nights....

Just to see you smile....
You always had an eye for things that glittered
But I was far from being made of gold
I don't know how but I scraped up the money
I just never could quite tell you no

Just like when you were leaving Amarillo
Takin' that new job in Tennessee
And I quit mine so we could be together
I can't forget the way you looked at me

Just to see you smile
I'd do anything that you wanted me to
When all is said and done
I'd never count the cost
It's worth all that's lost
Just to see you smile

When you said time was all you really needed
I walked away and let you have your space
'Cause leavin' didn't hurt me near as badly
As the tears I saw rollin' down your face

And yesterday I knew just what you wanted
When you came walkin' up to me with him
So I told you that I was happy for you
And given the chance I'd lie again

Just to see you smile
I'd do anything that you wanted me to
When all is said and done
I'd never count the cost
It's worth all that's lost
Just to see you smile

Just to see you smile
I'd do anything that you wanted me to
When all is said and done
I'd never count the cost
It's worth all that's lost
Just to see you smile

it's a beautiful song... albeit a little sad. Given that it made me cry the first time I ever heard it, I have been playing it in repeat mode for quite sometime now.

And the tunes just had to remind me of something else .... (that and a movie I had seen "A Walk to Remember" - strictly a mushy lovey movie which would totally make it in the the top thirties in my favorites list.)...... had to remind me of starry nights and full moons and terraces and just sitting and chatting while the rest of the world slept.

I am definitely not a night person ... so the number of night outs that I have seen are few and far between , and rarely ever for studying or work ....... no, those that I remember have been on a terrace without walls and pillows tucked against the small mounts, as we lay down on a very uneven granite roof, looked up at a star studded sky and opened our hearts out to the heavens..... from fairy-tales to dreams to life.... there wasn't anything left untouched.... by those who felt like the chosen few to be up and awake at that hour and watching over the rest of the world while it slept. Since this was IST, I am sure we didn't think that there were other worlds alive and starting their work then..... no, that was so far away then .....and so unthinkable.....

Just the blackness which had its own romantic aura about it..... the sounds and shadows of the night just so much amplified because it was dark....

I remember another night, the rest of the group huddled in sleep. A few of us were up all night watching movies ...and then chatting way into the night so that when it finally began to become dusk, sleep had long left our eyes. And I think that was my first full fledged night-out and also the first time a few of us had stayed out of the hostel through the night. Not much in the eyes of passers by (of my blog) but definitely a daring adventure to remain etched in the minds of the partakers.

Apart from that, I have only been way awake into the night when I was engrossed in this book which I couldn't put down... or a movie because it transported me to this oh so fairy-tale world. Just during then , they take me to this different plane, where the real world seems unreal ..... I guess that's why I never gave up on the dream of writing a book or making a movie (and putting all readers or the spectators to sleep :))..... someday :)

Lucky in Love ?

I have been searching for a way to make my blog into a book , and just make it a keep-sake for my reading pleasure. I finally stumbled upon the site I want, and boy! was I ecstatic. I immediately took up a pet-project of creating a book on memories. (After all the hullaboo, the blog is going to be the second project.) Anyway so this is the site: http://www.blurb.com/
And here is the introduction I wrote on my first project: :) No judgments please.

There is always the dream...the dream of someone ....made just for you. And however harsh reality becomes, or you realize that after all Daniel Craig, Paul Newman, Russell Crowe were not made for you, and that a Mr.Darcy doesn't really exist, you still try to hold on , in your darkest, loneliest times, to the hope that someone is out there, waiting just like you are .....
So what if you never meet that someone, there are what, trillions of people in the world, and if you are in Kolkata and he is in Timbuctoo, leave alone a chance meeting, even a catastrophe like in the movie Day After Tomorrow might not make you both bump into each other. So does it just boil down to chance ? Nope. What it ultimately boils down to , as somebody once explained to me : )
"what is really amazing is the quality to adapt/ajdust between two persons....it's rare to find 'made for each other' couples....no one's perfect."

I don't want to do a postmortem of love. I don't want to say, oh you SHOULD HAVE all these COMMON INTERESTS...else you are doomed, or don't you know OPPOSITES ATTRACT. (Notice my caps lock is for the opposite views existing in the real world :and are opposites in themselves.....what an oxy-moron .... hmm.... there you have it - the definition of love :)).
There will be times when you will feel like storming out of the
room , banging the door on someone's face , never ever seeing him or her again, crying yourself to sleep over what you think your better half does not understand....
and yet ...none of this will be strong enough to break apart what you share. It is what triumphs that is love... it is what makes you want to be together, it is what you want to grow old together that is love.
And I realize that having solemnly stated that I will not define love , that is exactly what I have done.
So I will end here without further ado, and wish you all the best in writing your love story. This is a glimpse into mine and I hope you cherish it as much as I do.

A little bit of .....

Well so I had thought that I would never cry again or feel bad when I watched romantic movies by myself. And guess what!! nothing on that field seems to have changed. I just watched Just like heaven and cried my heart out :). I just wish I wasn't sitting and watching it alone.
And in between the movie, there is a scene where David (Mark Ruffalo) I think starts talking about his wife who died. And he talks about all the things that she would mess up and could never deal with and he is crying when he says all this to Lizzie(Reese Witherspoon). And I just realized that he doesn't talk about the sunshine in her hair or what she did right or great, I realized that its not just the good things about a person that you fall in love with, but also his or her small mistakes, their ways of everyday life, their small.... eccentricities or habits ..... like maybe making coffee without milk or just using a coaster whenever you need to place a wet glass on the table ........ which suddenly become so much a part of your life that you never realized when you gave them this whole space in your life, when you fell in love with them and all that is theirs and when you started missing them when they are not there.

So I also decided never again to have a dog in my life. I have one, his name is Bruno and he is a golden retriever. It is surprising that I am writing about him so late in my blog, when he should have been one of the first entries. He has this chocolatey golden color, and a bright red collar when he goes on his walks. I did this whole tantrum thing just to get him, in my ninth standard. I looked after him for maybe about 3 years before I left for Trichy and left all due responsibilities to my mom.
He is probably the person to whom I have cried to the most, all my homesickness..... all my not-wanting-to-go-back-to Trichy moods....... he has this habit of lying down against you back to back , stretched just like you are as if he is no less human, and sleeping away the glorious afternoon by your side. And he would get all confused when I cried, and try to lick away my tears.......maybe because inspite of telling him, he never understood my words. Or maybe he understood but didn't know how to make me feel better. He always seems to understand what my mom is telling him though, and trusts her the most in translating human to doggy language. My brother and I have lied to him so much to get things done, that I guess he stopped trusting us long back.
He is pretty old now, and I am really thankful to have been able to have spent time with him when I went home last December, just because I never thought he would survive through another winter. I don't know if I will see him again when I go home next time and I know I will miss him and his warmth and the little space that he created for himself. But lets hope for the best till then.
I guess that's how I started writing about him in the first place. It's the most hardest to have to do without the things you most care about, and without knowing have come to love .... and miss...... if that makes sense. :)