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.