As Random As It Gets..

My blog has been dormant for quite a long time now . ”Dormant ? ! That’s an understatement!” was what my friend had to say about it!

Too many things have happened since my last blog entry and I was going to sit down and scribble random ramblings about why I have’nt blogged lately, about the beautiful feeling of joy and satisfaction which crops up when your hard work and dreams take shape right in front of you ,about my rocking holidays at ooty and coorg spent with my family which will go down as some of life’s best moments ever, about the awesome fun I had with my long lost close friend Sumi(met her after about 8 years)…But it’s funny to see how much you plan before writing a blog but when you get down to writing it’s almost always intuitive making all that planning seem like a big joke. Well ,this post is a typical example of just that !

First things first . I’ll be joining college in a couple of weeks.I personally deem it a great achievement both academically and otherwise, firstly because Journalism is a field I love and respect and also because ACJ is the best of its kind in the country! Although I had a consistent track record at school , I went through a grueling series of ups and downs both at engineering college and at work alike. I did have more than a fair dose of fun , but at the end of the day if you don’t like what you do, even a fat paycheck can do little to lift your spirits. Thank God, I got out of it, instead of worrying myself sick over it. Now of course , it does’nt get any better..Does it?!

Saw dasavatharam a couple of weeks back. The best part is I got to watch this movie on its second day of release and the late night show at that..and here’s the icing on the cake-I watched this magnum opus in an absolute shack of a theater in the town of tenkasi! A sea of humanity flooded the theater, and the waiting area was so narrow and shady, trust me,I grew claustrophobic! The scenario gave a whole new dimension to the term “global warming”; p

After waiting for almost an hour (We did not have time for dinner..I hate skipping meals :( ) suddenly in what seemed like a magical moment, the gates burst open and the people who thronged the narrow waiting space , were seen rushing into the theater in a mad fit of joy, much like the Indian interpretation of “Storming of the Bastille” which triggered the French revolution. We realized that if we did not follow suit we would have to forfeit our seats!

And in that bat infested theater stylized on the Adam’s Family series, I witnessed a revolution in Tamil cinema. Kamal Hasan did not have to don ten roles in that movie, I thought. But he had to flaunt his skills!! And rightly so.. The make up seems shoddy at places, especially that of george bush and khalifulla khan. The special effects, the Tsunami in particular is a bit tacky. The screenplay is loose. The dialogues don’t make sense sometimes. But I could forgive all these flaws, because kamal hasan has done what nobody in Indian cinema has ever had the guts to do. He has been a trend setter in more ways than one, and surely deserves more accolades.

The other point is that in terms of “acting” ,the make up poses a huge hindrance. The ability to “emote” takes a backseat, so you don’t have much to write home about when it comes to actual characterization. So you tend to notice that characters with minimal make up excel in performances while the rest remain caricatures in plaster of paris!

The background score by devi sri Prasad is AWESOME! For instance, the agony of the resolute Vaishnavite in the 12th century and the ruthlessness of the American villain are so skillfully manifested in the background score.

What the hell is Himesh Reshammiya doing in the movie? The songs are a ear sore,if I can call it that! But in a movie like dasavatharm, songs do not form the soul of the movie.In my opinion devi sri Prasad could have composed the songs too..Ridiculous to find funny man himesh being in charge of the music department in a movie of such proportions!

The cinematography needs to take truckloads of credit here. Shows a lot of nuance when the camera zooms from 12th century to japan to bio lab in America to Chidambaram to the beaches of nagapattinam. Asin is cute but irritable. And mallika sherawat…aaaaaaaaaarrrrgghhh. I would rather not talk about her!

What remains to be seen is how this movie manages to pull crowds consistently now that the initial hype has paid off well.I would definitely prefer micheal madana kamarajan to dasavatharam anyday! But at the same time, I clearly recognize the fact that this movie has taken entertainment to new heights….

I wish my life had a background track. I’d love to have an original soundtrack for my life.. Right now all I can think of is “Its my life-Bon Jovi”. Complements my mood purrfectlee : p

I hope this post has stayed true to its title. Did not intend to, but what the hell. Damn. Bad finish!!

Rock-o-holic!

I noticed that there are a certain number of tracks that have almost permanantly found a place in my winamp playlist these days. That got me thinking ,it would be nice if I compile a list of some of my all time favourite rock songs. I did a bit of soul searching, but still there were glaring omissions in every list. So I decided I’ll make a random list and keep updating it as and when needed. Here we go!

1) Proud Mary-Creedence Clearwater revival(CCR): Stylish. That’s how I’d describe this song. Full of deep riffs and powerful lyrics, it has a unique garage tinged gospel flavour. Listen to it, and you’l know why ccr is unarguably one of america’s greatest bands ever.

2) Woman from Tokyo-Deep Purple: Pure unadulterated rock at its best. Sky high energy levels. Takes you back to the 60’s.

3) Light My Fire-The Doors: Very anthem-ic. It’s got a jazzy psychedelic twist to it.

4) California Dreaming-The Mamas and the Papas: A friend of mine told me about this band . And I’ve fallen head over heels in love with this song! It is also featured in the movie Forrest Gump.

5) Yesterday once more-The Carpenters: This song is really special to me,and I’m sure every person who attended the ILP at Coimbatore in June last year would identify with it!

6) Winds of Change-The Scorpions: One of the first rock songs I listened to. The sheer quality of the lyrics and Klaus Mein’s voice, conveys the essence of the song thoroughly.

7) Sweet Lorraine-Uriah Heep : This is a power packed melody with some amazing vocals. Very upbeat.

8) I will still be laughing-Soul Asylum: Not as popular as their hit single “Runaway train”,but this song appeals to me more, in terms of pace and energy.

9) Wish You were Here-Pink Floyd: This is my favourite Floyd track. It makes me unwind to my college days and I always associate this track with one particular hilarious incident in hostel! If at all I get doped, this is the song I’d like to play;)

10) No woman,No cry-Bob Marley: I find this reggae inspired number very very romantic. Makes me dream of candle light dinners under the moonlight!

11) Wanted Dead or Alive-Bon Jovi: A die-hard fan of Bon Jovi!and this song is a classic piece of rock. Absolute cowboy stuff.

12) Makes me wonder-Maroon5: There’s something very catchy about this song, that new age techno vibe is indispensable. Listen to it using your head phones to really appreciate the quality of it’s sound.

13) Where Do You Go To My Lovely-Peter Sarstedt: Trust me,this is one of the most romantic songs I’ve ever heard. It is set to a simple and beautiful waltz tune and it makes you feel great! Check out the lyrics ….that’s where the song scores big.

14) Johnny B.Goode-Chuck Berry: Oh my god! What can I say about one of the greatest rock and roll songs of all time?! The opening riff blows you away and this is one song I could listen to, over a thousand times in a row.

15) Stairway to Heaven-Led Zeppelin: Need I say anymore!!A rock anthem of sorts by the virtual Gods of Rock.

It’s close to 1 a.m now, and my vision is blurred with sleep! Do let me know if you liked any of the songs I’d mentioned. Will update this post as time progresses.Have a good day:)

Benga"lured"!

A sunny Bangalore afternoon.A typical traffic crunch at the signal."Rush Hour",quips my aunt.Why do they call it Rush hour,when nothing's moving??I could have said that,but I know that it's not one of my authentic one-liners,so i choose to underplay my smartness,and all i can manage is a very matter-of-factly "Yep".

My aunt drafted out our plan for the day.Lunch,movie,shopping,club,coffee,music show,dinner and bang!i jolt my way back to my primitive hometown by the 9.30 p.m train.Perfecto!Our first stop:Garuda Mall,one of bangalore's biggest malls,i'm told.We have a quick grub at the sprawling food court -chole battura,dhokla,pulao-and sign off with an out-of-the-world strawberry milkshake(I'm really obsessed with listing out the dishes i had-cant help it,I'm a hard-core foodie!).

Next up is the movie.I am so thrilled to discover that my aunt loves the movies just as much as i do..and whats more!We even have similar tastes.There's an incredible sense of bonding which springs up between two people who nurture the same views and tastes-that feeling breezed through me at the moment.Both of us unanimously decide to settle for ''Juno" at the INOX.We grab a jumbo caramel popcorn pack and rush in through the sleek complex.I've always ranked Inox as the second best movie place in chennai,the first being Satyam cinemas,with its innovative state-of-the-art movie watching experience coupled with a first class refreshment counter and not to mention,the sparkling clean chic restrooms!

I really have to devote atleast one paragraph,if not an entire post,to "Juno".What a movie!Truly deserving of the Original Screenplay Award it bagged at the Oscars.We've had movies on teenage or premarital pregnancy in indian cinemas,but its not a complete entertainer,unless the heroine is insulted,a hue and cry is raised by her immediate family over her pregnancy,and an old ailing sarathkumar calls for a panchayat and ostracises his son,also played by sarathkumarand after killing his dad's enemies and a thousand other people who have nothing to do whatsoever with the pregnancy and the ostracisation,all ends well,in a revolutionary digital imagery gimmick where the 2 sarathkumars are found holding each other in an embrace!Or a movie like "kya kehna",which again was so full of societal cliches.

That's where Juno scores way ahead of the rest.The movie has originality stamped all over it.Ellen Page brims with energy as the independent 16 year old,who deals with pregnancy after consensual sex with her best friend.What makes the movie extremely enjoyable is its snappyoneliners,ready wit,and the refreshing humour.The scene where she breaks the news of her pregnancy to her dad and stepmom deserves special mention,because their reactions are unpredictably natural and intelligent.Juno does'nt treat her pregnancy as a joke,but she manages to find humour in her situation..For example,one of my favourite lines in the movie:

Vanessa Loring: Your parents are probably wondering where you are.
Juno MacGuff: Nah... I mean, I'm already pregnant, so what other kind of shenanigans could I get into?

The soundtrack is cool.The opening track is so cute,and right from the time you see "FoxSearchlight" on screen,you are in for a mega-sweep of originality and humour.

It seemed like a prelude to a perfect evening:)We drove to Richmond Road to my aunt's library-I was thrilled to bits!I was not prepared for a literary encounter of this intensity-Spread before me was a hall where roughly 30,000 books were stacked up in alphabetical order.Any god damn book in the world from every single edition of mills and boons to salman rushdie to jhumpa lahiri-You name it,you have it right in front of you.Enchanted,I picked up a few books and after coffee,we headed to the club where an Indian Idol like music competition was on,full swing.Grande Finale of the Rotaract Idol!Clones of kishore kumar,vasundara das,geetadutt and lataji weaved magic with their musical wands,and i could not take my eyes off a particular sportzy john abraham look alike in the crowd-It was a treat in more ways than one!!

My tryst with bangalore ends there.As i watch through the hazed windows in my train,andsee the city speed by,i realise how much at home i felt in the city .I had come with just onebag and i was leaving with 5,courtesy my wild shopping spree!But whats another 20pounds when i'm carrying home tonnes of memories and happy moments?:)

It was'nt Me!!

“Shifting the buck” – Don’t we all simply love doing that? “Who broke those glass plates? Who scattered these books on the bed?” One thing is for sure : The answer is definitely not “It was me”. Even if your conscience cuts you to the quick ,makes your head whirl , makes your heart wrench sporadically, that’s something you would never want to admit.

Blame it on your classmates. Blame it on your stars. Well, scapegoats are a tad too rife in this wide wide world. How funny and how very ironical!

Blaming is an art and I know a lot of people who have mastered this art to perfection. You ask them why something went wrong and they will leave you flabbergasted as they start reeling off a whole barrage of events starting from why the dogs in their colony cant stop barking , why the dashed monk sold his Ferrari , why Britney Spears thinks she can sing , why T.R still thinks he can act.. to why men are from Mars and women, from Venus. And at the end of the rhythmically presented saga you wrack your brains trying to figure out what exactly you asked them and why you asked them at all! Talk about sequential blaming.

There is an old joke about a man who always came late to office. One day , fed up with his stereotypical excuses, his boss demanded an explanation. The guy simply said : “Its scorching hot outside , infact so hot that the asphalt in the road expanded ,hence increasing the distance between my home and office,that’s why I’m late.” Lame excuse. Lame joke. Don’t blame me if that was’nt funny – I picked it up from a moth ridden Reader’s Digest edition!!

There are a zillion factors that trigger the blame nerve. Primarily, it spurts out because you want to shirk responsibility and cozy up in your couch instead, to swell up with rage and agony over the footages of some Bollywood actress being called a dog in a logic defying reality show or maybe cry a thousand rivers over a bunch of outrageous soap operas.
I’m not going to dig into the psyche of a “blamer” and dish out free remedies to leading a “blameless” life. I’m not Norman Vincent Peale. (Right!That’s some confession!) . So whats the whole point in writing this nonsensical article? Well, time to pass the buck!!!

The Day That Was'nt

It gives me a great sense of pleasure to introduce to the world,the most jobless idiot.Applause!Up goes the curtain!It's me,people.Yes,what would you call a person who misses her first ever college alumni day because she has ,well,..nothing else to do?

Heartbroken as she is,about not being able to make it to her college,her heartless friends choose to make things worse by calling her from the city and talkin about how good it feels to visit the place you studied in for four years and relive those glorious moments.My protoganist,is immediately transported to her college days where goof ups and Murphy ruled her life.Sherecalls the times she screwed up her practicals,because she fully understood and related with the philosophy of objectivism initiated by a certain Miss.Rand.She even went to the extentof flunking her written tests,because she,like John Galt and the rest of the intellectuals,was keen to figure out what would happen to the world if she stopped working or studying.But miraculously,the world did not seem to need her,as things were sailing smooth;A pang ofjolt hit her like a hurricane and twirled her back to her senses and the smart person thatshe is,she could clearly see that Ayn Rand wrote Fiction and not philosophy.If philosophy is fictious,then is fiction philosophic?But who the hell is John Galt?Ah!I could write a book someday!

She fondly remembers the time she spent with her friends in hostel,those enlightening conversations on almost everythingunder the sun..well, does this blog have censors?;) She is amazed at the insatiable appetite for good food(As opposed tofood at the hostel mess,which threw surprise bashes like cockroach noodles and spider lassi) she possessed back then-the ease with which she could slurp a bowl of soup,following it up with two full servings of starters and 5 kulchas,two dosas,threesubzis(One with a thick gravy,one dry and one with paneer),cashewnut pulao,hyderabadi biriyani,and end the humble meal withstrong filter coffee and butterscotch icecream and still be game enough to go on a wild shopping spree at RSPuram and settle for a sandwich and cappuccino with her bunch of friends at cafe coffee day in the evening.


She was someone with a penchant for movies-could watch korean movies without subtitles and preferred watching"When harry met sally" for the 52nd time,to attending a session on solid mechanics.She's known to be a notoriouscomperer,while doing the MoC in her department associations-has played mean jokes on chief guests by referringto "him" as "her" in every line of the chief guest introduction and grinning sheepishly when the "she" in question wasactually a "he".A lot such goof ups to her credit even earned her the wrath of her HoD,a slightly demented funny litttleguy who'd forgotten how to smile-he guffawed only when he was angry,and 8 out of ten times he guffawed at me.

Well,now she's at home,which is a prehistoric village founded ten thousand billion years ago and still houses dinosaurs,mammoths ,cavemen and george of the jungle.She should have been at her college now,catching up with old friendsbut she's pumped up about attending a meeting on the Union Budget(the closest she ever got to becoming seriousabout a career in Finance Management) and wondering if she should have gone to college instead-the place that gave hercartloads of fun,gave her a degree,a job,a life..Does'nt she have the required sense of gratitude to visit the place, and pay homage to the stalwarts who taught her,pay her tribute to the place that bore her for four years?Does this sound sarcastic?;)

Takes a bow.Curtains down..Applause!

How Absurd!!

Have you ever wondered why we get nightmares during the day but never daydream at night? It is one of those unsolved mysteries of the universe, probably not as academically important as “What caused the big bang?”, but definitely, not less intriguing. This pseudo intellectual thought electrocuted my rusty brain cells and sparked off a rather impressive balderdashish soliloquy in my ramshackled mind….as I sat pondering in my room, staring at those silvery cobwebs , wondering if I’d ever clean them up and again, gazing dream struck at the scintillating night sky , looking for answers to questions I’d never asked. You get the picture? Well , a tad too absurd , is’nt it?

Absurdity-its that forbidden drug which constantly relinquishes our souls , intoxicates our lives and draws us within its folds. There is nothing unusual or earth shattering about a stretch of greenery or an abandoned alley at twilight-(except ,of course, if Captain vijaykanth were to spring out of thin air and exhibit his histrionic abilities , in which case the term “earth shattering” would well assume a literal meaning!) But unwind for a few moments and you will realize that all those seemingly meaningless things you see around you are all wide sheets of canvas waiting for your embroideries. Idleness can be fatal only to the mediocre. Most men cannot even prove that they are mediocre..

Whoever said that you have to abnegate everything to be happy? Whoever said that a life bereft of ambition is not worth living? And by what standards does one define “ambition” ? Ambition has largely been metamorphosed into something very clichéd. Salaries, promotions , perks . They’re all up for grabs. Perceptions vary – What seems like a sensible idea of ambition to me , would sound equally recondite to somebody else.

We let trivialities and banalities smother our lives and take a toll on our right to happiness. The real key is to savour every moment because life is a series of commas , not periods. It’s a roller coaster ride of sorts ; a crazy labyrinth which converges wildly blending the opposites together in just the right proportion – a gentle pitter patter of good times punctuated with tough times , most of which are illusionary. And in most cases , tough times are easy to deal with.. its only the impossible cases which take a while!

So don’t live like a somnambulist – when you sleepwalk through life , you miss out on an entire lifetime , and when you have your foot on the grave , it will dawn on you , that you have’nt started living yet ! Ever tried bungee jumping? It symbolizes the momentary outburst of that mad urge for personal freedom … It nudges you to break free from all shackles and take the big plunge deep down. That’s precisely how life has to be lived !

Happiness is never relative . You are not happy for a relatively longer or shorter time. You are either happy or you are’nt . Its pure and simple. So give happiness a chance – It is good addiction!

To quote Albert Camus , “It takes time to live. Like any other work of art , life needs to be thought about .” Absurdism , comrades, is not just a way of life.. It is life itself!!