What to do?

Bush is definitely among the top 5 in my "least credibile person" list. He can say what he wants, straight face et al but i just cannot bring myself to believe a word.
Something on the news about how the Americans diffused an Al-Quaeda attempt to blow up the tallest building on the W. coast. Actually a perfectly believable claim - but because Bush said it i cannot believe it.
Either i am biased or i can see what the Americans can't - the emperor has no clothes!

going back to favourite phrase of 2006 - "hmmm...anyway.."
am back to restless phase and feeling like i should be doing bigger things.. inspirational things.. even if one person's life (this life cannot obviously be that of family / friends / any person who has stake in my life) is better because of me - my life might be worth it... otherwise i am beginning to think it really isn't!
WHAT TO DO?

The age of the Loser...

Of all the movies i can remember from before (Not sure what exact time period "before" is - but what i mean is until very recently for as long back as i can remember) the more popular movies / heroes were always the macho ones - where the hero beats the villain up. The Amol Palekar movie where the man could not get himself to talk to the girl was always the sidey movie - funny and all that, but still sidey.

I just realised that this has changed and changed pretty recently..
Exhibit A - Saif Khan - Screw-up type, not so macho person
Exhibit B - Bridget Jones Diary - Major loser but every girl i know really connected - Big Success
Exhibit C - Hugh Grant - Typical English loser type - Big Star
Exhibit D - American Pie (Did so well - they went and made a Part 2)
And so many more..

Its almost like an identity shift from "I don't want to be who i am - so show me a far-removed hero person i would like to be" to "I am okay with who I am. Its entertaining enough".
Here i am obviously stating my personal preferences and my concept of myself.
But that apart - you have to agree the market value of a "Loser" movie has certainly risen from before to now.

I find that interesting! I guess if i had the patience to research and a flair for writing - this would be a big cultural study finding!
Since i have neither i will end by saying - for the first time "I belong" - I am in fact in the Right Age!

Rang de Basanti (don't read it if you haven't watched it)

This i had to write before it left me...Watched Rang de Baasanti last night.. thats again by the way - twice in a 3 day span.. Lllloossser ..Anyhow..
I don't expect that much out of a movie nowadays - if it can make me laugh OR cry OR move me in some way - it has outdone itself. This one does all of this and in spades!
I was discussing this with friends last night- I know the message is about "not being complacent and doing something to improve the system" but what it really ends up saying is "do anything" and that i object to.
When you address a population as large and emotional as ours - you need to be careful what you say. Its fantastic that there is a message in the movie that is screaaamiing to be heard without any mask of "feel-good"/ subtlety to it but i think it is very extreme. I think that while a very smooth CYA has been executed by giving it the "appropriate" ending - it still nevertheless shows 5 young kids doing exactly what they felt like without remorse and we have made martyrs out of them and that i believe is wrong.
Has it been done before? Sure. Does that make this right? I don't think so.
It would be really really unfortunate if someone decided to take a gun and kill a few people they decided had wronged them because that would discourage film makers from making something so blatant & loud & 'out there'. It would be just as unfortunate if NOBODY did ANYTHING after they watched this movie and all the impact just died after a night of intense discussion.
But just to clarify, there is no debate in my mind about the quality of the movie.. I love how the movie is such an emotional roller-coaster and how it is not just about 1 hero, I love the dialogues (and i think that "ek pair ateeth main aur ek pair kal mein, tabhi to hum apni aaj pe mooth rahe hain" is just the most brilliant line), I love the songs (a r rehman is pure genius) and the poetry, i love how everybody has such a strong opinion about it and more than anything i love that i got goose-bumps watching it. That certainly has not happened in a while.
By the way, i now have a hello-tune from the movie for the first time - "roobaroo - roshni", call me and you can listen to it for as long as you want.. i promise not to take your call!

Last year.. and some from before ..

A time it was and what a time it was. It was.
A time of innocence, a time of confidences..
Long ago, it must be.. I have a photograph
Preserve your memories.. They're all that's left of you..

---- Simon & Garfunkel

Didn't have a picture of Deepu on my computer..
Hmm.. Anyway..

Much love,
me

Happy New Year!!

T'is the 2nd of Jan, 2006!! Happy New Year!!

I had decided yesterday that because i was indulging in NO physical activity whatsoever, i should go for a run every morning. I even went for a longish walk yesterday with the cousin. Then this morning, i didn't. So i guess. that one is broken already!
But the day isn't over.. so there is time yet for me to break my promises. We'll see!!

So what's New on this New morning of the New year...
My discman is back (wasn't listening to music at work for a while - because i thought unhappy glances).. but i have decided - the discman stays!
Took the stairs this morning (that is another one, we'll have to watch out for)
Annddddd.. that's it!!
Hmmm.. i guess if i do 2 good things every year.. In another 50 years, i will actually be the person i want to be. I may be dead - but so what!

Also i have decided that my most used comments for this year will be "ANYWAYYY" &
"Hmmmm". So we are trying to move on from "Kayyy" of 2005.

ANYWAYY, Happy New Year!

My way??

Its been an interesting 27 years..It feels different this year because i really do feel older..

I can no longer say, "i have no regrets" and i can no longer say "no damage done".
And today if i said, "I am not a cynical person", it would no longer be true.
And even i wouldn't believe it if i said, "You will find this one person who you can talk to, sleep with & have fun with". I think you will find all of this but at best in 3 different people.

In retrospect i think i have mostly had a good time..
but i have my share of secrets and have taken my share of blows on the chin.
Would have loved to say "But i did it my way.."
but i know that while that is mostly true - it isn't entirely true.
So can only say... It has certainly been an interesting 27 years.
-----------------

Its my burrday today!!

Happy Birthday!! Yayy!! except not so much. I am now 27 !! and that feels really really old!
Anywayy, Happy Birthday to me, i guess .
but the good news is i happened to be with special type person at 12 midnight. Yaaay!!!!! So what if said person is happily married and has baby et al!!
(and no before u ask - am not seeing a married man .... i am merely having HUMUNGOUS TYPE crush on this one is all - & it does not know, Thank God !!

Have not blogged for very very long - so let me just give you very quick update..
had fever - was admitted in hospital for typhoid - many sweeeet friends helped out and did more than their share of pitching in - went home - verrryy swwweeeet parents made sure i did not move a limb - am now back at work - its been just 2 weeks and i am sick of it already!!
yup, thats whats happening!
Its a lovely life and it can only get better :((((
But will not angst in blog . Notice how at each occassion where there is potential angst i write abt happier things. I am getting older and wiser already. At least am certainly getting older .. No no.. Yaaay!!!

More Plagiarism..

Read some nice lines about humility & was dying to use this somewhere in the blog.. because that's the kind of pathetic person i am. I plagiarize.. (refer to "My first.." blog)

But these are lines are too pretty to ruin in some pointless story i would have written.. so just jotting them down for you..

The Japanese said - The rice that bows the deepest is the richest with grain.

The French said - "Non qui parum habet, sed qui plus cupis, pauper est." ("It is not the man who has little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.")

Happy Diwali!

Lost lots of money yesterday!!
500 bucks.. why , because i gambled it away!!
Good sense told me to stop while i was ahead.. but the vodka wouldn't let me.
here again, good sense told me to pour myself a drink in a glass, mix it with other stuff ..
but no, i decided to go ahead & swig it from the bottle!!
So anyway, this morning i walk with a heavier heart & a pretty heavy head!

But i guess one must be grateful for the good stuff & i am.. i did not cry because i was drunk, tell everybody how much i love them or even apologise!!
(clap clap clap)
actually, t'wasnt so bad at all.. had a gooood time!!

Arbit interesting phrase i heard today:
Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive!
Anywayyyy, Happy Diwali!!

Forgot to put this up yesterday..

The Hindu
International News
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

"Bush has asked Americans to save gasoline by driving less."

i have to admit that will solve the problem altogether but really .. What???
i never crib too much about these lines anymore though because ..
so much entertainment!! - cannot complain!

Historic eh?!??

So today the company i work for changed its name.. AGAIN!!
Been here for a year and a few month & thid is only 2nd time we are changing name.
and while the CEO was making his speech , he said it was "a historic occassion" -
How pray tell could this possibly be historic if this seems to be recurring event every year..
in fact we should all just block our calendars for same time next year ..

But i should add here that name changing is something that frequently happens to organisations i work in..
My 1st job - was for a media agency called Madison.. which moved from being an International Co. to just Madison India... Nobody knew what Madison was even when i moved there so name-change didn't make any difference.

Then i moved to Lintas - which was a popular enough name in advertising .
And they decided to call themselves "LOWE" .
what is that name?? What's a Lowe? & Why Oh why do i work for it?
Our receptionist (who was called Melody .. we will have an in-depth discussion on that name a little later) would pick up the phone & say "Hello, Lowe"..
AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

And then i joined GE Capital . Now that is certainly a big name, i thought.
Then they went and became Gecis (which is not an acronym, mind you)
And now they have become Genpact.. which i have to admit is not a bad name!!
But historic event - this is certainly not!!

Divya & me

Divya & me are planning to set up this place .. its just a plan right now.
where we set up a place which is mainly in to promoting music, dance theatre.. but is also in to arbit stuff ..
So if we had a house, say with a ground floor & a 1st floor somewhere central , we could then set this up. It would be in to:
1. music classes - where students take classes & pay you the fees and you will pay teachers a part of that
2. dance classes - same principle
3. rent out a room for play practice etc
4. have a herbal tea / snacky place where the living area is
5. have a small room for massages etc
6. play movies that interest people and possibly have discussions etc after. could also have book / plays readings, book & lyrics discussions
7. organise summer campie things for kids
8. also if there was a little garden thing, then you can get kids to work & play & plant trees etc.
9. parts of the place could be a little boutique ish .. in that if you like something you can buy it.
10. internet connection. not a net cafe but just a couple of computers with access for people to surf.
Business model is very suspect because it has not been thought about at all. But so would love to do something like this.. and soo would love to DO UP this place!! i can see it now.
we have even thought of people who could come in once in a way and take guest classes..
like kk could teach acting,
ganju could conduct sports quizzes for kids,
mons can teach singing sometime ,
someone who knows to play an instrument can teach that.. actually my brother could teach the guitar whenever he is in town.
Of course since none of these people have been asked - it is possible they none of them may want to do this.. anywayy..
But cannot say enough how much i would love to do something like this..
will keep adding to this one..

Review-1 (Mangal Pandey)

i watched mangal pandey over the weekend.. nice movie i thought.

what i didn't like:
i heard a lot of people say "not too good" and i can see where they are coming from in that:
It is not spectacular.. and possibly doesn't live up to its hype..
AND it has very very bad editing in that the songs just come out of nowhere - most arbit,
and some of the scenes are too abrupt.
Also hate Amisha Patel in the movie. (Ganju please don't read the next line..)
She makes you wish that she actually had gotten burnt in that Sati scene because she is so desperately "damsel in distress" the whole bloody time - It killed me.

what i liked:
But it is still a very neat movie partly because of the theme.
I love that a movie has been made on Mangal Pandey-
the first ever freedom fighter, the first ever martyr, the pioneer to a struggle that lasted 90 years before we finally got our independance. I find that very inspiring.
And I think Aamir Khan is fantastic in the movie - intense & angry & perfect.

i have to admit, i possibly belong to a segment (i suspect this is a very large segment) that sometimes confuses picking up arms with courage & laying them down as cowardice.

Actually, now that i have said it - i am not so sure about it..
I think i am far more reasonable -
i am not so much for picking up arms and fighting as i am for fighting for a cause. But everybody is actually fighting for a cause & which are the good ones worth fighting for - who is to say.
For instance, i am not sure what makes a religious war wrong in my head and what makes a freedom struggle great.
Again, of wars for freedom fought - which ones are okay?
is the kashmiri fighting for his independance the same as an indian fighting for his.
Or is it just a function of what actually does happen in the end - so the fight for an independant India is great, because we actually did get our independance.
And some American kid is going to think many years later that America did this great thing by going to war with Iraq because his history book will say so.

Oh! the pressure of being reasonable!!

I want

Where is my cabin? I have worked for 4 years now, different places (but still)
& i still don't have a cabin..

I want a cabin...
and my own phone (which nobody else uses) ..
and a cooool laptop with net access and no fire-walled sites - not because i want to access porn at work, but because at work - EVERY interesting site in the world has been fire-walled..its inaccessible, anyway.. don't know how they did it.

I also want my manager's salary & cute boy who will join team (this will mean boy who is single, not attached, does not talk too much, listens to good music, speaks well etc.. specifying because whoever is listening to wishes and granting them is getting it all wrong) and fall MADLY in love with me and i will be in love with him.
I also think after this the cute boy should quit to find another job because don't want to work with boyfriend...

hmmm.. thinking this will be most edited post - i see myself adding to list above very often!

Movies & such other...

I watched "Maine Pyaar Kyun kiya" over the weekend.
its rubbish, of course.. quite funny.. but nonsense..
Am glad i paid only 50 bucks for that ticket..anything more & i would have wept..
I think other than "Dus" i have watched every single movie that has come to town in the past few months..
Its not even like i went only to movies i really wanted to go for.. i just went for everything.
.. am starting to lose credibility with friends when i say a movie is nice..
because they are thinking "what does she know - she watches everything".

also spent some Rs.400/- odd last night because i went to watch "Fantastic 4"..
How 400 - because 130 on the ticket, 100 on dinner & 200 because i had to pay double - meter to the rickshawalla - whose meter was rigged.. - Complete Insanity!
AND it was a spectacularly bad movie..
AND I don't even have that much money..

which bring me to other important point i wanted to make- which is that i now happen to know some people with loads of money (this is quite new for me) & i don't know why they pretend like its the biggest burden in the world..

"People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it...
I don’t' mind their having a lot of money, and I don't care how they employ it,
But I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it. "
---- Ogden Nash

What can i do, someone already said it & said it better that i could ever hope to..

What i didn't say..

Shut up!
You talk, you don't.. ever!!
I think you are over-rated!
What do you know?
NOT FUNNY!
You stole my idea!
I really don't care!
You may think you are so different from everybody else - but you are not. In fact you are exactly like me. Live with that!

And many more such..
No - no angst this time.
Just stuff i think in my head sometimes.. about 4 secs before i tune out to whatever it is you were saying.

Thought for the day..

This is from one of my all time favourite movies - Good Will Hunting..
& possibly one of my all time favourite dialogues..
this one is Robbin Williams to Matt Damon. its pretty long - am just going to paste a bit of it..

"So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life's work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.

If I ask you about women, you'd probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can't tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy.
You're a tough kid.

And I'd ask you about war, you'd probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, "once more unto the breach dear friends." But you've never been near one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap; watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help.

I'd ask you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell? And you wouldn't know what it's like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer...."

this is for when you are tempted to give the "i know about this" speech when someone is sharing something very personal.. because you don't know it till you've been there.. even if you have been there.. you don't know it..
hmmm....clearly, more angst!

Nice??!!??

Hi.. been a while since i wrote..
but was feeling quite angsty today..
so i had to get this off my chest..

see, yesterday someone very close to me.. said that she thought i was very nice..
which is great of course.. so i smiled sweetly.. and said "Hmmm.." or something like that.

I am not complaining about being called 'nice'. I would definitely rather be 'nice' than 'not nice'.
It's just that this is not the first time i am hearing 'nice' as a description for me and it just strikes me as being .. inadequate.

I would understand If someone who didn't know me said - "Oh, she is nice"
But when people i know very well, who know me very well, people who probably love me a lot have to describe me .. and all they can say is "Nice", it really bothers me.
Because - what is 'nice'? Its a word you can possibly use for almost everybody.
It pretends to be an adjective but it really says nothing about the person & it makes me feel very .. dead & very without personality.
I am not kidding myself here. I don't think i have THAT MUCH personality but i must have some.

People don't describe you very often. You don't get to hear good things about yourself that often. So when someone finally says something about you they really should try to make it good (Key Learning etc!).

What o'clock

When you say "3 o'clock-that's 'xyz' standing there" -
I want you to know that i DON'T understand what you mean.
Please explain..

First of all - Whose 3 o'clock are we talking about? Yours or mine?
Secondly - Where am i standing on this strange clock? Am i at the center, at the 6 or at the 12?
And Finally - Why are you talking to me like this? Why?Why? Why?

Who are you and where have you buried my friend?

Scary thought...

Every single time i have had a discussion, academic even on eve-teasing, sexual abuse - there are always experiences shared. And this is what is interesting every single time, every single woman shares some "experience" or the other.
I think that is truly scary. Because i have had quite a few discussions like this and i have ALWAYS encountered a 100% strike rate / abuse rate among women.

And i have to ask -
If every single woman has been abused in some way or the other ..
Has every single man abused?

I think this and then i hate the thought so much because i have a father and a brother who i am completely crazy about, who i believe are incapable of doing things like this and i have friends i believe would not abuse.
But its so scary that we all grew up in different places, lived with different families, traveled in different buses - how could we possibly all have similar experiences.
There must be a lot of dirty men out there!