Follow me on Twitter

It's a realization borne out of laziness, also out of technology. My blogging frequency has a large dependence on length of content, as a result, has dipped considerably due to lack of too many big things to say. However, I had a lot of small things to say. Distinction I make on big and small can be distilled down to number of characters. TWITTER makes it much easier to record the thoughts, state of mind if someone out there is bothered to know what my state of mind is, tweet on some cool things to know etc. Not to say that I wont blog again. Brevity of content, or the lack of it determines where I write them. For now, please follow me on Twitter.

Commitment to a cause

Most times its easy to start an initiative, however novel it is or trivial it is. Its the commitment that differentiates winners from losers. I started this blog with a commitment that I will at least have one entry per week. I didn't manage to keep that up. Well, this entry is not about me.



Its about someone I know who I feel is one of the best creative minds there is to be. You would have seen nothing like it before. Its so simple that you would think why didn't I think of it. But I guess that's the draw to this idea. And his commitment to keep up to the idea is adorable. He does this every day. Quality doesn't suffer as well. Incredible. I am not going to reveal what it is. You will have it to see for yourself.

Click here and be a fan of it for ever

Made in India, by Indians for Indians.

Keeping with the movies theme, wanted to document two Indian films, done in India by Indian directors, that were outstanding. For reasons that are truly Indian like culture, sentiments, anger, compassion and for reasons that are international like brewity, clarity, style, casting and simplicity.

Both films have lot in common. Not big money stars or higly recognizable stars, no commerical Compromises, very small budgets relatively speaking, no big marketing stunts. 'Honesty' is what they are made with.

A WEDNESDAY: Two incredible actors whose characters have triumphed over their actor throughout their career. There are lots of Indian films centred around 'terrorism' with a hope that each film will inflict an impact, small or big. Invariably they all show blood, death, sadness, injustice, anger. In all of 100 minutes, this film doesn't show any of those and still has a very intense style of story telling. 'Casting' as a function is highly underrated in Indian cinema for a simple reason that the actor is chosen even before the script is being written, with very few exceptions Of course. This film definitely belongs to the exceptions.

ROCK ON: Another film brilliantly written and directed. May be a 15 minutes too long but the settings, characters, plot all exquisite. Music bands in India are not a household item, yet. This film is about a music band that involves 4 characters. They come together during their days at college. All of them share the passion for a specific kind of music. They get a big break to produce a music video for a popular channel after winning a contest. Even before the making the video, differences between two protagonists creep in and they break up. They drift as complete strangers in seperate directions for almost 10 years. Accidentally they are forced to deal with the past and they find it difficult to come together. What brings them at the end is 'human spirit' and 'sincerity in their friendship'.

'Children of heaven', 'Colour of Paradise' are two great Iranian films won accolades being Iranian and done by a local director. Day will come when Indian films made by indian directors will get its due at these awards.

8 big mistakes.

Recognition is about setting precedence for good things to come. Its about acknowledging a piece of work which is unique among equals. Its about appreciation for something this is extra special. Slumdog Millionaire(SM)is anything but. Probably the most inappropriate winner at this year's Academy awards.

For me, an Academy award winner has to be awarded to work that either defines that period, that leaves an indelible mark, that is honest to its subject, that stands with time. If Slumdog is about 'hope' or about 'feeling good', then either I don't understand those words or it must have been recently redefined. The Shawshank Redemption, to me, is the one of the best work ever done with 'hope' as its central plot. It didn't win any award at any level but will remain to be one of the best films ever done. Agreed that it didn't directly compete with SM.

Milk is probably the best film done in 2008. If that doesn't transcend hope, not sure what else will. Sean Penn's acceptance speech was a testament to honesty, integrity and determination of the entire crew. I have never seen an acceptance speech like that before. Credit to Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn to have made such a compelling film and hope they will continue to make some inspiring films like MILK. Thank heavens that awards are not their primary motivation.

I guess a little, very little, sense prevailed amidst those mistakes by awarding Sean and Kate Winslet for leading performances. I would have stopped watching these awards if the pretenders in SM laid hands on those silouettes.

8 big mistakes committed in one day went truly unpunished.

Absence explained.

It took all of 55 days into the year for my first post. Its been 46 days since I took my new role at work. Perhaps there is a coincidence. But, not a valid excuse. Lack of commitment may explain this better. Commitment is more a promise made to oneself. Not in a position to advice anyone else. But, whatever makes one happy, be committed to it. There can be no excuses to stop doing from things that you have passion for.

From now on, no matter what happens, there will at least be one post a week. This week, expect a post on the recently concluded Academy awards.

It is resolution time. Is it?

It is that time of the year. There will be no shortage of resolutions.

Why would someone need to make a resolution? Is it because others do or being forced to conform or someone is asking us to do so?

I remember during school days, when we come back from your new year holidays, all of us were asked to stand in line to talk about 'one thing' that we would change or do better during the new year. Never was comfortable talking about things that are very personal in front of others, let alone talk about resolutions.

Mostly, 'resolutions' that I have read or heard about are changing from bad to good. Like dropping vices rolling into the new year, Reducing anger, contribute more to the society, going to the gym to stay healthy. Changing things that are percieved to be bad in someone else's perspective.

Shouldn't we all constantly look at ourselves and do things that we believe? I have never made resolutions and never will. Its my belief that when you love what you do and the love is translted to happiness for people around you, you never have to make any resolutions.












Resolutions is about change and change doesn't need a calendar to remind you. What ever you do, if you stay true to your conscience, then you are being a good person. There's no need for once a year resolution.

When a beautiful flower can bloom between bricks, who says we need to conform!!

Do you believe in Signs?

Even before 'languages' and 'scripts' came into existence, 'signs' did.
It comes in different forms and means.
Scientists, psyhcologists. even the economists believe in Signs.
Nature of it may differ but the philosophy of it is all the same.

Constellation is a sign for some people.
Birds flying in a specific direction will mean something to meteorologists.
Planets lined up in a pattern will mean something to astronauts.
Ripples in the water will mean something.
A child crying will mean something to its mother.
Sound of siren will mean something bad.
Smell of sand will mean its going to rain.

There are times when 'signs' can defy logic and purely based on emotional dependence.
Three red cars in a row will mean a great day.
If you spot two crows together will mean a guest coming home.
Itch on your inner palm of the right hand will mean more money when its a natural itch.

Contradictions

You can chose not to accept, but every one's life is filled with contradictions. The difference is how you chose to manage them. The standards to which you expect people to behave to you and the standards that you apply to yourself when you are with others will always have a sense of difference. You will be judged by the apparentness of the self differences. Nature has its share of contradictions - at one side you have tsunami taking its share of people and on the other side draught taking its share of people. Why does nature not distribute water evenly? That's just the way it is.

You can chose to say a story in 300 pages or make the same impact with 300 words. I have got a fascination of 'postcard stories' - stories written to fit the size of a postcard. I am going to attempt writing some postcard stories in this blog with 'contradictions' as its central element. Professions, Situations, Individuals - wherever I feel there is a sense of difference between what you do and what you actually wanted to.

Poor handwriting. Thanks to technology.

Technology has had significant impact in different aspects of our life. Communciation is probably the biggest benefactor of it. I see it a little differently. In today's life, almost all of it is done using a little more than 14" console at best. People harldy write these days. Letters, notes, messages in the past were written in hand and one could tell the emotions and intent when reading the note. It was lot more personal.

I always felt 'handwriting' is a guide to one's heart. It turns out the way your state of mind is - if you are angry,you write one way and if you are sad, you write one way and if you are happy you write one way. With internet, email and mobile, its difficult to judge the emotions and its very impersonal. Even signatures are not required these days since they are computer generated.

It didn't spare me too. When in school and college, a lot of people attributed a little part of my grades to my handwriting as well. That's how good it used to be. Now its listless, sometimes I find it difficult to read what I had written before. I am making an effort to write in paper more often just so that I dont forget to write completely.

Breaking point

Yes, Patience is a virtue. Patience gives tolerance. Does that mean there is no end to it. Everyone has a breaking point - degrees vary between each individual. The breaking point of patience does not result in impatience most of the time. More patience that someone has, more brutal the outcome of it when it reaches that point. Brutality takes different forms of expression - violence, protest, suicide, revolution. Passionate people have a very low degree of tolerance and they cant wait for things to happen, ending up hurting souls that are close to heart.

I have realised that in me at times with things and people I am passionate about. There will never be an intent to hurt but when misunderstood, it can look that way.

Twists & turns....

On board flight to KL, was sitting next to a little kid playing the cube. Quite intrigued by the speed at which his mind worked, was staring at him, quite rudely I should say. He took about 4 minutes to get it right and he started to scramble again wihtout looking at it and started to re-assemble it. He kept doing this for about the whole duration of the flight which by itself was just about 45 minutes. And I kept staring the whole way through.

It was all an exercise for him to get ready with his own future where he will get to a point in life where all will be very good and he will scramble it all to make it right again after a while and will scramble again to make it right. It happens in almost everyone's life - when everything looks like good and set, somewhere something has to go wrong and from there, its all about getting back to shape and the cycle continues. Here you go, another, entry on life.

Life is a % game.

There's way too much said about life and how to live and what is the meaning of it. Here's me adding to that 'way too much'. Not to find suitors to what I have to say but for myself to write down at this point and reflect in the future what I felt about life years ago.

If one has to write down all the possible set of characters that a human can possess and group them under favourable and unfavourable to one's individual liking, people with more % of favourable character set will become your friends and rest will remain as strangers.

Generalizaiton happens when there is a substantial slide towards a specific character, more % of it. Which I feel is wrong, since the % composition is not stable all the time. It is influenced by time, people, situations etc.

People tend to generalize me as a loner since they feel the % of attributes contributing to be a loner is high in me. While I dont deny, I certainly wont like to be generalized that way. I can be sociable with people whom I can relate to. Unfortunately, there aren't as much. I am not complaining, contrary, I am happy that people that I can relate to are few and far in between.

'I thought they would get me, instead of the President' - Bobby.

Happened to read an old clipping while I was in a coffee shop, 7-8 line decription of how Robert Kennedy's life changed after his brother's, John Kennedy, assasination. And that he felt guilty of not being to able to save his brother and launching a single man investigation to identify what was behind the assasination.

I read that twice, thrice and a movie that I saw a couple of months ago, Bobby started playing subconsciously in my mind. A piognant film about the lives of 22 people in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on June 5, 1968 , the day when Robert Kennedy, then US senator, was assasinated. End credits of the film will have the speech that Bobby made just before he was shot, playing in the background. One of the best speeches I have ever heard by a politician. A speech that made me realise that he could have possibly been the best man to lead this world. Integrity, Love, Passion and Sincerity were all a part of his make-up.



PS: Audio is a little feeble. With headphones, you could see what he thought of his brother. This interview was about 3 months after JFK conspiracy.

This short note and the film made me look for more about this man. He died 40 years ago but resurrected now in my heart. Book stores, Internet, Libraries - I visited them all in search of Bobby. That's when, I heard of this book that David Talbott, a leading journalist, had put together about the Kennedys based on interviews with numerous people who had worked with the Brothers and a few other close friends of the Kennedys.

'Brothers - The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years' is the book. About 400 pages of fantastic read. Stayed up all night to finish, wasn't difficult. My respect and admiration for Bobby grew even more by the time I came to the last page of this book. If he were alive, I would have bet on myself to go and see him in person to show my admiration.

Son, Brother, Husband, Father, Statesman, Politician - all of this could fit in excellently well this incredible human being, Bobby.

This post would never end if I go on about what I thought about Bobby. I just wanted to make a few observations about him and we, what a loss to this world, especially in today's situation. Another Bobby wouldn't hurt us but he is one of a kind.

This entry in my blog is a little tribute to the man.

Annoying really!

The after effects of a sticker removed from a new packaging leaves a a very untidy mark on its place of existence making the just bought look like a decade old. If I were to write down a list of 10 most annoying things, this surely would be one of them. Am sure everyone has a collection of things like these that would annoy the hell out of you.

Passion.

Passion - noun 1 very strong emotion. 2 intense sexual love. 3 an outburst of very strong emotion. 4 an intense enthusiasm for something. 4 (the Passion) the suffering and death of Jesus - Oxford English Dictionary.

I chose to write an entry in my blog on 'Passion' as an outlet to my emotions with more and more people around me living life for the sake of being born. Not sure if its anger or concern, nevertheless worthy of registering my thoughts. Frozen times in history are mostly an act of passion. Nothing significant in this world has been achieved without passion - be it Freedom or Success or Google.

To articulate passion, first name that comes to my mind is Che Guevara - born in a upper middle class family in Argentina, studied to be a doctor, went on a motor cycle trip with his friend across South America and ended up being one of the timeless icons of our generation and for generations to come. His passion lead to a revolution that is Cuba. He didn't stop there. He could have. His passion led to his journey towards Bolivia and eventually to death. Doesn't matter how many years he lived but he made it count with the life he lived.

Mahatma Gandhi is a name that most people associate with Indian Independence. Forgotten names, names not even registered in history stood for utmost Passion for the country - Bhagat Singh, Subash Chandra Bose, Bharatiyar etc. They were passionate fighters who went largely unnoticed. Passion, not always leads to glory but surely leads to a life well lived.

Every human born in this world should have passion for something that would define his/her life. Passion represents clarity of mind. Someone with no passion only means that the life lacks a sense of direction or purpose. It doesn't need to be world changing, least be self-defining. Albert Camus, absolute genuis of a writer (The Outsider) wrote, 'Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies'. This is how I have approached my work and in fact, my life.

I would like to end this entry with a few words from an inspirational speech by Che, 'At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality... We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force'. If this doesn't inspire to be passionate, nothing else will.

Life, inspired by passion and guided by knowledge will always be a satisfying existence.

It took 33 ....

Have had 33 of it.
Few worth remembering.
Very few memorable.
33rd was the best.
Until now, at least.
Nothing more I could ask for.
Not that I had asked for any.
Missed a couple.
Had one.
One, who will be till last.
Thanks to 33.