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Showing posts from April, 2011

The Hungry Tide!

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If I had to describe this book in one word, PASSION would be it. A beautifully written book, it takes you away into a real but fantastic land. I am young and haven’t read many books, but it is one of the best pieces of prose I have read. Poetically interwoven with little stories, traveling back and forth in time, and describing a new phenomenon or event in every chapter, with such passion, it is a delight to read it. As I kept reading it, I wondered how much Amitav Ghosh must love the Sunderbans. He describes it with great passion like a poet might of a lover. He describes with such wide-eyed wonder, its ecosystem and inhabitants. He describes with such great pride, its dangers both living and the nature. I fell in love with it when I was on page 6. To quote the exact words that created magic: “In our legends it is send that the Goddess Ganga’s descent from the heavens would have split the earth had Lord Shiva not tamed her torrent by tying it into his ash smeared locks” … “t

Muscle of Mumbai

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I have watched, yet again on the plane, two movies about Mumbai, both about the muscle of Mumbai. One is about the immigrants who form a large part of the society and are the muscle of Mumbai. And the other is about the conflicts of men in mafia (supposed based on true story). One is an art film with outstanding actors produced by the National Film Development Corporation of India. And the other is a mainstream Bollywood Boxoffice hit produced by a rich daughter of an old time Bollywood actor. Disha has Nana Patekar moving to Mumbai as an immigrant, living in terrible conditions, always wanting to go back to the village and yet stays on after he loses his wife’s loyalty. Om Puri plays a man who would never give up hope and sticks to the village in spite of terrible finances, proving that hard work and dedication will prevail in the end. Shabana Azmi plays a nagging wife, who acts tired of Om Puri’s never giving up attitude but loves him deeply and is proud of the same attitude. The

I WISH I hadn't Watched it

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I did not know it was a Sanjay Leela Bhansali production till I completed watching it. Had I known I would never have bothered with it, like I did with Black. So, whatever my review is goes for all of his films. Guzarish was made to be ‘wowed’. Picked up a sympathical (quiddaled) controversial (to allow or not) topic (euthanasia), added a lot of jazz (world’s best magician) and glamour (Aishwarya Rai) to it, tagged at all sort of sentiments (the ‘I understand’ girlfriend, the ‘I am Sorry’ enemy, the ‘sir, sir’ apprenhentice) and some crazy story of sadness and battle (Project Ethanasia) sprinkled with emotionally stirring scenes (letting the air through his hair in the car or his mothers support and her subsequent death or the scene when the roof leaks and no one takes care of him) and lots of close up shots on the eyes that show deep deep deep deep deep rooted pain and of course the love story (the abusive husband and the further ‘Mrs Mascerehnas’ scene and the dialogue of ‘walk t

Colorful Imaginations!

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This book my Ranjit Lal that I read had three short stories: Big Neem, Red Jaguar and Mrs. Samson’s Lammergeir. That was the title of the book as well. They are about strange incidents that happen to a young boy called Anirudh over summer vacations. I mean different summer vacations, so keeps growing up. Big Neem is a tree that talks to him and is in the cemetery next to his house. Now really, how creative! And there are ghosts and other animals in the cemetery talk to him as well. Red Jaguar is a ghost car driven by a ghost who drives it to protect his daughter and the good. Now, the only human who gets to drive it is Anirudh. Mrs. Samson’s Lammergeir is a spirit trapped inside a Lammergeir and rescues Anirudh and his friend from death, also visible only to a select few. Amazingly imaginative are the stories that took me back to my childhood summer vacations when a friend of mine and I construed stories about ghosts, spirits, conspiracies, aliens, etc all attributed to an empt

Another New Header: Vacation

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Like I promised. A new header in a couple of days. :) And a new theme

Convo Header

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I know I am overdoing it. I promise this header will stay for less than a week.

Vacation and Work

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Two Sundays after we left home, we reached home. And with us we have tiny little replicas of the Merlion, the Twin Towers, Buddha and some shopping, and of course, my black cap and a PGDM certificate. And did I forget to mention, that India won the World Cup? Again, All Hail SBI! The minute we came home we had to head to gather supplies for the next morning. The next day was Ugadi, the New Year according to the Telugu calendar. And hence the festivities continue and everything goes back to normal once you are back home. Or so you think. I didn’t feel like I came home, I just felt like I left home and sort of lost. Not that I was utterly in love with Joka or Kolkata (though I love them both), but of the fact that I have stayed in a college campus for six years now that it feels weird not to. And now I have 4.5 months at home. Even to think of it freaks me out on how to spend my time. I have already begun looking for options like internships. If anyone feels like doing something fu

Of Calcutta and Climaxes!

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It was a climax in many ways. And forgive for the length of the post. But trust me, it has it’s drama. So we got off at Calcutta, my parents headed to Ranchi to visit family and I had to stay on reach Calcutta. I was on a train while the Ind-Pak World Cup Semi Final was going on. Oh, what fun it was! The pain of not being able to watch it, the anticipation of trying to figure out what’s happening when people in the train start shouting through all the noise thanks to their 3G sim cards and broadband service providers! It was not that Pakistan would win, because in my memory we always one (I know there are statistics and I don’t care for them). It was just the fact that I was missing the match. But I reached my hotel room with 30mins left of the match. And I did get to see the lovely part of the match. And then I headed out from my hotel to Joka. The rejoicing crowds on the streets went crazy. By the way, there were two men in black with a black dog sniffing up and down the entire tra

Thailand, Naturally!

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We reached Bangkok and drove directly to a tourist city called Pattaya. We watched the enchanting and quick changing sets of Al Cazar and its wonderfully perfect transsexual performers. More than the changing of sets and the sets themselves, what was fascinating was the way the performers took your attention away while the set changed, right under your nose and yet you wouldn’t have noticed. The next morning I did para-sailing, to tick it off on my list of 30 things to do before I turn 30! And the best part, so did my father! And other people who accompanied us on the trip! And then we reached Coral Islands. Beautiful they were, clear sky, green islands, white sands, crystal clear waters. Except for the occasional sound of the motor boat, the atmosphere seemed natural. It was touristy enough, yet natural. We just lazed on the sands till our speed boat took us back to the hotel and to Nungnooch garden with dancing elephants and then back to Bangkok. All we got to see in Bangkok were

Malaysia, err, Truly Asia

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It sort of comprises of the most boring part of the trip (the best is always the climax). There is a bridge that connects the two countries and the bridge being no-man’s-land. The first place we were taken to were the highest limestone caves in the world, with stalactites and stalagmites all around and a temple inside and a huge Kartikeyan idol outside. And then we went to Genting Highlands. To reach Genting Highlands we take a rope way for 3 kms. Pretty Cool. And then it’s an amusement park, indoor and outdoor and a Casino. So the outdoor was more fun than the indoor, ye the ‘thrill’ rides didn’t really scare it, except may be one called the cyclone or something. But that was a little feeling of scare that thrilled me only a little. But the best part of Genting Highlands and its amusement park was the 4D Motion show about some Pirates. It was awesome. I loved it. And then we went to Kuala Lumpur. We saw some monuments, a cricket field called the Independence Square, went up (just)

Singapura!

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In Chennai we caught a flight to Singapore, my mother’s first international trip. And then we headed out to see the city of Singapore. We drove around the city here and there looking at building and other building like buildings and then we went to China Town. Cute it was to see an eastern China Town. It was more authentic and had a lot more lamps than in the west. Later we went on a trip down the river looking at the lovely bridges, Clark Quay and the tiny eating places on the river bank that reminded a little of Camden Town (London). The next day we headed out to the Jurong Bird Park. I was absolutely amazed to see the bird show, thrilled like a child. I loved the penguins and the flamingoes and had a fun time at the cage where bird climb on to you. Next stop was Sentosa. I heard a lot about it but was not really impressed. First we went to the Merlion which I thought would have a wonderful myth. Sadly, it was a rather stupid story. Singapore decided it needed a symbol and paid

Vacation, After a Long Time

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I can’t remember the last time I took a vacation. Sure, I did have fun in New York when I went to study in Boston and traveled to Ediburgh when I went to work in London. But I am talking about a real vacation, like those during summer holidays when you have free time and you travel with family and see you places or when you catch with your relatives and spend weeks together and have no connection to the outside world except say once in three days or something. On the night of Holi, I took off on a tiny little Jet Konnect to Chennai for a two week long trip that included three countries and was planned to end very eventfully (it did) with my parents on my last eligible vacation my dad could take me on. Aboard the flight, the non-Indian pilot Ryan was kind enough to point it out to everyone that to our left, the moon was rising in the horizon. It was the biggest, brightest, rounded, rising yellow moon I have ever seen, crystal clear through the heavenly skies. But they do say that about