Lens

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Since the twitter daily update isn’t happening, some random bursts of thoughts and activities over a last few days:

# Feedburner’s link splicer does not have support to Google reader shared items ??!! It has for bloglines, yahoo..but despite Feedburner is now Google’s, there is no support for Google ?! Wake up !!

# While at it, a daily twitter digest splicing would be great, and of course the option to use more than one splicing !

# While at it, ok, check out next post.

# We agree to disagree & We disagree to agree - both sentences mean same, no ?

# Me having pownce invites…anyone wants ?

# Number of chars supported by twitter should have been longer or customizable ..140 is too less for my random bursts of thoughts !

# For real-time random bursts of thoughts (and fortunately for you and unfortunately for me - restricted to 140 letters) follow me on twitter

# Paapa HR ->http://tinyurl.com/26n6bm

# Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations. Herbert Spencer

# A wounded deer leaps the highest. Emily Dickinson

# Last weekend was super failure weekend - wanted to attend bloggers’ meet, lost the way, searched and went an hour or more late. Twas at Brewhaha, nice ambience. Wanted to watch a play, FPS, went few hours early and returned. Twas at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, first time there, the audi looks HUGE, should be great fun to watch a play.

# ”We hate some persons because we do not know them; and we will not know them because we hate them.” Charles Caleb Colton

# Suffered from terrible cold and bunked office 1 day - and I think this the first leave I have taken for being sick since I started working !

# It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought.

# Do not, on a rainy day, ask your child what he feels like doing, because I assure you that what he feels like doing, you won’t feel like watching - Fran Lebowitz.

# Could not fill IT returns online. ( Submitting the acknowledgement physically can not be considered as online filling). The digital signature was not accepted for being zombie (not finding parent authentication). Anyone filled successfully ?

# added odiogo plugin to blog - another listen to me button for posts ! has male voice and sounded better than talkr

# ”I tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.” Herb Caen

# Played 28 in office for many rounds !

# Ppl always use “busy” to mean they are doing something they didn’t wish to do.what is the word for the being busy with what one likes to do.

# In my todo list, the first and last items are : Read and Finish things in todo list.

# It goes without mentioning that I don’t even start with the to do list - first point itself is a huge put-off !

# Play: Work that you enjoy doing for nothing. Evan Esar // Work: Game you hate playing even if you are rewarded at the end - Rk

# Gossiping and lying go hand in hand. Proverb

# Like facebook. Though I had a login few eras ago, I had not bothered to check it out. With apps and all, it looks cool now. I will repeat again - I hate orkut.

# Seeing all these facebook apps, I think facebook is moving to become first adress and one stop for most normal chaps. Facebook = Internet!

# Office guys blocked the sites I use one by one - *.blogspot, wp.com are the latest entries. Thankfully Reader is not blocked so far.

# ”A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

# A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again. Carl Van Doren

# RGV’s Sholay is renamed to RGV ki Aag after fight in high court..can’t use names of Basanti and Gabbar Singh ..Super . I know it does not make big difference with the last minute name change but then, a small relief!

# Pownce is blocked in office..it wasn’t blocked last week..now that I have an account it is blocked 09:56 AM July 16, 2007

# Yesterday saw Satyavan savitri..remake of maine pyar kyon kiya..review later 09:55 AM July 16, 2007

# GM:I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday. Abraham Lincoln

# Wrote few (2 in particular) private-post of event/get-together targeted towards the relevant group of friends, and not to mention - they were super hits. More importantly the writing flow was super smooth after a long time And I think my such write-ups - covering events - are way better than the other ones I do. 

# played badminton after a looooooong time .. 09:55 AM July 15, 2007

# Osome day : picnic to shivanasamudra and talakaadu 09:03 PM July 14, 2007

# Becoming a star may not be your destiny, but being the best that you can be is a goal that you can set for yourselves.Bryan Lindsey

# http://tinyurl.com/2co5fx 12:04 PM July 12, 2007

# Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it. Tom Lehrer 09:31 AM July 12, 2007

# To prev Gm quote, Skv replied “Life is like a trumpet. Why care what others think? Blow it to your heart’s content” My email signature changed.

# ”to kill a mocking bird” is not taking off…will try few more times, if it does not it will join the group of catch22 & pride&prejudice 07:59 PM July 11, 2007

# My feed subscribers’ count was 31 but it now looks like its only 14 (probably a correct figure as I had guessed earlier too). Now after this long a post, I think it will decrease even further !

# I love micro-blogging.

Managing the task between reading blogs and writing a post has become an impossible task for me. I tend to use up all the time reading one instead of writing anything. Is that laziness ?

Anyways, for not posting last few months, as if anyone is bothered to know, but anyways, is not because I did not have time. In fact I had loads of it. It was simply because I had an easy reason for myself - tension and indecision about work etc. Uff what and all has happened in last few weeks. Such surprises and shocks, the one moment it was gone and next moment something else came up and next minute that was gone too. I almost became as much convinced as Annu Kapoor was about the existence of Mr India, before Mr.India actually visits him that is¹ I stopped believing anything that was happening around me or to me. It seemed so meaningless even to plan for an hour ahead as only FSM knew what would happen next. The confusion, indecision, tension all became blurred and the emotions got converged to plain boredom. It almost looked like frustration to others but I knew I wasn’t frustrated but plain disappointed and bored. Plain bored, if you did not get it, you must experience it one day and I wish you should not.

And then the introspection, though unwarranted but was unavoidable, furthered a feeling which almost made me think of myself seriously. Any further I continue with the rant would leave a bad taste on this blog which is otherwise testimony to happy things.

Let me just say, it was a bad time. Last few months. Things continued to fail. My ego got hurt. (Actually its not ego, it was stupendous self-confidence, anyways since its hurt we can name it anything). My optimism got hit. I turned extreme skeptic, unsure of myself. You know something is wrong when you dislike your shadow (due to the past), worst is when it is compounded by failed belief system which will make you fear the future too. And somewhere I changed or my attitude has changed. (So much so that it was visible in few sentences in chat that few of my friends and family took note of. I am surprised that I was observed so easily!)

Anyways, don’t be surprised if such rants like the above become quite frequent here.

For the sake of update, I have quit Chennai and have found a job here in Bengalooru. So now back to home should enable me to spend more time on my blog.

1. and this strange habit of recalling and drawing an analogy to movies is a habit I want to develop and this has rubbed off on me from some blog [back]

Owing to time crunch and fear of not making a record of it (purely for my own interests) , I will just bullet them now:

Last 4 days I saw 3 movies.

Last few months read these books:

It was the Legend of Zorro on saturday and hugely popular Gajini on sunday.

Zorro (though I have not seen the first part) looked neat. Impressive action, pinch of comedy, little but good action, performances that are not complainable, a background music I liked and a feasible plot. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Antonio Banderas and the kid (Adrian Alonso) were impressive. Particularly I liked the kid. Though the movie could have done with little more action and little more pace, it was ok as the very predictable plot too looked fresh.

Gajini was a long pending one after listening to its songs almost 10 times a day (no, not by choice..but the radio keeps playing it non-stop and at my workplace radio singing is a must). I had known that the character has temporary memory loss and expected some Anniyan style of film. Even though I do not follow every word of Tamil, it was ok as I feel there were no great dialogues. Initially I enjoyed the movie till little after interval. But later I felt, it became not only predictable but it looked very hurriedly done to finish it off. The built up was ok but it did not live up to it. How I wish the voilence was a separate film and that of quite-romance-quite-comedy was turned into another movie. I enjoyed Asin and Surya in that part. How I wish Kalpana did not die (at least not in that manner). How I wish the villains looked believable and they were punished enough (and not just in one shoot sequence). And why was an abrubt inclusion of the twin villian - just for those matrix-like fighting sequences ?

For some reasons I seem to be liking these fairy tales like Zorro. In comparision of 2 movies (ok, I can not compare because they are not similar, but then) too I would pick Zorro..may be because there is a happy ending! May be because the movies in bollywood have totally run out of ideas. Any bollywood movie (particularly of romantic genre) seem to be pissing me off , for I can see their inspirations in many previous movies. Otherwise, Hindi movies will create a hype to which they fail to live upto. Or they lie at extremes. In other cases, I am plainly just not impressed.

In one of the reviews I read that “Garam masala is bad but If shadi no 1 is the alternative for Garam Masala, I would go for the latter”. This shows the state of affairs right now in many circles. There is no choice to pick up a good one. But a pale comparision and remaining one after eliminating among the bad candidates result in the winner. Similar to the story in elections.

My Diwali offs were somewhat good. Absolutely did not have time to log the activities. However an album is better than nothing.
Deepavali/Deepavali152.jpgDeepavali/Deepavali121.jpg
Deepavali/Deepavali147.jpg
Deepavali/Deepavali166.jpgDeepavali/Deepavali066.jpgDeepavali/Deepavali111.jpg

Here is my racing video, and here is the album of selected pics: Deepavali/

During my week long holiday (= holiweek) last week I watched lotsa movies n few plays. Here goes the list with brief comments.

1) Notting Hill
Sk had long back given me this saying any romantically inclined person has kept a permanent copy of the movie. I did not have the inclination and time to watch it so far. The movie is cute. With the usual romantic ups-downs and few hilarious oments and most importantly with the happy ending, movie remains a candy.
Both the leads (Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant) put up a fine show and their fans would enjoy their chemistry on the screen.

2)Life is Beautiful
During one of those few(only when some Indian origin movie/person has a chance to win the award then do I watch and in ‘98 Elizabeth was doing rounds ) Oscar awards live functions I have watched, there was this person Roberto Begnini jumping & walking over the seats, dancing and replacing the customary thank-you speeches by blowing kisses and I love you all gestures. He had won three awards for the movie, direction and erformance. It took me so much time for myself to watch the movie, the creation that had touched the Oscar jury.
Not to mention, I too was moved and touched. It is so funny at times. So cruel at other. It portrays the victory of human convictions amidst the adversities. Triumph of happiness over the approaching sadness. Living and enjoying life before the inevitable. When a happy wave is riding on a sad note, the viewer is restricted to enjoy. At the same time, the gloom is delayed. Anand was another such movie which had the same tune.

My fav scenes include, in no particular order:
The girl falling from the sky; Doc asking puzzle when hero was hopeful of his freedom; the final tank scene; Many others.

3)Mission Impossible (1)
Just like that.

4)Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi
I had long wanted to see this. Have heard rave reviews. And after getting belittled by friends for not having known Sudhir Misra who directed this one, I _had_ to see this. My initial impressions are not that good. But after few thoughts and discussions I have bettered that.

Even then, my views are not that hailing. It is a different kind of movie and good. Movies like this and White noise might elevate the ways/nature/standard of movies in Bollywood. Audience cant just immerse themselves in popcorn, they have to sit up straight, notice, think and absorb.
But it was kind of dark. And to a person ignorant of situations in that place and time, it is not convincing. The actions are too less considering the intentions and intensity.
In the lighter view, it gets simple. It is about the person who loves a girl and does anything and everything for her. About a girl who chases something only to realise she had not wanted it and wanted something different.

5)Mangal Pandey
Total disappointment. Okay, I did shed all the expectations of a mega budget movie. Of Aamir khan. Of Lagaan. Of Ketan Mehta. Everything. No, it does not help.
I will tell you why. If you had named this some Bhuvan Pandey, I could have still taken it, I guess. Or no I guess. The problem is the story of Mangal Pandey is not that much to make a commercial bollywood movie. I read somewhere that he was just a normal soldier. It is good for a documentary or otherwise involve others (like Rani Laxmi Bai) and show us the complete war.
You show us few events (or was it only one??) and end it with only a narration ? I don’t like it when all the typical masala is added and most of it unwanted. Each song was a pain and an obstacle. Give me complete masala typical bollywood with as fictional a story, or give me honest and complete factual story that would move me. Not a pathetic mixture of both. Asoka pathetically tried and failed and now this.
A bit over rated but talented Aamir (and his hairs) had very few scenes to show themselves. His hairs marginally won over, I guess. Rani and Amisha had lot of free time and decided to be a part of this.
Now I see in how many ways Lagaan could have failed. I remember some statement like this “Best of content can be pulled down by a bad process but bad content can not be helped by best of process”.

Few movies I could not fit in: Sehar, 7 1/2 Phere, Kill Bill.

6)Play: Snakes and Ladders
I feared if this was “haavu mattu yeni” in English in which case I had already seen “Sleuth” in both the languages. Thankfully it was not. But I should say this was the disappointing play so far. The energy level was good. The message they wanted to convey was also ok. But it was too loud, chaos and disturbing. Only classmates and parents of the artists were among the audience other than us. For the first time I saw that theater was no near to full house. The lead artist’s accent and performance was good and also that of the cute girl who got to slap and kick everyone!
With this, Nbk’s jinx broke and finally he watched a play at RS.

7)Play: Chitrapata
This is one of those the traditional song and dance plus a story play. Jayashree was all there with her high pitch singing, energetic acting and direction. Other troupe members did their bit well.
The story is about Sita. About the argument of how right Rama was to lead her into Agnipariksha. About Shoorpanaki and her revenge. A fictional continuation of the story where Sita is forced to draw the picture of Ravana, which gets life and impersonates Ravana.
There is a display of pictures to aid the narration and the play. But the title refers to the picture of Ravana written by Sita. Taking a branch of mythological story and narrating it in a way we like and adding some stories to it have always been attracted story tellers and playwrights. The body language, song and dance were the nice things about the play.

With this, after the nth it-didn’t-happen, I will stop asking one person out for the play.

Along with these, I met up with few friends, re-worked on this site (thrice), played carrom, browsed a lot listening to lovely music. So much for a week long break. This is my 3rd week-long break in 6 months One more coming soon.

I am changing my job. I am also moving out, to Chennai. My short break has come to an end. My further frequency of posting will depend on the facilities there.
There are few things that I will miss and few things that I will gain. I might write later about it. It was not an easy decision, but then life is like that.
Continue reading ‘Change’ »