Blog Action Day!

"What would happen if every blog published posts discussing the same issue, on the same day? One issue. One day. Thousands of voices."

"On October 15th, bloggers around the web will unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Every blogger will post about the environment in their own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future."

For more details visit http://blogactionday.org/

Got to know about this thru a few other blogger friends of mine. I found this to be pretty interesting! If you do too, go ahead and promote blog action day! 49 days to go :)

Mani Ratnam...Movies...

After some music and books, now it's time for movies.

Mani Ratnam needs no introduction... most of us will agree that he is one of the finest directors of indian cinema. I have been a great fan of Mani Ratnam and always had this desire to own the entire collection of his movies with me, especially the tamil movies. Now am glad that I have about 10 of them :) About 3 weeks back I watched these 2 tamil movies - "Mouna Ragam" and "Kannathil Muthamittal".... now I am an even bigger fan of his!

Mouna Ragam - means 'silent music' or 'silent symphony'. It can be regarded as one of his best movies ever - featuring Revathi, Mohan and Karthik.. all classy actors. Music by Illayaraja is brilliant. (for those who haven't heard...the title song of Cheeni Kum has the same music as that of the title song of Mouna Ragam.. ) The story is a simple one... which is probably told many times in lots of movies... about a woman is forced into an arranged marriage and lives with her husband in delhi... but is still in love with her boyfriend, a gangster who was shot dead in front of her at the registrar office on the day they were supposed to get married. The screenplay, direction and cinematography are AWESOME ... no wonder that it won a lot of awards. Supposedly this movie is also his first commercially success one. If you are a fan of south indian movies and mani ratnam especially, then this is a must watch..

Kannathil Muthamittal - means 'A peck on the cheek'. A recent movie featuring Madhavan, Nandita Das and Simran... again all classy actors.. I felt it's a very different story... deals with the emotions of an adopted child (i guess she is around 10 yrs) , who feels betrayed and goes in search of her biological mother. The story is set in the backdrop of the riots and militancy in SriLanka. The theme of the movie is very thought provoking.... There is no need for me to say anythign about the direction, cinematography etc... he won the "Swarna Kamal" award for this film, from the President APJ Abdul Kalam...

The best part is that each of his movies has a unique theme... and each one is different in its own way..... He is also known to extract best and natural performances from child actors... Shamili in Anjali and Keerthana in Kannathil Muthamittal both won National awards. It's also intersting to note that he has a kid in almost all of his movies... not necessarily as the main character...

His movies that I've seen so far and admired...

• Anjali (nominated to the Oscars..... always tops my list)
• Roja
• Alai Payuthe
• Bombay
• Uyirae (Dil Se in hindi)
• Kannathil Muthamittal
• Mouna Ragam
• Yuva (Aayitha Ezuthu)
• Guru

The ones in the pipeline.. that I am soon going to watch...

• Iruvar
• Agni Nakshatram
• Nayagan
• Pallavi Anupallavi (Kannada movie starring Anil kapoor)
• Thiruda Thiruda
• Dumm Dumm Dumm
• Geethanjali

I guess there is no movie of his that I may 'not like'... probably like it a little less than few of his others... truly a versatile and a brilliant director!!

My Feudal Lord....

.... a book that I read over the last few days. It brought in some sleepless nights and still leaves me a bit disturbed. This was the first time I read such a book, about women abuse and traumatic experiences... there were points where I just kept the book down and couldn't read further.. coz I felt so disgusted abt things described in it. Authored by Tehmina Durrani, a Pakistani woman, the book is a real life story about her life... her traumatic experience in her marriage with Ghulam Mustafa Khar, the former chief minister of Punjab and a famous pakistani politician during the time of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Mustafa was also known as the 'Lion-of-Punjab' and came from the Feudal background ..... There's also a lot of info on the political scenario in Pakistan between 1950-1980...

If you look at the book as a literary critic, then you will be quite disappointed... becoz Tehmina is not a writer by profession. The chapters are not well organized, and the paragraphs are quite unstructured. If I left a chapter unread and had to get back to it in the middle, then there was no way I wud remember the context of the story. Anyways... she says that her aim of writing the book was more to break the silence and let the world know about the male dominated pakistani society, the plight and misery of the women, where they had to constantly go thru a lot of mental and physical abuse.. ......and... expose the hypocrisy of the elite ruling class in pakistan...

What really surprised me was the fact that Tehmina always went back to her husband even after going thru all those violent abuses, sometimes nearing her to death. She reasons that this was becoz a female divorcee in the muslim society was treated with no respect... and her life wud have been made hell... But still, would someone go thru so much, just coz of the societal pressure?!?! Well, I guess even these days there are women who do not raise a concern when they are physically abused by their husbands, for the sole reason of protecting their marriage... I guess it is easier said than done.... But hats off to her that she did not give up till the end, and finally managed to get out of the living hell and got a divorce from her husband...

I admire her courage for writing this book 'coz am sure it wud have been a difficult task for her to have exposed all those big names in the political domain and the finer details of her personal life... The book, when released, received a lot of negative criticism ... She says she had to even go thru some investigations and trials in the court becoz of some info that she revealed in her book...

All in all... it's definitely worth a read... a heavy book.... might put u into lot of introspection and trigger some 'deep thinking' about various aspects of life... especially about personal relationships

Soulful music...

Last few posts of mine have been about music.... that's what I've been doing off late.. listening to more and more songs.. of different genres... and now I have one more to add to it.

I'm sure most of us would have heard of Kailash Kher, one of the most popular singers of sufi music.. of the "Allah ke bandhe" fame, who also features in the league of singers like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Rabbi Shergill. I just happened to listen to one of his songs, on TV, from his recent album and I was so touched by it. This made me download a lot of his songs and when I heard them I was just mesmerized by his voice. Ifelt, till now, I was really missing out on some good piece of music! His raw, high-pitched voice coupled with meaningful lyrics makes his songs so unique and literally "soulful". It's amazing to see the kind of energy and the vibes that are generated when u sing his songs... really wonderful!

If u haven't heard him yet, then here are some of the songs that u ought to hear..

• Teri deewani ... (his best song so far..)
• Allah ke bandhe..
• Chak de phatte..
• Piya re piya re..
• Kinna sona...

Old is gold...

I listened to Mohd.Rafi today after a long time... there seems to be some kind of a magic in his voice that makes me keep listening to his songs .. Sometimes they wud be on my playlist for months! Undoubtedly, Rafi and Kishore Kumar have a golden voice and are among the best singers that Bollywood has ever seen...

I wanted to pick 10 songs of Rafi that I love... but I found it extremely tough to shortlist just 10 ... everything seems to be so good. Anyways, here are my favorite top 10 Rafi songs...

1. Kaun hai jo sapno mein aaya ... (Jhuk gaya aasman)
2. Deewana hua baadal.. (Kashmir ki kali)
3. Gun guna rahe hai bhawrein.. (Aaradhana)
4. Khoya khoya chand... (Kala bazar)
5. Pukarta chala hu mein... ( Mere Sanam)
6. Aankhon hi aankhon mein... (CID)
7. Gulabi aankhein jo teri dekhi... (cant remember the movie name)
8. Tumse accha kaun hai.. (Jaanwar)
9. Teri bindiya re.. (Abhimaan)
10.O haseena... (Teesri manzil)

If u haven't heard any of these.. I suggest u listen to them ...... am sure u will see the magic that I am talking about :)

New look...

It's been a long time since I changed the look 'n feel of my blog... so thought of giving it a makeover...

Liked this new coffee cup template... for its simplicity....

Music that grows....

All of us wud have experienced at some point, the kind of music which when heard for the first time may not sound good, but it just grows on us as we keep listening to it. The music from the movie 'Life in a Metro' is one such good example. Here are the songs that I am talking about

• Alvida (the best song in the movie)
• Rishtey..
• Baatein kuch ankahee si...
• In dino..
• O meri jaan

The first time I heard these songs was when I watched the movie in the theater. I just found it to be very boring and all the songs seemed quite similarly composed. But I started listening to it about 2-3 weeks back and I've fallen in love with each and every song. It seems to create a magical effect on my mood everytime I listen to them, even today!

One unique thing is that the movie has "all male" singers. KK has done an awesome job again. The guitar work in "Alvida..." is superb... and I am falling short of words to appreciate the lyrics of this song apart from the lovely music..

Highly recommended, if u still haven't heard them... If u dont like them in the first shot, keep listening and u might start loving them, just like I did :)

DD Ads..

A couple of days back, me and my colleagues were discussing about how Ads/TV commercials aid in capturing the mind-space of the end users and also help in creating brand value. .. we talked about a lot of TV commercials that used to be featured on Doordarshan (that was the only TV channel at that time!) decades ago... but still they are so fresh in our memories... isn't it surprising to see how simple these Ads were (unlike the present ones where every other Ad has a celebrity to capture attention!) yet they have left a permanent mark in our minds!

Some of the Ads that we all could remember very vividly, along with the jingle/song :) A couple of them also send across a strong message in a subtle way...

Hamara Bajaj



Gold spot



Ek Anek (one of the cutest ad/commercial i have seen!)




Mile sur mera tumhara
(I have heard this a zillion times but yet I am not able to map all the lines to their corresponding languages!)

Etiquette(s)...

I just realized that my frequency of blogging has gone down drastically! When I used to be twice as busy at ISB, I could still find enough time to blog every other day and now it's just once a fortnight or so... unbelievable! I would say this is more of a lack of motivation than time... It's not that I am lazy, but most of the days I just dont have anything to write about. Life can get very monotonous once you start working.. It was different at ISB; there was something happening every day! Anyways, one of my colleagues sent this piece of msg yesterday and it got me thinking... very subtle and so true!

"In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia, until ultimately we become enslaved by it"

Coming to what I wanted to write today....

As we grow up all of us are taught some kind of personal etiquette or we just pick it up as we observe the people around us. We dont give this up once we become adults.. it remaines ingrained in us. Once we start working, we learn some professional etiquette too... Why am I saying all this? Well, I have been observing things at my work place for about 2 months now and I find a lot of it very weird and sometimes frustrating. First thing that surprises (and irritates) me is that people keep their cell phone ringers on full volume in office. With all the hi-fi phones these days, the ringtones are obviously some mp3 songs..and they keep ringing as if there is no end to it.. This is not it.. the phones are just left on the desk and people disappear.. so then u get to hear the whole damn song as long as the phone rings! many times the song just gets stuck in my head for 2-3 days! It's impossible for me to concentrate on something and I have to resort to wearing headphones.

Next comes the desk phones. There is no concept of going to a conference room to take meetings. People just switch on phones (speaker) on their desk for hours. So I get to hear the entire meeting's conversation (both sides) of which I am not a part of. If one person in the bay has a meeting then you can imagine the plight of the remaining 3 people! (disadvantage of not having personal cubicles). This is not it. Some people have their personal conversations on speaker phones!!!So I get to know who has a problem with his credit card bill, car servicing, water problems at home etc... ridiculous!!!! I just cant understand this.. why wud i want the whole world to know about my personal issues!!!!!!!

The story doesnt end here.. Even during meetings people dont put their phones on silent mode... irrespective of whether the manager, director or whosoever is present in the room. So every few mins u are bound to be distracted by different ringtones... and the worst part is that people dont cancel calls.. they pick it up and talk inside the meeting room.. without caring about stares that they get. Even the person running the meeting or giving the presentation answers a call.. so the rest of the people have to hold their train of thought till he finishes the conversation ...

I am sure we all see these problems everwhere..in movie theaters, plays, gatherings etc.. Even when specific instructions are given to "turn off the phone" people dont..I've really wondered Why?! for a long time and now I have just given up trying to find an answer to this.

I can go on and on about this. But the point is that no one can possibly do anything abt this when the company culture itself is the way it is. Someone like me who has been used to a different environmnet for 2-3 yrs may find it difficult and weird............ but I guess soon even I will get used to it!!!

What kind of intelligence do you have?

Came across this link somewhere ... It says my dominant intelligence is "Interpersonal".. Well, though a lot of what it says may not be true...it was fun to try this out :) Click on the link below to access the site...

Your Dominant Intelligence is Interpersonal Intelligence

You shine in your ability to realate to and understand others. Good at seeing others' points of view, you get how people think and feel. You have an uncanny ability to sense true feelings, intentions, and motivations. A natural born leader, you are great at teaching and mediating conflict. You would make a good counselor, salesperson, politician, or business person.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Does it make sense?!

I have been pondering over this for over a month now, since I joined this new organization. Like a lot of other organizations that I know of, even the company that I work for, restricts the use of internet at office. This means, we employees get to access only the "useful" websites such as google search, wikipedia and a few other news related sites. Even webmails like gmail, yahoo etc are restricted... need I say anything about orkut and instant messengers??!! Thats a definite NO NO! I cant even get to watch the stock market coz the site is blocked, theres no way I can do any tradings, I cant get to book movie tickets online, pay my bills or view a lot of photopages like flickr....and the list goes on. Downloads are restricted too... even attachments from emails are filtered to a great extent.......... If you need access to some websites for project reasons, you need PM's approval and you get access only for that duration of the project..... (???!!!!)

The first couple of days this really shocked me. I felt like I was pushed into a place where I lost contact with the world... I might be exaggerating here, but for a person like me, coming from Intel (where there was absolutely no restriction on surfing the net except for a few sites blocked due to security reasons and code of conduct), this was a big deal. When I enquired around, my colleagues said that surfing is restricted mainly to increase employee productivity.... coz this ensures that people dont spend most of their time chatting or surfing non-work-related-info!! .... Whaaaaat!!!!!!! that was my immediate reaction..... Does this mean people are not productive at Intel?!!

I wonder... Does this really work? Does it make ANY sense? I dont think so. I understand the blocking of sites which stream music, coz that can possibly eat on the bandwidth and reduce the speed.... but blocking every other site????? I dont get it! Anyways, rules are meant to be broken....I see every other person (including me) trying to figure out some proxy in order to get those websites working and login to gtalk/yahoo etc... and each time we figure out something, in a couple of weeks that will be blocked too.. so the search continues!! Well.... according to me, this is eating away more precious work-time of ours. If I had access to everything, I think I would have been more productive and not have wasted my time in all this nonsense!!!!!! People spend at least 8-10hrs a day at office and it's ridiculous to expect that everyone devotes all of this time only to work and nothing else... we need breaks.. we need some fun... some distractions... so that we can keep coming back to handle the stressful work! Most of us at office feel the same, but I just dont see a solution to it........ Why don't companies understand this... I really wonder.....

After a long break....

I am back to blogging after a long break! Off late lotsa people have asked me why I stopped blogging. Well... there has been no particular reason. My new job had kept me occupied enough in addition to a whole lot of other things happening in life.... and now I am back! :)

One thing I would definitely want to write about is my new 30gb video iPod ! When I was planning on buying this, lots of friends suggested that I go for other brands like Creative, which comes with the same set of features or more, for a lower price. I was almost convinced till someone said that iPod is one of its kind - you cant get the look and feel of it with anything else and now I am glad I bought it! Some of the good and bad things about it.. according to me..

Positives - It has an amazing sleek design (you'll feel great operating it!), good battery life, bright screen with great clarity, lots of accessories that can be bought , and overall truly value for money.

Negatives - No FM radio, recording, wireless, a different USB cable (cant use the generic cables used to connect other USB devices), very specific video formats (converting is a pain) and the screen, though clear, is too smalll to make movie viewing a good experience.

Chronic chaos..

I guess there can't be better words than this to describe the current bangalore traffic state! This is probably the first time that I have been driving down to work every single day and have been able to experience what bangalore traffic is - at the peak hour or otherwise!! Frustration, exhaustion, a lot of abusing, anger, ear deafening honking and raising adrenalin levels...one hell of an experience in the last 10 days! Not to forget the state of many roads, driving on which can most likely injure one or more of your body parts!

Whether we like it or not... the chaotic, disorganized traffic in this city has ruined most of our social lives. I leave home much earlier than required just to avoid the nuisance...and leave office much later- again to beat the peak hour traffic... with hardly any time left to do other things! People alter work hours to beat the crazy traffic...shift residence to shorten the commute time...go to a restaurant somewhere unplanned coz you may not find that parking space at your favorite joint...well I guess everything in this city is getting planned based on the traffic!

A new phase...

It's been a week for today since I joined work... a new phase that began with a lot of mixed feelings! I hated it the first few days (I love my new role though!). It sure is a drastic change from a product to a services company. Now I understand why people are usually apprehensive in taking this leap. Though I had read and discussed many times with friends as to how a company's culture can influence our work, I hadn't experienced it until last week when I joined this new organization. Gosh! I must say it does have a lot of impact... on employee morale :-) I'm not saying this one is bad but its different... VERY different and I guess my benchmark was of a high standard :-) I can for sure say now that Intel's culture is one among the best... especially with the kind of openness that it offeres between an employee and his/her manager and the flexibilty to achieve work life balance. Wish to go back there sometime again!!

Who's next?

As the tenure of the current president APJ Abdul Kalam comes to an end in July'07, the nation is now wondering who's going to be the next President.That's the hot news that I see floating around in all news pages these days. As a common man, there is no say whatsoever in the election of a president.Yet there are polls to see what people desire. Apart from the current VP Bhairon Singh Shekawat, some of the choices that are floating around are Narayan Murthy, Amartya Sen and Amitabh Bachchan... becoz people now want a non-politician to be the President!

Well..NRN could be a good choice but I wonder if moving him to Indian politics from being a successful entrepreneur, is the right thing to do?! He's the man who built the Infosys brand...zillion software professionals look up to him as an idol... he is a man of vision and mission.. a man of ethics. He has helped his organization to reach greater heights and the Indian economy in general. So won't his talents and enthusiasm to do such outstanding things be curbed by entering the indian politics... I feel he is good at doing what he's doing now.. and shud continue to do so... let the country benefit...

Abdul Kalam's tenure has been good... he is well qualified and has left a good mark.. why not re-elect him? But I guess that's not going to happen. Waiting to see if a non-political person will actually make it to the President's post!

More Koffee...

In continuation with my previous post on Koffee with Karan....

"My mother goes weak in her knees everytime she sees you on TV!", said Karan Johar as he welcomed the heartthrob Richard Gere on his show on Sunday. But I wonder why he was wearing a P I N K shirt and a white coat!!! Anyways... this was one of the rare episodes which was extremely good, like a couple of previous ones with Konkana Sen/Rahul Bose and Amitabh/Abishek Bachchan. It was a pleasure to watch Gere talk for an hour on the small screen. He spoke a lot about his inclination towards Buddhism, Tibet as a nation and about The Gere Foundation - fighting for a cause and how he continues loving to do what he does. For once, Karan asked the right questions and led a meaningful discussion! In the rapid fire round, Gere made sure he was politically correct with all his answers - I think he's already too much in news :-) He also said he wants to act in a bollywood movie - with song and dance sequences! Guess he doesnt know what he is getting into if he wants to do that ;-)

He blushed as he said these words... "I was making a movie recently and there was a little press conference so that everybody would know what we are doing … and there was this young reporter there … so she came up to me and said, Mr. Gere, “Three generations of women in my family love you…. my grandmother, my mother and me”, … and I started blushing.."

The Hungry Tide

A friend of mine had given this book to me, authored by Amitav Ghosh, about a year and a half back. Due to lack of time I was never able to read it and didn't carry it to ISB either. I just found it yesterday lying in my cupboard and started reading it in the morning and just couldn't keep it down till I finished reading it in the night... True to all its reviews, it's really fascinating!

I developed an interest in indian fiction after I read Jhumpa Lahiri's "The Namesake" and "The Interpreter of Maladies". I had heard a lot of praises about Amitav Ghosh's writings from friends who've read his books... this was the first time I was reading his works.. and I am glad that I picked up this novel. It does take a lot of effort and talent to create that undying interest in a novel, for the readers and Amitav Ghosh is one such novelist. I have all praises for him!

The Hungry Tide - is a simple story told in a very vivid way. The author's attention to details, the style of description, the choice of words all created a moving picture in my mind. The story is set in the archipelago of islands near the bay of bengal, called the Sunderbans and the backdrop of the refugees from Bangladesh coming to India. The story revolves around the 3 main characters Kanai - a delhi businessman and a translator, Piyali - an American Indian in search of the rare river dolphins and Fokir - a local fisherman..... the story is all about their encounters in the tidal country. The characters portrayed are very intense and memorable and the emotions described are very subtle and touching. This ain't a thriller - there is no constant suspense or action but this does not slow the pace of the novel! However, towards the end of the book there is too much detail on the scientific research about the dolphins which could have been cut short.. but that doesn't pull the novel down in any way..

If you want to see the Sundarbans painted vividly in words and know a bit of history and myths about the refugee camps and the dolphin species amidst those intense emotions of love, hatred, trust, faith, pride, jealousy...... then this is the book to read!

Random thoughts....

It's so true that too much of anything is always too bad! It's been 5 and a half weeks of break now, after my graduation. The busy life at ISB had always kept me longing for a fully-relaxed-long-break... but now I feel I have had too much of it already!! I am waiting to get busy all over again.. I want to be loaded with work... I want some stress back in life... I want things to keep me on my toes always!! 12 more days to join work and I'm eagerly looking forward to starting a new phase! Grass is always greener on the other side... I am sure a few months down the line, I'll be the one to write here again that I need a break! :) My friends who are working, say that they envy my current state... but less they understand how tough it's for me to figure out how to spend my time every single day!

One thing that ISB has taught me in the last 1 year is that 24 hours in a day is a LOT!! If I look back at those days, I get amazed at the number of things I used to do in a single day.. and whole lot of stuff that I have done in that 1 year. I wish, one more year down the line, I can say the same thing!! I guess it's time to make a checklist......

My blog off late has been looking like a page of movie reviews. Well... that shouldn't be too surprising 'coz watching movies is what I've been doing mostly! I happen to watch this newly released movie yesterday - Life in a METRO. I was eagerly waiting to watch this 'coz there was Konkona Sen in it.. I was a little disappointed as it wasn't all that great or anything different. The theme was very similar to the movie "Crash"... 4 stories run in parallel, their lives interspersed and come together at one place at the end. The movie tried to show some unconventional relationships that can probably be seen these days... I guess the effort was to keep the story practical but it failed to create much impact at the end. However, the performances of Konkona Sen, Irfan khan and Kay kay menon have been awesome, as usual! The music is by a new band (i'm not aware of the name) which is pretty good but there are just too many songs included and it gets very streotyped towards the end...

On a break...

With one more month left, for me to join work again, my well-deserved-break still continues!! I sometimes really wonder why these companies recruit so many people when they don't bother whether we join them or not! The HR dept is usually the most criticized one, and I guess the one in my soon-to-be-joinining-organization is very shitty! Now am just waiting to see another email from them which will say- we are sorry to be pushing your joining date one more month ahead!

So... as I rack my brains really hard every day wondering how to spend the 24hrs, I got this idea of catching up on all the movies that I've never got a chance to watch. The last 4 days has been just movies... movies and more movies!! Here are a few that I saw.... some of them are really old and very famous... its sad that I had never watched them till now! Better late than never! :)

The Godfather - What can I even say about this movie?! Its just AWESOME! I wish I had watched it much earlier. It is probably one of the best movies about the underworld and don's. I can't even find one drawback in this movie. No wonder it's topped the charts at IMDB for so long! I had watched Sarkar, which is supposed to be inspired from Godfather, and I had imagined it's a total remake of the movie. But when I saw the english version, I was surprised... Sarkar had just bits n pieces of the theme... but still it's awesome in its own way! RGV has done a brilliant job with that movie... Both are a must watch!

Basic Instinct - Another brilliant thriller/mystery movie. Though it has a lot of graphic nudity and steamy stuff, the story, cinematography and performances of michael douglas and sharon stone do not let u take your eyes off the screen!!

Erin Brockovich - I saw this movie for the second time. Had seen it about 6 yrs back when it was released. I must say that this movie will be loved even by the people who hate Julia Roberts. I think its one of her best movies ever and no wonder she won the Oscar for it! Such a splendid performance with a nice story line. I loved it then, and even more when I saw it this second time. A defnitely must-watch!!!

Pretty Woman - This is a bollywood fluff type of story but still a nice to watch movie. It's a cinderalla kinda fantasy story, nothing so great but the Julia Roberts- Richard Gere pair makes it very lovable. Both of them were just so brilliant in this, along with the music which hold the movie strong through out!

My Best Friend's Wedding - Well, I had heard a lot about this movie but was totally disappointed. It was just okay. Left me wondering what exactly the director was trying to do with the movie - it wasnt even feel good romance or a humorous comedy. It was all mixed up and some characters were extremely stupid! The plot was not a savior either...

Runaway Bride - This was also a let down. A very predictable story, quite slow but since I love the julia-richard pair, I could still watch it. The climax was well shot and with the subtitles, the movie was bearable...

Guru - I've always loved all Mani Ratnam movies... I enjoyed this one too. But it's definitely not better than his Bombay or Kannathil Mutthamittal. The movie depicts the life of Dhirubhai Ambani but I feel it doesn't do complete justice to his life story. It's not impactful. About the star cast... Ash cannot act for gods sake!! I really wonder if she will ever learn to show emotions and stop being stiff. Vidya Balan's character was a total misfit... not at all required. Abishek has done a good job again... he was the only one who kept my attention thru out the movie. Even though the movie has been shot mostly in one location - Mumbai, the cinematography is so great, you really dont see the sterotype in the settings. A. R. Rahman rocks as usual with his music! Overall, a good movie, but could have been much better...

Krish - dont even bother to watch!!!!

I have lots more lined up for the week... !

Reflection

There's this famous Assyrian adage - "Tell me your friends and I'll tell you who you are", which am sure all of us would have heard. I never really paid so much attention to this. Ever wondered how true these words could be! So, why am I talking about this now? I was just reading through some articles on the Dvaitha and Advaitha philosophies and about 'Conscious Relationships' in one of TOI's Sunday edition of April. (unfortunately I've lost the link to the article) .This was kind of talking about the quote that I mentioned above. It really got me thinking deep and suddenly made a lot of sense to me...

According to Advaita philosophy, the inner and outer worlds are the same 'coz the latter is the reflection of the former. So, whatever we see outside, is really a perception of ourselves, what we are inside. The article put this in an even more meaningful way, by relating it to the different kinds of relationships that we form during our lifetime. Consciously or unconsciously, its so true that we always end up making friends with people who kind of reflect our own personality (what you might call as like-mindedness). We are just trying to see another part of ourselves through our friends. That's why probably we can't "click" with everyone around. This holds true not only for friendships but also relationships. So, if you have an inferiority complex, a lack of love for your own self, then you will probably end up attracting similar kind of partners, where you will end up feeling 'not loved'. You might be just settling for someone who is not empathetic towards your feelings or needs. Most of the times this happens unconsciously, which is reflected back to us by the outer world. Try digging into your past, analyzing why your previous relationships have failed and you will start finding a pattern.... It's a kind of introspection, where you get to understand your inner self..

Here are a few excerpts from that article, that I had saved while I was reading it...

"To continually subject yourself to neglect, abuse, apathy or conflict is not being loving to yourself. If you are not loving to yourself, how can you expect anyone else to be? "

"They are reflected back because "like attracts like" and this is the nature of energy. Until you become aware of what is happening, you will keep repeating the cycle. The outer world is not really outer, it is a projection of what is within you. The inner and the outer are one. Therefore, when you continually draw to yourself a certain type of relationship, when you notice a pattern in your life's behaviour and when you repeatedly find yourself dealing with the same issues, you will know that the "trouble" lies within you...and not with the other person"

"To be aware that the person you see in front of you is actually a part of yourself, and to treat them accordingly, means to have the courage to be honest with yourself. It means you can no longer act from defensiveness. It means you can no longer try and control others........"

Hmmm... really intriguing part. Especially the first 2 lines... so true! Unless we really start loving ourselves, how can we expect to be surrounded by people who can love us?? It's as simple as it can get! One of the reasons for a lot of failed relationships I guess! So according to this, is it really possible to have a 'conscious relationship'? I mean, getting aware of our own self so that we attract similar kind of people. Is it really possible to break our patterns and change our inborn character...I wonder! Am sure it's possible.. .but how easy would it be is the question.

Coming back to the adage, looks like it really makes sense.. It's quite possible to look at the kind of people one is surrounded with or the kind of relationships a person is into... to get a picture of one's self!