UP, UP and Above!

The Sis is a die-hard fan of cartoon movies. If you ask me, she's a walking, talking cartoon. If you ask her, she'd blame it on my imagination which has grown up on an wholesome diet of cartoon movie watching.

When it comes to movies, we've both taken after Pops whose idea of TV watching is to toggle between the cartoon channels and news. The only things worth watching on TV, according to him. (The only other kind of movie which deserved his appreciation was that of Kamalhassan's, if we go back 15 years in history. He thinks the man was a genius.) When we were small, during summer vacations, he'd take us to the Children's Film Festival which used to be hosted every year at the Kalabhavan Theatre. A week full of movie watching, some days even a couple of them, back to back. (I still remember a few of the Russian movies they used to play then.) That's where we started developing a (li'l more than)healthy appetite for cartoon movies. People told me they can certify that I'm crazy, when I decided to give my all and spend an year trying to pursue a career in it after getting myself a certificate in Electronics Engineering. A year later, like one of those sad movies, my ambition nose dived calmly, noiselessly, like a kati patang . No, I wasn't much heartbroken (Ah! c'mon girl, be honest! whom are you kidding!). The lost ambition found itself some happy company among my long list of unfulfilled ones like 'Librarian','Journalist','Globe trotter' and co., while I continued my career-building for bread n butter's sake (and designer clothes too.. but let's not talk about vanity here, n stick to the basics, don't we? ;) ).

Alright, I'm feeling too nostalgic right now.. and I go on the same flashback trip every time I watch a cartoon movie which moves my heart. This time, it's Disney-Pixar's 'UP'. The Sis calls me up from work and updates me about it's India release and off we go today to catch the action. The best part about watching cartoon movies is that you don't even have to worry about booking your tickets in advance (which is good and sad at the same time). Just grab a bucket of caramel pop-corn and you're ready to go.

The movie's about a fine old balloon salesman who ties a beeeg bunch of balloons to his chimney and gets the whole thing (yeah right, the whole house) floating all the way to South America, to fulfill his promise to his wife, who died before she could realise her childhood dream, which she nurtured all through her life. And he does it. Though his new adventure begins from there.

Lovely story, told in such a tender way, despite all the fun and adventure. In fact, the li'l love story told in 5 minutess had me in tears. The cutest I have watched in a real long time. And this, after watching spoilers like 'The Proposal' and 'The Ugly Truth' -which I saw a few days back, n had me grumbling that they only seem to make love stories for 13 year old girls now.

This one's a heartfelt story of Dreams, Adventure, Love, Loss and Letting Go.
And while I get busy with my senti melodrama again, you GOOO watch it soon!!! 'coz such movies don't run for long in our multiplexes anymore. Sigh.

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In other news:

I've been reading. like a maniac.
The past few weeks saw me get brave enough to approach some of them I've been running away from all the while. like 'The Godfather'. Whattay story. I was cheated of this awesomeness all this time by people who told me that it's only a Mafia story (which I find repulsive, thanks to RGV overdose), and others who told me that it's a typical Guys' story. Aaagh!! why did I listen to people??? Why??!!!

The other one was 'The God of small things'. I almost got my hands on this book a decade back, but was talked out of it by some of my Satyachristiani friends from Kottayam. 'Utter Nonsense only!', they said. and I believed. Why??!!
I liked it more for the fresh and interesting style of writing. "Chacko didn’t slap her. So she didn’t slap him back."

And then, 'The Fountainhead'. Someone said it's too deep and dark. And I thought the book was a li'l too much on the heavier side for bedtime reading. But now I discovered it! Tadaa!! They say that sometimes, the book finds its way to you when you need it, when you are prepared for it. Guess that's what happened. So much for good timing. One of the books which had a profound influence on my idea of Selfishness and Ego. It somehow made me feel better. like a warm cup of hot chocolate.

The one I've been reading yesterday: 'To kill a mocking bird'. Beats me that I've missed experiencing such wonderful books. There's something about stories in children's perspective/narration. Something about not subscribing to the regular way of seeing/telling things. The way they try to understand things, and grope through ideas, trying to get a grasp of things. It's something we all can relate to. albeit through Google and co. The narration was so good, I read the whole book in one day, flat.

And there's 'The Catcher in the Rye' waiting to be read.
Yeah, go sue me for missing out on all these gems!

Till I comeback with my bagful of random bakbaks, Take care peoples! and go watch 'UP', and go read books.. Buhbyess!!!

Time is precious. Yeah, right!

People love to advice. Unsolicited, more the fun. You know, most of us are such unconditional givers when it comes to advice. "I can give you 101 of them. Truly, from the bottom of my heart, without expecting even one from you in return. No really. Actually, I'd be offended if you try to help me the same way."

I was given a fantastic piece of advice by an old acquaintance the other day. He called me up after some well meaning friend had forwarded my resume to this mutual acquaintance/once-upon-a-time-colleague.

He: "Oh.. you lost your job-aa? So sad, ya. You don't worry, ok?
The job market is so bad ya. So many people are jobless now, no? You don't worry, ok?

But I'm surprised ya. After you left your job at Q, you were working for the same company for more than 3 years -aa? Why, ya? That was stupid. You don't worry, ok?

Such a big brand you were working for, ya. Now see, you are jobless. You don't worry, ok?

Now what ya? Why not get married, eh? You see, it is so difficult to get leave for marriage and all, ya. You are lucky, no? You don't have to worry about leave only. Get married, no?"

Me: "Oh, what to tell you, ya.. I have a queue of 10 people waiting outside my door to marry me, ya. I'm busy making my choice, ya."

He: "Oh-ho.. like that, aa? I understand, ya. But you see, Time is Precious, ya."

I couldn't have been more thankful to him for not suggesting something like me getting pregnant or something. Imagine. "What ya? You could have got a live and kicking baby in one more month's time, ya. You don't even have to worry about maternity leave and all. Time is precious, ya."

Yeah, right!

Falling out of Love

The inevitable. Happens to even the most faithful of lovers, and how could me, lesser mortal, be spared? and so, I decide once and for all that I've seen the end of my two decade long love affair with Maggi. Yeah right, 'Everyone's crazy about Maggi'. So was I. It was a relationship I've long cherished, and tried my best to spice up our love life with roasted chilli flakes, oregano, and at times, even green chillies and black pepper. Nothing worked. Finally, I had to let go. sigh.. Why do all good things have to end? :(

Dunno, guess it's in the air.. yeah I know H1N1 is what's in the air... but I'm talking of something else. Something's making me fall out of love with too many things, at once. :/ I withdraw my support as a faithful loyalist to Imtiaz Ali movies too. I thought his movies could never go wrong, and he gleefully proves me wrong with his 'Love Aaj Kal'. I mean, I'm surprised how could he get it all so wrong? It's like the penne pasta salad I tried out at Sweet Chariot, the other day. bits and pieces of everything. but something was wrong. No salty olives. No mayonnaise. Too much of tomato ketchup..
So was this mish-mash of a movie, with a pinch of Jab We Met, a dollop of DDLJ, a sprinkling of Socha Na Tha, an overdose of Punjabi tadka and some mindless confusion to taste.

Why oh why, make a Sardar out of a Saif? He's got to have something against Saif, or something against Sardars. Really. Mebbe a Sardar stole his last girlfriend and this was supposed to be his sweet revenge? I shudder to think that this was the same guy who made us sit up and marvel at his langda Tyagi and Cyrus (of 'Being Cyrus'). He probably thought he could pull off another HumTum by playing a dumbass in the 'Aaj' part. Hmm.. sad for him.
And for the Padukone lady, the least said the best. Actually, I hoped she would also talk less, just like the shy Brazilian beauty. Her squeaky lines made me squirm. She reminded me of Anna Susan Jacob of 3rd grade when she used to read out passages from text books. So monotonous, so begging me to go to sleep, while I fight it out to stifle my yawns and try to keep my eyes wide open.

And that brings me to 'The proposal'. There was a time when I could swear by one of our bollywood / hollywood love stories, and here I am, a Sandra Bullock loyalist, coming out watching the movie, feeling like I just woke up from an afternoon nap.

The only relief was 'The hangover'. Thumbs up! in fact, Double Thumbs up! Hollywood always presents us the bestest of thrillers in the vein of horror/mystery. but a comedy thriller? Awesome, I say. I've been watching the good old, 'I know what you did last summer' series back to back for some much needed 'thriller' kick off late, and here comes this whiff of fresh air. Awesomeness.

Kaminey's good, they say. I'm yet to see that to believe it. Well they even said 'Rang De Basanti' was a cult movie. I walked out feeling pukish after that ordeal. Though I am really skeptical whether I do deserve to really punish myself to sit through a movie with Shahid boy doing a double role, after stomaching Saif's double role torture. I mean, all that the boy does is to switch between that silly long face which he makes and the cute-ish smile (which I appreciate 'coz it reminds me more of his Mom, and the good old Doordarshan days). But I'm intrigued enough to go watch it. I hope there wont be more of falling out of love to follow.

Another somebody I almost fell out of love with, was 'the' Rakhi Sawant. (Yes, the 'The' is intentional here, and not the after effect of living in North India, where they have to, have to, prefix every noun with 'The'. It's an obsessive compulsive disorder most of them suffer from. But I like them, they are nice people. They even called me "The Usha Dhanraj", which was like a wow! moment for me. :O ) I'm off the tellytube addiction, and am doing pretty good at that, but there was too much of hoopla around this swayamvar thingie, that I had to, had to, go check it out online. And boy! just give it away to the lady for taking good advantage of all that prime time footage to go justify herself and get herself a clean image chit. I like this girl! I've laughed with her, I've laughed at her, but I've always liked spunky women like her. Why? They're so different from me and most of the women I know. One has to have a certain flair and flamboyance to pull off such a mooh-phat image with an attitude to complement. No, I won't agree with you if you call her cheap trash. No, Ma'm.. not every other wannabe can come up with killer lines like her 'jo bhagwan nahin deta, woh doctor deta hai' and 'jo dikhta hai, woh bikhta hai'. Show me a bollywood scriptwriter who could come up with originals like that! Though it was increasingly difficult for me to warm up to her new 'coy' avtaar, and her rather ermm.. tasteless outfits, but sab maaf for the plucky woman. Though honestly, I hoped it's all just a farce and that it isn't real as in Really Real. Gawd! I genuinely wish no woman has to go sifting through a bunch of assorted dumbheads like that, to find a spouse. No, not even for that most conniving, backstabbing, nightmare of a woman I knew back at work. *shudder*

Well, that's as much of bi*ching I had to do for now, I guess. (Sigh! what a relief) I'm pretty much at peace with most of life, as of now(Or so I believe).

Until I fall out of love again, Ciao!

A Year Younger

Another year flashed by, before I could say Jack Robinson. (why Jack Robinson? why not John Abraham? :/ )

Last birthday was something I was looking forward to. THE THIRTIES. I was all mesmerised by it. Since the time I was 27, I've been looking forward to it in awe. I'd be excited to associate myself with my 30 something friends, who'd go "silly bachha" at me with a loving pat on my cheeks. By the time I was 29, I'd only refer to my age as "I'm almost 30". Such was my fascination with it, and the apparent adult status that comes with it, that I had gone extreme lengths to look my part. From choosing that perfect pair of mature looking glasses (the one that best resembled Amumma's, with a cat eye frame to satiate the style quotient, of course!), to parting my hair such that I could show off that grand li'l patch of grey hair which lobby along on only a specific area of my crowning glory. And for the visually challenged, adding in a good measure of verbal show off, by announcing that "I have more grey hair on my head than I can possibly count", and even dumping my most faithful pair of jeans for more mature looking trousers. All was fine till there. Till the glorious Thirty, that is.

Surprisingly, I'm not finding 31 very appealing. Well, I'm not even liking the sound of it, so much that I've been actually hanging on to my real age all for the past year, than rushing to the '1 more year older' status as I usually do. So much so that, this year I've made up my mind that I've done enough of growing old. Why not grow younger every year from now on! So all you sweet peopleses, please do join me as I celebrate my second 29th birthday in style. :) geee. (Also, it delights me that chuddy buddy Tina can't get one up on me as she does every year on my birthday. Her birthday comes 1 month ahead of mine, and I make the most of it by reminding her in the most gruesome and torturous way on how old she has become.. all the while she keeps seething, and waiting for another month, to get back at me. teehee.)

For starters, I've dumped those glasses for good, and got my hair cut short.. real short.. so short as they've never been since my primary school days. ('Boy cut' is how I described it to Mummy, who surprised me out of my wits by miraculously managing not to faint. Guess my horror charms have stopped working on her. :/ ) And yeah, the new hairstyle isn't too kind towards my grey hair either. They can safely go hiding in their secret hideout for now. RIP honeys.

The Birthday was kinda interesting.

Some nice people called up ever so thoughtfully.

Some nice people forgot (and cruel me is really excited to see them do their guilty pout when they'd remember it someday later :P).

Some nice people made me feel so blessed by just being around.

Some nice people were too busy.

Some nice people were thoughtful enough to call up eventhough it was almost too late in the day, because they just got back from work then.

Some nice people sent their wishes and thought I must be indebted to them for their thoughtfulness. 'See, I sent you a wish. Who else would do it for you, silly scum on the face of earth?'

Some nice people (well there can't be any like them, parents of course!) made sure they sent me that cute li'l e-card. Mummy's been doing that every year since she got a hang of the internet. A decade later, it still thrills me to bits when she does that!

Some nice people took the opportunity to do what they do best. Crib about their misery. They know just too well the art of hijacking your special day, and somehow making themselves the centre of attraction as always.

Some nice people overwhelmed me by being there for me all through the years and still not thinking twice before calling me up at 12 o' clock sharp to wish. How do you guys still manage to be so supersweet all the way?

Some nice people wanted to display their tact of making anyone feel like lesser mortals. 'What? no party? no gifts? no cake cutting? how sad, na? poor you.'

Some nice people called up to wish me best, even while they're going through utter misery and feeling the lowest they've ever felt in life. But still being kindness and love personified. I talked to them with moist eyes, while swallowing that li'l lump in my throat.

Some nice people wanted to remind me that I'm at an awkward age for a single woman.

Some nice people were just as they always were. Giving me the best piece of gyan, in the best way possible, that only they knew how to do gracefully.

Some nice people were too keen on asking whether I've landed on a job. (Yeah, the very same people who only wanted to know why I am single, till the time I was comfortably employed. Now all of a sudden, they are more worried about my employment status. How thoughtful!)

Some nice people re-assured me that there are some things, refreshingly stable in this ever changing world. Be it your Teens, your Twenties or your Thirties. Why, I know they'd always be there, even in my Sixties.

God bless you all, nice peoples. :)
Muahs!! :)

whose land is it, anyway?

Some Maharashtrians are totally cross with the bhaiyas. "So what if you too contributed to making the place what it is? Now that all's well, and Mumbai's become the land of opportunities, we'd like to thank you for your services, and ask you to vacate the premises ASAP. Oh yeah, we know to push and shove too, if need be."

Someplace else, a bunch (very small -thankfully!) of Kannadigas feel they've been shortchanged too."We need to reclaim our Bengaluru", they say.
A young educated lady, who's come back from Pune to Bengaluru, and works for an US based MNC (notice the irony) spits fire at a meek Malayalee salesman at a grocery store in Madiwala. "How could you work in a shop in Karnataka, and say that you don't speak Kannada? If you want to talk in Malayalam, go to Kerala and do business, okay?". And she triumphantly describes her valiance to her Mallu colleague who smirks, scheming in her little evil mind, about posting this interesting piece of acidic office banter at her blog. ;) (*)

Meanwhile, there's this bunch of woeful men in Mangalore, busy deciding and designing the new spring summer collection of women's wear for the Indian Woman of 2010. They kick started their ad campaign, rather fashionably at a local pub. And if media reports are to be believed, women all over India are so ecstatic about it, that they've been showering the team with their choicest pink under wears, and lending a lot of support with their handpicked caustic words. Latest on that was that they are busy recruiting designers from the best Fashion schools across India. The company somehow is untraceable after the Elections though (not-so-surprisingly).

At the other end of the spectrum, some enlightened people have made up their silly li'l minds, that fighting over religion is so passe. It's so 20th century-ish, you know. Welcome to the 21st century, we fight in the name of castes. Its so much more fun. For starters, we have more number of castes in the country, as against religions. And then, to add more fun to it, we also have divisions on the basis of languages, states, political parties, and sometimes, for the heck of it, we even do subdivisions in all these, just for the sake of variety. We're a very colorful bunch of people, you see.

In separate events across the country, religious leaders have started noticing a new worry line on their foreheads (God save their foreheads!). They are just realising that they've overlooked something while they were busy fighting with other religions and sorting out those petty caste fights within. This, now, has led to the outbreak of new hybrid sects like 'Hindu-Christian', 'Muslim-Brahmin', 'Parsi-Sikh', 'Bengali-Punjabi', 'Bihari-Maharashtrian', and some other more innovative combinations.
This implies that there will be new interesting sects to fight with.. which of course, is exciting them to bits. However, the low side is that these combo names are all so confusing (and tasteless too. -they maintain), and secondly, the followers of these sects are such dimwits, they don't even like fighting!
"I mean.. what's the fun!! What if all the pure breds convert to these hideous combo religions! What will that bring us to? The whole country will become so boring without religious and caste feuds, which incidentally happens to be our main source of entertainment besides cricket and politics, of course."

But hey, in case you are wondering whether we do feel like a country, like ONE, ever, then yeah!! what were you thinking of us? We feel proud when our national anthem rings, when we witness the Wagah border parade, while we do those candle light vigilance acts and... uhmm.. and.. err.. etc, etc. you know..

Remember our show of strength irrespective of political standings, region or religion, while we displayed our majority disgust against possibility of a woman of Italian descent's ascent to the Prime Ministryship of India?

No No. Don't you take us for some narrow minded, prejudiced bunch of people. We do get selectively broadminded too, like when someone of Indian descent becomes the Prime Minister of Fiji or the Governor of a US state. See?

So you see, we don't always discriminate in terms of caste and creed and region. Especially when someone from here, wins an Oscar award, he's no longer a Muslim or Tamilian or Malayalee. He's an Indian. You follow?

Now, we don't understand why the new US president is so rest-of-the-world unfriendly when it comes to letting us, smart outsiders work in their country(**). And now there's Australia which bashes up our people. We dont understand what's happening to the world! Why are they so intolerant? Why isn't their government doing anything? I mean, why are the people so unfriendly afterall?

And that too, to us, Indians of all the lot. We, the most tolerant people of all (specifically when we are outside our country). Rather, you should be thankful, we are gracing your country with our esteemed presence. You understand? We, who have actually invented and practiced the art of Racism, since time immemorial. You might find it amusing to know that our country's whole social structure was based solely on Racism. Now you know! We think it's high time we get "Racism" patented, before you guys get it also done like that infamous Basmati rice patent. Huff!

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(*)Mostly, the original inhabitants of these cities are refreshingly cosmopolitan, which really helped the cities grow into what they are now. The people who have issues now, are mostly people from within the State, but outside the city, who are desperately putting up an effort to reclaim it, without realising that the city has long outgrown it's status of being just another State constituency.

(**) I wish he had better insight to realise that in a world which is truly globalised now, it is not practical wisdom to try and implement such a short-sighted approach.