Do Svidaniyan (Russian for Good Bye)

Yes, it inspired a sweet little movie called 'Dasvidaniyan' in Hindi. A movie with the protagonist (of course a loser so far in his life) tries to live his life once he gets know that he is not going to live for a long time. Many such movies have come till date, but this one deserves a mention.

This movie is special just because of its simplicity, and a very natural treatment of the story. With no overload of drama/melodrama and with no ensemble of big stars, the director has made sure that the story gets narrated in a very light manner. Yet he brings out super performances from its characters. The movie doesn't become dull or boring anywhere, and does not get into any preaching mode. A story that had the potential to become heavy has been successfully kept light and warm. 

The performances of protagonist Vinay Pathak, and protagonist's mother 'Sarita Joshi' have been very natural and effective in the entire scheme of things. Go and watch it for yourself if you haven't watched it till now.

Andha-dhoondh Strike

Have you ever played carrom board?

Have you ever tried taking a particular coin (say the Queen, or the Queen cover), and found that you are never ever able to take that particular coin. For e.g., you may be successful in all your attempts to take the Queen, but all these times you'll find that you somehow mess up with the Queen cover coin (only for that Queen coin to come on board again!!).

This happens to you, say, n number of times, and there you are frustrated to the core. And then you say, that enough is enough, and you get into a 'clear-all'/'re-arrange all' type of mentality where you just take the striker coin and make a very random and arbitrary, yet a very powerful strike that will re-arrange all the coins that are on the board currently. You might just have made a strike with your eyes closed and with all the power that you could have mustered at that time. You might have taken a lot of your frustration out at that time. That is called an Andha-dhoondh strike.

The strike would have been so forceful that some coins will go into pockets (much to your chagrin, most of those coins will be of your opponent), some will fly out of the board, some coins near the pockets will be nowhere near the playing zone, some coins in the difficult playing zone will come near the pockets, etc.

Depending on your luck, you'll find the coins re-arranged in a manner suited to you or your opponent. But most of the time, it will provide equal opportunity for you both to start all over again. Even if you are not in a good position after that, you will find a sadistic pleasure of being a destructor, and will at least seek solace from the impact that your destructive act had on the game.

Have you ever tried something similar in your real-life actions (other than on the carrom board)? How many times have you done such a thing? How many times have you found yourself with viable options after you have done such a thing?

Klueless

One of the best online games that I've ever played so far in my life. Many similar games have been in existence, but still I like this one more.

Even more coz it originated from my Alma Mater. You can see it evolve over these years. To try it yourself, here are the links:
4th Edition (2008):
http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris-2008/klueless/

3rd Edition (2007):
http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris-2007/irising/klueless3/

2nd Edition (2006):
http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris-2006/irising/klueless/index.asp

1st Edition (2005):
http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris/irising/klueLESS/

Enjoy!!

Thanmathra (molecule in Malayalam)

Some movies make you cry. Or there will be those heart wrenching scenes in a few movies that will stay on with you as one of the most cry-able moments. Or there will be those times when you simply want to cry- running away from the hurts/worries/problems that haunt you, so you watch such movies and cry even more. Under the pretext of watching such moving scenes, you cry your heart out.

Some of the scenes (I still remember them!) that made me cry have been:
1. Kamal Hassan parting from Sridevi in the climax (Movie - Sadma)
2. Kamal Hassan having high hopes that Rupini will marry her, and that's why she is calling him to court. Kamal discovers that he is to be the witness to her marriage with somebody else. (Movie - Appu Raja)
3. Naseerudding Shah and Ravi Vaswani singing 'Hum Honge Kamyaab' in the climax (Movie - Jaane bhi do Yaro)
4. Karna's death in Mahabharat (Serial - Mahabharat)
5. Mammootty's speech about his childhood friend Sreenivasan (Movie - Katha Parayumpol)
6. Mohan Lal as an alzhiemers patient towards the climactic scenes (Movie - Thanmathra)

Yes, that's the latest movie that I had watched, and found myself in tears. Though I know there were a lot of reasons for me to be sad about, I was lucky that I got myself a pretext (of this movie) for me to cry then. Superb performances by Mohan Lal and Arjun Lal. The story is not very unpredictable, but the performances are simply out of this world.

Home Sweet Home!

http://wikimapia.org/5281342/Mainak

The End of Internet

Gone are the days when internet used to be exciting. I still remember the days (some 10-12 years ago) when access to internet was so privy. Access to internet had a great snob value. It brought a plethora of information to general public who had access to internet. This 'general public' was not the entire masses, but it still was a superset of all the specialists (information hoarders) that existed earlier.

Since then, proliferation of information started happening at a faster rate. Now we were having almost everything at our fingertips. In just a decade, we have surfed so much in the internet that we are hardly left with anything new or exciting in the internet. (Though there still exists a vast majority of human population who have never accessed internet!) Everything has become so routine now. You have got your favorite sites which you visit so often. And that's it. For explorers, there is hardly anything new to explore now. Surfing internet has become as monotonous as driving on a US interstate highway with cruise-control on.

I believe it ought to sound like an oppotunity to those creative minds who can bring in something new and exciting for the explorers to explore. But the rate at which new things come in has to outpace the rate at which they can be surfed or explored. We need a lot of creativity lest the Internet would just lose its charm, and stay on to become routine & mundane (yet necessary) medium.

Tum Ho To..

Rock On!! A hindi movie with rock music as the background? - or so I thought before the movie got released. I was damn sure that rock music in hindi is a sure shot recipe for disaster. Somehow, they are not made for each other - is what I thought - i.e. before I had seen the movie.

While watching the movie, I realized that rock music just forms the background. On the fore is a story that involves friendship, emotions and passion. Needless to say I liked the movie. And while watching the movie I did like the fast numbers Socha Hai & Sindbad the Sailor. It was only when I started to listen to other songs that I became a real fan of all the slow numbers - Yeh Tumhaari Meri Baatein, Phir Dekhiye and Tum Ho To. Just Can't stop listening to these songs.

One favorite being - Tum Ho To...It is just awesome!

Blank!

This is like one of those many days that have been occuring so frequently with me these days - Days when I go completely blank.

Zuk! And I don't even know what I am doing or thinking currently. With an oblivious expression on my face, I stare at all the creatures and objects that lie in front of me. I do not do anything. I do not think anything. I can't even recollect what I would have done or thought earlier. I can't force myself to think or do anything. In fact, I can't even catch my own thoughts.

It's like I have been separated from my own self.

Have you ever undergone days like this?

To LIVE a LIFE!

Brooding over the vagaries of life has been one of my favorite pastimes. But of late, I catch myself brooding over such topics a lot.

The way my life has been meandering over for quite some weeks now, I wonder whether am I really living a life, or am I preparing to die? There is an element of risk involved in every aspect of life, but if we remain scared of such risks, we will never be able to enjoy life. We will never be able to live a life.

I understand that death can come any time. But does that mean we remain scared of it and do not live our lives? To die, we need to live first!! Only if we live that we can die. Otherwise we stay like a dead body throughout our lifetime. We just inhale and exhale through our dead bodies. So risks have to be taken. Attitude should be positive, and we should strive towards that positive goal. Whatever we get in that pursuit - be it good or bad - is immaterial. But it does not make sense to avoid the entire pursuit just to avoid the 'bad things that we may get in that pursuit'. I do not want to restrict my life in any way. I don't want to have regrets while I am on my deathbed. I want to live. I want to live now. I want to live like a living man. I don't want to postpone 'living my life' to a later point of time.

An ode to a simple path

In an endeavor to simplify my complicated life, I had tried to follow a simple path.

I faltered as the path was not as simple as I had expected it to be, or as simple as the path proclaimed to be. One can call it expectation mismatch or whatever.

I kept falling down but I persevered. After every fall, I kept getting up and going. I tried my best to walk on it despite numerous falls that I had. The path was well trodden. But I was new to it. Despite licking the dust so many times, I could never ever become one with the path. All I had over my body were bruises. Some showed up, some didn't.

It was only a matter of time before I gave up. And give up did I, much to the chagrin of the path, the world, and my own self.

How strongly I had felt for that path, how much did I crave for walking down that path - only I know that. No one else can empathise with me.

Now, for the good of my life and all the other lives around me, I don't want to pursue that path (at least for the near foreseeable future). I don't want to simplify my life anymore. I would let my life be as complicated as it was, because I have realized that the more one tries to simplify it, the more complicated it becomes.

Happening Weeks

So many events have been happening all around me over the last 2 months.

With the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2007 already having started to show its effect on the economy, which is getting slower by each passing day; skepticism and pessimism is widespread as the stock markets are tumbling down. A big old investment bank has been sold for almost 1% of what it was worth just 16 days ago.

From some aspect, it looks like troubled times as everyone is wary of the impact of a global economic recession. It sure is going to have an impact on their personal lives too. But what happens to those who are already having a lot of happenings on their personal fronts.

I just happened to observe two persons involved in a seemingly strong relationship, which was not that strong as it got broken off throwing the two persons poles apart. One person stood up sooner (much too sooner!), and took up the challenge of starting life afresh with third person.

The second person involved set off in another direction in order to confront life, but ended up being in the same location as the first person. Where would life take them all? What is in store for each one of them? All these and many more questions remain unanswered. But one thing they all need very badly is optimism – a feeling that the future holds all the goods that will be delivered to them in time. So here I am, raising a toast to all these brave folks who have a lot to see in their lives, and have to come out of it with flying colors….Cheers!