World's toughest Job!

Isn’t it true that we “really”, really appreciate things in our life once we experience them ourselves? We cannot appreciate friendship without being a friend; we cannot appreciate love without falling in love; we cannot appreciate marriage unless we are in one (or divorced); we cannot appreciate humor unless we know how to laugh at ourselves and the list goes on…. We don't live through other experiences. We live through ours.

So, even though I have appreciated my parents a lot, until the point when I actually held my son and saw that little bundle looking at me with helplessness and wonder, I never ever, even for once think how big of a role my parents played in my life. Not even for a second did it pass my mind that the life that I am living today was given by them. I just took my life for granted, but the truth is that they shaped it from the moment I came screaming into this world. They may not be as influential in my life now as they used to be, but God, where will I be without them? It’s a question that I never want to find the answer for.

Parenting is such a tough job. At no point can you just shrug your shoulders and say “I am done. I am outta here”. Once you get into it - that is it. It takes different sort of courage to keep working on a relationship that lays the foundation for a human life when there’s no incentive for the parents in the long run. That’s why I admire my parents or for that matter, any parents, who made their relationship work through thick and thin for their kids.

I have had a wonderful life and I owe that to my parents and my family. I was not an easy child to bring up and never once have I seen my parents rattle or give up. I have a tough task ahead of me and the one question that keeps coming into my mind frequently is: Will I give for my son, what my parents gave me? Honest and truthful answer is – I DON’T KNOW. But I am hopeful, because, I realize that parenting is something you learn through years. There’s no “Idiots guide to Parenting” or “12 quick steps to Parenting” guide out there. I read somewhere that the job description for parenting goes like this:

“You need to show affection without sentiment, authority without abuse of power, discipline without aggression, humor without ridicule, sacrifice without obligation and companionship without possessiveness. “

Ugh?!!?? Sounds like a fun job!!!! Well, I need another post to explain how I have become helpless now in my son’s hand and so you can see what this job does to you!!!! :-0

Bigger is not always "Better"

Well, I am back. Life has been so busy that I haven’t had the time to pen (I mean type) my thoughts. Let me say that every time I decide to blog, I draw a blank on the subject that I want to blog on. I know there are lots of topics, but for some reason, I always draw a blank.

Having said that, I thought I will blog about the “Movie of the Year” in the Indian Movie Industry – Endhiran- The Robot. I was thinking of watching this movie once the DVD or Blu-ray got released, but the hype around it and the way my friends talked about it, I thought I will give it a shot. As usual, my husband was least interested and I had to drag him to the theatre to watch this movie. We were 20 minutes late, but realized that we didn’t miss much. In fact, my brother-in-law’s comment on my going late was that I missed the best part of the movie (the first 20 minutes:-o!!!!)

By now, everyone would have read like zillion versions/reviews of this movie in the web. So, I am not going review this movie. What I want to ask, basically, is this: Is Bigger better? Do you really think that Endhiran is a landmark movie in Indian Cinema?

I realize that this movie is supposed to be the land-mark movie in terms of special effects/technology usage in Indian movie making, but does it mean that this movie is one of the better movies that get released in the Indian market and in the international market?

I found nothing innovative in the storyline. There were absurd scenes in the second half that made me wonder what had happened to Shankar, the director of the movie. To me, this is one of Shankar’s mediocre movies and we all know most of Shankar’s movies have tight screenplay and wonderful storyline. The only other Shankar movie I wasn’t impressed with was “Boys” and I am sure it’s on everybody’s list. And not to say the least, the special effects were not definitely “Hollywood Standard”. Some scenes stood out and kudos to Shankar for that, but on the whole, this was just another love triangle with stitched special effects that didn’t fit into the canvas drawn by Shankar.

The only thing that kept this movie together was Superstar’s performance, charisma and screen presence.  If this movie didn’t have Rajni, it would have flopped. Period. If anyone thinks otherwise, let’s have a debate. My, what a screen presence!

I appreciate the effort put in by the team to make this movie and I know it’s easy to criticize and difficult to innovate, but if we need to gain international market, we need to do far better than “Endhiran”. We still have only 2 genre in our Indian Cinema – “Masala Action” and “Love”. With just these 2 genre, Indian Cinema will never be able to compete with World Cinema, no matter how tech savvy the Indian Cinema becomes.

Endhiran is not a sci-fi film. It falls into the former category I mentioned above. Endhiran is also a  good example of why bigger is not always better.I just wish Shankar had put in some thoughts to the screenplay and brought in some innovations to the story. Instead, he spent in on special effects that just didn’t make sense. Endhiran is just another attempt to move Indian Cinema in the right direction. My guess is that we need to wait for quite some time to see the “landmark” movie that changes the landscape of Indian Cinema.

TIME TO COOK

I was watching the movie Julie & Julia, which is based on two true stories and realized how much I missed cooking. The movie is about the protagonist, Julie, whom, in order to prove herself decides to cook 564 recipes in 365 days from Julia Child’s cookbook. The movie was fun, interesting and in a way, inspiring. I don’t cook as much as I want to and I give excuses like work, managing a toddler, blah, blah and blah…. Watching this movie made me think as to why I don’t cook as much as I used to. The truth is that I don’t manage my time as effectively as I would like to. I do know a few folks who manage time so well and I envy them. Seriously, I really don’t know how they do it - manage a family, house and be a gourmet cook at the same time.

Take my sister for example. She has such a busy life and still, she finds time to cook; a task she loves as much or sometimes more than her family. Every time I call her home, she is in the kitchen cooking something or the other. She always compliments her own cooking in nothing less than superlative terms and somehow she manages to put me in agony and bewilderment at the same time. I feel agony because I want to eat whatever she is cooking and bewilderment because she will be focused on her task of cooking in the midst of the chaos around her caused by her kids and husband. Literally, I can hear laughing, crying, running, throwing, violin, music and the blender running at the same time.

You would think that she will do something else during the weekends when she is at home (this is rare, trust me), but then, you call anytime during the day, the same thing happens. On top of it, she will cook in abundance, that, the chance of leftovers lasting for more than month is not an exaggeration. When I visit her, there's always a lot of food with a lot of choices at any time of the day. I really don’t know how her kids and her husband manage to stay in shape, in spite of all her cooking. When I visit her, it becomes worse. She cooks and cooks and cooks. In fact, it will be odd if she is not in the kitchen.

The truth is cooking is a stress reliever for her and for many folks who love to cook. I haven’t seen her at ease as much in the kitchen as anywhere else. She is so relaxed that I don’t feel surprised, when she ends up cooking so much within such a short span of time. I think it gives her a sense of accomplishment at the end of a hectic day filled with uncertainties, ups and downs. Sometimes, you feel this void, no matter, what you do in a day and I think cooking fills this void and relieve you of the stress you go through during the day.

So, after writing this post, I should be inspired by my sister and start cooking every day so that I can become this super cook someday. Will I do that? Only time and my husband will tell : -). Till then, I will keep on piling excuses on why I don’t want to cook every day and look up to my sister to do the cooking for both of us!!!!

What’s Right is What’s Right for you!

We live in a world where the lines between good versus evil, right versus wrong; moral versus immoral, ethical versus unethical is getting more and more blurred. You can get away from facing the consequence of your actions, by simply, rationalizing your wrongs and make it right. Worse, the society accepts such rationalization and turns the other way. In fact, if you do something wrong, your first reaction will be to find the “right” reasons as to why you did it and trust me, there’s no shortage of that :-(.

It’s because what’s right is what’s “right” for you. There’s no absolute truth in this world, except the truth that there’s Earth and there’s sun and that we are human beings who live on this earth. Even God is not an absolute truth.

It’s always amazed me how our culture can support such behavior and to my surprise, I found that people have already coined a phrase for this behavior!!!

It’s called Relativism and it can apply to Moral, Social and cultural aspects. Of course, I am not talking about Einstein’s theory of relativity. So, don’t run away:-). I am just going to provide my thoughts on Moral relativism.

So, what is relativism? Relativism is the idea that all points of view are equally valid and that there is no absolute truth. It states that whatever an individual determines is truth is true for that individual even though the same exact situation might be untrue to another. In other words, there’s no real right or wrong. If you extend this concept, all religions are right or all of them wrong. So, technically, having a religion makes no sense since there’s no absolute truth in anything that your religion teaches and all your values depend on the social group that influences your life.

Relativism is a very popular concept in our culture and only continues to grow. Now, why wouldn’t it be? Think about it, if there really is no real right and wrong, you don’t have to be accountable for your actions. This means, anything is acceptable in the right circumstances and justifiable: cheating, lying, infidelity, adultery, robbery, assault, rape and even murder.

Moral relativism, in particular, contiunes to grow exponentially. Just look around you and you will see people coming up with excuses for what you would have considered unethical a few decades back and you would see their social group encouraging such behavior. Now, I don’t know which is worse: someone doing something wrong and calling it right or someone patronizing the actions of that someone who did something wrong.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The social group that encourages such things have a very good reason to be indifferent to the wrong actions of one of their own and that is, they don’t want to judge. So, their standard question is, “Who am I to judge”?

Here’s a rhetorical question: if that’s the case, we need to change our legal system which is based on a jury system, where people “judge” and just let people decide for themselves if what they did was right or wrong. When it’s not OK to take a moral stance, when, your friend or family does something wrong like lying, cheating, being dishonest etc…, it’s not OK to take a stance when someone commit a crime in the eyes of law like murder, rape, robbery etc... Moral law, legal law; what difference does it make, when there’s no right or wrong?

Moral relativism allow our culture to escape from our moral responsibilities and draw us into this vicious circle of life filled with iniquitous practices. It's time to start listening to your conscience and become accountable for your actions! The world is a much better place when there’s a clear line between right and wrong, good and bad, moral and immoral.

Imagine.... Lyrics of the famous song by John Lennon

I was listening to the song "Imagine" by John Lennon and the lyrics really moved me. I was thinking how powerful and meaningful the words are in the light of the current world events.

Lyrics for the song "Imagine"

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today 

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace


You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one 

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world


You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

My take on Ravanan and Endhiran Album

At last, I got an opportunity to watch Ravanan. There were so many reviews and so much analysis done on this movie, I thought I better watch it before I get hear another crazy analysis or a review dissecting this movie.


The movie was engaging throughout, but for some reason, I just couldn't get it. Mani Ratnam, one of the big and talented directors in Indian cinema left me wondering what the hell he was trying to say! The dialogues were so outdated that I felt like I was back in the 80s again. I don’t think the actors themselves understood what the movie was trying to convey. The movie was beautiful like its actress Aishwarya Rai, but had no life like the actress, who really did her best to emote and just couldn’t; Drawing analogy to Ramayana literally!!! Seriously!!? The less said about the background score, the better.

Some folks seem to be analyzing this movie so much that it will leave Mani wondering if he really did think of the things these folks seem to be thinking he did. God and Mani are the only two people who know what they were trying to convey and whatever that is, I am depressed that I wasted 2 hours of my time. I fast forwarded some songs to cut the viewing even shorter and even that didn't help :-(

Note: Here’s a funny parody on Ravanan. Enjoy!

http://kbalakumar.com/2010/07/09/another-epic-from-mani-ratnam/

As far as Endhiran’s music is concerned, I just have 2 questions:
Why Rahman (ARR)? Why?

Inception and Shutter Island

In the past few weeks, I have had a chance to watch two best movies of this year.


Christopher Nolan's Inception has been heavily written on, but still there's so much to say about this movie. I have always been a fan of Nolan from his Memento days and have watched all his movies. So, when Inception was released, it was no brainers that I would want to watch the movie in theatre. Watching Inception was a completely different experience. Watching the movie left me cold, as though I couldn’t swallow something, but then, I couldn’t get the movie out of my mind, which is really the point isn’t?. I just felt like knocking on Nolan's door and asking him exactly what his take on his movie was. I guess I can only dream on that :).


Then, I got a chance to watch Shutter Island, a movie by one of my all-time favorites, Martin Scorsese, based on the book by Dennis Lehane. I loved the book and I loved the movie more than the book. Let me assure you that this is rare. Very few movies surpass the imagination of a book and Shutter Island is one of them. I don't want to give away too much about the story, but this movie shows how powerful perceptions are. The trick is to watch some scenes in the movie twice and you will know what I mean. It was then I realized how close these two movies resembled in terms of plot and idea.


Only few directors have such power over audiences and what an achievement that is.


Gosh! I wish there were more movies like these so that I don't feel guilty about wasting 2-3 hours in front of a TV. Now, I cannot wait for Batman 3 and the wait is loooooooooooooooooooooong!


Note: I am interested in hearing others thoughts on Inception’s ending. So, bring it on!

Children....

I was reading a book called "Giant Steps" steps by Barry Neil Kaufman and I found the following quote from the book very inspiring

"Children are born from us. They are not owned by us. They are possessions. The fact that they are little doesn't mean they are less. They are free spirits for us to love and enjoy. For all of us, children can be a beautiful experience....doorways into our own humanity"

As I was reading this, I got a call that one of my friends had given birth to a beautiful little baby boy and I thought "What a timing!".....

"Connecting" with friends

After a hiatus, I am back to blogging now!



Last year has been a roller coaster ride for me and I am not exaggerating when I say that it’s been both an exhilarating and exhausting experience to have a baby and see him reach his first milestone of completing a year on this beautiful earth.


So, after a year, I thought, why not start blogging again??? But now, it seems like blogging is an outdated thing right now because of some many new forms of social networking. There are so many that I am unable to keep track of which is what. Due to the current trend, I joined Facebook and found myself perplexed by this new form (found that it was just new to me!!) of social networking that folks are getting addicted to. I can imagine why since you are spending most of your time telling folks what you do on a daily basis and vice versa. My not so cynical side tells me that people want to be genuinely engaged or connected in others’ lives in a way that they couldn’t do a few years back by crossing any geographical boundaries. As for my cynical side goes, I think I will hold on to my thoughts for a while....

 Anyways, now, it looks like I need to twitter, yammer, blog, chat through different IMs and use emails to make friends. Oh!!! I wish we were back to the good old days when my friends and I just would meet up over coffee or tea and chat about all the silly things that made us happy. At this point, the only thing I am sure about is that my son will never experience what I did.


Bummer!!! :-( So much for technological advances…