Fragility of human life. Prayer for the departed souls...

The fragility of human life has never hit me as hard as it has in these past few days as i follow the Tsunami disaster coverage.

It's extremely painful to see so many innocent lives lost...the unfairness, randomness of all this is even more agonising. One can't even begin to imagine how it must have been for the victims...innocent children, tourists, people whose lives were cut short in a matter of moments!! How does one explain the justice in all this?!! We say that god is there for the powerless, innocent...how do we explain this? My heart goes out to all the people who have lost everything, their loved ones, their life-savings, a whole part of their lives...

What is even more perplexing is when the information of an earthquake and possible disturbances in the ocean was known to scientists elsewhere, why wasn't it relayed to the countries in the region? To say that these countries did not have the relevant alert systems installed is not good enough...why weren't international news networks like CNN, BBC involved to warn countries in the region. We say that the whole world is networked then surely something could have been done to avert such a huge tragedy.

And then i read somewhere that some religious organisations in india claimed this as divine retribution against the Shankaracharya's arrest!!!! What kind of a ailing regressive mind can come up with such justification!! Nothing can be more horrific than a fellow human beings insensitivity to such human suffering...All these people who died such meaningless deaths were innocent.If this is what religion teaches then i would rather be a non-believer...

As the New Year approaches, there will be countless parties and celebrations in india and elsewhere. I just hope that all those who celebrate the arrival of the New Year take a moment and pray for the departed souls and the countless sufferers and do whatever they can in terms of donations in kind or otherwise.

Bride & Prejudice - without prejudice!

I believe that all kind of cinema should exist. Good, bad, ugly, ridiculous, dumb, horrible, dirty...everything should exist...we are all capable of handling all this and more! Thinking otherwise would be underestimating human capacity to endure!

But that doesn’t stop me from analysing and criticising movies...and this brings me to the subject of this post. I watched Bride and Prejudice the other day and i swear i watched it without any prejudice (which was difficult after being subjected to tons of not-so-flattering reviews). I am sure i am not half as gifted in film making as Gurinder Chadhdha, but that doesn't stop me from criticising or ripping it apart (gives me some kind of perverse thrill - i am the audience after all!).

On a serious note - i loved Bend it like Beckham...and like many Indians living away from their country and riding high on the bollywood-gone-international wave, i couldn't stop talking about how awesome this movie is to all and sundry. But alas i can't really say the same about Bride... this movie works in bits and pieces. There are glimpses of Gurnider's spark which was so much a part of Bend it... Having said that i shall refrain from ripping it apart either.

To be honest Bride is generally a likable film, without any pretensions of carrying any lofty messages, ideas etc. This honesty itself makes it endearing to me personally. You see i am not a snob, i enjoy the mindless – dumb (as some people would like to believe) - song and dance routines as much as i relish the serious so called parallel cinema.

Coming back to the movie, i thought the actors did a decent job. Aishwarya was as usual beautiful and has done a good job, Martin Henderson is a dish-he has amazing startling blue eyes, Nadira Babbar is exceptional and Anupam Kher, Naveen Andrews and Namrata Shirodhkar do a decent job as well...but if you ask me Indira Verma and Nikhil Ganatra took the cake as far as histrionics are concerned! The problem I thought was with the direction and screenplay…the movie seemed scattered, patchy and disjointed.

As far as music is concerned, we have seen better work from Anu Mallik (although i liked Ashanti's take on item numbers – quite a danceable number I must say!)....

But what I found torturous was all these firangs with surfboards running down slopes hands outstretched singing 'ooooo' while MartinH is happy running his hands over Ash's arms (that’s about how intimate they get in the movie - Shahrukh and Kajol shared more chemistry!).

To be fair We have been subjected to worse bollywood fare before and one look at some Hollywood trash will make one believe that bollywood is not all that bad either! Like I said earlier, Bride is a likeable movie – just have to watch it without prejudice!

Visit the site at http://www.brideandprejudicethemovie.com. I quite like the website!

3 down 2 to go!

A few days back, i had posted something about a few tasks that i need to do in the coming weeks:

Hunt for tickets for india - Research completed

Finish up 3 books - Well this was a herculean task where i am concerned because i am extremely moody where reading habits are concerned. So i returned 2 of the books and am reading the third one!

Book tickets for Bride & Prejudice - Booked it and watched it! Shall talk about it in another post.

Knit a crochet baby poncho set - Almost done. Poncho and cap are done, cute little booties left :)

Complete my website - Now this is the big one. I managed to put up my website, finally after much dilly-dallying. This time around the look-and-feel is radically different from the previous version (it is deliberately so). And i can't thank my friends especially Kokwai enough for all the help with actionscripting. I managed to bug him and extract information out of him at the most inconvenient of moments (while he was neck deep in work!). Can't thank him enough! Anyways check out my new site at www.theatelier.net :)

About Aliens and God

I am watching this TV mini-series by Spielberg called 'Taken'. It traces the history and future of three families intertwined with alien abductions and sightings...very interesting indeed and thought provoking!

So are there any aliens? or should we - earthlings - be smug in our belief that we are the only ones in the universe. I remember as a child, thanks to StarTrek and a vivid imagination, i was prone to imagining that we are not alone and there are living beings out there in distant parts of this universe.

Childhood fantasies aside, i do believe that there must be some form of life in this vast universe. It would be foolish and arrogant to think otherwise. Just imagine, the universe comprises of millions of Galaxies, imagine the probability of existence of life form in some little corner of this vastness. If i may say so, we humans - the most intelligent and evolved living being on this planet (or are we??) - are nothing but a tiny speck of sand in this vast beach that is the universe.

I remember i read this story from my school curriculum (unfortunately i do not remember the name of the story or the author), which talked about existence of life forms other than that on earth. What struck me most about this story was that the author drew my attention to the apparent lack of originality in our imagination concerning aliens.

Time and again we have been subjected to aliens with two hands, two legs, face, eyes, ears (basically rehash of the same concept). Why does an alien living form have to resemble us? It can be anything! anything at all....totally different form our concepts and ideas of living form. The form, volume, mass, look of this alien being could be radically different from what we can ever imagine! Maybe they exist in the form of energy - who knows!!

And why do they need to exist in what WE percieve as environment that supports life? May be they survive in environments that are poisonous to living forms on this planet - again who knows? What i find irritating is that we assume and imagine things relative to our existence on this planet - shouldn't we resort to a little more imagination and open-mindedness?

As i said earlier due to a vivid imagination as a child, i have many a times tried to imagine non-existence of the universe itself! Imagine how would that be!! No universe - just space - in fact it can't even be called space - because one needs objects to create the feeling of space - it would basically be NOTHING - or as we indians say SHUNYA.

Another thought process that arises from this train of thoughts is the concept of GOD. I am not an athiest - i like to believe in the existence of god and like many selfish individuals i do pray and remember god when i am in trouble! BUT there is this part of me which questions incessantly our belief systems, hypocrisy (that i am myself prone to) notwithstanding!

So if we for a second think about the existence aliens, where does that leave our god? Did god create this universe? if so - then do the aliens share our god (in its varied forms - hindu god, muslim god, christian god etc etc...) And if by some miracle they do - in what form do they see god? the same way as us? or is the concept of god unique to human beings - because we like to think we are blessed and protected? To be honest i prefer the feeling of being protected any day.

And if they also have the concept of god - do they also fight like us over my god - your god?!! or is that also uniquely human?!! Did i just say that we are the most intelligent and evolved form on this planet...

I can blame it all on Speilberg. Take a look at the germ of the incoherence expressed above: http://www.scifi.com/taken/index_main.html

Main yahaan hoon yahan hoon yahan

Main Yahaan Hoon Yahaan Hoon Yahaan - I have been listening to this song again and again and again and i can't get over it! Move over Anu Malliks of the world - Madan Mohan, S.D.Burman, R.D.Burman still rule!!

Veer-Zaara soundtrack is such a HUGE and WELCOME change from the current musical trend and amazingly so. These tracks which were composed decades ago can still hold the audience captive and entranced. To be honest i didn't like all the songs...some of them are a little too over the top with the punjabi folk touch...the ones that i can't get over are the romantic ones - pure, clean, unadulterated romance which is sooooo difficult to find in this day and age....i can listen to main yahan hoon yahan endlessly....its so damn romantic! gave me goosebumps...havent heard such a romantic and melodious number in a long time!

I listen to all kinds of music, but it amazes me no end that where hindi film music is concerned we go back to the oldies time and again. Imagine the versatility of these compositions that we keep churning out remixes based on these again and again and again....

Anyways i'm back to listing to some Do Pal...Jaane Kyon...Main yahan hoon yahan hoon yahan...:)

Too much on my plate

I'm going to India in January. Am very excited about it! My mother has been quite unwell-had ulcer of the stomach, so understandably i have been wanting to meet her for a while now.

But amongst all this excitement, i need to finish off some stuff...need to complete my website, have to hunt for ticket deals on the internet (we are going via Singapore as it may be cheaper that way, so need to figure out the best deals).

Need to finish up 3 books by next week! Book tickets for Bride & Prejudice, have to knit a crochet baby poncho for a cousins baby girl.

So am going to be busy for a few coming weeks!

time to shed old skin

It's time to shed old skin, bring in changes, time for renewal.

I believe that change and rejuvination from time to time is the basis for survival and I need to change a few things in my life. Starts with my website! I'm tired of seeing the same site again and again...so time for a change! Have decided to give it a different look from the current one. Do not want to repeat the look!

Here's to a new begining!