Perspectives and perceptions

Just recently I was reading my emails.. personal ones. And I sat down to reply to them. That suddenly I realized I'd fallen into such a pattern that I didn't even notice when I stopped replying to emails. I didn't notice when I stopped writing emails. My life had become a mirror of IMs and selfies and #tags and check-ins and +1s and likes... always connected *yay* but then have I lost the essence of life? Have I started thinking in bullet points? Do everything need to have a point? Are we breathing shorter breaths? When was the last time I broke into a dance? When was the last time I wrote poetry? I don't know when this change happened, the whole whatsapp craze, and don't get me wrong, I LOVE whatsapp. I love that I'm this close to my friends and family, but then again I want that to be secondary or complimentary but not solitary. And so I decided the easiest thing to do would be to write. That's simple right? You used to write, you stopped doing it, just...

Last year in the month of October, I had the pleasure of visiting this gorgeous little country south of India called Sri Lanka with my family. We had 7 days in that country and even though we might have packed in a tad too much, the memories are just wonderful. Even though I'm going to be sharing my experiences months after, I feel they're still going to be as rich. :) We were in SL for a week and we stayed in Nuwara Eliya, Kandy, Yala National Park, Galle and Colombo. As soon as landed in Colombo, we met our guide/driver/man friday who had organized a fancy van for us to travel in. My first introduction to the fact that nearly all cars in SL are imported (kind of obvious if you know that they have no auto industry of their own!) Day 1: We were set to go to Nuwara Eliya in the evening but our first stop was going to be at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage (90 km from Colombo). Luckily for us the elephants were having a bath in the river during this time. I know everyone...

I always find the beginning of a post the hardest to write, and then I decide to just start writing and I bet by the time I'm done, I'll be the author of yet another loong post. :) This year has been fantastic in terms of my travel. Oh yes I've had some horrid experiences with transit visas but then I've learned a HELL lot from those experiences so that my next travels are a lot smoother. The US trip was special like that, because I researched and found and practically booked the flights and the hotels myself and ended up with a perfect trip. If you know me then you know that I'm jinxed when it comes to flights, tickets, dates and sometimes even online payments! But then, that's the challenge, and thankfully this time I managed to catch all my flights on time. Major win! After my Boston trip last year, this year was a totally different trip. I visited 4 cities for starters, San Francisco, Miami, New York and Boston. I think I didn't end up doing justice...

This post is written by my dear friend Shri who's graciously allowed me to cross-post it on my blog. Just reading it brought a tear to my eyes, and I don't know why.. maybe it's because life is beautiful if only we opened our eyes and 'saw', not just literally, but like the Na'vi's 'see'... ------------- Gold is a bubble, Diamonds spell trouble, you continue to get sold and the goblet of wine ads the zip to your soul-petrol. My waistline is 7 above my age-line which is 14 more than the size of my feet; which is in turn equivalent to my birth month; add 2 to it you get 13. 3+1=4 which is inconsequential. In short I completed 25 on the 13th of November 2011. Salutations to most, greetings to many and thank you all for wishing,greeting, participating, waking up, eating and driving your soul on this day. Things get complicated from here and I’m not Rahul Gandhi. You start assuring yourself, life, soul, the things you buy, the place you live the ...

There are times when you need to hear things from someone else. Someone who has a third perspective about you and about your life. Today was one of those days, nights actually. :) I learnt a lot of things that I should've known or probably already knew but wasn't accepting or practicing. The thing about life is that it happens, it goes on and we can't afford to stop, second-guess or try and resist it. That's what I've been doing for a while now. Trying to contain myself, trying to avoid getting into things which I'm afraid of, and in a way trying to avoid letting go. While talking to a friend, he told me, very simply, you could be walking on a street and someone fell on you and you could get hurt, would that stop you from walking? If not, then why would an accident stop you from traveling. Yes, maybe it should act as a reminder to take things slow and to make slightly more logical decisions, but you can't live in fear of a 'what if' scenario. If ...

Yes Cricket is a religion in India, and every citizen is a devout follower. Somehow you just can't get away from it. There's no place to run to. Yes maybe you can follow other sports too, but you can't get the cricket out of an Indian. Me included. I wasn't following cricket for the past some years, except some IPL matches here and there. This world cup thanks to our office I managed to follow some matches because the enthusiasm of a hundred odd colleagues is just hard to ignore! :) I came to Hong Kong the day we played against Pakistan and I had to leave I think when half the innings was over. I came to the airport and was having my dinner while I could hear people shouting in bits and bursts! I kept asking the waiter the score, and since the airport was practically empty, after serving the few people in the restaurant, he'd run to the screen and then come back to tell us the score. And then suddenly there was this huge cheer, and I knew we'd won the semis. ...

Yes I'm one of those people who hadn't seen this movie up until today! My roommate gave me the movie to watch just today... and I saw it! What a movie! I've always loved movies which take the base of sports to convey something more than just sportsman spirit... Like one of my all time favorites is Remember the Titans. Another favorite is The Miracle. This movie brought to light so many things that I wasn't aware about before... It made me go back to Wiki and read up on Nelson Mandela, on the Apartheid, on the struggles, the massacres and the growth of that nation. They've gone through so much in the last two decades, it's amazing! Morgan Freeman has won my respect and admiration all over again. He's such a perfect actor for almost all roles. But in today's movie he was the best. He fit the bill. He was inspirational. The time when Matt Damon walks into the prison at Robben Island, it was so moving to see the kind of circumstances in which he spent 18...

I must've been in school, maybe 13-14 years old, when I first saw an episode of Charmed. I used to follow it regularly always trying to avoid missing any show. The show was about three sisters, who are actually witches in the modern world and must learn the witchcraft in order to protect innocents by fighting off demons and other evil magical creatures. I think I must've followed the series for about a year and then lost track of it. I kept trying to hunt for it, but to no avail. Until I came to Hyderabad! Why, you might ask? Well because I discovered SurfTheChannel.com thanks to my friend at work, Anaisha. :) And voila! There it was 170 episodes with links to either Megavideo / Tudou to watch them. It took me nearly 7 months to finish these episodes mind you. :) Haha! But I did see them all. Though as the seasons went by there were fewer links available and a lot of times they just didn't stream. I'm planning to buy the complete DVD series, but I think I'll hold o...

First things first, I have read and re-read all the Harry Potter books ever since they were written and almost know them by-heart! :P I have seen only the first movie of the series and after being terribly disappointed didn't feel the need/urge to go for any other after... There. Now having said this, this movie was really good. So for starters, I had issues with the book. The 7th book was the most disappointing in which I felt like there was no reason or purpose behind all the killing. Yes, she did tie most (or actually all) loose ends, but it seemed like she did it because she didn't know what else to do. I read that book in about 3 hours and for me the book really needs to grip you, like you shouldn't want to put it down, it should engulf you... but the fact that the book didn't manage to grip me till the last chapter or so when the story actually begins to unravel is pathetic... anyways. The movie is based on the book (duh!) So I pretty much knew the story well so ...

Last night I was in a movie-watching mood. Having got many movies on my laptop which I've never seen before, I decided to take the plunge and watch this movie. My friend had titled it 'If Only - Revoltingly Romantic', obviously instead of that being a deterrent, it became a reason for me to see the movie. In the beginning I felt like the movie was going nowhere. But in the second half, as expected, I got terribly emotional and there was this huge void inside me, almost as though I'd lost someone I loved... The movie speaks about the million things that we experience in our lives everyday. Things we take for granted at times, and people whose love we don't appreciate. I know I'm being overtly simplistic in my perspective and biased because I liked the movie, but to me a movie is a message and that movie definitely conveyed a strong message to me. That of appreciation, acceptance and love. Throughout the movie in the first half, the girl is doing so many things to...

Yes a lot of people told me not to go for this movie, but I decided to go anyways! :) So. The movie. The plot is basically laid out within the first five minutes. Two strangers coincidentally meet at the G.Washington bridge in NY because both of them are about to commit suicide. However, fate has something else in mind. So their repeated attempts to suicide keep failing. They then make a pact to die some 20 days later and during that time they want to fulfill their 'Do before I die list'. I'd say they could've done a LOT more even with this concept in mind. It didn't have to be so superficial and simplistic. He has severed ties with his family, friends and become business-minded. When he loses it all in the stock market crash, he has nothing left to live for and hence decides to die. She was in love with this person for years together, and when she finds out that he cheated on her, she's shattered and hence doesn't want to live. This was too silly for a plo...

So the last time I blogged about finding those key, small but your people in establishments, I'd written about this person at my regular printers near Andheri station and this guy who'd helped me out at the Vodafone store. :) Something similar happened to me recently. In a new city. I shifted to Hyderabad because I got a job with Google! And it felt different to roam around in a city that I didn't know anything about. To meet new people everywhere I went after having gotten used to going to 'usual' places for just about everything, right from your parlour appointments, to your haircuts, to getting xerox, to buying medicines, to buying groceries, to clothes, to drinks, to food, everything... Just made me realize how much of patronising we do in our lives because it just makes our lives simpler and easier to get by... In this new city, I didn't know anyone, and the first people who get to know me and give me some level of preferential treatment because of the loy...

Huge amount of expectations from this movie after the amazing success from Step Up 1 and Step Up 2. Personally I enjoyed Step Up 2 more than anything because that whole emotional tension, and the discovering of so many underdogs, that journey was magical and meaningful. I say this because that's what's missing from this movie. A quick overview would be that even though the dancing is amazing (literally some of the moves are out of this world), the movie has no storyline so to speak off, the acting isn't there, the leads aren't strong enough, the movie lacked the punch that the first two movies delivered. It didn't have a soul. In the first two movies dancing was something that brought out a new character within the people which gave them respect, here, it was very superficial. The plot is quite simple. Two friends who're the core part of a crew, part ways because one of them throws the battle to pay off his gambling debt (kind of like match fixing!). That becom...

of random things and conversations, I sit and think and smile, of close friends, loved ones and relatives, I miss and muse and write, i wake up each morning with the rising sun, I go to sleep with the wind in my hair, I plan and think and dream about, loads of things in places in my head, random words, random thoughts, have they any meaning? how does one know what's it about? if one doesn't have any feelings? am I a fool I think? just because i love smiles, just because I love love, and just because my love is mine? these words have no structure, they have no rhyme... but they make a weird sort of a sense in my head and even if they didn't, I really wouldn't worry a dime! it's been long since I wrote random things, it's been a while since I just let go, every now and then I come around, only to realize that this is who I'm happiest being! these thoughts do have a source, a conversation with friends about a place, a place that has stripped away my inhibitions...

A few of us friends were just talking and discussing about the ways in which we all go about our trips! It's funny, I'm a control freak of a person most of the times, (lying), actually all the time, but thanks to my friends, I've grown to like the unexpectedness and the unplanned mode of all our trips! I've literally reached a point where I don't want to go on a planned trip because that'll be just too boring and too decided... that element of surprise which brings with it the happiness, the joy and the exposure is just too beautiful and as a friend rightly put it, it's liberating! Megha and I tend to plan our days so much, that those few days of just being and just existing and just doing things based on what we feel and what we want feel like we've broken out of some sort of chains and it just automatically calms us down. Like when we had gone to Goa for the first time. We didn't know what to expect, where to go, nothing. We just got off at an earl...

The weekend's here and I'm turning a year old. Hmm.. Wrong tense. I have turned a year older. Doesn't feel any different though. Feels better in some way. Though last night seemed a bit odd. :P Sitting at home, watching movies, and yapping away to glory with friends at 12 in the night! I remember how the entire idea of celebrating a birthday used to seem fruitless and pointless to me some years ago, but now I guess I understand and even cherish this idea of celebrating oneself and celebrating time with friends. What I love is that it gives us an opportunity to talk and catch up with friends and that's precisely what happened! I had a great conversation with a friend of mine, Riddhi from Delhi and we spoke about so many things!! For nearly 2 hours and I was like, wow, that's something! It feels great to be loved, appreciated, and wished by so many friends, relatives and people! I'm super thrilled! In celebration plans, party at home with friends for 2 nights! :)...

It's soon going to be 2 months of me working in a new job, with a new company, in a new city... Everything's new and yet a lot of things are the same... My relationship, my friendships, and my being. I was scared. Petrified almost at the thought of having to meet new people everyday and finding those select few people with whom I can be myself again! For nearly a week or two I was floundering in the sea of people... trying hard to keep myself afloat amidst all the chaos, silence and the ironies. Funnily, this is what happens every time! When I started a course last year in a new college, I went through this same phase and ended up finding my own circle, my own space. I know that I have been through this time and again, and yet it never fails to daunt me at first. Working with Google, staying in Hyderabad was a scary prospect too... I didn't find my circle immediately. I managed to make acquaintances whom I could pass time with... but not share, converse and love... :) And t...

I’ve been born and brought up in Bombay, and I’ve celebrated a lot of birthdays... but the funny thing is that I only remember the gala celebrations from the last few years of my school! When i was 5 – 6, it was so simple, we just brought a cake from the local bakery shop, bought some back presents for all the kids, ate some good home-made snacks along with some local potato wafers in thin paper plates, played musical chairs, and then went home in time for dinner! How different from the scene today! It’s not just the spending that has gone up, the influence of brands, and products, on our day-to-day lives and on our occasional spending has changed drastically too. Today, even if we think of buying a cake from a local bakery, that bakery invariably turns out to be a Monginis, a Croissants or Ribbons & Balloons, the potato wafers are either Lays, or Uncle Chips, or whichever the latest entrant in the market is, the back presents have assumed enormous proportions and somewhere somehow...

This whole mystical word, that forever teases you, surrounds you with warmth, and yet you yearn for the cold, just so that you feel, those arms hold you strong... In moments of joy, in times of agony, why does that one person, become your only solace, and why can't you ever forgive, that absence momentarily... Through the journey of many years, you feel, you touch, and you know, but still every time after some time, the first glance, the first touch, still makes you shiver... How is it that most people, have to prod you so many times, almost always manage to bug you some times, fail to evoke those emotions at times, but you always smile for him at all times... :)

Well... This movie was one of the most forgettable movies I've seen in the recent past! To begin with, the movie starts off like 300, with a narration that's supposed to set the pace and the base to the entire story. But they forget to use things like voice modulation, and most importantly a script?! The narrator mumbles something about the creation of the earth by the Gods, and talks about their love for man... and you just don't get the drift. Then you see a woman who places a kid inside a basket (kind of like Moses) into the sea along with a woman in the same basket. A family adopts the kid and he's raised. Cut to 18-20 years hence, the kid's grown, the family of four are sailing, trying to catch fish for their livelihood. Suddenly you hear the talk of an uprising, and men fighting with the Gods! It's so far-fetched that you just never understand or believe what's happening. So lightning strikes, the family's boat sinks, and as expected, everyone exce...