Perspectives and perceptions

Spoiler Alert: I may talk about scenes from the movie. If you haven't seen the movie, one line advice, go see it. Don't do it alone unless you're the types who watches horror movies because you think they're funny. So, the movie... For some background, I'm not a horror movie person, I haven't seen The Ring or any of those movies, no, not even the Scary Movies (though my friends tell me those are not meant to be classified as "horror"). My last actual horror movie was "Bhoot" which you'd agree was more sound effects than anything substantial. My friends insisted on me watching the interview before the movie, but I thought it would be better to not psyche myself before watching the movie and so I went in with no prior knowledge of what this was about, except that there's a family who moves into a new house and that house is haunted. The movie is excellently made. And you have to know me when I say this, because I was horribly ...

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...

You know that feeling when you've been sitting on things that you've been meaning to get done and you just don't get past the idea? Can you believe that the last time I posted a blog was in August of last year! And this is a year when I've done very very exciting stuff. I visited Sri Lanka which deserves a post of its own, went to US and had a wonderfully scenic drive to Monterey, spent yet another fantastic new year in Hong Kong, read many amazing books which transformed my beliefs about life, watched some insane movies which I thought I was bound to hate and in general so much of my life went by and I didn't write about it... I just lost track of my blog and got so busy with survival that I stopped living in a sense. Everyone talks about "switching off" and how one must learn to take breaks, but gosh, it's so difficult. I decided to stay away from work for a couple of days so I can get back some of my sanity but the urge to check your email, to che...

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...

My friend recently shared a t-shirt design which she thought was very apt for me. Given my penchant for behaving almost as though I have an OCD about orderliness, the line reads, "I have CDO, It's like OCD but with the letters in the right order like they're supposed to be" Funny. And a bit true. I do obsess over stuff like straight lines, and clean desks, and bedsheets tucked in perfectly and eye pencils facing in the right direction and bottles in the shelf being arranged according to size, and books being arranged according to category and then height, clothes being arranged according to type and then maybe by color... and so on. Sometimes it's tiring to keep up. Most times it helps to be like this. I always have something to do! There's always something more to clean, something more to arrange and something to change. :) But apart from all the funny reasons, the real thing is this... Sorting out the mess in my physical surroundings, sorts out the m...

(cross-posting from my notepad written post) Writing with a pen in hand on a wide notepad after years feels so strange. I've forgotten how to wield a pen to my wishes almost... On a side note I should probably keep writing a little bit every week to stay in practice. My plan was to spend half the day in going around Calcutta, having got a taxi to take me around I was excited about the day! My morning was beautiful. Sukanya woke me up at 6.30. Had some coffee and then got ready to leave. Hunted for this place called at Maharani to have Calcutta's famous breakfast, Kachori Subzi. To add a bit of trivia, this place is very near the guest house shown in Kahaani. V argues that Maharani serves very good Kachori Subzi and not Kuchudi Subzi (which is more bengalisized version). Grabbed that and then headed for Babughat. En route we saw Eden Garden decked up in the new face of KKR. Glimpsed at Victoria Memorial and found a beautiful cathedral, St. Pauls. Eventually turned out tha...

I finally saw this movie! :) Everyone in my circle has been raving about this movie and I've been meaning to watch it for a long time, and today, with my mom in town, we finally ended up going for it! Like the many friends who faithfully kept their end of the bargain and didn't divulge anything about the movie but the fact that I must go and watch it, I find it hard to actually tell you why you must watch it! But have no fear. This review is not going to spill the beans. So what the kahaani of kahaani is you have to find out for yourself because you're not getting that here. At least not for another month till most of you have seen it and it's gone out of the theatres. The movie is set in Calcutta, and not Kolkata, because it is set in those parts of Calcutta that in my eyes can never be called anything else. Thanks to V I've got this fascination for that city and for Bengali, which basically means, I had a silly smile plastered on my face for most parts of the ...