Almost every time we watch a movie, there are a few things that linger on to the mind; a few scenes from movie, or a character, or just a place. And I have a habit of judging the quality of a movie by how long it is able to cling on to my senses.
Well here is one movie that might be able to create an impression for a lifetime. I am hearing the songs (actually the background music) of the movie right now and the scenes run through my eyes...the most visible form of magic for me I should say.
As all of you must be knowing by this time, this is a story of a blind and deaf (and hence dumb) girl and her tutor, played so effectively by a small girl first (I dont know her name anyone?) and then Rani Mukherji and the maestro Amitabh Bachan respectively. This would definitely go down as one of the best performances for both of them. As for the director, very frankly I for one, never expected a story like this from the creator of Devdas. The parallels in the two movies are the breathtaking settings. But thankfully the similarity stops there. The director found something better to fit into the grand settings:). Kudos to Sanjay Leela Bansali.
Some of my friends have been judging the movie by the number of times they cried...by that measure, yes..I did have teardrops in my eyes, but unlike other movies (and also unlike what I expected), these were for most parts, tears of joy..of optimism, of a feeling of a vicarious thrill for the girl on the screen. One heart rendering dialogue which I am still thinking about is this-"Mainae shayad Jindagi se kuch jyada hi maang liyaa thaa..."-which translates into-" I probably asked a bit too much out of life."- the misery of a girl not able to get things that others take for granted couldn't have been put in better words. In order not to spoil the experience for those who are yet to watch the movie I will stop here.
The best thing about the movie is the ringing optimism in it. If you are expecting a teary portrayal of the miseries of a girl with such disabilities, be warned....neither the director, nor the tutor is in a mood for that. There are beautiful jokes scattered here and there which make you smile without losing perspective of the bigger picture.
This movie deserves every accolade film industry can provide...but more importantly it deserves audience's support for producers to be able to do away with the "Murder"s and "Jism"s which have come to plague the Hindi film industry.
After you watch the movie do drop in your comments.
Monday, February 21, 2005
The Stay
We had a few imaginations about the place we were going to stay in. But the one we got surpassed our wildest imaginations. We were given the biggest apartment I have ever lived in. The entire floor was covered with a soft (I am not sure what to call this..) flooring which is the norm here for all apartments. I felt sleeping on the floor more comfortable than my bed back home:). The rooms were spacious and we had every home appliance that one could think of- Refrigerator, microwave oven, dish-washer, knife-set, washing machine and so on. Ofcourse for $100 a day which my company was paying them these were the least they could do:).
Ofcourse we left all the kitchen equipment almost untouched. The appliance we found the greatest use were indeed the TV and VCR (you read it right-here VCRs and video cassettes are are still immensely popular. We watched a movie almost every weekend. More about that in
another post.
I was feeling a bit eerie with the huge house and living all alone and decided to move in with Raghu (he had a two-bedroom apartment). Then began the party-time. Raghuram often became so sick with hotel-food that he used to cook at home and ofcourse I helped with him in the most crucial part-eating and certifying his cooking skills. He is so sweet that inspite of being enraged at my watching TV endlessly while he toiled with rice and puliyotharai mix (he became a specialist in making puliyotharai-tamarind rice) and making empty threats of cooking for him alone-always at the end of it there it was....I had steaming rice, watery, but tasty sambhar, sometimes curry, curd and to top it all-Puliyotharai:). You are a pleasure Raghu:):)
Towards the end we took detailed videos of the whole house. Here apartments are not stand-alone entities. They have a set of apartments forming a community kind of thing and they have facilities common to them. There was a small swimming pool for the place and we deigned on it only once during the whole stay. They had a tennis court as well.
We had the chance of watching the firemen in action twice during our stay. When there is smoke in one of the apartments there is an alarm that goes off for the entire building. Everyone in every apartment who hears that is supposed to leave everything and rush outside. The firemen are automatically alarmed and they arrive within few minutes. They are very professional. In full gear, a few of their men march inside the house and make sure there is nothing serious and declare "All Clear". People can go in only after that. Both the times thankfully only the fireplace had had some problems and was emanating too much of smoke.
Ofcourse we left all the kitchen equipment almost untouched. The appliance we found the greatest use were indeed the TV and VCR (you read it right-here VCRs and video cassettes are are still immensely popular. We watched a movie almost every weekend. More about that in
another post.
I was feeling a bit eerie with the huge house and living all alone and decided to move in with Raghu (he had a two-bedroom apartment). Then began the party-time. Raghuram often became so sick with hotel-food that he used to cook at home and ofcourse I helped with him in the most crucial part-eating and certifying his cooking skills. He is so sweet that inspite of being enraged at my watching TV endlessly while he toiled with rice and puliyotharai mix (he became a specialist in making puliyotharai-tamarind rice) and making empty threats of cooking for him alone-always at the end of it there it was....I had steaming rice, watery, but tasty sambhar, sometimes curry, curd and to top it all-Puliyotharai:). You are a pleasure Raghu:):)
Towards the end we took detailed videos of the whole house. Here apartments are not stand-alone entities. They have a set of apartments forming a community kind of thing and they have facilities common to them. There was a small swimming pool for the place and we deigned on it only once during the whole stay. They had a tennis court as well.
We had the chance of watching the firemen in action twice during our stay. When there is smoke in one of the apartments there is an alarm that goes off for the entire building. Everyone in every apartment who hears that is supposed to leave everything and rush outside. The firemen are automatically alarmed and they arrive within few minutes. They are very professional. In full gear, a few of their men march inside the house and make sure there is nothing serious and declare "All Clear". People can go in only after that. Both the times thankfully only the fireplace had had some problems and was emanating too much of smoke.
Thursday, February 17, 2005
The Flight.
I actually had imagined quite a few things about the flight journey after hearing that in Singapore Airlines each seat had a LCD monitor and each passenger had a choice from 17 movie CDs to watch and also that Lufthansa was even better than Sing Air. Well...it turned out to be otherwise. The seats were cramped and there was one small monitor for some 20 seats, the person in the corner seat has to stick out his head to see it avoiding the over-head baggage box and as luck would have it I was in the corner seat quite a few times.
Frankfurt airport was quite something. It is not huge, but it is bustling with activity. There are 2 magnetic levitation train between the 2 terminals with a frequency of about 1 in 5 minutes. It was truly amazing to go in that. We saw the freeway of Germany and the speed with which cars flew (literally!!) was just amazing. We did a lot of window shopping until we were tired enough to return to the boarding gate. There are car-like vehicles inside the airport for old people to commute!! The security check was amazing. Each person was asked to remove everything metallic (even shoes..if they have metal strips) and put in a seperate box which goes through the scanner. They frisk you completely with gloved hands (no metallic detectors). Then we flew to Los Angeles and got down. The queue at the immigration check was simply amazing. There must have been atleast a thousand people there!! We waited for almost an hour on our queue. After that was done came the dreaded customs and agricultural dept checks (where they throw out most our indian foods if they are not satisfied with our explanations) and whew..there was no checking at all. They let us go without even stopping us for a moment. LS airport is huge with a lot of terminals.
Finally we reached Seattle and took a taxi home. The taxi was moving at a speed of almost 75mph (120kmph)..little did I imagine that I would be driving at 100mph very soon!!!
Frankfurt airport was quite something. It is not huge, but it is bustling with activity. There are 2 magnetic levitation train between the 2 terminals with a frequency of about 1 in 5 minutes. It was truly amazing to go in that. We saw the freeway of Germany and the speed with which cars flew (literally!!) was just amazing. We did a lot of window shopping until we were tired enough to return to the boarding gate. There are car-like vehicles inside the airport for old people to commute!! The security check was amazing. Each person was asked to remove everything metallic (even shoes..if they have metal strips) and put in a seperate box which goes through the scanner. They frisk you completely with gloved hands (no metallic detectors). Then we flew to Los Angeles and got down. The queue at the immigration check was simply amazing. There must have been atleast a thousand people there!! We waited for almost an hour on our queue. After that was done came the dreaded customs and agricultural dept checks (where they throw out most our indian foods if they are not satisfied with our explanations) and whew..there was no checking at all. They let us go without even stopping us for a moment. LS airport is huge with a lot of terminals.
Finally we reached Seattle and took a taxi home. The taxi was moving at a speed of almost 75mph (120kmph)..little did I imagine that I would be driving at 100mph very soon!!!
Redmond....
I was fortunate enough to be sent over to Redmond by Microsoft for three whole months to undergo training. These three months were definitely an experience I would cherish for a lifetime, not just because this was my first foreign trip or because the place was "so cool", but more because I was there with a set of very close friends, an opportunity that few people being sent "offshore" get. We had so much fun there the term weekend itself has acquired a special meaning for most of us:)
And while I was there, I used to write mails to myself describing the experiences at the place, starting from the flight, to the food, places we visited etc. I couldn't complete it there. I will try to do that here. From now on I will post our experiences under different headings.
I wanted to do this earlier, but didn't get the bandwidth to do it. I will delay this no longer....
And while I was there, I used to write mails to myself describing the experiences at the place, starting from the flight, to the food, places we visited etc. I couldn't complete it there. I will try to do that here. From now on I will post our experiences under different headings.
I wanted to do this earlier, but didn't get the bandwidth to do it. I will delay this no longer....
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