Pottery, Paintings, Photography, Play and PaniPuri !! :D

The Kala Ghoda Art Festival is into it's tenth year. This festival is a blend of all forms of art. Creativity under one roof! There are street plays, short films, dance performances, art exhibits, literature and photography workshops, colourful stalls with creative products on sale..ALL this together. So, as soon as I found out my lectures had been cancelled for the day, I was thrilled. I took print outs of the Kala Ghoda Art Fest Programme guide and decided to go there a little early.

After a quick cup of chai at VT station (I can't get myself to calling it "CST" no matter WHAT!!), I headed to Kala Ghoda. The cab took a lot of time to reach owing to the traffic on the road. Fest-effect I'm guessing. As soon as I got there, I saw two huge elephant statues outside, on either side of the Black Horse statue. And one of the them looked so real, I was too careful before going close to it to click it's photograph:

As I saw the crowd, the street art displayed outside and the colourful childrens' festival going on in full zest, I couldn't wait to enter!

The sad part of the festival is, there is such a lot going on there that you can't possibly attend everything even though you want to, and you can't decide which one's better- everything's just so great! The first thing I noticed there was the potter near the entrance. People had crowded up around him, he was letting them mould a pot on his wheel and take the pot home at only 30 bucks! I wanted to mould one too, but decided I'd wait for Neeraj so that it could be recorded!

I saw the other exhibits meanwhile. There were a lot of exhibits centered around the "Save the Earth" theme. Exhibits on "Banning Plastic", "Recycling", "Saving on Electricity", "Global Warming" etc. were some.




What amazed me the most was the "Blind With Camera" section. It had a lot of photographs captured by the blind. I got a chance to hear what Satvir Yogi, a blind student of St. Xavier's college had to say. When asked how he manages to capture images so well without sight, he says he has a picture of them in his mind. He is familiar with what's around him and uses senses to capture them in his mind first. His humility and talent had everyone in awe of him! There were many other photographs displayed there captured by a lot of other visually impaired students.

The photographers

I took a walk down the street, entering each stall and clicking pictures wherever it was allowed. I saw little kids performing "Jai Ho" at the Amphitheatre. I saw a tattoo section where people were getting themselves tattooed; I sometimes wonder how painful that must be (the worst pain I know is what I went through today, thanks to my muscle spasm.). I hung around a lot at all the pottery stalls; somehow they caught my fascination. When I was a child, I had once dreamed of being a potter :D



And just then, I got a call from Neeraj saying he was standing somewhere under the big bell. I dragged him to the potter as soon as I saw him!! :D I gave him my camera, and sat down next to the potter, and started off with moulding my pot! Here's the complete video of it:

I was so proud of my disfigured pot, I carried it with me all along (also, it hadn't dried completely). That's me posing with the horse (made fully of twigs by the way) carrying my pot!!



We took a walk outside, there was a lot of street art: potrait sketchers, charcoal painters, name-on-rice, a man making objects such as a cycle out of just wires etc. There was a plant section too, and we spotted some beautiful Bonsai flowers.



After a lot of photography, we went back in. I saw a stall header that read: "Your own wax sculpture in 20 minutes". I considered getting my own wax sculpture made, but Neeraj mentioned how scary it would be, and the thought scared me too! :D I mused a while over why we get scared of our own sculptures! We saw a small Bharat Natyam performance at the Amphitheatre.


Our next destination was BNHS; there was a short film going on there. We managed to catch the last five minutes of the short film followed by a discussion with it's directors. They had shot the film under a budget of just Rs. 1000/- !!

We quickly made our way out to go to NGMA. A play ("The Diary") was about to start in the next fifteen minutes. We reached five minutes before time, and saw a long queue waiting outside. Hoping we'd get seating space, we joined it! We got to sit right in front- in clear view of the stage! And the play began...

It starred Sagvik Mukherjee as writer Shekhar Gupta and Supriya Gokarn as his wife Meera. Biswamitra Ray was Meera's elder brother, Sanket Mhatre played the role of the younger Shekhar, while Mehak Jaini was the younger version of Meera. The play centered around a married couple (Shekhar and Meera) madly in love with each other. The marriage faces a lot of pitfalls, and the couple separates eventually. Shekhar finishes his novel after the separation, and dies three days later, in an accident. Meera finds his diary and then later ends up reading his novel, and discovers that he loved her till the very end; his novel was based on his undying love for her.

The crew

Meera and Shekhar's narration of the diary's pages and Meera's remarkable acting is notable. The younger version of the couple did a great job too. I loved Sanket Mhatre's (younger Shekhar's) role a lot. Reminded me of "Ted" from "How I met your mother". :D Meera's elder brother (Biswamitra Ray) did very well too. The humour was properly timed, and the storyline was smooth. The lighting effects, and the music added to the success of the play. An hour's time was truly well spent!


We were really hungry by the time the play got over and went to one of the chocolate stalls at Kala Ghoda. After having strawberries dipped in that dark chocolate fountain down there, we rushed to have two plates of pani-puri! To top that, I had a large glass of sugarcane juice (Neeraj had a JUMBO! :O).

The Dark Chocolate Fountain

I reached home at around 10, feeling great! I'm planning to go there again, you should visit too! It's ON till the 14th of February, and you can download the programme guide from http://www.kalaghodaassociation.com. You can follow them on Twitter here: @Kala_Ghoda.

Hope to see you there then, tada! :)

A great weekend in a great city! :)

And so, finally, in the midst of working freelance, coding an application for dad, thinking of a plot for a short-story I aspire to write, fixing my cousin's God forsaken PC, photo-copying all possible notes for my university exams next month, organizing my data in my computer, attending Yoga and jive classes, I've had the time to blog! About my two wonderful days at Ahmedabad. :)


I visited the city for the second time this year, and saw more of it than I had last. Enjoyed to the fullest. :) I reached Ahmedabad on Friday (the 29th of January) night and stayed over at my blog friend Sakhi's place this time too, and surprisingly she looked more feminine with slightly longer locks that complemented her face very well (I'm sure she'll be delighted to read this! :D). We reached her place in twenty minutes or so. Houses in Ahmedabad are humongous; it takes longer to walk from one room to the next than it takes here to go to the last house in my building! :D I was in total awe of the place. 


On Saturday, I left for IIM in the morning. Their cultural fest Chaos was going on in full zest. I met my friend Nissim who studies there, he introduced me to his cousin who had come down for the fest as well. He then took us to a hotel nearby where his family had been staying for the past couple of days. I had a sumptuous lunch with his family at Pakvaan. The food was too sweet though and for the first time, I gulped the buttermilk with great relish since it was the only thing that wasn't sweet and successfully removed the sweet residue from my mouth left behind by the thaali. Followed by that was a trip to Sabarmati Ashram. It didn't even strike me that it was the 30th of January (Gandhiji's death anniversary!). And so, I happened to be there at the right time :) Clicked a lot of photographs in the Ashram and at Sabarmati river, bought his autobiography at the bookstore there and even attended the Timeless Mahatma exhibition that was held especially for that day.

The evening was spent at IIM. I met a Twitterer Jaideep (@jdshah) outside the campus and had a cup of elaichi chai (which, needless to mention, was sweet too!). We couldn't really talk much, since I had to go back to the campus for a concert that was going to start shortly. But it turned out that I still had an hour with me. I caught up with Bhalchandra- the guy I am doing a project with. Met him in person for the first time, he sure is different than what I had imagined him to be. His witty comments at the concert later had me giggling!!


The concert rocked! I got a front row pass (thanks to Nissim! :)) and I could easily pass through the barricade courtesy my height and width :D. The concert started off with a perfomance by Kavita Seth. She is a Sufi singer, more popular by "Iktara", her latest song from the movie "Wake up Sid". Loved her performance and was amazed by the Sufi dancer on stage who kept spinning around continuously while dancing and still managed to gain full control of himself once the song got over. I listened to a lot of Sufi songs. Shruti Pathak took over then ("Mar Jawa" singer from the movie "Fashion"). She sang a few Bollywood songs ("Mar Jawa", "Dance pe Chance Maar Le", "Beedi Jalayle"). After a lot of impatient noises and whines from the crowd (which was desperately waiting for Sonu), Sonu Niigaam finally arrived at 9:15 and performed for 3 hours straight!! He sang everything - Bollywood songs, songs from his own album, and surprisingly, "Stayin Alive" by the Bee Gees- in their own voice!! Sadly, I couldn't record that number. Hope to get that from some friend now. He entertained the crowd all throughout and had them with him. Here are some short recordings from my camera (sorry about the poor video quality!):

And so, after a well spent day, Nissim dropped me to Sakhi's place a little after midnight. The next day (Sunday), we went to her new house that was still getting designed. I then shopped at The Body Shop and availed of their discount offer by buying an amazing Japanese Cherry Blossom shower gel which, by the way, is much relaxing and smells great !! :D We had lunch at her place, and this time, it was way too tasty. Not too sweet, not too spicy! She had cooked my favourite vegetable (bhindi - Lady Finger) and I licked the plate clean. :)


In the evening, we took an auto to Kankaria lake. She had taught me to read the meter over lunch and tested me when we got off. And I have to mention, the auto-wallahs in Ahmedabad can no longer cheat me! :D Kankaria lake was awesome. It's one place where you've got everything- right from an aquarium, to a zoo, to adventure rides, to a park, to a laser and musical fountain show that takes place every evening, to boat rides, to chaat and other eateries, to countless wonderful birds flying together, to a beautiful lake and a beautiful sunset !!! :) We did a lot of photography, went for a ride in the boat, had a pizza and a cup of awesome WaghBakri chai (which was not sweet at all and had just the right amount of ginger), saw the laser & musical fountain show, had a lovely time photographing and making faces at the fish in the aquarium and then left happily having candy floss on our way home! :)

After playing a bit with her daughter, and then having some Maggi at 1 a.m. in the morning, she dropped me to the station for my 2:15 a.m. train! It was my first time in a night-train. I was a little scared of getting fleeced so I tried hard not to sleep at first, killing my time on Twitter on my phone, but unfortunately I had been given the middle berth and there was no way I could sit there even for a minute and eventually, whilst lying in that position, fell asleep. And how I slept! I woke up directly in the morning to the sound of babies wailing, and was shocked to see my face all swollen. I had slept a little too heavily :D I looked out and saw Vasai Road going by and knew Bombay was nearing. I got that strange soothing feeling that I always get when I come back to Bombay and in no time, the train halted at Bandra Terminus. I stepped out carrying my luggage, feeling at home and happy to be back. :)


P.S: Please watch ALL the videos. It took too long to get them here! :P

What Women Want

This has always been the most unresolved mysteries of all time, because it involves the supposedly "inexplicable" brain of a woman. So, I decided to do a bit of research. Of course, it helps when you're a woman yourself! :P


So, what do we really want when it comes to a man, a relationship, a long-term commitment? At the end of the day, all a woman wants is someone kind and considerate with the persona of a gentleman but that's not enough to get noticed! It takes a lot more than just that! 


When we go partying, to a club or just about anywhere, we like to see men who stand out. Be it the stand-up comedian performing on stage, the bartender juggling his cocktails, the guitarist strumming the chords of "Hotel California", we get easily attracted to men who are "different" from the rest.

For most of us, "confidence" is the key. If you've got it, you've got us. "Over-confidence" is a big turn-off !! You'd rather be shaky than be more than what you should be. A man who is sure of himself, surely knows how to take care of his lady and that speaks a lot in itself.

Romance is important, and there is more to romance than just candies and flowers. We love and appreciate it more when a guy does something for us. More than just materialistic gifts, we like it when you sing for us, write about us, or if you're an artist- paint us a portrait! It's not only flattering, but the love that goes along with so much of effort shows. We can easily tell when it's done from the heart. It need not be all perfect. We like it when you goof up whilst trying to be romantic! :D 


We love unpredictability and spontaneity as well. Almost all of us have seen and laughed at the Hero Honda commercial where the guy drives to his girlfriend's house to wish her "Goodnight" in the middle of the night! It may look like the guy's out of his mind and that in real life, he's sure to get slapped but that's not so. We like it when guys are spontaneous- taking us out on an unplanned road-trip to a place you really like is a HIT! :) However, this should be done only when you've met the girl a good number of times, else you'll end up freaking her out!


Intelligence is a turn ON as well. I'm not very sure about geeks and nerds, but witty intelligence is sure to attract! Funny one-liners at the right time and good humour show how clever you are and we totally fall for that! 


Looks aren't as important as presentability. It's enough if you can carry yourself well. (No offence to the new Mens' fairness cream product manufacturers! :D)


Violence is a big NO. Although we like guys who fight (defend) for us, we despise hooligans who unnecessarily call a fight on themselves to "impress". 


Possessing one or more of these qualities is enough to get women to notice you and fall for you. 


By the way, for all you F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fans (me included), Chandler's got ALMOST all of these traits !! He does lack confidence (he is insecure when it comes to marriage), but he's got romance (remember the candle-light theme when he proposes Monica for marriage?) and unpredictability (remember how he runs away from home on the day of his wedding? :D okay, that episode does not really account for his unpredictability in a way that we want to mention here, but there have been a lot of times when he's been totally unpredictable- sex on a hospital bed is one of those!) and wit (do I even need to state an example?). He totally rocks! :D


For a relationship, of course, trust, body chemistry and a few other factors would matter. 


And as I mentioned before, for a long-term commitment, a woman looks for someone who respects her and loves her just the same. Yes, someone who would hold the door out for her when she walks into a room; someone who would kiss her forehead and tell her she looks beautiful even after she's just up and looks sloshed. Though it sounds too commonplace, it's true! 


Lastly, be yourself. That's more important than anything else. Honesty (also to yourself) needs to be maintained through all phases of any relationship. It's a #WIN. :P

Before I end this, a link for all you ladies- 7 types of guys you should not date: http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-dating-donts-the-do-not-date-list/ (via @ideasmithy)
Happy reading! :)


P.S: Ladies, let me know if there's anything else that I've missed out on, or if there's anything specific that YOU look for!

One Helluva Week !

Okay.. so I've been upto a LOT! All in a week's time! 

For one thing, I finally enrolled for a dance class. It's a package of Salsa, Jive and Waltz and my first Jive session rocked this Sunday. I am born with two left feet and rarely shake a leg at parties, so you see, taking up these classes and dancing with everyone there was a Herculean task for me! But, I did it! And I'm glad! :) I don't aspire to be a great dancer someday but I do want to stop feeling self-conscious when I'm dancing and I'm hoping these sessions serve that purpose! :D  

The session began with a small 10-minute warm up session followed by basic Jive positions, feet-tapping, bending and styling! By the end of the class, we were able to dance a bit to the tunes of "Tricky Tricky". Needless to mention, after my class got over and I came home, my friends poked me with one question: "So, who's your partner?" ;) I too was secretly hoping to jive with a cutie :P but we have to keep changing partners for every step so that we get to know everyone in class! Everyone's a beginner there and the instructors are really patient with us- atleast they were on the first day!

I went to see off Mona at the airport that evening. She has gone to Delhi for her training at Indigo Airlines, and this post that I had written sometime back was actually meant for her! I'm missing her already, just hoping she settles soon!

I also met a LOT of people this week!

 

The Chai Tweetup last Friday was awesome. Kudos to Mihir for organising it! :)

Wagh Bakri Tea Lounge at Vile Parle (E) was the venue and more people turned up than we expected adding to the fun. 

Mona and I entered at first, not knowing where everyone else was seated. We couldn't spot anyone we knew and rushed outside to call Mihir. He was still on his way there and forced us to go back in and start talking to the others. And so, we went back in. After about 30 minutes of awkwardness and two cups of Adhrak Chai, we started jabbering away and ended up meeting some really awesome people there!

 Photo Courtesy: Sanjeev Sarma

Thanks to Neeraj for flicking the little notebook which had the names and handles of all those who came! :D He smartly put them all up here.  

(More pics of Chai Tweetup here, here and here)

We had an amazing time and all of us spammed the Twitter timeline with #chai tweetup tweets once we got back home! 

I met up with friends from my old workplace the next day. A lot had changed with respect to weight and hairstyles (Calvin looks really different without his beard!!) but we had just as much fun as we always used to have when we were together. The best part is, even after I met up with them after more than a month, I went back home with cheeks that hurt by laughing too much. There is some thing about certain people that never lets any amount of time cause a distance to crop up between them, and I hope it always stays that way. :)

I met up with college friends a day later and they said I had pulled down. Have I? It's not really a good thing because I am already underweight. Moreover, I thought I'd have gained a lot of it considering I spend most part of the day at home (this week being an exception!). 

A day after that, a few of us met up with our friend Oscar who was back in India after a year and was going back to the States on Sunday. We had a great time hogging at Mondy's (that waiter has taken a dislike towards me only for the fact that the place seemed to be out of all that I ordered for!! :D) and walking down the streets of South Bombay talking, laughing and commenting on every little object of amusement. 

So, it's rightly said that there are some things money can never buy. :-)

There is ONE thing that it CAN though- a cellphone!!!

If you've been following my tweets, you'd know my cellphone got confiscated by a professor in college today only because it vibrated on the table that I had kept it on. It was on silent mode. Can you believe that? And she refused to give it back to me until tomorrow, but I highly doubt she'll let me have it back that easily. I just hope I don't have to pay a fine, I didn't really "use" it, it vibrated by itself! :(

In a way, I did need a break after a long week, and no cellphone means not having to attend useless calls from network providers and insurance companies (those are usually the ones who miss me the most :P) so I guess it's okay.  

Now, I need to start giving more attention than I did to work and my books :)  

Okay now I'm out of here.. have a superb weekend!

Will come back and scribble some more later! :P

Bon Voyage and All the Best!

I don't know what's happening. Or what I'm afraid of. Things are getting pretty better with me now, but it's maybe because I've been spending a lot of time with someone I trust and that 'someone' is going away tomorrow. I'm going to miss her!

I never thought I would, honestly. But lately, now that things were getting back to what they were, I really would have loved to have you around. I'm sorry about whatever happened last year but deep down, I knew we'd be back together the way we were eventually, cuz I guess we need each other, we're just meant to be that close and have stuck together for more than seven years now. Yes, it's really been that long. Time flies I know! I am not very expressive in person so thought I'd say it here- I'll miss you.

I want you to be happy and occupied with the best of things around you. I hope things work out well for you but I want you to know that you can be happy wherever you want to be. Just believe in this and someday, you'll know. It can be very hard to feel happy sometimes; I have trouble with it myself but you know what, it's not something you look for, it's something you are. It's only when you're sad again that you realise you were happy. Okay, I don't want to go ahead with another philosophy lecture or try to promote "The Secret" again! :P Just take care of yourself. Work, tweet, chat, click photos, read, watch as many movies as you can, listen to music and have a hot cuppa ginger chai every evening - and you'll never feel away from home :) I know it's easier said than done but when it gets harder, you know you're just one call away. So, take care again. Muaah. Lots of Love.

I guess I'm back to being alone now. Everyone takes leave sooner or later. Going back to finding myself now. It's all a big question mark. There were a lot of things that I had lost and I got them back but there's one part of my life I would never want to return to. I don't know when or if I'd even open myself to it. It's scary and I'm not ready yet. Maybe I never will be.

That Oddly Different Feeling!

Ever met an online friend in real life and felt you were meeting a completely different person - an impostor? This happens almost 9 out of 10 times with friends you meet off the net or phone and we are never able to explain to ourselves why we feel oddly different when it's the same person. Even though you've seen his/her pictures, you feel different. This also ends up ruining the friendship sometimes. We feel guilty for feeling that way and are not able to understand why.

Last night, I was talking to a friend about how friendships develop and how we have sets of friends- college friends, work friends, bus friends, train friends, phone friends, chat friends, blog friends etc. This led to a whole different discussion about how different phone friends or chat friends can be in real life.

We gave it a lot of thought (one of the consequences of having a lot of free time- starting random discussions and then attempting at drawing conclusions out of them! :P) and figured why we feel this way. When we talk to someone on the phone or online, we make a mental picture of them- a mental image of their personality . We unknowingly create a definition of the person's image. We might have seen the person in photos but we tend to create a different image of his/her personality. This image becomes stronger as we talk to the person more and more. So, when we finally meet the person in real life, and if the looks of the person don't match our imagination of his/her personality, we feel disappointed. We feel like we've met an impostor. It all happens because we don't get what we think we will. We don't feel the same attachment to the person and that makes us feel guilty.

It also happens when we've just been introduced to someone in person once or twice but the friendship has developed fully through some other media.

It's just like going to watch a movie based on the novel after having read the novel. Most of the time, we end up feeling dissatisfied with the movie- why? It's not only because the movie misses out on most of the details. It's mainly because when we read a novel, we build up our own characters, give them their unique personalities and that fits well in the story. When we don't get the same on screen, we feel disheartened. (Not talking about "3 Idiots" and "FPS" here- I strongly believe they cannot be compared as they have two completely different storylines!)


Generally, if we become friends with someone first in person, and then chat online or on the phone, it does not make much of a difference because the image of that person has already been created by us through whatever we've seen and experienced.

I discussed the same with Priyanka (@priyankawriting) on Twitter today. She said that if we accept people for what they are, such differences would not arise. It takes time though, for people to accept others for who they are especially when they've created a different picture of them altogether. Not meeting at all might retain the friendship but that usually doesn't happen. If you know the person well, over time, you automatically feel like you should meet him/her in real life in order to spend more time together. That's when you should be prepared for anything. Never decide what you're going to expect. And never feel guilty- sometimes, even when we go prepared, we subconsciously have some notions and expectations about the person! It's human, and it's okay! :)

P.S. Couldn't think of an appropriate title for this post. :(

Happy New Year!

A Very Happy New Year to all my readers and friends! :) Hope you had a blast last night and have recovered from your hangovers :P

This year, I don't have any resolutions except for living each day to the fullest and being as happy & worry-free as I can this year!

Nissim just passed on this video to me the other day and I loved it. It gives good insight on how to live life- you're sure to love this one too! Follow it for a great year ahead..

You can alternatively watch it here with English subtitles ON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfq_A8nXMsQ

Happy New Year to All once again! Good luck with your resolutions! :D

Goodbye 2009

Another year has come to an end. Time really flies; I can still recall the post I had written on New Years' this year! 2009 was a complicated year- a mix of both good things and bad. 


2009 was THE year of Twitter, Web 2.0, tweetups, Bar Camps, Wall Projects and the like. Twitter is really a huge source of information and an awesome way to keep you updated on "what's happening" in and around places. I attended BCM6 (BCM= Bar Camp Mumbai), the Wall Project, the Kalaghoda festival, (almost) attended the Sapling project all because of Twitter! If there is some controversy or a riot happening, or there is a particular train that is going to be delayed, you just come to know of it by logging in to Twitter and either looking it up or just asking fellow Twitterers! It's so far the best medium for exchange of information- in less than 140 characters! I met a lot of genuinely awesome people on Twitter too. Okay, I'm just going on and on about Twitter, but seriously, I can write a whole post on this (maybe I will!)! 


It was a year of flop movies but Rajkumar Hirani made up for it very well with the release of "3 idiots"! :)

On a personal note, it was a year full of promises never kept. I thought I had found my "prince charming" and my dream-job but I was wrong with both. It only made me realise that what you want can be far different from your fascinations, and all your heart REALLY wants is to feel safe and be loved. It taught me that happiness cannot be sought. The more you seek it- the more it slips away.


I came across too many new and different things. Until last year, I was of the opinion that life had nothing left to offer, but now, I say it offers much more than we can take!! I stepped out of my comfort zone and explored a lot of different areas and environments.


I got my own domain! :)


I cast my first vote! :D


I learnt "Yoga". I never thought yoga and philosophy was my cup of tea but circumstances somehow led me to it and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience! :) 


I stayed over at a blog friend's place (in a whole new city that too) for the first time! :) Online friendship (Blog friendship especially) is a different experience altogether and I wish all would experience it! Please don't blindly believe anything that people say till you experience it for yourself. 


My brother came down from the States after a year and a half! It was fun having him over for a month, it flew very quickly though. He gifted me a digi cam and a lappie! :D 


I lost my grandfather; had never experienced the loss of someone before. This was deep and I was with him when he passed away. I'm thankful he didn't suffer much. I have a few regrets though and maybe I'll never get over them...


My cousin got married and it was the first Manglorian wedding I was part of. The music and dance that followed was pure fun. It was awesome to see close family letting themselves loose on that day!


I came a little closer to family than before and I am glad. Friends keep changing with time, and the friends that usually take leave early are the ones who promise to be with you forever. 

I set out to build a career and ended up making a few mistakes. I know I can't undo them now, but I know I have to be more careful next time and choose wisely. I've ignored my studies and a lot of my other duties. I need to get everything back on track now- and I will !


All in all, a year full of mixed emotions, new beginnings and endings and a bag full of lessons learnt!


"Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us." (via @aditipatel04)

3 Idiots.

Amir Khan has done it again. 

After reading reviews from Reema and Harsh, taking opinions on Facebook, coming across tweets declaring the movie to be the biggest blockbuster of 2009, I finally decided to watch "3 idiots". 

Not being a movie buff, I wasn't all that interested initially. I usually wait for movies to air on TV, or I just borrow them from friends and watch them at home on my computer. My opinions on movies usually differ from the masses. Just once, I had gone for "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na" after people telling me it's "simply awesome" and was hugely disappointed. This time though, since I had read the book (which, by the way, is not like the movie at all), and since Amir Khan was starring in it, I decided to take a chance. One of my friends even told me I'd get an answer to what I want from life if I watch the movie. I wondered how a movie could determine my life but, nevertheless, decided to catch this one.

Aditi and I had been making plans but putting them off everyday because neither of us could get up in time for the 11:30 a.m. show and couldn't really afford the late evening shows; they went "House Full" anyway. Today, however, we were determined to watch it. 

We went to the first theatre in Dadar and found that all the shows were booked  and the booking office would open only at 4, and we'd have to book in advance. We decided to go to to the next closest theatre, which we had always thought was totally sad because of the "crowd" that most people said it attracted. There was a saree-clad aunty standing outside saying "100 mein le lo.. 100 mein le lo". We assumed that the show was House Full here too. The security guard at the gate let us in easily but as we had guessed, we found the booking office closed. We asked him when it would open and he replied, "Madam house full hai sab shows (All shows are House Full)". So, we turned to go back, and he stopped us asking us how many tickets we wanted. We promptly replied, "Do (two)". He said, "Side mein khade raho (Stand at the side)". We wondered if he was involved with the aunty outside who was selling those tickets illegally. A man in a maroon formal shirt came towards us saying, "Kitna chahiye? Do na? Aao mere saath (how many? two right? Come with me.)". We got scared. I nudged Aditi saying, "Abbe yeh black mein de raha hai shayad.. aaj tak kabhi black mein nahi khareeda re, kya karna hai.. (I think he is selling them illegally, what do you think we should do?)". We followed him slowly and silently still re-considering buying tickets from him. After about two minutes, as if he had read our minds, he said, "Arre darte kyun ho itna! Same rate mein de raha hu booking office se hi!! (Why are you so scared? I'm selling them at the same rate from the booking office itself!)". We chuckled. He was just leading us to the back entrance of the booking office where he worked and gave us two balcony seats at the same rate. He added, "Special seats hai. Milta nahi hai (They are special seats. You don't get them so easily)". We wondered why he was being so nice to us, but were happy that we bought them clean! :D

We entered right in time for the national anthem. There was a mushy-but-sophisticated couple seated next to us. The crowd was decent enough- not like we had expected it to be at all ! The seats were indeed "special" like he had said; they offered the best view of the screen! 

And so, the movie began.

My first ever movie review! :D

Rancho (Amir Khan), Farhan (Madhavan) and Raju (Sharman Joshi) are three bright students of the Imperial College of Engineering, it's Director being our very own Boman Irani -- Prof. Veeru Sahastrabuddhe. 

Raju is the only son to his paralysed father and poor mother. He has an elder sister who is 28 and still unmarried because apparently, the guy's side demands too much dowry!! So, basically, Raju is responsible for his family, and he would be the sole breadwinner of the family if he clears with good grades, which inturn would give him a good, well-paying job. He feels too pressurised by his college though and the pressure affects his performance, which goes down considerably.

Farhan is passionate about wildlife photography but he gives in to his dad's wishes, and goes on to become an engineer. His unwillingness and lack of passion towards engineering leads to him always standing last in his semesters, barely scraping through his exams. 

Rancho, on the other hand, is genuinely smart, an out-of-the-box thinker with ways of his own. He is very passionate about machines & engineering and thinks practically. He criticises and challenges the education system, but in the end, successfully makes the Director realise he's actually killing his students by pressurising them too much instead of nurturing their talents and leading them in  the right direction. His love interest, Pia (Kareena Kapoor) is the Director's daughter who is about to get married to a rich snob Suhas who cares much more about his own wealth and social prestige than her. Rancho makes her see for herself the snob that he is. He wins her heart at the end of the movie.

The movie keeps you on your seats all throughout. Every scene of it is very real and very entertaining. The end is a tad dramatic as Reema and Harsh pointed out, when Pia's sister Mona (Mona Singh) delivers her baby which does not cry at all after it's born leading people to think he's stillborn but kicks Rancho when "All is well" is said. Amir is the show stealer all throughout as always! :)

The movie brings out one valuable message: Follow your heart.

Songs are good too; they are placed at the right times in the movie. "Give me some sunshine" and "All is well" are two tracks everyone will enjoy.

The movie, however, is totally different from the book that it's claimed to be based on- "Five Point Someone" by Chetan Bhagat. The only similarity that I could see was all three of them were engineering students and Raju's character in the movie matched Alok's in the book. So I don't think the movie should be compared to the book in any way.

Lastly, I won't say it's a "one-time" watch. This is the first time I actually wouldn't mind seeing the movie again tomorrow! It's truly an eye-opener, a must-watch! Kudos to Amir Khan and more so, to Rajkumar Hirani.

Dashing through the snow... :)

Christmas time always takes me back to a night long ago (around 11 years back) when Chinky and I were little. We hung stockings outside our windows and stood waiting for Santa to arrive and fill them up with gifts! We kept waiting for hours and were disappointed when we couldn't spot a single sleigh in the sky coming towards our houses! Next morning, however, we were pleased to find gifts in them and then started believing that Santa comes only when we are asleep; he doesn't like to make his presence felt; he likes giving surprises! Why then does he come in big malls & fancy restaurants and seat kids on his lap? There were a lot of such questions and no one really answered them. And all of a sudden, one day, we come to know that Santa doesn't exist after all and all this while, we believed in something that wasn't even there! We were old enough to accept it then, but Christmas wasn't as exciting anymore. We knew that there wouldn't be anything to look forward to on the morning of Christmas! We'd find our stockings empty- hell, why would we even hang them! It got too disappointing so thereafter, even though we knew he doesn't exist, we wanted to believe he does and just carried on with the belief only to keep the excitement alive! :D And so, we happily dreamt of little elves, reindeer, Santa and his sleigh! And that's how Christmas taught us to believe in things in order to be happy.. :)

When I think of Christmas, I think of snow. I've always dreamt of a Christmas with roads all lit up and covered in snow. I wish I could experience that one day!

Christmas brings with it a lot of cheer, goodwill, harmony, loads of sweets (chocolate cake my fav!! :D) and lots of beauty!

May Santa fulfil ALL your wishes!

Merrrryyy Christmas and Happy Holidays!

P.S. Make sure you line up enough number of stockings at your door :P

Santa: I want a two wheeler, a smartphone, an acoustic guitar and a job!! :D