The Week In Words # April End

This is my last week of the four month break, and I guess I need to finish my last set of movies this weekend. The thing about movie series is, you need a lot of time to watch them all in one go - else you don't get the plot. Like the X-Men series, or the Batman series. You could always watch them one by one, spread in time and space, but the best way is to watch them in a single session (by session I mean a weekend, or at best, two weekends). 

My life revolves around very few things - cricket, movies, stock markets, and a little bit of politics (the dirty Indian one, to be specific). Like many of my generation, I too believe in cribbing over the state of our state over facebook and twitter, and even put on badges to support the causes. I even supported Anna Hazaare on his fast, and didn't remove the badge till the government budged from its position, and granted the wishes. I also criticize DMK over the corruption charges against virtually all its members. For all the criticisms against it, I still feel I should have been based out of Tamil Nadu. Before every election, I would have got a color TV, or something of similar or higher value. Thats more than what people in Bihar will get from its government over a 100 year period (and assuming the corruption level is same, if not more). 

We are having an over dose of cricket right now - its like the Golmaal movies. First one was good, second one ok, third was bad, and there is no need for the fourth. And yet, its the goose giving the golden egg, and now the only viable source for Pawar to keep adding to his swiss bank balance. The only way to keep track of IPL is now the match numbers, as no one remembers who is playing whom, or which player plays for which side. Thanks to the colored jerseys, at least I can give a shot to trying to remember the team name of players. Kochi has got it right, and once you see its player in Orange and Purple, you are unlikely to get the haunted image of the player off your mind for a long time to come. So, I may confuse whether Dravid plays for Deccan or Royals, but I can never forget that Sreesanth is with Kochi - not in this lifetime. 

Last week had its share of bad bollywood movies (not exactly last week releases, but I saw them last week). F.A.L.T.U lived up to its name, and 'Thank You' was perhaps the producer saying to the audience for enduring the movie. Its amazing how likes of Sonam Kapoor (and this is a long list, including Imran Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, etc) keeps getting movie, and yet show no improvement in their acting levels. Even Katrina Kaif show more emotions which she lip-syncs her hindi dialogues without having a clue about their meanings. Sonam Kapoor has giggled her way through 5-6 movies now, and I really think she will end up making a career spanning 50+ movies, giggling through all of them, all the while carrying her Prada and Louis Vuitton bags. Next time I see a movie made by Anees Bazmee, or featuring Akshay Kumar or Sonam Kapoor, I will stay away from it. Unless I have plenty of time to kill, and don't have to spend a single cent of it. 

Markets globally are in bubble zone, and I have lost all my credibility at home (among the relatives). I had asked them to get out of markets way back in 2007, and had developed a great fan base by the end of 2008. However, I had even suggested them against investing in Gold (when it was 12k), and Silver - citing that all of these were bubbles, and very soon we would see the prices crashing. After two years, Gold and Silver are going great guns (I still think silently in my heart that these are big big bubbles, and about to burst soon), and I have lost all my credibility. I was even negative on the Mumbai Real Estate, and I don't even need to write what happened there. So, as things stand, the world is rosy, and blind monkeys' darts are hitting the jackpots every time. Anyone who investment their money anywhere has made good returns, and this doesn't seems right (well, too good to be right). Anyways, I would have to live with 'Gold and Property never go down in value' for another year of my life. 

And next year is 2012 - so it doesn't even matter beyond that. 

Where is Argentina anyways?

There is a recent ad on 7 Up where an avid football follower gets really worked up when his friend passes some comments about Argentina losing the match and the protagonist questions the guy's passion and affiliation for the country when he doesn't even know where it is located on the world map, leave alone having visited it even once. To think of it, its quite interesting to see the passion that we all have for things that don't really affect us in our real life. 

Our affinity towards cricket, football teams; actors, clubs, i mean to think of it what difference (and i am committing a big sacrilege by saying this) does it make to me if India wins the World Cup or not,nothing changes in my life. But no i was glued to the television set watching each and every match of India, getting angry for all runs not scored and wickets gone, cheering on all 6s and 4s and wickets taken as if my whole life depended on India winning the World Cup. (Well to let out a secret, another reason i wanted India to win was just to avoid seeing my husband sulk in depression for at-least 10 days had India lost the match). The loyalty by the way is not constant, the moment you divide the same Indian cricket team into KKR, DD, Mumbai Indians, in an IPL match, i cheer the same Malinga for taking wickets when i wished Dhoni to hit him for a six during the world cup match.

Not only cricket, the way we frantically send smses just to make sure that our favorite contestants win xyz dance, singing or farting competition is really strange because the bottom line is "Its not going to make any difference to my life". There is a quote by Oscar Wilde stating" “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation" which is true for most of us, but as another person rightly says “Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted... unbidden... it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us... passion rules us all, and we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow... Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead.”  And it is in all these things Cricket, Football, Country, Region, Gali, Nukkad that we search for our passion because without it our life will be hollow.

P.S: There is a KKR match tomorrow, just keeping my fingers crossed for them to win it!!

Movies in College

We spend so much time in reviewing and analyzing movies. However, more often than not, our view is also based on our movie watching experience. And unlike the old days, now we have different ways in which we can watch movies - at home on TV, Laptops, or at a Multiplex. 

Before the computer era, we used to watch all the movies in either television or theaters. When I had just joined engineering (that was a decade back in 2001), we didn't have computers in each room or campus wide LAN. Every friday, we had a movie screening inside the campus, and all the first years used to go on friday evening show. It was great fun - a batch of 600-700 students watching movies in a 'private' hall. We watched some of the classics in the first year of our college - Dil Chahta Hai, Lagaan, Gadar, etc. We didn't realize it then how much fun it was - by the time we reached second year, we had LAN in our rooms, and no one bothered to go to the hall. 

This is one of the things one miss about being in college - you always had plenty of friends around. Even when I stayed back for my summer project after first year, I had a decent group of friends staying back with me. We had so much fun - there was a set routine for everyday, from breakfast to dinner. And even though the summers are killing in those parts of country, we had an awesome time. To some extent, I'm happy our college was not in a developed town/city - it enabled us to enjoy whatever facilities we had inside the campus, and we all grew up to be fond of them. 

Around the World in 80 days!

Around the World in 80 days is a classic novel by Jules Verne and according to Wikipedia it was first published in 1873. The reason i read this novel 120 years after it was published (discounting the time when i couldn't have read it...either because i wasn't born or was incapable of reading) was because i had seen the movie adaptation of the novel around 15 years back.

I still vividly remember Pierce Brosnan travelling in a train in India and bravely saving a woman from the customs of Sati, widely practiced in India during that time. It was a part of this childhood memory that made me read this book, the first amongst all the classic novels that "we" have recently ordered.

The novel based in 1872 is a story of an English gentleman Mr. Phileas Fogg and his newly employed servant/valet Passepartout and their journey around the world. Mr. Phileas Fogg in a bid to win a bet against his friends takes up this humongous task of proving that it is possible to circumnavigate the world in 80 days. The novel in essence is a story of his journey in these 80 days. It is a very interesting read especially since it is based in those times when sea was the only mode of long distance travel in a "shorter" period of time. Imagine taking 22 days going from Japan to San Fransisco in a sea voyage, when nowadays we fret over a minutes delay in flights. Well as they say the world and so has man's patience become shorter over the period of time. Without sounding like a critic, the story has excellent characterization, narration and a perfectly subtle comic timing to it as well. At times it may still fail to connect you with the turmoil and the anxiety that a man might feel when he has almost his entire fortune at stake proving a point. This may be because i had already seen the movie or because the character of Mr. Phileas Fogg is defined as such.

I neways had a good time reading the novel and will be soon watching the movie again.

The book that i have is a combination of 2 novels by the author the other being "20,000 leagues under the sea". I am not sure if i will read this one in the same zest as i had read the other novel. Especially since i am not a sea person,i don't like novels based on sea journeys, one of the main reasons i couldn't complete the book "Life of a PI" as well. I have parked this book for some days and am now going to start with "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", the complete collection. Lets see how that one turns out to be for me.

Holiday Ending

Like all trips, my India Trip is coming to an end. I'm currently at the Mumbai airport, and would be catching my flight back to Hong Kong in a couple of hours. Its been a nice an relaxing few weeks, and I just stayed at home for the most parts.

We went to watch the IPL match between Pune and Delhi at DY Patil on the last weekend, and it was fun. We missed out watching Mumbai's match though. Saw a few movies as well - Game and Rio in the movie hall. I miss movie halls in Mumbai veru much, as back in HK we don't have quality multiplexes showing Hindi movies. Plus, the crowd as well as food courts are missing as well.

Back in Hong Kong, life would get slightly better and I shall be joining my new job in a week. Also, I have to start preparing for my CFA Level 3 examinations. They are now quite close, and I haven't yet started preparing for them. I had prepared nicely for Level 1, but since then, its been a last few days dash always (both for Level 2 as well as the FRM exams).

I'm really happy to be joining a new company pretty soon, as I didn't have a great experience in earlier job. Professionally, it wasn't the best of decisions for me when I had moved there. However, it gave me ample time to try a few things, and move ahead in my personal life. Now, married and wife moving to HK soon, its the perfect time to start a new job.