2011 feels like one long train ride or flight that finally ended; I am so tired physically just to have endured all the different goings-on and mentally drained from the ennui of enduring one radical change after another, most of which kneed me in the balls and left me questioning the decisions that I had taken to get me to this point in my life. I guess I had so much going on had so many experiences to write about in this space.. and that was exactly the problem in and of itself..

Anyway, things are slowly starting to look up as the new year has rolled in… very slowly nonetheless.

There you have it my dear blog.. I have missed you in the last year and hope to come here and bring my old self back in the days to come.

Happy New Year to you and I.

I thought about this and one person immediately came to mind. Heath Ledger. So, I presented the theory to my wife, and she seemed to agree. My theory follows:

What if, after acing the Joker character in The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger would have thought to himself, “Gosh! I guess my performance in this movie has turned out to be possibly my best so far”. Assuming he was using drugs and was perhaps mentally unstable (which may explain his creepy ‘performance’), he would have thought that it would be impossible to perform any better in any forth coming movie, no matter how promising the script or how favourable any of the several circumstances were. Then in a flash, it would have probably occurred to him, that he would want to be remembered and idolized as The Joker. So, he ODed and ended his life.

OR he just felt repulsed after having broken his back on a mountain with Jake Gyllenhaal.

Then again, this is just my theory.

I just logged in here and was reading some of my old posts and noticed how my thought processes have changed over the years, and how I have become much more articulate than I was back in college.

Must start posting more often; I miss this aspect of my life.. don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. heh.

…are some of the questions that race through my mind when I think back to 17/08/2001.

I do have answers to some… and some of the other questions are transient and they are very quickly replaced by others…

Overall, it has been a fun ride so far.. looking forward to the challenges that life has around the corner for me.

I recently discovered that I have flat feet.. and as that very basic fact registered itself there was another little discovery that was embedding itself onto my brain. That, was the fact that I learnt that there is actually a ‘condition’ called flat feet. The word condition is obviously used very loosely.

The above facts were gleaned from severe heel pain resulting from walking around New York city for a couple days wearing the wrong shoes. Curious fact #3: There are some shoes which could actually be the wrong ones for a given person. I discovered this after I switched to sandals on day 3 of our trip. This is perhaps the only time I could say, if there is pain, there will almost certainly be no gain.

Before now, I used to think that one could just walk into a shoe store and pick up a nice pair of relatively comfortable looking (and feeling) shoes, when they are on a 50% sale…and I was doing that until recently. Owing to fact #1 (I have flat feet), it seems that the last pair of shoes that I owned were so not the right ones for me. So we set out to find me the perfect pair of shoes (didn’t mean to sound like Cinderella, but unfortunately this is all I could come up with using my limited writing skills) and after trying what seemed like about 20-25 different pairs, we finally found my sole mate.

After the elaborate sole searching, it seems that New Balance is the only brand of shoes that fits me well, and the excruciating heel pain brought about by the various shoes I owned earlier is no longer there.

Listening to this song after a long time, sans the video, made me realize what a genius composition it is. Actually more than it being a genius composition, the singers are what make this song an absolute delight.

Sonu Kakkar: She makes this singing this song, seem real easy. Fantastic modulations and really brisk and energetic vocal performance. 

Sukhwinder Singh: This song has to be one of his masterpieces. The ascending-swara-aalapanais right at the start of his piece in the song,  in both pallavis. Sheer vocal prowess!

Overall the song has many other interesting things going on…First of all it is based on Madhyamavathi. Personally, it felt like the music director took a grapefruit named madhyamavathi and squeezed every last drop of juice out of it. Towards the end of the song, there is a delightful play on the base ragam on the “nainon mein chingariyaan…” line, which goes something like “p-r-s-ns-ns-np-pnpm.. m-pnnn-rr-rmr-ss…”  just brilliant!  Sonu Kakkar belts out another superb variation of the line babooji dheere chalo, which goes something like “srs-rmr-mpm-pnp” (ba-boo-ji–)… Also the vocal harmony parts for Sukhwinder are equally wonderful!

LOVE THIS SONG!

After reading all the internet buzz around Inception I gathered that Memento was also Nolan’s baby.

My mind feels like there are these huge surf-waves tumbling on top of each other…As each wave crashes into the water below, new ideas are formed and before I could even begin to try to grasp the idea and try to articulate it, yet another wave has formed and crashed..and another…and another…delirium (good kind) is what I feel now, after having watched Inception. My hands are actually trembling from the adrenalin pumping incessantly, and my brain can’t stop trying to process what I watched on screen last night. My wife and I loved this movie and are completely taken by the possibly pseudo-scientific theories put forth. I must definitely watch it again with subtitles to try to discern the specifics, as I could not make out some of what was being said on screen. This may have been intentional, or the speakers in the particular theatre were not adjusted properly..or I could’ve missed it just because I am not a native English speaker.

In all this muddled ramble, I am just trying to say that the movie is a must watch, especially if you like are fascinated by ‘what-if’ scenarios and like psychological thrillers…and if you are willing to bend your mind in the process. However, if you are one of those people who watches a movie purely for recreation and relaxation, this may not be for you.

I am Jack’s hyper stimulated cerebral cortex.

Abhishek Bachchan – Please stop “acting”.. just be yourself, and more importantly be home. Please, for the sake of humanity and sanity and all things good and rational, just stay home and watch other people do what you are trying to do, spectacularly better than you. I am talking about the acting part. Oh, fantastic performance by the way! I totally ‘got’ your attempts are aping…apes. The crazy routine that you put forth on the screen, looked like you were trying to get water out of your ears, after a long swim. A pair of two words – ear plugs/ don’t swim.

Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan - Please follow your husband’s footsteps..just around the house. Once a plastic doll, now you look like a used dirty rag doll. So, let all those who adored you, strictly based on your erstwhile external appearance, hold on to that lovely memory of the sweet looking girl they once salivated at. Lastly..ever heard the term aging gracefully? You…not so much. Moving on…

Manirathnam -What can I say…over the past few years, I had grown really fond of most of the movies that you made. I certainly appreciated the fact that you choose to film exclusively in India, unlike other directors. I was indeed very curious to see your reinterpretation of the Ramayana, just to imagine a what-could’ve-been scenario. However, I am not embarassed to say that I absolutely didn’t get what you were trying to do with the script/screenplay. You have more than enough fanboys to suck up whatever you dole out and give you kudos on yet another “technically brilliant” movie. In my opinion, whatever you have supposedly tried fell flat on the ground with a big splotch, and smelled like rotten eggs, if you know what I mean. In your defense, you have had what, like three heart attacks so far? The fact that you are even making a movie after having survived those is astounding. So, as a person who respects and adores your way of film making, I am still expectant of a redemption in the future. Perhaps, I will watch Raavanan (thamizh), just to see if I feel any different about this.

Another sincere suggestion (I will not be presumptuous and use ‘advice’), please do not cast anybody from the Bachchan family anymore. They have assumed this elitist attitude among other phenomenally better contemporaries in their profession, which is, to say the least, not appreciated even one bit.

A R Rahman - Really, nothing to say about the ‘songs’. I just hope you don’t give in to projects which are about period movies and mediocre interpretations of great epics anymore. Just do what you do best. Be simple. Rock on!

And thus ends the rant about Raavan.

P.S. 1: I have intentionally not commented on Vikram’s ‘performance’. The above derision applies to him also; and some more.

P.S. 2: Everybody else in the filming crew – It’s not your fault.

Until today, I automatically came to the conclusion that if a raga ‘felt’ like or sounded close to Naattai, then it was Bahudhari. Again, I didn’t really care to read about the differences, up until now.

Bahudhari:
Aaro: S-G3-M1-P-D2-N2-S
Ava:  S-N2-P-M1-G3-S

Tilang:
Aaro: S-G3-M1-P-N3-S
Ava: S-N2-M1-P-G3-S

Jog:
Aaro: S-G3-M1-P-N3-S
Ava: S-N2-P-M1-G3-M1-G2-S

The Wiki entry for ‘Jog Raga’ has the Aarohanam/Avarohanam listed as above. I had to confirm this somehow, and a quick google search resulted in a Chaurasiya clip. The clip essentially confirms the presence of both the Gandharams in the Avarohanam.

Karate – Japanese martial art form.

Kung Fu – Chinese.

Tae Kwon Do – Korean.

Unless, there is something in the ‘story’ which fills this gigantic hole, I do not understand why the Karate kid, should be learning Kung Fu. Or is it that since Jackie is Chinese, he will only teach Kung Fu? Or is it that, since the kid is already Karate, he should learn Kung Fu?

If I were a Karate kid and I was told that I would be taught Kung Fu, I would probably have tenth thoughts about taking the teacher seriously.

Oh wait! I got it! Exchange Student! That has to be it.

I guess this movie is not for sticklers..However, I will see this movie, in fact I have to see it, as I love me some martial art pikchars. heh.