It doesn’t matter

Read a nice quote today – “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent”.Something like that.So true.Inferiority comes from within.I mean,you can just brush aside anything anyone says about you and live life your way.As long as it isn’t bothering them directly.Like,your freedom ends where their nose starts.Why the hell does it matter what the other person thinks ?

But,feeling discriminated,is that too a figment of our imagination sometimes ? Especially,being in an alien country,where you kindof stand out ( Being Indian is ezhuthi-ottufied on the forehead.),sometimes you tend to overanalyse small reactions.A muffled laugh in the tram and you wonder if its you they are talking about.Your sandals? Your color ?What is it ? If the lady at the counter uncourteously shoves the bill and the change towards you ,you wonder if its just ‘cos you dont belong to this country.Or ,perhaps she just had a hard day.If she doesnt wish you like she does to the other customers,you wonder whether its ‘cos of your race.[Its a different thing that in India,in supermarkets ,the counter people treat you like dust.Most of the time.Unless you're pretty or brawny.]

Anyways ,who cares a damn ?[ I don't.Thats why I wrote this post ] .I shall assume,discrimination is my imagination.

Kireedom ..Hmmm..

Does the Kerala film audience(whatever else can I call them?) like movies with sob endings or what ?I mean,do they like to watch an innocent man getting caught in the drift of destiny ?And he watches,helpless,unable to do anything about it,knowing that this is going to change the course of his life ?All this ,despite him having done nothing really wrong.Sad…

Kireedom ends on a sad and pessimistic note.I didnt like that so much.But its not like I dont appreciate serious movies or movies with realistic endings.But everything seemed so perfect and ,suddenly,after the break,its all shattered due to one actof instinct.It could’ve been you.It could’ve been me .By now,all of us know what the story is.Still,for the sake of it,Kireedom is all about a father’s dream of seeing his son become a sub inspector and how that dream is distorted by fate.

Ajit looked dashing.He seems to have recovered from his bout of anorexia.The mature,rugged look that looks perfect on him is back.But ,throughout the movie,I felt he had this frown on his face [ Come on,he had the frown even when he was proposing to Trisha ] .He seems to have underplayed his role,so much underplayed that I didnt feel he was playing it at all.Agreed,the movie required him to be serious,but did he need to have that deadpan look on his face in every scene ??He could have done better in the scene where his dad tells him his marriage to Divya is over.He reacted like he just heard his dad say “dosa aari poguthu,seekram saapdu pa”.Konjam reaction,Ajit.Underplay na..athukku ippadi suththamaa moozhgi pogarathaa ?? The climax was ok.Think he had acted well.But it didnt bring any big surge of emotion in me like I felt when watching Moonraam Pirai climax or a few scenes from Black,and a couple other movies.

Trisha,dear Trisha, you looked pretty cute throughout the movie.But,I would love to see you actually “act” [Isn't that what you're paid for ?] .Thats not your fault,though.You never really got meaty roles,anyways.All you ever get is the cute girl doing B.A history ,who tries to tackle single-handedly a thief who is stealing the colony pillaiyar.And ,a few scenes later,the thief-cum-hero tries a very innovative pick-up line on you [First ponnu,aprum paiyyan.Ok va? Ada paavi..ippadi ellaam kooda propose pannalaama? ].And,what can I say,you fall for it too.This can happen only in Kollywood movies

IMHO,Tamil directors shouldnt try to remake Malayalam movies.They are way too powerful,moving story lines,not the masala ones we are used to.And ,when you try to gel both,what you get is kinda badly cooked Still,a thumbs up to Ajit for trying something different from his recent run-of-the-mill movies and also,for getting back in shape.And,the movie itself,is not bad.Of the lot that are running right now,it might be one of the best.Didnt work for me ,though.We’ve enough irony in our own lives.Why spend money and watch it on the big screen as well ?

But,Seriously..

Few days back,me and better half(no,he is not imaginary,really better-halves do exist,trust me) were having a conversation about something and it slowly meandered here and there and finally found its way to a discussion on wedding customs.Above mentioned better half is a repository of interesting yet useless information .So he let me in on how the custom of carrying the bouquet of flowers(or the poochendu) in Christian weddings actually came into being.It seems that back in the earlier days,people used to take bath only once a year and that too in May.Which is why they used to marry in June ‘cos they would be smelling pretty decently ok (after all,they wouldn’t have taken bath for just a month.But I have a question.Why didn’t they marry in May itself then ??)And so the bride used to carry a bouquet of flowers to keep body odor at bay .Seriously,could this be true ?Obviously,I did google to find out what the facts were and one of the sites mentions that this is a hoax.And that back,in the olden days,people were very hygienic and it isn’t possible that they would bathe once a year.Also,the actual origin of this custom is that bridal bouquets are thought to ward off evil spirits,bad luck and ill health.

And,we seemed to have copied this custom from them and transformed the bridal bouquet into a poochendu,without realizing what it symbolizes.So,would-be Indian grooms,when you see your bride walking towards you with the poochendu in her hand,man,you better check if you got those body sprays right in place.

Which is Almightier ?

First it was Bruce Almighty.And now its Evan Almighty.And ,suddenly,I want to meet God.No,not the real God(I really dont want to die right now,I’m so into living). I want to meet the screen God,Morgan Freeman.He looks absolutely perfect for God.The smile,the kind eyes,the subtle sarcasm(Real God,will you too be sarky when I meet you.Would you say “heh,so you hit your sibling on her head with a baddy racquet and you want to enter Heaven ?? Seriously !!”).But the rest of the movie didnt work for me.What with the hero turning into some kind of Noah and building an ark.And,if thats not enough, him growing the beard and the robes and the staff..eww..nope,didnt look funny at all.Not a very appealing script.Also,put in the fact that humor was way too feeble.The only reason to watch it has to be Morgan Freeman,though he barely is in it for ,say,a total screen time of an half hour.But,seriously,that guy,whatever he says,seems to make so much sense at that time,like this one

“If you pray for courage,does God give you courage or would he give you an opportunity to display courage ?”.It seemed to make so much sense when I watched the movie.Now,in retrospect,what the heck did it mean ?So,God,if I pray for an iPhone,would you give me an iPhone or would you give me the “opportunity” to buy an iPhone ?Whatever.Just dont expect too much from this movie.Its just Freeman and very very few laughs.

Mundane stuff

Make the bed.Vaccum the house.Clean the gas stove.Wash the utensils.Mop the floor.Oh yea,forgot.Make breaker,lunch and dinner.How the hell did our mothers manage all this ????!! And I thought sitting at home was easy.

Anyday,gimme my workstation,a few lines of code copied and pasted,a few meetings with technical jargons thrown in,lots and lots of caffeine free of cost anytime of the day,treats now and then by molaga-arachufying on friends’ heads, bad canteen food but still edible due to friends’ constant jokes about it,lots and lots of concerned phone calls from home about how their little daughter is living all by herself in the big bad world(heh little did they know Forum and Multiplex were her second homes)..ah,i’d give an arm for those good old days again..

Whoever said it,said right ,when they said “Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson.You find the present tense and the past perfect.”

Duh…

God..I can’t make up my mind about which template to use…and I thought I’d grown up (

Duh.

Life is…

“Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets.

So love the people who treat you right,forget about the ones who don’t and believe that everything happens for a reason.

If you get a chance,take it.If it changes your life,let it.

Nobody said that it’d be easy,they just promised it would be worth it. “

Again,nope I can’t impart that kind of gyan .I picked it up from this site[If you want some jazzy stickers to light up your blog,check it out.And ,yea ,they do have some of the craziest insults you could do with!] .But the words just voice my motto in life.Some people are just not worth it.Forget them.Some,are all that matter to you.And,when you have the chance,let it show.

The Deathly Hallows

Finally,restraining myself from skipping words,descriptions,trying to imagine every single line written,I managed to finish the Deathly Hallows.My verdict :a big big thumbs up to Rowling.She finished it in class,in style.Tied up the loose ends of the plot(or all the loose ends that I remember).Managed to keep the book at a racy pace,especially towards the last few chapters ,its almost difficult not to skip paras to race towards the end,to know what is going to happen.The Half blood prince didnt quite live upto my expectation ,so I was a little apprehensive initially if this one would turn out to be good.But Rowling has done more than justice.Immensely enjoyable.One of the first Potter books where I empathized when lives were lost,when terrible secrets were realised ,when I felt as lost as Harry wondering how the hell he is going to find the Horcruxes.Humor runs low in this book,but its sprinkled here and there in typical Rowling fashion,bringing half-smiles on your face.But,I didnt quite like the epilogue.Harry Potter should eternally have been left as the much adored teen Harry Potter.I wonder why she did that.But,on second thoughts,perhaps that was just added for Snape.If at all any man had been done grave injustice throughout the series,it was Snape.After all he had done,he wasn’t getting what he truly deserved.Perhaps,Rowling felt the same way and added the epilogue ,as an ode to Snape :-I

Overall,The Deathly Hallows -Deadly.

The Ipod Shuffle

Imagine getting the world’s smallest digital music player ,for free ? We just got ours ,and all this ,for referring a person to open his account in Deutsch Bank.Like employee referral prizes,this is a freebie you get for getting one more customer on their roll.I’m the kind who thinks that its perfectly fine to listen to music on the laptop or the stereo,as long as it plays decently well.I dont really dig into bose speakers or whatever.But,when something is for free,why pass it on ??

The 1 GB ipod shuffle can supposedly store upto 240 songs.Its available in a few more brighter colours – orange,blue,pink and green.So,if you really want to flaunt it around,you can go for those.But when you get it for free,you’ll end up with the mute silver one,as you see above.Its small,sleek,plays good enough music.The only con is that it doesnt have a display to show what song is being played or to choose to play songs by a particular artist or album.And,its extremely small,as thin as a wafer biscuit.So,if you are the always-misplacing-things-kind please pick up bright green.Here,it costs around 79 Euros (around 5K INR max).So,if you want an Ipod and find the bigger ones too pricey,this one is not a bad deal.Its got the Apple logo,the Ipod name and it costs less,and yea,it plays music pretty well too .

Anyways,I’ve no complaints.I got it for free.And I’m loving it

Going Potty over Potter..

I always wonder what he sees in cricket and football.He always wonders whats the big fuss I make over books and movies.But,suddenly,since yesterday,precisely since we got Harry Potter’s last book home,he seems to have suddenly developed a passion for reading [ resulting in me still not getting to finish it ] .And throwing weird spells of his own (“Openio” to open the door ,I believe ) .Perhaps,men were meant to be from Mars and women from Venus.Its better that way.Atleast there’ll be no common ground to fight over.