For the love of Music!!

This has been a long pending blog post. I have wanted to write about this for a long time on and coincidentally reading about the ‘almost-same’ topic on a junior’s blog has just spurred me on.

Music! Beats! Rhythm! Songs! Lyrics!

I am sure all of us have been exposed to it in some way or the other... I am sure all of us like it in some form or the other. There are some songs that I hold close to my heart. They transport me to another world, a nostalgic world where memories of another time come into mind involuntarily.

Like classical music or devotional sings for instance! As far back as I can remember, the mornings in my home have always been a medley of devotional / classical songs played on the stereo, sometimes on television with the accompanying images of some beautiful temple and the morning rituals there. It’s from those numerous songs that I learnt the itty-bitty knowledge I have of ragas, sruthi and other musical nuances.

Some songs, I started listening to purely because of some singers. Not that I had not heard these songs before. And not that I did not like them. I liked them a fair amount. But some of these songs, when I have heard other people sing them, like friends at some school / college function, or people participating in some reality show on tv, or even somebody just humming it at some get-together ….

‘Malargale Malargale’ a song from a Tamil movie, and ‘Chaand taare’ from ‘Yes boss’ in Hindi have been my absolute favorites ever since I heard this classmate of mine – Vidhyashankar (yes! He was a participant in Idea Star Singer on Asianet!) – sing it the one time in college. As is the case with, ‘Ganeshaya deemahi’ from the album ‘Vishwa Vinayak’. He sang it as a prayer for one of the college functions and ever since then that song has been one of my all time favorites. It takes me back to a time when life was simpler, and the sole concerns were passing exams, getting a job and staying out of trouble. There have been lots of other songs like ‘Khalbali – Rang de Basanti’, ‘Tumse Milke – Parinda’, ‘Dilbar Mere Kab Tak Mujhe’ that have been sung on reality shows, some songs for which the dance choreography was brilliant and some for which just the simple lyrics have won me over!!

For me, music has always been synonymous with dance. I am positive I have mentioned this at least a couple of times in earlier posts, but when I listen to a song, the first thing that pops into my head how can this be choreographed. What steps can be put for the beats, what emotions can be portrayed for the feel or lyrics!!

To me, music and dance go hand in hand. They are inseparable to me!! They are one entity as much as I am concerned and without them life is nothing to me!!

That’s the way it has been so far and that’s the way I am sure it will be forever! :-)

Shoo Shoe !!

I bought myself a pair of shoes recently. Formal cum Casual shoes. Pair of nice black slip-ons with a nice little design near the toes and a small heel. :-)

Ones that go with anything. Or so I thought.

The sales lady was very enthusiastic about me picking it up… she was gushing about how nice they looked on my feet and how they go with all dresses and how cute they were!! And chump that I was for compliments and flattery I bought it!! It was on sale too so that added to my reasons for justifying the purchase. :P

The shoes did look good on my feet. They are KILLER shoes…

And I mean it literally… My feet are now almost DEAD…

Ever watched that episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S – the one with Monica’s Boots!! ??

I empathize with her now!! The shoes literally drank my blood and gnawed at my skin like they were from some alien shoe world and they were craving for human flesh and blood. I was limping about, making “ooohhh…aaahhh…ouch!” noises every few steps that I took… more like a walking talking advertisement for the pain balm... At some point, I swear I heard my toes crying out loud!! I need new toes now!!

This is by far the worst case of shoe-bite that I have ever had… my feet feel like they have been scrunched up much like the way in some customs the women tie up their feet so that they have tiny and dainty feet.

Only in my case if this goes on I will have no feet.

Udaan - a review!

We watched ‘Udaan’ recently in the company of friends. Ever since I saw the trailers for this one, it has been there at the back of my mind wondering what sort of movie it would be and how would the story line be etc etc. Thankfully, it turned out to be a good watch. It’s a refreshing change to watch a movie that is not over-hyped or one that does not boast of a famous star-cast.

Basically a boy’s story of his relationship with his father, what made the two hour fifteen minute movie watchable was the fact of how crisply it was taken. Guaranteed some shots could have been cut out at the editing table, but overall, it was well paced. And it was not boring; which is again a good thing because offbeat movies have a tendency to get dragged. And in most cases it’s hard to recapture the viewer’s attention.

Coming back to Udaan, the one thing that stood out in the entire movie, at least for me, was the acting. Be it Rajat Barmecha who portrayed the character of Rohan – the son who aspires to be a writer but who is forced to work in a mundane job for his strict father, or Ronit Roy who played the father who expects his sons to call him ‘Sir’ and deals with them in a very detached way, or Ayaan, the kid who plays Rohan’s half brother, not to forget Ram Kapoor’s Jimmy, uncle to the children, each one of them have done justice to their characters. The movie tackles the underlying currents in every relationship that is portrayed onscreen, in a very subtle way yet manages to get across to the viewer the almost-broken links in each one of them. The son’s angst at being made to forgo his dreams and live with a father who is more of a dictator, his stunned expression at finding out that he had a half-brother whom he never knew existed, and the strained relationship that he has with his dad was brought out in a very natural way by the director. The father flaunting his authority over his kids, making them toe the line for everything and his justification for his behavior was done wonderfully by Ronit Roy. His whole character was personified by attitude and arrogance which made watching him act a pleasurable pastime.

Overall, one of the refreshing movies I have watched in recent times. A tumultuous story of relationships told in a very simplistic manner. Good watch!

Unemployed but not jobless!!

Like I keep saying in every other blog post of mine, it’s been a while since I landed here in Singapore. And ever since then, I have been on the lookout for a job. Yes! True! I have been looking for a job since the mid of June 2009. Little more than a year now! And frankly I did not expect it to be so hard. I mean, my resume is up there on all the job portals, and I keep updating it every once in a while. My resume has been sent to the majority of job consultants here in Singapore and no response. I apply directly on company websites; rake up contacts from among relatives, friends, long lost friends, and people whom I barely know just for the want of a lead or a contact. All that’s left for me to do is to go bang on company doors and beg for an interview. It has not come to that stage yet I hope! :-)

Earlier, during this past year, the frustration levels just kept mounting up, with every rejection, and hopes of landing a job but not getting one. My visa status is primarily to blame and there’s nothing that I can do about that for a while. I used to keep cribbing, get depressed and moody and generally not a fun person to be with when I get into these moods. Of course I did try to keep myself busy, but there’s only so much that you can do all by yourself. The rest of the time you crave company and even though I had few friends here, they were all working. Basically, while on one hand, life was going great on the other hand, it just plain sucked!

But now, things are a lot better… thanks to a whole lot of friends, new and old. Some event or the other keeps happening and I have met a few kindred souls who are in the same leaky boat as mine. We give each other company and it’s fair to say that the frustration and depression levels are way down now. Not to say that they don’t come by once in a while, raking up their ugly face! But from a point, where the very topic of not having a job used to send me diving down into gloom, it’s come to a stand where, now it’s the resigned acceptance and the fact that if not a job something else has to be done / should be done! Some decisions have been taken and let’s hope that all’s well that ends well.

Things are looking up now. Not on the job front. But on the keeping-myself-busy front. :-) There are a whole lot of new friends, some very wonderful old friends and a whole lot of stuff that I keep busy with. Dances, library outings, get-togethers, cooking experiments, game nights and the like… In the midst of all this, a bit of blogging and photography too. But applying to jobs and trying to land one is the primary concern and that is still ongoing… :-) I still crave for a job because I like working and being employed and I am good at what I do! I know that! And that confidence still pushes me on through bleak moments! :-)

Life’s looking good and busier now! And I hope something good happens on the job front too, sooner than later! :-)

Rajneeti and Raavan!

One of my favorite pastimes here, apart from searching for a job, is watching movies. This you may have already figured out by the amount of movie reviews posted on this blog. This time the review is about two movies that got released recently. One loosely based on the Mahabharata and Godfather, and the other on the Ramayana. Yes! I am talking about ‘Rajneeti’ and ‘Raavan’.

I am sure you’d have read umpteen reviews, criticisms, opinions, ratings etc etc on both these considering the amount of publicity they have generated. They sure raked up quite a lot of hype too!

Here’s my take on both of them!

Rajneeti – a movie that’s loosely based on the Mahabharata, and draws upon a few scenes from Godfather.

I enjoyed watching this movie. Of course, I had read a lot of reviews about the movie, knew the story outline, and who / what most of the characters represented or portrayed. Like Raavan, this movie generated mixed reviews too. I have friends who both liked the movie and others who hated it and felt it was stupid. I liked it because of the fact that it was publicized as a political drama and advertised as being loosely based on the epic. And the movie was just that! It stuck to its promise of how it was advertised and reminded me of Sarkar and Sarkar Raj in some scenes thanks to the Godfather angle.

Fair enough, there were scenes in the movie that could have been done away with, dialogues that could have been rephrased and all that… but at the end of it, I enjoyed it … it was a good watch. Trying to match the characters from the epic to the actors who played them on screen was fun too… the debate is still on as to what characters Nana Patekar portrayed. I felt he was a mix of Bheeshma and Krishna while some say that he was Vidur. I don’t know about that ‘coz the last scene sort of clinched the Lord Krishna characterization. Ranbir is definitely developing into a fine actor. His portrayal of Arjuna along with shades of Michael Corleone makes him irresistible in some scenes. As for Katrina, she should work a lot on her diction. Naseerudin Shah is totally wasted. Manoj Bajpai and Ajay Devgan have done a good job too… It’s a pleasure to watch Bajpai on screen after a while. But for me, the star of the movie was Arjun Rampal. Man! Does he look dishy in the political avatar! And I thought he did a pretty decent job of acting too! Overall, a good watch.

And now for the most awaited movie of recent times – Raavan – based on the Ramayana.

Long awaited, this movie was, drawing all sorts of speculation from people and critics and the industry at large. And the expectations it raised among the public was of unimaginable heights. I watched the Hindi version and I was sorely disappointed. Maybe the Tamil version would have been more enjoyable.

There were a few things about the movie that I really liked too. The locales, camera work, cinematography, were just stunning! Absolutely breath-taking. Priyamani’s acting – awesome! She was brilliant as the victimized sister! Also acting by Ravi Kissen, Govinda, and the guy who played Hemant – Nikhil I think his name is, they have done a commendable job.

Vikram’s diction was bad. It sounded to me like my Hindi – with a nice South Indian accent to it. He should have had someone dub for him. Aishwarya looked pretty in the movie and her acting was good too. For me Abhishek was the most disappointing. He had so much of potential with his role and he utilized just about 50% of it.

Yes it’s a done to death story. Yes it’s loosely based on the Ramayana. Again I say loosely based, because in Ramayana, Rama was not shown to be so cunning and ruthless as Dev was mainly because he was the Hero of the epic. Why they attacked the sister in the first place without any provocation at all disrupting the wedding is highly questionable, atleast for me. The characters might all be the same. Drawn upon inspiration from one of the most heroic epics of our history but the bottomline, the story resulted in not living upto my expectations. Waiting to watch the Tamil version now… and that’s solely for Vikram as Raavanan.

Like I said, it’s my take on the movies. Both of them have received mixed reviews and I am sure mine falls at one end of either review.

To break the monotony...

Tag time again... :) ... It's been a long time since I did a tag... Found this while browsing.. and well.. I am currently out of ideas as to what to post on my blog... This should relieve the monotony a bit ...

1. Graduated high school. – (Oh yes! Feels like eons back now!!)

2. Kissed someone.

3. Smoked a cigarette.

4. Got so drunk you passed out. (On one of the most memorable trips ever!!)

5. Rode every ride at an amusement park. 

6. Collected something stupid. (Newspaper cuttings of interesting articles.. does not count as stupid to me but collected it nevertheless!)

7. Gone to a rock concert. (Hmm… Loud music..??)

8. Helped someone.

9. Gone fishing.

10. Watched four movies in one night. (Oh yeah!! That was one helluva night…!! Watched more than 4 actually.. Since we started watching by around 8 in the evening!)

11. Lied to someone.

12. Snorted cocaine. (Nope… Don’t wanna try it either!)

13. Smoked weed. (Read above!)

14. Failed a subject. (Yes… C.A. Foundation.. Dad was not amused!!)

15. Been in a car accident. (A small one yes! But had to pay a heavy price of not being able to talk for a week!!)

16. Been in a tornado. (Nope… Wish I could be in one though just to know how the experience would be! More likely, I’d get blown away in the wind!)

17. Watched someone die.

18. Been to a funeral.

19. Burned yourself. (n – number of times! I am a bit clumsy when it comes to not hurting myself!)

20. Run a marathon. 

21. Cried yourself to sleep. (Yes! That was a bad year!)

22. Spent over 10,000 bucks in one day. (Yep! For a certification exam that I took!)

23. Flown on an aeroplane. (Yep! But I hate landings!)

24. Cheated on someone.

25. Been cheated on.

26. Written a 10 page letter. (Yes! Yes! Srinidhi and me used to write pages and pages to each other during our college days!)

27. Gone skiing. (again on the list of things to do!)

28. Been sailing. (No… the sea and me are not the best of friends if you really want to know!)

29. Cut yourself. (Hahahaha… loads of times…!!)

30. Had a best friend. (Had… Have… A handful of them whom I can do anything for!)

31. Lost someone you loved. (Yes! And that’s through my own fault!)

32. Got into trouble for something you didn't do. (Yes again! A fair bit of times!)

33. Stolen a book from the library. (No… and if you knew me well, you would know why!)

34. Gone to a different country. (I am in a different country now… Ahem!)

35. Watched the Harry Potter movies. (Watched them.. Read the books… Over and over again!)

36. Had an online diary. 

37. Fired a gun. (Yes! Yes! But at Munnar where you have to strike atleast one of the balloons.. does that count?)

38. Gambled in a casino. (Genting – Kuala Lumpur! We won a few ringgits too!)

39. Been in a school play. (Yep! The Christian plays!)

40. Been fired from a job. (Nope… and I hope that never happens!)

41. Taken a lie detector test. (Naah.. never had the need to so far!)

42. Swam with dolphins. (Don’t know swimming! So there… that should take care of it)

43. Voted for someone on a reality TV show. (Once! And that's the last time I ever do it!)

44. Written poetry.(Tried to… it turned out to be quite a comedy.. :P)

45. Read more than 20 books a year. (Huh.. 20… what about the rest!)

46. Gone to Europe. (I think it would be a lil’ too cold for me!)

47. Loved someone you shouldn't have. (Yes!)

48. Used a coloring book over age 12. (Hmm.. yeah… kinda!)

49. Had a surgery. (Yep!)

50. Had stitches. (Err.. doesn’t a surgery involve stitches??)

51. Taken a Taxi. (Ha! How many times… )

52. Had more than 5 IM conversations going on at once. (Oh… long long ago.. so long Yahoo messenger!)

53. Been in a fist fight. (Yes… and won it too!)

54. Suffered any form of abuse. 

55. Had a pet. (Yes… a dog and then after that a parrot!)

56. Petted a wild animal. 

57. Had your own credit card & bought something with it. (No… debit card yes! No credit cards for me.. I don’t trust myself with them!)

58. Dyed your hair. (No and I won’t)

59. Got a tattoo. (temporary yes.. real one… yes again! there! done and dusted!! :))

60. Had something pierced. (Ears… and that’s all I am gonna get pierced!)

61. Got straight As. (Me.. and Straight A’s?? Kidding me are you!)

62. Known someone personally with HIV or AIDS.

63. Taken pictures with a webcam. 

64. Lost something expensive. (Yes… cash… a fair bit of it!)

65. Gone to sleep with music on. (loads of times..!)

Okie... That was fun!! Brought back a lot of memories... Had to rack my brains quite a bit to dredge up if I'd ever done / not done these things! 

I hope you have fun doing it too... 

Yay! I finally blogged!! :D

It’s been quite a while since I blogged. I have been neglecting my blog and I can’t say I feel too good about it. And the worst part is I don’t have any excuses either… Nothing like lack of time or been busy with something else, or even nothing interesting happening …. The only one that I can think of and that would not qualify as an excuse is LAZINESS.

So well, I have been neglecting my blog and doing nothing worthwhile either for the past month and half. We have established that. Let’s move on shall we.

On a brighter note, I watched a whole lot of movies. Some of them that I liked were,

Vinnai Thandi Varuvaya – I loved the movie, the cinematography, the dialogues and the ending. Any other ending would have spoilt the movie in my opinion. Simbu’s acting was so subtle that it was relief from his over-the-top performances in other movies. And Trisha, well.. I think she could have done it a little better. But what the heck! You cannot have everything perfect in a movie eh. Also AR Rahman’s songs ROCK!

Shutter Island – Just one word. KICKASS!! Must watch! Don’t miss this one!

Did I mention, I like Karthi Sivakumar a lot now? The guy has got something in him that makes me go weak in the knees. Been a long time since I felt this way for any hero. I am a HUGE fan now. Watched Paiya and Aayirathil Oruvan. By the way Reema Sen totally steals the show in Aayirathil Oruvan. The lady has finally shown her acting skills.

Did not like Iron Man 2, Date Night, Bounty Hunter (Jennifer Aniston looks SAD!) and Green Zone all that much though the ending in Green Zone was pretty good. Had to watch Iron Man 1 to understand basic story and did not like that either. But then, the guy is good looking so that makes it a bit worth the while.

Been listening to Raavanan songs and Usure Pogudhey is awesome. I like the Tamil version much better than the Hindi one. But that can also be because I am partial to Tamil language.

Apart from all the movie watching, I also sat and watched reruns and more reruns of FRIENDS and HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER and when they stopped showing it on tv, I downloaded the episodes and keep watching them :D

Also went house hunting and glad to say that we will be shifting end of this month to a new place right in the middle of city (central location it’s called!! phew!) and I can’t wait to set up house there. The kitchen is quite spacious so I am looking expanding my culinary skills which are nothing much to speak of now!

Oh yeah! I brought in my 26^th birthday with a bang. Hubby had organized a surprise party which totally made me blush and have a constant smile on my face which lasted till end of birthday. On the other hand, I can’t believe I am 26. That is the only sad part of the entire thing.

Hmmm… I guess that’s all that I have been upto while neglecting my blog.

Like I said, nothing major!

But hopefully, from now on I will blog regularly about something or the other even if there’s nothing mega-interesting just to not let a huge gap show up on the blog! I don’t like it when the archives don’t show a month just because I did not blog that month! I am quirky that way!

Anyways, signing off now …

Take care. And see you soon with another post.