For a person who left college several years ago, this sure is a heady experience. Now, I have not literally gone back to college for further education or something. What is happening is that I have been pushed in the fore of some intense cultural activity. Something similar to a college fest kind of scenario. Those who know me from my college days will recall me as this laid back character. I hardly participated in any events except a few (I wont say which). Now, I have plunged headfirst into a whole bunch of activities in my organization. I am in the middle of a lot of college-like activities. Talent hunt, cubicle decoration, games, sports you name it. Whew! I hardly have time to breathe! It all been exciting, exasperating, thrilling and satisfying (so far). I am getting to meet with so many new people. Co-ordinate between 4 locations. All this has kept me very busy indeed. Hence, no post last Monday.

Today, I have a bit of a breather. So, just catching up with all my friends on iland. I hope all you guys are doing well. I am doing great and it is possible that I might take a hiatus from iland till these activities run to completion. I shall miss logging on to iland, checking your blogs, reading comments and GB entries L Believe me , I wont be able to stay away for too long. I am positive, I shall be checking iland as and when time permits.

Last weekend, I was wondering which movie to watch. There was the big release "Singh is Kinng". Somehow, the promos didn't inspire me enough to go and watch the movie. Fortunately there was this Lebanese movie "Caramel", playing at a theatre not so close to where I stay. I decided to go anyway. It was quite journey. It took me 2.5 hours to reach the place because of the rains and traffic. I could nomally have reached the place in 30 mins or so. Caramel is the debut film of directress Nadine Labaki. She also stars in the movie. I was absolutely floored by the beauty of these women. They are so fresh faced and lovely. This is a chick-flick on the lines of Steel Magnolias. I found it an easy watch. Definitely worth my time.

For want of good popular cinema, I caught another off-beat movie last week. I watched "The Orphanage", a Spanish Film by Juan Antonio Bayona. This is the director of the much acclaimed "Pan's Labyrinth". What a visually stunning movie that was. "The Orphanage" is also a supernatural thriller. It also has a strong emotional base to it. The lead actress does a good job as a troubled mother. It's a gripping story and its scary without resorting to the usual horror movie tactics. I don't think it is playing in theatres any more. Catch it on DVD , if you are a foreign movie buff.

I guess, I will have to wind up with that.

I shall be checking Iland less frequently for some time now. Till then, take care. Be good.

Cheers

Sam

Yesterday, the news of heavy rains in suburbs had us worried in office and my boss was sweet enough to actually tell us all to leave early. So, two collegues and I left in a colleague's car. We eventually reached home at the usual time thanks to traffic, pot holes and what not. But, I am not cribbing. I was just happy to leave work early. It is just the kid in me, I guess. :-)

I know rain brings with it quite a few problems in Mumbai. Then again, rains are needed. Many of us are facing shortage of water. Rains are neccessary, guys. ( This is for all those who hate the rains). I have progressed from being a hater of rainy season to someone who loves the rain. Dont ask me how .. But, now I think rains are wonderful.The trees look greener. The rain sort of washes clean all the muck and grime. It even washes the cars and vehicles for you. I am just looking at the positive side of rains, I know. Who can forget the clothes getting wet and dirty.Clothes not drying up in ages. And who can forget the monsoon related maladies. Or the floods and destruction that heavy rains can bring.

On Saturday, I woke up leisurely to the sound of rain drops on my window pane. What a lovely sound that was ! It was pouring and I said a small prayer of thanks to the Almighty. It was high time rains came down to this part of the world. Post breakfast, I spent the day sitting near my window. Watching the rain. I sat in a chair, put my feet up, sipped garama garam coffee and just watched the rain. You should try rain-watching sometime. I put some nice music, watched the rain and just chilled. I could see people with umbrellas. Tiny tots looked so cute with their multi-coloured raincoats bravely going to school in the pouring rain ( yeah, they looked somewhat like my avatar). I especially liked looking at the rain falling in a big puddle on the ground in front of my window. This was one of my most chilled out Saturdays.

Has any of you gals out there, shopped in the rains? I have and it was fun. It depends on how you look at it. If you hate getting drenched this is not for you. I roamed arond the streets of Bandra in the pouring rain. Happily buying all kinds of junk jewellery and footwear and bags and what not. Then ended it all with a sumptious meal at Elcos. Rain and shopping, unbeatable combo that one.

How can my weekend be complete without atleast one movie. I watched "Dark Knight" . I am not much of a Batman fan, but the fact that this movie is directed by Christopher Nolan prompted me to give it a dekho. I am a huge fan of Mr Nolan's work. Especially "Memento" and " Prestige" to name two. To direct a comic book hero -based flick is defintely a departure from the more cerebral movies that I like him for. Infact, it was after watching the movie and and doing a bit of research, I came to know that this is the second Batman movie from the Nolan brothers.Anyways, my take on the movie...its good. I am sure all of you must have read rave reviews about Heath Ledger's performance as the "Joker". It is a must watch for Angrezi film buffs. Here is a review I liked http://greatbong.net/2008/07/21/the-dark-knight-the-review/

This post has turned out to be longer than expected.

Thanks for your patience and yes, do kiss the rain next time you get caught in the rain.

The post was supposed to be about the age-old question "What is love?" What makes us loveable? What makes love last? What makes two people love each other? What makes them stay together for life? How many of you have known love? How many of you have known lasting love? I truly, genuinely envy those people who have known love and are still with the ones they love. They must know something or be doing something that I don't. Pataa nahin kaunsi chakki ka atta khaate hain? So, I decided not to torture myself with these questions. Questions that I found no answer for. I just decided that I am love-deficient. No, it does not mean that I am universally hated or something. I am loved by my family, friends and may be I even have some secret admirers out there. But, I have been rather unsuccessful in the "romantic" love department. It has left me entirely foxed and bewildered.

So, to make my life sane, I have reached a conclusion that maybe I am not cut out for this "romantic type" of love. Most of the days I can live with that. This thought has kept me sane and relatively happy I can think that all those ideas that there is a soul mate, God has made us all in pairs etc is just a load of crap. I was probably a manufacturing aberration. I was meant to be alone. No soul out there seeking me out. Except once in a while, I wonder why . Today seems one of those days.

Someone asked me recently, have I ever been "in love"? That is what got me thinking. Why do we crave to be in love? Is love a drug that gets you high? I do not know about love, but infatuation was pretty heady. I remember my first big crush. I never dated him or anything. Just a glimpse of him and I would feel butterflies in my stomach. He was from another branch of Engineering and Senior to me. So, I did not get to see him everyday. It was only occasionally that I would catch sight of him. I would wait for classes in the Old Building, because I had figured out that he had classes there. One look was enough. My day was made. The times I got to talk to him, well, I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. All my gal pals knew of my crush and they would tease me. But it was our secret and I hoped no one ever knew. But later I came to know that HE knew. I guess such things don't remain secret. Crushes have a lifetime and mine lasted for around 2 years and then it fizzled off.

The beauty of a crush is that it can give you an instant high. And unlike love, which can wound you and leave you scarred for life, crushes don't do so much damage. So, if I could choose, I would choose a crush over love. Love takes too much out of you. I know I am not a teenager anymore; still what's the harm in trying. In fact a having a crush is good. It makes you look forward to the day. Will I see him today? Will he look at me? So, yes, I have a secret crush on somebody in the office. I don't even know his name. But whenever I see him, I feel good. He is not in my team and I see him only now and then. That makes it interesting. Now, why I feel happy when I see him, I don't know. One of my friends suggested, why don't you ask him out for coffee. I think, why should I? I like it this way. I like having a crush on an unknown person. Maybe actually speaking to this guy or befriending him would ruin the whole "crush" experience. There are days on end when I do not see him. And then one day I see him, several times and you could see me grinning away like an idiot.

I know, having a crush is a poor substitute for love. In fact I know that it is no substitute. But it does give me a high. On days when I am feeling really low, someone or something that makes me smile is well worth it. So, while I look for a sighting of my tall, dark and sort of handsome crush, you guys get back to whatever it was you were doing.

By the way, even seeing a cute, toothless baby makes my day. So, I am not just partial to the TDH types J

P.S. I was supposed to watch Kismet Konnection last weekend, but I was warned by S, that it is not worth it. Now, S is someone I met online, who is even greater movie buff than I am. I wait till Saturday, but he sees movies on Friday nite itself. Thanks for the warning pal! Dark Knight, I do plan to watch, though I have heard that it is a bit too lengthy for an English flick.

So, coming back to lazy Sundays. This Sunday morning I woke up leisurely at around 11 am. I had to literally drag myself out of bed. A leisurely breakfast and coffee later, I went back to my bedroom. I decided not to watch TV, but go back to my first love, MUSIC. It's been ages since I played music I love. I usually take the lazy way out and just listen to the radio. So, I went through all the compilation CDs I have and played a couple of them. I wonder why I don't do it more often. Starting with Aqualung's "Strange and Beautiful"

"Sometimes the last thing you want comes in first
Sometimes the first thing you want never does
But I know that waiting is all you can do
Sometimes

I'll put a spell on you
You fall asleep
I'll put a spell on you
And when I wake you I'll be the first thing you see
And you'll realise that you love me "

To Audioslave, with " What you are"

"when you wanted love I cut my veins
and when you wanted love I bled myself again
now all I've had I still love you
I'd give you up forever
and here I go
far away
I know you
you'll find another slave"

As I curled up on my bed, with a nice book and listening to my favourite rock songs, I thought, this is what I should be doing. I have promised myself to do this more often. I know, this is another form of passive relaxation, but still, songs do create a mood. And take you to another plane.

How could the movie buff in me stay far from the big screen? So, on Sunday, I went to watch "Kung Fu Panda". I'm not much of an animated movie person. I rarely go for animated movies, so this was an exception. The toss up was between "Hancock" and "Kung Fu Panda". A friend of mine said that "Hancock" wasn't great, so I landed up for this movie. It has some clever lines and great animation. I would recommend the movie to those of you who like animated flicks. For me the experience was strictly OK.

I did promise to update you all about my experience with chatting. It has been kind of mixed. I am still not comfortable sharing my personal details like phone number and address and all that. Sometimes, I feel I am not cut out for online chatting and stuff. I hate sharing my picture. I do not want to tell anyone where I work. Somehow, I feel all this secrecy from my side can be detrimental to friendships I wish to make. But that is that. Also, I get put off when the discussion is about sex. I have stopped chatting with people who were just wanted me to be a sounding board for their opinions about X. Another observation of mine is that chatting can be very tedious and time consuming. I am not sure I want to spend so many hours of my time doing that. It so happens that between getting disconnected "n" number of times, a single decent conversation takes a couple of hours, at least. At the end of it all, I don't know if I have made a friend or not. I also think chatting is pretty addictive. So, I have decided to wean myself off it. I might chat once in a couple of days instead of everyday. I might even stop altogether. Lets see how things go.

Have a happy week ahead, folks.

Yesterday, when I went to a shop to get some stuff, I got the rude shock that my wallet was missing from my handbag. I searched at home and tried remembering when I had seen it last and realized that it was the day before. Finally, I reached the dreaded conclusion that my wallet must have got stolen. My nice new, Blue & Blues, Italian leather wallet gone! In fact I rued the loss of the wallet more than the money in it. I'm guessing that the wallet itself cost more than the cash I was carrying. It was a nice red colour, a sharp contrast from the usual brown and black wallets. My impulse purchase at the newly opened Oberoi Mall.L

As it is, I was having a series of bad days. Now this. I just sat and held my head in my hands. A quick inventory made of the Credit cards and Debit cards in the wallet. Why did I have to keep them all there? When I use the CC only on weekends? Then search for CC bills for the customer care number and card number. Then for around 2 hours I was calling up hazaar customer care people asking them to block my cards. Repeating my birth date and address over and over. It was tiresome indeed. Most of the customer services were pretty prompt. Some were a bit slow. I also cancelled some cards in this exercise. Cards I rarely use. It was good to know that there has not been any misuse of the card in the 1 day it took me to realize that the cards were gone. I should count my blessings that the thief did not go on a shopping spree with my cards.

Now, I don't have much money on me and it will take then 4-5 days to replace my ATM card. So, I have no option but to borrow money for my day to day expenses. Weekend is just around the corner. Then I realized that I have also lost all my Store loyalty cards, my club membership cards. Humphh..

But the good thing is that all this can be replaced. Still, I did feel a deep sense of loss. It took me around 3 hours of chatting with my newfound online buddies to get over my loss. My new, red wallet, cash, charges for getting new cards issued..just counting my losses because of a stolen wallet.

This led me to think about all the losses I have incurred in the recent past..

The Sensex crash has made my investment portfolio shed quite some money.My cell phone display Some months back my cell phone slipped out of my hand and fell on the curb and the display died. The display cost some 3K and I had to grudgingly shell it out to save a 20K cell phone.

I almost lost the above mentioned cell phone, when I forgot it at Pop Tate's. But I can say that the waiters and management is quite honest. I was able to get the phone back.

So, let me make a list of all the big losses I have suffered to date (monetary and otherwise)

Wallet + cards Can be replaced

Investments in stock market - I might be able to recover if I wait for 5 years or so

Loss of a parent Irreplaceable

Loss of a friend I may find others, but the space would remain

Loss of a job very frustrating, but things turned around eventually

Marriage I'm still counting....loss of peace of mind, losing hair, tension

I shall end with a quote I saw at the end of the movie "Amores Perros" which went something like this

"We are also all that we lost ."

Maybe I prefer watching the rain from the safe confines of my home.Today in the morning, while I was waiting for the bus, it poured down. And in Mumbai, when it pours your umbrella, raincoat etc etc are of no use. You get drenched anyway. And, so here I am sitting in the office like a drenched cat. Accchhhooo!!! The AC is full blast and I am feeling quite cold. I have made a mental note to keep a spare set of clothes in the office for days like these. Warming my hands on a hot cup of coffee as I type this post. Its not that bad, my clothes should dry up soon enough. And so should my hair. Then I could probably look somewhat like a corporate denizen and not something the dog brought in J

Last week has been pretty momentous (I dunno if I'm using the right word here). I have started chatting with a few of my iland friends. I have been receiving quite a few emails. I respond to most. Since the 6 odd months that I have been on iland, I have met some really cool people online. I have been avoiding getting more personal with anyone. Until now, that is. I am rather wary of online friendship and you keep reading horror stories about bad things that happen. Anyways, I have decided to try and find some friends online. It has not been a bad experience so far. I have been chatting late into the night with my newfound pals. I must have logged in a good seven, eight hours last week in chat time,, Whew!! That is more than I ever chatted in my entire life.

About online friendships, I am in two minds, actually. Is it worthwhile cultivating friendship with someone I have never met? Might never meet. You could be anyone you wanted when you are online, couldn't you. People might lie to you. They might try to deceive you. There are risks, I know. Also, it irks me to have people hit on me, online. I get very annoyed when people (especially guys) think that I have started this blog to hook up with people. Or that I am looking for some fun. It is not so and I would like to clarify the same to those who make such assumptions.

As for friendship in the true sense of the word, I don't mind trying. Having some friends is always good. Someone I can share things with. It is nice to have someone to talk to. Let me see how my iland friendships develop. I shall keep you guys posted.

Till then, have a great week ahead and keep smiling.

Well, the euphoria of being on HP is wearing off and I am back to what I usually do. Blog about my weekend. I am guessing that I got to HP because my post was something to do with rains. Just thinking. Rains seem to have left Mumbai and it has been dry since almost 10 days now. A pity really, considering I was so excited about the rains and all. The poor folks in Bengal are getting flooded because of heavy rains and we in Mumbai .."taras gaye".

Last week was a "happening" week for me. First, I get invited to a Premiere show. I am an avid movie watcher and have got free passes to movies in the past. But Premiere show on Thursday was a first for me. An invite to a Premiere show at PVR, Juhu for the movie "Incredible Hulk". I would probably have not gone and watched the movie had it not been for a free invite.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3036/2603151849_19bce38656_s.jpg

PVR, Juhu is very posh and has great interiors. The Premiere was attended by some celebs, a few actors and model types. There was the CNN IBN movie critic, Rajeev Masand. I found this experience quite thrilling. Cocktails and snacks were served before the movie screening. I had a nice mojito. Only regret was that I was there alone. I wish I had company. It was a family - invite and I had no family to go with me. So, felt sad a bit.

Anyways, the movie started soon enough. Its your usual super hero type of movie. The scenes in Brazil were awesome. I think Edward Norton didn't quite suit the role. I preferred Ang Lee's Eric Bana as the Hulk [Incredible Hulk (2003)]. The movie has some great special effects. The high point of the movie is the fight between two Hulks. I found the movie too noisy, but still quite OK. We all know that comic book and comic book heroes are for kids. Still there is some kind of fascination for super heroes. That is why I watched all the Spiderman movies.

I finally managed to see Dasavatharam (with subtitles) this weekend.

I went to watch Dashavataram probably because of the hype. "The most expensive movie in India. Took two years in making and all that jazz". Of course it had the Southern superstar, Kamal Hassan. Surely one of the most talented actors in India. With due apologies to all KH fans, I came out of the theatre with disappointment and a headache. I wonder what KH and the producers and director of this movie were thinking. KH is a great actor no doubt, but couldn't they have found a better way of showcasing his talent? Act one character, but do that with integrity and KH could create onscreen magic. But instead of that , you go and try to portray 10 characters that end up looking like caricatures. I always thought that make-up was the art of trying to make things look good, look real. Make-up that looks "made-up" is a failure. What I saw on screen was obvious rubber masks and make up. The characters did not look natural. They looked fake. You could have gone and made an animation pic instead. I could go on and on. I hear this movie was made at a huge budget and I am sure that a lot of this money must have gone for special effects. But here again, SFX is sloppy. The purpose of SFX is to make unbelievable things look real. In this movie, you could make out that it is computer animated. In a scene that had a car sinking, you could see clearly that it is computer graphics. The music by Himesh Reshammiya was dull at best. Perhaps it is because the man himself couldn't sing in his characteristic voice. Usually HR music is quite peppy, though I am not a fan of that. But HR generally has very catchy numbers. None of the songs in Dashavataram had a punch. The bombshell Mallika Sherawat also failed to set the screen on fire. She looked very tacky. I heard she charged quite a fee for this role. All in all, movie was a waste of time and energy for me.

Thats about how my weekend was.

P.S. Thank you all for so many comments and GB entries. I am overwhelmed.

Anyways, I was happy that so many people read my posts and are sweet enough to comment. To all you wonderful people who visit my iland and leave back comments and GB entries, it means a lot to me. I am very thankful to all my friends in iland. You guys have given me much joy and something to look forward to. Some months back, when I had just started blogging I was plagued with feelings of loneliness and a general sense of "friend-less-ness". I have friends in the real world, but it was so tough talking to them about the troubles in my life. When you get married, you go around happily telling everyone that you are getting hitched. It is not the same thing when you are getting separated from your spouse. It's not something that you want to tell everyone. Friends and acquaintances ask me about my husband and to all of them (except a few) I say " everything is fine". It has not been easy.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to write about what I am going through. Those who have been with me from the beginning know how many "I'm blue" posts I have penned. But, gradually I have been able to write about other things as well. All in all it has been a wonderful journey and I thank each person who stopped by. I thank you all for your comments and concern. It means more to me than I could put in words.

I love you all. Peace and God Bless!

I am not usually so enthusiastic about rains. I hate getting drenched and muddy. All my pastel and white dresses will have to be kept at the bottom of my closet. I don't want to get them dirty. But still, this yea, I welcome the rain. It's a beautiful season, isn't it? The down side of rains in Mumbai is the flooded roads and traffic congestion. Sure enough, I was delayed to work because of traffic jams. But, what the heck, I am just going to enjoy the rains this year.

Now that the IPL is finally over, its raining movies at the Box Office. There was a serious drought of good movies. Now there is the big release "Sarkar Raj" with almost whole of Bacchan clan starring in it. Every single news channel had interviews of the Bachchan parivaar. I was quite sick of them. Then there is "Sex and the City", "Mere Baap pahle aap", " Aamir".

I decided to tread the road less traveled and watched "Aamir", this weekend. This is a small movie and had a limited release in multiplexes. I saw it in a mini theatre, with just a handful of people. It is a debut film, both for the director, Rajkumar Gupta and the lead actor, Rajeev Khandelwal. It is definitely not a mainstream movie. I appreciate Khandelwal's guts for taking up this role. With his good looks and romantic lead roles in TV serials, this one is a deviation. The film has received some good reviews from the critics. Especially the gritty portrayal of Mumbai's underbelly. The cinematography is awesome. The movie is pacy, but somehow lacks the punch in the end. Especially liked the beginning and the background track of "It's a good day". I am a sucker for good background scores. There are a few other tracks. But having an English gaana in the opening sequence I really liked. Go watch it if you are a fan of serious cinema.