I thought I saw you...

(picture source here)

death of a dream

Some dreams cannot be replaced or forgotten or re-newed. Hummer was one such big dream, almost as big as hummer itself! I don't remember when I first saw it, must be long long ago, sometime back in my childhood, when I knew about very few automobiles. Like many childlike auto-enthusiasts I had been collecting its pics in the form of notebook covers to posters to desktop wallpapers, like true dreams this one has chased me till now. Probably because this is the only four wheeler I felt connected to, in any of its various forms!

I remember to have talked about hummers with many of my friends. Mosh had promised me that she will gift me Hummer (real one) on my 40th or 50th birthday. Both of us knew we may not afford it even then, but dream is a dream.

Today I read GM is shutting down Hummer production. I know they will still exist, but.... I still felt my almost impossible dream came to an unexpected end.

sad but true.

फालतुगीरी

(click to enlarge)
(I am sure there are numerous grammatical mistakes, but I don't remember all that now! :( sad but true)

नितळ (Nital)

Directors' Note: 'Nital means transparent.....Crystal clear....
Nital, which literally means transparent, so clear…that one can see the base. It is a portrait of inner beauty, the inner self, which is hidden beneath the obviously visible outer coat-skin.
It touches the crux of the issue of self image and acceptance, thus the need to redefine our arena of ‘vision’, where different senses of body emboss different perceptions of beauty.
The story reflects undercurrents of contradictions and confusions of so called sophisticated, civilised and elite people, who are directed by social stereotypes, while those who are closer to nature have much more acceptance for people as ‘humans’.'
This is story of Dr. Neeraja, a young and intelligent opthalmologist, who has vitiligo (white patches on her skin, face especially). Though medically vitiligo is just the lack of a skin pigment, it affects the entire identity of a person. The story unwinds itself, portraying societal insensitivity and cowardice. On the other hand, it illustrates rationality emerging in younger generation about vitiligo.
An interesting thing about this movie is that, there are lot many characters as joint family members coming from diverse professional, social, 'cultural' backgrounds and age. Inspite of this everyone of them has very clear, precise and appropriate thought process which is put together very well in movie. Most of the actors are from theatre, so acting is obviously very good. Music is also very good. Actually simplicity is the base of this movie, it can be seen in music, production design, cinematography, dialogues, costumes and still everything looks so apt and beautiful!
I feel the time I spent watching this movie and compiling this review is quite worth! :)
Most of the information and pictures here are from the official website of Nital, and the movie is also available with subtitles.
Movie: Nital (नितळ) (marathi movie)
Genre: Social
Release Year: 2007
Director: Sumitra Bhave, Suneel Sukathankar
Lyrics: Suneel Sukathankar
Music: Shreerang Umarani
Singers: Amruta Subhash, Dr. Shekhar Kulkarni, Parth Umarani, Dr. Supriya Gadekar, Sujeet Soman, Jyoti Subhash
Cast: Devika Daftaradar, Dr.Shekhar Kulkarni, Vijay Tendulkar, Deepa Shreeram, Uttara Bavkar, Vikram Gokhale, Jyoti Subhash, Reema, Neena Kulkarni, Ravindra Mankani, Kishor Kadam, Amruta Subhash, Aabha Oati, Sarang Sathye, Sujeet Soman

young India, the spilt water

For those who didn't visit Maithili's blog, this is a very nicely articulated post.
The letter to Uddhav Thackeray from Rajdeep Sardesai.
I have been thinking about writing on an aspect for a long time, which he has covered very well in the last paragraph.

the good mornings!

ego,
loneliness,
superiority complex,
inferiority complex,
headache,
heartache,
memories,
hatred,
love.

Riding heals.... almost everything!

aman ki asha

(clic to enlarge, preferably in new window)
I have always liked campaigns by Times of India, and this one seems to be the most interesting and biggest of them all. I liked the idea on the very first day of its release (or launch). I, or actually, most of us have always appreciated and enjoyed pakistani music and singers. So why not do it in a more open and positive way? Isn't it great to accept and acknowledge what is undoubtedly good about someone, be it a country mostly looked upon as an enemy? Art follows no rules, it knows no limits, it reaches hearts and hearts know no LOCs. The way these intangible aspects are put on paper by TOI, is just amazing and convincing, from the very first print saying 'LOVE PAKISTAN'.
And this matrimonial ad above, just made me appreciate the efforts and detailing gone into executing this campaign. I am not aware about Lead India outcome but Teach India campaign has very clearly positive responses and outcomes. 'aman ki asha' also shows a similar promise. And like some projects/ campaigns, the cause and execution is so nice that you are actuclly not bothered so much about the outcome! Good going TOI. Though I missed one performance in Ahmedabad, I would make sure I don't miss any such rare opportunity in future, rather I hope such opportunities will not be 'rare' anymore!
:)

Natarang

'NATARANG'
based on marathi novel 'Natarang' by Dr. Anand Yadav
Produced by Zee Taklkies
Director: Ravi jadhav
Music: Ajay-Atul
Singer: Bela Shende
Actors: Atul Kulkarni, Sonali Kulkarni

'Guna' a farmer cum wrestler from a village near Kolhapur in maharashtra, has a dream, to play role of king in traditional marathi theatre 'Tamasha'. After loosing their jobs in farms, his friends decide to form a tamasha group to keep earning money to support their families. But Guna has a much bigger dream than just earning money. He is an artist! After they have arranged almost everything including a dancer girl, they realise thay don't have someone to play role of 'Nachya' a typical feminine comedian character played by male actor in tamasha. This turns the whole story and Guna's future also!
Atul Kulkarni has taken immence efforts to play role of macho farmer in pre-interval part and the typical feminine 'Nachya' in the second half. The efforts aren't just restricted to gaining and losing 16kg in a time of 40-50 days, but also a great level of observation and acting, especially for the role of Nachya. (video link at the end)
On the music front, Ajay Atul and Bela Shende have done a very good job. All the songs are great. Sonali Kulkarni (no, not the Dil Chahta Hai wali) has used all the opportunity to showcase her dancing and acting skills to the fullest. The opening dance by Amruta Khanvilkar (a Zee music anchor) is also amazing. I will actually like to watch this movie again in movie hall for this song and dance experience! Excellent.
The movie keeps viewers stuck to their seats till the last line of end credits! The instrumental played for end credits has some magical effects!
An excellent Marathi movie after a long time.

A version with English subtitles will be released on 22nd Jan. Worth watching in movie hall. Till then you can enjoy these youtube links.
To watch efforts taken by Atul Kulkarni click here.
Amruta Khanvilkar lavani dance here.
Sonali Kulkarni performing on the amazing music here.

The inner voice

The inner voice is always right, at least when it says,
1. boiling milk has already found its way to kitchen sink from the gas stove, run!
2. Now stop reading that news paper and switch off the heating coil, water has become too hot to bathe.
3. finish your bath and look at mobile, you are already late for office.
4. now that you are leaving office on time, you will meet your boss before you reach the gate. (inner voice continues saying something which you don't want to hear! You are anyway going to experience it!)
5. Now that you have decided to call home after dinner, mom will call you within 5 seconds and you will as usual say ' I was about to call you mom!!'
6. Today was probably the last day to pay your vodafone bill. (the voice says this precisely after 6pm if you don't pay online).
7. (after your 500+ km journey has started, it says) may be you have forgotten something important, check your underwears.... in the bag you stupid! Ok forget it, no use now.
8. The last concept, which you made just to increase number of concepts, will be selected!
9. May be the water bottle in your bag is leaking.
10. keep your finger on 'snooze alarm' button, it will start shouting in a second! ok good morning! May be you have kept the phone on table not bed tonight! :)

सकाळ

Click to enlarge and read.

make NEW mistakes

I am sure I have made many many mistakes, but these are the ones I remember clearly because they have changed me as a person.

1994, 8th standard, the oldest (so called) mistake I remember. We shifted to Kalyan, and my new school headmaster offered me entry to scholar's division, so that I could opt for Sanskrit increasing my chances to be in merit list!! But I had to mug up a lot... nooo wayyy. I went for C division, Hindi and the headmaster thought I am making a mistake. But I made some nice friends who made me realise there is much more to school than studying!!! That's the place where I started enjoying, understanding sketching and drawing ... :)

1997, 11th std. almost similar situation again, another so called mistake!

1999, This time my parents said I am making a mistake, I left my MBBS admission and went for mechanical engineering! But I enjoyed. :)

2003, finished B.E., One more mistake and decided to take a break at the very beginning of my career! I had to do something more to be part of research and development. Came to know about Product design, NID, IDC. Wanted to go to IISc. Failed, did quality control for 1 year at Godrej. Ohh! and I also tried being salesman in a Maruti Suzuki showroom for some time. Left it telling myself I will come back as a designer. But that was the last time I felt so!!! :)

2005, Got admission to IISc, almost free! Mr. krishnan tried his best to convince me not to go for NID, but I went!!! To some extent he was right, I spent more time studying, still not finished with loan.... but I enjoyed, learnt a lot about relationships, life, people and design too!

2007, Went to Reva for a project and realised that I love 2 wheels not 4!, Mosh (B) almost torn me apart for not attending any automobile (or otherwise) company interview in campus, but I wanted to go for electric 2 wheelers! What to do?

2008, Finally I got it, but some experienced people there still told me I made a mistake! I decided to make it a good mistake... to some extent I did! Learnt a lot about many new things, though not all the expected ones! Came to know so much about myself!!! Somehow I am actually happy for that mistake now!

2008, Ohh I made one more mistake... still suffering, still happy! :)

2010, Long time... so much has accumulated... time to make a new mistake! May be the biggest so far, may be not!
:)

Yamaha FZ16 for Rs. 100 only

Today I baught a Yamaha FZ 16 bike for Rs. 100 only.

Impossible? No, its quite possible here in Ahmedabad.

How I did it? here is the sequence:

1. Parked my bike (1 year old yamaha FZ 16) outside SBI bank alongwith few others already there.

2. went in and dropped the check in drop box, got a statement of account.

3. Came out with my helmet in hand and no bike out there!

4. The GUARD asked me to wait on the opposite side of road where the towing vehicle will come again.

5. I searched for the vehicle along that road.

6. Spotted it with my bike hanging for life on the edge.

7. Stopped those boys and told them that orange Yamaha is mine.

8. that was enough of a proof.

9. I paid Rs. 100 and they DROPPED the bike in middle of road and went (without giving any receipt or waiting to see if it was actually my bike!).

10. Luckily that was actually my bike and I had the key so I could easily ride it away.

11. This way anyone can buy any bike for Rs. 100 from these towing vehicle contract operators.

I am planning to buy a Yamaha R15 now. Some dents on body or silencer may just increase the cost to few more hundreds. Still so cheap!

beautiFiction

It's quite difficult to formulate some conclusion and understanding of this film, almost as difficult as the understanding of 'beauty' itself. It's a very well made and different film which keeps you indulged in its own flow. Even after already having a basic idea of the story, I felt it is much more than a story or even direction or cinematography or many other things, which makes it worth experiencing. May be it's the essence (perfume!) of the story, the urge to understand fundamentals of the concept called 'beauty'. We all have our own individual but basically similar ways of perceiving and reacting to beauty, very naturally. And this is where the movie tries to imply the more acceptable and human way of acknowledging beauty, by revolving around a character having almost supernatural powers, that of perceiving beauty (or lack of it) in the form (?) of smell. Yes true, that smell is part of beauty, but what if for someone beauty is only good smell? And in case of Jean Baptiste Grenouille, it seems quite possible, because he himself doesn't have any smell of his own. In the world of smells he just doesn't exist! His way of perceiving and reacting to beauty is only limited to smell! He is a person who cannot love someone or be loved... may be because he doesn't understand beauty in a natural way, like everyone else around him.
And then there are common people around him, who may not be able to analyse and formulate the essence of beauty in some tangible way, but they sure know how to acknowledge it in a more comprehensible manner. To some extent they can even identify and acknowledge it in the form of the magical perfume developed by Grenouille, the one he made using skin of beautiful women! In the scene of his day of execution he magically and literally rules the crowd using his magical perfume, but himself remains uaffected by its divine power. For you need to have some wholistic understanding of love, beauty to experience it. The word 'beautification' has some meaning only for those who have and understand beauty in its little more generic form. For other it's more of beautiFiction! So what happens when Grenouille almost empties his magical perfume bottle on himself is not very much a mystery. The perfume and the perfumer remain merely the transporters of beauty and love, and being a transporter of something implies there is a lack of that 'something' in the transporter.
I am sure all this sounds very complex and confusing, but if you think, thats how it is.... like the concept of beauty.

Survival

Irrespective of how much you earn, you are always worried about survival!

convo(cation) ka kurta

It's actually a book, or a diary not written,
NO... may be it's an old train ticket.
or is it just a moment in past?
or may be a list of 'to do's I made last year,
some ticked, some crossed and some looking like don'ts now.
Anyway, I have already given it for dry-cleaning.
May be that will change the way it looks in future.