Chiffonesque

Bomb blasts in theatres in Delhi Theatres over the movie 'Jo Bole So Nihaal'. A movie is made that is offensive to your community. You therefore bomb theatres that will most definitely not have anyone associated with the film there. So a few inncocent people get injured and some probably die and what...you've proved your point?

It's true what they say, 'Having a piano doesn't make you any more of a pianist than having a child makes you a parent.' A lot of people, especially in today's ambitious times, tend to bite off more than they can chew. This could be in areas of their work, or marriage, or investment, or religion, maybe. Sometimes that works and sometimes that fails. But the one area one shouldn't be taking chances is with a child. There are way too many instances where children grow up in an environment feeling unwanted. I have seen mothers yell at their three-year old girls to get out of their ways. I've seen fathers snap when children ask to be taken to the bathroom during a movie. Well, to all those parents - there was a time when you could be selfish and that time is over. Sure, life is not the same after a child and it wasn't meant to remain that way. The whole point about good parenting is not that it recognizes taking care of children is a big responsibility, but ...

I have a friend who is looking for a girl to marry. Encounters should begin with a date and culminate in a marriage. He makes no allowances for any other possibility. First Date, then marriage (the casing of the two events represent the tone in which he talks of both) - natural, inevitable progression. If it does not work out that way, then it only means that the boy and girl were not right for each other. As he puts it, in his inebriated Goan accent (a achievement of some sort because he isn't Goan and never inebriated), 'the people must be correct.' Did I mention he was a friend? This is despite the fact that he is extremely picky and generally a pain in the tooth (I have not known greater pain than that.) He will send back coffee if the whipped cream touches the rim of the cup. The cream must must be delicately balanced in the centre of the coffee like an extravagant bouffant. Or else, it's not worth having. (We don't go to Barista or CCDs much, you can imagine.)...

I had read somewhere that if Shakespeare lived in today's times, he would never have written Hamlet. He would still be promoting Romeo and Juliet. This notion became clearer when I went to watch Joe Satriani at Planet M last evening with a couple of colleagues from office. Truth be told, I had not heard of Joe Satriani before a colleague of mine, (I'll call him A since I haven't asked him if he'd like to be written about on my blog) rhapsodized over how great a guitarist Joe Satriani was. He could make the guitar come alive and play chords that shifted the centre of your soul, etc. etc. Both attributes, to a non-musical person like myself, seem wholly undesirable but then I don't know any better. So I got curious. Apparently, this musician is a rather big deal because his biggest influence is Jimmy Hendrix and has been the teacher of other musicians such as Steve Vai. So, basically he has learnt from the best and the best have learnt from him. A sort of musical Soc...

I saw a movie the other day, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. Translated in English, it means ‘A thousand desires such as this.’ I think the significance of the title can best be understood in terms of the backdrop the love story is set against, rather than the main plot. The backdrop is a post-independent India that is trying to find its version of democracy between 1969 –to late 1970s. And the post-independent India that is trying to do that is the educated, urban, affluent youth. This is the youth that seems to be afflicted with ideals and very knowledgably so. They know about Tilak and Rousseau, and Cuba and pot, and willing to take on the ground realities right where they arise, which refreshingly is not the coffee table. This movie is the story of 3 people who grew up in these times, and loved, lost and desired…a thousand things. When I watch movies or read books or hear stories that are set in a particular period, I naturally think about the age I live in. I suppose its because time is...

An evening sometimes feels Like grainy coarse sand, It slips away just as gently From an unwilling open hand. Eternity seems like an unlikely place For memories to dwell They roll away slowly Like dew drops on a shell. Haunting and mysterious, Are the colour's sounds, In the strokes and swirls of art, Symphonies can be found. Motes of dust and floating feathers And pollen and fizzled flames Flimsy and whimsical and solid and there... A dying day's remains.