Rough day. Tough day. Got really wild and got rid of the driver. Fired people who were messaging Papa randomly. End of the month so they really start thinking about who will loan then money. The things you do to protect your parent.
Papa was being stubborn again. I get so exasperated but he looks so cute and sulking. I love my dad.
I don't know why it is such a revelation...but there it is. He should listen to me more.
Expensive day. Papa is feeling better but tremendous body ache. His body is getting so stiff.
There are a lot of things crowding my head. So am sharing a few things that I am grateful for:
1. Papa is better.
2. Have work.
3. Ate really tasty food today, especially yellow moong daal.
4. Had good tea.
5. Doctor was available for a house call.
It was a day of horrors. Got a call early in the morning. Dad had collapsed and was shivering. The cook was beside herself. I think I ran out wearing my dress inside out. Dad was in a dangerously crippling state. He couldn't sit up, he had no strength to even turn his neck...A friend helped me out with a doctor. Another doctor friend was a huge support as well. Turns out my father has typhoid and needs to be hospitalized. There was a lot of cajoling and khichdi. And both of these later resulted in dad sitting up and walking about...so he refused to go to the hospital. Got so stubborn and pig-headed about it.
So now he is home. There was power outage and it's just back. I have so much backlog to complete. So now I will just emulate an ostrich and pretend that it will go away.
I hope we make it to the hospital about it.
I think I have been through an emotional wringer today. Still, some softness emerges on sharp days too. So here are a few things that I am grateful for:
1. Papa is well.
2. Met a few friends at Phoenix Mall today and had a really good time. A friend and I reminisced hard about freshly baked brun-pav, maskaa, and bread pudding, slightly burned Karachi biscuits baked on tin traya with tutti-frutti, etc. These are things you get from local Muslim bakeries. My friend is a bit of a snob and thinks that you get the best brun pavs in Mazgaon and Muhammad Ali Road. I argue that Zam Zam, Lucky, and some local bakeries near Bandra talao are just as good. Good brun pavs are hard and crusty on the outside but dense and soft on the inside. The mix of hard and soft is what makes it perfect. It's like brun-pav is like the equivalent of a loving but toughened heart.
3. I got good transport to and from the mall easily. Happy stuff. Ride was fab and smooth. Monsoon winds in Bombay were wet, strong, and full-bodied. It was the perfect Mumbai monsoon postcard weather.
4. A friend took me for a ride to Bandstand today. We had pani puri from my regular person there. I love pani puris... especially at that spot near Mount Mary. I feel like the act of eating Pani Puri - where you are not looking at a phone, looking at some sports channel on a TV (like in a pub), is like a meditation. You stand there with only one agenda...to eat the puri. You stand humbly with a paper bowl and the bhaiya will give you puris and you accept them with faith and gratitude. I love that. You don't take a half-eaten puri and give it back to the bhaiyya. You eat that and wait for the next one. And each one is a little bit magical and maybe even perfection...just the way you wanted it. Anyway, my friend treated me to the pani puris and then we went and sat by the sea. The waves, windswept palm trees, lights from flats that glowed like honeycombs... everything just spelled wholesomeness. May have been the wind or the rain or the sea...that my heart just felt so heavy and broken that I shared a few things. Someone had said something a couple of days earlier and I thought it was uncouth. But the fact that it had hit so hard and cut so deep led me to question a few other things. And I realised that there were a few things that for me were still open wounds and I had left them unattended. Who knows when or if everything will heal. But for whatever it is worth, this was a start. Start of what, I don't know. But...there will always be pani puri to sustain us with magical delight until prayers are answered.
5. My friend's daughter sent me a photo of her wearing her gold medal. She looked so happy! That was a lovely picture!
These are the pictures from today. To remind me that even though nothing can save you, something will soothe you.
I am a little weirded out by how painful and sudden this day was. Why does this year feel like a shit show? Yes, there are tons of good things but it generally seems to come with a tightness of chest.
Anyway, when things are going South, that's when you do the Jack Gilbert thing of stubbornly holding on to joy. So here are all the things I am grateful for:
1. Papa is well.
2. There was a scare of no water in the building but that got sorted out. One security person was on leave and the replacement had not been told about starting the motor. I am actually grateful for both- the water not coming and then coming. It helps to get reminders that we are lucky to have what we have.
3. Had warm water with lemon in candlelight.
4. Had really tasty masala dosa and sambar in Papa's place. I love our cook's flair for South Indian. She had kept some tangy-sweet chutney for me. That was yummy!
5. Had a great walk to the temple and a super ride in the auto. While returning SV Road was free. Such a miracle!
Sleepy now.
It was a painful day. Some things did not go as planned but it's okay. It is time to revert to the habit of blogging about the things that I am grateful for:
1. Papa is well. I did not talk to him today but there was no SOS call. So am guessing it was all okay.
2. Cook came today and she gave me warm croissant with mixed fruit jam. That was so yummy! Subko croissants are the best!
3. Had water and electricity today.
4. A friend came home today after a rather dismal call. Talking to him took the edge off. That is quite a fortunate happenstance.
5. My friend's daughter earned first place in her tournament! Feels oddly exhilarating.
6. I had taken leave after so long that joining back work even after 4 or 5 days felt weird. I felt overwhelmed. But honestly, there's nothing like making a list to deal with overwhelm. There was an Andrew Huberman podcast I had heard long back where Huberman mentioned that journaling and making lists and goals is good for managing mood and mind. The brain is an excellent place to think of ideas but not a great place to hold ideas. (I think I should do that - make a gist of all the podcasts I listen to.)
7. There's a comfortable amount of money in the bank now. Trip to Vashi, some shopping for Papa, etc. will be good.
8. Just got a call from Dad. He won't be there tomorrow so maybe I will drop it and not go to Vashi. Oh well. Slight bummer but whatever be the will of the Goddess.
9. I wore a rather pretty top that my friend had given me in Ambala - a lovely white satin shirt with brown swirls and I had paired it with a dull gold, thin pleated skirt.
10. I am out of coffee powder but there was just enough to make a cup for my friend and me.
I reached Bombay last evening around 7. Scramble for an auto even at the auto-stand was difficult but thankfully I got one peaceably. I reached home and was so happy to be at my place. Help had made rice, daal, and aaloo gobhi - which was really good.
But was tired so didn't write yesterday. Anyway, a day went by.
Came across some tough news today. That threw me off a little bit. Considerably. But as life, times, and clouds shift, the day also brought with it a sweetness and joy that comes with all sorts of days. Played with my friend's kids and enjoyed the flowers blossoming around the garden.
My friend's kitchen is an open one on the terrace and it is gorgeous! There are fluttering Tibetan flags fluttering at the entrance and some happy hibiscuses around. Evening brought with it a trip to the market and beautiful chaat and kulfi. We got back and there was a heavy, yet gorgeous conversation. So many signs. Life will remain tough and hard and unexpected. But so will I.
Exhausted. Still. Traveling now and will make a quick list of things I am seriously grateful for:
1. Got a really good cab quickly for the airport. There's an Ola and Uber strike going on and it is an all-India one am told...at least the major cities - Pune, Delhi, Bombay, Jaipur, and a few others. It is likely to last until the 28th. But my cabbie was good and came quickly.
2. Managed to finish my last document before I took some time off.
3. Roads at 2 am were stunning...like the well-oiled long tresses of a woman.
4. Fast has begun and I had a really expensive glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.
5. Friend came over. Always fun to hang out with him.
Don't feel like writing anything today. My mom passed away on this day four years ago. A friend shared a picture of me and her in JW Marriott Pune 10 years ago - we were both happy and excited to be on the rooftop. The same date, different years - you live so differently.
Four years ago, my father was in the hospital and my brother and I were at home. Mom was in ICU. I get a call early in the morning - it was really really early. Still dark outside. Papa told me to come to the hospital with my brother. It's not looking good he said. I wake my brother up. He gets up with a jolt. I wake up the driver and we go to the hospital. I had started crying in the car and my brother avoided looking at me. It was close-by...the hospital. I go up and my father is outside the ICU. I don't remember if he was standing up or not. I think he stood up when he saw us. He took us inside the ICU. There was a youngish lady doctor inside. She looked upset...as if she had not seen a lot of death on her watch. Outside through a window I saw slight morning light spreading across the world. I saw pigeons. I remember the pigeons. The lady doctor said that my mother was no more. They had done all that they could do.
I saw my mom. She looked like she was sleeping. She looked as if she could wake up any time. But also she looked as if our life together as we know it was done.
Every single day I have a sense of loss of what is gone when my mum passed on. She was my best friend...my coolest friend. She was the only one who understood me in ways that was...not just the way a mom understands a child but the way a mature person understands and individual. She told me I was too talented and wise to get into the kitchen. She told me to...insisted that I always work to have money - money to take a trip, money to get help, book a cab to get away, money to take care of every single thing that goes in sustaining me. She had told me that I don't have it in me to be a conventional 'wife'...I was too reckless and adamant for that. She told me that I would always face difficulty at work because I didn't have the sense to know whether I was making someone uncomfortable or insecure. When I started freelancing and I would get bitch and slut comments on LinkedIn she had told me that this wasn't the time to back down. (This is what continues to give me the strength to carry on even now...despite the ugly resentment I see in inept people who want to take money without putting in the work. Like that person who called me names on my blog because I had commented on his work. And he was just.so.bad. Sometimes I wonder what kind of people get employment just because they live in a metro and claim to be wannabe washed out musicians or business people. They lost in one area and will lose everywhere else too.)
My mom has told me to move out of Bombay to toughen up. She had told me once that I would have to keep making my own luck with people time and time again to get over people's validation. She had recognised in me a people-pleaser who would get easily manipulated. Many many times she has told me that I would be protected by my honesty more than I would be wounded by it. And the wounds would be many and incessant.
She told me to dress well to earn well. She told me that I should develop the traits...with militant zeal...to see through people's motives. For an angry person who always sought validation...to be in a service industry...you can get very easily swayed with praise.
She had told me that a couple of friends...who I thought were really good friends...they were envious of me. She saw in me the need and ease to cut away from people and things quickly and easily. She was the buffer and sweetness that held me close to my relatives and extended family. Without her, there is no real connection and I don't even miss it.
My mom didn't just love me. She celebrated me. If I can continue to live or at least learn to live without explanation or apology, it is in no small measure to the mum I had.
To the mum I have.
Not a good day today. Feeling very anxious and upset today. These emotions come in waves. I just want to understand how things will move going forward. Actually it's not even understand what will happen - just get a sense of when it will stop happening.
How much of life keeps happening in loop. There was a line about searching for a Guru that someone had once told me...that you should look for a Guru the way a man whose head is on fire looks for water.
I am not exactly looking for a Guru but I definitely think I need to steadily chart out a path for liberation and stick to it. It's getting increasingly clear now how pointless and meaningless it all is.
The pictures below are from Bandstand yesterday. The ocean is a gorgeous thing. Even in the churn of captive waves, there's a roar of freedom.
Note to self: Spend more times there.
Pic: Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/baby-holding-person-s-index-finger-64242/
Yes, there's a lot of work to finish, but this day brought the requisite time and energy, all soft and gurgling...and then you offer our finger, and even if nothing more - just you and your baby, i.e. - the present day, spent a few happy moments together. And tomorrow, this gentleness will grow into something beautiful.
One more day has passed. Am reviewing a document. There's a podcast on and there's black coffee on the table. There's a bottle with cold water and that's that. I need to get on with the review and we proceed accordingly.
Monday. Exhausting. There's still so much to be done. Didn't go to the gym or work out today. But it was my fast so I suppose it is okay.
I have an early morning call and there's a heap to finish. Feeling paralyzed with a whole lot
Never mind. Will make some tea and work a bit.
Leaf and varicose
Cherries in milk
Days in muslin
Dusks in silk
Wrapped in Asia
Drenched in glacier
Picking out music
And tunes in fuschia
Weary feet and bunion
For a path that was free
Twigs and varicose
Where once was a tree.
My cleaning lady was upset today. Her tiny grand-daughter born earlier this month is in the hospital. What can you say in such situations? I offered some help - it felt so inadequate. But I have been praying for the little one. I have not seen her but the help says she is chubby and cute but has lost weight now because she has not been having milk. It is so strange - how one can feel attached to a child one has not seen. I think the baby will be good within the coming week.
A friend came over today. He is doing really well and it felt so good to see him. He has a little daughter too and the family has moved to Pali Hill now and we were talking about how dulcet and divine the place is. The one perfectly formed raindrop trickling down the vein of a leaf to splash on a crushed white blossom on the ground - the place just transfixes you. It is lovely and gorgeous! You can tell why so many movie starts lived (or continue to live) there. There are a lot of places that are beautiful - but that place is cinematic.
We went to Mahesh Lunch Home for lunch. I had appam and veg stew while my friend had a grilled pomfret. The sol kadi was delectable. The rest of the food was okay - not as great as the others. But we came home and we chatted for a bit over coffee. It was really good meeting him - someone I knew from college.
Did a little work and thought I would get the blog out before I went deep into some other editorial work now. Life's good! Promises to be a busy and rough week but...so be it.
A happy, happy Saturday! Woke up late with the headache brought on by insufficient sleep. Then went to Vashi for my weekly Ma Kali visit.
And I had such an excellent lunch - there was luchi (poori made of maida), chhole, and a sweet and tangy raw mango chutney. Slept for a bit and then went to town to catch up with friends for an event. It was in town and the drive from Vashi to town today was exquisite! Smooth roads, a moist silvery sky, gleaming sea, symmetrical bridges, and clusters of fleshy, red flowers on trees. And peeping through all this was the city skyline waiting to melt your heart...like a Mona Lisa smile! So lovely!
Crossed St. Xavier's College and it looked as hallowed as ever. Then got to Chowpatty. Went for the event and after that, we all got a bite to eat around the place and went for a walk to Chowpatty. So here's the thing... my friend and I walked around until late and then sat on the chataai and had coffee...the local, pour-out-of-a-steel-canister coffee. The waves were soft and dreamlike, the moon peeked behind clouds, there was a steady yet gentle breeze...it was the kind of weather that makes you have epiphanies...just so much perfection is warped and weaved into an environment. And here's the thing...when you are by the beach, you realize just how much at ease people near the ocean. You can see the shoulders relaxed, brows unfurrowed, lips upturned into a soft smile...Lovely night.
Then we returned home and I picked up a new book that was delivered by Amazon. So...all around a yay day!
Dear Universe, thank you. Truly!
Mixed bag - today but overall good. Made some headway at work.
Cleaning lady will be off tomorrow as will I. That means that dishes will need to be cleaned. Weird to say that in passive voice when you are actually the one who will be doing it.
I am looking forward to doing some stuf tomorrow. Let's see how that pans out.
Okay, off to clear the dishes and sort things out.
Rough day at work. There are a lot of things up in the air. That is such a fascinating thing about life and time...how days end without closure.
Cook had made a really tasty curd rice with grated beet. That was yummy. But we are fine and now let's see how it goes.
I still have a couple of things to finish before starting the work day. At times I feel there is no need to rush or panic. Things take the time they take. Not much can be done about it. Still, I feel Time does lubricate matters considerably when you stay steady with things.
Okay so...this is it for now. Will go take a nap.
https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-falling-woman-wearing-a-sheer-dress-5655150/)
Today was a strange sort of day. It began with a slightly tough moment with a friend. But it all works out in the long run, I suppose. Have been reaching out to some people for a few things. A couple contacted me for renting out a room. From the time I spoke to them on the phone until the time they came home (uninvited, unannounced), everything about them was creepy. I can't explain, but their eyes and their skin seemed to belong to the undead. I live in a busy city where people are mangled in various stages of fatigue. But this couple seemed fazed and blurred. Against my better judgement I offered them coffee after inviting them in. They walked in mechanically and sat stuff...waiting and looking.
I had told them that I am not looking for people to let out a room too. They just sat and looked out the window. The man started breathing weirdly, as if trying to inhale the place. I remembered one of my yoga teachers in Pune (from Canada) saying that bears breathe in deeply. They breathe in the world around them. I was getting a little nervous...and not because I had to start a work call in the next 25 minutes.
The lady asked me for water. I went to the kitchen and when I returned they were gone.
It's as if they weren't in here at all. I live in a small flat and I didn't even hear the door close. It's as if they evaporated into the same air that the man was so keen to breathe into his system.
Well, one more day in Paradise.
Ref.: Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash
I sit with a knot in my stomach. My heart is beating really fast and I recognize that the pain and fear is age-old. I don't know what it is or where it is rooted - but it lays in a coil in the pit of the stomach and keeps unfurling right up the system. It is quite fascinating - what all you can observe when you detach from the body. It is fascinating what all you can observe when you detach from anything.
Day was good. I got a letter from a friend's daughter. It was such a sweet letter - it arrived with the postman through registered post. The letter was a single page inside a lavender envelope and a few things were sketched on the letter. My friend's daughter, let's call her Orla - talked about her trip to the science museum and the trampoline park with her cousin and sister. She asked me about the rain in Mumbai and whether the roads get flooded here. She also wondered what kinds of logistics need to be in place if we need to have our own boats. That was such a huge highlight in my day today.
I had really tasty khichdi and besan chilla today. I like when daal is cooked with lauki. Ordered cherries today. There's something very wholesome about cool, fresh, sweet cherries. The tartness was just right.
A few other things arrived, and they are still in their packages. I did not feel like opening them today. I just started reading 'The Buddha in Daily Life' - it seems lovely. It is an introduction to the Buddhism of Nichiren Daishonin. (The same stream associated with 'Naam myoho renge kyo'.) It's amazing - the capacity of books to soothe you and strengthen you.
I want to get one version of some work done by tomorrow morning. But don't feel like working now. But maybe will do a little bit now and then sleep off.
Day was strange and weird. Booked and had a massage today. Did some intense meditation - intense by my standards and that felt hard - felt like digging out shards of glass from inside me. There's a scene in Rocky or Rambo or some Stallone movie - Rambo, I think. Stallone is wounded, and he is squeezing out bullets from behind a bush and start fighting again.
Anyway, I suppose that is the point of meditation - the initial discomfort is par for the course. Of course, one must not get addicted to picking at the scabs.
Had evening by the candlelight and am not typing this out with a cup of perfectly made sweet, milky coffee. I made it as a treat, with proper sugar and all that. I am feeling restless. Just got news that someone in our team had a baby girl! That is such great news! A sweet little baby - July-born!
Lovely weather and I cooked a quick meal with barley, soya bean, and some vegetables cooked quickly in ghee. That was tasty. Had Maggi for brunch. That was nice! Something about spicy Maggi with onions, buttered tomatoes, and chopped chillies really is decadent.
I realized that the kaftan I was wearing today (from Nicobar) had such beautiful cotton. It was actually so cooling and cocooning at the same time. They're having a big sale now but I don't think I will buy anything new and fresh now.
I took an online test to check if I have ADHD. Apparently I do. I am quite high on the spectrum, I am informed. The questions seemed very generic though. This is not a clinical diagnosis, or at least a formal one. But something to go by. Still, if with ADHD, I display more focus than the people I have around me, then we are in dangerous territory.
I think Gabor Mate wrote about this in Scattered Minds.
Need to make a list of books to read and curriculum for myself and actually work through it. The HBR volume on strategy I really want to read and take notes on. I remember referencing that a fair bit when I was doing pre-sales work.
This psychological concept of dissociation is quite fascinating.
Anyway my mind is racing and I want to finish watching one YouTube video. This is it for today.
Photo by cottonbro studio:
https://www.pexels.com/photo/white-yellow-and-purple-ice-cream-4686943/
I had an epiphany in one of my conversations with my father. We don't have a driver now and I really don't think I want to take up driving again. Hiring a driver seems like a seriously tedious undertaking. So I had called someone from a 'Driver for Hire' agency and he was not all that great. Later I released him and my father went to the ashram for his prayer meet by auto. He does that every day nowadays. When he returned, there was no phone. He had left it behind somewhere. At first he said that he had not taken it with him at all. Then he said that he had left it in the auto that he ha'd returned home in. But our cook told me that he had done this in the past many times so it may be in the ashram. We went and there it was. But I remember the fury and rage rising in me against him. I don't understand why we can't just make do with less. I told him he could sit at home and do his prayers or else, he should just come to Bandra with me. Suddenly, it became very clear that I was upset exactly the way my mother used to be - not just the same way...the same sequence!
Nowadays I do some targeted meditation to understand what my pain points are - the real pain areas, not ones that manifest at convenience or crisis - just what is the trouble below the rubble. But I want to be very careful about this. I see people who get all Freudian, Jungian, Alderian, or some other -ian about it and start treating trauma like treasure. Then they don't want to release it. This is precisely why I am wary of counselling in India. As a culture we are so prone to deification - whether sport stars, movie stars, politicians, etc. - how can we make sure that we are not sculpting our own idol of foibles - the sort we will not want to break? Anyway, my reservations aside, I did find a book on Jung's teachings at home and I brought them with me. I got a load of books from Vashi today and that's excellent!
Tomorrow I think I will go to a coffee shop - maybe one a little farther away and do some journaling. Then there's the edit work that I will do. Looking forward to it actually. But anyway, that's for tomorrow. Let's see - what's up for today.
Somebody asked me for a job today. I told him that he is not a good instructional designer today. He got really upset and said that he had a lot of experience. I told him that made him an experienced instructional designer but not good. This is what worries me - how are people equating quality with the number of years? Yes, there is a correlation but not causation. When you start talking about ADDIE as a learning theory, you really need to understand that you have to go back to the fundamentals a little bit. ADDIE is a developmental model, not a learning theory. A developmental model gives you a systematic roadmap of how to construct learning materials, but it does not explain how learning happens, like cognitivism, behaviorism or constructivism.
Now, a little but about the image I used - I feel that represents the trauma we have collected over the years. They are frozen and hardened in ice, but because we have lived with them for so long, they have started looking pretty. And all the therapy and navel-gazing and intellectualizing and distracting it away with good intentions isn't thawing out the frozen pain. It's propping it back into the freezer.
Well, one can only hope that someday the fridge will break down, the ice will melt, and the trauma can be weeded out for good.
But yes, the actual investigation into one's real motives seems to be a relentless, exhausting exercise. Or at least that's what it feels like for me. Maybe it gets easier with time. Or like a yoga teacher once told me..."It doesn't get easier. You get stronger."
Our Bengali cook had made some really tasty stuff today. First there was a masala dosa for brekker. Then lunch was a very tasty soya bean pulao. Dinner was simple plain dosa with a piece de resistance chutney. It was a traditional Bengali chutney. There's a base of mustard that is cooked with jaggery, water, dried chilli, and turmeric. To this you add thinly sliced raw mangoes and it is cokked right until the mangoes still have their structural integrity but are cooked right through. It is awesome! That combination was brilliant!
I went for a late night movie. Just to set the context - PVR refuses to switch on lights before the movie begins so you have to scramble around with your phone for light. There was a cockroach roaming on the counter, and the 800 bucks nachos were stale and drivel. It was swarming with people for Jurassic World - Rebirth. And just all of this would ordinarily have adversely impacted my impression of a film. But it was an Aamir Khan film. I don't like the actor too much. But his movies do soften the edges of a brittle experience quite a bit.
I don't know why I never really liked Aamir. I must have eight or nine when I saw the huge hoarding of a boy in a leather jacket with his back to the public. He looked like he was playing the guitar. You couldn't see his face. It was the first poster of Qayamat se Qayamat Tak. It was one of the first posters on Carter Road and one of my friends in school told me that it was her brother's friend - someone who was very good at chess and had won a few series at both Khar and Bandra gymkhana. I was hooked onto the word 'Qayamat'. I didn't know what that meant. When the movie released and my mum took me and my friends to Gaiety Galaxy to watch the movie, I was besotted with the songs - and Juhi Chawla. I didn't get the deal about this guy. He was sweet I suppose and the ending was beautiful. The last scene of Aamir kissing Juhi before he lays down to die next to her against the setting sun (just like the way they had met - she had seen his silhouette against a setting sun in the beginning) - I still get goosebumps when I think of that scene.
Anyway, he became a huge deal after that. He was a Bandra boy, stayed up Pali Hill - so all my friends would keep his notebooks, etc. etc. I also found him insufferable in Dil and Mann. In Andaaz Apna Apna, I preferred Salman. He bored me in Mela and all those films. But I liked him in some movies of his that didn't do too well - Raat, Talaash (my favorite performance of his - outranking that parakeet performance in Rang De Basanti and Three Idiots), and Akele Hum Akele Tum. I liked him in Dangal too but Talaash is where I felt he understood something about the inheritance of loss...I had liked Lagaan in all the parts that he wasn't there (and to his credit - that was quite something - he really was one of the villagers. That poster of Lagaan where he is not front and centre was quite a big departure from the types of posters we used to see at the time). But something about the way he was with children, about losing a son, about losing a childhood - somehow those are the pieces that rung true for me.
And I hadn't seen a movie in the cinema halls for a long time, so I went for Sitaare Zameen Par - and I am so, so glad I did. It is so sweet and innocent. It is not as big or deep as one might want it to be - a little too pat in places, but the kids he is working with - they are so fresh and innocent. I liked Genelia a lot here. She is not cutesy. There's a sombre gravitas to her that has come with age that really suits her.
But there's a scene in the film where Aamir's team plays a match and something happens at the end of the match. He is defeated but he looks around and sees his team celebrating. There's a look in his weary, jaded eyes (of a mature man who is clearly past his youth, irrespective of how his hair may be colored), and you can see his awe at witnessing a simple person's largesse of heart. The sun is streaming through the slats in the gym, his team has crowded near him - he is part of it yet not part of it...and his wonder...of just how lucky he is to have them. His eyes crinkle and he smiles.
And maybe for the first time ever - I saw what the charm was all about.
A Fezzluqa moment.
