Generation gaps

In a world that's forever changing, what are the chances you find someone with who you can spend the rest of your life together?

I see my mom and dad and I wonder, almost 30 years of being together through plenty of hardships right from financial instability to moving base to bringing up two brats; and to think that theirs was an arranged marriage wherein they did not even know one another. At least not well enough in my terms to get into a lifetime of committment. They met I think just once before their marriage!

And now that I am old enough to appreciate the differences in temper and character, I know that it must have taken more than just the bond of marital status to hold them together as they are held maybe this is just one more form of love that we, the young and the restless, in our haste refuse to acknowledge or appreciate. I would give up a lot to be the way my mom and dad are right now -- happy, and at peace.

The jump in generations is actually a rather queer thing. Perhaps it is the difference in outlook and perception, perhaps it is the difference in exposure and expectations from life, perhaps it is something different.

Mmm...Shiny!

I watched X-Men Origins - Wolverine on sunday...(take that Betty) and it was better than I had expected it to be after the debacle The Last Stand was.

It's a prequel to the X-Men trilogy, and while there are a few lapses/differences when compared to the original comic, its good. Liev Scheiber as Sabretooth is particularly good. Lynn Collins is almost ethereal. The movie is however essentially, and justifiably dominated by Hugh Jackman. It is sort of amazing, as well as a tad disconcerting how he has refined the character of Wolverine from its comic origins. It is indeed difficult to think of anyone else performing that role.

And now for a very personal opinion; I thought Gambit stole the show everytime he was present in the frame. I guess it has to do with the fact that I like Gambit as a character in the comic than I like wolverine, and that the character in the movie had an amazing aura of grace about it. Again, it is a very very personal opinion, but I will stick to it.

If you have not seen this movie yet, go see it. Here's a preview for you.

a rather despirited show

THE SPIRIT



I love action comics...I love Wolverine, Storm, Batman, Green Arrow, Catwoman, Cyclops, Hulk, Thor, Saturn, Elektra, Gambit...and I could go on and on and on. I had loved Sin City and 300. So when the promos for 'The Spirit' started showing with Eva Mendes and Paz Vega scorching the screen, I could barely wait to watch it.

I should have stuck to the promos!

The movie is a visual feast. The actors Gabriel Macht, Eva Mendes, Paz Vega, Jamie Fox, Scarlet Johanassen, Sarah Paulson and Samuel L. Jackson are all good actors, some of course better then the rest. And this brilliant cast and fantastic graphics makes the bad direction and screenplay even more appalling!

First things first...the dark edgy Frank Miller graphic novel visual style DOES NOT go with the general camo tone of the film. Secondly, nobody wants to watch a camp superhero movie! And finally...and the worst of all; you CANNOT change the character of a super villain and make him look worse than a comic strip clown in the name of "...oppurtunity to be larger than life...". The Octopus is larger than life and making him period costumes will not change things for the better.

Why is it so difficult for people to leave the good things be? A menacing villain identified only by his gloves; whose face has never been seen versus a black man behaving like a queen who can't dress. Frank Miller is a briliant director...but he should stick to what he's good at -- edgy, adrenaline stashed movies.

Anyhow, now for the good things in the movie...Eva Mendes is the ultimate femme fatale. But then again, she's always that. She's the only woman I've seen on screen who can carry off orange lip tinge with panache! Paz Vega; very good and very underrated, is stunning as Plaster of Paris. Jamie King is alluring as Lorelaine - the angel of death. Scarlett Johansson and Sarah Paulson are prim, pretty and seductive. Samuel L. Jackson is wasted in a role that did not need him. And finally, Gabriel Macht, did look the best I've seen in any of his pics online. He should keep the dark hair look.

I am no great movie critic, and I am perhaps out of my depth here...but it's a very basic flaw in the entire show -- the director wanted to cram in too many things. He wanted the original camp humour of the comic series, he wanted the dark look of Sin City, he wanted a brilliant star cast, and he wanted to touch up the whole thing with his 'vision' of 'larger than life' costumes signifying the 'samurai, nazi, russian, and blaxploitation' movies.

Aaaarrrgh! It's a comic strip movie. Just keep it simple!!!

Love, sex and intimacy

I had been a naive child. I had found out the details about sex much later than the rest of classmates had. This was partly due to the fact that I was a prudish no-nonsense sort of a child.

But things change, thankfully!

Anyhow, this is not a post about innocence lost, nor is this post about my escapades. (It amazing what feats one can perform with the correct choice of words!)

I was thinking of the general perception I have noticed amongst my friends and aquaintances pertaining to love, and sex. Its also a cross-cultural thing I guess. One important factor in this was that I'd recently read 'It Does Not Die' by Maitreyi Devi in its original bengali version 'Na Hanyate'. It is by far one of the best books I have read in any genre, in any language. Perhaps I will have audacity to review it here someday, but for now let's suffice it to say this book touched me in a way nothing had touched me in a long time.

This book told me what we have known since a while,which, very flatly put, will boil down to that the western perception of love is markedly different from the indian outlook towards it. The western concept of love ( as it appears to me) has a certain rigid structure to it, there's always the initial romance, persuasion and a final culmination in the physical expression of it. There's no doubt that I am indeed making a rash generalization of it, but if you should notice, all love stories in the western tradition need even a symbolic gesture of the physical for it to be complete.

Surprisingly, the indian perception seems to me to be more flexible; even liberal if you will. There are no guidelines as to how things should proceed and how they must culminate. The spiritual almost essentially overshadows the carnal here and any physical expression seems only to mar the concept of love.

All said and done, its still funny how the focus seems to be upon definitions and notions of how things should be and not on how things are. How can the definition of love be generic when the concept of it remains based on the intimacy of feelings of one, two or more persons?

I mention more options than two simply because I refuse to believe that intimacy must exist only between more than one and less than three. Who can claim for certain that the saga of Narcissus was a wretched tragedy and not the ultimate romance? Who is to say all menage-a-trois lack love or intimacy? Why must every Columbine need a Harlequin so she may dance? Why must the saga of Chitrangada need Arjun to be immortal?

If you had to choose between the sparks of a moments intimacy and lifelong insipid romance, what choice shall you make?

When we are growing up, we all have best friends...someone we share everything with, someone who we think will always be there, forever. when does it all change?

The Bubble Reputation

It's been a long while again...but then it's not so bad after all.

I am reading this book called The Bubble Reputation now, and it's by an american writer called Cathie Pelletier.

Well, I'll be very honest and say that I had completely given up on contemporary american writers, and then I started reading this book. And it made me smile after a long long time...not a laughter of sarcasm...not a faint smile of admiration at some clever phrase or some obscure but beautiful word...just plain old genuine good humoured laughter...something I never thought anyone but Wodehouse would be able to manage.

Someone should make a movie out of it...it definitely has a 'Midsummer' insanity attached to the whole book...and then there are all these cats named Ralph, and Mugs, and Winston...absolutely breathtaking, and breathtakingly beautiful.

There's still some hope left in the world after all!

random thoughts..

love

passion

relationship

obsession

crush

infatuation

craze

life

career

happiness

satisfaction

complacency

peace

freedom

bliss

habits

hobbies

pastimes

leisure

journeys

sojourns

sex

seduction

fun

humour

sarcasm

laughter

smiles

tears

torrents

tempests

movies

theatre

melodrama

pathos

violin

salsa

tea

e-books

honey

pooh-bear

batman

catwoman

friends

friends

friends

friends

friends

friends

friends

friends

friends

.

.

.

I realized its been eons since I composed anything...life takes its toll on everyone I guess.

A lot has happened in between...a whole year has ended, I have chenged places, my heart and a bit of my attitude.

let's see what the new year brings forth.

Happy new years people...

cheers!

Yesternight, I was talking to someone interesting...after a long long while....and it was 00:00 hrs...and suddenly I had the strongest urge to run out of doors and start walking on the road.

That someone totally freaked out when I mentioned what I was doing!!!

It was kind of fun....

I am a Love-Machine Cat!!!

You scored as Love Machine Cat, Look out! The love machine is on the loose. You might want to take off a night of permiscuity and go get your junk checked out. Nothing sadder than a cat with herpes. Couch Potato Cat 92% Love Machine Cat 92% Ninja Cat 75% Pissed at the World Cat 67% Derranged Cat 67% Nerd Cat 50% Drunk Cat 42% Which Absurd Cat are you? created with QuizFarm.com

of exams and new roommates...

I messed up my exams...the last two...to be precise...and I have a new roommate.

Nice bloke...the roommate guy ie, only this is perhaps the first time he's out of nest...and he seems extremely scared of me...how and why I have no clue. But at times this whole thing gets to me...I refuse to believe that I'm that intimidating by nature...I try to be nice...

Well...that's about it...need to get out of the 'I screwed my exam' mode soon...

ciao people!

new job...new assignments...

So far so good!

That's what I said when most of my friends asked me how the whole new job thing was working out....so far so good indeed...got through this strange english proficiency test...and was fortunate enough to get into the top bracket!!!

Unfortunately enough we who got through into that had to go through reviewing 'self-help' books today and we are supposed to submit a review tomorrow.

I never thought I'd read a self-help book ever; and now this!

And there's something extremely strange about this campus...they guys in here all seem to have some fascination for the pink colour....the other day I and a friend were sitting and chatting and in a span of about 20-25 minutes, we spotted at the least 70-75 guys wearing pink shirts and pink T-shirts!

Is it just me or is the planet going nuts???

I need to go through that self-help book now!!!

Sheesh...

Mysore....Mahisur

I am now in mysore...or shall I say Mahisur? The capital of Tippu Sultan...near the historical Shrirangapatnam....and there's magic in this place.

Yesterday...saturday....I went out with my coleagues/friends to the city and went to this palace museum called Jeganmohan Palace and I was stunned by the Painting collection....certain things defy expression....that did.....perhaps because its been quite a while since I've been in the company of something so marvellous....

And then gradually the flaws began to take their toll....bad maintenance....tourists(?) vandalizing the walls and the picture frames....I possibly could have killed a couple of them that day...

If you cannot respect or admire something....please at least show some trace of civillization in yourself and leave them alone for people who admire them...please...

but this perhaps has not much to do with appreciating 'art' as it is about having a good time outing with your 'friends and pals'.....ogling at females and howling about....

and the funniest thing is that my Mom keeps telling I'm too unsocial and that I should try and improve!

This society and this civillization.....I think I'm happy being myself!

Oh! And if you think you can appreciate a work of art...do visit the museum....and stand in front of the 'Glow of Hope' in the museum....its a watercolour and I haven't seen many which are better. The museum also boasts of a self portrait by Rembrandt and quite a few Ravi Vermas.

Everything's eventual all right!

YIPPIE!!!

I got a new job...in a new field and even got my joining date....possibly shall go home for another bout of vacation...

And I eventually managed to confess my love to someone...and was surprised that it was not that huge a deal anyway.....

We create too much fuss over words at times....

As I was strolling by the beach in Pondicherry, I came across this sign board -- 'DO NOT SWIM' it said. DO NOT SWIM indeed. The sea here is not the lake meant for swimming, and the beach is rocky. It's not smooth here. It's not safe. And yet, DO NOT SWIM. Do not swim coz we cannot protect you. Do not swim even though the only water you'll swim in perhaps shall be the shallow swimming pool with its civilized stench of chlorine and ozone. Do not swim even though that's the only thing you really want to. Your desire can possibly not be more important than your safety! My mother, usually rational, believes my horoscope that says I shall possibly die of water; and she's scared for me and cannot understand the fascination I have for the sea. I believe that part of my horoscope too. And I still cannot fathom the fascination i have for the sea -- the wild untamed sea. And I'd like to die in the sea. What could possibly be a better way to write 'finis'? And as I walked the slippery rocks next to the sea in Pondicherry at night, as the waves lashed against them in frustrated wrath spraying me with the salt spume...the urge to give in and jump into the sea was immense. Immense... The urge to kill one's self, suicide, is not glamorous. It is cowardice. But I always had that urge in me. I still do. And the fight between the will to live and the lure of giving in to the urge has often left me exhausted. Extremely exhausted. It's rather funny as I love every moment of being alive. I love being myself. I love the life I lead. And somehow I understand that the urge to kill myself is not about my life. It's the eternal suicidal lust of being in control. Even funnier coz I am rather in control. To the real, rational world, the future holds many promises. But once in a while, while jumping on the rocks by the Pondicherry beach, the line between reality and fantasy gets blurred; death becomes more mesmerizing than menacing; and the end seems to gold more promises of beginning than the future. But for the eternal rebel in me, I'd have jumped in and not swam. But I will not conform to the instructions of someone telling me not to swim! So I get off the rocks, and walk back to my date who's talking over the cellular. We hold hands and walk away. I try hard not to look back.

I will be the flame...

Beautiful, tender, wasting away for sorrow;

Thus to-day; and how shall it be with thee to-morrow?

Beautiful, tender—what else?

A hope tells.

- Christina Rossetti

lonely...

While on a trip to bangalore to visit my friends and while walking up and down the (in)famous Brigade Road in there, I saw this dog, curled up tight by the window of a very expensive clothes retailers place. I had been going around that place fr more than four hours now, and when i was returning, I saw it again...in the same place...same position...same lazy eyes checking the passers by with little curiosity. To imagine that its forefathers had once been wild and free. Oh...what have we done to this world? (And the worst part is, I possibly will not do much else beyond posting some stuff on my blog, and getting a nice pic of a nice dog and wonder what could have been.)

Homesick #1

That was the sight from our terrace the day I left.

Yes, it was only october 8th and there was fog and mist. Yes...home is always paradise.

A Transience's Worth...

To see the universe in a grain of sand
All you need is a heart that beats;
The mirror, vain in her sheen
Scarce knows what he, in her, sees.


To love and be loved, be that a moment
One flicker of light that fades away soon;
Still has more life than eternity,
More life than the sun and the moon.

A gamblers prize, a louts tale
Rare have the trace of gold;
Two beating hearts, a moments passion
Is worth more than all the epics told.

Abhijit Deb Roy