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The sound of Silence

A masterpiece of a song. I love the lyrics.
Video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLEmyeQlS5M



Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
Beneath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one deared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the signs said the words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence

This and that.

I was on the verge of going underground again, to deal with some of the mess I have going on in my mind. You know, situations where you feel lost, confused, frustrated and cannot seem to pin point on a particular reason for your state of mind..and hence, clearing out the mess becomes a tad difficult..yea.. I was in that state of mind. I do realize now, that most of the confusion and stress was self created. As in, I was worrying and fretting for no apparent reason. Happens a lot with me. :(

Anyways, a lot happened over the past few days. S rammed our car in a tree and we had to buy a new car. That meant searching on craigslist, taking the bus to work, a lot of walking around to run the errands, being tired and yes, being tired. In the middle of all this, I spent a week in Colorado for work, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The training I was attending used to get over at 4 everyday, and I had pretty much the rest of the day to myself. So, it was all fun. And a welcome change. Spent the evenings taking long walks by myself, driving around on random roads without any particular destination in mind and taking a LOT of snaps. I think I took record number of snaps on this trip. I feel there is something very attractive about "just driving". No GPS to tell you the destination, no allotted time within which you have to reach that destination.. Just keep on driving. Take a random exit to watch the sunset, breath in the cold countryside air, and just soak in the nature and surroundings. That is what I had been doing almost all evenings of the week. I did get lost one time, but reached the hotel safe and sound by bed-time :D. The only thing that sucked was eating outside food for so long. As much as I love to eat out, eating hotel food for 7 days sucked. On day 3 I was so fed up of restaurant food, that I was craving for simple dal-chawal, and unable to find it anywhere close by I skipped meals that day :|.

A dear friend mailed saying he is the proud daddy of a cute baby girl .. :) I am still digesting the news. It is hard to imagine my batchmates as moms and dads. The other day, another batchmate-friend of mine and I were talking about how we don't feel grown-up enough. I mean, I have been married for about a year, and I don't feel "married". Maybe that is because all around me people seem to change after marriage. They lose touch, always seem busy and seem so "grown up" in general. The other day, mom mentioned in passing how I haven't changed a bit after marriage. I took that as a compliment. And that lead to further discussions with mom on what change she was expecting me to undergo. She said that ideally marriage in particular should not be the reason for any sudden change in a person. You do change over a course of time, but many a times, marriage does impose a lot of sudden responsibilities, lifestyle changes, habit changes that you seem to become a whole another person. So yes, she was in general happy that marriage as such has not brought about any catastrophic change in my life.

Anyways, I shall take leave now, and promise to come back with a better and meaningful post. Till then happy Friday and have a good weekend :)

Hum Tum..

*Click on the image to see details*

1) Sometimes we yell and sulk..



2) Sometimes we are just the drama queens/kings ...



3) But then we do make up :-)



4) And are happy just to be with each other..



Few days back I was plonked on the couch one evening after work, and saw these two very cute birds on the patio railing. I had put some haldiram on the railing for the birds, and these two stopped by for a snack. They were doing such funny antics, that I made a mad dash for my camera and clicked away madly. Unfortunately, I didn't have my zoom lens attached, and had to be satisfied with super cropped images.

A note and a poem.

I had gone underground past few weeks. From posting anything on the blog, that is. So, Past few weeks, I have been reading a lot about some issues: child abuse (April is the month dedicated to child abuse awareness, btw), gender inequality, the skewed sex ratio in India. And I was just so bogged down by all this. Its not like Im reading about all these things for the first time. These issues are really close to my heart, and I always try and read up as much as I can about them, but the past few weeks have been different, for some reason. I was just feeling so hopelessly frustrated seeing so much injustice around me. And helpless too. So, I have been conditioning myself, tutoring myself on how to look at all these things without them affecting my peace of mind. I do want to follow up on all these issues, talk, discuss, spread awareness and help with these issues, and I guess the first thing I need to do is make myself immune to the pain and injustice involved in the issues. Only then, I will be able to think clearly, objectively, without being biased and most importantly, without making me lose my peace of mind over them. So, thats what I have been trying to do. Trying to calm myself down. :-)

In keeping up with the non-humorous, serious tone of this post, let me share with you a poem I came across recently. Such beautiful, deep and meaningful lines.

On Marriage
Kahlil Gibran
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.


Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.


Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

i am not back. Yet.

The owner of this website is undergoing maintenance. She shall be back soon. Please dont worry (or do worry) whatever suits you ;-)

The so called 'woman's day'

Few days back, the hubby and I were discussing how women did not protest when the songs sheila ki jawani and munni came out. And more so, when they won awards! It nauseated me to a great extent that these songs were appreciated. I feel they are plain derogatory. I mean, the dhobis put up a protest when Dhobi Ghat released, and no one protested when these songs were lauded!! But anyways, I will reserve my opinion on how we should come out of seeing ourselves and other women as objects of attraction, for some other day. What I will write instead is about this "anthem" that Start plus released for woman's day. (Check out the link, before you read further!)

My 2 cents on this:
You know what, let me first poke fun at this idiotic video, and then share my opinions :P
1) There are so many 'technical' bugs in this video.
You wake up looking all fresh with nicely done hair? seriously? When I wake up, I have a new hairstyle (which resembles the rockstar spikey hairstyle) and I have trouble opening my eyes completely till hubby pokes me in my tummy.

2) Then, you cook and send off your kids, spend time with the elders while the husband sleeps. Seriously, what time do you even wake up to squeeze in all of this?! And till what time does the husband sleep?!!

3) Then, you chase away people. Yes, run around wearing a "saree" (why am i not surprised!), become a substitute police inspector (are you kidding me?!), play with the kids, dance, and then go to work. Seriously, it would take me a day to do all of the above things before I went to work. Either the woman has more than 24 hours in her day (or maybe sleeps for an hour) or maybe I am not a Super-woman like her and dont understand all this. I prefer the second option!

4) And to top it, the song 'tu hi tu' is irritating.

When I saw this video on IHM's blog, I got confused. Clearly, I had new material to write about (or should i say, rant about). But the ridiculousness level was so high, that I got confused on what to write about. The channel's mindless portrayal of a woman and the media's carelessness and TRP greed, or its unfairness towards the women, or the unfairness towards the men (seriously, the man in the video looks like a wimp..who just wakes up, drinks tea and goes off to work, while the wife slogs away! You wouldn't want to be portrayed like that now, would you ? ;)). I will reserve the media bashing for some other day, and concentrate on how the advertisement is unfair. And no, even if it is Star Plus which publishes crap, it is high time we start paying attention to these portrayals and condemning them instead of 'not paying them any attention'.

To start with, what I don't understand is, why do we need to 'celebrate' woman-hood. What is there to celebrate? The fact that women (as they have shown in this advertisement) wake up before everyone, tends to the elders and husband and kids, cook, chase away people, dance, work, come back late and yet, on top of this, manage to keep a smile on their face?
Why put unnecessary pressure on women that they 'need' to do all these things in order to gain approval from the people around you? Why the need to be the super woman who "juggles career and home". Because seriously, life becomes simple if both (and all family members, in case of joint family) partners contribute to house work, and in that case the woman does not 'need' to juggle everything. It is too high a expectation, and an unreasonable and unfair one, at that. And I don't understand why women even try and meet these expectations? Why do we create these definitions of a 'perfect' woman, a perfect man, a perfect wife, a perfect mother? Why is making mistakes and being a supposed non-perfect entity such a big deal?! And why put forth these 'yardsticks' in the form of such advertisements as measurement to how good a woman you are?!

A tag: Childish misconceptions.

This tag is making the rounds of the blog world, and I found it too cute to resist. 'Logic' to a child is different than 'logic' to an adult. But interestingly, 'logic' cannot be absolute. Because reasoning and logic is continuously evolving one cannot really say that a particular logic (or reasoning) is correct and a particular logic is wrong with 100% certainty. The logic I used as a child no longer holds true in most of the cases, giving this list of what now are 'misconceptions' for my adult logic.

1) I always thought that money grew on money plant. Just to strengthen my belief my cousin had kept some coins in the pot and told me he had proof.
2) I always used to wonder why we don't see our own eyes with our eyes. I used to also think that our eye balls can actually roll back in their sockets, and that way we can see the walls of the socket.
3) I used to think that there are wayside chocolate heaps in USA. Because everyone i knew as a child who came from 'foreign' got truck loads of chocolates with them.
4) I had sown a orange creme biscuit with the hope of getting a tree full of orange creme biscuits. I used to water it regularly.
5) I used to think the "songs" were stored in the audio tape of the cassette, and if I took out the 'tape' from the cassette, I will be able to catch the songs in my hands. With this thought in mind, I was the mastermind behind removing (and destroying) the audio tapes of my grandfather.
6) For the *longest* time, I thought oral sex meant kissing. I was freaked when i found out what it actually meant. This misconception was not when I was a kid, per se.. but quite grown up. Yea, I am stupid that way. :D
7) I used to think if I swallowed a seed, a plant will grow from my tummy. :D Thats why I used to hate eating peanuts as a child. Peanuts, in particular, because we had done an experiment in school where we had grown a plant from a raw peanut. Once, I actually ate a peanut, but was scared to drink water, because i didn't want to fuel the nut I was made to eat. :D
8) For quite some time, I was under the notion that I was a scientist. This was after I broke a thermometer, and the mercury droplets spilled on the floor. When I pushed two drops near each other, they (surprisingly) became one droplet. I was ecstatic, and held on to this belief that I was very smart and capable of 'inventing' things. This belief was soon broken :D

Take up this tag guys. I would love to read the creative things you thought as a child. :)

A Tag: Small Joys.

Small Joys-

Yamini's tag was very tempting and so I picked it up shamelessly! :D

- coming to work on time (read, coming early). I love to start my work-day early.
- Finding a parking spot very close to the entrance.
- Beating an almost red traffic light.
- finding a few coins in the wallet for the vending machine, when I am really hungry (or craving something)
- watching re-runs of Harry Potter and LOTR. Especially with like minded (HP/LOTR fans) people.
- Cooking together with friends.
- Buying a couch after ages and officially turning into a couch potato!
- Plonking on the couch with a book.
- Preparing my mind to go home and cook, and then later finding out its hubby's cooking turn instead!! (we cook alternate days in turns, if you must know ;))
- Sharing PJs (silly jokes) with mom.
- Me and mom pulling my sister's leg. She is such an easy target.
- Transferring photos from the SD card to laptop, viewing them and actually liking some of the shots.
- Spending time later editing and playing around with the shots. Oh! what fun :)
- Completing a hike I thought was beyond my reach.
- Girls' time out.
- gtalk chats.
- Finding out that a dear dear friend might visit the US, and I might even get to meet him!
- reading favorite blogs.
- a good session of yoga.
- hitting the bed after a long day.
- Watching Colin Firth movies and getting goosebumps. (yea, I act stupidly when I see his movies)
- sneaking impromptu Starbucks visits with hubby during the week.
- SRT
- Portrait/people photography.
- listening to old voicemails left by near and dear ones. (sounds crazy, but I do this when I am craving to hear mom's voice or missing a friend)
- Exploring a new city alone.
- Selective ignoring. I am getting so good at not letting some people affect me. :D
- trying to re-create mom-cooked-food-taste, and getting close enough. :)
- cheap thrills.
- Taking up this tag and realising that it pays to see the brighter side of things.

A little bit of color! - A photo heavy post!!

Well, its raining outside, and I am working from home today :).
I love it when the seasons transition. As we get ready to bid the winter goodbye, and welcome spring, I thought I will color up things a little bit. (Hence the blog template change and a photo-post). Lately, I have been obsessed with the color yellow. And it is quite evident from my recent photographs I posted on facebook. I brought home a bunch of yellow tulips recently, and tortured them to death by making them pose for me. Later a bunch of Narcissus had to bear the brunt of my (and hubby's) cameras. I never knew there was a flower called Narcissus, until we visited the farmers market a few weekends back, and saw these absolutely gorgeous yellow (but, of course!) and pale white flowers. It has a very sweet smell, similar to the mogra flowers that are common in India. Another flower that is making abundant appearance during this time is the cherry blossoms. I am not a big fan of pink, but the blossom's delicate structure complements pink color so beautifully, that I can endure the pink in this case. Anyways, without further ado, I shall post the flower pics (those who are in my fb friend list, will find the pics familiar :)).

*Click on the pic for a better view*

1) Tulips-1

2) Tulips-2

3) Random (dont know what they are called)

4) Narcissus-1

4) Narcissus-2

5) Cherry Blossoms

Clink!

And, a year goes by!! One year, without us getting down at each others' throats, without me threatening to leave the house (yea, I am quite the drama queen at home), or without you threatening to throw me out of the house, we made it. :) . Though, technically we stayed together just a couple of months during this one year, it was all awesome-ness, I shall admit. And though I used to love my single life, and staying alone and all the erratic randomness of it all, I just cant imagine what I would do without you around me.
And because I am superstitious about putting too much of "us" out to the world, or maybe I don't have anything else to say, I shall just say one thing..
Cheers! to 'us'. May the 'us' element never die :)

Dhobi Ghat-review (contains no spoilers ;))

Even if I wanted, I cannot give spoilers for this movie. Because, there is no story, no twists and turns, no secrets and no particular point the director tries to make. And this is what I loved about the movie.
Yes, I absolutely enjoyed watching the movie, irrespective of my high expectations that accompanied me and a bunch of my friends to the movie theater. It did not let me down.

The movie is almost a documentary, which documents a particular time in the lives of 4 people. The stories of each of the 4 people are incomplete, with no definitive "end", because that's what life is, I feel. There are no 'stories', no 'starts' and no 'ends'. And that's how the movie feels like. Just a peep into their lives. Though Initially I felt the end was abrupt, I later thought about it, and felt it was the best was to end the movie. to leave some lose strings. unanswered questions. It felt real.

The movie is almost like a photo album. With some narrative, some background music (which is minimal, and goes perfectly well with the subdued tone of the movie) and the characters weaving in and out of the photo album. It is more of a collage of emotions, characters, photos, narration, and a very interesting and likable collage.

The cinematographer who has taken the still photographs in the movie is just stupendous. It is mostly portrait photography, shooting people at work. Such awesome captures! Looking at those photos almost made me think about changing my profession to photography. Ah well, I am back to work today :|.

The things I loved the most about the movie is that it is very un-assuming. Very laid back.. in the sense, it does not seem to hurry in any particular direction. It does not try and give any particular opinion (like most of the movies do today) and most important of all, it is not loud. It does not have any 'over the top' portrayal of anything. Not only in terms of audio, but everything. Right from the theme, the characters, the dialogues, the camera work, the music... it seems very subtle, gentle and soft. Which is so much missing in the bollywood movies of today.

My favorite characters: those of Munna and Yasmin.

A rant on the Globes..

Now, I don't follow the awards (either Hollywood or Bollywood) at all, and only go through the list of winners/nominations to catch up on good movies I might have missed during the year. And this post is because I read in the news about the Golden globe winners, and I am shocked to say the least. Inception didnt bag any of the major Globes. :( . I am super sad, and angry and feel it is a completely bad choice! (if only, they would listen to me!!). I mean c'mon.. Social Network was good, but in no way does it beats Inception! I mean, for me, Inception and Nolan are the epitome of what intelligent movie making is all about. And After watching Inception I was so sure that this movie was going to walk away with most of the major awards this year. Even after Social Network, I thought Inception was way ahead in the award race. But unfortunately, I am not one of the judges. So cant really do much but crib about it here, and continue undaunted support to all of Nolan's movies. (and maybe reduce facebooking, as a revenge) . Not a direct connection , but still..I am very angry right now to make much sense! ;)

On the other hand, Colin Firth absolutely deserved the 'best actor' for his stupendous portrayal as a stuttering would-be king, in 'The King's Speech'. That is one outstanding movie, and Firth's inner struggle to get the words out and overcome his stutter is so real and simply mindblowing. An award well deserved. I did have a tough time concentrating on the movie, and not just sit and drool over Firth! I mean, he is positively an eye candy in that movie. Well, any movie!! My Mr. Darcy!! sigh ...

I did think Natalie Portman was awesome in 'Black Swan'.. Quite a complex portrayal as the protagonist. But then I have not seen any other movie in the 'best actress' category, so cant really say if it was just or not.

My weekend trivia

Because I was whining to the hubby that he doesn't take me out anywhere, and has kept me under house imprisonment ever since I shifted to the bay area, he relented and took me to SF over the weekend. Yes, yes I have a car and know driving, and love to go out and roam around on my own (or with friends), but as I tell hubby, I am his "nayi naveli dulhan" who doesn't know anyone in this "anjana shaher" (just for the record, I have loads of friends here, but I like being a drama queen), it is his responsibility to take me out and show me exciting places!! Man, I am amazed he claims to be happy staying with me! :D
Anyways, so Saturday saw us hike and huff and puff our way up hills, surrounded by old redwood trees of Muir woods. I had never been there before and was excited, to say the least. Forests and mountains awaken the child in me. And, they thrill me. The hike was very nice, and a pat on my back because I completed it (given my fitness level ;)).

Fate later awarded me by treating me to the *best* Thai food I have ever had. (I generally don't like Thai cuisine because most of the dishes have ground nuts and coconut in them...not my coveted food items). No exaggerations here, but it was the best Pad Thai noodles I have had up until now. The place is 'Sai Jai', located in the Thai town of San Francisco. We had never been there, and this was the first place we saw after coming out of the public parking garage. And one of the few places open for us for our 4 pm lunch. As ravished I was after the long hike, I thought it was the hunger that made me like the food. But no, after eating half the plate of Pad Thai, my tummy was full, and I could still not stop hogging on the noodles. I should mention that the plate was clean to the last bit of ground nut piece there was in the pad Thai, and I gave a satisfied, tasty sigh! We checked later and this restaurant has a good rating, with no-nonsense, no-frills-attached simple and delicious Thai food. Do try out, if you stay in the SF neighborhood.

We later roamed, or rather hiked, on the SF streets. Stopping by to take photos and to catch our breaths. What is with the steep roads in SF?! But the walk proved to be a great idea to aid digesting the humongous amount of food I had stuffed in. And soon after, I was ready for my customary mug of Ghirardelli hot chocolate at the Girardelli chocolate factory. It was quite late into the night, and with chilly winds making the rounds, the hot chocolate with a huge dollop of whipped cream was just the thing required to end my day. Now, people who know me I am a chocoholic, and even with so many awesome choco desserts, ice creams, sundaes they serve at Ghirardelli, I can totally by pass them for the hot chocolate. Take a look at this scrumptious chocolate delight! Who would not want it?!

Title: All that is good and pure!!!

NOKJ- attempt at review

Watched 'No one killed Jessica' Over the weekend. Some thoughts after seeing the movie:
- I liked the movie. Definitely a good effort.
- I liked Rani's role and her acting in that role. She did come across as a carefree, career oriented journalist with some sense of whats right and whats wrong.
- I am still not sure about Vidya's portrayal of Sabrina Lall. It was subdued, and very common-man-ish (woman-ish), the way it was supposed to be, I guess. But in some of the scenes the emotions she portrayed failed to reach me, for some reason. But there were quite a few genuine scenes where I was weeping profusely.
- Absolutely loved the portrayal of the police inspector (by rajesh sharma, is it?). He portrays as a bribe taking inspector, who provides help to the case, in every way possible way. He knows he has got to take the bribe (or else lose his bread and butter), but he really wants justice for the victim. His internal struggle when justice is denied is shown nicely, I feel.
- The line by the key witness (who portrays shayan munshi) 'Mujhe paise nahi chahiye, but mujhe ek goli bhi nahi khani' is rocking. It really got me thinking and we were discussing about it for a long time after watching the movie. Imagining myself in his shoes, what would I have done? It was not a question of 1 crore that was being offered, but it was a question of life or death. What would you do, in similar situation?
- This case, and several others, where witnesses turn hostile, shows that we ought to give high security to the witnesses. Especially, where wealthy and influential parties are involved. But then, is it asking for the impossible, considering that the people who provide security (or the policemen) can be (and are) influenced by these influential people?!
- In the movie, where they have shown public uproar after the acquittal of the accused, one person says something like 'we people go to the police and the law to get justice, but if even in these places there is corruption, where would we go?', made me realise the hopelessness of the whole situation. Because this case re-opened, and because this was such a "high-profile" (for the lack of better word) case, it saw justice (after years). But there are countless such cases which probably dont even see the light of day.
- The movie raises many questions (which we probably know), that make us think and re-think.
- Most of the reviews I read before, rave about the music.. But I absolutely hated it. It just didnt keep up with the mood of the film. The 'Dilli' track is good (and goes well with the description od Delhi), but otherwise the background tracks were just mood killers.
- I am terrible at writing reviews! :)

2011!!

Pic: added later.. One of my home bokeh experiments :D

First of all, a happy new year to all of you.

I rang in the new year with a blast..by falling ill :|.
But anyways, I was not planning on partying and braving the cold weather to go out to bars and pubs and drinking myself silly. So started the new year with some friends, having dinner together and then cosying up with hubby and happily falling asleep. Spent the next morning on facebook for sometime (precisely 20 mins :)).. going through some of the photos people had put of new year partying. That reminds me of a recent thought I have had. Of deleting my facebook account. Going completely off the network. I have a love-hate relationships with these social networking websites. While, its a great medium to share some useful and entertaining videos, links etc. The stupidity of it all nauseates me. Few days back 'someone' posted a status update "ill". Thats it. I mean, whats the point, right? If you are ill, you rest. And not open facebook and strain your eyes further. To top it, couple of people had liked the status. Forget other people, someof my own status updates have nauseated me beyond imagination, and hence, its been a while I have not posted any update on fb. I mean, no one cares, right? And for the people who actually care, or I want them to know, there are better means. Hence facebook-ing has drastically decreased to about a couple of time a week, for about 15-20 minutes... thats about it. And I plan to reduce it further till the point I can muster enough courage to actually go off it. Anyways, I digress. As I was saying, people had put some real funky, weird and wild photos of new year parties. dressed up, drunk and happy (perhaps). Looking at all these party photos made me feel old. I was never the 'party person', and dread crowds even today...but just going through these pics in my old granny pajamas, socks, a woolen cap (kaan-topi, for those who get marathi), a cough and wheeze for company and aching body and specs sliding down my nose (ah well, scratch out the specs.. don't have pair. yet) made me feel really...old. Or maybe it was the cold and fever getting to my head, because as of today, I am back to my non-old state. And as they say, getting old is just a state of mind. (Has anyone said that before?). It has got nothing to do with the fact that I have quite a few white strands of hair, and that I pant when I climb more than 3 flights of stairs (and take the elevator when no one is watching..Taking the elevator is frowned upon here), and that I make statements like 'you kids' to my sister who is mere 3 years younger to me. It means that I need to go to the gym and take care of my hair than it means I am getting old. humph. I am sure.

And, as far as the new year is concerned, I do plan to consciously do a few things this year. I wont call them 'resolutions' per se (just for the sake of not jinxing them).
1) I plan to work hard.. at whatever I do. Thats about it. This one thing should keep me quite busy, no?

well now, will sign off and start working (hard). :)