A day on train .....from south to north

People say lifei s a journey and on these faithful journey, we got to see and observe lot and lot of things that were worth to mention, observe and reflect on .

I want to quote Stevenson's 'those woods are lovely but I still have miles to go ....' indeed it was an experience of my lifetime when i boarded these faithful ' Sampark Kranti Express ' from Banglore to Delhi, this week. I got to feel the real taste of India .. There was these Aunty( we call her dadi but she says she is not old enough to be dadi...so she is called aunty )from Punjab settled in Banglore, and there was Arindam from secunderabd ( bengali babu) , Hitesh ( marwari from hyderabad), Ardik ( nagpur) studying in bangalore, zeenat ( from aligarh now settled in dubai),kishore ( bangalorean )then myself and lisa .Any way, there at this faithful journey that God had bestowed on us, we discussed , talked, chat, gossip everything, anything that comes from our mouth.. and believe you me , the two nights that we spend on the train were worrth, right from insurgency in north east states to the cultures there, we talked about food habits in south india, how it is different from north india , the night life in dubai to the ttype of lifestyle in nagpur ,how the roads were in bangalore to how the girls are trated in dubai , how the newly wedded woman cope up with new life to how a saas behave with her bahu to how a cross culture relationship survives or is going to survive, by the way we all comprise of different age groups ( 15 - 70) an we all gel well, except that on the first night we have had to face some bullying from punjabi aunty, yes we were made to standstll for hours coz she doesn't allow us to occupy her sit, finally on the next morning ,we were saved from her wretch by one mulla uncle( oops i forget to mention him, by the way there were an old aged couple from bangalore to nagpur)who dares to stop her, but still being very vocal as you know old women ( i didn't mean these to women folks ,ok) she was adamant ..."kyu haat lagaya , mere saman ko , apni ma baap ne shikhaya nahi... oh! all those bhasans she gave , that she nwarly killed ardik from her vocal tratment coz poor ardik didn't have anything ,so she started tormenting her like are you on budget? are you on diet? you should have told me ,i could have share my food with you ? did you inform your parents to cook food for you / all these nonsense make him nauseated. And on first night to you should have seen the fun of chit chating , me with ardik, lisa with arindam, zeenat with the marwari guy...all of us grossed with nonsense and sensible talk till the wee hours ( sorry for my co passengers who had to bear our talks .)of early morning , and by four o clock our mulla uncle offer his namaz ,by five o clock punjabi aunty started her kirtan ..guess how the other people might have suffer on our bogey, my heartiest apologies to all of them. And, that was the first night , but the second night was of more fun , zeenat was frusrated with her marriage and poor me, as i am a late sleeper had to face her frustrations , whole night i was listening to her woes or her so called stories ....But nevertheless , it was a journey of lifetime . For the first time, i came across cross culture in person from south, east ,west and north.. sharing our foods ,thoughts ideas and many other things,, it just occurs to me that India is indeed unity in diversity, irrespective of taunts that we use to get from those third class or uncderclass citizens , there are still sections of people whom we can interact and continue our dialogues.
Finally, and not the least , I want to end these by saying that we always try to marginalise people when in real its not like that. We should be more forward and open to others so that we can communicate others well , gel well with them.

LOVE ...21ST CENTURY

One fine day, out of nowhere , a thought just arises out of my mind. Now I don’t know whether its my curiosity or my insecureness, but whatever I just asked my friend ( one of my best friend) that HOW DOES ONE FIND ITSELF IN LOVE ? I was expecting many romantic kind of answers , very touchy lyrical sort of answers, coz I myself was just wandering in these phase, but his answers stumped me . His answer was very simple , Love according to him was when a boy meets a girl and it ends when they had sex. It ends when they had sex....what an uncanny answer ,I nearly vomit myself. Ever in my world did I ever thought of these , I mean my friend has just corrupted these powerful word LOVE into some kind of infatuation. The bible clearly indicates that Love is from God ( 1 John 4:8) .With due course, if we opened our Bible ,the book of Genesis clearly mentioned “ created in the image of God”.
Now ,circa 21st century I wondered where these thoughts has vapourised. Yes ,clearly and statistically I want to be in love, by the way I have been in Love, in relationship, but these thought never come to my mind “ sex”. By the way, I want to remind again that by expressing such things, I am not trying to be over spiritual nor religious , every person has his/her own rights to express love , but not to these level of sexual love. Come fall in love, be in love , but don’t think of just sex.. please refrain yourself, can’t you just wait for that ultimate day!

Life's uncertainities.......never ever plan anything...

Never ever plan anything in detail, if it gets haywire ,I bet you will get lost,crazy ,mad whatever! It happens to me that I am writing here now, 21st November 2008 is red letter day for me, coz i did something which i can't do for the last six years. I thought that I will share my happiest day of the year with someone special ,whom I adore, in fact I chalked out everything, right from the venue to the time to the ambience everything was set in tone. Finally when the time ticks it was not that as I was expected , I had to change the venue ,change the time , suprisingly, thanks to my ALMIGHTY GOD, the place was perfect ,it was a candle-light dinner, the air was cool very cool ,I had to brave the November winds to wait for my special guest, that I started our dinner with hot lemonade !!! way to start men...
I was shivering ,not with joy but with cold, coz i never knew and thought that I would have an open candle-light dinner, but thanks to those November winds ,our conversation flow makes us warm our hearts, which caries on for the next three hours that we didn't realise it was about to be midnight. Had my guest not glance the watch, I think we could have jusst spend the night or we could be kick out from the place..
Everything was then just as what as it doesn't seems so ...but but those moments were priceless.
You never knew whats there ahead? You can't just think so, nor glimpse so. Its always uncertain.
I came with a what next? but I return back with what if ?

Month of November ??

These days, something just happened out of nowhere. I was clueless with my life and its speedyness. Weird or Funny , things seems to be heading towards pleasant sight of romance, I am 25/26 ,love to call myself some kind of introvert yet mystery person. Thought that I would rather go for an arranged marriage, had many priorities and many agendas, yet as the world revolves ,it changes Yes this month ,Winter has finally arrived and I guess someone has finally arrived for me, or who knows?
Little by little I am realisng my school days, where you spend most of your days over the phone, where you eagerly waited for a particular day, oh! you name it. I think I am having school fever or some similiar kind of sickness,
Some years ago, I used to grunt with one of my particular friend ,coz my friend can't help himself away from his girlfriend ,the moment he reach his place ,he ll continue to call her up till she reaches her place. I term as madness, .......now people think that I am becoming like that ?

I used to wonder when I ask my friends on their bachelor party or night ,that what was the longest time ever they spend over the phone ? Some says 6 hours, 2 hours, 12 hours, and believe you me 48 hours, I thought thats weird!!!!!! coz in my years of flirting and teens I have so far managed to talk for around 40 minutes , but hold on yesterday I talk to this particular good friend of mine ..for more than 2 hours ( it was 02:07:34 ) I am speechless, I am over the moon, can't sleep so easily ..have had remain awake all night ( its been going for the past four days). When I was in school my friends call these as PUPPY LOVE......lest ! I am wondering now "have I? "
I never ever thought in these world that I would ever encountered such awkward or stressfull or playfull situations, I thought thats only meant for school kids or so called teenagers not meant for a twenty five/twenty six year old mature human being .
Would love to think of something else only ,even in workplace, would start preparing where to go ? what to talk? what to wear? days ahead, oh..i am sick of these so called phenomenon thats hitting me really mad.

I guess i find a tonic for these......

Body Of Lies

When you get to know a movie by Ridley Scott( Gladiator, Black Hawk Down) and a script by William Monaghan ( The Departed ) with star cast of Leonardo Dicaprio and Russell Crowe, its only excitement that yield you to finally watch these movie “ Body of Lies”.

“Body of Lies “is indeed true in its sense, it is excessively intricate. The name sounds to be a thriller with kind of espionage centered drama but there is completely lacking of these. These time Ridley Scott have to walk out with a sordid face, because even Monaghan( The Departed) couldn’t have perfected the dialogues in a better way than just to influence the cellular phonetics with full of slurs and abuses. Many critics have commented this film as a political film, but I would say it as a typical Hollywood masala film. The film lacks in charisma and reality with that of subtle political drama”Syriana” neither it is different from “The Kingdom” “Rendition” “Lion for Lambs”. And I am far more disappointed because there isn’t that much of firework that I expect to see between Dicaprio and Russell Crowe; they have only a few scenes together. Crowe and Dicaprio spent most of their time on speaking on headsets.

In “Body of Lies” Crowe plays EdHoffman, a thick waisted CIA guy who hovers almost in all the movie in his headset instructing and demanding things to be done from his man Roger Ferris( Dicaprio) who is sent to Jordan to take charge of capturing the terrorist. Ferris then enlists the aid of Hani ( Mark Strong) the head of the Jordanian intelligence service. The film describes a post-9/11 world where U.S. and Jordanian governments, nominally anti-terrorist allies, distrust each other and refuse to share information. .Hani insists on Ferris’ unconditional honesty while he does his own thing in mystery, these lack of trust proves prescient as a clumsy move by Hoffman which backfires ended the deal of honesty between Ferris and Hani.

Dicaprio again gets off on playing a tough guy, good enough to pull this movie .And as in a typical Hollywood movie he found time to romance an Arab Nurse( Aisha), following her all the way to Palestine refugee camp, even a dinner at her sisters place for the approval of their relationship. The scene where Ferris gives his hand to thank his girlfriend for the dinner stands out, the orthodox people hovering them to see whether the girl actually gives her hand to the white guy.

Please don’t expect much from Crowe on this movie, he seems to follow from his role in “American Gangster “this time not convincingly. He saunters through the performance, giving a fussy performance. And the scene stealer is Hani (Mark Strong) who rakes the strong impression as the head of Jordanian Intelligence. He is extremely flawless in this movie, right from his sharp dressing sense to his self confidence. He may be the best bet the movie has to offer. Seriously after watching this movie you can sense that the culture conflict is depicted more strongly than the hunt for the terrorist. And the real taste of these movie comes somewhere in the end where Ferris is being subjected to torture by the terrorist. It looks really real. But for that to come on your mind, you have to wait for one hour and forty minutes.

TheLives of Others

‘The Lives of Others” a German film written and directed by first timer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck,gives us a srartling and satisfying perspective of humanism through the eyes of a Stasi captain(secret service of communist East Germany) in the early 90’s before the fall of Berlin Wall. The film is indeed crafted in a masterpiece way depicting a way where two men touch each other’s lives without ever meeting or sharing a word. This is not a story that depicts the oppressiveness or the truants of Communist East Germany in 80s but a story which makes us realize that even imperfect human beings (counting all of us) can sometime make themselves listen from their heart and make choices or decisions that will make them dwell among others ,as well as themselves ,to live their lives.

The film begins in a school or college, where a Stasi expert( Ulrich) was shown teaching to the students about different ways of interrogation – what to ask, how to ask etc. In no time, at the behest of Minister Bruno Hemp, Gerd Weisler( Ulrich) has been charged with a new assignment, to monitor the life of a famous playwright Georg Dreyman and his girlfriend Christa-Maria , who has become an object of obsession for a senior government official(Hemp), even though the couple have a spotless record of obedience and compliance. So Weisler and his crew sets up, installing the necessary network bugging Georg’s apartment hoping to capture Georg doing something “subversive,” and to ultimately bring an end to the playwright’s work and freedom.

But the unthinkable happens, Weisler comes to know how conflicted Georg feels torn between politics and career . Weisler soon finds out that the real reason why Dreyman is being spied on is that the minister Hempf ,was totally infatuated with Georg’s girlfriend, which destroys his motivation .. Eventually he becomes consumed by their lives, falls into kind of love with the actress . Wiesler hears the way Dreyman fights to help his close friend – a theatrical director – get off the government’s black-list and back to work, and how that director’s eventual suicide leads Dreyman to break his silence and submit a political essay to a western publication.
And in a moving sequence of events, Wiesler's empathy for the writer and his girlfriend has grown over time, and starts editing his reports to cover their tracks, coming to the decision to risk his life in protecting theirs.

This isn’t the only story. “ The Lives of Others “ is also a story about a couple with secrets, too heavy to bear for themselves. It’s a story of how fragile humans are, how susceptible are they to fear ,their capacity for compassion and change. But , at the end, von Donnersm succeeded in bringing us a moment of boundless joy from a story which takes place in a joyless world.

the kite runner by khalid hoseini

Amazing novel, excellent effort ... don’t know where to start ,but onus to Khalid Hoseini for his first novel ‘The Kite Runner” where he has shown devastating truth about the universal aspect of life: family, love, respect, friendship, disloyalty and war.

A timely novel set in the background of Afghanistan’s turbulent history. It is weaven away in such sort that it compels you to cry while you are reading the book. You really feel like thinking is this the way I am leading my life? Living in the Afghanistan in the 1960s ,young Amir (the protagonist) was constantly yearning for the love from his widowed father ,but was at the same time enjoying his privilege of material comfort, luxury of learning and a playmate in the form of Hassan ,a hazara. Despite their social flux ,Amir and Hassan enjoyed their friendship in such a way that though Amir was deceitful of his servant friend Hassan, by taunting him in those story sessions under the pomegranate tree beyond those cemetries, Hassan ever remain faithful that he was even prepared to eat dirt for his friendship. Their friendship really came to a litmus test on that fateful afternoon of 1975 when Amir’s cowardly failure to defend his friend left him with guilt and causes great rift among themselves, that the scar doesn’t heal Amir even after twenty years. Russian soldiers invade Afghanistan and Amir and his father had to seek political asylum in America. There he discovered his two loves: literature and Soorya ,his jaan.
After living 15 years in America, Amir receives a call from Rahim Khan, and flies to Pakistan to meet him . From Rahim Khan ,he learns shocking truths about his father and Hassan. There he finds and opportunity to amend his guilt by going back to Afghanistan and rescue Hassan’s son Sohrab from an orphanage.
What’s so conspicuous about this novel is its language, there is no display of writing but only expressions and expressions. Hoseini has achieved in winning our hearts by expressing Amir’s determination to atone his youthful cowardice, which is quite dramatic but then it is worth.
I am moved , and it made me to tears when on the later part of the story , Hassan mentions about the pomegranate tree where they had spend hours of playing and reading as “ the tree hasn’t borne fruit in years”. Such a culvinism taste, Hoseini has brought its magnificience in my eyes when I read this book. And not to forget, the pluralism Hoseini had inscribed in the story on both the beginning and in the end. The novel begins with Amir’s memory where Hassan is running after the kite for him , and the novel ends with Amir running for Hassan’s son Sohrab, as he begins a new life in America. Hoseini has perfectly shown that human’s capacity of kindness is forgiveness.
This is a real masterpiece, and I recommend everyone to read. On literary circle , it has its own essence . 3rd highest selling book in 2005 in the whole of Northern America ( more than 3 million prints), 120 weeks in NewYork bestselling chart, printed in 38 languages worldwide, soon going to be a major motion movie......... what makes you stopping to read this novel. Go , get yourself a copy and entertain yourself in its simplicity .