Last night, I watched Dhobi Ghat, a film by Kiran Rao starring Aamir Khan,Prateik Babbar, Monica Dogra and Kriti Malhotra.
Dhobi Ghat
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Category Archives: Life
IFFK/2010
So this is a LONG over due post! Anyway, a bunch of us from class got to attend the 15th International Film Festival of Kerala held in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala in December. Although the festival was from the 10th of December till the 17th, we got permission to attend it only till the 14th 
WRITER
Richard Castle
Sometimes, I wish I had one of those jackets that Richard Castle has which state what he is, in loud bold letters for the whole world to see – WRITER. I say this because, even if at the most superficial level, it’s some kind of identification. It sets him apart from not only his non colleagues but maybe even his peers.
WRITER.
See? So simple, so confident. It just rushes off your tongue like a gush of air. Whoosh. Powerful, yes? But it’s not so easy to identify with. Okay, so I write. But I don’t just want to be a writer. I want to be a (here we go again) WRITER. One that I can identify with the confidence that I WANT to have, that I often find myself wondering if I will EVER have.
I write all the time. I write tweets, poems, blog posts, essays, tests, exams. I write my name. I write my address, my college, my class, my section. I’ve written in slam books, on restaurant feedback cards. I’ve written on Facebook walls, on real walls. I’ve written my number on a boy’s hand. I’ve written love letters, hate letters, official letters. I’ve written apology notes, thank you notes.
But this I could be You. And I don’t want to be You. I want to be Me.
Me, the WRITER.
Glee/RCB
Today, I sit here and tell myself I will write. About what I don’t know, but you’re here already reading this so I might as well say something.
I’ve been watching Glee lately, and I love it. It seems plastic and superficial at first, you know high-school-drama (sigh) and cool kids and not-so-cool kids and teacher crushes and same-age-boy crushes. But then all these characters sing amazingly, fantastically, mind-blowingly well AND none of them are clear cut black and white (I kind of have a weakness for those kinds).
Also this week, I re-discovered my love for a certain RCB batsman. Well not re-discovered, it had just kind of subsided into a little corner that I visited occasionally when I saw his name in the papers or on television. But then I got to watch him play live against KKR at Chinnaswamy Stadium on Saturday, and there he was in the flesh – running, smiling, hitting gorgeous 4′s and 6′s. There is beauty in the world again.
I start my advertising internship tomorrow. Let’s see how that goes.
Negative Me
It’s been a while like I felt like this. Filled with negative energy, I might say.
Usually this is the point where I burst into an angst filled poem that never manages to be read by the intended recipient. I can’t very well go up to someone and say here, I wrote you this and proceed to watch as their face contorts into a question mark, can I? What would YOU do if some crazy girl wrote a hate poem about you huh? And no, it is NOT flattering/romantic/cute.
I remember once not-so-long-ago a freaky-yet-potentionally-harmless-boy told me that he named a character after me in his story. I didn’t wait to find out what “she” was like, or what happened to “her”. I kind of.. fled. The fact is, it’s disturbing to think about the way someone else sees you.
But it’s more disturbing to see yourself as you, right? Who is you, anyway? Isn’t that frightening? Are you the girl who listens to a certain type of music? (I’ve got Spice Girls’ “Viva Forever” playing right now, don’t judge me!) Or are you the girl who treats herself to the glass of ice tea from the stall near the college gate everyday? But all these conceptions of “me-ness” are mine, they aren’t yours. This one little trait you actually might find adorable, but then unless I reveal it to you, you’d never know and your entire perception of “me-ness” and your subsequent judgment (I know, Spice Girls, I know) might rest on this little missing piece of “me-ness” that you haven’t encountered.
And then your way of seeing ME is totally not fair.
I love that I do not take things lightly
An excerpt from Eve Ensler’s book “I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World”. Thank you Gaurav for making me listen to this!
I love being a girl.
I can feel what you’re feeling
as you’re feeling it inside
the feeling
before.
I am an emotional creature.
Things do not come to me
as intellectual theories or hard-shaped ideas.
They pulse through my organs and legs
and burn up my ears.
I know when your girlfriend’s really pissed off
even though she appears to give you what
you want.
I know when a storm is coming.
I can feel the invisible stirrings in the air.
I can tell you he won’t call back.
It’s a vibe I share.
I am an emotional creature.
I love that I do not take things lightly.
Everything is intense to me.
The way I walk in the street.
The way my mother wakes me up.
The way I hear bad news.
The way it’s unbearable when I lose.
I am an emotional creature.
I am connected to everything and everyone.
I was born like that.
Don’t you dare say all negative that it’s a
teenage thing
or it’s only only because I’m a girl.
These feelings make me better.
They make me ready.
They make me present.
They make me strong.
I am an emotional creature.
There is a particular way of knowing.
It’s like the older women somehow forgot.
I rejoice that it’s still in my body.
I know when the coconut’s about to fall.
I know that we’ve pushed the earth too far.
I know my father isn’t coming back.
That no one’s prepared for the fire.
I know that lipstick means
more than show.
I know that boys feel super-insecure
and so-called terrorists are made, not born.
I know that one kiss can take
away all my decision-making ability
and sometimes, you know, it should.
This is not extreme.
It’s a girl thing.
What we would all be
if the big door inside us flew open.
Don’t tell me not to cry.
To calm it down
Not to be so extreme
To be reasonable.
I am an emotional creature.
It’s how the earth got made.
How the wind continues to pollinate.
You don’t tell the Atlantic ocean
to behave.
I am an emotional creature.
Why would you want to shut me down
or turn me off?
I am your remaining memory.
I am connecting you to your source.
Nothing’s been diluted.
Nothing’s leaked out.
I can take you back.
I love that I can feel the inside
of the feelings in you,
even if it stops my life
even if it hurts too much
or takes me off track
even if it breaks my heart.
It makes me responsible.
I am an emotional
I am an emotional, devotional,
incandotional, creature.
And I love, hear me,
love love love
being a girl.
Hello World
Dear Blog,
I haven’t missed you, although I’d love to say that I thought about you everyday.
The start to 2010 was totally kick ass, if I may say so. I went to Mangalore, attended the most romantic + fun wedding EVER, and generally had the time of my life. Also, I got to wear a pretty purple dress, which of course is a highlight!
Then, I came home to a brand new shiny silver 8 GB iPod 5G Nano which I have christened Zora. She now finds a permanent place in my pocket. I have discovered that life is so much more fun when it’s got its own soundtrack. Plus, I get to NOT hear all the sooperdooper kannada hits some men seem to think is ”flattering” to sing when a girl walks past them on the road.
All this has managed to distract me from the fact that I turn *shudder* thatdreadedage this year.
I also know that this is a bit random, but some teachers just KILL my love for poetry with their ‘listen-to-me-I-am-going-to-tell-you-the-meaning-of-this-poem’ attitude. Poetry needs to be discovered, woman. It’s not fair that you get to THRUST your ‘understanding’ of it on anybody just because you want to feel like you deserve that pay cheque at the end of the month.
Stop telling me things!
You know I just realized.. Because we are all so ”connected” and living in age where information disseminates so quickly, and so fast, it’s difficult to hang on to life’s ‘SURPRISE!’ moments anymore. Case in point is the way the movie business has changed, I think. I’m doing everything in my power to stay away from stills/videos/blah related to the New Moon movie but it’s just so difficult! I have Perez Hilton tempting me with photographs from the sets, but I truly honestly don’t want to know anything! This is almost as bad as when a mean classmate once told me the ending of the fourth Harry Potter book because, well, she was nasty.
And now, because I’m following Imran Khan on Twitter, I’m going to get regular updates about his new film with Sonam Kapoor. So what, now to protect myself, I guess I have to disconnect from the world!
Weeds
A lot of people have cut themselves out of my life lately. In the beginning, it hurt. But I didn’t have to think ‘oh no, what did I do?’ nor am I trying to say they were wrong to do so. I’m saying that it happened, and I did see it coming.
I realised that the reason people are someplace today is because they weeded their lives when they needed to. Cut the bitter choking ones out when they got too much to handle.
There’s something to be said about trust and loyalty and being ‘a good friend’. And those kinds do exist, the ones that will laugh with you when you’re desperatley trying to mug dates at 1 am.
But the ones that will not catch you when you fall, that will flee at the first sight of rebellion, there’s nothing to be said about that.
I believe in differences, in being there for someone who wants to think in their own way. If we were meant to be the same, we’d be Borgs now, wouldn’t we?
Trying.
A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I’d have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you’re wrong? What if you’re making a mistake you can’t undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we hadn’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug until we can’t anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.
- Meredith Grey, Grey’s Anatomy