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There must be a reason why I keep hearing things like, do not procrastinate, be disciplined , Be proactive and its ok, let go. People feel free, calm and productive if they let go some things, when they have done what they were supposed to do in time, when their mind is not preoccupied with stale thoughts.
Stale thoughts are rotten, they are the thoughts about the things you've been thinking about for quite sometime. I generally prefer to finish of the something I don't like to eat immediately somehow gulping of entire thing rather than letting it become old and mushy, squishy and non crispy state or whatever. Same things apply to thoughts, especially the ones with a deadline like assignment; they seem to develop more side effects as the expiry date gets closer and absolutely of no use or little use after expiry. Leaving things incomplete and unfinished leaves more of staleness within you. After a certain point you become sick you start stinking, a thick atmosphere develops around you which people tend to avoid.
Become aware of that staleness, just let go, meditate and be purified. You don't like staleness do you? Think fresh think rich, the quality of thoughts you float around with, become aware of it.....Freshen up Take a breath and start playing and loving again......
But to make a wine the grapes need to ferment right? Yeah sure, but you don't want to make a wine out or own mind do you?
So think fresh, eat fresh, please don't eat non-veg and keep dancing in the rain.....
jgd
I think everyone one of us have had this experience with someone or the other. Its a basic technique used generally by moms, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc. to punish you or to make you do something and many other such silly stuff which can be bought by silence. It is interesting however to wonder about the power silence has which sometimes threatening (words) or action wont have. Guruji is going to be in silence for navratri. His silence is going to convey something special to you. This navratri check on the positives that are created in you and do post it in the comments.........
For interest of general people let me make a few things clear. Guruji refers to H H Sri Sri Ravishankar. For every navratri people from all over the world visit our ashram(Art of living) in Bangalore to experience a phenomenal fest. Yagyas are performed in these 9 days of navratri for the benefit of the entire world. Sitting in one of these with thousands of people is an awesome out of the world experience......
An ordinary house wife becomes a sensation and a modern ambitious girl gets her inspiration, this story is about two of these ladies. It totally brings out the fact that no human is ordinary. I totally loved the character of Julia Child, every now and then I meet people like Julia in my life and I envy and wonder at the confidence they show and which makes them happy in whatever situations they are and sometimes get them to heights where very few hardworkers or even a smart worker are able to make it. The only part Julia was genius at was being innocent and loving. She loved whatever she did and did whatever she loved, carefree of the competition, stress, social obligations, never greedy and absolutely innocent the way she was, which I believe is the most efficient way to live a life.
Story: 6/10. Its biographical story. The low ranking is not to discourage anyone, but just to emphasise that its not so fairy tailish type of stories. Though the story is not what will make you enjoy the story, its the narration and acting and the characters that stand out.
Genre: Drama, Biographical, Slice of life
Acting: 10/10. Every actor is well placed and does the job very well, of course the character of Julia child stands out more than anyone and Meryl Streep has done a phenomenal job portraying Julia. I liked her acting even in Mamma Mia. it just shows that experience can’t get any better.
Direction: 9/10. One of the best biographical movies I’ve ever seen and the all credit go to the direction and the narration. The flow of events the, the editing are all awesome and just stick together too well though not logically.
Mood:”Slice of life”,”happy”
Character: 10/10. The fact that these were all real life characters just makes me want to give a higher ranking though I have to admit that mostly its due to the influence of the character of Julia Child.
Entertainment value: 8/10
Overall: 9/10
Roaming around the forest was the only pass time for Nickel who was a large black bear at the peak of its youth. He used to roam around the forest to find something interesting, though he never knew what he was searching for he kept on wandering through the forest. He ate when he was hungry, scratched the trees around when he wanted to stretch and slept under his favourite tree when he had done all the wandering he wanted to do.
One day while he was having a nice afternoon nap he sensed a strange odour in the air and heard sounds of someone approaching. The odour was very distinct but he knew it was coming from an animal the sounds of rubbing against bushes were unlike that of any other animals he knew in the wild would make. The sounds had a weird pattern and it seemed like the animal was lost since they were short bursts of sound. There wasn’t much sound at every possible foot the animal took which suggested that the animal was small but the sounds also came from branches of higher altitude suggesting that it was tall, naturally he took a cautious stance waiting for the confrontation with this strange animal which he had never heard or seen in his life. Slowly a figure in brown started to appear from the bushes and Nickel held its breath. The strange animal was looking behind, it hadn’t noticed Nickel and was looking everywhere and seemed to be lost. It was a very strange looking animal, it was tall and was using only two limbs to walk, its fur was very smooth as though some dry leaf like material sticking on its skin and then half of its limbs had very little black shinny hair, it seemed like it was suffering from some disease, It had long fingers like the monkeys and on one hand it was holding a stick. The animal didn’t look ferocious so Nickel relaxed a bit and started approaching it with curiosity. The animal slowly turned around and their eyes met. The animal immediately took a defensive stance pointing the tip of the stick him lowering its body a bit. Nickel was taken aback but he could clearly see that the animal was frozen with fear. He then carelessly walked towards his right to have a good view of the animal. But the animal was still trembling and kept pointing the stick at him. He was surprised that the animal didn’t run and for a long time didn’t make any conversation.
He was annoyed, not able to make out anything out of this encounter and was no more interested in this animal and decided to chase the animal away. In situations like these Nickel would usually charge towards any animal for a short distance to scare it away. So he made a half hearted effort to chase the animal away by performing a slow lazy dash, He thought that it would run away but then it started trembling in fear and did something that scared and startled him like hell. The animal made a very sharp and loud sound loud as thunder, it was the first time he had heard such a noise. He noticed that the animal also jerked very sharply and it seemed like the stick was making the noise. Scared out of its wits for a while now Nickel took threatening stance, his head lowered, rear legs ready to spring he began roaring to tell the animal that it was serious now. It didn’t have any effect on the animal which was still frozen and trembling with fear and was now making noises like a baby animal which is cornered and out of breath. It wasn’t threatening like an adult would even in this stage and its trembling grew more with every roar. Now Nickel had lost it and began to charge for real, his heartbeat was increasing rapidly and half way through he was again met with the annoying sharp and loud as hell noise which made him very confused and scared. He paused for a fraction of a second, made up his mind, and then he dashed with all his energy like his life was on the line.
There are many reasons why I had kept avoiding seeing this movie for a long time one of them being it’s a Nazi movie. I’m amazed that when it comes to making a Hollywood war movie they seemed to be too overwhelmed by the stories and plots of the Nazi wars, and why not when the whole history of mankind is, but I’m now saturated with these. And I didn’t waste much time once I came to know that it’s a Quentin Tarantino movie, regretted avoiding it for a long time when I saw Brad Pitt was starring and pretty soon concluded that I should have kept my distance for some more time since it turned out to be as boring as I expected from a movie with such plot. The movie however scores good points but not without some disappointments which can be overlooked without much effort. There is not much to be experienced from the plot but some drama sequences are out of the world. I won’t be looking forward to another of this guy’s movie which attempts to recreate “Kill Bill’s” magic especially in such a plot, I welcome variety.
Story/Plot:7/10. Its work of fiction set in Nazi war times. A simple story but the power of a Tarantino movie lies in the direction. The fiction comes nowhere near to the legendary truth. Personally I think the plot suffers from precision a lot of times like low security for Hitler and poor depiction of Hitler though he is not a main character. In most of the Nazi movies I’ve seen Hitler stays in-door in a gloomy environment unlike in this movie.
Genre: Drama, Thriller.
Acting: 8/10. Mixed reaction. The German detective was mind blowing. The Inglourious basterds were a bit of disappointment mainly due to Brad Pitt who is in a role of an army commander and defenitly seems very soft spoken for a character of army commander he acts more like a strategist.
Direction: 9/10. Trademark Tarantino direction. Kill Bill is my all time favourite and Tarantino uses the same format so it seemed monotonous and boring right from the start (the cowboy style music).
Mood:”Suspense”,
Character:10/10. The scenes of German detective were the best and requires place in history of film making as the best depiction of a detective ever. The characters of German detective and the girl cinema owner are my favourite and are simply intriguing.
Entertainment value: 7/10. Kill Bill scores 10/10 in this but this movie doesn’t do as expected in this regard when compared.
Overall:8/10.
When you think of wars, these are the situations that give us a good idea of what humans are. Almost every part of being a human makes itself visible and discernable, emotion are not surreal any more, feelings not hidden, and the will power shining forth which can move any human soul. War starts by greed carried out by anger and ends always in realisation that love is the only driving factor for everything. War photography embodies the mad, crazy youth part of the parcel. I just happened to see a BBC documentary video called “Vietnam war unseen”, supposed to be for Americans to show the war from the eyes of Vietnam side, from the Vietnam War photographers to be precise.
The documentary shows a Tim from each side of American side and Tim from Vietnam side with some other Vietnamese war photographers who took part in what Americans call Vietnam war and what Vietnamese call the American war and the shattering contrast between the two. Both Tim’s were war photographers and both were adrenaline junkies but with stark difference in their motives. One was having a mad party abroad and the other was trying to keep up the national spirit as soldier and as a responsibility.
It’s thanks to these people that the realisation lasts for long. They do the job of preserving these moments that makes us realise that human will can surpass any situation, nothing is impossible. The Vietnamese used to build a series of underground tunnels to survive the bombing raids by American b52 bombers. All by using primitive tools and their own muscles and will. In these tunnels contained a world of its own again exemplifying the human nature of making the best of the situation. Here the mothers raised their babies the wives cooked and the family members sang songs. But how could these stills be taken in dark underground tunnel with a camera with no flash? Who would have thought that the bullet used to take life would come handy for preserving it and that the gunpowder in a bullet can be burned to give flash. This particular photographer wanted to inspire the country by taking picture of beauty surrounded by war came up with this solution which again made me marvel at human ingenuity. When this photographer came back to the village where the survivors from those tunnels lived after 50 years you can imagine the warm reaction from both sides. He gifted them these photographs, essentially their youth back to them. One of these Vietnamese war photographers was recalling that with the one lens camera they had he had no choice but to be in the line of fire unlike their American counterpart.
It made me think whether a war is really needed to make humans realise this awesome power they have, if only we had a huge army in every country with the same spirit to solve social problem currently plaguing the world and when will I start to make this a reality in my life. Would anybody commit suicide if they knew they had such potential in them? Will the minor poverty problem exist if the major part of the world just realised their will instead of complaining? Well I’m already set to go in this path and hope I don’t fall into a war like situation before I gather courage.
An article by my guru H H Sri Sri Ravishankar about women. It really makes a lot of sense. I also think women leadership is a key factor to world peace.
A woman has the capacity to be an excellent peacemaker because it is natural for her to relate from the heart
Women have both gentleness and strength. Indian scriptures place tremendous amount of power in women. In fact, the primordial energy known as Shakti which is the life force behind the whole creation is feminine. That is why our scriptures honour women as the highest aspect of divinity - the Aadhya Shakti.
Women bring together the finest aspects of society; the ability to create and the transformational ability to make a difference in society. Women bring us to the planet and teach us how to live. A mother is our first guru, our first teacher. Women teach us our first behaviour, our first steps in life. Women also have a great role to play in society. She can be a strong peacemaker - at home, in the community, in society and in the world. Women can glue differences and bring people of diverse nature together - she does it in her home all the time!
In this fast pace of life, we need to balance our inner peace, beauty and ethical values with the external challenges we face, and women have it in them to do it. These qualities are inherent in a woman.
A woman has the capacity to be an excellent peacemaker because it is quite natural for her to relate from the level of the heart. The biggest strengths of a woman are her emotions, feelings, motivation and inspiration. Men can inspire to fight but women inspire to unite. There are more wars in the world today because there is a lack of feminine leadership to unite people, overcome differences and bring home to us the purpose we are all born for! In todays war-torn world, we need women to come to the forefront and take more responsibility, without getting stressed.
Today, we need to ensure that women in our country are literate. When women are well educated and well informed they can take more responsibility, bring about that positive change and can make any project successful.
A woman by nature is multi-talented and multi-faceted. Usually people think women are emotional but the fact is, women are also great intellectual geniuses and excel in planning and execution. You see any department headed by a woman; chances are that department is much ahead of others.
Women are the backbone of any society. The role of women in the development of a society is of utmost importance. In fact, it is the only criterion that determines whether a society is strong and harmonious or not. Also, a corruption-free society can only emerge where women are given due regard, respect and importance.
Given the wealth that is inherent in them, it is very important for women all over the world to sit together and see what they can do to make this world more stress- and violence-free. Women need not wait to be given power. They automatically have it. Unfortunately, most of the feminine movements today are demanding rights. What and from whom are they demanding? They are asking from an empty bowl! Women already have equal rights. They simply have to assert their rights! They dont have to go and ask somebody, it is all there for them!
A woman is a born leader. She has the potential to bring prosperity, happiness and joy to this world. Its up to her to make it happen.
DNA, 7th March, 2010
H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
Crappy ending, a lot of plot holes, pathetic attempt to make a rural underworld movie and even more pathetic attempt to portray Vidya Balan as a bitch, on top of that “A” rating for a kissing seen and foul language. Well an ‘A’ rating and Vidya Balan in it who wouldn’t buy it, but to rely entirely on it and keeping the story and direction neglected surely made the movie suck big time. It might have earned big bucks on the box office but it is very unsettling. Nasserrudin shah, Vidya Balan have totally been wasted, though I have to give credit of showing Arshad Warsi in this kind new and serious role where he does a great job. Vidya Balan just stands out in the whole rural backdrop, she doesn’t farly resemble a village folk. The story would have worked fine enough in a modern setting with may be Kareena playing the role. Nasserrudin Shah as usual at his best but as said before he is not used to the max. You might want to watch this movie to catch Vidya Balan in this new not so complete and shady form, she looks as stunning as she did in “Pareenita”. This movie might actually work for most of the crowd, but for a serious movie goer and critique of this genre like me or a great Vidya Balan fan this might want to watch the movie just to see how much improvement is needed for a movie like this and to appreciate a masterpiece like “Omkara”.
Story/Plot:6/10.some spoilers-(Illicit relationship, revenge, stupid motives, suspense, clever)
Genre: Drama, suspense, thriller
Acting: 7/10(mainly because not enough research was done on characters and the direction.).
Direction: 6/10.(I don’t understand why does an ugly old villain’s wife’s voice have to be so daamn sexy. Sorry for being a perfectionist, I have picked a small mistake so that it doesn’t spoil).
Mood:”Suspense”
Character: 5/10-I can’t imagine a character that to of a rural girl to end up like this or may be its not explored in depth.
Entertainment value: 7/10
Overall: 6/10
Finally I managed to condense this epic 3hrs lecture into a 3 part post. Guys please congratulate me.
Part1-http://yespluschennai.blogspot.com/2009/11/boman-irani-actor-photographer-part-1.html
Part2-http://yespluschennai.blogspot.com/2009/12/boman-irani-actor-photographer-part2.html
For the entire time no one dared to leave the auditorium. Once a girl started to rise and immediately Boman asked "where are you going?" before she could reply, "No" "Sit" came the answer. There where a lot of 'Mamus'(boys) and a very few 'Mamis'(4girls is all he could see) in the crowd so he wasn't going to let a 'Mami' slip out. Soon he came to regret his decision when she eventually told him that it was to set up the collar mic. He made sure she came on the stage to put the mic on(he didn't like the idea anyways and stuck to the traditional one) by putting up an act(away from the mic stand,signal-can you hear me.crowd-no). A guy dared to get up and leave when Boman stopped him, he let him go giving reason that he was a "mamu" anyways(I don't think anyone got up after that). It was like asking a friend "abey sunn na thodi der ke liye"(hey dude sit and listen for some time).
Now coming back to his bio. Much detail wasn't told about how actually he got into acting but, he told us that he was approached by the son of his photographer friend(also a parsi) to make the movie "Being Cyrus". He was pushed into theater profession(as he was shy) and was very well received by all. His role in a play called "Roshini" won many hearts. He acted in various plays, but what caught the eye of the producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra was a home made film of the play "I'm not Bajirao". Apparently for no reason the crew members of the play decided to make the film and it took almost a year to edit the film which was taken from a handheld camera, this made its way to Vidhu Vinod Chopra and he approached Boman Irani with a check in hand to sign him up the "Munnai bhai MBBS" for the role of Dr. J. Astatna, even though Vidhu ji wasn't sure about when the movie was going to be made. Even though he was offered a check before any formal contract, Boman was reluctant to do the role of the doctor who was laughing all the time. He found the character stupid and was no convinced at all. He had already done small roles in many movies, but had no idea how much impact this role would make on the his audience. As the last resort Vidhu ji requested Boman to listen to the story from Rajkumar Hirani, the director. Boman reluctantly accepted and went to meet up with Rajkumar Hirani and now Rajkumar ji began narrating the story to him. As rajkumar ji narrated the story Boman shared he laughed and cried and throughly enjoyed the story, he had no choice but to accept, but he still wasn't convinced with the laughing character. Later he reluctantly accepted but did justice to the character.
As told in the previous post the actor who was being groomed for 6 months for the main role was Vivek Oberoi, but in the one month to the starting of the shooting he backed out and switched to the Ram Gopal Verma's movie "Company", the main comedian and side kick role was also abandoned by a famous actor 15 days before the shooting. Actors like "Shah Rukh Khan", "Hrithik Roshan", "Saif Ali Khan" where approached but to no avail and finally when Sanjay Dutt came to the picture and it was seen as a good idea. Now remained the role of the side kick, when Arshad Warsi was approached to act he was also reluctant about acting as a side kick, he completely disliked the name 'kujali' for the charector but eventually accepted the offer and suggested the name of the character to be changed to 'circuit'. Now the film crew and cast were assembled finally, but the cast had major lack of superstars. Gracy Singh was the only person who could be called so. Sanjay didn't have any hit since about 8 years and Boman and Arshad were somewhat new faces. He shared a funny incident that happened during the making of the movie- apparently Gracy Singh was very straight forward and used head straight back to home after finishing up shooting(I guess it must be hard on the new actors to get used to the harsh shooting schedule), so after a promotional function it seems Sanjay shared with Boman "Aaj pheli bar mere ko hello boli"(its the first time she said hello to me).
Boman was very disappointed with the film, it wasn't a hit and when he went to a theater to watch it for himself he found out that the theater was half empty. But Vidhu ji was very excited about the movie. Boman found it as a harsh joke when Vidhu ji shared his excitement about the film doing good. When Boman asked why he was so excited when the movie wasn't doing so well Vidhu ji replied "hit hai, sab log hass rahe hai"("its a hit, every one is laughing and enjoying it"). It seems that it was the only thing that matters to him. Slowly by word of mouth the film became famous and more and more people were watching it, and now when he went to a theater he was mobbed and people weren't letting him go, whereas the first time he went people didn't even recognise him. So that's how Boman gained a unique place in millions of heart.
He shared that he found something in the mail that the organiser of the lecture Nithin sent him that made him come here and was grateful for what Chennai had given him. Nithin wasn't very good at talking in public but he always smiled and went with what he had to do though he blabbered and stammered a bit. Boman made sure that we all learn from his tenacity. In the end of the overtime lecture he made us say three words-"Thank you Nithin". I was proud that I was thoughtful enough to thank him out aloud even before Boman made us all do it. I guess I'm similar to him in some way, my college isn't going that well anyways hope my life makes a good story. And that's what Boman blessed us all of, he blessed that we become the kind of people who are going to share there story in a lecture like this. During the Questions and Answer session too he showed the influence of his humble background and his level of experience. There are always some people who are excited and ask questions which are sometimes obvious, not so interesting for the people around and when people used to boo at them Boman gently took care that the speaker isn't uncomfortable and that the crowd listen to what he/she had to say.
The session wasn't going to end this way, a guy asked him to sing, it seemed that Boman was a good singer and sung before. I thought yeah every hobby of a celebrity is so glorified even though they are not that good(sometimes people think- "oh big deal, I can do better"), I wasn't prepared for what was going to come. Boman shared that its just his hobby and he doesn't actually sing(see just as I thought), Then he began singing a song(the song where many international singers with Michael Jackson are singing one by one, as a part of some fundraising event. I'm really sorry I don't know the song). I was mesmerised by his voice, it was awesome and I found that his heavy bass voice he uses to speak doesn't give us any clue of what his beautiful part of voice is. He also mimicked the voices of the singer who originally sang it and I was left awestruck.
There are many things that I have forgotten from the lecture, there somethings I didn't understand, but every bit of it was worth listening to and pondering over. Hope you make your life into a good story too.
Jgd
Puneeth Raj