Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Two things..
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
What ifs...
My man has a problem with hypothetical questions. I think many men do. Its like God has turned off the "What if.." switch in men's brains. Which is just fine with me because I don't think it would be fun to have another person in the house come up with crazy scenarios all the time. But it sure would be nice if he answers my hypotheticals..:)
One of our first fights was -- believe it or not -- about Angelina Jolie. I was browsing "People" magazine at a supermarket checkout line.
"Angelina Jolie seems to have such a fun life with lots of travel! How cool is that. Would you like to be Angelina Jolie?"
S gave me a blank stare.
"What? What would you do if you were Angelina Jolie?"
"But I am not Jolie."
"Yeah, I know. But imagine: what if you could live Angelina Jolie's life for one day. What would you do?"
S decided to be mulishly stubborn.
"But I am not Angelina Jolie. I don't want to be."
"Ack. Just imagine you are..I know you're not."
"I can't imagine something like this."
"Why not?"
"Why?"
"What do you mean 'why'? Can you imagine being someone else -- like maybe Gandhi?"
"No. I am S. I don't want to be anyone else. I can't imagine being anyone else."
Okay. I thought that was a very conceited answer. So you can imagine the conversation went south after that point. I accused him of being unimaginative and he told me I was crazy. This was 4 years ago.
Yesterday, we were watching "Monsters Vs. Aliens" featuring a 50 ft woman called "Gynormica". Her boyfriend dumps her because she becomes a 50 ft freak. So I turned to Sujan and said,
"Will you dump me if I become 50 ft tall?"
"I refuse to answer that question."
"Why? Its a simple question. All you have to do say is 'No, honey, I'll never, ever dump you'."
"I refuse to answer that question because its improbably stupid and its not funny."
"But why? What if I get hit by a meteorite tomorrow and become radioactive or something?"
Silence.
Why do I even try? Grrr. Ack. Thbbbtt.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Gallery Hop..
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Last night, on Jaya TV, I was watching Actor Sarangapani in the v.v.old movie "Penn" sing "Pennai nambaadhe" rather loudly. The song was pretty funny and Sarangapani even did a Vadivelu-esque dance step that had me howling with laughter. It was only when he got to the line, "இந்திரன் கெட்டதும் பெண்ணாலே, சந்திரன் கெட்டதும் பெண்ணாலே" that all my feminist instincts were roused. I've heard this saying many times and absorbed it without question. I never had paused to actually contemplate the meaning behind it until yesterday night.
When Parimalam of Big Street woefully reported that her elder brother had eloped with a mechanic's daughter and her father was up to his neck in gambling debts, people were quick to point fingers at her mom and her supposed ineptitude in holding the house together. After all, they said, "இந்திரன் கெட்டதும் பெண்ணாலே, சந்திரன் கெட்டதும் பெண்ணாலே." When my father's cousins drove out their parents, frittered away all their wealth on movies/racing and were reduced to penury, everyone in my father's family blamed the extravagance of their cousins' wives. My father shook his head and said you-know-what.
Now, onto the actual saying itself. In mythology, Chandiran (the moon god) and Indiran (God of the devas) are notorious for often falling into stupid escapades, getting cursed by an irate rishi/powerful demi-god and spending centuries waiting for redemption. In fact, without these two characters, Indian mythology would have a dearth of colorful stories. But the kicker is this. If Indiran decides to fall in love with an innocent rishi patni (Rishi's wife) who happened to be minding her own business, how, pray, is it the fault of the woman?! Note that Indiran is supposed to have a harem of thousands and thousands of women. Similarly, if Chandiran can't keep his roving eye under control and gets cursed by some irate husband, how fair is it to blame the woman? It seems to me that Indiran and Chandiran brought about their own downfall.
The reason it irked me so much is that even today, we see cases where a woman gets blamed for dressing "provocatively" and thereby inviting harassment. The offender gets away with a slap on the wrist whereas the woman gets a big lecture on being a "bharatiya naari". I've heard of similar dispensations in cases of eve-teasing in Chennai. Colleges advise that women shouldn't wear salwar kameez or churidhars lest they "provoke" lust in men. I am sure those rishi patnis and other virtuous women of yore wore extremely modest clothing but that didn't prevent Indiran/Chandiran from indulging their libido, did it?
I think its funny how the "blame-it-on-the-woman" game has been on-going since god-knows-when. From families falling into financial ruin to dysfunctional families to men having affairs, everything gets blamed on the woman. And we continue to propagate it with all these seemingly innocuous sayings like, "இந்திரன் கெட்டதும் பெண்ணாலே, சந்திரன் கெட்டதும் பெண்ணாலே." Maybe, we should encourage men to take responsibility for their own actions by saying,
இந்திரன் கெட்டதும் தன்னாலே, சந்திரன் கெட்டதும் தன்னாலே.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Real me Vs. Blog me..
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Guilty pleasures..
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Female dumpers..
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Little Miss Sunshine
I marketed "Little Miss Sunshine" as a comedy movie. It got two Oscars and I saw some good reviews online. Figured it would be a nice evening watch. 20 minutes into the movie, S and J were staring me down asking me what in the world made this a "comedy" movie?!! S said that he only found the movie pathetic, not funny. I turned around for support and found my father staring very intently at the TV screen, hands crossed, brows drawn in concentration.
"Appa, don't you find this funny?"
"I haven't understood a single dialogue in this movie for the past 20 minutes.I am staring at the screen in the hopes I'll get at least a single dialogue before I go to bed."
Doh. Okay. No luck there. Soon S and J bailed out too.
I finally managed to finish the movie yesterday. I have to admit that it wasn't an out-and-out, laugh-out-loud funny movie. It is dark humor all the way through. But watching the antics of the characters on screen, I couldn't help chuckling a couple of times. But toward the end, I was more disturbed and shocked than anything else.
The story revolves around little Olive Hoover. She has a dysfunctional family with a foul-mouthed grandpa, an aggressive father who wants to win at any cost, a homosexual uncle who is recovering from a suicide attempt and a Nietzche-reading brother who has sworn a vow of silence until he becomes a pilot. Olive herself dreams of becoming a beauty queen and the entire family drives her to one such contest called "Little Miss Sunshine".
The final few scenes showed how beauty contests for young children work. It was awful to watch 7 year old kids made up like adults, doing adult-like moves and even looking like them! One of the contestant girls had exactly a doll face (I swear. No exaggeration. It was like watching the doll in "Child's Play" come alive!). And I positively squirmed when Olive decides to do a pseudo strip-tease dance on stage. Ugh.
So, anyway, if you're just looking for a fun movie to watch, please don't pick "Little Miss Sunshine". If you want to get a good dose of reality, then watch this movie.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Birthday..
I don't get terribly excited about birthdays. But this year was special because, after a gap of nearly 8 years, my parents and my brother were all around in-person for my birthday. S baked a lovely upside-down pineapple cake which came out totally fluffy and yummy. And he gave me an exquisite, hand-carved gift that took him many hours to finish! This is the most creative gift yet that I've received from him. Thanks, S ! :)
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Chithi, serials and the like..
Rumors floated around that the entire serial was set in Srirangam. My cousin came home with news that her friend's house in East Chithirai Street had been used for filming the first few episodes. Both of us made a slight detour to the said house during one of our shopping trips. We were terribly excited!
Anyway, the serial was good enough for the first few episodes. After that, CJ Bhaskar or someone else decided that the public had no brains and started dishing out crap. Of course, many more crappy serials followed.
The reason for this post is not weepy Tamil soaps but rather, another class of TV serials that seem to be extinct now. I had long ago given up hope on serials until S suggested watching "Rudhra Veenai". I was sceptical initially but started watching anyway. I was totally thrilled with the direction, screenplay and the story! "Marma Desam" and "Vidaadhu Karuppu" followed on my list. Director Naga has done such an excellent job with the lighting, plot, casting and dialogues!
Watching the series made me wonder how we made the descent from the likes of "Marma Desam" into crappy serials like "Selvi". When I was growing up, we used to watch "Kaiyalavu Manasu.." and "Vanna Kolangal" regularly. There were many more classy serials the names of which I can't remember right now. Why are comedy/mystery stories not a main course in the serial fare today? Where have all the good directors gone? Where are all the good stories? Just like they have competitions these days for singing, dancing etc.., someone ought to come up with a forum that'll let directors with innovative story ideas showcase their wares. There's no telling but what in 20 years, I might be sitting at home during the day and I definitely demand better entertainment than weepy soaps! :)
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Phaeton...
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
At Tweet's end..
Dutifully, I sent an e-mail to Twitter's support desk telling them that seeing as how I had entered only two messages in the span of two years, I couldn't have really "abused" the system. I got this back:
Huh. Okay. I e-mailed them back saying none of the above would apply to me because I've barely used the account. Haven't heard back. I am righteously miffed now!Twitter suspends accounts for Terms of Service violations or spam investigation. Please review our policies for more detailed information:
http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries If you are suspended, it's most likely for one or more of these reasons::
User Abuse
* a large number of people block the profile or write in with spam complaints
* aggressive following
* imbalanced ratio: the number of followers is small compared to number of people following
* misuse of the reply feature
* updates consist of duplicate links and/or text
* updates consist mainly of links and not personal updates
* updates consist of updates poached from others' timelines, passed off as one's ownTechnical Abuse
* updates consist of links pointing to phishing sites, malware, or other harmful material
* a large number of accounts is created in a short amount of time
* an account is identified as belonging to a spam cluster
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
the four corners of the sky
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Random question
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Twenties Girl
I finished reading "Twenties Girl" by Sophie Kinsella last week. As is usual with Kinsella books, I wolfed it down giggling and laughing throughout. As I finished the book, I was reminded of another "twenties girl" in my life.Friday, July 31, 2009
There and back again
Someone wrote in a blog that US desis seem to live only during weekends. We wait the entire week for the weekend to have "fun". Add the 3-week India trip to that list, and I seem to come truly alive only for these short moments! I can hear the naysayers out there sniggering, "Maybe you live on the weekends. We know how to have fun throughout the year!". Perhaps.
Tamilnadu is where I feel completely at home, at ease. It is where I can eat thayir sadham with my hands, wear colorful, fragrant flowers in my hair every single day, don bright sarees and not have to explain anything to anyone. When I landed in Chennai airport after a 30 hour journey, I felt light. Along with the heat wave that washed over me as soon as I stepped out, there was also this wave of relief! Not even Mumbai evokes this feeling for me.
I was trying to explain this feeling to one of my father's friends and I blurted out, "Ermm.. Chennai is my natural habitat!" like I was some primordial being. But it is true -- the heat, sweat, humidity just didn't bother me after a week. I was home.
There are a lot of NRIs out there contemplating R2I. Everyone discusses the merits of schooling in India, the amount of pollution in the air, the time it takes to commute, the interminable traffic and crowds etc.. I confess I do as well. But it finally has dawned on me that R2I means I can stop living a dual life -- trying to fit into the American life by day and being desi by evenings -- and be my harmonious own self. That, I think, would be priceless and beats every other consideration hands down. Amen.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The Half-Blood Prince
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Mango season..
Monday, June 22, 2009
The Secret Life of Bees
“You know, Lily, people can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different.”
“You think you want to know something, and then once you do, all you can think about is erasing it from your mind. From now on when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I planned to say Amnesiac.”This one resonated with me.
“There is nothing perfect,” August said from the doorway. “There is only life.”
“For starters, everything was blue. Bedspread, curtains, rug, chair cushion, lamps. Don’t get the idea it was boring, though. She had ten different shades of it. Sky blue, lake blue, sailor blue, aqua blue -- you name a blue. I had the feeling of scuba diving through the ocean.”
“A breeze moved through the room from the open window. I walked to it and stared out at the dark fringe of trees by the edge of the woods, a half moon wedged like a gold coin into a slot, about to drop through the sky with a clink”
“People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It’s that hard. If God said in plain language, “I’m giving you a choice, forgive or die,”, a lot of people would go ahead and order their coffin.”
“The month of August had turned into a griddle where the days just lay there and sizzled.”
“There will be a few hundred bees doing laps around the hive boxes, just warming up, but mostly taking their bathroom break, as bees are so clean they will not soil the inside of their hives. From a distance it will look like a big painting you might see in a museum, but museums can’t capture the sound. Fifty feet away you will hear it, a humming that sounds like it came from another planet. At thirty feet your skin will start to vibrate. The hair will lift on your neck. Your head will say, Don’t go any farther, but your heart will send you straight into the hum, where you will be swallowed by it. You will stand there and think, I am in the center of the universe, where everything is sung to life.”