Cousins

I hate mine. FUCKING IDIOTS. That's what they are.

Actually, they are fucking holier-than-thou, prudish, look-at-me-I'm-suuuuuch-a-good-boy/girl, hypocritical, selfish idiots.

Regret

Sorry. I can't let go of it. Coming back was the biggest mistake I could have made and I can't regret it enough.

Food Porn

Cadbury Bournville's new ad can only be described as Food Porn.

This ad works. Very well too. I want chocolate right now. Works waaaaay better than regular porn, let me add too.

That time of the year again...

So, tomorrow's THAT day again. And of course, I am single. Again. But let's not go there.

And I also don't want to rant against commercializing of every living object on the surface of the earth (and non-living and abstract ones as well), rendering love to be a product rather than an emotion. And I most definitely don't want to write stupid, mushy, lovey-dovey things about love being the most beautiful emotion in the world blah di blah di blah. Nor do I want to write about my love for my family, my friends, my city, my country and others' countries. Coz I will end up writing about loving Sun and Moon and I think everyone has had too much of that by now. Or I will write about loving and missing England and by God, people have had too much of that too. So then, what should I write about?

Maybe I will write an anti-Valentine's Day post. But I am not that cynical or pessimistic yet. Correction - I am no longer that cynical or pessimistic. I don't have anything against people celebrating love. And I most definitely don't believe that I will die old and lonely living with cats. So, no anti-Valentine's Day post either.

Maybe I will write about my poor, pathetic, little single self after all. This wallowing business has gone on for too long now. But I will indulge myself this one time. And so, maybe, I shall write about.......................things I miss about having a boyfriend:

• The hugs that make you feel so safe as if nothing can touch you or harm you at all so long as you have those arms around you.
• Surprise kisses, especially, kisses on the forehead.
• Holding hands.
• The look on his face when you bake him a chocolate cake or cook his favourite meal.
• Kissing and making up.
• Surprise gifts without any occasions. (Though, Moon often makes sure I don't miss this one too much, bless her. :P)
• Waking up next to him and watch him sleep.
• Calling each other up for no reason, talking for a long time and then missing him the moment we hang up.
• The most important thing of all - Being loved by that someone special.

Well, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. This year, on this day, all I will say is that I hope people will realize that they need to celebrate their love on this day, not Archies/ Hallmark/ gift shops.

Favourite Quotations

"In the midst of a winter, I finally learnt that there was in me an invincible summer."
"I'd rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is."
~ Albert Camus

"Each time liberty is in question, we are concerned, be we white, black, or yellow; and each time freedom is under siege, no matter where, I will engage myself completely." ~ Frantz Fanon.

"I've always been suspicious of collective truths."
"A critic should describe, and not prescribe" ~ Eugene Ionesco

"I prefer the absurdity of writing to the absurdity of not writing." ~ Wislawa Szymborska

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, the other falls spectacularly to pieces."
"Thank you, Daniel, that is very good to know. But if staying here means working within 10 yards of you, I'd rather have a job wiping Saddam Hussain's arse." ~ Bridget Jones's Diary.

"It's really hard to walk in single women's shoes. That's why, you sometimes need really special shoes."
"But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous." ~ Sex and the City

"I solemnly swear that I'm upto no good." ~ George Weasly, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

"Those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it."
"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on the earth should that mean it's not real?" ~ Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"Guys can fake it?!! Unbelievable! The one thing that's ours!"
"Is it me? Is it like I have a beacon that only dogs and men with severe emotional problems can hear?"
~ Monica, F.R.I.E.N.D.S.


"I still want to be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's." - Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Star's Believe it or not

(This post is for the Indiblogger's FireFreeze Challenge competition. Please do vote for me if you like my post. Or if you like me. Or even if you don't. :P)
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Being a translator for a company that subtitles Hindi films and TV shows in English is not easy. I don't know whether I love my job or hate it. 

Believe it or not, I recently had to translate 50 minutes of this:

I really didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. It was one of the worst pieces of Indian television that I had come across so far - on job and out of it. But it was also one of those examples of "It's so bad, it's good." If you are not too sensitive, you can totally enjoy watching this one for it's absolute ridiculousness. And for it's unimaginable commentary.

The sad part for me was that I had to translate that ridiculous commentary in English. 

Okay, correction. I had to try and translate that ridiculous commentary in English. Because, obviously, I couldn't do all of it accurately. 

For example: When this King Kobra person was being beaten up, the commentator once said: "Agar is naag ki koi girlfriend, koi Icchhadhari Nagin hogi, toh woh iski haar ka badla legi." (Rough trasnlation: If this snake had a girlfriend, some snake woman, then she would take revenge if he lost the fight.") That was the moment of my Firefreeze.  I was laughing so hard that I started crying. And once I got over it, I realised that I will have to translate that in English. How would you ever translate "Icchhadhari Nagin"?! I ended up using "Snake woman".

And then, the commentator kept telling during every fight that this is brutal and how could they do this and how they come up with new ways of torturing people and blah di blah di blah. So, umm.. what was he expecting on a Wrestling reality show? Flowers and balloons and lots of kissing? I wanted to scream out loudly out of frustration and also laugh out loudly for the sheer ridiculousness of it all.

All in all, it was a brilliant experience and one of it's kind on my job. I never thought I would say this but after seeing this, I am so glad for the Indian television dramas. Short, predictable and lots of loud background score. :P And easy for translation. Most of the dialogues can be copied in some document and then, pasted in various different TV shows. ;)

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Like I said before, this post is for the Indiblogger's FireFreeze Challenge. So, I hope you all like it. Please vote for me here by clicking on "Promote this post". Also, please do leave a comment about similar experiences that you might have had - mood swings, confusions, crushes, heart-breaks - anything and everything. And then, copy-paste the same comment here. Thank you!

The Mumbai Diaries Note

Watched Dhobi Ghat yesterday. And loved it.

I know there are quite a few complaints against the film that it doesn't have a story or that it is an out and out art film etc. And by saying that I love the film, I don't want to pretend to be all high-brow and all (My favourite Bollywood film is Om Shanti Om, for God's sake! :P) but this film was a real pleasure to watch even if it didn't conform to the popular cinema frame and didn't really even have a story in it's conventional beginning-middle-end structure.

However, I must state here that it's a personal choice and opinion and this kind of cinema does not appeal to a lot of people's tastes. So, I am not going to give recommendations or rating for this one. The film claims to be "Mumbai Diaries" and I agree about the Diaries part. The film is a story of four random people from Mumbai. They could have been from anywhere in the world. It is about what relationship these four people have with each other. It is about an interesting part from the lives of these four people. Not their whole life story. Not a great saga of lovers or of a family or of a nation or of a city. Just a piece of four people's lives and about their dated relationships with each other, only a matter of chance. Arun (Aamir Khan) is a very famous painter in Mumbai. Shai (Monica Dogra) is an investment banker by profession and a photographer by heart, who has come to Mumbai from New York for a short period of time. Munna (Prateik) is a wanna-be actor, who works as a washer-man while trying to make it big in the B-town. And Yasmin is the previous tenant of the house that Arun lives in. She came to Mumbai from UP with her husband.

Also, like in Peepli [Live], the film-making techniques have been experimented with and there are segments where the narrative has come out through alternative medium, like, home-made videos, photographs and paintings. Also, Mumbai is seen through the eyes of all kinds of people - Mumbaiites, tourists, new residents.

Aamir Khan, the method actor, is brilliant and impeccable as always. The new comers are all good as well. The cinematography was one of my favourite things about the film. Oh, and it's length. :P 95 minutes is good for a film. ;)

One tiny thing: according to some facebook updates, the film should have made me feel my Mumbai within me and God knows what else. While I love Mumbai and I think films based in Mumbai are awesome, especially if they try to capture the city and give it a character, like Kiran Rao tried to do, I still didn't feel anything strong. It was there, a Mumbai-ness to it. But, it was a sort of new-Mumbai-ness. Not an inherent Mumbai-ness, which would have made my nostrils flare up as soon as the attar (perfume) shop scene or the pav-bhaaji thela (the pav bhaji stall) scene came on. Like a borrowed Mumbai-ness. Or an adopted Mumbai-ness. I don't know if it was me or the film. But, I didn't feel the "Mumbai Diaries" title was justified well enough.

Apart from that, I just loved every bit of it. :)

* Pictures courtesy google images.