Labbing

Comparing my first year-self and current-self - I bow down to you,Peehechdee. I lost it out to thee. From the carefree sight-seer and tourist, I am now transformed into a full-time, hassled Peehechdee stud. I stress 'full-time'.

Thanks to the over-booked microscopes. I prefer to use the night slots when there are lesser people around me to haggle for their slots and I have an undisturbed 11-hour period with the microscope.

Three supervisors. So subtle is the pulling in different directions that I never realize it until I'm fully through it, worn out.

Weekends come mid-week. Not coinciding with microscopy bookings.

Youtube movies, comics and novels to relax in between work- no more. With QE looming up, reading papers to 'relax' between experiments. AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! Pay-back time for all the procrastination aggregated from the past 2 years.

Prospective failure in the quals. Got plans for after. ;) Don't want to go down without a fight though!

The view - watching the sunrise , coffee-vending machine,  midnight Subs and Macs. Only a month more to break away from this routine I have- to my surprise- gotten accustomed to.

Avargal : brilliance from yesteryear

A favourite pastime is to scourge Youtube for full-length movies. Watching movies on youtube feels better and faster than searching for other online sources. And the watching is in bits and pieces over a couple of weeks or in a couple of days if it is gripping.

I stumbled upon Avargal (1977) , directed by the unrivaled K.B. The movie is a timeless classic. I watched the whole movie in one day - leaving it half-heartedly only for unpostponable jobs. The way the protaganist's past is unveiled in the beginning of the film is a poem in itself. The character sketch of Anu(Sujatha) is perfect; of Janardhan (Kamal) is damn lovable. All the characters seem realistic, except for Ramanathan's mother - THAT is utopian.. :-D

The songs are a part of the story too - made me pay a lot of attention to the beautiful lyrics (Kannadasan acc to google).

Check it out when you need less spice and more sense in a movie :

A stuttering king, a swan queen, 127 hours

18 Feb,2011

Morning blues. But then a Royal blue evening - with 'King's speech' and 'Black swan' back-to-back movies. What a day!

King's speech was light, funny, a little heartwarming with thoroughly enjoyable performances from everyone.

Black swan swept me away. Most of the scenes - I had to peep in through my fingers, ready to shut my eyes at the slightest terror. I was totally involved in the madness going on in the screen. I felt/thought nothing else. The movie grabbed and kept my attention throughout. A lot of times I regretted for having stayed to watch it. But then, at the end of the movie, I felt like I'd had an out-of-the-world experience. The theatre hall was fully packed. Noisy in the beginning, pin-drop silence during the movie, the audience remained in their seats for a minute after the end of the movie - dazed.

King's speech was like a ride on the merry-go-round. Black swan - was like the reverse bungee/ the extreme swing ride. I had felt reluctant to go for Black swan, had cursed myself when I was at the venue but at the end of it, felt it to be worth every cent that I had paid. Natalie Portman is the winner this year. Any bets on that one?

25 Feb,2011

Editing my previous post to include a note on 127 hours. I was able to sit through the movie only by comforting myself that- what I was watching is only a movie, that it is James Franco acting a part, that the hand jamming is only an illusion. Aron Ralston - will always inspire me from now on. I was able to relate to the protagonist's character and his emotions. That is what the movie intends to do - build the character up strong in the audience's mind - preparing them for the last 20 minutes. Those 20 mins - when I realized why this movie deserves the Oscar nomination. No, it was not an out-of-the world experience like Black Swan. But on exiting the theatre, I saw the world differently... ;) Cheesy but true.

2011

Given that the world is coming to an end next year (Movie :2012), I have decided on a few things to do, wrap up, tie up all the loose ends, etc.... First things first. In the current mindset, I would love to give up the peehechdee. Unfortunately, I have my quals in May - I need to pass it if I need food and shelter for the rest of the year.

Second, take the max possible time off work to go home - after quals. This time, it is atleast a 6-month break between two visits to home, all due respects to the quals. Get quals over and I fly/flee off to Madurai!

Third, eat like the world is going to end ;) . All the dosais and chutneys and idlis and biriyanis. To hell with the waistline! :P

Fourth, swim across the deep end of the pool. Fifth, sing a perfect ninnukori varnam. Sixth, post all the unwritten/half-written cards, half-made gifts. Seventh, gift myself a dslr. Eighth, make some people happy. Ninth, relearn the Padmasana. Tenth, do a bungee jump. Eleventh, read The Illiad. Twelfth, master the hula hoop. Fifteenth, the kavattai (slingshot). Sixteenth, search for Noah. Seventeenth, help him with the ark. Eighteenth, get into it. I am nowhere near any loose ends.

Under Control

I'm proud to say that I hail from a place where I wake up in the morning at the sound of a street fight between an Auto driver and a Rickshaw-wallah. The street is one-way - that is, it has enough space for only one way and both of them are stubborn and not willing to make way for the other. The abusive argument usually comes to an end in the blink of an eye, when a trail of vehicles are lined up on either side, braying loud horns. The Rickshaw-wallah gives up, looking at the school-kids and office-goers with morning blues. He pulls the Rickshaw back, how he manages to do so with the bare minimum space available, I wonder, looking at the scene from my bedroom window on the first floor, overlooking the street. Almost always, he would hit his vehicle against some vehicle in the process, to vent out his frustration,which is the funniest part of it all. 

Some mornings, I would wake up to mooings and bleatings. The milk-man (who delivers milk) of our street does not have enough space to tether his cows and leaves them to destiny- to my mom - the Annapoorani (Goddess of Nourishment) of the street - she always has something for all-- even a cow. Our house had an array of cows, neatly seated in the front, blocking the only way in the street. I remember standing and waiting on several days with my sister after school, waiting for the cows to make way for us into the house. That was much less drastic than the huge traffic that built just outside my house, a string of abuses at the 'milk-man' and humble requests to my mom not to feed the cows. Again, the funniest part of it all - my granny screaming at the top of her voice at my mom, citing instances from her life history, of zero correlation with the situation at hand.

I'm proud to have a mom and dad who take up so many responsibilities at the same time, that they are rarely ahead of time in attending any scheduled event. We would be flooded with harried phone-calls from the organizers and spend the travel-time in blaming and making fun of each other for the delay. Numerous are the times when my mom, my sis and I would run to the bus-stop, to board the school-bus in the morning. The bus driver, cheeky to the core, seeing us from the corner of his eye, would pretend not to have noticed us and would just take away, leaving my mom cursing at him quietly. My sis and I would be on a high inside, trying hard to look sorrowfully at our mom. We would joyfully enjoy a Royal auto-ride to school, only after severe scoldings and warnings from mom that that would be the last ever auto-ride to school and that we would have to get ready earlier from the next day onwards. Giggles would follow, when the auto reached a safe distance away from my mom.

Power shut-downs or noisy loudspeakers on the street blaring devotional TMS songs or a bunch of gossipping relatives on a visit to home or the naughty cousin to baby-sit when his parents were out of town or the distracted phone-calls from frantic classmates --- an exam to prepare for amidst all the hullabaloo......

Dear Room-mates in Singapore, now you know why I never respect the Alarm clock. I yearn for the noise on the street to hit at me, right in the head. I am most tempted to walk to the middle of the AYE road and create a traffic diversion. I want to see more wild-life on the run. It's embarrassment to the core to walk into an appointment almost on time, only to find my superior waiting for me, for several minutes patiently. I don't want that bus driver to stop the bus at the stop for eternity, on seeing someone gesture to him to wait,a kilometre away, through the rear-view mirror. I want to miss this bus and curse myself for being late. I want trouble to tackle.

 'Control freaks!!' is how I scream when I'm totally bored and not able to take a bit more of the ordered and disciplined ways. I could feel my 'adrenaline gene' dying away - I fervently hope it's just on a hibernation and is going to be on the run again when I'm back home. 

Madrasapattinam

I felt this movie deserves a blog post cos it is - different for Tamil cinema. I'd urge you to watch it in theatre and revel that there are our people who believe in making an impact with sincere,brave and out-of-the-box film-making attitude.

The movie does have all the usual 'masala'  elements - love, heroism, patriotism.... But it also has done a lot of justice to being called a 'period' movie, which is not an easy task. The animation looks so out of place more than once. But the cinematography pulls you into that era a lot other times. The heroine (Miss.Teen World, Amy Jackson) is cuteness personified - did they really wear such short dresses back then? Nobody in the theatre seemed to mind it though.. ;) I was impressed that she got her expressions right despite it being her first movie.

I liked the way the comedy element blended in smoothly with the story - the natives' English, Haneefa's (May his soul RIP) antics, the sleeping guy, the teacher, the 'bomb scare' guy.... And the unintentionally comic Tamil dialogues of the British actors which left me and my sister giggling at the wrong places. Those scenes lack but need subtitles more than the scenes with English dialogues.

Arya rocked! - His understated expressions do their job. His gymnastic abilities (check out the last few scenes of 'Pookkal pookum' song) are proof enough for his hard work and dedication to the role. The timing of his expression change on seeing the heroine in the scene at the Railway station towards the end, seemed to strike a chord in me. Or it might simply be that I like Arya. ;)

G.V.Prakash has done a highly commendable job, given his age and experience level. 'Pookkal pookkum' song still holds me in a mesmer. The bgm adds the desired effect to the movie. I got nothing to say against the song videos too - 'Vaamma Durayamma' is a fine video. Except for Udit Narayan's irritating accent. Amy is stunning in 'Aaruyire'.

Though the movie reminded me often of Titanic and Lagaan....
Though Arya and Amy's costumes were not really perfect for the setting...
Though I felt that there should have been more difference in the ways of speech of both the eras....
Though the screenplay needs a lot more pruning....
Though there could have been lesser 'masala'....

I still LIKED Madrasapatnam. Such efforts need to be lauded.

Kids, Parents and the rest of us

I am addicted to a South Indian television show which is a competition to choose the best singer from amongst kids of age 6 to 14 years.

I rarely get emotionally involved in movies or games or performances. It takes a lot more than mere talent to do that to me. To my amusement,  I find myself smiling wide and laughing and crying and cheering with the Show, the past 8 to 9 months. Why and how? Having successfully  found reasons to postpone work so far, this time I took up this question to muse upon and further procrastinate.

I'm not interested in what the Show highlights - the mind-blowing musical talent and what kids of such a young age are capable of. Of course I have discovered countless songs and added them to my favorites, after hearing the kids render them, which I would have never done otherwise. But that is not reason enough to make me subject to strong states of emotions.

What is it then?--- That makes me glued in front of the screen and madly devour episode after episode, ignoring the countless deadlines at hand.

From singing alone to themselves or to loving parents or in front of an admiring audience at school, these kids are suddenly raised to a tall platform and the eyes of the whole world are upon them. They are judged by great singers. They meet and perform in front of singers who can make the world rise and dance or fall at their feet in a trance. The kids find themselves in a spotlight that would have featured only in the wildest dreams of any human being. That tension is enough to make anyone go speechless, leave alone giving their best performance. Overcome that hurdle and perform, only to find that it is not easy to convince others of your ability. Find yourself staggering under feedback and suggestions to improve from all directions. Discover that whatever you have been doing so far is not so right and needs to be changed and that, in less than a week's time.

Pressure on kids implies pressure of magnitude several times higher, on their parents. Some find it forced upon them, against their will and some take it up willingly and happily for their kids. Some handle the pressure rightly and motivate their kids positively while the others fail to do so, their failure having a direct effect on their kid's performance. Whatever it is, there is no time to regret and go back to correct a mistake. It is a do-or-die. Only the right combination at the right time could crack through the layers of the contest. The others are dropped out and bid a better luck for the next time-- they need to wait longer or forever to get their moment of recognition again ( for opportunity to knock on their door again).

People criticize when you are wrong - to watch how you handle the negative feedback and the embarrassing moments of failure in front of an audience - if you make a comeback or if you wither away. People also wait and watch how you handle the popularity - if it gets to your head or if you take it in your stride and never falter from giving your best. By people I mean not only the judges who do have the constraint of having to judge the kids solely based on their talent, but also the common viewers who vote to choose the winner at the crucial stages of the contest.

Despite all these pressures, it is inspiring to find glorious butterflies emerge from shy, unnoticed caterpillars.

I cheer for the shy kid with the beautiful voice - who in the initial rounds had curving shoulders, the terrified look on her face wishing that she had never come, the downcast look when she kept getting suggestions to improve ,whatever she tried - I find her now, with an amazing voice that commands your attention, she experiments several new genres that need a lot of confidence and in her last performance, she even danced along with the groove of her singing, of course all the shyness coming back to her at the end of the song.

I cheer for the kid who looks simple, down-to-earth and out-of-place on that glamorous stage and setting - he hails from a village and has had no previous training in music - he impresses the judges with his talent and soulful voice, ringing clear - conveying an innocence and the depth of knowledge that no amount of training could have given.

I cheer for the kid with the laryngitis initially - the worst thing to happen to a singer - now taking up highly difficult songs and rendering them perfectly with a voice, brought back to normal after a lot of training and lung exercises.

There are several talented kids who have come out of whatever box they were in, taking the audience by surprise, proving that they deserve the attention, becoming more and more versatile day by day.

I feel sorry for the kids who have enormous talent but yielded to the pressure and failed to make it far in the contest. I wish they find happiness in whatever they choose to do next with their lives.

I cheer for the youngest kid in the show, pressured to excel by his dad. He looks at his dad every now and then during the performance - he looks up to his dad and works hard to please him, rather than trying to please the judges. The kid is a prodigy capable of huge victories, if guided rightly. I hope and pray that his natural talent does not get suppressed by his dad's over-expectations.

And what do I cry for? :-D ---At the look on the parents' faces hearing the praises showered on their kids, not able to believe how their little kid has transformed their lives so drastically, taking them to places, being appreciated by important people, being supported and raised to the skies by unknown people. Priceless! The parents were able to handle all pressures and still motivate their little kid positively and hence they deserve the adulation too, undoubtedly.

The answer to my question... I get emotional because it takes more than mere talent for kids (unlike grown-ups) to attain such huge victories. They depend enormously on family for support and it does enthrall the mind to see a winning combo of a family. Especially when I am so far away from home.... :D There it comes--- the reason behind all my recent posts.