Why I like 'Lakshya'

This particular movie is one of my most favourite movies ever. And the reasons are as follows: 

* The protagonist Karan Shergill - And the transformation in his character is quite inspiring! 

*The subtle humour sprinkled about - One of my most favourite scenes from the movie is 'Detail Dhava Position' from GC Karan Shergill's unruly early IMA days. Watch it because description doesn't do it justice. Besides, I was the only person in the movie hall to laugh out loud at this scene.

*The music: Each and every song in this movie is so damn inspiring. Especially 'Payega jo lakshya hai tera'. It just fills my mind with unlimited vigour.

*Boman Irani as Karan Shergill's father: You just expect him to do something funny anytime, but he holds his fort as a credible character without it becoming a caricature, doesn't he?

*The secondary characters: They are brilliantly detailed and played. Each one has a significance and Karan Shergill rarely has the best lines in the movie! It's these characters that give the film so much depth. Think Amitabh Bachchan who doesn't dominate. Think Sushant Singh with his 'Malihabad ke aam' and Ranveer Shorey with his extremely good luck. They stay with you.

*The beautifully shot battle scenes: ('Shot' isn't quite the right word) I've seen other war movies made by Indian filmmakers and I think this movie has some of the best of the lot. After seeing LOC my father said that the scenes in that movie were probably more detailed and accurate, but Lakshya had more heart without it being melodramatic and loud (literally... Imagine Sunny Deol in border... or Ajey devgan's swear words beeped out in LOC)

Lakshya's battle scenes were balanced well by other events like the hospital scene etc. Even though Preity Zinta had the most ridiculous wigs on, and botched up her accent in a scene or two, she adds a feminist flavour to the film which doesn't have noteworthy women characters (Lillet Dubey has an excruciatingly tiny part in the film)

*The fact that I got a running commentary from my father throughout this movie. He was transported back to his IMA days, and I heard stories from him about his time there which convinced me that my father was a wild child! I've seen his photos from his college days and the transition from that long haired-cigarette smoking-bellbottom wearing boy from Bombay to the uniformed Second Lieutenant was quite similar to Karan Shergill's in the movie. 

After the movie, he told me that they made him repeat a semester for disciplinary reasons. That day, my jaw dropped to the floor and my father officially became my No. 1 hero! 

This movie has added so much value to my life as well as to Indian films!

If I ever lose my memory...

...play this song for me! 

(I might not get my memory back, but this will remain my most favourite song ever!)

goodbye old friend... 1999-2012

As I say goodbye to an old friend, companion and extremely good villain to my silly imaginary stories (most of which came to me after I turned 18) nostalgic songs play in my head. 

It was 1999 when this oddly menacing paper mache being came to my life. With a dark brown surface and a perpetual open mouth with pointy plastic teeth and red eyes, it was an intimidating figure for it's height.               

It was a happy chappy. Always smiling whether swallowing fuel guzzlers or posing for toothless fisheye photos. Or taking the flak for my damaged hard drive during a really fucked up semester at college.

It got varnished recently by the guy who was polishing the woodwork at my house recently. I decided to give it away to a kid who I knew would love it the way I did.

Goodbye old friend. Farewell.

There will never be a Godzilla like you in my life again. 

I love arches

Photos of some arches from my ongoing projects

I really do love arches!

Buzzing

Ever since I started architecture college, I have been surrounded by the smell of fevicol. There are two different types of fevicol glue: SH and MR. SH: what carpenters use and MR: what they sell commercially in stationery shops. We made scale models of our designs in class, and fevicol SH was recommended for the fact that it was stronger and cheaper. There were alternatives like bulbond which were even cheaper, but I preferred fevicol.

If you have ever used fevicol extensively, you'll know how much fun it is to play with it. Spread it on your hand and peel off the layer once dried and etc... But sometimes, I've also enjoyed sniffing it. The smell was addictive. and I got a temporary buzz every time I did. I still do.

So today, I used my fevicol MR bottle to squeeze out some glue, and instinctively began sniffing while listening to some good music. Gave me a momentary buzz...

PS: I'd read somewhere that that 'feeling' is from the brain cells getting fried inside... I don't know if thats true.

Deaf and Dumb

I listen to music while I work. It's not like I cannot listen to music while working, but given a choice, I put on my headphones and listen to my favourite music. To the other people in my house, I am temporarily deaf. Sometimes when my mother wants to speak to me while I'm listening to music, she says it out loud and when she's finished and I finally realise she's trying to say something, I remove my headphones and turn back to listen to her, she communicates with me using hand symbols.

I think she does it on purpose.

looking for squash partners...

Ever since my old squash partner shifted to Bangalore, I haven't played that game. As a parting gift, he loaned me his racquet so that I could find someone else to play squash with. Unfortunately, I am still looking for partners, and I feel sad for keeping his racquet and not using it.

We always played squash at odd times, because it was cheaper to hire the court between 11 AM to 5 PM. Health club happy hours! The only other pople who would come to that fitness centre and that time were housewives who got their kids for skating or tennis class after school. And they would keep watching us play. We suspected that it was because they somehow fell into the charms of my partner's gloomy yet dimpled innocence.

It's not like I'm any good at squash, but I would certainly like to start playing again!

(in the above article, squash is not a euphemism for sex)

Tales from the construction site III

I was walking along a storeroom made of corrugated sheets yesterday afternoon when I heard something banging against the metal. This particular site is in a fairly remote tribal area and weird noises made by animals and insects are quite common. I looked towards the base of the shed from where the sound was coming from and saw a little snake trying to get it.

There's nothing interesting for you in there, snakey... unless your girlfriend has sneaked in there already!

Tales from the construction site... and beyond... II

I went to site a few months back to realise they had screwed up an arch. So I made them break it down and redo all the formwork. I went to see something else till they did it, and I realised they made a different mistake this time. So I supervised the next attempt.

The mason who was fixing the formwork wanted a measuring tape and the manager tossed it towards him.

He wasn't able to catch it.

The site manager was already pissed at the masons and he screamed 'Cricket nahi khelta kya?'

I'm someone else.

I read my own tweets from the past few days recently. And I come off as extremely shallow and self-centred. I don't seem to be serious, and amongst a sea of aware, opinionated and extremely intelligent people, I appear to be an asinine idiot.

Asinine behavior for an inane concept.

I prefer to care in real life instead.

Lemongrass dip

I made a delicious lemongrass dip today, and I shall avoid writing stories about it :)

I chopped 2 chillies, some coriander, 2 long freshly cut lemongrass blades, 6 cloves of garlic, a little bit of ginger and a few teaspoons of water and grind it all up. 

Mix that paste thoroughly with 500 gms of hung curd, a teaspoon of lemon juice and 2 teaspoons of cream and some salt.

Voila! Here's your dip or bread spread :D

Add some finely chopped cabbage and capsicum to make it crunchy. 

Cinnamon comfort: My version of a desi cinnamon cappuccino

Have you ever had a creamy foamy Indian version of the Italian Cappuccino?

If you haven't, I suggest you do! It's easy to make. In the local Indian English dialect, it's called 'Beaten coffee' and according to me, it's quite popular in the Northern half of the Indian subcontinent. Or maybe just India.

For four cups of creamy coffee, take four teaspoons of instant coffee, sugar as per your liking and a narrow cup. Add the coffee and sugar in the cup with a few drops of water/milk and start beating it vigorously with a spoon (like beating an egg) in the cup till the concoction turns a few shades lighter and gets a smooth texture and with  a honey like consistency (cake batter like, if you want to be a bit more specific.) The more you beat it, the better it will taste. (I think it's mostly psychological)

Mix 2 cups of milk and 2 cups of water and heat it till just before it starts boiling. Add equal parts of the coffee concoction into four cups and pour the milk into them and stir a bit for the wonderful creamy rich foam collecting on top.

Serve hot!

Add a pinch of cinnamon to the coffee concoction as you beat it for a lovely feeling of a warm comforting cinnamon embrace from within.

Not everyone's going to like it, but if you are a cinnamon lover, you might just fall in love with your cuppa all over again! 

Too little... too late

An old friend of mine shared her brother's photos from last year The tone of the post was too nostalgic to ignore as just another. I hadn't read any update from him so I checked his profile and to my shock, I read that he had passed away in November last year. He was so young -just twenty four.

Deepak was not just my friend Divya's brother, but my friend too. And he was a smart young man who didn't deserve to die so young. I read in news reports that he died of severe head injuries sustained in a bike crash (while speeding over a speed breaker - according to times of India.) It's not the first time I've lost a friend to a bike accident. A classmate of mine - Girish, died after riding home drunk on his motorbike without a helmet on his head. His parents, his steady girlfriend and his devoted friends were all shocked and devastated. And all that just a few months before we graduated. He might have been pure at heart and a good person, but when it mattered, he acted irresponsibly. Whats the use of all that goodwill in the end? I used to feel angry, but I don't feel much anymore. Most of his friends were in denial about drunk driving. I blame them as much as I blame him. 

I don't know much about the circumstances in which Deepak died, but I would prefer to be ignorent. I prefer to be in denial about what happened, and blame it all on the lack of common knowledge of CPR which might have saved his life in such a circumstance. It's all a game of ifs and buts. I have been trained to administer CPR in case of emergencies. I pray often that I shouldn't have to be in a situation where I have to give or receive CPR. Yet, every day I read about accidents happening on streets, highways and lakes and streams. So many of them are avoidable. Yet we lose precious life everyday.

I wanted to write to Divya, but it feels too little, and a bit too late for that. I wish I would have known before. I have a lot of excuses, but I wonder if I could have been more proactive and kept in touch with the two of them more than just through facebook? Would I have come to know of this accident earlier otherwise? Is it ok to justify not keeping in touch saying the others don't either? Now only those faint memories of Deepak remain from ten years ago.

A cruel coincidence - As I unravelled the story of Deepak's death, the song playing in the background was 'Car crash'

Is the universe trying to give me hints as usual?