Blue - Some Observations

First off, this is not a movie review post, just some random observations I made while watching the film Blue.

• The first few minutes of the film are breathtaking! They show the underwater life in the ocean surrounding Carribbean islands. Looks more like a Discovery Channel feature than a Bollywood film's opening credits. If you miss these few minutes, half your money's worth is lost
• The person who was holding the camera must have been very short (say about 3 ft tall). Most of the shots that have women in skimpy clothes, the camera is focussed only at their waist or below. So it was anyone's guess where the camera would focus whenever a woman in bikini appears on the screen
• If you have many great tattoos but don't have a great body to go with it, you are a loser. Sanjay Dutt, with his fancy tattoos could not show them one bit due to his huge paunch. Poor guy!
• If you are not in shape, please please please don't wear diving suits. You have no idea how gross it looks!
• Yes, Lara Dutta has a wonderfully toned body in this movie and I liked her styling too
• Kylie Minogue song was over-hyped. She did not look that hot either. What was the price they paid her I heard??
• Rahman's music was a bit of a let-down, I didn't remember even a single song after leaving the movie theatre!
• Akshay still seems to be extremely fit. The guy looks much leaner than he has looked in any of his recent releases

There was something I liked about the movie, wasn't it? Oh yeah, the first 5 minutes of the film showing underwater life. Well, I already mentioned that in the beginning...

Feast of Love

I watched this beautiful movie called Feast of Love this weekend. I had never heard of this movie before and had bought its DVD a week ago by just seeing Morgan Freeman on the cover :). A little bit of reading its back cover gave me an idea that it would be something on the lines of Love Actually. The film is directed by Robert Benton of The Human Stain and Twilight fame.

The film has many stories in it .. all on the theme of love. Each of them exploring a different dimension of love - be it between two youngsters who fall in love with each other the moment they lay their eyes on each other, between two women (one of them married and having no idea that she could get attracted to another woman), between two people who had been having an affair with each other only to realize later that they were actually in love all along and my favorite .. love and comfort between two older people .. the kind of love that comes from decades of togetherness. The film has been dealt with a lot of sensitivity and the characters are well developed and layereed. The film also managed to stay away from becoming the usual romantic chick-flick, which I do not have much liking for. It has elements of both happy and sad endings to love stories. Most of the actors have given good performances but I particularly liked those of Morgan Freeman and Alexa Davalos. Alexa's beauty and talent have shone through the whole film and she has managed to steal the attention away from more established names like Radha Mitchell and Selma Blair.

A good romantic film that also has depth to it. May not be suitable for family viewing as there are some explicit scenes in the film.

09-09-09

Just realized that today's date is 09-09-09. I am sure many people would have noticed this before I did and I might be getting a lot of email forwards about this date being unique as the day proceeds, but still ...

The Jungle Get-away

One of the many things I absolutely love about Bangalore is its proximity to some of the great travel destinations - most of them being just few hours' drive away. One such place is the Nagarhole National Park. So Colin & Vandana planned a trip to the national park along with a stay at this wonderful place called King's Sanctuary as a birthday gift for me (can I be any luckier than this?? :) ). The traffic on Bangalore-Mysore highway was insane on Saturday morning even if we started quite early, mostly so as it was a long weekend. We made a short 2-hour break at Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary on the way. We spotted many bird species like - White Ibis, Open Billed Storks, Egrets, bats and of course many crocodiles lying about lazily.

 About couple of hours' drive away from the bird sanctuary was our destination - King's Sanctuary; nestled almost a stone's throw away from the entrance of the national park. The resort is very tastefully done - sprawling premises with a rustic touch and some very unusual flora & fauna. The suite we had booked was a spacious 2-bedroom and a living room unit. The best part of it was the bathroom which opened into a room with bathtub and had an open roof!! The resort also offered many recreational activities of which we indulged in cycling, few games of croquet, tree-climbing using a rope & harness (I think they called it jumaneering or something; which only Colin managed to do, rest of us couldn't even get our feet off the ground!), a tribal song and dance show and children's games around the bonfire. Being my birthday, I also got to cut the very delicious cake (on the house!) in the midst of this all and got wished by dozens of other guests gathered at the bonfire :).

We woke up at 5 AM the next day to head for the jungle safari starting at 6 AM in an open gypsy. The cool morning breeze and the sounds of the jungle made us forget about our drowsiness (and last night's hangover too :) ) soon. The animals we saw were herds of spotted deer (chital), four-horned antelope, wild boar, peacock, wild hens, elephant, giant Malabar squirrels, Brahminy Kites and tortoise. There was a family of five wild boars (two adults and 3 kids) who, on spotting us, fled away instantly. Except that the 3 kids kept stopping and looking at us out of curiosity in spite of constant prodding by their parents to run away. Looks like animals aren't all that different from us humans, just a lot better. The closest we got to spotting a tiger was the pug-marks of a mother and its cub, the marks were just about few hours old as per our knowledgeable guide. One of the saddest sights I remember was seeing an antelope nibbling on (probably food inside) a poly-bag. The other being an elephant training camp which had about 5-6 elephants in huge chains being tamed by their mahouts :( . The guide told us that rest of the elephants have already been taken to train for participating in Mysore Dussehra festival.

We came back to the resort to a huge breakfast laid out for all guests (did I mention that the food there was excellent?). Another game of croquet and freshening up later, we were all set to hit the roads to head back to Bangalore braving the insane traffic - a sign that another vacation had come to an end ...

Off to the woods ...

... with family ... for my birthday weekend. Goodbye chaos; wilderness, here I come!

The Grapes of Wrath

The back cover of the book by John Steinbeck has the writer's quote: " I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied". I found this quote so intriguing that I ended up buying this book instead of the other Steinbeck book (East of Eden) that I had set out to buy that day. I must say The Grapes of Wrath left me with similar feelings that his novella Of Mice and Men had left me with earlier .. sad, dissatisfied and a bit depressed.

The Grapes .. chronicles the journey of the Joads - a farmer family from Oklahoma, who drive hundreds of miles to California in search of greener pastures (in the form of a steady job and food for the family) during the Great Depression. The transformation each person in the family goes through, while battling hunger, deaths and misery; is beautifully captured. The author has also described the principles of demand and supply (availability of farm laborers and their wages) and capitalization (large corporates controlling farm produces and in turn, making small farmers broke) in a very simple way. He even writes the conversations exactly the way an Oklahoma farmer would speak - somepin for something, purty for pretty, ast for ask .. and such like :)

It definitely is a great read if one is not looking for a they-lived-happily-ever-after kind of a story.

Poetry in Stone - Belur & Halebid Temples

Having heard about the magnificent carvings at Belur and Halebid temples from all my friends, I jumped at the opportunity when my team at work decided to head to these places last Saturday. The fact that the place is only about 4 hrs' drive away and this is the perfect season to visit added to the temptation. So all 12 of us started on the journey in a minibus at 6.15 AM. One of the girls from the team, Gisha, even took the pains of preparing & bringing hot sandwiches for all of us (our breakfast-on-the-go)! The drive was very scenic with acres of corn fields on both sides of the road and patches of marigold plantations.

First we reached Belur, which is about 200 kms away from Bangalore and has the famous Chenakeshava temple constructed in 1117 AD by kings of Hoysala dynasty. The construction spanned over 103 years! The carvings on these temples are so intricate that one can even see fine lines on palms and toes of the statues. Apart from religious figures, the chief attraction are the 42 dancing ladies (or madanikas). The expressions on their faces, each hair strand and delicate filigree work of their jewelry looks stunningly real. The earrings, bangles and anklets of some of the figures even rotate! All the carvings are on soapstone (or steatite), which is softer in the beginning and grows hard with time.

After spending about 2 hours at Belur and tucking in a sumptuous lunch, we headed towards Halebid. It is located 16 kms away from Belur and boasts of an equally beautifully embellished temple of Shiva called Hoysaleshwara temple, constructed in 1120 AD. The temple also has a huge statue of Bahubali in its premises and the figures inside the temple and on its outside walls depict social and mythological characters of those times. The Halebid temple had manicured lawns surrounding it giving it a cool serene look.

The last stop of our trip was Gorur dam - built on Hemavathy river and located about 60 kms from Hassan. Two of the dam's gates were opened to release excess water. The sight and sound of water was very relaxing. We started on our journey back to Bangalore soon after that and got home after midnight. Each one of us having cherished the trip. We would all look back fondly at the time we had spent admiring the myriad handiwork of artisans from centuries ago...

Pictures taken by: Senthil, Nikhil & Anbu

The Wedding .. Indian Style

An Indian wedding without a dash of color? The shiny red & gold dresses and glittering jewelry? Naaaah! So, we had Sangeet on the wedding eve - totally Indian style. Loads of color, naach-gaana, Bollywood music .. the works :)

Monsoon Wedding ... in Goa

The much-awaited wedding finally happened on July 11th. A wedding in our family after more than a decade! Vandana and Colin finally decided to say 'I do' in the magificent Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa. Vandana looked resplendent in her bridal finery and Colin a perfect gentleman. It truly amazes me to think that until few years ago my little sister thought that getting married was the stupidest thing a girl can do to herself :). I am glad Colin managed to change her mind.

I wish their honeymoon never ends ....

Weather or not ...

Another reason I love Bangalore .. when I check the weather forecast of this week for Bangalore


... and then for Delhi

I'm glad I live in the former!