this might just work out to become a crib post (thats not to be associated with the mental level of the lil folk in cribs, although some people, especially my wife, has that complaint about me, hehe). i happened to see the final edition of the matrix trilogy (yeah, i have been sorta living in a cave), even after reviews of die hard fans advocating against it…but hey, this is the matrix we are talking about, so it cant be that bad….and if you take the movie by itself, it wasnt, in fact, it was good, but unfortunately it has the matrix to live up to, which isnt exactly easy…in my view, thats what they tried to do, maybe they didnt really have fun doing it, and it showed… too many things added in just for having it…the titles shown with an ‘asatoma satgamaya’ chant to highlight the mysticism/philosophy, talks of karma….but i did love some lines, notably agent smith’s ” where others see chance, i see cost, where others see coincidence, i see consequence”…but morpheus and trinity have been truly wasted…and so many cliches, the boy wanting to live up to expectations and doing a heroic thing, a sunrise in the end….and dialogues that were made heavy just for the sake of it….bottom line, once upon a time in wwe, Triple H said “you wanted a revolution , you got it!!”, well, the same cant be said of the matrix….i guess its true what they say “everything that has a beginning has an end”…but, whatever said and done, The trilogy is unique, i doubt whether anything before or after has or will be successful in provoking so much thought….but what does provoke thought comes from the ‘idiot box’ in the form of ‘taken’…..just two more episodes to go 🙁 , hear another good piece of dialogue..” when things around you dont make sense, you try to hold on to things that make sense, so you can understand the things happening around you… you try to understand the reasons behind it, but , what if you find the reasons, and those reasons are not yours??”… those of you who wanna check the series out, try this link … so long, till the next post….
Author: manuscrypts
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Snapshots
i read an article on Business World (yes, i do read that occassionally 🙂 ) about how maruti is contemplating phasing out the ol’ 800, and replacing it with alto (as the entry level car)….yes, the 800 has been around for sometime now, but i was wondering, if i bought one now, and managed to keep it for a couple of decades, my kids would actually get to say, “my pop drives around in that old 800”..in fact they would actually treat it like a relic, like say, i look at the old “morris”……. some years ago, i used to say , ” my dad drives the old ambi”…..but the ambi was THE car for so many decades….funny thing being that, as the lifespan of humans increase, that of their cars seem to be on the decline…so we will be changing cars faster and faster and faster (assuming we get richer and richer and richer..hehe)……..there was a time when the car was a lifetime purchase, but like everything else, its life is also becoming shorter…shorter and shorter till even a momentous thing like buying a car would become as momentary as a lil snapshot, and changes happen so fast that life becomes a series of snapshots that might or might not be linked….just as it is now…..maybe thats why they say “the more things change, the more they stay the same”…….saw the 7th episode of taken yesterday, my conclusion Steven spielberg is an alien in disguise, why else is he trying to drill so many concepts of aliens into us?? hehe, but i like it anyway……………manuscrypts triviaAoccdrnigto a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. -
Taken
blogging after more than a month…… the blame to be put squarely on the rigmarole of having to earn a living, one of the sad side effects of existence…hehe…a lil corner of the square can also be taken by lack of sufficient material to write on…. life is again to be blamed coz i havent been given adequate writing skills… no, no, no i am not complaining, but i have to find a fall guy, dont i??
so, what have i been doing, …i have finished reading “the namesake”, its a well written book, i like her narration style immensely, it somehow makes you more involved, so your reading is no more objective, that, i think, requires some talent… it almost tempted me to buy some books by russian authors, but i burnt my fingers a long time ago, so i am hesitant, hehe…..i have a feeling that i am biased abt the book, because the book echoes my apprehensions of life in the US for Indians, the characters and events could be rules or exceptions, but whichever way, it could happen to anyone settling there……a sense of ‘unbelonging’…midway between two worlds…i have started reading another book, “the death of mr.love”..yes, it sounds like a corny thriller, but as the saying goes, “dont judge a book by its cover (which includes its title)”….but what i enjoy most these days are 9 pms on sunday nights, on star movies, coz thats when i am “taken” .. and i have been completely taken by the mini series, 6 episodes over and 4 to go, would have liked to tape the entire thing, but lack resources…its not just sci fi, that wd have made it a normal series, but theres a whole philosophical approach to the whole thing, especially the lil voice that does the narration….just to quote a few examples …someone once asked my dad what he did for a living, he said, ‘i cut the grass and watch it grow, then i cut it again and watch it grow again.. like life, 90% of the job is maintenance’ when things are on track, we like to say theres a reason behind things happening, but when things dont go our way, we ask ourselves, whose reasons , and for what??they showed the narrator for the first time last sunday, a cute lil girl, a product of a “taken” guy and a genetically 1/4th alien woman… wonder whats the % of reality is, in the content of the show.. but more than anything else, it shows the significance and insignificance of human existence…..and subtly portrays the message that i hold so dear ” there are so many things we take for granted in life, including life itself”and formanuscrypts triviaa fwd i got…MEMO FROM GOD To: YOU Date: TODAY From: THE BOSS Subject: YOURSELF Reference: LIFE I am God. Today I will be handling all of your problems. Please remember that I do not need your help. If life happens to deliver a situation to you that you cannot handle, do not attempt to resolve it. Kindly put it in the SFGTD (something for God to do) box. All situations will be resolved, but in My time, not yours. Once the matter is placed into the box, do not hold onto it by worrying about it. Instead, focus on all the wonderful things that are present in your life now. If you find yourself stuck in traffic; Don’t despair. There are people in this world for whom driving is an unheard of privilege. Should you have a bad day at work; Think of the man who has been out of work for years.Should you despair over a relationship gone bad; Think of the person who has never known what it’s like to love and be loved in return. Should you grieve the passing of another weekend; Think of the woman in dire straits, working twelve hours a day, seven days a week to feed her children. Should your car break down, leaving you miles away from assistance; Think of the paraplegic who would love the opportunity to take that walk. Should you notice a new gray hair in the mirror; Think of the cancer patient in chemo who wishes she had hair to examine. Should you find yourself at a loss and pondering what is life all about, asking what is my purpose? Be thankful. There are those who didn’t live long enough to get the opportunity. Should you find yourself the victim of other people’s bitterness, ignorance, smallness or insecurities; Remember, things could be worse. You could be one of them! Think, and understand, that in the card game of life, it is not important what you are dealt with, what is important is how you deal with it. -
The Divine brief
This is the problem when you break a routine, it is difficult to get back into it……..once upon a short time ago, i used to make the blog a part of my everyday routine, but i took a break, and now i cant get back to it…..its a different issue altogether whether the constraint is ability or desire……..saw two movies this weekend, “the league of extraordinary gentlemen” and “calcutta mail”….the former was very good, though the movie was a lil bit too centred around sean connery, i dont know if i am having an indian bias when i say that naseeruddin shah was a bit sidelined, but considering that almost all the transportation of the league was taken care of by him ( there was this scene when he shows (i think) sawyer, a car, and says “i call this an automobile”, and sawyer asks, ‘yeah, but what is it?”..) i think part of the movie’s charm was its 1899 setting……”calcutta mail” was also good…it had shades of sudhir misra’s earlier movie “is raat ki subah nahi”, but still i think the kolkata visuals and a good performance from anil kapoor made up for it…i read somewhere that “kal ho na ho” is a remake of ‘anand’, the hrishikesh mukherjee movie with rajesh khanna and amitabh bachan, whatever i heard of the title track is good, cds release this 27th, i think i will buy it…also want to check out ‘tehzeeb’, since the music is by rehman…now , if you wondering what the title was all about, for any project undertaken, theres a brief given, so before earth getting created God must have got a brief….if we could get that brief, a lot of ‘why’ questions about this world would be answered…..for copyrights purposes, although i had this idea some time ago, the immediate inspiration to mention it came from a site i mentioned in my last blog……………reminds me of the song by joan osborne “what if god were one of us?………..”okay, thats enuff for the day, here’smanuscrypts triviaa good forward i got….There’s a bunch of doctors gathered together at a doctor’s convention one night. A male doctor notices a female doctor from across the room. The female doctor notices also and the next thing you know, they’re sitting next to each other by the end of dinner.After dinner, the male asks the woman if she wants to go up to his hotel room. ’’Sure,’’ the woman says. ’’Let me go wash my hands first.’’After she washes her hands, they make love. After they are finished, she washes her hands again.This is really starting to annoy the male doctor so he says, ’’You know, you must be a surgeon, because you keep washing your hands.’’Angry at this remark, the woman says, ’’Well, you must be an anesthesiologist, because I didn’t feel a thing!’’