I Love This Movie

Set in modern day India, Swades is a film that tackles the issues that development throws up on a grass root level. It is to this India, which is colorful, heterogeneous and complex that Mohan Bhargava (Shah Rukh Khan), a bright young scientist working as a project manager in NASA, returns to on a quest to find his childhood nanny. The film uses the contrast between the highly developed world of NASA, which has been at the forefront of advances in space research, and this world back home in India, which is at the crossroads of development. Mohan's simple quest becomes the journey that every one of us goes through in search of that metaphysical and elusive place called "home".

Swades is inspired by the story of Aravinda Pillalamarri and Ravi Kuchimanchi, the NRI couple who quit their jobs in the US and return to India to work on micro-hydel project in Bilgaon. Read more: http://nripulse.com/profile_RaviAravinda.htm

After watching the movie, the NRIs must have slept late, may have called India homes at 8 cents a minute to tell everyone they saw Swades and liked it very much.

Typically, NRIs are Non-Returning Indians.

Katie Melua's Spider's Web

This song takes on issues of racism and war. Katie mixes the metaphors of a piano's black and white keys to send a strong message about the struggles we face individually and collectively as a nation. She wrote this song herself. She has written passionately about something she cares passionately about. The song builds from a slow and contemplative ballad to an almost rocky climax of energy, drums and screaming/crying out of the lyrics.

If a black man is racist, is it okay?
If it's the white man's racism that made him that way,
Because the bully's the victim they say,
By some sense they're all the same.

Because the line between wrong and right,
Is the width of a thread from a spider's web,
The piano keys are black and white,
But they sound like a million colours in your mind.

I could tell you to go to war,
Or I could march for peace and fighting no more,
How do I know which is right,
And I hope he does when he sends you to fight.

Should we act on a blame?
Or should we chase the moments away?
Should we live?
Should we give?
Remember forever the guns and the feathers in time.

My addiction is a safe choice

In my previous blog, I wrote an article on music and my life. I am just copying a line down here which I remember it well.

Some turn to drugs and alcohol to feel alive... I turn to music, rhythm and harmony. I depend on it, and feel that my addiction is a safe choice.

Listing down some of my favourite tracks with the music artists.


English

• A1
• Alanis Morissette
• Alizee
• Aqua
• Asher Lane
• ATB
• Blondfire
• Bryan Adams
• Celine Dion
• Coldplay
• Dido
• DJ Tiesto
• Duran Duran
• Enrique Iglesias - California Callin, Say It, Addicted, Be Yourself, Wish Were Here (With Me), Roamer, Live It Up Tonight, Be With You, Bailamos, Maybe, One Night Stand, She Be The One, If The World Crashes Down, Ring My Bells, Somebody's Me, Tired of Being Sorry, Stay Here Tonight
• Katie Melua
• Keane
• Kelly Clarkson
• Kim Wilde
• Kylie Minogue
• Lene Marlin
• Linkin Park
• Moby
• Madonna
• MLTR
• Natalie Imbruglia
• Poets of the Fall
• Rascal Flatts
• Richard Clayderman
• Robbie Williams
• Roxette
• Röyksopp
• Savage Garden
• Shania Twain
• Snow Patrol
• Starsailor
• Take That
• t.A.T.u
• The Corrs
• U2

Hindi
A R Rahman
Abhijit Sawant
Atif Aslam
Bappi Lahiri
Jal
Kailash Kher
Lucky Ali
Shafaqat Amanat Ali
Shankar Ehsaan Loy

A Chocolate Bar

Chocolates have always been a part of my life. I dont like the colour brown, its something associated with dirt... but I liked chocolates. Whenever I had money, I bought a chocolate, had it, and then started licking the left-out chocolate grains that were left on the wrapper. I used to think that one day, I will have a chocolate shop, where I will keep different varieties of the same.

I had almost all kind of chocolates in my life. Black chocolates, dark chocolates, coconut chocolates from South Africa, sour chocolates, milk chocolates (the ones tht Indians prefer to eat) and many. I still remember the day when Gul told me that she likes Bourneville, and that evening only, I searched the whole city for that particular chocolate. I still remember that day when I went to Bangalore with my father, and there some uncle bought me a very big chocolate (4 times the size of a Dairy Milk that I hv seen that time) which lasted for 2 days. Those 2 days were like "lunch and dinner with chocolates". I remember that day when in Hira Panna, a chocolate bar fell down from my hand after listening its price. Though later, I bought a different chocolate from the same shop, but this time 6 times the price that he told me for the other chocolate. I was feeling bad at that time, but I had the courage to buy it. I still dont understand what makes me so crazy whenever I see a chocolate.

Now the problem is that the crave for them have even out in not even more than 2 years. Its not that I dont have time for chocolates. Its not even that I dont like them. I just dont know the reason. Situation is like I have to decide when I will have a chocolate. Few days back, one of my friend insisted me to have a complete chocolate sharp at 9 PM (details of that particular chocolate were also decided), and I was like waiting for that exact time, holding the chocolate in one hand, and my mobile in another. When the clock striked 9, I had it, smiling and uttering at myself "Yes, I have done it", as if I have won a football match.

And today, its again the same "lunch and dinner with chocolates", but I am not able to finish all of them. There were days when I went without having chocolates, and today they are in plenty. They have been my first love, and much better than having a girl friend or a partner.

Admiring from a safer distance

A crush is something like admiring someone from a safer distance. Its like say there is a girl for whom you can do anything. You think about her constantly. You admire some of her qualities which are very special to you. Thats it.

Beyond that, if you feel that you want to tell her how you feel, but at the same time, you are frightened, then it can either be love or infatuation. Or it can be that you work to be her friend, and then maybe her best friend. At that time, its not crush anymore - its a meaningful relationship.

We should all enjoy being in crush(es). I have always enjoyed a lot all this throughout my life. My crush list included teachers, news readers and journalists, some of my friends (most of them having a boyfriend...lol), music artists. Its just that the the crush keeps on changing, but the crush list keeps on increasing.

Although its a nice and sweet feeling, it can be painful if you let it take over your life. You are not able to balance those feelings with the rest of what is going on in your world, and thus you suffer.