Friday, December 30, 2022

Movies in 2022


In the last week itself, I must have watched 10 movies together at home. Looking through the numbers, I realised that I've watched a lot of forgetful movies by choice. This time, I took up on some movie suggestions and watched them. Vanaprastham,Spies,The Green book,Tashi and Monk,Love Today and few other movies stayed with me. 

Thanks to  Harry, Sneha,Veda,Humaira,Shailija for the suggestions. 

  1. Spies- Russian Web Series
  2. Decoupled
  3. Fishbowl Wives
  4. Ponniyan Selvan -Maniratnam
  5. Roja -Maniratnam
  6. Kantara- Rishab Shetty
  7. Palthu Janwar
  8. Inglorious Basterds
  9. The Green Book
  10. Virata Parvam
  11. Ante Sundaraniki
  12. Vanaprastham
  13. Rasan Piya
  14. Honey Cigar
  15. Rudali 
  16. The Diving Bell and Butterfly
  17. Swallows of Kabul
  18. Arab Blues
  19. Minnal Murali
  20. Red Notice
  21. Superman of Malegaon
  22. A journal for Jordan
  23. Tashi and Monk
  24. Life of Muthu
  25. Manjhi- The Mountain Man
  26. The Terminal
  27. Sita Ramam (Telugu)
  28. Hridayam (Malayalam)
  29. Jaya Jaya Jaya he (Malayalam)
  30. Love Today (Tamil)
  31. Blood Sex & Royalty (Series)
  32. Zodiac
  33. Saakini Daakini (Telugu)
  34. The Billion Dollar Code (Series)
  35. No Limit
  36. Darlings (Hindi)
  37. Ante Sundaraniki (Telugu)
  38. GanguBhai Katiyawadi
  39. '83
  40. She (Series)
  41. Hey Sinamika

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Books in 2022

Starting the year, I had a slight feeling that I may not be bit regular at reading books. Like I anticipated, I stuck to very few books this year. Though I started reading a lot of books, I didn't finish all those books within this year. I ended up completing 9 books this year.

1) Byculla to Bangkok by Hussain Zaidi

2) The reluctant mother by Zehra Naqvi

3) The red haired woman by Orhan Pamuk

4) Cuckold by Kiran Nagarkar

5) Conversations with friends by Sally Rooney

6) On Reading by Steve Mc Curry

7) The Book Thief by Marcus Suzak

8) My Father Baliah by  Y B Satyanarayana

9) Born a Crime by Trevor Noah


2022 in Months

 It's nice to reflect, wrap, review, close,reveal, 2022 in many different ways. Let me look at 2022 through months

Jan- Back to Jaipur. Worked on Travelers' University

Feb- Traveled to Karnataka, Chhatissgarh

Mar- Met Vaishnavi, got to learn about Soft Pastels.

Apr- Traveled to Uttarakhand. Began to work on Colorless.

May- Traveled to Bangalore. Perfomed 'The Art of Conversation'

June- Elli got married. Mohan mama passed away. 

July- Traveled to Karnataka. Attended a play at Hyderabad with Shyam &  Jaya. Thought of 629 KM walking expedition idea with Malavika.

Aug- Traveled to Sirohi, Pali. Caught up with Shankar, Azhar

Sep- Finished the first draft of Colorless at Uttarkashi. Traveled to Nepal. Caught up with Ruchi, Prateesh, Prashasti,

Oct- Attended Lok Rang festival. 

Nov- Traveled to Jodhpur with Harry & Vasu. Celebrated birthday with Maah Space

Dec- Pratyusha got married. Met Aishwarya, Srujana, Yashwanty after 12 years. Met Padmaja mam & Ratnamala mam too. Caught up with Jaya, Prudhvi, Bala, Shyam Swami, Chinmay, Sandy bhai, Hemanth, Naveen. 


Holidays with Harry - Storywriting



This time, we caught up for lunch, ordering food from Subayya Gari Hotel. We got a packet full of curries and basket full of rice. A delicious lunch. 

Harry quickly took out the print outs of the SOP I drafted. Focusing on my purpose and institution demands, he quickly jot down lines. Watching him skim and jotting down thoughts was a learning experience. I could clearly understand on how to begin a draft.

1) Focus on the purpose of the text
2) Do not think of word count, style, grammar
3)Write.Write and just write

Soon after some time, we went out to pick Anjali. Caught up with Anjali for a few minutes. Exactly the time between picking her up from Banjara hills and dropping her at Ameerpet. I hope she continues to chill out, rather than be too worried about the final exams she has to take,

Later  in the evening, Sagar, Sheetal, Harry huddled for a story narration. I joined them and tried to be an active listener. Watching three of them thinking the story in depth and various point of views is compelling me to learn more about story writing. 

Travel Diaries- The familiar taste palette


After a long swim, Veda and I walked into eat the familiar Mirchi Bajji. Veda is good at picking the specials. We had all the special the Mirchi Bajji Seller had to offer. Later, we washed it down with cheeku juice. Thanks Veda for treating me with familiar tasty mirchi masala.

Daylight Train Journeys

When I planned to go home, I wished to fly immediately and reach home. Work always procrastinated my plans and I was not sure when I would go. I always felt- Go, I must but, I'm not sure when.

At last, after managing all the work, I planned to travel. When I had to chose between flight and Train. I got inclined to travel through train for economical fare and the time I get to spend in train journey. 

I booked a berth in air conditioned coach at Jaipur-Secunderabad Express, to spend the next 32 hours traveling across 3-4 different states. 

I boarded at 10.20 PM with all the luggage I'm carrying home.  I'm grateful for the ruck sack, a thoughtful gift given by Shreya & The Deccan Project Boys. I always carry it in all my long travel trips. I was all set in train setting my luggage aside. I found a pepper-grey bearded gentleman occupying the opposite berth. We had a quick word. Both of us are traveling till the last stop-Secunderabad. 

On the first night, I quickly dozed off to wake up to the calls of tea & breakfast vendors. At 8.30 am, I freshened up to check the lush green trees shimmering under the morning sun. My recent favourite past time in day light train journeys, is to observe the trees and the way they sprawl on the spacious grounds. The untrimmed branches, the long creepers covering the whole trees and the different shapes a tree takes to find it's own form and shape. 

I wonder how old these trees must be. If I get a chance to sit near the train door comfortably to look out the passing trees and clouds, may be, I can spend a whole day. Through out MadhyaPradesh, I get to see lush green forest range and hills covered in trees.

Once in a while, I return to my berth, to catch up with my journal or to sip water and watch the trees through the window. When I'm tempted to watch the trees directly without the lens of train glass,  I reach the door. In that manner, I spent most of my day at the train door. 

My absolute favourite hour of the day is the dusk, where I get to see dim blue sky with no lights at all. The dark blue sky fades into darkness 


Sunday, December 18, 2022

Pratyusha's Wedding

Glad to attend and catch up with these people after ages. Yaswanthy, Srujana, Aishwarya, Sowmya and the other couple. 



Friends- Pratyusha's marriage Story-1

Pratyusha called up on the mobile number we have exchanged sometime after our 10th, to invite for the wedding. So happy to hear that she's getting hitched. We caught up on who all would attend her wedding. 

Planned to attend her wedding, I reflected on our connection. 

2010. Gowtam Model School. 

Aishwarya was the first person I met in a classroom. While she sat in the last bench, Varun, Santosh were sitting in third bench from backwards. I sat behind Varun, Santosh and ahead of Aishwarya. I struck a conversation with Aishwarya on the first day in my last school. 

After attending school for couple of days, sections were divided for 10th Class. Varun, Santosh, Abhishek, Abhilash C.V, Pradeep, Manish, Sandeep and most of us got into one class. 

In the beginning of my 10th, I hardly know Pratyusha. Without saying much, there are many gangs in the class. After spending a month, I could sense who's who. Pratyusha's girl gang comprises of Sushmitha, Aishwarya, Srujana, Sneha, Aishwarya, Akhila, Ramani & Yashwanty. Ajay, Moses, Sadgun, Romello, Rizwan are a few who are allies to this gang. All of them are in other section of the class. Hence, I hardly had interaction with them at the beginning. 

Sushmita Byra, I call her tennis player for she played tennis in her life at some point of time and that's how I could relate to her. Aishwarya Rupula- I think Jaydeep borrowed her MP3 player, and I borrowed it from him for couple of days. Listening to Saathiya songs through MP3 player was my favourite past time. I wonder if Aishwarya ever know that I had her MP3 player for couple of days. With others, in one way or the other, I had a conversation here and there and acknowledged their presence all through out the 10th class. 

After completing 10th class syllabus, a series of tests were conducted. Whoever performed well were put in a different classroom. Cream batch, they called it. Cream batch comprised of the legends, Sruthi, Sandhya, Neelima, Swathi Mansabdar, Bharadwaj, Nagendar Sai, Ravi and other studious students who enjoyed studying. In the same room, we had Susmitha, Swathi who are pretty chilled out as well as bright at studies. Pratyusha also belong to the same tribe. 

After one particular test, Pratyusha, myself and few others were asked to pack our bags and shift into that room. Santosh, Yashwanty and few others were also selected. I couldn't act rebel at that time by not shifting. I was obliged to the instructions and shifted. Others managed to escape from getting into the cream batch. 

Getting tagged to cream batch was a bad thing in the gang, as too much of studies would bring a distance between friends. 

Pratyusha and I got into the cream batch. Spending time in a same class for couple of weeks, we became acquaintances. She used to hang out with her gang soon after the classes, I used to go with my gang and managed to spend time with everyone. 

Rizwan, Pratyusha, Abhilash C V, myself and few others were put in some government school in Bhaglingampally  as 10th board examination centre.  For couple of weeks, we attended that school to write our 10th exams. 

After those exams, I visited Pratyusha once at her home, along with Akhila & other friends. I never expected that she'd take up CA then, as it was very new to me. All my friends whom I know were picking either planning to become engineers or doctors. After 10th class, we parted ways through different colleges. 

Most of my gang got into Narayana college, Narayanaguda. Susmita got into Tarnaka campus, Swathi to Narayana Gokul Chat Campus, Nagendar Sai was planning for IIT and Sruthi and others were also in the same group. 

All of us were connected through Facebook and never failed to comment on each other statuses, posts and photos. 

Regularly connected through social media, I caught up with Pratyusha when I wanted some help from her sister Niharika, who was working at Royal Enfield Company then. In the past, we used to catch up infrequently showing off our Tamil language proficiency to each other. 

Finally, I get a call from her, inviting me for a  wedding. I was excited to catch up with whom I didn't meet after 2010. 

Sunday, December 4, 2022

Movie Screening- The Swallows of Kabul

My first private anime film screening in Jaipur. This is hosted by alliance de francaise Jaipur & Theater of Open Society. Sanjana Sarkar hosted the screening and gave a little intro about the screenings, the organisations and the initiatives by them. 

The Swallows of Kabul is an adapated movie written by Yasmin. A young married couple lives in Kabul under the Taliban reign. Zunaira, Mohsen are young in love. Despite the daily misery in life, they forsee for a better future. In the movie, Zunaira, is an artist who loves to listen to loud music and paints on the walls. Mohsen is a calm lad, unable to protest yet, struggling to live according to Taliban. This is a story depicting the dullness in lives and the hope for a better future, through four characters Zunaira, Mohsen, the jailer and his wife.

After the screening there was a conversation with Animation filmmakers, Anna Doshi & Thezeeb Khurranna. Anna Doshi, came up with a lot of Anime movie suggestion. 

Gopi Gopika- ZEE5
Bombay Rose-Netflix
South Park
Three ladies in burqa- My father wears Burqha.Youtube

Listening to anime movie makers on animation. I could realise that there are different type of animations based out of countries. Does India will have a signature animation style? May be, it's matter of 10 to 15 years. 
 

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Anjali & I- Anjalis' Science Project

I've seen Anjali working on Water Dam model, Windmill and the last one on an electricity and resistance project. 


In dialogue with Timothy

I'm often reminded of the line, 'we teach who we are.' When I was catching up with Timothy, my professor, I shared, "I feel...