Category Archives: life

Movie Review: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Posted on by
Reply

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Where was this movie all my life ?!?

Such an incredibly beautiful movie. And I heard about it only on the recent Oscar award telecast where they paid a visual tribute to John Hughes who passed away last year.

I can’t believe this movie is not celebrated as the best of best to come out of Hollywood. Sadly it is only listed in Best Comedies.

This movie is wise beyond any youth-oriented movie I have known or seen.

I have the ‘Bueller, Bueller’ Edition – that too at half-price clearance sale. So beautiful I could cry at this beautiful comedy (of life ? )

The direction and narration for a film from 1986 is so fresh and clever and well-done.

This is a movie which has the ever-lasting quality because it speaks about what will forever be a “human condition”.

And the performances are great. Perfect background score and music that fits the situations as if the songs were written for it.

I don’t know why I never came across this movie. And yet today there it was sitting alone in a stack of discounted VCDs and I couldn’t believe my luck. And that changed to a fortune when I had finished watching the movie.

I hope all the people in the world can see this and see beyond the jokes into what Ferris Bueller is teaching to these few who worship him – and rightly so!

As I sort through all the John Hughes movies on his profile, I see I was previously impressed by “Baby’s Day Out” and had never bothered to look through this director’s works.

“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is a masterpiece. If you thought you deal with life as a struggle – well wake up cause it shouldn’t be a fight – dance to it and let it take you where you wanna go.

Very inspirational!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferris_Bueller%27s_Day_Off

From Wikipedia:

“I think when John Hughes wrote, produced and directed Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, he was writing about a human need as basic as the human need that Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration of Independence: the need to be free, and to pursue happiness. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – very basic stuff. And I don’t know that there’s ever been a happier movie. It’s a movie that you cannot watch without feeling really, really great.” —Ben Stein

So check it out and learn how to live!!!

Bridge to Terabithia (2007 film): Movie Review

Posted on by
Reply

Easily among the best children’s movie from recent years. Probably better than most children’s movies since a long time.

BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA

Based on a critically acclaimed Novel of the same name – this movie adaptation made 30 years after the release of the novel – lives up to the quality of the novel.

Wiki says: Screenwriter David Paterson is author Katherine Paterson’s son, and the novel is based on parts of his childhood. When he asked his mother if he could write a screenplay of the novel, she agreed because of his ability as a playwright.

So there was the personal touch, which probably breathed much life into a simple kid’s story to make it into an immensely moving tale about life as a child with little comforts but great happiness and friendships.

This one tops in both adaptation of a children’s story and as among the best children’s stories.

The movie stays with the spirit of the book, though it is not the same.

There are quite a few things different – but the plot and premise stay the same.

Director Csupó noted that the two main characters are a little bit older in the film than they are in the book. Csupó reasons that the movie “deals with so many issues including friendship, and maybe first innocent love, things like that”, so it “made more sense” to make the characters older.

So, while the author’s son had experienced similar loss when he was 8 years old and the novel is indeed dedicated by the mother to her son – the movie shows us young school teenagers who are getting into their own – finding others and themselves and discovering the world around them – and more importantly the possibilities of love and life.

This movie may be too much for anyone younger than 12 to appreciate or understand its suggestions. But nevertheless it is a story for youth. It is meant for children so as to give them the benefit of these 2 young adventurers, who explored self and society and the immense joy of friendships.

Adults would also enjoy the movie very much as this isn’t your typical Walt Disney movie, even though Disney did make it and made it well.

Special effects never get in your way and the world you experience is closer to home than you would think.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_to_Terabithia_(2007_film)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_to_Terabithia_(novel)

The original school and the original friend

* * * *

Impulse and Exhilaration

Posted on by
Reply

LIVE LIFE KING SIZE !


What makes you spend a small fortune when a relatively cheaper product provides the same mechanical functions ?

I had a fully functional Yamaha but no I sell that off to buy the most dated technology, gas-guzzling bike at the most premium price – A Royal Enfield Bullet. Why ? It is not just a motorcycle. It has its own personality, an attitude, a character that infects the owner, a passion, a History.

I was thinking of the things I buy when I should be more careful with my money. But hell you only live once and when am I going to be in my 20′s again ?

I bought my first Zippo lighter in Jan 2008. Yes now they have finally arrived in India. It was at a premium price but the same Lifetime Warranty. I didn’t blink, didn’t think. Making the selection was tough though, what with Beatles, Elvis, Harley and many other endorsements to choose from. Another one was supposedly BULLET PROOF! Anyways, bought the one with JIM BEAM bourbon whiskey engraving.

Am I fucking nuts ??? Here I am underpaid and overworked and I do this.

The worse is that I don’t regret it. Any of such things I spend on. Retail therapy really works I guess.

Impulse buying is a serious problem I deal with daily (and so do many others).

The only way to solve it for me is by having a good friend accompany me around malls so that I don’t spend my entire salary frivolously. This works because, I would be too embarrassed spending on such stupid things when even one of them is present.

In recent months:
* I have bought Graphic Novels that cost over Rs 1000 each (a small fortune even if in US Dollars isn’t much)
* Whole lot of movies which I have already seen on TV or cinema halls, including box set of Bourne series and then other movies which were going at 50 percent discount hence couldn’t resist
* Bought signed first editions that I can’t read as they would then be not worth the “investment”

The signed first editions I bought online. This is the most difficult temptation to resist. How can I control myself online. I decided I would spend online only if I could earn online and not you use my regular income. So then the publishers pay me in PayPal and if a website doesn’t accept PayPal, I don’t buy anything over USD 30. So used PayPal, the 6 hardcovers cost me USD 260 including USD 70 for shipping.

The Carry On movies is another impulse buying I managed to stop on last Sunday’s outing to the mall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_On_films
I have seen most of them on TV, want to see them again, they are on 50 percent discount, but how many times would I see it after buying ?

Online, Most recently I decided against purchasing the complete archives of The New Yorker:
The New Yorker Store has a cheap DVD of the entire Archive of the magazine since its first issue till 2008.

At USD 19.99 that is cheap I would say and quite a bargain.

But I don’t think I would be inclined to read too much of the snobby stuff. There are many good articles and Fiction in there but still too many things I don’t want to read. But it is still a bargain isn’t it ?

For those interested in the New Yorker, I would say don’t buy now.
Wait till April or May 2009 when the last year’s collection would be added to this box set so you will have everything from the first issue till April 2009.

I don’t think the price would change too much.

More importantly they update annually and getting the single DVD of just ONE Year would cost another USD 19.99

Great Marketing Strategy isn’t it – Pure Evil !

So let us see if I still crave it in May 2009.

(Don’t even talk about the original artwork on sale there – SHUT UP! ! !)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Damn I lasted only 2 days. After Sunday’s determined walk out, yesterday I went back and bought 11 of the movies available there in the Carry On series.

At 50 percent discount, how can one resist such temptation.

The bastards !!!

“Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in”

Actually the New Yorker DVD of entire Archive is also quite a bargain. But will wait to see an update from them in May 2009.

Anecdotes – Autobiography – Biography

Posted on by
Reply


Anecdotes – Autobiography – Biography
What is it that you look for in books about real people ?
By Ujjwal Dey

I recently read an extract in a newspaper of the new biography on life and reign of Pakistani dictator General Zia ul Haq – “A Case of Exploding Mangoes” by Mohammed Hanif. Published by Knopf, it certainly seems like a prestigious publication, probably sensible and trendy thing to have read.

But in the extract that I read in the newspaper, the personal life of the General is also looked down upon along with his dictatorship. I was put off simply not because of this biased view but also the fact that the Author probably cannot produce hard evidence to support his biography.

The Author recounts events from the General’s wedding night and the night/dawn when the General threw a coup and installed himself as Head of State. The conversation either of the bedroom or of the meeting of Army Generals after the coup couldn’t possibly be anything but either gossip or speculation. The author writes well. But he couldn’t possibly say, as factual, these conversations/relationships occurred as the book says it did. He wouldn’t be allowed access into Pakistani military meeting transcriptions nor was he present at the meeting.

Of course also we have seen others capitalise on the dead people who have no say on their caricatured biographies. We know especially of the over-a-dozen biographies on Princess Diana, done solely to profit in the hip pop cultural trend of snooping and hounding that woman.

This ends my discourse on why I see no purpose in reading Biographies at all.

Anecdotes and especially those in an Autobiography are enchanting, intriguing, interesting and fascinating.

Anecdotes may occur in Biographies, but they hold no interest to me.

In an Autobiography, the Author may choose to embellish, boast, or present things as is – this last of which can be very entertaining if you pick the right Autobiography of the well-lived Author.

I still re-read for quotes the book “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Sri Paramahansa Yogananda. It has mind-blowing metaphysical anecdotes and some great endless sea of quotations to ponder on. Thought-provoking as well as entertaining. The language is old English of the 1900s of his time and yet you cruise through it due to the wonderful contents. It is available for free at Project Gutenberg.

Another anecdote filled Autobiographical book is my recent acquisition – “At Ease: Stories I tell my friends” by the late President Dwight Eisenhower. The book’s title is self-explanatory. It is full of interesting moments in his life and ever since I read an extract in Reader’s Digest 5 months ago, I have been hankering to find this Out-of-Print book. Finally got the 1967 First Edition and am reading it very carefully to avoid damage to the old hardcover book.

You may not have heard of Dev Anand. He is the now 80 year-old “evergreen” Romantic-Movie Hero of yesteryears Indian Cinema. The actor has some great Black&White movies to his credit.

Now this book is very much boastful of his lifestyle. In the Introduction itself he admits that these “boastful” elements are in fact his positive outlook on everything. Especially he is very much confident and positive about himself and that is what, he says, has propelled him from a village-boy in pre-partition India to a Superstar actor in the 1950′s, 60′s and 70′s.

So as a devout fan I did buy the Hardcover First Edition and indeed the book has an incredible range of anecdotes which show his zest for life, love, cinema and world cultures.

It is his words and it is entertaining, so I love this Autobiography as well.

Now another one, which is in my to-be-read pile, is Isaac Asimov’s Autobiography. I bought this as I thought that he was an exceptional Fiction Author and a man of science and also because I projected in my mind an image of him which said that he would remain true to facts and not indulge in petty stuff we see in common biographies/autobiographies. So I wanted to know his Life just as I was keen on Eisenhower’s life and of Dev Anand’s life. I hope it is as good as any other of his writings.

So there; that’s some broad range of why I pick Anecdotal Autobiographies over anything else.

Why do you pick a Biography or Autobiography and what is it that you are looking for in it ? I certainly don’t want a chronology of his/her yearly/monthly activities. Its a book after all, make it readable.

Too Busy to Work

Posted on by
Reply


I am a fairly organised person with fixed routines that ensure that I get my essential work done. But lately I am thinking that this routine is stifling my activities such that I never have time to do what I want to do. Can anyone be too busy to work? To have so many things at hand that you can juggle your tasks no more than an out of work clown plays with his props. I do feel like an untrained clown but its no laughing matter (at least to me). Isn’t it said that it’s the ones who are busy are the only ones who can squeeze more time for another activity? I am flushed with things to do but can’t seem to get anything completed.

There can be various reasons for such a situation. You get lazy, you get bored with its tediousness, you can’t find the right mood, your mind craves recreation, there is time for procrastination, no deadlines, no motivation, no hope, etc. The one currently affecting me seems to be a lack of hope. Apart from being handicapped from the stupidest of work accidents, I am also feeling there is no more I can do to change the course of my Life and Career, both of which seem to going down the sewer of obscurity and commonness. I want to get a better education to change the career part but with a full-time job it’s almost impossible (traveling to an institute in this damned city, finding time to study after job and classes, etc). Leaving the job to study is such a scare that I am glad to sit in this comfort zone albeit a dead-end one till eternity. At my age I can’t imagine being unemployed and the limitations to my independence it will surely bring.

As for changing a Life or Lifestyle, I have made various unsuccessful attempts that includes to try and bring spiritual understanding but a sewer rat can never imagine the glory of heavens and I can’t contemplate this change or incorporate the teachings that I believe to be righteous but too diverse from the material world I deal with every waking hour.

But back to being busy. I have taken on so many tasks, study material, projects that I seem to have frozen like a rabbit under an infestation of starving eagles. I have like 5 novels I started reading and abandoned even though they were essential to learn those authors’ styles. I have 3 correspondence courses pending for a year with my assignments being sent once in 3 months instead of every 2 weeks for only 1 of them. I have my own Writing Projects started with enthusiasm and now gathering digital dust through lack of research and commitment. I have my self-learning of Sketching and Photoshop pending for years now. I do most of these things randomly some fine day and get by with a working knowledge of what I need to know. These are all as you may guess personal tasks but work for me nonetheless. Shouldn’t these things feel good to do? Isn’t that why I got involved in them? But now they feel like work, a chore I need to tend to. The things have been piling up so long that I am now paralyzed with surplus pending activities.

Well I dug the hole for myself. I thought I could handle it but I am beat. The worst part is I have too much free time at my job and I can’t use it for these tasks as some job related activity interrupts at regular periods. So I have time in office and can’t use it and also I have sparse time at home which I wile away fussing over what needs to be done first.

This is beyond procrastination. This feels like a disease that numbs my brain and infects my body to paralysis. I find myself smoking more and more everyday and falling into a vicious cycle of a routine with no goal.

Too busy to work or working on being busy. It seems like I am in a bad moment in time and life where nothing improves and when I feel I have hit rock bottom the floor gives way to whip my ass yet again.

Sleepwalking through Life

Posted on by
Reply


What a concept! Sleepwalking – you are asleep and you do things and subconsciously you know it but your active mind is unaware. Compare this to my daily routine – I wake up many minutes after the alarm goes off, I get up, dress up for work, commute in shitty morning traffic on poor roads, do the job, commute home swearing at the world, eat, sleep and back to work again. When did Life happen to me? Is this what a human being is programmed to do now? Where are my magic moments, the cherishing of memories, where are these events I need to remember, and when did I turn from fussing over homework to worrying over bills and taxes?

Life passes you by; I let Life pass me by. I thought I had my awakening from this hellish sleepwalking when I realised I lost my youth, my college days, sleepwalking through attendance, exams and delayed local trains. But no! Bad habits die hard. I got comfortable in my routine again. And now I am 28 and can’t remember what it was like at the age 21 or 16.

Well now I have an immense amount of time to introspect – I fractured my right arm working late in office on 31st October, was operated on 1st November, discharged from hospital last Monday and been at home since. It is a painful experience, not the fracture, I was yelling abuses eyes closed when the anesthesia wore off after the operation, but that’s a different pain; right now feeling handicapped, typing with my left hand, a useless burden on old parents, this hurts. Also sitting on my arse all week is distressing but I am glad nothing is broke in that department.

I just saw the movie “Click” and I almost cried when the old Adam Sandler character died on the street. Now why would an Adam Sandler comedy make anybody cry? Those who are unfamiliar with this genius’s work – Adam Sandler makes great screwball comedies which have an underdog usually played by him, who learns Life’s lessons and triumphs against odds. And it usually has a familiar cast of the actor’s real-life friends.

In the movie “Click” Adam’s character gets a universal remote control that remote controls his universe (his Life even has its own commentary by James Earl Jones). He gets used to getting his way, which includes skipping arguments with his wife, skipping family get-togethers, skipping traffic, skipping bad health and office problems. The remote control is self-programming and soon Adam is fast-forwarding through his entire Life. He can’t stop it anymore, he can’t control it anymore. He misses his kid’s childhood, separation from wife, death of his Dad, etc. Every time a familiar problem comes, the remote control kicks in the fast-forward mode and Adam’s character goes into auto-pilot.

Don’t get me wrong, the movie is funny as any of his movies, (I am just neurotic) but it has a good hearted painful message.

What a concept! Auto-pilot mode for all stressful moments and you fast-forward to what seems like the greener side of the garden of Life. Like Cristopher Walken’s character says – chasing the pot of gold over a rainbow and at the end of the day it’s just a bowl of cereal. Believe me my medication does not include morphine and I am not hallucinating the similarities between this guys fictional Life and most of our Lives.

Do you want to grow old knowing only the hours you put in to rake up the bank balance or do you want to have earned instead the Love and respect of your family and friends? A healthy balance of time and effort – a plan, a schedule for Living your Life. I have over 82 paid leaves and over 20 sick leaves and now I am using it sitting on the couch, feeling helpless, useless, waiting for the broken bone to heal.

Its not the arm that needs mending, its my defunct brain that needs a cure from sleepwalking through what should be the best years of my Life cause I am young and able but not fully capable of LIVING LIFE.

BTW: Check out that movie.

Living the Moment

Posted on by
Reply

It was the first working day of the New Year 2007. I woke up with a headache and eyes burning such that keeping them open seemed like an exercise in sadistic obligation. I looked at my watch for what seemed like a thousandth time this day. I had slept at 5 am and been rudely awoken into the New Year with words reminding of another dreadful office drag – another year of misery.

Fresh out of smokes (cause that’s what I was doing all night and had to sleep when I ran out of fags), I got ready to get to office for what seemed like the only thing that keeps me from being in hibernation.

After 10 am the streets are littered with people and vehicles moving in such random awkward directions that you would think they have nowhere to go. My trusty Yamaha moved elegantly and BANG – a motorcyclist coming from the opposite direction and in my right of way had destroyed my right-hand-side side-box completely. I was too tired to kick his arse. He looked at his own ugly vehicle and drove off. After that, I had little to do but to drive off in my direction as well. The wonderful people all around of course couldn’t be less interested in this normal scheme of devastation.

Its 10 minutes or less and I am about to cross the Eastern Express Highway to get to Airoli bridge. I am looking ahead cause there is a truck beside me to my right, so I know we are all gonna cross over to the other side. BANG – a Toyota has just run me over – well not completely. The Toyota was trying to overtake the truck to my right and was on my blind-spot. I never saw that huge car coming and it broke my hand brake lever and the leg-guard bent out of shape has just saved my leg, leg break and most of the front of my vehicle. I stay balanced with my bike not letting go, with good footing on my left leg. The Toyota driver shrugs his stupid self and drives off with a big dent near his left front wheel chassis. The bastard knows it’s his fault and he won’t wait for me to kick his behind, not that I am fully awake to kick it in or even to fully comprehend all the BIG BANGS of my New Year’s morning. There’s always a cop under that flyover crossing and wonderfully, no magically, as if in a C grade Hindi movie, he is missing.

Anyways, I have given up on regrets in life cause they only lead to heartache and depression. Crying over spilt milk? Well you have to realise that if that milk was meant for the floor, all your desire for the milk is just your mortal craving which has no meaning when the Universe wants to reward it to the floor.

Coming to the actual point of reliving and retelling this miserable tale of events is that you don’t have a tomorrow. We live our lives in the illusion created that our short-term or long-term plans have been made to make our life secure. But where is this security – its material in nature and life isn’t.

So you believe you will have a nice time when that new action movie releases in theatres, you believe the appraisal is going to be better and more rewarding this year, you want to make plans for summer holidays in advance so that nothing goes awry, you have a retirement plan in place; is any of this guaranteed to you by any sign that says you will be alive and well for these events.

There is no tomorrow. You are alive now, the building might collapse over you next minute, you don’t know for sure, but we assume such things don’t happen to us, only to those unfortunate people on TV news channels. Being paranoid is not the conclusion I am drawing from all this.

No, paranoia is plain stupid. To assume that by being alert and suspicious you will avert fatalities, as if you were in control of this Universe – that’s clearly, visibly, pathetically stupid.

What you need to know and realise is to appreciate and love your living moment. Make efforts now to make it better and best. These moments are the ones you are controlling, they may go wrong, but you can enjoy it as long as you stop worrying about results and just enjoy being alive.

We have to be thankful to God for the “Now”. This present condition is sustaining us and we have to remind ourselves of God’s mercy that we are living it. The only meaning of life is “to Live”. There is no more purpose to live till tomorrow than to live till the next tomorrow. Live now and keep God in thought and actions. When your life’s activities are not separate from devotion to God, you remember him throughout the day, throughout the year, throughout your life and when that fatal BANG explodes to take you away, you are still remembering God, such that there is no deviating from the path to Kingdom of God. His mercy will shine when your darkest moments in Life cloud your faith.

So live well and prosper, I have a life to live.