Our Moon has Bloodclots

Life took a weird turn for me... So ppl who have known me to be obsessed  with kashmir and radical politics, will not be surprised dat i ended up marrying a kashmiri pandit... 

This gave a me different kind of perspective the one which the books were refusing to give... This was perspective of being away from your home... And living in regret of what could have been... 

Ive read rahul pandita before... I thought his book hello bastar was path breaking... No matter how proud I'm of indian democracy, it made me prouder.. A lot of people have been persecuted for a lot less as far as the maoist movement is concerned.... But he had written something which was honest, unbiased and hopefully did justice to the people it was about... 

Rahul brings the same honest approach to the book as well... At least tries to... But this book has been written with a lot of angst and a lot of frustration.. Maybe i can never even begin to understand this... But its left me with an understanding of why the kashmiri culture has become so important for my in-laws... And why it hurts them when we dont care... 

Rahul was a boy when the exodus started and when his family left kashmir... The terrifying tales that he tells aren't laced with a typical writers's prose, but the terror of the situation does manage to leap out... Loosing his own family, your home to terrorism is a scary thought... But what is more disturbing is the fact that those who took it all away were friends and neighbours less than a decade ago... 

Every story has two sides.. But the story of kashmir has three... And the side of kashmiri pandits and their trauma has been ignored for too long... As pandita closes his book he does acknowledge the suffering of a kashmiri man, without the caste or creed... But he also says and rightly so that the tormented were the tormentors as well... We shouldnt discount what human rights voilations happen in kashmir but we shouldnt also forget the story of a kashmiri pandit who became a refugee in his own country....

Ramblings of a Movieholic!!!

Its been a horribly long long time since i had a movie on which i can blabber for a blog.... so the empty mind just compiled a lit of my favourite movies of all times... to be very honest if you have missed any of these go and watch... and if there is something i have missed please let me know.... let the list go on...

PS I love you: this one is pretty evident with the whole lot of things that I have written about it already, I dont think it was a surprise for any one

Munich: Wow.... I`m totally fascinated by Israel and Palestine conflict and this movie is responsible for that... the cold hearted logic of the movie was just brilliant... the only thing that I thought could have been changed was the ending, there are certain things in which human and human emotions have no place... munich was one place where it was true

Omkara: I had to literally fight to get in the hall for this one, bunked office, bought tickets in black and what not... but it was worth every penny... my review also made my parents go for it, and it was a unmitigated disaster... guess it was not meant for people who can’t stomach ‘reality’... but the “language” aside it was a wonderful movie unleashing the power of politics

Sleepless in Seattle: this was the yash chopra and “KJo” genre of movie but way better ofcourse... in a way it was reliving an affair to remember but whatever it was amazingly well made... though I don agree with their assessment of tom Hank’s butt (I thought it was amazingly cute... ;))

Pretty Woman: a lot has been said about this one already... I loved the title track and I loved the fairy tale ending... if only you got this in life also things would be perfect then...

Momento: I hated ghajni... it was disrespect to the amazing movie made... in a typical fictional world where love and romance are the unforgettable emotions... this one is built and circled around hate and guilt... and what can be achieved if we can only tap them...  kind of wicked I know but still an amazing movie... truly brilliant

Inglorious Basterds: Now again when I think of this movie the thought that strikes me so much is how can you convey so much menace to a hall full of people in a far flung country... but it was amazing the first scene of the movie set the pace... I could not help feeling thankful that I was not sitting across that Nazi... one of the best Tarantino movies...

Guess who is coming for dinner tonight: the cutest movie I ever saw... I have always been a huge fan of English classic literature; this movie just reminded me of the 70’s hindi movies... slight comedies on a verge of romance... this movie brought back that nostalgia.... amazing sat night watch

Love... Aaj kal!!!!

Well those who know me and follow this blog has seen and experienced firsthand how obsessive I`m... and how I relive my life every chance I get... but in this movie I’m sure everyone could have relived it... it was as close as it gets to what life offers... it was as imperfect as it can get... yeah I know the people who live in the real life lack the guts of reel life people so our endings are not always as perfect and as beautiful but still all of us in our lives have that special someone and that difficult decision that we make and live with... and never talk about...
I have never really believed that friends can be lovers... I really don’t buy that and had that been a possibility life would have been really simple for me... but no its not... life was as much a mess as it was in this movie and trust me no matter how hard I try to sort it out the messier it gets... and that was the reason I could relate to Meera pulling that crap on her husband... and I really not even once thought it was not right... not even for a moment I doubted that this is what I would have done... and this did nothing to sort out the mess I have lead my life into...
Sometimes I have wondered whether the generation of my parents had it figured out and all these modern day belief system of life being based on the pillars of love and career have wreaked a havoc on the simplicity of life... wouldn’t it been better if I had never learned to think on my own and if only I would never have learnt to ask questions... I would have had my life planned and given to me on a platter, wouldn’t that have been an amazingly simple decision and would have been so much better suited for me....
But would that life have been half as amazing as this one has been... would I have been half as amazing a person as I am right now... one capable of feeling so much and thinking so much... so is it that evolution made our minds work faster and better and we questioned it all... and eventually we shall get us out of this mess we have landed ourselves into...
Maybe that’s wishful thinking and I am trying to believe what I want to belive and keeping my eyes closed to reality and the practicality of life... but you know even if the practicality of life makes it simpler, it doesn’t make it any more happier... and I am not searching for a simple life or a practical one for that matter... what I am looking for is a beautiful life, a happy life... and I don’t have it in my heart to make myself stop till I find it.... So the search goes on and the days and days of doubt that I had in my belief and my search just evaporates... well this is the reason I watch cheesy movies and cry... :D

Devil's Heart....

Yesterday was one of those days when Murphy’s law was on its full power... anyways in Mumbai a raining cloud keeps on following me where ever I go so much so that I have forgotten the feel of dry feet and good shoes... trying to concentrate on letting my feet and my shoes survive the Mumbai waterfall.... anyway with a nice sun charming its way through the clouds `m pretty sure the days of wet feet and bad shoes are over.... :D
But anyways my shoes were not something I wanted to talk about... after being stranded in suburbs for the last fortnight I decided to go where the autos can’t go and u have to take a taxi... the one and only Pheonix mill... Now phoenix mill has some significance to me, I have gone there every Saturday for 2 years while working close by... and it was also the place where I have had one of the best dates of my life... but again that’s not what this post is supposed to be all about...
It’s just that I again saw a movie- The Proposal.... and it just occurred to me how important small things become when bigger ones are absent... Ok first things first, it was no different from thousand other movies which have been made on similar themes and have similar ending... so don’t go for it expecting a revelation, but it was sweet and different in its own way... in fact the same way in which all these corny movies are sweet and cute... but here things were a little different we had the girl realize that some things are more important than a career or a high flying job and it’s not LOVE (thank god for that), its family... I like Sandra Bullock but I just kept picturing meryl streep as the bitchy boss... Sandra Bullock has an inherent sweetness which really can’t carry of the burden of being a bitch... but in spite of that she was pretty good... I LOVED Ryan Reynold he was too cute... I just fell for his eyes... WOW!!!!...
The best moment in the movie was the end... I am a big fan of frank confessions and I liked it when at least they acknowledged the fact that people are difficult to stay with and that is why they remain single and anyone who knows any better will stay out of it... but then people have a little tendency to do what is best for them... it’s always what the heart wants and I have realized it after much pain and suffering and spending some really miserable hours in my own moping company to know that the heart wants what it cannot have and what is definitely not good for it...
In fact I have come to believe that if the mind is the god, heart is definitely the devil... nothing good ever comes out of following the path shown by it... if anything that’s the way you should avoid for sure... but I know that it just doesn’t matter how much profoundly correct the statement sounds we shall always be a bunch of heart sick people who will do anything to oblige the heart and who will be happy to suffer again and again till it gets what it wants... and that’s the time when we believe that we will be truly happy... till something new comes along and wakes the devil up again...

The Palace of Illusions

Mahabharat has always been known for its complexity and also the shades of human nature that mythology rarely accepts... maybe that is the reason why it has been so much more fascinating and intriguing than any other story we might have grown old on... when we talk of mahabharat, we see a lot of strong warriors, rulers, gods rally past the lanes of our memory... but what has always been interesting is that no matter how strong the men were, the women were stronger... they were the ones who kept it all together and when the time came destroyed it as well....
There have been interpretations and versions of Mahabharat and each one better than the other.. recently I happened to come across Panchali’s Mahabharat- The Palace of Illusions... the book told the story of mahabharat through the eyes of Draupadi... and i am not sure if it was the magic woven by the author or the amazing magnanimity of Mahabharat which made the book such a page turner...
It turned and tossed the corners of mahabharat and presented a picture which I had ever thought of... in the initial years panchali, through her fascination for Kunti comes to the question that do strong women have good marriages... well the question was relevant to her then and is relevant to me now... I wonder if men then and men now are so insecure that it is unbecoming in a female to be strong... or is it that once the lifelong dream of a happy marriage is broken the woman no longer has anything to loose and can take on the world for all that its worth...
Every woman strong or weak gives a hand and an eye to make her relationship work and I find it harder to believe that stronger she is the weaker the relation will grow... do men have such insatiable need to assert themselves that a strong woman can make them look inadequate... May be the answer is yes... maybe this is the reason that the girls are always painted as mute, giving and docile creature who needs to looked after... and maybe this is the reason that women through ages have been told to learn and accept their fates without question... to satisfy the great male ego...

Down with MEN!!!!!

Lately I have been having a pretty dull life nothing to do and a lot of time to make myself mad over petty details and hopeless love affairs... but then again I have always known to bounce back, so here I am... I have gotten into the habit of sleeping for 12 hours, swimming for 2 and then watching some obscure English television series for the rest of the night.... this is where I found a new thought and a new topic...
The other day I was watching Boston Legal I am a huge fan of James Spader aka Alan Shore and I love his nearly gay relationship with Denny Crane... but then as always I started drawing parallels... God has made me enough self obsessed to see myself in all the relationships or as I like to believe he has made me smart enough to learn from all of them... Last night I got one of those epiphanies when Denny Crane happened to mention that his and Alan’s relationship is the best he has known anyone to have so far... now how can a non-sexual gay relationship suck me in... well it did...
As it so happens I have a non- sexual gay relationship myself... and I happen to know that it is the best relationship among all the relationships that i have seen people have... and then it made me think why are our romantic relationships not that simple... is it the opposite sex which does the trick and ruins the spontaneity and honesty of it all.... what is it with men and women??? Are they even meant to be together... well as far as my experience is concerned I dont think so...
Why is it that my relationship with my ‘lady’ friend so simple and so easy??? Why don’t I ever have the need to work on it??? Why is it that this one comes so naturally and all the relationships I so desperately want to work out always end up in the crapper... what is it with men and sex that the relationship becomes a political arena requiring nothing short of all the means and manoeuvres of a Lok Sabha Election...
Seriously are men and women meant to be together... logic says no they are not... No matter what happens men and women are different they do come from a different planet altogether... and as the relationship gurus will have us believe- opposites attract but likes adhere... well here’s the thought men and women are not alike... they will never be and as long as they are together relationships will be difficult, unsatisfying and a lot of work...
Then is it so that Homosexuals have the answer... have they worked out the intricacies of life and relationships and have found the answer sought by us all...
I hope to god this is not the answer... for one it’s not the way to go for my 25 years old fatigued and haggard mind... its too late for me to change sides now... but then I think after asking all these questions I will still have a man who would make butterflies flutter in my stomach and my heart would miss a beat... and all the hard work and frustration would be OK.... till then I am happily single...

sEx ANd thE cItY

I have always had a bad luck in men and relationships… so maybe that is the reason why I somehow so naturally had a connection and liking for SEX AND THE CITY. Seeing Carrie flirt with one relation after another somehow I have always thought it very relevant to my life… don’t get me wrong I have never had that many relationships but I have made all the mistakes in the few chances I got…
But then I have never really regretted any of it… I can’t help draw parallels with the series and the life that I have lead… for one I have been the ever optimist who has always believed that even after the disaster something great will turn up… the inability to hang on to a relation is also something I have found in common… well for Carrie it was the realization that maybe its not the men its her… she is not the one who can be tamed… but is that true for me, I guess it is… the differences are not in the men.. They will always be the same… I have always found them to be more emotional species…
I have lived through people living their lives missing a person… and I have always thoughts that maybe it was not upto me to break them… but then I have realized that it was those men who couldn’t break me… they were the ones who couldn’t have the life that could have been, well for a lack of a better word- Different. I have made excuses for all of them and for myself… but I guess I have said all that there was to say… and surprisingly that’s not because I am tired it’s just because I have realized that this is not what I deserve
The day you settle for something less than you deserve, you get even less than what you settled for!!!!

CURFEWED NIGHTS

The first thing that struck me after I read this book was… how come the government didn’t ban it??? At first I was happy to think of it as a trump of democracy but then it struck me- how bad can polyester prince be… or is it just because The Polyster Prince exposed the political corruption it was banned? Or is it our tolerance or our indifference that we can have this book on our book shelves…
The prose was not poetic and it did not really made say much about the author but the book’s honesty did say a lot. The book is not about India and Pakistan it’s not even about Kashmir, it’s simply about the people… who feel violated and ostracized every single day of their lives. But here it did not matter what form of writing it was… the book had horrific images of truth coming out of its pages… it’s a shame on humanity that people had to live through those moments…
I remember reading of an experiment aimed at justifying Nazi atrocities on Jews, which ended up showing that all of us are capable of that kind of barbarianism and all of us are capable of that kind of sustenance. This book also brought that back to me we Indians are also capable of that…. The experiment was scrapped midways because of the disturbing results it produced…. but how can we put an end to it…
The book made me realize that we have part of our nation which is at war, where the people are not happy and are living under a constant dread, where the dreams and reality differ so starkly that people have lost the ability to dream… where we have managed to put a price tag on a human life, where the air smells of ruins and shattered families, where pain and despair have replaced hope and love…
How can any of us give up… how can we accept that… is the barbarian in us so strong that we have forgotten our humanity… well even if that is true… I refuse to believe it and I refuse to give up…

P.S I love You....

I`m a great sucker for romantic movies… I love them and u can always bet on me to be the one who cries her eyes out in some of these… well this is one movie in which I have to pause the movie so dat I can first cry my heart out… I dont really understand why this movie has such an impact on me. And it always leaves me a bit sad but also a lot more romantic than I was…
Time and again whenever I have felt low and dejected I have always believed that shit happens but it happens for a reason… it might not be evident at that time but there is always a reason… and this movie always makes my belief stronger… I know the fact that I live in my books and movies makes me a less than credible counselor but still, this belief has helped me survive…
I don’t know what to say about the movie… maybe its love in its truest form… which may or may not exist and I might never find it for real but at least this is love in its real form. This is being there for each other even if death do us part. The guy actually gives a direction and a sense of purpose to the holly’s life. It’s not about ‘us’ when we are together but it’s about ‘u’ and ‘me’ when we are not. How easily we all forget the u and me after becoming an Us.. The movie is all about that… it’s just we all have it in us to live and survive but we need somebody to show us the faith and show us the way…
There are a lot of parts in the movie which makes me emotional but one of them is when holly asks her mother what’s the point… at some point of our lives we all have this question what’s the point… I don’t know, in fact this is that juncture of my life where I’m asking myself the same question… What the hell is the point??? Or are we all going through the motions of life without anything worthwhile coming out of it… I don’t really want to delve on this…
It’s just that this movie touches a raw nerve in me… so many times in our lives we have beautiful relations which we leave just like that… and the death of the relation ruins the meaning and truth of it… this movie gives a fitting end to a beautiful love and an even more beautiful marriage. That’s what I love about it… the importance and the way of saying good bye….

A Touchy Feely GUY!!!!!

Sometimes I have a feeling that men and women are not from different planets… ya I agree there are some fundamental differences, but deep down are they any different at all…???
I have three friends, one having some midlife marital crisis… another so insecure in life, marrying the first girl who met the "criterion"… and third still so hooked up on ex, still afraid to move on… and guess what they are all men… and there I have known women, who have taken life in their stride and moved on to happier times… I wonder how that works, isn’t it the women who are supposed to be falling apart, hung over and insanely emotional… when did the tables turned… and did they turn for better or for worse.
For me surprisingly it’s drastic… every relation in my life has had one thing in common… Absolutely No Commitments… I loved it… in fact now that I think about it… I guess I was more relieved they were like that… probably that was the charm of it… that was the power they had on me… but what now, as the men get more and more in touch with their feelings where does it leave the women… and then even if there were no commitments was I in anyway safe from the hurt… well absolutely no!!!! so is it that women are kidding themselves and men have learned their lesson…
Who knows????

Shall we Dance!!!!!

I love Richard Gere.. he’s suave, sexy, infact he is what a man should be… I loved Pretty woman and I loved “Shall we dance”- I know I`m a couple of years late in saying this but still… better late than never… I`m into mushy corny English movies these days… But this one was not corny and it was not really a romatic movie… infact i`m surprised why imdb.com says the movie is about husband wife relationship… I think that was the last thing on the writer’s mind when he wrote it…

As far as I`m concerned I think if there was any relationship the movie featured then it was a relationship a man has with himself… Every person has their own personal emotional prisons and we live and die inside them… this movie was about breaking loose… it was about “feeling guilty for wanting to be happier”. We all do it, we spend our lives finding reasons to be happier, reasons in your spouse in your kids in your job… but never once we look inside ourselves, never once do we trust ourselves… it’s a question I have no answer to… Perhaps it’s because all of us don’t want to be selfish… we want to be happy, but we need others to find that happiness within us and that’s what makes all of us happy.

The movie is beautiful... in the truest sense of the word… it dares to answer a lot… but many people don’t ask the questions this movie tries to answer… Richard Gere is awesome and when he tells his wife that one thing he is proudest of is that she is happy with her… that is the most sincere thing anyone can tell you… he was not telling her he loved her… he was telling her he treasured her… he gave her a reason to be and to love him…

Well the movie made me wanting to dance again… it made me nostalgic and it made me happy… for this movie atleast don’t take it on a face value its much much more than what it seems…

Women & Losers

Now that i`m bak on my feet…. I have a trouble… i've just completed 25 years of my existence on this planet and I have had 2 very serious and very complicated relationships… and as a result of both I have a 2 very worried progenitors…. They need me and want me to get married… trouble is I like my life… and I love the freedom… so much so people don’t want to believe `m the part of the female gene pool…
Someone said a very typically MCP, but still an interesting, thing to me… ‘I don consider you a girl… I think of you as an equal’ - ooops… I know a million ladies will be up in arms on this… but it got me thinking… why?? Is it because I love the freedom I have… or because `m oblivious to the world… or because i`m a lill too liberal… don know... but is it a good thing?? Well even if its not I don care…
But who is a woman… you are screwed if you think of her as a weepy, silly, beautiful species… not that she is not all this, she is… but she is a lot more…
God help you if you mess with a lady…. I guess even he wont help you… because if he oes he will probably need to run for cover
She is silly, but only so you can feel good about urself… her wits and her brains are a secret weapon and so are the tears… you wont even know they were their till you get royally fucked… some wont even realize after that…
Beauty is something we cant even talk about… when the competitor is a big broad hairy fellow… who wont know grace if it sat on his face… we cant help but being beautiful…
Sometimes I wonder what if I were a guy… all I could do is thank god i`m not… being a woman is the best thing that can ever happen to you… love it and live it…
For all the MCP’s over there including the one who made me write all this- always remember-
If man is a head, woman is the neck

P.S: to prove my womanhood I have 22 pairs of shoes to show for it

Mi$$ing my Love Story

Recently I had a break up. Probably the most beautiful relationship of my life came to an end. I loved and enjoyed and laughed and was very very happy. I hope I can say the same for him too… he was happy as well in much lesser degrees though but he was atleast happy..

Well now that the breaking up period is over and `m back on my feet, I observe things about the relationship I never thought much about.

I miss someone to talk to, whom I can call at 4:00 a.m. and he wont be angry, I miss having someone to drag around for parties or dinners. I miss getting dressed up for someone and most of all I miss the anticipation of him coming to meet me or me going over there.

There are a load of things that I miss. I miss the glow on my face which was there when I looked at him. I miss feeling beautiful. I miss having to eat Indian food just because he wont have anything else. I miss the way we cluttered up the place where we stayed even if it was for one night, it was so messy it was like our footprint.

I miss talking about him, and I miss sharing his plans and making them for him. Most of all I miss ‘US’ more than I miss him and more than I miss me when I was with him.

It was beautiful and I wish I can always remember the beauty of it.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

I have been meaning to read The Reluctant Fundamentalist for a long time, I have again and again picked it up and left it unopened. But today when I picked it up, I couldn’t keep it down. I finished it in one go… guess the book deserved it. It speaks on behalf of the most under represented group of all… a genuine muslim… and a true Pakistani who is up in arms against the US

The book does not attempt to provide answers, but has managed to raise a lot of questions. It attempts to ask if a successful Princeton Graduate comes back to Pakistan, disgusted by US policies, is he a fundamentalist? We have perhaps not formally labeled Pakistan as a terrorist state but the socially we have tainted Pakistan and all the muslims in it. Is this a step towards curbing fundamentalism or encouraging it?

In just the story of one life, one person the book has managed to question the collective wisdom of our world leaders. It talks of identity crisis, nostalgia and the extent to which human mind feeds on it. Through love and passion, it conveys the dangers of hatred.

Final Verdict: the book has manages to alarm you and make you think. It’s not meant for a break, it’s a serious book in search of serious answers.

GONE WITH THE WIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I always thought I loved reading, but suddenly I realized I loved characters. I loved the people who were neither good nor bad nor ugly, but transparent. I loved the fact that I could crawl inside their skins and feel what I have never really felt; at times it was love, sometimes deep sadness and sometimes a passion I never knew existed in me. But whatever it was that I feel it always made me feel amazingly alive… ironic how fiction can make u feel more alive, but that’s how it was.

Some characters or people, as I like to call them, have affected me more than the others. But when I talk about Scarlett O’Hara, I`m not sure if I crawled under her skin or she crawled under mine. It surprises me sometimes how can someone be so real and so relevant in one’s life. I love her because she brought me face to face with what I always didn’t want to believe I was. She showed me my courage and I was possibly the only person who could relate to her so strongly.

“The worst that can happen to a woman is that she is no longer afraid of anything”- it scares me, to see myself reaching that point where I would not be scared of anything. That’s how strongly it pulls me. It talks about a woman’s strength when driven against a wall. The book has a certain honesty and truth about it which can be felt through the pages.

Certain portions in that book has affected me deeply and has made me into a better person. People read gone with the wind as a romantic novel but I believe that book is so much relevant even in the time when people are struggling so hard to be relevant again in their own lives. It talks of the times which are changing and it talks of the strength it takes to cope with the change. It’s a book so removed from and yet so significant in the present scenario, it makes u believe in the power of imagination, in the power of human mind.

Day and again I have seen that book and the kind of passion it evokes in me is surprising. I have seen people discard it as another romantic novel, my advice to all of them is even if just for once see the bigger picture, it might not be beautiful but it is a view which makes u feel alive and powerful.