Slumdog Millionaire

“Brimming with humor and heartbreak, Slumdog Millionaire meets at the border of art and commerce and lets one flow into the other as if that were the natural order of things. Sweet.” – Rolling Stone

I couldn’t agree more. Undoubtedly the best movie of the year! The film is a visual wonder, thanks to Anthony Dod Mantel’s exquisite cinematography and Danny Boyle’s brilliant direction. And how could I not mention A.R. Rahman. It comes as no surprise that the soundtrack is an absolute explosion of genres, cultures, and sounds.

Before I watched the movie, I had read several reviews and as I had expected I did run into a few Indian writers who found Boyle to be obsessed with capturing the ‘real India’ and thought he lit every tail on fire to make it work for his primary audiences in the West. I have to admit some scenes were over-dramatized for effect – but at the end of the day it IS a commercial movie and not a documentary, so get over it. And I do not know if any of these critiques have ever actually visited or spent any time in the slums – I know I haven’t, so I’m not judging. Being an Indian I cannot deny any of the events take place just because it makes me think that India is being shown in a bad light to the rest of the world. In fact Indians are always defensive in this same manner whenever a foreign director approaches to make any movie related to India that is somewhat close to real. Well, if that really bothers you, get your ass off that snug couch of yours and go do something about it apart from criticizing the rest of the world for making India look bad. I wonder when these people read the newspapers with ‘real stories’ of attacks, murders, rapes, prostitution, police and political corruption, child labor and girl child abortion, do they usually go ‘Oh my God, what if some Westerner reads today’s paper? What will they think of India? Or even as a matter of fact when they watch any Bollywood movie which focuses on ‘real India’, are they concerned about what the world will think or are they at peace knowing it will only be seen by the Indian population. I guess the foreign directors should be focusing more on costume changes and snowy alps for a song and dance sequence rather than entering our slums to make a movie on India.

I have no qualms recommending this movie to my non-Indian friends and I don’t feel any less Indian for that.

Ho Ho and Huh?

We don’t usually celebrate Christmas at home but since I love the holiday, I rely heavily on my workplace to get me into the spirit. With my last two companies, the holiday season was a big deal - trees, decorations, parties, music, bonuses, gifts and copious amounts of food.

Come this year, with economy down in the dumps, companies are cutting down on the parties and bonuses. Understandable. But at my new workplace things are worse, not because of the economy, but the total lack of spirit in everyone. When I walk into our side of the building I do not see a trace of holidays apart from maybe a couple tiny snowmen sitting on one of the desks. Only one vendor showed up with a cookie basket that was devoured in a few seconds and now we are left with nothing. But this morning just sucked the last straw out of me.

Before I tell you what happened, I need to describe in short, the way our office is set up. All the account executives and their teams are in one end of the building and the accountants and designers in the other. Now why would someone pair up graphic designers with accountants – God only knows. In a gist, our side is BORING.

So this morning as I walk into our side of the building I notice gifts on everyone’s desk. I am excited (who wouldn’t be?). But as I enter our corner I realize that the three graphic designer desks are void of such pleasantries. It means that only the boring accountants received presents from Santa. And of course we had to bear the squeals of delight as those presents were being opened. I tell ya - if Santa doesn’t arrive at the designer desks pretty soon I will be merrily PISSED!

That being said, this holiday season SUCKS! I miss my ex-coworkers and all the fun that we had. Ironically this has been my most creative job with the least creative workspace.

I need many a more mango martinis to make me go…

HO! HO! HO!

I should've…

Changed before going on a long walk. Now I’m sitting in my sweaty t-shirt at work.

Packed my salad in a larger Tupperware. I just made a huge mess on my desk while tossing it with dressing.

Uploaded my own play list into the Shuffle that I am borrowing from hubby. Wouldn’t have had to listen to Himesh Reshammiya. I doubt if Shomeek has ever listened to his Hindi play list. I also doubt whether Himesh has ever heard himself singing.

Avoided talking about Himesh. That way I would've NEVER Googled him

Skipped reading this post on India Uncut. Now I cannot stop myself from reading random sexual dilemmas and laugh out loud for which I need to come up with an excuse real quick.

Happy Friday folks!

Lost Love

Caller: I would like to request a sentimental song from any SRK movie
RJ: Is there anyone you would like to dedicate this song to?
Caller: Yes, I would like to dedicate this song to my ex-girlfriend who I did not marry since it would make my parents unhappy. But she still remains close to my heart and I am very happy for her in her new life.

WTF???

You know what? I think this guy is NOT happy. I’m sure his ex-girlfriend is doing real well in her career and love life while he is stuck with a bride his parents picked for him, who does nothing productive, but pick his brain in return. I hate guys like this. I think I even knew one at a point in time. YIKES!

Who's the retard here?

Just after I posted the retard picture in my previous post, I received this photo from Evani's daycare. Of course I had some fun at my daughter's expense. I would love to share this with her when she's older. :)


Click on the image to read the bubbles.

Just for laughs

Thanks to Mattu who sent this and a very happy Friday to all my retarded friends!

Type

I hardly ever write about my work or related topics on this blog. From hereon I would like to do that more often. I am lucky enough to do what I really love for a living. I know a lot of friends or family who cannot say that for themselves.

That being said I would like to share some inspiring type treatments from iLT

Just nothings

New look. Old me. Literally old me. I was told by one of my co-workers that I wasn’t losing any weight due to my age. So now I am old AND fat – thank you very much! Just the motivation I need to run an extra mile at the gym. Running has been really hard lately. I think it IS the age. She was right! Having the hardest time losing any weight. Is that making me frustrated? I think I should eat now.

I think I would lose weight if:
• Someone paid me enormous amounts of money for it
• I had a personal chef, maybe a personal trainer would help too
• A new finding suggested that mashed potato and ice-cream can help shed some pounds

White space still persists in my new look. I need more of it in real life. There are so many things I want to achieve and so little time. Days are getting crammed and I end up with nothing done.

That does not stop me from dreaming. I can get enough of that done at work since it is so quiet here. Today is not an exception. It is like this all the time. I am not used to such silence. I miss my loud and noisy ex-colleagues. Thanks to Dubai Radio City 101.6 FM. It makes me want to dance. Their Desi Mix is the best, especially on Thursdays.

TDC has a performance coming up end of Jan. I have NO idea on content. I think it will be a dedication to the Mumbai attacks. That is ALL I can do now. It is frustrating. Maybe I should eat now. This way I will never lose weight. Someone needs to pay me big bucks. Maybe some of those idiots who drove the country into recession and made crazy dough for themselves. Maybe those guys are old and fat. Maybe it’s not me.

Please feel free to follow my blog and make me feel important. Become a follower TODAY!

Media: The REAL terror?

According to me, the terrorists always win when they get EXTENSIVE media coverage after every attack and I won’t be surprised if we see a movie released next year on the recent Mumbai attacks. Instead of converting news to drama, they really need to take a step back and let the police and army do their jobs.

I was more shocked at the media frenzy than I was with the Mumbai attacks. Don’t get me wrong. I am equally hurt, angry and horrified with what happened. But as I said, I sat in disbelief watching NDTV live and how their reporters dramatized every single thing. In one instance they interviewed this lady who had just been rescued from the Taj hotel. She seemed totally in control of herself and mentioned how their wing had been safe all along and how cooperative the hotel staff had been. However when one of the NDTV reporters later reiterated what she had said – it came out as she was horrified and how she would never be the same again and that’s how everyone inside felt. Well, she did not for once mention or imply any of that. The worst was how one of the cameras captured a reporter trying to tug at a man’s hands, who was injured and bleeding from the open round of firing from a police jeep that was taken over by the terrorists, so that he could get a better shot of his injuries. No one showed any inclination to take that man to the darned hospital.

Terrorists are sick people to begin with. What is the point in giving them so much media coverage? Creating more terror in people than what already exists? Isn’t that what they want? Shouldn’t they JUST be shot? Why is it so hard?

Media really needs to stick to ‘news’. There was a time I considered Indian news channels to be the best, especially after coming to this country and being introduced to its lousy news channels and coverage. Currently Indian media (most part of it) is doing exactly what I hate the US media for – replacing news with entertainment and drama.

I have purposefully not written about the Mumbai attacks for so long just because I was busy taking everything in and also in a loss for words what to write when so much has already been written across different medias. In the blog world there are a few posts that I thought better than the rest and if interested you can check these out. I have pasted some excerpts from those blogs as well.

Ramesh Srivats
“Commandos are landing on the Nariman Building. They seem to be tip-toeing down. They are communicating to each other through hand signals. Secrecy & surprise are paramount. And NDTV is showing this live!!! With informative commentary on how many commandos have landed and so on. Perhaps NDTV's research has shown that terrorists only watch cartoon network during missions.”

Amit Varma
“Deepak Chopra was also on the show, speculating that the attacks had taken place because terrorists were worried about Barack Obama’s friendly overtures to Muslims. (I know: WTF?) That sounded pretty ridiculous to me, but such theories are a consequence of our tendency as a species to want to give gyan. A media pundit, especially, feels compelled to have a narrative for everything. Everything must be explicable, and television expects instant analysis.”

GreatBong
“Usually an attack of such a magnitude in India is usually given about 30 seconds of TV time on network TV typically before news of Lindsay Lohan going into rehab. But this time, our Jihadi friends have explicitly targeted “Western” peoples thus signaling their intention to be “heard” at the top of the hour.”

Pet for Paul’s

Some facts when it comes to pets for the Paul family:
Mala = not a pet person.
Shomeek = LOVES pets (especially dogs).
Evani = scared of every living creature that is not human and sometimes scared of that too.

So when Evani showed the slightest excitement towards a fish tank at a friends place, Shomeek jumped at the opportunity and decided we should get a fish tank. So this Thanksgiving Evani got her fish tank and was SUPER excited with her ‘Fishy’. We got three Guppy’s and three Micky Mouse fish and quite honestly I like to watch Evani’s excitement at them swimming around. My contribution to the whole endeavor was picking out the interiors for the tank. We still need a stand for the tank. As of now it is sitting on our dining table – so that is my excuse for not entertaining this holiday season.



And I'm secretly thankful that Evani is scared of dogs, or else we would have ended up with a puppy instead of the fish.

Goddess Kali visits the U.S.

Awesome costume detail by Heidi Klum at her Halloween bash this year. Now why didn't I think of this? My source:Jabberwock

NO is the new YES

Well, at least that’s what I would like to believe, NO being the prevalent word in Evani’s vocabulary these days. Here is how it usually goes in the evening -

Parents: “Evani, let’s eat dinner”
Evani: “NO!”

Parents: “Evani, lets go take a shower”
Evani: “NO!”

Evani: “potty”
Parents: “you want to go potty?”
Evani: “NO!”

So, as I said, I would like to believe she actually means ‘yes’.

'Ohm!'

You know your hubby is consistent when…

He buys the exact same b’day card for you as last year’s for your b’day this year again, and doesn’t believe it till I have to pull out last year’s card to prove my point. I don’t know why he wouldn’t’ believe in the first place – after all these years doesn’t he still know that I’m ALWAYS right? I seriously am.

Let’s see what else funny happened on my special day today. I decided to give myself a treat for lunch – Mc Donald’s French Fries. Not much of a treat exactly, but it was something I wanted to do for myself anyways. The closest McD to my work is inside the Folsom Walmart. So I go there only to be flabbergasted on being charged extra for some mayo with my fries. I usually get a packet of mayo instead of ketchup and this is the first time I was charged for it. I mean I know our economy is down in the dumps but when McD starts charging for mayo it starts getting a bit scary or maybe the lady in the counter was just possessive about the condiments. She even refused to give another customer an extra packet of bbq sauce.

Despite all the evil karma from the McD lady, I’ve been reminiscing about my birthdays when I was little and how different yet special they were. Since we had to wear school uniforms to school unlike schools out here, it was customary for the birthday girl to come to school in ‘color-dress’ (regular clothes) on her birthday and distribute candy while the rest of the class sang ‘happy birthday’. Everyone looked forward to that special day in their lives since only on that day the b’day girl was the focus of attention of the entire school in her special outfit. I always wanted to be that girl but unfortunately never got to go to school in a ‘color-dress’ due to the fact my birthday was always during our month long Puja Vacation. That really saddened me. However the bright side was that my birthday was always a holiday and I got to spend it with my family. My cousins would come home and my grandmother would cook special goat curry and rice for that day. My dad would usually buy me a new dress and that was about it. Yet, those birthdays were so enjoyable and all us cousins would spend the day chatting or playing games. As I grew older and started going to college, my birthdays were spent with a group of very close friends going out for lunch. We always remembered each other’s birthdays and spent hours buying a birthday card that had the most appropriate verbiage to express what we felt for each other.

Those were glorious years and I miss them. I hope the Sushi tonight makes up for all of that! ☺

Escape

I looked into her eyes and knew she had secrets, the kind that if exposed could definitely ruin reputations of a lot of people in that crowded room. Not for once did I catch her attention though. Her gaze was fixed upon the ice cubes in her glass as if they held the window to the whole wide world and if only she could escape this darned party she would be getting herself lost in one of its wonders. She was beautiful and successful. Exactly the kind of lady I would like to be one day.

That day was long ago. I don’t even know where Neepa aunty is anymore. Once I had read about her in a magazine. I think she had recorded an album. I remembered her having a remarkable voice and Nazrulgeeti’s always suited her better than Rabindra sangeets. They were my favorite too. And today here I am, neither beautiful nor successful but with only one thing in common – the urge to get away from this crowd into the wilderness of that unknown world of wonders.

I have secrets too. Secrets that have nothing to do with others but myself. About things I’ve done, people I’ve loved, things I’ve witnessed and felt, things I’ve written. And I want to sing too - about all those things unsaid. But instead, I smile at known and unknown faces alike and ask the bartender to pour me another whiskey, this time on the rocks and comply with my host’s request to sing a ghazal.

Picture Perfect

Finally a family photo I LOVE.

For some reason I do not like going to a photo studio for pictures. It was only once that my dad forced me to get an 'arranged marriage' photo taken at a studio back in Kolkata whose caption read 'ek chobitei biye' (transaltion: a single photograph of yours will get you married) and that was enough to keep me away from any future posing at a studio. So unlike most of my friends out here and back at home, we do not have any family portraits that I can hang on walls.

Thus my excitement about this particular photo taken by a professional photographer at a friends wedding a few weeks ago. I love it because it is no natural.

And of course I had to share this one too :)

Its about time!

I finally accepted a job offer and start working at Association Resource Center in Folsom on Oct 13th. The company specializes in association and conference/trade show marketing and management services to state, national and international associations and organizations.

I did realize that it is really hard to get back into the job scene once you've taken a long break. In my case it is a year and the timings couldn't have been worse. There is an absolute scarcity of graphic design jobs in the area. Thanks to my friend Marcy, I got to know about this opening. She has been really supportive and helpful throughout this dry spell and I cannot thank her enough.

I am definitely looking forward to some adult time during my days. Now starts the process of finding a suitable daycare for Evani and having to deal with leaving her every morning in the prime of her separation anxiety phase. That I am NOT looking forward to.

Feast for the Brahmins

I have always refrained from writing about my mother-in-law in this blog. But this time I cannot resist myself as what took place last night is a prime example of how backward most of us Indians are till this day and age. For those of you who don't know, my mother-in-law lives in Sacramento and has been here for nearly 20 years now. So last night she invited the sons of her close friend for dinner who will be leaving for college soon. We were also asked to join. I had just washed my hands in preparation to chop some veggies for a salad, when she requested me to taste the mashed potatoes. I scooped some of the potatoes with my finger , tasted it and told her it needed more salt with no intention of digging my finger back into the bowl. Now she must have misunderstood me and thought I would go for a second round of tasting with that same finger but even then what she said next came to me as a shock.
"Don't touch the mashed potatoes. There are Brahmins who will be eating this food!"

Did I hear that right??? Was I just taken back to the Indian caste system and told that I couldn't touch the food because I was from a lower caste? This was my initial reaction. I was mad and felt insulted on so many different levels not to mention the very basic that she assumed I didn't have manners and also because it might be okay to double dip some else's food if they were not Brahmins. I don't really know what it was but last night as I lay in bed trying to forget what had just happened, I realized that most Indians are this way (please note, I did not say 'all').

This is also the reason why our country finds it so hard to move ahead. Most of it I understand is due to lack of a better education and understanding of our religion. But what about those Indians who are educated, have respectable jobs, traveled around the globe living comfortable lives which do not bog them down with the atrocities of some heinous religious practices like in old days - people like my mother-in-law? I have met so many of them here in the U.S. It amazes me how they are still centuries behind irrespective of how modern their lifestyles might me. I am not saying for a second that being religious is a bad thing. But blindly practicing rituals in the name of religion and condemning others, is not what makes a person religious.

For most people who are acquainted with me might think I'm not religious. I am. Just not in the same way. Thanks to my father, I was never forced into any particular religion. I have always heard him mention the Bible and Quran as he did the Gita. To me, Karma is my dharma. I went to a school founded by one of the pioneers of Brahmo Samaj. Back in those years they fought for the abolition of sati and the caste and dowry systems. They gave great importance to enlightenment and education versus idol worship. They moved us ahead and it seems like now we are moving back again. The educated and affluent Indians are more caught up in donating huge sums of money to build bigger and better temples, gurdwaras and mosques in an age where our country is still plagued with poverty and death.

Some Evani Moments

Olympic Fever

Everyone in the stadium held their breath as she faced the challenge of the obstacle course. It was reported a few weeks ago that she had injured both her knees from a fall during training. But she is the favorite contender this year. Will she win gold and bring glory to her family who have relentlessly supported her in this entire journey? NBC of course refused to cover this event since it did not include four scantily clad women in the beach playing volleyball, but here is an exclusive coverage for the ardent readers of this blog~



She actually got up there and said 'Potty'. That alone won her the gold. She was awarded the most points for immaculate timings. The proud mother later told us in an exclusive interview that her daughter had made the entire family and country proud and all that training in the park had finally paid off. She will definitely be returning in 2012. In between she will be focusing on training even harder. She also bagged an endorsement deal from Huggies Pull-Ups - so you will be seeing a lot more of her in the potty training commercials. Finally, here is a glimpse of the medal ceremony and an example of how Americans are so famous for screwing up names ~

The Geek Squad