Having time to stand and stare :)

It has been about 7 years since I started writing this blog. Yes, time flies.

I started this blog to write about all the things I did, I saw, I experienced which were non-work related - when I decided to take a break from my advertising career. Ironically I have yet again decided to take a break, after almost 7 years. Almost a 7 year itch I guess, to get out of the job.

I had reached this mental state where all I could hear were cars honking, and the noise of traffic. My office was a bit off from the centre of the city and in a location where the traffic was horrible. It used to take me almost 2 hours or more to reach office on a bad day (on a good day I would take about an hour) - so I was spending 3-4 hours commuting to and from office each day! The dust, pollution, noise of cars honking, angry drivers abusing each other and of cars screeching and inching along - it became so horrible that I was close to depression at the sheer thought of going to work.

Apparently I used to take an hour to get out of the hangover of the traffic.

It has just been a week since I have stopped going through that traffic. I already feel better.

I feel like I have regained some sanity. I feel I am re-learning the art of enjoying my days. I can actually feel time and do one thing for a longer time. I have 'the time to stand beneath the boughs and stare as long as sheep and cow' :)

I do not lose focus now. I do not have the mad rush to go on from one task to another. I do not feel the day ending without really knowing what I did. I do not feel like I am skipping from one place to another, floating without really touching and knowing anything in particular. I feel I can touch the ground now, and know exactly where I am and what I am doing.

I love this state.

And I love this poem I learnt in school.

Leisure - By W.H.Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Getting close through letters

Watched two movies which were similar in some random ways.

'The Lunchbox' and 'Mary & Max'.

In both the movies two extremely different characters end up writing letters to each other and end up getting close to each other. So close that they decide to spend their lives together. Both the movies do not finally show them getting together, but the intention is established. 

Muffins and Cakes

An oven that was gifted to me, sat in our kitchen, unused, for over 3 months.

I said it was because I fractured my hand, that I did not try my hand at baking yet.

Then I said it was because I was too busy to start baking.

Then I said I would first go for baking lessons before trying it at home on my own.

Finally, I decided that I need to do this and just get started, and accept that I was just scared to bake, because I was pretty sure I would fail at it.

But hey, I tried, and it was not such a big deal.
I can bake now.
It tastes just fine. Sometimes even better than that, it tastes really great.

Now I experiment with different kinds of cakes - I have already done a simple chocolate cake, some apple cinnamon muffins, and chocolate banana cakes.

I am still experimenting. Hope to bake way more in the coming days...

Sanskrit Lessons

For the past one year almost I have been learning the basics of Sanskrit, through a distance learning course.

I have finished 11 of the 13 modules for the course.

These are just baby steps in learning this great language, hopefully I will complete this basic course, and enroll for an advanced course at some point of time. 

The Love and The Evil that The Mind is capable of...

Recently watched a few movies that explored the beautiful vulnerabilities of relationships, the strength and the flaws, the sacrifices and the betrayals. You just cannot stop pondering about how amazing relationships are despite the greys, the evil intentions, the passion that destroys and the commitments that constrain.

The art auctioneer who gets smitten by an heiress who apparently suffers from a strange condition where she fears to appear in front of people - The Best Offer.

A Cuban piano player who follows the extremely successful therefore unattainable love of his life right through his life, to finally unite with her in their old age - Chico & Rita.

A happily married Carl Jung breaks the rules of doctor-patient relationships and indulges in an affair with Sabrina Spielrein who moves from patient to lover to pscyhoanalyst finally training under Sigmund Freud, whose ideas are opposed to those of Jung. - A Dangerous Method.

A depressed murders her husband while sleepwalking, which she claims is a side effect of the anti-depressant drug she was prescribed by her psychiatrist, who later realises that she never did take them, but that the whole act was an evil ploy. - Side Effects.

Sinister ploys, some... tales of romance, others... but all that the mind is capable of in the name of or under the pretext of love. 

Pallavi Anupallavi

In my days of watching Mani Ratnam movies back to back, I somehow had skipped his very first movie - Pallavi Anupallavi - a Kannada movie starring Anil Kapoor, Lakshmi and Kiran.

The fact that he has chosen a complex and mature theme that probably would have not gone down well with the traditional audiences, shows that he was a director who would change the way movies were. The title is perfectly apt for the the plot involving one uncomplicated relationship, and one complicated relationship that could have been avoided.

He has joined hands with some of the best in the industry - Ilaiyaraja, Balu Mahendra and B. Lenin, to produce a movie that is intense, deep, beautiful and at the same time extremely soothing, like a great song. 

Widows in the eyes of Bapsi Sidhwa/ Deepa Mehta

Read Bapsi Sidhwa's Water.
It takes you back to another era, and you wonder how different things were.

One of the few occasions where you notice that the book is based on the movie (in this case Water, by Deepa Mehta), and not the other way around. A simple and quick read but quite moving. This is the last in the Trilogy - Earth, Fire, Water. Somehow it seems like the entire premise would seem more appealing to non-Indians. A bunch of widows in an ashram ranging from 6 to 70, a eunuch, a society believing in traditions and rituals, the advent of Gandhi and the nationalist movement - all intriguing, especially to the foreign audiences.

A book that makes you ponder about the bygone era.