Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Lotus Sutra


Some years back a friend of mine gave me this book called The Buddha in Your Mirror. She told me to read it if I felt like reading it.

For many weeks I didn’t read it. Then I did. And it helped me a lot. To become a little more calm. To look at things in an objective manner. To not lose my temper. To not blame other things and other people. To take responsibility for what was happening to me.

As days passed by and life went on, I forgot about the book and what the book had to tell me.

I remembered the book only when I was extremely unsettled and upset. I went back to the book and felt better. I read about the Lotus Sutra and about how the lotus can be the cause as well as the effect. I tried to understand yet again, that I am the cause as well as the effect. It was difficult. Indeed it is difficult to take responsibility for everything that goes wrong in your life. It is much easier to blame. To believe that nothing is your fault. To swear that you are a poor helpless soul and wonder why all the horrible things are happening to you. From there, to believe that it is actually because of you. Because you let things happen to you. Because you did not do something about the way things are.

The very few times that I have managed to take responsibility, to decide to take control, to accept my own shortcomings; life has taken wonderful turns, and I was left smiling. 

Monday, June 25, 2012

Genius on Genius


Read a very interesting book on Leonardo da Vinci by Sigmund Freud. Apart from it being an extremely engaging piece of work, it took me back to the works of both these geniuses. I had a long conversation about the book’s hypothesis, about the works of da Vinci and then about Michelangelo, about Renaissance in general. Today I am reading up more about da Vinci.

It is a very small book. To think that people spend so much time in researching about specific topics, however simple or complex it seems, and write books about these topics… interesting. Thank god these geniuses took the pains to write. We would have never got to experience such thoughts ever otherwise…

Thursday, June 14, 2012

In the world of Padmarajan

Padmarajan, a malayalam film director, screenplay writer and author. I have rediscovered his work, fortunately. Been watching his movies and spending time with the plots, characters and styles of narratives. Watched about 12 of his movies in the last two months. The stories are invariably about something that you cannot really pinpoint. There are layers to each narrative. Powerful female character, unlike the ones usually depicted in movies of those times. Real emotions, nothing artificial or drastic. Real relationships, real conversations, that which do take place, but are preferably not shown in popular culture.
I keep wondering how he would have come up with the story. Which part of the story would have been the initial trigger. Which character is the central one. Sometimes you cannot even find out which is the central character, or relationship, or conflict.There are many, each one equally faschinating. And there seems to be varying styles of direction or storytelling. Still exploring. Wish he had not died under strange circumstances...we could have had many more of these movies...

Sunday, February 26, 2012

midnight in...

its 15 minutes past midnight... and i just finished watching 'midnight in paris', a wonderful movie by woody allen.

i wonder how he could come up with the plots for his movies. absolutely out of the world.

been watching quite a few movies by woody allen lately - the purple rose of cairo, annie hall, manhattan, everything you wanted to know about sex but were afraid to ask, a midsummer night's sex comedy... love his movies. didnt like vicky christina barcelona though.

moving on to some other directors...fahrenheit 451 was another recent favourite. saw 'carnage', by roman polanski, in the movie hall, yesterday. absolutely loved that one too. what's eating gilbert grape, heavenly creatures, were some others i enjoyed.

hope to watch many more movies this year.
:)