Books, Music, Photography, & Movies
My views on the above and some…
“We are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange.”
Photograph of a beach side restaurant in Goa. Recently my friend sent us a collage of the photographs of our Goa trip. It was exactly two years ago. If I am not wrong, it was either this date today or Oct 1 2013 when I got my ankle fractured during our Goa trip 😉 Fun times.
It has been a while since I posted (close to two weeks now to be precise) except for those two odd photo posts this week 🙂 Life has been as chaotic and peaceful as it can be. Peaceful at home, Chaotic outside. Perfect balance 😉 Since I am getting back to the blogging groove slowly (work starts only next week! yay!!!) here are some interesting news and events that happened.
The city I live in, Bangalore, had some interesting turn of events of late, mostly related to water sharing and violence, spoiling a lot of my plans for the two week, but eventually we figured our way around those events, as we all usually do, even though they weren’t very ideal. But at least we and all the people we know were safe. That counts a lot. Also got to show my non-Indian close friend how curfew over here looks like at least in this part of the town where we live. 🙂 He takes away with him some very interesting experiences. I hate that this happens every year and people aren’t ready to sit and find an ideal solution. Everyone want their piece of 15 min of fame and a lot of political gain through these situations when common men and women suffer (farmer or not).
Did a small trek in Munnar (was on a day trip there) which was interesting. Will share some photographs later. Witnessed a nasty monkey fight for the first time. Now, I am very much convinced that we evolved from them. (See above paragraph for more references 🙂 )
Imagine my surprise with all that star signs and Zodiac changing news that came up in between all these. My friend (who knows astrology, mostly Indian, but he does know the difference between western and indian too) always insisted that I am more of an Aries than a Taurean because according to my birth chart (Indian astrological) my Sun is in Aries (or otherwise called as Mesha) and my moon in Virgo (or otherwise called as Kanni) and I would always disagree with him because I feel more like a Taurus than a Aries. And guess what, the new news tells me that my Sun sign is Aries. Now I would have to agree with him. Good Lord! I ain’t changing my tattoo. I feel like a Taurus than an Aries. And I stick by it. And I don’t like the name Ophiuchus. Can’t they have used a nicer one ?
Losing a baggage because of delayed flight, missed interconnected flights etc is not a good experience. Even though I haven’t been there, I got the first class view of the issues around it when my friend traveled to India a couple of weekends before through Etihad. Flight started late due to some or other issues from the source, arrived 2 hours later than scheduled in Abu Dhabi. Missed the connecting flight to Bangalore. Those in economy class were given tickets via Oman Air. So they traveled from Abu Dhabi to Muscat and from Muscat to Bangalore. But their baggage didn’t and they came to know about it only when they landed in Bangalore. Imagine their surprise. It was very bad customer service. But hey, at least my friend only had one baggage (even though it had some important documents and gifts and we were scheduled for travel in a day or two). One of the other 65 year old passenger not only did not receive her baggage, she did not have a clue about her 75 year old wheel chair bound husband too. Since he was travelling in Business class, he was put in the next flight from Abu Dhabi to Bangalore. And the authorities weren’t sure which one (the one that arrives that night or the one that arrives the next day morning). That was much worse. We hope that her husband was back home the same evening. The baggage did come a day later for us (and hopefully for everyone else)
Sully was a very good movie to watch. We enjoyed it. As soon as I heard those folks in the movie talk about computer simulations and how they conveyed the news that the flight could have landed successfully, the first thought was…it’s just a machine, you idiot. It can’t think like a human being, at least not yet. Well… someone else also thought the same 🙂
Finished with ‘Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries – third season’ on Netflix, finally. Also finished ‘Top of the Lake’ series, which was different and interesting. I liked it. Thanks to my friend, I started on a new series of thriller , mystery, detective books by Michael Dibdin called the Aurelio Zen Mystery series. Finished the 2nd book (Vendetta) because my friend was still on the first book (Ratking). Now I have to find out the other ones and start reading them. They were quite interesting. Sadly the TV Series were made only for the first three of them. Have to watch them once I am done with the books.
Well, that’s it from me for now. I hope there is a little less violence in the world. We have enough of the natural disasters to keep us on our toes already. Be safe! Cheers.
That cute little dog is Winston. During my visit to Ireland, I was honored to befriend this lovely dog who wouldn’t get away from me even for a few seconds. Of course I was spoiling him but scratching his neck and cooing nonsense to him. He was my friend’s niece’s dog. I had a blast with him.
Why this photograph of Winston and myself? That is in response to today’s prompt from Grace
Best Friends for Life – Do you own pets? If you could, which animal would you adopt?
I am a dog person. I used to have a dog during my post graduation days. He died of pneumonia. We were blessed to have him in our lives for two years. Everyone at my home was shattered. I still remember that night, the night he died. I have never seen my brother cry (at least not before us) but that day he couldn’t control himself. And my sister…. totally inconsolable. Since we had to change houses (rented ones) and the other places had a strict no pet policy, we did not have any more pets after him. But if I had to adopt an animal it would definitely be a dog for sure. And I would totally agree with Mark Twain.
“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man’s.”
Today’s theme from Grace at Kimmie.gg is “Art”
What are some of your favorite pieces and genres? Which artist do you adore?
I am a person who is not restricted in my interests to a specific kind of art or even to a particular artist. I might like an artist a little bit more than another one time and vice versa the other. That is why I am not a big fan of any particular band/singer/painter/photographer/author. I know what I don’t understand though. I don’t understand classical music. I don’t understand modern art. I don’t understand complex poetry. I don’t understand non-fiction or essays.
I enjoy any kind of art, be it calligraphy, sketches, watercolor, hand crafts, music, anything that pleases me as soon as I see/hear it. I follow a blogger called LunchSketch, who stopped blogging a long while ago and whose domain is currently expired , and I loved his sketches. It was so real and so full of emotions. I would say I miss his sketches, if I have to pick one artist among the huge set I follow. I like some of Kamal Das’s poems and know them by heart. I like my friend Anita’s works (her yarn based and her bead works) and Ashwini’s cards (and I wish she would start selling some of those 😉 ) I adore LD’s photographs and his stories. I love my friend S’s work and he does my tattoo designs (inside information: I have got my second tattoo design ready…just waiting for the right time) I love street art (and I did a whole series on it with the photographs I took in London). I love my first niece’s drawing attempts and she is getting better and better (my brother is planning to enroll her in a drawing class, which she is quite excited about). I guess if I start thinking a bit more, I will have lot of other people in the list. So let me end with this:
“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
― Thomas Merton
My maid, God bless her, has one standard dialogue every time I am back from my travel. Every.Single.Time. I love her. She has been with me through the tough times. She takes care of me in her own way and treats me like her own daughter. So, what is that one line? “you have become more darker”. Neither of us (she or myself) are fair skinned. I might be a tad fairer than her. But still, we both are wheat colored. It doesn’t matter if I travel to a cold country or a tropical country or just a visit to my hometown for a fortnight. Just getting out of my home makes me look more tanned, according to her. Something in the water, she believes.
She also had her views about how I am literally wasting away by going to gym. What is there to reduce? You are already thin! You will only look more sickly. That is what she used to say and still does. This was said today morning too. BMI, Visceral Fat, Muscle Mass, Body strength – all those doesn’t matter to her. She is quite lean and strong (doing household work definitely is the best exercise ever). I do like some meat in my bones, but I like being healthier more. If that makes me a little thinner than I was, then so be it. I am happy as long as I am healthy and am able to maintain it.
I usually hear it only from her. But this time after my latest trip and back, my brother who was on his regular business visit to Bangalore also commented on how much thinner I have become and I shouldn’t reduce more. 🙄 I had to explain him about the BMI, Fat etc… to make him not say anything more. I don’t think he was convinced but at least that 10 min explanation stopped him from saying anything further. Yesterday when I had been to office (after quite a while actually) I saw this colleague of mine and she looked me up and down and said, you look different. The look on her face was that of disappointment more than surprise. I told her that I had been working out and could be the result of that. She replied not just that… you look more tanned…why are you getting more tanned when you are already darker??? As if I am going to tanning salons for that purpose. I told her, it’s just the water. Obviously she didn’t get that inside joke.
When I was slightly obese, no one knew because of my extremely shapeless clothes. Now that my clothes size has reduced too, I get the odd comment from people that I have become thinner. I am yet to hear from someone that I have become fitter. I know I won’t be hearing that any time soon. But I am surprised at the tanning comment. I hardly wear any sunscreen when I go out, irrespective of the place or heat. I am used to the heat and sweat over here. So I usually don’t use any sunscreen (that is an additional accessory to carry too… urgh!) How can they tell the difference between dark skin and delta-dark skin (delta here means a very minute difference). I wonder what else is in store for me after my next travel or may be another month of gym.
Books, Music, Photography, & Movies 