Tuesdays with Morrie - a review

         “Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”

All of us have thousands of complaints right? about the traffic, the food, the salary,the work, the politics,... on goes the never ending lists.

So amidst all these regrets and worries, there came by a book which left me thinking how silly i am !!

A professor counting his last days of life, shows us the true meaning of being alive! to not surrender to the disease is one part of whole book, but the most important part is the lessons he teaches us.

"Take any emotion-love for a woman, or grief for a loved one. If you hold back on the emotions- if you dont allow yourself to go all the way through them- you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid.  You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.

·         But by throwing yourself into these emotions , by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely, you know what pain is. You know what love is. You know what grief is. And only then can you say, all right. I have experienced that emotion, I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment."

Many a times in life I've been through stages when the same had happened to me, an emotion is with me only till i go to the full extent with it! and it being not the norm, i have been questioned by many of my queers... all those questions remain answered with professor morrie's statement above.

"No matter where u live, the biggest defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We don’t see what we could be, we should be looking at our potential stretching ourselves into everything we can become. "

Through simple statements , Mitch albom, brings out the real essence of life.. of living and letting others live!!!

Thanks Mitch for this wonderful composition.

                                                                  -Chalked by Megha kuruvilla

The Palace of Illusions - A review

  The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is Mahabharata told by Draupadi. It attempts to give voice to the heroine (or the villainess?) of Mahabharata – her travails, her innermost feelings, her confusions, predicaments and her vulnerabilities.

My verdict: This is a good first book on Mahabharata for the uninitiated ones; nothing more than that. I had to labor through the book, to keep my commitment not to leave any book unfinished.

Chitra brings the woman alive in Draupadi. The prose is dragging at many places for people familiar with the context. Unnecessary details turn the reader off.

In order to keep the readers stay with the book, some relationships and incidents are brought to focus and fictionalized (deviating from the original text?). The lead character’s enigmatic relationship with Krishna, her fascination towards Karna (I sometimes felt that the author did not bring in the extra-marital angle for fear of criticisms from self proclaimed puritans), her discontentment with the mother-in-law and the jealousy when her husbands’ court other women.

The most common rendition of Draupadi in literature and TV serials is of a highly tolerant, loving wife. The book feebly tries to question this. There are many instances where we encounter the lead character’s realization that she had been the cause of the war, the destruction, death of thousands including her kids and brother. She is mostly shown as any other female, who gets upset when other women come into the lives of men she adores. The book gets a little bit ‘Bollywood’ when the heroine and the actual hero of this book (Karna) are shown as mutual bête-noire, but carefully nurturing an admiration for each other below the surface.

I think Chitra worked on weaving a novel out of a simple situation – What happens if Draupadi tells her story? Will she talk about her hidden desires? Her hatred? Her unresolved conundrums? I don’t think there is anything wrong here. But for a discerning reader with a good understanding of Mahabharata, the story becomes a thin thread of predicable incidents, which leaves him unsatisfied.

Hence, I will not recommend this book to people who are looking at building their foundation on knowledge about Mahabharata. It best suits a starter.

PS: Microsoft Word kept warning me against using the term ‘her husbands’. Looks like they did not think of that possibility

- Chalked by Sanjay Gopinath

http://vagabondmind.blogspot.in

Kahaani (Story)

Popcorn with Prem...

On a Friday evening at work when my friends called me to ask if I wanted to join them for yet another Vidya Balan movie I was quite sceptical. Being an ardent admirer and fan of her work I must admit I was disappointed watching The Dirty Picture. Contrary to popular opinion that The Dirty Picture was her best work to date I refused to believe so. I had never heard of Kahani until Friday and decided not to look into reviews and just go with a empty mind and zero expectations.

Two hours after watching the movie I must say, this is Vidya Balan’s best work to date and this will make her a possible candidate for yet another National Award. The movie trailer gives the gist of the story but the underlying suspense that is so beautifully woven into the script by Sujoy Ghosh, Suresh Nair & Nikhil Vyas.

The movie starts with a terrorist attack on Kolkata Metro train when a gas explosion causes the death of 100 commuters. No one claims responsibility and the case loses importance as days pass by. 2 years later, Mrs.Vidya Bagchi (Vidya Balan) a software engineer arrives at Kolkata International Airport from London in search of her missing husband, Arnab Bagchi. She is pregnant and travels to the Kalighat police station to file a missing person report but her report fails to make much headway into the heaps of unsolved cases yet to be looked into. Kharaj and Rana (Parambrata Chatterjee) are the 2 inspectors available there who question her. She shows a picture of her and her husband to them. Rana then takes her to the Monalisa Guest House, where her husband stayed when he came to Kolkata, but the receptionist at the guest house claims person with such name was never there.

 

Vidya becomes upset and decides to stay back in the guest house and solve the mystery herself. This takes her to the National data Centre where her husband was sent for an assignment. HR Exec tells her that this person never worked there however when Vidya shows his photograph she recognises the face. She believes it resembles an ex employee by the name of Milan Damji whose records are beyond her pay grade. At this point the movie had hit a Hollywood flavour and to my utter surprise was doing better at keeping my attention.

Meanwhile, Vidya befriends Rana, the local inspector and he helps her in every way to find the husband. She decides to find Milan Damji hoping that when she find him he will lead her Arnab. IB officer Khan from Delhi is sent to look into the case. In the mean time the movie takes an shocking twist when a simple looking Life Insurance Agent Bob Bishwas (Saswata Chatterjee) kills the HR Exec from NDC in cold blooded fashion. Turns out that Bob Bishwas is a contract killer (one of the spookiest Contract killer characters I have seen in a while).

The HR Exec’s death leads to 3 more contracts for Bob the final being Mrs Vidya Bagchi herself. Who send Bob ? Will Vidya find Arnab ? Who is Milan Damji ? Is Milan Damji and Arnab Bagchi the same person ? Is Vidya Schizophrenic ? A lot of questions arise in your mind with possible answers to none.

What happens further is the crux of the movie I classify as a MUST WATCH !!

-Chalked by Premdas Kanaran

Top 5 Upcoming Action Movies of 2012

Popcorn with Prem...

Being a die-hard fan of the action movies genre, I cannot fail but notice the array of action movies lined up to hit the cinemas in 2012. So I thought it would be a good idea to compile my favourite upcoming movies for the year. The list has quite a few surprises and mostly the expected entries. Anyways here we go.

The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan returns with his latest batman offering. The Dark Knight was one of the best movies I have seen for its story line and action. This latest offering continues eight years after the events of The Dark Knight and terrorist leader Bane (Tom Hardy) returns to Gotham City and pushes the city and its police to their limits. This forces Batman to return after taking the blame for Harvey Dent’s crimes in The Dark Knight. Will the Dark Knight defeat Bane is what needs to be seen. Will there be another offering from Nolan? Lets wait and watch.

Sir Michael Caine had this to say about the movie on denofgeek: “this one will definitely be the best ever”

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The Avengers

Nick Fury and the international agency S.H.I.E.L.D. bring together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki & his various membered army. Any action movie fan, a school kid or a corporate suit would find it hard to resist a movie which has Hawkeye, Iron Man, Black Widow, Thor, Captain America & The Incredible Hulk assembled in one movie. The superpowers of all these heroes can be witnessed fighting one enemy in Loki (Tom Hiddleston). The movie is scheduled to release on 25th April in 3D at select theatres.

Chris Wells had this to say about the movie on denofgeek: “I think he did a very good job of setting up the characters based on what we know from the Marvel franchise, integrating them together with all their differences and similarities and then getting on with business. And just when you think the movie is a character piece it just goes nuts.'"

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Prometheus

Not much is still known about this movie. Many believe that this is a sort of Alien prequel whereas some others believe Prometheus is a movie in its own and not based on any other classics. Director Ridley Scott finally made a delayed foray in the Si-Fi genre. The movie is based on a team of scientist in the quest to discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth. This leads them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race. The movies synopsis and trailer is marking a striking resemblance to the alien franchise but come 7th Jun 2012 and we will have our answers.

Ridley Scott declared that he’d had a great time doing Prometheus, and that “I’m also thinking about what the hell I might do for a Prometheus 2.”

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The Amazing Spider-Man

A search for the replacement of Tobey Maguire as the Spider-Man lead to many names including Jamie Bell, Alden Ehrenreich, Frank Dillane, Andrew Garfield and Josh Hutcherson. The final choice was the oldest amongst them in Andrew Garfield as the new Spider-Man.

In the latest offering, Peter Parker finds a clue that might help him understand why his parents disappeared when he was young. His path puts him on a collision course with Dr. Curt Connors (The Lizard), his father's former partner.

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SkyFall

Its been 4 years since the last James Bond movie in Quantum of Solace and now the suave spy is back. Only this time it seems Bond is not going to be travelling to exotic locations around the world as initially planned. The movie is being primarily shot in England with the only non-UK location being Turkey.

Bond's loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.

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-Chalked by Premdas Kanaran

Forces spéciales (2011): My unexpected foray into French movies

Forces spéciales (Special Forces) was a movie I started watching without knowing that it was a French movie. My first intent was to stop playing the DVD since I did not understand French, however the subtitles helped. Despite the movie being in French, an action movie buff that I am could not resist continuing to watch the movie. To talk about Special Forces in short I can call it as a tale of survival. Whenever I watch a war based action movie, I always tend to benchmark it against one of my all-time favourites Tears of the Sun. Did Special Forces beat my benchmark or did it fail?

The movie features a rich cast of actors in Diane Kruger (Elsa), Djimon Hounsou (Kovax), Benoît Magimel (Tic-Tac), Denis Menochet (Lucas) and Raphaël Personnaz (Elias). The movie was made at an estimated budget of €10,000,000 and released in France on 2nd November 2011.

After watching the movie I started reading some reviews on some of my favourite blogs and entertainment sites to see fans and authors have taken the movie in two different ways. Some consider it to be propaganda to advertise the French Special Forces while others have classified it as a tell-tale struggle between humanity and cruelty.

So finally, Special Forces is the story of the French Special Forces and their mission, in this instance, to save journalists who have been kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan and taken to the tribal areas of Pakistan. The movie story line resembles very closely to Tears of the Sun where Bruce Willis and his team is send to Africa to extract Dr. Lena Hendricks (Monica Bellucci). In Special Forces we do not have Bruce Willis nor Monica Bellucci, but we have Djimon Hounsou and Diane Kruger. Diane Kruger, a French journalist covering a story on atrocities committed over women in war torn Afghanistan is kidnapped by a kill-crazed Al Qaeda leader Zaief (Raz Degan) and taken to a tribal village on the border of Pakistan.

Djimon Hounsou’s team’s mission is to enter Pakistan and extract the journalist and her accomplice Amin. The rest of the movie is a startling array of machine guns, choppers, hand grenades – a typical Battlefield. During the trek back to their extraction point their choppers take fire from the henchmen of Zaief. This takes them to Plan B which is to trek the mountains and cross over to Afghanistan. During this journey they pass through rubbles, mountains, a snow storm, a land slide and more henchmen hunting them.

What happens further to the mission is what keeps us glued to couch, with an interesting ending which in my opinion was quite similar to Tears of the Sun but yet better. My take on the movie was that it was a mix of being a platform to portray the French patriotism and struggle between humanity and cruelty. I would recommend this movie to any action movie buff.

A good first movie by Stéphane Rybojad.

-Chalked by Premdas Kanaran

The Inbetweeners: A TV series spin-off, a runaway success?

Since the day my colleague said about laughing her wits out after watching a movie, I could not help but take a shot at the movie. Not knowing much at all about The Inbetweeners and its history, I made myself comfy on my lounge chair to watch. A group of teenagers on a holiday trip filled with lots of booze and sex seems to be a formula that works in recent times. When the movie began, the first thought that ran through my mind was “do we really need yet another American Pie style movie?!”

Anyways I started watching the movie and 96 min later I am sitting in the couch and wondering how different this movie was from any other teenage-booze-fest movie. The truth is – its not different et all!

For anyone who has already seen the TV series, you would be familiar with the moderately normal Simon (Joe Thomas) who still has his crap haircut but has been ditched by Carli (Emily Head) and so won’t shut up about her; the self-aware nerd Will (Simon Bird) is still constantly pointing out how crap everything is; would-be sex pest Jay (James Buckley) still can’t finish a sentence without the words “minge” “gash” or “vage”; and Neil (Blake Harrison) is still copping off with various horny pensioners despite having a girlfriend back home.

The story begins with the four teenagers leaving from home on a holiday to Crete. As it turns out, it’s not the nicest places to be; at least the apartment they stayed in was not nice at all! The string of misfortunes ranged from their disappointment at being tricked to get into an empty bar by a beautiful girl to being stripped naked in public on the streets!

Seeing them trying to hit on girls in a completely empty club by dancing over to them - dancing very badly indeed over to them - might not be the freshest joke around, but it works because it’s the kind of clueless, lame thing teenage boys sometimes do. Not sure you can say that about sticking a rolled up 20 pound note up your arse, mind you. The movie is definitely worth a watch for a few (or more) chuckles and laugh along the way!

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Tim Robey at the Telegraph feels The Inbetweeners Movie will be an enormous hit, a Mamma Mia! for the Hangover demographic.

-Chalked by Premdas Kanaran

Books Books !!!!! ~~~~~~ "The Last Lecture"

"When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a very bad place to be. Your critics are the ones telling you they still love you and care. "

Makes sense?? ….. Yes?.... then you Should read this book…..

Randy Pausch Is a professor, who is counting his days as he fights against pancreatic cancer.

The book as named is about his last lecture, which he sees as a way to connect to his fellows and specially his 3 little kids who’ll grow up without him around.

Thinking about a sad autobiography of a cancer patient? …. You are wrong! As he narrates his life and dreams, not even once we feel sad or sympathetic for him. He brightens up the day with instances from his childhood and teen years and makes every moment as lively as possible with his simple yet forceful language.

The energy with which he presents his lecture reflects in his words too. And it is something that lifts our spirits to greater heights. Through the various moments,people and places of his life he brings to light the real lessons of life which could change the way we see things! Some quotes below: 

• "The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."
• If I could only give three words of advice, they would be, "tell the truth." If I got three more words, I'd add: "All the time." 
• “Find the best in everybody. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side. Just keep waiting, it’ll come out.”

As he explains the simple yet most important moments of his life, we can’t help but agree how simple and small things matter more when it comes to adding meaning to our lives.

Randy’s lecture has become a phenomenon, with the youtube video of his actual lecture and his website, attracting millions of visitors each day…

So what are you waiting for... check it out..and do let me know if u like it.. :)

Links:

The Site : http://www.thelastlecture.com/

The Lecture Video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo

The Lecture Transcript : http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/Randy/pauschlastlecturetranscript.pdf

Happy Reading... :)

- Chalked by Silver Cloud