An incredible journey moving at the speed of sound

I have recently re-discovered that time is a big asset that I do not have access to, however having the priced ability of stealing moments from the unusually busy weekend(that heap of dirty clothes and the Cricket matches and unscheduled terrorist attacks and of course keeping track of the crumbling economy) for a movie. There is no particular category from where I pick my flicks, its more of random kind "August Rush"... not really subjected to genre analysis, yet could be placed in the pool of Musical movies, its entirely different from the enthralling entertainment as School of Rock or Almost Famous.

Director Kirsten Sheridan, seemed to be more into the divine power of music. The story is about how an orphaned musical prodigy (kinda reincarnation of Mozart) uses his gift to find his separated parents and bring them together to make one happy family.

Though the movie was not entirely of the boring kind yet the angelic imagination does dampen the audience(here I am the audience). Child artist Freddie Highmore(of Finding Neverland fame), inherits his musical thread from his parents played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Keri Russell.Layla's(Keri Russell) protective father falsely informs his daughter that her output of one night love did not survive birth and delivers the boy to the State, where the influence of all sounds great and small fill the boy with musical ambition and intuition.Now how he makes way from the orphanage into hands of Robie Williams (supposed to be taken from story of Rock Star Bono)and his band of homeless street singers. Then from the street to glories of the church and the University is the movie all about. Of course like all other musicals it has very touching notes, smooth sound. Finally the verdict is that you can give it a try, it was nominated for Oscar too. An absolutely delightful and warm film to watch in early winter days.

Happiness is for real only when shared!(Movie Review)

In my search for freedom, I come across a hundred face everyday; some grouped, some as couples and many as alone as me
trying to understand the same feeling which we all call "freedom."......... In this yatra' we are born again-n-again, play our childhood, become adult, have a family and then one day catch the last train. On a similar pursuit was Christopher McCandless.

Framed into a movie are the adventures of this man and named as "Into the Wild" by Director Sean Penn with his beautiful cinematography and the awesome background scores. A good movie that I watched and lived on my birthday yesterday. Jena Malone ... Carine McCandless is the narrator and sister of Christopher. Chris' who topped his graduation gave away his life savings to charity and wanted to go north in Alaskan wilderness. He did not exactly ran away from his parents and the society as a whole but wanted to get lost, renamed himself as Alexander Supertramp. To his new name and identity gives a new birth, hitchhiking and rafting down Colorado river into Mexico, then back into States and up into Alaska. Meeting people from all works, the couple who were struggling with their relation, the farmers of many moods, the old man from the army and of course his small time love with the 16 year old gypsy singer. But as Lord Bryon said,"I love not man the less, but Nature more..." his want to be in Alaska was more than anything.

For around two years he was away from home, reached Alaska in the late winter and in the wilderness there discovered this abandoned bus which he named "The Magic Bus" and made it his abode. Living in the wilderness- hunting and fishing, eating Alaskan squirrels and his mis- adventure of moose hunting, meanwhile remembering all his way into this freedom land. He lived there until one day mistakenly ate some poisonous weed to end his tale of adventure with the Alaskan summer shining on his weirdly pale face through the window of his magical bus. Suddenly on his death bed he realized happiness is for real only when shared and wanted to go home, but the small stream which he had paddled last winter has now turned into a wild river impossible to cross, his want for freedom in nature had engulfed him into her arms. "Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past...but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things." Alexander Supertramp's last words were to his parents and probably to the entire society, "What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now?".

Ghastly affairs!(Useless philosophy)

Most of us have fears of one thing or the other, literally named as "phobia's" fear of- cats, dogs, height, and what not, but there is one certain fear that is universal and and every one has, the fear of ghost, supernatural beings. Apart from being afraid of, this is always has been the hottest topic to talk about. Be it in the grandmothers tales or an awful experience of a friend, an encounter with the unknown. Whatever be it; it does generate a lot of enthusiasm and excitement. No, no I am not at all going to narrate a certain one out of so many experiences that I have! but there is one particular incident when I was alone at home during my late night study just before the Board exams. It was on of the chilling December months, when my family leaving me at home went to attend a marriage ceremony of one of the cousin. It was like "Home Alone" thing; no school(Study Leave), no one to scold and TV all day long, Music system full volume, cook your own food awesome!!. So that night I had a horrible burnt dinner, I do not exactly remember as to what experiment had been done but I do remember it was Social Studies what I was reading, "Powers of the President of India" when I heard this strange howling. As if someone was crying just under my window. The voice was very low initially then it suddenly increased, I was dumb struck. Slowly tried to look around the room, unfortunately had this habit of using table lamp so the rest of the room was quite dark. I checked and rechecked if anything seemed moving anywhere, NO! nothing but the howling continues. "Intuition" you can say it was when I turned the table lamp to focus the light on the window curtain and come down from the chair, crawling towards the window slowly. Suddenly with a big yell stood up at the window, still nothing happened, tried to look through the window there was absolutely nothing, opened the window and discovered the howling along with my ghost. It was coming from Among uncle's place..."a group of carol singers with their dissonant screaming of Christmas Carol."

I never told about this incident to anybody thinking they may make a joke out out me, however I now feel laughing at myself. If you have the experience of staying in a hostel be it at school or in college then you will definitely have had the experience of plain-chit thing calling of souls and all. We tried all that in our hostel, too inspired by the inhabitants of the senior girls hostel that was near to ours. Nothing happened in our case, as the silence kept breaking now and then by a cough or a small giggle, or the fingers on the coin from the right hands kept replacing by those from the left hand. Actually how can some soul come to a place already full of live ghosts. Even the "knock the bottle off", from the edge of the northwestern corner wall on the roof on a rainy moonless night when there was no power. This past midnight prank was well organized by guys sitting in the dark corner just next to the bottle, along with the ones sitting on top of the water tank, all wet in rain only to surprise the challenger, which did work later on. Or getting beaten up while trying to surprise anyone in the dark corridor wrapped in the blanket were all very ghastly without any ghost at all. However there was one singular incident that took place during one of the similar very long late night Adda's, we were in the first year of college. Sitting in this room were around eight of us, some were playing cards and the rest were like audience for the card game and active participants for the discussion that was goin on, I do not remember how it started at the first place. Suddenly the point of discussion changed into stories of experiences with the unknown, one after the other came in stories of their own encounters and also of their neighbors or anything that would make the story interesting, and the card game too was changin its term now into famous Indian "Teen patti" our own counterpart for British Three-card Brag. When the stories became boring, someone said we can make a luck check using cards, the Teen Patti way. So the game had this new fire into it......who among us would be the richest?, who would have the most beautiful wife?....... so it went on from good to bad then to evil........ who among us will die first? Every one rejected it, we are not going to do this. Ok! I am sure there is ghost here in this room. Ha! ha! ha!...in came the replies. Let us check then. Alright, spread the cards. Those who say its there raise your hand, no one did except Ani' he is the one who started this check line. So everyone picked their set of cards. The peeping started and came in the 'Ooofs! Ooofs!; 5-3-2 multiple, A-4-7, no one had good cards only Ani' had hit the Trio A-A-A....... no one moved or talked. There we were at 3:15 am at night in room number 8.

"The first casualty of war is innocence"(Movie Review)

Suddenly with the ongoing mayhem of terror attacks and the resulting atrocity, should have drawn eyes too near to the forehead causing the uneven frown of all times. The movie that I saw last night gave a bigger picture of the ground realities that may not be seen in the picture that we usually draw every day. Written and Directed by Oliver Stone's "Platoon" is a 1986 contemporary classic, that bagged 4 Oscars along with which goes an impressive list of actors. That includes Charlie Sheen(of Hot Shots and Scary Movie fame ), Keith David, Johnny Depp and many more.....

The plot is drawn on the darkest spot on American war history, Vietnam war. The story is about how a young American, school drop out volunteered and joined the forces just like his father and grandfather had done in history, Pvt. Chris Taylor(Charlie Sheen)who also serves as the film's narrator. From the very day he landed on Vietnamese land he starts realizing the fact that life in forces not freedom and unparallel power. And how he along with the other freshman raw recruit or 'new meat' faces the blunt of Vietnamese ambush while serving near the Cambodian border. The cinematography is quite well taken, giving you the real feel of dense rain forest the worst battle ground. The Platoon driven by their terrible life in the jungle and seeing the dead and mutilated bodies of fellow soldiers becomes insane, which they vent on the weak and innocent villagers. This particular scene where a one legged Vietnami lad is beaten to death in front of his old mother, was horrific. The relative consequence of which lead to a split in the platoon, essentially between two Sergeants (Willem Dafoe and Berringer). Finally the plot turns into more about escaping from there than the need to win over the enemies. Treachery, dishonor and the loss of faith took more casualties than bullets in the movie.

only the other day on my way to office(Short Story)

only the other day on my way to office I met this extraordinary security personnel(Fresher), Pavan Kumar from Hajipur in Bihar. Now and obviously how he became a victim of our city is what goes below.

Already 8:30 by my watch and it takes more than 45 minutes to my office from my apartment. I just put these ear phones and tuned my mobile to the FM waves, the song from Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd just started "sajana de wari wari..." only added to my unevenly fast ambulation.

Let me also tell you, Bangalore is real busy in morning hours. However this fellow who was reluctantly walking ahead of me seemed to be singing the same song in slow motion, I was not at all looking at him apart from the fact that I just saw a bus that I was suppose to catch, is missed now. The traffic signal has to be crossed to get to the bus stand on the other side. I was in hurry so I went cross as fast as I can seeing the traffic lights go RED. He came slowly behind me to the place where I was standing for the bus now, "ye G4S ka office kahan hai...", removed the plug ins and "I am sorry!". He asked me again, I told him to ask the autowala, he must be knowing it better. He went and talked with the auto driver and came back to me. "Ye BDA complex yahan se kittna dur hai?" Cross the road, walk to the next signal and take a right then go straight(in Hindi).Pawan said, "Thank you" in English this time. I smiled back and he went ahead to cross the road that was empty due to the red light at the last signal.

He was hardly mid way when this pair of "power puffed" girls on their speedy scooty collided with our Pawan, erstwhile son of the Wind God. Fortunately nothing much happened, he didn't even fall nor did the Aapsaras(that is what he called them). But Mr. Son of Wind God was immediately attacked by rallies of verbal abuses, nothing of which he hardly understood. "Sorry, sorry", was his only defense against the Raging Babes. There was already a small gathering, me being part of this excitement too. As most of the our kinda class of bangaloreans do, "Dats Ok, Dats Ok..." and the engine started once again to look for its next victim, leaving Pawan with a small tear on his supposed to be new trouser. Helped him cross the road back to the place where we were standing and I asked if he would like to take a bus to BDA Complex, as I would take bus that goes past BDA too. We got up the next bus, did not have seats, quite packed at these hours. when the bus was about to reach BDA Complex I informed him that he needs to get off at the next stop. Pawan asked for my phone number, OK given. Then one more, "Thank you". Too good, taken!; now just before leaving he said, "Engreji to humne bhi school me sikhi hai, magar ye Aapsaraye kya bol rahi thi humko kuchu samaz me nahi aaya." garnished with a very hilarious looking face.

ep·i·logue

I find it very difficult and uneasy to start writing on anything for the first time, as the idea at this point is very raw and enthusiasm is more; so the probability of making a mistake is quarterly high.

The bundle of lies in my mind is more than just "lies", as the plan goes I am suppose to put all those uneven happenings that comes to my mind, the philosophies that evolve out of the unending late night Adda's, and reviews of books that I read so infrequently and the movies that I see so frequently(which would be very very unprofessional and maybe utterly boring at
times). Most importantly the "etc" should be something that I have not decided upon till now, but you will have to take it for a surprise arrow on your butts or the head to be precise.

There is no specific genre as far as to what would be when and where, considering the random way of life that I lead, you should find a reflection of the same in my words, that normally is full of spelling mistakes and grammatically terrible to read. However quite a few people think I am interestingly the owner of some kind of "intersetting" place.