Saturday, January 28, 2012

Committed: A sequel to Eat Pray Love

Elizabeth Gilbert has to marry Felipe now.Not because they are madly in love, which is true but because the US department of Homeland security wants them to!
Liz is back with her cynicism, her theories and deep insights into the history of marriage, a matrimonial potpourri of some of the most hilarious wedding customs, a discussion on feminism and the final see saw of Gilbert's thoughts as she pursues marriage a second time.
There is one personal reason why I love Gilbert, she writes what I think and its freaking awesome! It feels creepy too, reading your thoughts like that but hell, I am a writer and I have found someone who I can identify with, finally! And this comes after years of trying to find someone when people ask the question who is your idol? I know Liz would be embarrassed and she really is not my idol in the conventional sense, more like my long lost soul sister.Damn! We have similar thoughts about so many issues that its surreal.
When it comes to marriage, she takes up the many issues that have bothered her, talked about matrimony in a very sensible manner, dissected everything from the role of the woman, the foundation of love and her first failed marriage.And like always, I could relate to it, not that I am contemplating matrimony in any sense right now, I am just twenty one! But on the whole, as she talks about her mother and the feminist movement in the 1970's, the Greek and the Hebrew style of thinking, the wifeless marriage, the ceremonial wedding situation and finally Felipe, who becomes  more real.
Gilbert talks about infatuation, how when we are young we get caught in it the soul sucking, breath taking avalanche of deep emotion, it lasts for few months and you are back on steady ground, if you are not, God give you strength. Sometime infatuation changes to marriage and sometimes it leads to disaster, either way, it is one force to reckon with and something to think about.
And then she talks about the bonds of matrimony themselves, how love binds them all, and what love really is, it is debatable, but I like the Felipe and Liz brand of love, the quiet simple rhythm they have, how they diffuse arguments and live in harmony, how they seem to make a routine out of each other and yet the passion never dies, it just melts the romantic in me.
And one just cannot help but cry in relief when he finally meets her at JGK airport after months of immigration knick knacks and maddening paper work.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Ink Drips and spills too: Harry Potter and Tattoos

A week since I got my first tattoo and since writing is what i do the best, I had to absolutely had to write about it.You will understand, right?
I had been contemplating getting inked for a long long time, not because I had something great to ink myself with or anything meaningful, just because it looks good, period. 
Hunting for a design has been really a cumbersome process, from a stylish ankle tattoo to a sexy one on the back, I have looked through all the possibilities. There is a show I watch, LA ink and it features interesting tattoos, with stories and why people get those and i started thinking. About stuff that has made an impact on me, something I really love and something I would want forever, now I had to avoid the faux pas of Angelina Jolie(With the Billi Bob Thornton tatoo) and Deepika Padukone(with the RK tattoo). I couldn't get a Tom Cruise tattoo because who are we kidding, he wont leave Katie Holmes, not at least right now. I don't want a butterfly or stars or a heart(yuck! Gross) and I hate to admit it but I am not a deep person who has some great inspirational stuff I would want plastered(or rather inked) on my body forever. I am a pretty shallow person who would like a good looking tattoo that looks good(duh!) with everything.
And I thought and thought and thought when I realised that the one thing I really really love and dont mind having with me forever is Harry Potter(yes, I didnt grow up!). To be philosophical, you have such books that become a part of your life, I mean the Lord of the Rings generation would know that.Hobbits and all.So we are the Harry Potter generation, I have grown up with the scrawny specy guy, laughed with Gred and Forge, brewed the polyjuice potion and laughed with Peeves. This is my alternative universe and I still escape to it when I am down or just plain happy and i am twenty one and I don't mind admitting that. There are millions like me, I know that and Harry Potter is just life, nothing will replace that and I had my tattoo.

"Magic is Might"











And and and I got this fb like button recently, so please use that! Its just under the title!

Sunday, January 22, 2012

My Tryst with Classical Music: Chapter One

I have a friend who loves to listen to classical music and by classical music, I don't mean the modified version with  contemporary music and rap, but the real deal with just the music in it, sarod, sitar, veena etc.Thanks to her, at least now I can differentiate between them!
This Thursday, there was a concert by Amaan and Ayaan Ali Khan at St. Stephens and she asked me go with her and I decided to give it a try.
Only because the other day i was listening to some songs she had given me and one by Amaan Ali Khan stood out, Rhythm of love it was called and it set such a beautiful backdrop to my writing that I liked it.
And so I went to the concert and there they stood, Amaan And Ayaan Ali Khan, young, good looking Sarod players(one is married and the other in engaged, that counts against them) and they started playing. It went all over my head, i wont lie but for the first thirty minutes or so, it was good. The next hour passed with me climbing the steep curve towards migraine, only to prove that I really am tone deaf.
We got top interact with the two and they really are such humble and friendly soles and did I mention, they look good?
Ayaan is the younger one, with a twinkle in his eyes, a dimple and a spark that showed how talented he was, he played without any concern. Amaan is the elder one with intelligent eyes and as he played, he managed the team as well, his brother and the tabla Players.
As for me, I continuously try to broaden my limited music horizon and so now, I can tick of Sarod from my list. And now I know what it looks like as well!!
My other classical music efforts include Claude Debussy who is really good but sounds a bit amateur, Beethoven, who sounds sad sometimes and sometimes so grand that I wish i was born in the time such music was played and random Operas for I haven't really been able to identify the singers and the styles yet, though I would love some suggestions.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Battle with the bulge: My Sonam Kapoor Story

I have decided to be honest and by being honest I get to confront my biggest malady, the War with the Weight, fighting the flab etc.
To people who know me, it is not a big secret, I mean seriously, how can it be a big secret when one is so big?And with this I have constantly battled fears in my head, confronted diets,catapulted in and out of weight limits and obsessed over inches. The war is far from over, but in its course I am glad I have done away with the worst.
It's a story like everyone else's, eat a lot and play a lot less then eat some more and sleep a little and then eat some more. I wont go into the cholesterol high details but the gist was I ate and ate and ate. From chocolates to butter chicken, from condensed milk cans to cakes, I gobbled it all up. And except for this, I really didn't do anything else, I used to go out and play as well(as a kid) but then again, I was a reader and I loved to read and I preferred doing that. But it all capsized on me as I topped the scale by crossing 100 kg(I am guessing here because at that point, I had stopped checking my weight.).I lost all visible bones that I had, grew larger than my mother, my granny and the neighborhood fat aunty and expanded horizontally.I somehow fit JK Rowling's description of Dudley Durseey,"Wider than he was tall".
Obviously, I had to begin somewhere, I started controlling my diet, exercised, went to a gym, danced, did aerobics and everything else that there was. My vice is that I don't have patience and no trainer can really work around that(trust me, I tried!) and so I became my own trainer, changing and improvising as and when I lost the will. But the trouble with being your own trainer is that your weight loss rate becomes really slow, I don't mind that because I am sure the fat is off permanently. And it is fun, devicing routines and creating diets(I do talk to experienced people!).
I am still far from my ideal weight(i read it should be below 50 kg) and I still have lose skin and un-toned body parts, but at least I fit in medium sized clothes!!
Why I mention Sonam Kapoor is that off late I have had issues with my body, the usual, cellulite and sagging stuff and it irks me(I even considered going for surgery if the toning exercises don't work).Then I read about her weight loss and I am not disparaging other wight loss stories but she, being a celebrity and coming out about it(because, trust me, it is a sensitive issue) made me respect her even more. And she talks about the cellulite she still has to confront, despite being a size 2! How she overcomes that, what she does to keep off the fat and the best thing of all, this tall, svelte lady talks about not having a perfect body. Like how during the shoot of Aisha, in a particular scene with swim wear, she had to wear jeans over her swimsuit for the other girls were perfectly toned.
I look at her and I know that even in the celeb world where they airbrush your cellulite and give you abs, all is not well. And then I look at myself in the mirror, I may be far from perfect, but i am somewhere and i can see a goal and I work on that.
And the best thing about weight loss? I discovered hitherto unknown stuff about myself that used to lie beneath all that flab, the dent on my arm, the chin dimple, the shape of my jaw and my real size.

And my latest exercise routine? Zumba and toning and sculpting with weights.(It is fun!)