I don't watch a lot of movies. I don't know why. Perhaps it's just that I hardly get into a mood for one. Or maybe it's because they get into my head. Once in a while, I watch one when someone recommends it.
The movies that Olorin, Popup, the grey pilgrim recommends have never disappointed me. I 'll go on to say that the man has an impeccable taste when it comes to movies. I remember how I fell in love with the movie called Garden State after he suggested it. It was simply beautiful. Today, I watched this Indie musical called Once. Brilliance. Incidentally, both these movies have amazing award winning soundtracks.
I hope to watch many more good ones and well, I know just the right person to go to.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Snippets
Think about a man on an island that's thousand miles away from the nearest city, with practically no connection whatsoever to other people. No exchange of goods, no communication, nothing. Is it possible to experience how that feels when you're living in a crowded place with lots and lots of people you know around you? Perhaps.
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There are three classes of people in the world, a rough classification while we're at it. There are people who can observe phenomena and processes and see the underlying patterns, understand them to a great extent but cannot create those patterns at will, there are those who can create the beautiful patterns and then there are the rest. And for those who belong to the first category, life can be quite a bitch.
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I've seen people who live in a huge mess when it comes to their rooms/home. They have no idea about where they can find what they want; clothes, books, stationery, everything strewn all around the place. Yet they are excellent when it comes to organizational abilities. I've always felt strange about it. Being a person who keeps his room clean, I sometimes feel a pang of envy when I think about these people. It'd probably be fun to live in a mess but I just cannot get myself to do it.
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I wrote this exam called GATE today for totally monetary reasons. I couldn't help feeling so heavily bored during the utterly drab exam. Why can't we have exams that hold our interest for at least as long as their bloody duration?
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A friend of mine sent me a couple of songs from this movie 'Juno' a couple of days back. Beautiful songs. I had to watch the movie after listening to them and I did. And was it a good movie or what?! If you like good drama and dark humour, it's a highly recommended watch. Ellen Page has done a terrific job with the lead role. One cannot help but find her oh-so-cute.
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Another friend of mine put up a post on his blog recently, a one-liner so concise and succinct. Brilliance.
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There are three classes of people in the world, a rough classification while we're at it. There are people who can observe phenomena and processes and see the underlying patterns, understand them to a great extent but cannot create those patterns at will, there are those who can create the beautiful patterns and then there are the rest. And for those who belong to the first category, life can be quite a bitch.
---
I've seen people who live in a huge mess when it comes to their rooms/home. They have no idea about where they can find what they want; clothes, books, stationery, everything strewn all around the place. Yet they are excellent when it comes to organizational abilities. I've always felt strange about it. Being a person who keeps his room clean, I sometimes feel a pang of envy when I think about these people. It'd probably be fun to live in a mess but I just cannot get myself to do it.
---
I wrote this exam called GATE today for totally monetary reasons. I couldn't help feeling so heavily bored during the utterly drab exam. Why can't we have exams that hold our interest for at least as long as their bloody duration?
---
A friend of mine sent me a couple of songs from this movie 'Juno' a couple of days back. Beautiful songs. I had to watch the movie after listening to them and I did. And was it a good movie or what?! If you like good drama and dark humour, it's a highly recommended watch. Ellen Page has done a terrific job with the lead role. One cannot help but find her oh-so-cute.
---
Another friend of mine put up a post on his blog recently, a one-liner so concise and succinct. Brilliance.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Making sense isn't as easy as it sounds, is it?
There are times when you're out shopping and you find something that catches your eye. It may be a nice pair of sandals or a nice wallet. Everything about it seems like it was made just to suit your need and mood. But then you pick it up and find one tiny label that just kills the whole thing! Why, oh lord, should it have the label! If it weren't there you'd have shelled out whatever the store demanded but no. It's there and there is nothing you can do about it.
It's exactly the same feeling that hits you when you're watching a movie or listening to a song, perhaps, and everything is amazing before something incredibly stupid and out of place happens. Or when you're eating your favourite dish and some strong flavoured ingredient completely spoils it. Why can't they leave that scene out? Why do they have to put a 'la lala la' chorus in between? Beats me.
You cannot erase what you don't want as much as you'd love to. It shall be there, forever. It's a recurring theme in life, I guess.
It's exactly the same feeling that hits you when you're watching a movie or listening to a song, perhaps, and everything is amazing before something incredibly stupid and out of place happens. Or when you're eating your favourite dish and some strong flavoured ingredient completely spoils it. Why can't they leave that scene out? Why do they have to put a 'la lala la' chorus in between? Beats me.
You cannot erase what you don't want as much as you'd love to. It shall be there, forever. It's a recurring theme in life, I guess.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Cultural enrichment
If we take a random bunch of people and analyze their cultural backgrounds, we're bound to find a lot of differences. It may be due to the fact that they were brought up in different environments or maybe because they met different people(from other 'cultural' domains) in life. I wonder how one can enrich his culture so to speak. And what is this enrichment anyway?
At some level, culture is defined by the way a set of intelligent humans interact with each other, their behavioral patterns and activities. So, the way a person reacts to different situations with different individuals or groups has some sort of correlation with his cultural fabric. Now, coming to how one can enrich himself culturally. Some methods that are widely accepted are the following. One could read literature written by articulate people from different areas of the world or from different time-lines. One could watch movies and serials that serve as some sort of a window to the world. One could listen to different music genres. But does this really help?
Isn't meeting new people and exchanging ideas the way to go about it? I mean, you can't really take something that someone says at its face value, can you? Again, how can one be sure that this is an unbiased way to go about it? The books that those people read, the movies and serials they watch, the bands they listen to, all that is influencing you indirectly, right? And of course, you can't really meet all the people in the world. Is a person who follows some ideals that he formulated based on his limited exposure to people, art and literature culturally backward as compared to someone who has better access?
Anthropologists try to classify the different components of culture to be values, norms, institutions and artifacts. Aren't these functions of the geographical location of a society, the era one is in, etc? Is there a set of values and norms that is universal and independent of everything?
A lot of emotions and instincts are actually universal. For example, honesty, trust and faith are considered to be important everywhere. Most people get angry, happy and sad for quite similar reasons. Breaking one's trust is considered as something that is 'wrong' by most people in the world. I shall not dwell into the topic of what is 'right' even though it might be related to culture. Considering this, isn't it plausible that there is a universal time-independent set of values?
In that case what is enrichment? Getting as close as possible to that ideal set?
And I am done documenting my train of thought.
At some level, culture is defined by the way a set of intelligent humans interact with each other, their behavioral patterns and activities. So, the way a person reacts to different situations with different individuals or groups has some sort of correlation with his cultural fabric. Now, coming to how one can enrich himself culturally. Some methods that are widely accepted are the following. One could read literature written by articulate people from different areas of the world or from different time-lines. One could watch movies and serials that serve as some sort of a window to the world. One could listen to different music genres. But does this really help?
Isn't meeting new people and exchanging ideas the way to go about it? I mean, you can't really take something that someone says at its face value, can you? Again, how can one be sure that this is an unbiased way to go about it? The books that those people read, the movies and serials they watch, the bands they listen to, all that is influencing you indirectly, right? And of course, you can't really meet all the people in the world. Is a person who follows some ideals that he formulated based on his limited exposure to people, art and literature culturally backward as compared to someone who has better access?
Anthropologists try to classify the different components of culture to be values, norms, institutions and artifacts. Aren't these functions of the geographical location of a society, the era one is in, etc? Is there a set of values and norms that is universal and independent of everything?
A lot of emotions and instincts are actually universal. For example, honesty, trust and faith are considered to be important everywhere. Most people get angry, happy and sad for quite similar reasons. Breaking one's trust is considered as something that is 'wrong' by most people in the world. I shall not dwell into the topic of what is 'right' even though it might be related to culture. Considering this, isn't it plausible that there is a universal time-independent set of values?
In that case what is enrichment? Getting as close as possible to that ideal set?
And I am done documenting my train of thought.
Friday, February 16, 2007
The beach
Tomorrow is a holiday. That means I'm on a break from the hectic academic calendar. A short one.
I went to the beach with Guggu. Ate burgers, walked on the beach, saw footprints on the sand, felt the wind strike me ever so gently, looked at the stars, looked at waves canceling each other out, ate groundnuts, rode a motorcycle on the campus roads.
It felt good.
I went to the beach with Guggu. Ate burgers, walked on the beach, saw footprints on the sand, felt the wind strike me ever so gently, looked at the stars, looked at waves canceling each other out, ate groundnuts, rode a motorcycle on the campus roads.
It felt good.
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