Thursday, March 6, 2008

ichirin no hana-a single flower

a beautiful thoght worth sharing

original source : http://www.animelyrics.com/anime/bleach/ichirinhana.htm


You are the only "you"
There is no such thing as your replacement
Don't wilt away, single flower
You are like a flower
That bloomed in a dark shadow
Even though you're in a place you didn't wish to be,
You can't move because of your roots
Just spit out your closed-up feelings
I'll accept all of your pain and suffering
So please don't cry
I wanted to see your innocent figure
That looked as if it were about to wilt, one more time
I want to become your strength
Even if there comes a time
When the whole world becomes our enemy
YOU SHOULD NOTCIE THAT THERE IS NO OTHER
YOU SHOULD NOTICE THAT THERE IS NO NEXT TIME
YOU SHOULD NOTICE THAT THERE IS NO OTHER
YOU SHOULD NOTICE THAT THERE IS NO NEXT...
TIME NOTICE THAT YOU SHOULD NOTICE THAT
You are the only "you"
Till now and from now on
Even if there comes a time
When the whole world becomes our enemy
I'll protect you
YOU SHOULD NOTICE THAT THERE IS NO OTHER
YOU SHOULD NOTICE THAT THERE IS NO NEXT TIME
YOU SHOULD NOTICE THAT THERE IS NO OTHER
YOU SHOULD NOTICE THAT THERE IS NO NEXT...
TIME NOTICE THAT YOU SHOULD NOTICE THAT
NOTICE THAT THERE'S NO OTHER
So don't give up, single flower
NOTICE THAT THERE'S NO OTHER
I'll protect you
That looked as if it were about to wilt, one more time
Please smile, single flower

Saturday, March 1, 2008

dreams and fantasies- an ode to life

everybody dreams. Dreaming is the first thing you learn after you are born. your first three years when you have no school to worry about, no worry about where your next meal will come from, why E=mc2 and so forth, you learn to dream. However, the worst part is that you forget your dreams, those dreams that you had in the very first few years of existence, as you grow up.
From three to seven you become aware of the world around you. More subtle nuances of your existence dawn upon you. Your parents, your birthday, your gender, existence of another gender,school, importance of learning and working and so forth. These are more general things one gets exposed to in these four years. Depending on your parents circumstances, you may end up being exposed to a smaller subset of it in a more rigorous detail or all of it or you learn a very pleasant thing called 'choosing' at a very young age but more or less this is what happens. In these formative years your dreams are a reflection of your parents. you want to be good like your dad or pretty like your mom but you end up losing those precious dreams which you had in your first three years;dreams that were your own.
From seven to fourteen, you develop a lot of things. Thinking, personality, attitude, awareness of your sexuality,fancy for girls, fancy for things that throw smoke in air and accumulate soot in your lungs among various other things. Your brain is very receptive in these years. Your dreams become more alive and vivid and end up being fantasies. You fantasize about the wonderland alice lives in and if you may end up living in there at some point, you believe in unicorns, in toads that become princesses and so forth. Your parents are very happy with you and in fact encourage you to get allured to these fantasies. They tell stories each one more wilder and fantastic than the last one so that you have your 'sweet dreams'
Between fourteen to nineteen your parents crush virtually every fantasy you have ever had which ironically they fed you gracious portions of when you were a child. There is no alice, no wonderland, no He man, no Superman, no Batman hell even WWF is not real. If you dont study and become something in life you will not be able to survive, you will not have a morsel in your stomach they say. Suddenly food and shelter are not taken for granted any more. Your air castles shattered, your dream turned to dust you suddenly become painfully aware of the fact that life isnt a house of chocolate eternally pleasing to all five senses, it is in fact a grain grinder and you are the grain. Of course not all is gloomy in these years. You learn about friends and friendships. That is perhaps the best thing that can ever happen to you. You get attracted towards opposite sex, your body changes and so does your mind. Reality closes its circle around you and rather than it being a part you you become a part of it.
From 20 to present, where i am right now, you study to become a professional and learn to earn your livelihood. Some succeed at it and by some arbitrary yardstick are termed as successful and others are branded losers. And with the way things are these commendations stay with you for the rest of your lives. But wait, in all this what happened to your dreams?? to what you desired to be??
At this crossroad of my life, i am cursed with having a total recollection of all the dreams and aspirations i had beyond the age of four. If you have read this essay till this point, i urge you to take moment and reflect at your inner self. I am sure all those dreams will come back to you. But why would you want to have this realization that what you are doing now is something which at no point in your life you ever wanted to do?? Even if you get that realization would you give up all you have worked for till now and chase your dreams, those wild fantasies you had as a kid or as an adolescent??
I don't know about you but as far as i am concerned all i can hope to do as a human being is to bring what i am doing now to its logical conclusion. If it takes this lifetime fine maybe in the next lifetime, if my dreams don't die with me I will live them; one lifetime after another.

chemical chai in lalu raj

So this year we had a hog wash of a railway budget from the stables of our very own lalu prasad yadav ji. Railways is 25000 crore richer, more garibraths, fare 'cuts' in off peak seasons in shatabdi and rajdhani blah blah blah i dont even want to know.
What catches my attention is that people in his very own state(in aurangabad district) admitting that they make tea or chai as this extremely popular hot indian beverage is known as from fevicryl. for the uninitiated, fevicryl is no milk. Its a harmful paint based chemical having pearly white color so it resembles milk.
The perpetrators of this egregious crime plead helplessness and say that making milk based tea costs them Rs 150 per unit which they sell at 200Rs per unit. But the overages in terms of bribes mean that their costs double and combine it with relatively short lifespan of milk based tea means that they cannot earn their livelihood from these means. A fevicryl based tea on the other hand costs rs 50 a unit, lasts upto six days while still staying drinkable upon reheating and brings them the same profit with the bribes.
This may have been reported only in aurangabad but who knows where else its happening. Millions of people travel everyday on these trains. They drink tea, eat snacks during their long arduous journeys. while the very cost of their journey has now been reduced, i guess people should be mindful of the fact that it comes at a price and that the next cup of chai that you have may not be refreshing but be killing instead

another movie review-strangers

the movie might sound Hollywoodish but this self stylized whodunnit is from the stables of our very own bollywood. Friday nights for the last cpl of weeks have been potlucks and after potlucks i dont sleep too well. Trying to cut down on my food intake has meant that i am always guilt ridden for not have eaten wayyy beyond my stomach full like i used to.
But this isnt about me. This is about the movie which i watched while drinking about a gallon of orange juice(100% natural one wayy better than pepsi cola) and well it did worsen my insomnia now that i cant sleep without writing about it and quite a few other things i suddenly have on my mind, I am glad that i did watch it.
Strangers starring jimmy shergill,kay kay menon, the doe eyed bengali beauty, daughter of a Nobel laureate who doesnt know how to act nandana deb sen, sonali kulkarni and an acting talent from yester years kitu gidwani in a blink and you miss it role.
Now the thing about a movie like strangers is that it doesnt go well with the sensibilities of indian masses. While adultery is still in closet and walking out of dead relationships still not an option, a movie that shows otherwise is not going to attract too many cinema goers. But if you are looking for a glimpse of powerhouse indian cinema, a good script with oodles of twists and turns and stellar performances, this movie is one of your best bet in the last six months.
The problem with murder mysteries is that you cannot write too much and yet reveal only too little. So without going into too much details, jimmy shergill who has always been a darkhorse in bollywood has come out again with a stellar performance, kay kay menon is as always on the top of his game, nandana deb sen though an extremely pretty sight should stay out of movies and well sonali i miss u :).
I today gained two sentiments from this movie, that writing is like shitting; when you write you vent up all that is accumulated inside of you and that when you hold your breath and think that by doing so everything will come to a standstill, you always end up not holding your breath long enough

enjoy this movie guys, totally worth it!!