Kyunki Saas...

Okay, I swear this happens only when I have literally nothing else to do. Once in a while, at night, I catch a few minutes of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Let it be known: I DO NOT ENJOY IT! (At least not as much as my mom). I honestly, honsetly, find them stupid.
A lot of people I know have a similar aversion to Hindi soaps. They're so surreal. Too surreal for anyone's good. The stupid effects, the climaxes, the overdose of sentimentality. Everything is blown out of proportion. If I were to show a Western audience a sample of Indian television, I would have serious issues including shows like Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. In fact, I would omit much of what is shown on Indian television today.
But I've always wondered how serials like this manage to run. In April 2005, the show celebrated it's 1000th episode. Quite an achievement! However, the Indian media is highly critical, if not downright bitchy, about such television. How do such shows manage to keep running?
One of the primary driving forces behind such television is Ekta Kapoor. Variously referred to as the Queen of Soaps, a diety of Indian television etc, etc, it's people like Ekta Kapoor that are to blame for shows like Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. She was on a interview with Karan Johar on Star World the other day (and I watch that also only when I'm utterly bored!). To start with let me say that I was utterly taken aback by her maturity and overall elegance. Uptil then she was just some evil witch that gave us Indians television that we were ashamed of. But she carried herself on like the Queen she is claimed to be. And secondly, she said something that really made sense and explained to me how people like me can scorn and critisize her work like we do (and more importantly, how the Indian media can unforgivingly attack her work) and how she can still maintain such a massive fanbase.
"The people that are actually watching and the people that are talking are two different sets of people" she said.
I think it's clear which group of people I feature in. The point she made was that there are millions that can somehow relate to the exaggerated lives of these soap stars, follow their pains, their sorrows. There are people that live lives that I can't even imagine living.
Honestly, what right do I, do they, have in criticizing a show that can do that. A truer test of a piece of art's value is it's audience.
Until I'm the audience, until you're the audience, I think we better shut up.

My Personal Statement for Lynn University

I rarely boast about my own writing but this is brilliant. It's a personal statement I wrote for Lynn University in the states. I think I got in. But then again, with writing like this, who the hell could refuse? Lol. Forgive me but, hey, I'm allowed to be egostical once in while.

Someone I know once complained that her dreams lacked strength and that her passions were futile. I consider myself to be a fairly contemplative person, rather idealistic at times, and such a statement caused me to question the very nature of my own dreams and the quintessence of my passions. Though the incident may seem inconsequential, it provoked me to reevaluate my life so far and who I ultimately wish to be. And though the question seems to be yet another of Life’s mysteries we are simply meant not to make sense of, I felt a deep loss when it occurred to me that my dreams and passions may be too weak and futile to be realized.

Since I entered high school, I have dreamt of becoming a doctor. I nurtured my dream into my senior year, and along with my compassion for the underprivileged of India, decided to dedicate my life to the many that lack basic health care. My passion for writing, at one point of time, conflicted with this dream but I realized the fact that writing can be treated, with equal interest and dedication, as a hobby alongside an occupation. In India, the dream of becoming a doctor is immensely clichéd. Indian parents wish for their child to become either a doctor or an engineer merely because of the financial stability and social standing that is attained in doing so. My liberal (yet inherently Christian) upbringing allowed me the freedom of realizing my own dreams and my parents did not impose their desires on me. I am justified, thus, in considering my intention of becoming a doctor as a product of genuine passion and aspiration. Yet, all this hung by a single thread of faith as I considered the frightening possibility: were my dreams essentially hollow? Was I revolving my whole life around castles in the sky? Was there anything else except mere fancy that comprised the passion that saturated my dreams? All my life I had believed in the potency of my dreams and, for the first time, I found myself questioning their very constitution.

The profundity and beauty of truth lies in the fact that it is experienced in one’s moment of extreme vulnerability. Through all the noise that deafened my mind in my moment of doubt, it was the small, pure whisper of truth that seemed the most certain. I just had to recognize it. I realized that my dreams did lack strength and that my passions were futile. But what did my dreams need to be stronger then? What made my passions futile? It was in my moment of truth that I realized that the only things my dreams had to be stronger than were my doubts; the only thing that can limit the power of my passions is myself. When I become my future, the future becomes mine.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Amen.

Smooth Operator

Okay, honestly, the music in this cyber cafe is wannabe. Smooth Operator?

Went to visit my mum's side of the family a.k.a the side of the family I hardly know. It was a little embarresing to find out that half of these people knew pretty much everything about my life and I couldn't even remember their names. I'm such an asshole! I don't deserve to have an extended family.

There's this really cute chick sitting in the next cubicle. The only thing turning off about her is the way she speaks Malayalam. Coupled with the fact that she's humming Smooth Operator. But that's something I could work around. If my mother has her way and I (God forbid) end up marrying a Keralite chick, here's a chick I probably wouldn't mind marrying.

Marriage? God, that's ages away. Or so it seems. If there's one thing I've learnt today, it's that time flies.

PLEASE stop humming Smooth Operator!!

Tiruvella

I love the streets of Tiruvella. They're narrow, winding, a little pot-holed. Imperfect. But authentic. My second day here and boredom has begun to seep in. I know practically NO1 at all in Tiruvella. I mean, I have my cousins and uncles and aunts but I have literally NO friends at all here. It's not so bad though. No social obligations. You have your life to yourself. No-one to hurt. No-one to hurt you. And the whole point of coming here was to get away from the mess Pune's become. But I still miss it a little.
Part of me wants to believe that everything would somehow sort itself by the time I get back. That, somehow, my absence would catalyze the arrival to some settlement, some conclusion, some end, whichever end it may be. The other part of me knows that that's just wishful thinking. I have a lot to face when I get back...! Results. People. People.

My grandmother's is so outdated it's not funny. She stills refers to the middle-east as 'Persia'! Persia?? WTF? It's cute though.
I like the way old people speak. It's so childish.

My time's up.

I'll remember this Internet cafe. GMail took less then 2 minutes to load! Quite an achievement in this part of the world!

Ende Patti Aiyyo!

In Kerala. It's hot. It's humid. And it's near impossible to find a decent Internet cafe (no offence buddy but your connection sucks). I've realized how addicted I am to the Internet and how much of my life revolves around it.
I have nothing deep or profound to write about today. I'm pretty much culture-shocked. How sad is that? Culture-shocked by your own culture!
But I promise you that the moment I get accustomed to this place, I'll be back. =)

God, it's so bloody hot!

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Amen.

Some Insane Grafitti

These are two of my favourites. There's much more here.

Light Up My Room

A hydro field cuts through my neighborhood
Somehow that always just made me feel good
I can put a spare bulb in my hand
And light up my yard

Late at night when the wires in the walls
Sing in tune with the din of the falls
I'm conducting it all while I sleep
To light this whole town

If you question what I would do
To get over and be with you
Lift you up over everything
To light up my room

There’s a shopping cart in the ravine
Foam on the creek is like pop and ice cream
A field full of tires that is always on fire
To light my way home

There are luxuries we can’t afford
But in our house we never get bored
Cause we can dance to the radio station
That plays in our teeth

If you question what I would do
To get over and be with you
Lift you up over everything
To light up my room
My room

I loved this song long before I ever knew what it meant.
It made me love Home.

Passive

"I went to Bermuda this weekend. What did you do? Watched poker on TV?"
"NO!"
Silence. Thinking.
"I played it on the Internet."

It rained today. I was playing the guitar when it started raining. I played along to the pattering for a while and then imagined the rain pattering along to what I was playing.
It didn't. Mother Nature sets her own beat. Or has a dumbass sense of rhythm.

I left all the windows in the house open because I absolutely love the smell of fresh rain on parched earth. It smells new. Alive. Revived. Like a reunion of lovers.
It made me happy. In a sad way.

Dinkz used to love the fog back in Kodai. I never understood why. It depressed me somehow. If I could personify fog, it would be this hunch-backed, deceitful crook, blinding and distorting, enveloping all in a thick shroud. Dinkz always saw the beauty in things I never could. And I guess I could see why she loved fog.
It's beautiful. In an eerie way.

Life is too revealing. You see things about people you were better off not seeing. You're cinematic, razor sharp. You're everything I hoped you would never be. You scare me with every new, wickedly unexpected turn.

But I'm settled. In a violent way.