wish list

The year is almost here. In fact it the new decade. New Year is followed by celebrations, breaks, vacations. No such thing for me, sadly. But with New Year comes New Year resolutions. We all make resolutions that we in turn break by the time Valentine’s Day comes along. So I will honestly try to tick each thing to do. Here’s a list of what I promise myself to do in the next year.

However, I might not be able to. Not because of not trying, but because not everything you try to is achieved. I will try and may probably fail better next year, or who knows actually i might pull off the things on the list.

So, here goes...11 things to do for 11’.

• get out of debt
• fly to Old Trafford, Manchester
• write a book
• attend a friend’s wedding/engagement
• get an enamel teeth coating
• make an old enemy an ally
• be with a new girlfriend
• build a decent CV
• meet or interview Anurag kashyap
• finish my Spanish lessons
• learn to drive a left-hand drive car

Plastic Bag

Plastic Bag is a short film by Iranian-american filmmaker Ramin Bahrani,set in a not so distant future as a part of a series of shorts titled FUTURESTATES.It is a series of 11 fictional mini-features exploring possible future scenarios through the lens of today’s global realities.

Bahrani, is a highly rated young director and I have only seen his critically acclaimed debut film Man Push Cart (2005) set in New York before this.After that he has made 2 more even more praised films Chop Shop and Goodbye Solo.Leave all that aside for later viewing maybe,and watch Plastic Bag as soon as possible.

Plastic Bag is in one word -brilliant.

It starts with the plastic bag’s first breath at the supermarket check-out counter by starting to carry bananas and milk for the lady who the plastic bag refers to as ‘his maker’.And then the bag believes it has a purpose, serving as all purpose utility tool for its user.The bag watches her play and work,carries her belongings, accompanies her everywhere,all the while he is trying to make sense of the world .He has his moment of sensuality with the touch of a human skin,when she uses him as an ice-pack.But soon the shine wears out and he is relegated to the bins and the hence starts his journey in vain to re-unite with his maker.

Ramin Bahrani has given life to something as domestically mundane and as the routine plastic bag. He does so by giving the plastic bag a voice and cognisance. It is demonstrated by the the way it uses air,as if to breathe, crawl, fly, land, navigate, float among other things. That I have refered to the plastic bag as ‘he’ and not ‘it’ should say that Bahrani has infused such life, humaneness and soul to the plastic bag that one would wonder in amazement at the thought process behind it.

Meanwhile, the plastic bag breaks away from the vast landfills and continues his quest to new worlds,where humans have gone but nature has survived .Wandering, he finds a companion.The plastic bag’s brief air ballet romance with the red plastic bag and the embracing smooch is just sublime. The wind though,had other plans and they drift apart,leaving him with his existential worries.After all efforts fail, he proceeds to the 'Pacific vortex' where billions of plastic bags are circling the ocean in a vortex and he tries to find peace and identify itself among peers, but can’t and breaks away from it.

Plastic Bag is a bitter-sweet short film that will make you feel sad after watching it .But you will be happy that you are sad after watching that .That feeling is something unique. A short film that says such profound issues in such an unassuming ways that someone who remains unimpressed and uneffected is indeed plastic. Bahrani has given the plastic bag a personality . In itself,this is not the story of the lifespan of a plastic bag, it is just a span of time in its eternal existence. To animate the inanimate and to such stunning results while making a strong environmental point that it leaves you with a lilting feeling. Set in a post apocalyptic world, cinematically the plastic bag doesn’t stick out as a sore thumb and is actually very organic in nature,alike its chemical organic polymer composition.

The voice by Werner Herzog has the right pinch of melancholy and dry humour to it.Running for 18 minutes, Plastic Bag manages to be funny, thought-provoking, emotive and beautiful.There are legitimate questions by a very intelligent plastic bag. How does he feel to be part of the environmental crisis ? He just wonders why his maker chose to give it such a gift of indestructibility? How long is an eternity..and how does one cope with such a curse ? Why did man, an active observer create this thing that will only be an eternal passive observer of time?

Directed by Ramin Bahrani

Story by Jenny Jenkins, Ramin Bahrani

Voice Werner Herzog

Cinematography Michael Simmonds

Music Kjartan Sveinsson

Mareika

Today I met Mareika for the second time. Mareika is a strange name for a young person like her. Strange because it means bitter but she is the sweetest person you could meet. She has German roots and has been here for 7 years now. She is a mother of a toddler who can’t get enough of her.

I met her for the first time near the Central church close to the French embassy. She is a choir member in the church and plays the piano with great skill. Second time over, today at the supermarket where she was buying groceries for the weekend. Actually she was surprised to know that I remembered her name even after we first met a month an half ago. But then so did she.

Most people will take you at face value until they have reason to do otherwise. The best way is to talk and learn more. In just two conversations I learnt a lot about her. I had initiated the conversation by paying her due compliments for playing the piano so well.

She is married to her boyfriend of four years and as we talked I came to know that he was a song writer and wrote songs for her .’Hmmm so you are someone’s muse’ I said. Mareika answered ,‘yeah you can say that’

‘You know..you write for a girl, write because of a girl, write with a girl, right or wrong, the girl is important.’

And she nodded. I must have made sense.

‘So is it wrong for the girl to be important?’No, I said.

‘So it’s okay to be right, right?’ No, not always.

‘And when is that?’I don’t know Mareika.

‘Neither do I, nor do many.’hmmm...

By then, the toddler started demanding attention and we were through with our shopping list. We said our goodbyes and she invited me to her next choir play, next Saturday. I am looking forward to that .

Then she went home with her groceries and her son..I ate a shawarma, came back and wrote this post.

Generativity

Generativity *

Guest post

by vipul sirohi.

It has been a generous proposal from Rehaan to ask me to guest post on his blog. Being dormant at blogging scene, this might just be an initial thrust I needed.

Now the big question was - What should I pen down about? I think my debut post should reflect what possesses my mind the most at this juncture.It has to be my conflict between being called a cheerful youth and a slowed down adult.

Being out of college and thrown on to the real word, does leave me with a few seemingly harmless and invisible heavy baggages. Baggages of a transition of being called a responsibility of someone to being responsible of someone.

Oh! So badly I miss the cheers of a few backing us up for the decisive points in the last quarter of the game of ball. Miss the charm of entering the canteen when we know that there is someone for whom you have come there bunking the session, also knowing that may be someone is out there doing the same for you. Miss the speeches in the huddle of the playing XI just before entering the field and taking on the opposition. Miss being fit enough to run as fast as I can at anytime of the day and to fit into a pair of 32” Levis.

I might sound full of myself for people who had known me from college days, as neither was I great at the ball, nor was a game with girls, nor the motivational leader in cricket, not even the fittest. But that was the beauty of being in college.

You need not be the best, you need not be trying hard, you need not be the charmer, but still you live beautifully in your ecosystem, well accepted, well promoted and well placed. Wish the world of adults would go by these simple rules or rather parameters.Being a 26 year wiser guy has its own complications.

• You cannot date a girl younger, elder or of same age. Younger – You might be turned down as a looser. Elder – Chances of being caught with a cougar, or being shot by her aghast husband. Same age - Chances are she would have already finalised the name of the pup in the married house or would have got furious of such behaviour from you.

• · You cannot ask any financial or emotional help from your parents.

They might just get hysterical of not being able to raise a child who could manage his own life. Chances are your dad might just be enjoying his time of being a little adventurous in his hard earner life-long savings assured that the offspring will bring spring back in their lives.

• · You cannot just take life as it comes, one practise which you mastered being a college kid.

So what’s the fun being wiser, being given a license to enter the pubs, being accepted to ask for a pack of condoms at store, being considered mature enough of handle situations?

The answer might just lie in a thought which always used to ponder me as a youngster and now I find myself somewhere trapped in between that.

I used to dread it - The vicious circle of life.

You come to life – go to school – trouble your parents – make friends – go to college – meet interesting girls – develop a character – choose a career – struggle in the career – marry a girl – get a (over)dose of sex – get a child – pamper the child – forget about your personal life – cheat on your wife – get bashed by your children – develop a disease – live miserably with your decaying wife – die – get transformed from ration card to obituary.

When you are at one of these stages, you always hate being there and fancy the good life at the next one. I used to always think that I’ll not be trapped in this loop. That I might just manage to break free. But as the brain cells get more furnished, it seems impossible to let loose. Unleash. Jumping on to the next step seems the best possible option.

At times you think an answer can lie in enjoying the means and not worrying about the ends. Don’t we all know this? But still why is it so important for everyone not to focus on these accomplishing means but to look forward and to plan about the next destination of life.

I guess life just keeps on getting more complex and we may frown but still flow with it. Sorry that neither could I find any solace of my complexities, nor could offer the same to anyone.

Cheers to this complexity !

*Generativity in essence describes a self-contained system from which its user draws an independent ability to create, generate, or produce new content unique to that system without additional help or input from the system's original creators.

Nokia xpress music top 10

My playlist top 10..

Above is the list of my top 10 most played songs on Nokia xpress music for the past 2 months. A little more details are followed. I am excluding GreenDay’s , 21 guns because it has been firmly perched at the top for close to a year now. So for the past couple of months here’s what it looks like, and i must mention, in no particular order.

1. Airstream driver, Gomez

Gomez are an English indie rock band,album A new tide 2009

2. Hosanna, ar rahman

One of the better songs from Rahman this year, film Vinnaithaandi Vaaruvaaya 2010

3. Your love is a song, Switchfoot

American alternative rock band Switchfoot’s album hello hurricane 2009

4. Raat kali, instant karma

Farhad–ehsaan–loy and zubeen garg’s vocals The Midnight Lady Mix 2006

5. Ek hulchul si ,dev.d

New age Indian indie romantic track by amit trivedi 2009

6. Fernando, abba

Old classic, it is Swedish pop group abba's 1st non-album single, 1976

7. Kaminey, title track

Indian song with western instrument composition and outstanding lyrics 2009

8. I need a dollar, aloe blacc

Title track of How to make it in America, album is Good Things, 2010

9. Santo domingo, rodrigo y gabriela

Mexican musical duo who specialize in playing fast, rhythmic acoustic guitars,album 11:11

10. Whistle podu, csk theme

Downloaded from youtube and converted to mp3

• Bubbling under song : Speak Now, Taylor Swift from the album Speak now,2010