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Sunday, March 25, 2007
Just like heaven- Nice movie
Hey this movie "Just like heaven" starring Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo and others makes an interesting watch. Check it out.
India loses!
India Lost!!! Those words evoke reactions ranging from violence to suicides and heart attck deaths. Wow.... Our people are passionate, aren't they. And they call it patriotism.
But that makes me wonder... Where is the patriotism in other scenarios? The passion evoked by cricket is isolated to just cricket. Where are all these 'patriotic people' when a Kargil happens or when politicians take people for a grand ride? A budget evokes some comments but only for a month out of twelve. Any reforms/ new policies/ measures for the people are stuck in paper/ babudom.
Well its easy to criticise. But what can we do about all that? Any ideas?
Pav bhaji –Mumbai Ishtyle
Wanna make PAV BHAJI the mumbai way... here's how...
INGREDIENTS:
Cut Vegetables-
Beans –half a cup,
Capsicum –half/ one forth of a cup,
Peas –half a cup,
Onion- one/one cup(finely chopped),
Carrot –one small / three fourth of a cup,
Potato –one cup
Tomatoes – 4/5
Pav Bhaji Masala (preferably ‘Everest’) -2/3 spoons
Haldi/Turmeric powder –half spoon
Red chilli powder –half spoon
Amul Butter
Ghee
Dhaniya/ Coriander leaves
Salt to taste
Pav/ Bread –as many as you wanna eat!
METHOD:
Cook all cut vegetables except onions in the cooker (let it cook atleast 4 or 5 whistes)
Let the tomatoes boil whole in water till their skin peels. Drain the water, peel the skin and puree them(Do not add water. If necessary use very little water). Keep aside.
Heat a little ghee in a pan/kadhai and add the chopped onions. Saute till they turn pink.
Add the tomato puree, turmeric, salt and chilli powder and let boil.
Mash the cooked vegetables (Not too much. Small pieces of the vegetables should be visible.) Add the mashed vegetables into the tomato puree. Let the mixture boil for 5 minutes (or more depending on the consistency). Keep stirring.
In a small pan, heat little ghee and add the pav bhaji masala. (Remove before it turns black) Add it to the mixture and keep stirring.
Remove from flame and add the butter and garnish with coriander leaves.
Your yummy pav bhaji is ready to serve with pavs(bread) toasted with butter.
Namastey London –time pass movie
Hey I definitely dint expect much from this one but I was in for some surprise. It was time pass for sure. Akshay Kumar has done a good job entertaining, as usual. Songs are just ok. You can expect yourself to laugh out loud more than a few times here. Though it can’t be called a super hit comedy, it doesn’t fail to entertain you. The storyline is not bad. It is a different subject for a comedy movie. A patriotic statement by Akshay Kumar is welcome, never mind that for a moment, it made me wonder if I went into a congress election campaign by mistake!
Katrina Kaif has given an average performance. Though in a few shots she seemed artificial and too bouncy, overall a good effort. Looks good too as a bonus for all fans out there.
Rishi Kapoor is no surprise. The same old self.
On the whole, I would give the movie 3.5 stars –more than average.
Katrina Kaif has given an average performance. Though in a few shots she seemed artificial and too bouncy, overall a good effort. Looks good too as a bonus for all fans out there.
Rishi Kapoor is no surprise. The same old self.
On the whole, I would give the movie 3.5 stars –more than average.
The Namesake - Am I the only one who doesn’t like the movie??
Well… After all the hype about “The Namesake” being a ‘great’ film by 'the great’ Mira Nair, I was disappointed beyond compare. It started out fairly well but as it progressed, it seemed to lack captivity and failed to keep the audience’s attention. Not much of a storyline. Seems slow and more like a documentary.
On a good note, as expected, there is a display of good acting skills by Tabu and Irrfan Khan. The subject is good and real but a lot of movies have broached it before and I don’t see why this should be the better of the lot. No punch lines. The ending was sad! Not convincing at all!
On a good note, as expected, there is a display of good acting skills by Tabu and Irrfan Khan. The subject is good and real but a lot of movies have broached it before and I don’t see why this should be the better of the lot. No punch lines. The ending was sad! Not convincing at all!
The hot scene enacted between Irfan Khan and Tabu lacked any sensuousness. It felt vulgar, no grace or dignity whatsoever, leaving a bitter taste in the mouth.
Overall a bore!!!!!!!
Friday, March 23, 2007
Dreams!! How do we dream?
What are dreams? Nobody knows for sure! A lot of research has yielded little insight into this complex process (if I may call it that).
And Conscience… where does it lie? Which part of the brain lodges it? (That is if we presume that one of the brain’s physical areas lodges it!)
As I pondered upon these two separate mysteries of the human mind, I realized there may be a common string – an invisible link. So here’s what my brain consciously dreamed up!!
When we are awake, the conscious part of our brain controls us. It analyses… breaking up every piece of information logically. The input to our brain (I refer to the conscious part as BRAIN) and the output of the processing done by the brain are both stored in our memory unit, oops memory (Well.. the computer is but a primitive reproduction of our super super brain, right!!).
But alas, not everything can be boiled down to logic. There are intangible aspects to knowledge. These are absorbed and stored by our sub-conscious self.(I refer to it here as Conscience, not to be confused with the universal meaning of conscience.)
But as a single system- a human being, there cannot be two completely separate departments with no inter connectivity. Therefore it may be construed that the conscious BRAIN interacts with the subconscious self, the CONSCIENCE at a moment when the human being is shut out and cut off from external influence, the only time when an individual can interact with himself, i.e., during sleep. A kind of maintenance operation…. These are dreams.
If I may venture further based on this concept, dreams can be categorized into two… those we are unaware of and those we remember during our conscious interludes. The reason behind this…
As a regular and routine administrative task, the conscience conveys all the information it has gathered to the brain and most of these match what the brain has deduced analytically. These are the first classification of dreams.. those we remain unaware of. These are just a means to review and confirm that the two departments do not end up heading in opposite directions.
Well now trouble arises when there is a conflict. The brain refuses to part with logic in order to look at the subtle realities and similarly the conscience keeps its stand and denies the brain’s logic. That is the time when a human being as a whole has to exercise his will and take a decision either guided by logic or by intuition. When he is unable to resolve such problems, the two conflicting departments have a tussle and bring it to his notice. Thus dreams (or rather nightmares) come into play.
Think about it. We most often dream about things we hate to discuss, things we avoid, that we keep aside to be dealt with later. Same is the case with our fears, things we are afraid of and do not face.
But people have sweet dreams too, don’t they? Those are the issues given utmost importance by the person and consequently by both departments. These issues are highlighted. Sweet dreams are about obsessions, pleasant experiences, hopes, wishes, etc. Most often than not, after these dreams, don’t we think about whether these dreams will come true or not? The conscience has conveyed that it hopes and wishes, either for wishes to be fulfilled or pleasant situations to recur. The chances of them coming true and a realistic evaluation of the possibilities of it happening are given by the brain. There is no tussle here. There is a wish and it is evaluated. The being has now just to wait with hopes.
Hey! I do not know if all this that I have dreamed up is true or not. And I know there may be no source to verify it too. So all I can do is hope! You too! Sweet dream, wasn’t it!!
And Conscience… where does it lie? Which part of the brain lodges it? (That is if we presume that one of the brain’s physical areas lodges it!)
As I pondered upon these two separate mysteries of the human mind, I realized there may be a common string – an invisible link. So here’s what my brain consciously dreamed up!!
When we are awake, the conscious part of our brain controls us. It analyses… breaking up every piece of information logically. The input to our brain (I refer to the conscious part as BRAIN) and the output of the processing done by the brain are both stored in our memory unit, oops memory (Well.. the computer is but a primitive reproduction of our super super brain, right!!).
But alas, not everything can be boiled down to logic. There are intangible aspects to knowledge. These are absorbed and stored by our sub-conscious self.(I refer to it here as Conscience, not to be confused with the universal meaning of conscience.)
But as a single system- a human being, there cannot be two completely separate departments with no inter connectivity. Therefore it may be construed that the conscious BRAIN interacts with the subconscious self, the CONSCIENCE at a moment when the human being is shut out and cut off from external influence, the only time when an individual can interact with himself, i.e., during sleep. A kind of maintenance operation…. These are dreams.
If I may venture further based on this concept, dreams can be categorized into two… those we are unaware of and those we remember during our conscious interludes. The reason behind this…
As a regular and routine administrative task, the conscience conveys all the information it has gathered to the brain and most of these match what the brain has deduced analytically. These are the first classification of dreams.. those we remain unaware of. These are just a means to review and confirm that the two departments do not end up heading in opposite directions.
Well now trouble arises when there is a conflict. The brain refuses to part with logic in order to look at the subtle realities and similarly the conscience keeps its stand and denies the brain’s logic. That is the time when a human being as a whole has to exercise his will and take a decision either guided by logic or by intuition. When he is unable to resolve such problems, the two conflicting departments have a tussle and bring it to his notice. Thus dreams (or rather nightmares) come into play.
Think about it. We most often dream about things we hate to discuss, things we avoid, that we keep aside to be dealt with later. Same is the case with our fears, things we are afraid of and do not face.
But people have sweet dreams too, don’t they? Those are the issues given utmost importance by the person and consequently by both departments. These issues are highlighted. Sweet dreams are about obsessions, pleasant experiences, hopes, wishes, etc. Most often than not, after these dreams, don’t we think about whether these dreams will come true or not? The conscience has conveyed that it hopes and wishes, either for wishes to be fulfilled or pleasant situations to recur. The chances of them coming true and a realistic evaluation of the possibilities of it happening are given by the brain. There is no tussle here. There is a wish and it is evaluated. The being has now just to wait with hopes.
Hey! I do not know if all this that I have dreamed up is true or not. And I know there may be no source to verify it too. So all I can do is hope! You too! Sweet dream, wasn’t it!!
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Who am I?
Who am I? I was born and shall die. The intermediate life is time bound. All our actions are bound to the concept of time, call it the kala-chakra if you wish. What is TIME? To me the answer lies in everything we see around the world. Take H2O for example. Water exists in liquid form. When supplied with a stimulus we call ‘heat’, it is transformed into vapour. It exists as vapour till such time as the heat is not taken away from it. What is heat we do not know…. But we only know that the state of the matter called ‘H2O’ is altered based on the temperature, which we may call the ‘heat scale’. Though it amounts to over simplification, if I draw an analogy here, human experiences are within the realm of time. The upper and lower extremities of one part of the range, are defined by birth and death. Between this period a physical human being exists in this form that we perceive. Beyond this period, the stimulus of time makes the soul change form. What form we acquire is beyond our perception when we are in the current form.
That brings me to another question. If we only change forms, then what about our existence? What are we here for and what is our goal? What is the reason for our existence? This is a matter of speculation and we have a lot of beliefs in our country. What I believe in is my interpretation which I am sharing here.
There is a scale of enlightenment, a ladder to ‘Moksha’ that exists in order to rate our performance. Our knowledge and understanding of universal truths, self evaluation, betterment, improvement and ultimate realization are the tools to climb this ‘ladder’.
The ‘good karma’ we do is the pluses we earn and the ‘bad karma’ we do is the minuses we suffer. These are determined by laws which we inherently are always aware of. Our conscience reminds us about them at every instance. The power of choice or the will given to us is what takes us one up or down in the ladder. As we make mistakes, we re-evaluate. If we rectify the error and improve ourselves we progress. If the wrong becomes a habit and then a part of our personality, we deteriorate. Escaping the ‘personality’ or ‘nature’ that we think we are born with and which we so often sight as excuses for our behaviors, is what progressing up the ladder is all about.
When born into physical existence the human being is burdened by his previous ‘karma’ which manifests itself in the present life in various forms like the situations we face, the nature or personality we are endowed with, our abilities plus there is also the strength of our inner voice- the conscience. The conscience is always talking with us. Whether we hear it or not depends on how much we have strengthened it. The more we hear its words, the stronger it becomes. The stronger it becomes, the better it guides us smoothly through the maze of life to accumulate pluses and then climb the ‘ladder’. When we attain ‘Moksha’, is defined by the moment when all we hear is the words of the conscience. This may be put as becoming one with the conscience. The conscience clearly is nothing but the universal reality. It exists within each one of us. It cannot be true that one person’s conscience contradicts another’s. It always speaks the universal language of right and truth. The personification of the conscience is God. He is said to exist within each one of us and we are said to unify with Him when we achieve enlightenment. It is said that He guides us through difficulties showing us the right path. That is what God is. Our very own conscience. Every phenomenon ranging from ESP to intuition, kaliyuga to extraordinary powers can be explained based on this. Well I shall leave them to some other time…..
That brings me to another question. If we only change forms, then what about our existence? What are we here for and what is our goal? What is the reason for our existence? This is a matter of speculation and we have a lot of beliefs in our country. What I believe in is my interpretation which I am sharing here.
There is a scale of enlightenment, a ladder to ‘Moksha’ that exists in order to rate our performance. Our knowledge and understanding of universal truths, self evaluation, betterment, improvement and ultimate realization are the tools to climb this ‘ladder’.
The ‘good karma’ we do is the pluses we earn and the ‘bad karma’ we do is the minuses we suffer. These are determined by laws which we inherently are always aware of. Our conscience reminds us about them at every instance. The power of choice or the will given to us is what takes us one up or down in the ladder. As we make mistakes, we re-evaluate. If we rectify the error and improve ourselves we progress. If the wrong becomes a habit and then a part of our personality, we deteriorate. Escaping the ‘personality’ or ‘nature’ that we think we are born with and which we so often sight as excuses for our behaviors, is what progressing up the ladder is all about.
When born into physical existence the human being is burdened by his previous ‘karma’ which manifests itself in the present life in various forms like the situations we face, the nature or personality we are endowed with, our abilities plus there is also the strength of our inner voice- the conscience. The conscience is always talking with us. Whether we hear it or not depends on how much we have strengthened it. The more we hear its words, the stronger it becomes. The stronger it becomes, the better it guides us smoothly through the maze of life to accumulate pluses and then climb the ‘ladder’. When we attain ‘Moksha’, is defined by the moment when all we hear is the words of the conscience. This may be put as becoming one with the conscience. The conscience clearly is nothing but the universal reality. It exists within each one of us. It cannot be true that one person’s conscience contradicts another’s. It always speaks the universal language of right and truth. The personification of the conscience is God. He is said to exist within each one of us and we are said to unify with Him when we achieve enlightenment. It is said that He guides us through difficulties showing us the right path. That is what God is. Our very own conscience. Every phenomenon ranging from ESP to intuition, kaliyuga to extraordinary powers can be explained based on this. Well I shall leave them to some other time…..
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