The Shutter

It's an open secret that I'm not bold. I mean, I am not daring enough to try the "new" thing... true... but what I am saying here is that - I am scared. I am scared of the dark, of lizards and of horror movies. And I left more than a hint of that in an earlier post.

I have mentioned the movie "The Shutter" in the earlier post too and since then I intended to write this post describing why I am scared to this day to even think of that movie. But before I tell you what actually happened the night of the movie, I will have to give you a synopsis of the movie.

Plot (better not read this if you don't want the suspense to be revealed)

Shutter is actually a Korean movie (I think) and anyone who has watched it would definitely rate it as one of the best horror movies ever. It's one of those movies where the suspense is steadily built (that's it.. I can't take it any more. It's past midnight and I am too scared to even think of the movie now... I will continue this post again some "day". For now, let me check my bank statement... hopefully, my deplorable "financial" condition shall divert my mind.)

Another trip back Home

Today, while checking my posts, I found the below one in the drafts since 1/16/09 12:50 AM. I honestly forgot what I intended to write here. All I remember is that this was some sort of a continuation to this older post.

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I was on a short vacation from Saturday, Jan 10th to Wednesday, Jan 14th. I was back at my native place - Kodada - supposedly for Sankranti which was on Wednesday. Another reason, which was also more primary, for making this trip was that my mom had a school reunion to attend - that's right, all her 10th class-mates and their teachers were meeting on Sunday, Jan 11th. The reunion went great, it was organised on a grand scale and why not - all her ex-classmates were now settled (mostly in Hyderabad) and doing well. One owned a Jewellery shop, another owned a Diagnostic Centre and so on.

But what amazed me most was that everyone, including the teachers, recognised most of the others. And it being a village and there being only one govt. school in those old days (today there are 4 engineering colleges there), all the siblings went to the same school and were taught by the same teachers. So, as the teachers went around getting updates from their ex-students, and their siblings, they could easily have written a History of Kodada.

Apart from the reunion, there was practically nothing else to do than EALSAL - Eat A Lot, Sleep A Lot. No need for me to mention that I love such trips. As per the Indian culture, the closer your relatives the more food they try to stuff into you. And everytime I went out, the ultra-cheap prices (which I have already written about in an earlier post) only used to increase my appetite. This meant I had to sleep close to 12hrs every day (9hrs during night and 3 hrs during day) just to keep the digestion on track. I bet, I would have added on atleast a couple of kgs.

As I was writing this post, an old lady walked into the house. She was apparently related to my Aunt (through a chain not less than 4 links) and she was a specimen. A "live; walking and talking; BBC". Towns are small places and almost everybody is related to everybody someway or the other. But this lady was the heights. In the 2 hrs she spent at home, she spoke for like 1 hr 45 min and gave a complete round-up of all the happenings in the town. She would have easily put any News Network to shame with her coverage, inside news and the pure zeal. She was generous enough to end with a short 15 min Q&A session, before remembering that she was also supposed to be visiting some other relative.

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This is where the draft ends.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

The title of this post is sure to make you think of "FRIENDS" - the TV Series. Wonderful Series, eh? Absolutely. Awesome characters and great humour. Brilliantly written, brilliantly executed. Every episode is a masterpiece. Lots of emotions that the characters go through, throughout the series, but they still manage to tickle your funny bone. So much so that, they make you wish.. wish that your life was the same. And if half the reason for that is the way the series has been scripted, the other half would be that it is about "Friends".

Afterall, who wouldn't want a bunch of great friends around them. I definitely would. It would be so exciting. I would have some great stories to share with my kids and their kids. But alas, my life never felt as special as in the series.

No wonder, when I look back at my life today, I don't really have some great episodes to share. I mean, if you have done some adventurous or uber-crazy stuff, you would have something to share. And my life has been "extraoridnarily ordinary". But I don't love Joey and Co. for doing anything adventurous. What, then, sets them apart? What makes them special? One answer is, they are such "characters" (if you understand what I mean) that they make very lovable characters on screen. And the other answer for it would be, their life has been documented.

TRUE. And that's the sad part I realised when I looked back at my life. My life already had most of the FRIENDS' characters. I had already met Joeys, Chandlers, Rosses, Phoebes, Rachels or my sweet-heart Monica. But why do I still wish that my life was as good as the TV Series. I have two reasons for this well.

First would be, we just live life, we don't LIVE life. Worth mentioning here would be Ezekiel's (in the movie, Sex Drive) comments about the Amish people, "Sometimes I just miss the world. You know, I miss sarcasm. It's mostly lost on my people. And gambling."

And second would be, my life hasn't been documented. Because if it was, I'm sure it would have been as good as FRIENDS. There have been good days and bad days, but everyday there has always been something to be happy about. While we enjoy that instant, we don't care to remember it. We meet some very interesting people in our lives who we grow very attached to, but soon wander and meet someone else. And thus, God's greatest gift to Man, is also his greatest curse - Imperfect memory. If only we had trained our mind to weed out the sad episodes much more quickly and keep the happy memories forever. But almost always, its the other way round.

Let me try recollecting the names of all my "best buddies". During my schooling in Delhi, my life could be spelled as BAVA (Balaji, Aakash, Vikash and Akshay) at school or as S (for Sveta) at home. They were people I hanged out with every single day. Back in Hyderabad, it would be JATAPS (Jiddu, Adi, Theju, Aravind "Warrior", Pallav and Sriram) for a couple of years and then probably, PJ-MAS2TheC (Parrot, Jiddu, Makhi, Adi, Sriram, Sharan, Theju, Choudhury). And those school-bus journeys with ASK (Arvind, Sai Kiran and Kalyan). They were the people I hanged out with most, outside of the school and we were all Badminton-Cricket buddies too. Intermediate definitely was my best time, cause I only had fun. There was very little that I did outside of it. And my best buddies then were (K)RAANKSS (Kinnera, Rajeev, Amit, Amar, Nikhil, Kishore, Santosh and Siddharth).

IIT was a special place. During those 4 years, everyone lived life like one big family. Difficult to even mention so many names here but some of the closest of the closest family members were: H2MC2KT (Harish, Harsha, Manu, Chandu, Chinny, Kailash, TP). If I wasn't in my room, which was generally the case, I was at one of their rooms. And there have been numerous times when I would stay 24 hrs straight in one of their rooms even though mine was just next door. And IIT life wouldn't have been worth it if it wasn't for TRANSC-TV (Tapasya, Raj, Akon, Nalgonda, Singla, Chinny, TP, Vamsy). Not to forget the online "chat" friends - SAM (Sonal, Aisha and Madhu).

While all these years are only blurred in my mind, I remember the last one year, very clearly. It was so wonderful, I have already written a post about it. First 6 months could only be spelled as MANGPART-V (Madan, Amita, Nikhil, Golu, Pigy, Athni, Rahul, Tassu, Vamsi) and the next 3 months as TRTP (Tassu, Rachna, Tajji, Pratibha). In all my life, I have never felt as lonely as I felt April to June when I changed my priorities and placed Work before Life. It didn't take long for my company to tell me it was a bad choice. And all this time, I can't remember of anyone whom I spoke to regularly except P (Pratibha).

So except for a couple of friends, I can't really say I'm in touch with anyone I met more than an year ago. And since July, I have been more in the Party mood. So, I have met a lot of new people but am yet to see how many would become my close friends.

My Love Life - Quote

Every girl I ever liked was either "elder to me, married or already taken" and in light of the recent developments, "is a lesbian".

LUCK

I have just come back from watching the movie LUCK. A different kind of a plot but executed very badly with exceptionally bad acting. None of the characters made any sense to me, from Aisha-Natasha to Ram to Raghavan. And the "Grand-finale" was the mega-bomb to take away whatever little thrill, No! curiousity, the rest of the movie had managed to arouse in you. The script has few scenes which do not seem to fit into the normal flow of the movie but these are beautifully connected later on in the Hollywood-inspired kind of way. Except that once you have knotted together all the loose ends, you feel like "This wasn't worth it." Bottomline - If it were the work of a amateur, I would say good try but needs loads of improvement. Otherwise, UTTER CRAP. And you definitely are lucky if you haven't watched it.

But what did catch my attention was the concept. I am still wondering, do such people exist? Can anybody have such luck? I do know a few people who are very lucky but I am pretty sure all of them only have their heart in the right place (you would understand this if you have watched the movie). And if this movie even breaks-even, then we will have to call the Producer, Moussa, for getting away with something as bad as this. If I had my way, I would want to... forget it!

If we take the word LUCK literally, even I could be termed lucky, for I always seem to carry (Bad) Luck in my pocket everytime. Infact, I have something like the Sadim's (from Midas) touch - everything I touch turns into dung. And it works better than ever, in the case of girls. Every girl I ever liked was either "elder to me, married or already taken" and in light of the recent developments, "or is a lesbian".