Reaching There

The Lovely Bones The Lovely Bones This is a movie which you can sit back and enjoy the superfluous imagery it builds in front of your eyes. You will completely miss the underlying theme of conflict, pain and love. Or if you manage to take a closer look at the eyes of the actors you'll notice the sorrow and beauty of the story. It took me a second look to go beyond the visual grandeur and let my mind absorb the message the movie is trying to shout out. The message that has managed to seep through the corners of my mind is of hope and love. It sounds simple but as we know wisdom is supposed to be uncomplicated yet as elusive as the shooting star. There is a silent victory hidden in a loss. Hidden beneath the layers of disappointment and sorrow lies a small victory. In the movie Susie Salmon (played by young Irish actress Saoirse Ronan) traverses through the maze of the world "in-between" she comes across emotions ranging from disappointment to vengeance to pain and f...

Writing is like living a life. You have your glory moments and other times it’s just hard work at its best. Sometimes a brilliant thought flows through the mind like honey and other times it just takes ages to even get a sentence on the page. There is an age old adage we all have heard; which just says patience is virtue. Yet the patience is like that elusive 'A' in the grade reports of our lives. We all love straight A's yet there are some C's that matter a lot and patience plays an important role in each of these. This is my post dedicated to those C's that help us move on through our daily grind called life. The First C Confusion is a word dreaded by most. It’s a word that unfortunately carries with itself all the wrong connotations. Yet it could be the best friend you might ever have! Confusion points to all possibilities surrounding a situation we are part of. It opens up a world of possibilities that exist. Confusion also acts as a catalyst that fastens the ...

Lunar Eclipse June 15 2011 in Durban South Africa Lunar Eclipse June 15 2011 in Durban South Africa

Note to reader: If you're looking for the book Jim Carrey referred to in the interview, I have had on luck in finding the book. So in case you came across this post for that answer - I'm sorry this post is not about the book but something he said. So if you're still interested, please do read on! I recently saw an interview of actor Jim Carrey on Inside Actors Studio. All of us know him as the pet detective in Ace Ventura, or the crazy guy from The Mask, or just as the most versatile comedian of contemporary times. However the interview showed me a whole different side of the actor. He turned out to be a lighthearted guy with a deep understanding of human nature.  Towards the later half of the interview James Lipton spoke about a movie called, 'I Love You Phillip Morris'. It is based on the real-life con artist, impostor, prison escapee; Steven Jay Russell; who falls in love with a fellow inmate; Phillip Morris. The movie portrays the same-sex story of ...

Lately I've been trying too hard to write. I've been adamantly searching for the next "higher" level of my writing. Eventually I cooked up a pressure so high that it strangulated my thought process. I was unable to write and sometimes even unable to think. Writing is a process with an extraordinary output yet the simplicity of the inputs leaves me dumbfounded. To simplify the process for my own convenience; a haphazard assortment of thoughts, inspiration, real events, language goes into one end and out comes a coherent chain of words which have the power to bring out human emotions from the farthest of corners. To draw a crude analogy, life behaves in a similar way as well. In goes all the marvelous capabilities, human sensitivities, inherent flaws, unwanted prejudices and out comes life; pure power capable of some of the most wonderfully divine things in this world. However like writing we sometimes strive too hard to live. The search for the next level of livi...

Complicated, clustered, burdened, lost. These and many more similar words fly around in our lives almost everyday. These words somehow manage to touch each and every aspect of our lives; affecting personal as well as professional fronts. The constancy with which these "emotions" appear in our lives is sometimes outright scary. However there are certain counteroffensive measures that can be used every time these emotions threaten to destroy the peace of our minds. Humility Perhaps the most underrated and overstated of emotion, which a human being can possess. In almost all religions humility is considered as a virtue. In fact in Hinduism it is considered as the foremost trait of a saint. What is so powerful about this emotion that even Gods' are attracted to it? Humility is submission to the fact that I am flawed. This acknowledgement immediately punctures the balloon called "ego". The second that balloon gets deflated I have relieved a great burden from myse...

I recently visited Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh on my father's behest.  Chitrakoot is a small town located in the northern Vindhyas in the state of Madhya Pradesh. A small town bustling with pilgrims crisscrossing through the narrow roads into the various holy places that are scattered all across it .  Our trip started with a visit to the temple of Kamatanath located on the parikrama path around the hill of Kamadgiri.  It is small hill covered with forest and surrounded by a five kilometer path. It also marks as the spot where Bharat tried to convince Lord Rama to return to Ayodhyaya.  Apart from being a place of religious importance it is a place where you can see various forms of devotion at display. Thousands of devotees, saints, sages and observers like me come to pay respect to a place of great reverence. On this path lies a small corner filled with a small steel container, a worn out blanket as a cushion and a small board saying "Don't disturb Saint Su...