Leap Year

A simple, straight from the heart, sweetly and neatly delivered romance. It's like you know exactly what's going to happen.....the cute meet, the differences, the conflicts, the hurt, the love.....and yet you enjoy the watching.

What also definitely adds is the breathtaking locales of Ireland, the little villages, the cliffs and shorelines, a little bit of Dublin, the Irish pubs....would have made a lovely big screen watch. 

Couldn't help but see the similarities in the movie to DDLJ....and considering Leap Year was made way after, was wondering if it was a reverse rip off :)

Also brought back a memory........my only tryst with Dublin, a stopover at the airport; an Irish Coffee.......a cocktail of hot coffee, Irish whiskey, brown sugar and whipped cream, and that too at 6 in the morn ! 

Overall, I'd say cute movie....albeit made nicer by locales and memory :)

From Steinbeck

The Necessary Contradictions of Human Nature: 

"There are events in our personal lives and our collective history that seem categorically irredeemable, moments in which the grounds for gratefulness and hope have sunk so far below the sea level of sorrow that we have ceased to believe they exist. But we have within us the consecrating capacity to rise above those moments and behold the bigger picture in all of its complexity, complementarity, and temporal sweep, and to find in what we see not illusory consolation but the truest comfort there is:  that of perspective."

I so loved the paragraph, no, not for Steinbeck's inimitable style and intensity, but for how deep and uplifting the thought is.

All of us learn to deal with those moments, all of us have our own backpack of flaws and mistakes..... dealing with which is not the big deal. We all muddle through.....difference is  in 'how we deal with them'. We mostly cope and in so doing, let them leave scars.......either on Self or on Relationships.  

The uplifting and lucidly hopeful part is in the perspective......if we could look at it not just as coping, but as actually getting true perspective, we could do so without losing in the bargain. 

Yet be our fullest self, and likely grow through the perspective.

Why trying to do the right thing is difficult

An anecdote from yesterday evening:

I got home around 9.30 pm yesterday, to find all our gates getting quickly closed. When I asked Anjaneyulu what was happening he said "there's a mad man who is trying to get into houses in the neighbourhood".

And even as we spoke, this man came into one of our gates, and Anjaneyulu ran to shoo him out, that's literally what he did. There was an edge and fear in his voice, which I seemed to pick up because I found myself rolling up my car window.

I drove in, parked, got into the lift..... and then better sense took over.

I got off and went out to see what was happening. By this time there was a small group of four to five people, and there was this 'mad man', and all of them telling him to go, some of them shouting at him, some of them laughing at him.

I found that he was clearly disoriented, nor drunk, coherent but also not talking sense, middle aged to old. He had a band around his wrist, likely belonged in an institution. 

He'd just get shoo'd out. Then what?

I suggested one of them walk him to the police station and have them take over.

Raju, a driver here said he could take him on his bike. I thought it was really nice of him, and left the scene thinking it was done.

At 10.30 pm I get a call from Raju, very angry and upset saying " madam, I listened to you, and now I am stuck. The police are saying I have to take responsibility and take him to an old age home, and that they will send a vehicle and constable...I shouldn't have listened to you, I knew this would happen". 

He yelled and hung up. I was in a quandry.

I called him back and asked if I should come. I could see an immediate difference, he calmed down. (it's the difference that moral support makes, be it 'to us' or 'by us'). I asked if the SI would speak to me. He luckily did.  But I found we were talking at cross purposes....me telling him no old age home would take a random stranger in without any credentials, and he telling me he was putting him on the police whats app group for missing persons ( in the middle of all this I couldn't help but be impressed that they were using what's app like that). 

It took persistence....it took three calls to the SI, as he kept hanging up on me.....a tense three conversations as I wasn't sure what I was letting myself into.  But suddenly at some point it shifted....he got convinced.... he agreed to let Raju leave, and take over responsibility. 

End of incident, the feeling that I, and hopefully Raju, were left with is 'yes it's difficult to do the right thing.....but it's also possible to do the right thing'.

A Quote I'm Pondering

Quotes are interesting, as they say much in so little. They can be ones that resonate, or ones that push those buttons....provoke thought, make you look within,

This one in my morning mail caught my attention:

“What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.” - Warren Buffet

Thought it's a good place to start the year too.........as any growth means change :)

Experiences and Stories '2018

The year's had several singularly fulfilling experiences, each with it's own stories and narratives......

1. Paint and wine evening at home with Diksha : 

This evening, last Jan was about painting and emotions. It was so deeply touching and wonderful..... and seemingly so easy to do, that I thought we could do it more often....but it somehow never happened again. All the more reason to cherish it.

2. Experiencing a Super Blue Blood Total Lunar Eclipse

A once in 150 years event, and it was like super bonus for me, as I had no inkling of it, and it was a chance occurrence that a friend happened to tell just as it was starting, and I could walk out onto my terrace to witness a spectacular viewing. And this eclipse told me a story that resonated real deep.

     

3. SELCO Again

Just to be back with SELCO again.....it was a two month consultancy project and so fascinating and so SELCO. The project involved interviewing thirty social entrepreneurs across the country from the perspective of Impact Investment, and analyzing and presenting the data at a global social forum. Also involved two trips to Bangalore which I missed including in my travel recap.

4. Mom's Innovative Idea

This deserves mention by virtue of it's continuing impact at home. A weekly one hour help with cleaning of what doesn't get cleaned on daily basis. And it's worked so brilliantly. I simply love it, and so does Faizan. It's a win win see.

5. The Charminar Food walk with Navin and Dhruv

What Navin started with us, is now a full fledged registered enterprise called 'The Hyderabad Walking Company'. This was one of the most fun 'being guinea pigs' experience I've had. Ambience was Charminar at night, food ranged across paaya, tandoori roti, shammi kebab, masala fish, falooda, kesar chai and osmania biscuit, Navin with his knowledge of the quaint lanes and stories about the place....very nice.

   

6. The Bamboo walk at Cubbon Park with Swaroop

This visit to Bangalore Swaroop came up with this irresistable suggestion of breakfast at Airlines ( a childhood favourite of ours) and a walk at Cubbon park....the Bamboo grove, was a fascinating surprise. 

    

7. A Talk on Counselling at a Corporate in Hyd

For all my love of talking and writing, I am not so comfortable with public speaking, I have crazy stage fright......so to actually have done a talk for 2500 people, was one massive explosive experience for me. That it was about Counselling is the one factor that motivated me there.

8. Ashutosh's visit, creating two days of nostalgia

A two days that took us back twenty five years, to my early stint with IDBI. Ashutosh visited from Mumbai with this exclusive purpose, and ensured Lan and I set aside two days for him. Starting the day with a visit to our old IDBI office itself, and pretty much on the road visiting old haunts rest of the two days. Very nostalgic indeed.

9. An early morning drive with Diksha

One of those totally spontaneous moments when Diksha's like "I'm in a long drive mood, want to come?" and we went on this real long drive. This was a break at Gandipet.

11. The gut level experience of watching a volcano in action

While this was part of the travel, as an experience I don't think there have many been many, if any, experience which got felt at such gut level. There's something at one time so powerful there, that it makes it almost surreal.

12. Double Rainbow from home

A rainbow by itself is one of my favouritest sights. The only double rainbow I'd seen my whole life was in Phoenix, Arizona; so to see one now from home...it was a wow.

13. Bryan Adams Concert

Bryan Adams has been part of growing up years..... and continues to be on my current play list. So to experience him in concert for real was exhilarating

14. A Smile Foundation Moment - Visiting Sukrutha

While I'm calling it a Smile Foundation moment, it runs deeper; Sukrutha being named after my mother, her education facilitated by Smile Foundation, and all this adding up to an absolute moment of celebration in her getting a job with ICICI. I went to visit her, actually more her mom, Kavita, as it was her dream come true. 

15. Writing exams after 30 years

Like I was telling a friend, this was actual hall ticket, pencil, scale kind of exams ( first year of a masters program in psychology). This comes on this list from sheer stretching of boundaries. The studying part, using those rusty memory cells, was so much tougher than I'd anticipated that I went through more than a few moments when I thought I'd drop it. 

While life does it's graph of ins and outs and ups and downs, these experiences do certainly stand out for me....fills me with a feeling of  glad and grateful .

Books and Movies '2018

On movies and books ....it's been, I guess a decent 32 on movies, and a low 12 on books. That's quite obviously judged by my yardstick.

And funnily, I don't really know what my yardstick is. So much for how easily we judge :)

My List of Movies:

1. The Hours
2. Tumhari Sulu
3. Tamasha
4. Home Again
5. Revolutionary Road
6. La La Land
7. As Good As It Gets
8. Padmaavat
9. October
10. Tangled
11. Enough Said
12. Call me by your name
13. My Dinner With Andre
14. Princess Mononoke
15. Dr Morsten & Wonder Woman
16. 28 days
17. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
18. Annamayya
19. Sagara Sangamam
20. Secret Superstar
21. Karwaan
22. Mahanati
23. Tumbbad
24. Beauty and The Beast
25. Before We Go
26. Bucket List
27. Bohemian Rhapsody
28. Dhadak
29. Grandma
30. The Perfect Match
31. Nothing to Hide
32. Roma

I'm kind of super picky about my movies ( read as slow, meaningful, romantic, thought provoking.......and with a super low threshold of violence), so my list is kind of skewed in the direction. And I'd find it hard to pick favourites, as I'm typically watching only what I think I'll like, and even walking out of theatres half way through if I don't like :)

Yet, if I had to pick top favourites, it would be La La Land, Mahanati, Tumbbad, Bohemian Rhapsody and Nothing to Hide.

My list of Books:

1. Falling in love again - Ruskin Bond
2. The Vine of Desire - Chitra Divakaruni
3. Lost in Time - Namita Gokhale
4. Maharani - Ruskin Bond
5. Flow - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
6. Original Wisdom - Robert Wolff
7. I'm Ok - You're OK - Harris
8. For one more day - Mitch Album
9. Palace of Illusions - Chitra Divakaruni
10. Men are from Mars Women are from Venus - A reread
11. Tao of leadership - John Heider
12. How Proust can change your life - Alain De Botton

While the list is short, I've completely loved each of those reads.

Ruskin Bond and Chitra Divakaruni are already favourites, so no surprise there. Loved 'Lost in time' by Namita Gokhle, and high impact was 'Flow' by Mihaly C, which I hope to read again some day and How Proust can change your life.

A consolation on the books in terms of number, is that it didn't mean I did only this much reading. I did tons more reading for my exams :)

I'm taking this as opportunity to create my yardstick. I think for this year I'd like to touch 50 on movies and 25 on books. So next time no more casual judgement on self :)

Sunrise

I was looking for that 'right' post for New Years.....you know, the symbolically right kind of one.

One of the most spectacular sunrises I've seen

My mind was throwing up no worthwhile thoughts. Desperately needed inspiration, so I open up my photo gallery.

And that's where this came from. What better symbolism than a 'sunrise',  one from atop Mauna Kea.

Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano that towers over big island in Hawai'i, and by sheer vantage and location is home to the largest observatories in the world. We did a sunrise tour, one which starts at 2 in the morning and takes you up the volcanoe.

While planning I remember Tejas asking Diksha "Have you ever been above tree line?", and neither of us even knew what that was. That's the line above which trees don't grow...ecological reasons. And it's when we realized we'd never been above tree line. Not Ooty, Not Simla, Not Manali.

That was in itself a new experience, and then the sunrise....

Was yet dark when we got to the Maunakea summit

The moon was yet very there

As the sky started to change colour

Watching

Those magnificent hues

 As it rose

And it's up

 Jessa and Diksha in silhouette

Aunty and me

Some of the observatories

Our bunch

On a trip with so many awesome experiences, this was surely one.....so happy to have shared the experience with you, Aunty, Tejas, Jessa and Diksha.

A Very Very Happy New Years to all !!