New Year Wishes

Here’s wishing You and your Family Members and Friends,
A Very Happy And Prosperous New Year ahead!
May the coming year bring you all the joys and happiness that you desire!!!

 

 

New years are a chance for a beginning
Even when there hasn’t been an end.
Wheels turn in an interminable bend,
Yet, marked in one spot, seem to wobble spinning.
Each year we hope to do a little better
Although we know that really nothing’s changed.
Reason thinks that everything’s arranged,
So we must dream if we would fate unfetter.

Home….Alone

Nice to be back at home!!! Itz not been that great a hiatus so nothing’s seemingly changed much but just on the surface! Who knows what lurks around the corners….

Anyways, throwing a spanner in the works is the fact that most friends have chosen not to come here during their Winter vacations and its compounded by the awkward academic schedules of the Family’s kids n bright-heads! Their examinations (what are they supposed to be ) will end only on the last day of the year so no rollicking visits till then!

So its main aur meri television for the time being now! The English Premiere League has been hogging much of the view-space and was followed by yet another Trilogy – an oft-viewed one that too – but this time on the satellite tv!

Vacation…

Time for moi annual New Year’s Vacation. Itz become an annual event since the past couple of years! Take a week or two’s vacation towards the end-of-the-year….spend some time at hometown with family and friends….usher in the new year in the company of nears and dears….

….and get back to the daily grind a few days later

And I’ve just noticed that my last year’s vacation had also commenced on 28th of December! Punctual, to the date, ain’t I

GMail reaches 6 Gigs well before time

Back in October, the storage space on GMail had touched the 3 Gigabyte mark much to the delight of all mail users. Back then, the GMail folks had umm..errr…(for want of a better word) “predicted” that the storage space on GMail would effectively double i.e. reach 6 Gigabytes by January of 2008. But hey! Seems they’ve undershot their target…for on Christmas Day itself, GMail’s counter ticked over to the magic mark of 6 GB!

But I’ve noticed one curious thing: When one opens the GMail sign-in page in the browser, just as the page loads the storage space counter shows 2757 megabytes and when the page does load fully, the counter changes over to 6066 megabytes. Anyone else see the same err..umm…anomaly?

   

~☼~☼~Merry Christmas~☼~☼~

Here’s Wishing Everyone a Very Merry Christmas!!!

P.S: I miss donning the garb of Santa this year

Milestone II

Milestone I was achieved on May 26th, 2007 and less than 7 months later (2 more days to go ) the second milestone has been achieved. My Wierd Wired World‘s visitor count has doubled in the short span of seven months:

I presume that the popular radio posts as well as a multitude of reviews have played a major hand in bringing in the eyeballs. In fact, the blog recorded its best-day-ever (stats-wise) yesterday itself! The Taare Zameen Par review is to be thanked for. And of course, it wouldn’t have been possible but for the encouragement and motivation from Friends, Colleagues, Family Members and Visitors alike. A big Thank You to you all!!!

On a sidenote: Lazybug’s catching up!

Movie Review: Taare Zameen Par

Every Child is Special – thus goes the tagline of the latest Aamir Khan flick at the turnstiles – Taare Zameen Par and the movie does full justice to it. It is one of the more memorable movies in recent times and everyone in the audience is sure to identify with it on some or the other level. It is not a movie for children but more like a movie about children. In fact, if at all we would have to define a target audience, it would have to be the grown-ups – parents, especially. For the movie is a sort of an eye-opener to them. It is common in India for parents to have unduly high ambitions for their children and in an attempt to channelize all the kids’ efforts into realizing such ambitions and dreams, most often than not the parents forget about the kids’ own choices and interests. As is being said in a popular TV ad nowadays – hamare desh mein doctor ka beta doctor aur neta ka beta neta (in our country, a doctor’s son turns out to be a doctor and a politician’s son turns out to be a politician) and in pursuit of such goals, the children have to suffer the ignominy of burying self-ambitions. Taare Zameen Par takes this notion and makes a sincere effort to debunk it and advocate the idea that every child is special and has special talents within him/her. It urges the parents to recognize it, tap it and nurture it throughout the child’s upbringing.

Ishaan Awasthi [Master Darsheel Safary - Extremely Good] is a kid who is perennially lost in his own little world. Studies, Homeworks & progress reports are zilch for him. All that enraptures his attention are the myriad colours of nature and the little joys all around. Consequently, he remains in the same standard at school and never improves; in fact he doesn’t even make an effort to improve. His Mother [Tisca Chopra - Superb] dotes on him and always makes an effort to get him to study properly but to no avail. Riled by his behaviour and apparent lack of interest and a maverick attitude, Ishaan’s father packs him off to boarding school. Ishaan’s protests and cries fall on deaf ears and that benumbs his entire attitude. His disinterest grows with each passing day in solitude and even the colours that used to so excite him previously, feel lifeless to him. Enter Ram Shankar Nikumbh [Aamir Khan - Fantastic], as an art teacher who allows the kids imagination to run scot free. He notices Ishaan’s stoic silence and quickly realises that he is Dyslexic. He also sees a streak of the artist within Ishaan and slowly works with him to tap his potential artistic talent and use that as a means to learn the other subjects. He aptly points out that Ishaan just has to score pass-marks in the other subjects; his true calling lies elsewhere – Art.

Aamir Khan has always been referred to as the perfectionist. As an actor, he has been notoriously meticulous and always hard working. He has also been a successful producer in recent times. With Taare Zameen Par, he dons the new hat of a director and boy, he churns out an absolute strikingly perfect movie! His eye-for-detail is evident in almost every frame. Be it the doodles in Ishaan’s room or the sibling camaraderie between Ishaan and his elder brother or the poignant family scenes, all of them convey meticulousness and what’s more, everyone in the audience identifies with them so easily. As an actor, Aamir has put in a good performance but the real scene-stealer is master Darsheel Safary. He manages to convey the angst of Ishaan so poignantly that one can’t help but marvel at his performance. He has few dialogues but he lets his eyes and emotions do the talking. His debut performance should put other high-profile debutantes to shame! We’ve seen Tisca Chopra as a scheming housewife in many a soap operas but in TZP, she puts in quite a commendable performance as Ishaan’s mother.

The songs are also good, if not foot-tapping. Prasoon Joshi’s lyrics are very meaningful and soul-stirring. Music by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy is good. The title song – Dekho Inhe, Aamir’s entry song- Bum Bum Bole and the background song – Kholo Kholo are the pick of the lot. The pace of the movie, especially in the first half is somewhat slack and tends to get boring at a time. But Aamir’s entry exactly at the intermission does brighten up things. Amole Gupte should get much of the credit for the story even though it is Aamir’s story-telling that takes the cake at the end. Some of the scenes do stay with you long after the movie has finished and that truly stands out as the movie’s strength. There were also some scenes which leave one deeply moved and moist-eyed. And at the end of it all, there was tumultuous applause – a standing ovation. And the movie entirely deserves it. Go watch it at any cost!

Rating:
Verdict: Must Watch

P.S: There was one scene which maybe is “inspired” from Calvin and Hobbes – Spaceman Spiff

Freedom at (Mid)Night

Nope! This post ain’t about the book of the similar name. But instead refers to moi state of mind at nights. I’ve discontinued my ISP subscription for the time being – in view of the upcoming holidays and the subsequent journeys & trips – and will be without nighttime-connectivity for at least a month…or maybe even more. While I can easily claim it was an easy decision for me, skeptics (read friends and roommates) argue to the contrary. Why would anyone want to sever one’s ties with the online world is their question and I simply answer them with a shrug of the shoulders

Its a been there done that kinda scenario for me. After all, I was connectivity-free till the OOD arrived and even for sometime after that. I honestly think that a month’s sabbatical (if one can call that!) would do a whole lot of good for me. I haven’t indulged in any of my fav pursuits ever since the advent of the ood - 4 books, 8 journals, 3 audio cd’s, 1 rubik’s cube, 1 tangram box (new one) and other miscellany are awaiting my attention. Time to turn attention onto them.