Festival time and Gandhi Bazaar :)

I just love the atmosphere of Gandhi Bazaar during festivals. Everyone is busy shopping. Kids gaping at everyone. It is an awesome place to visit just before a festival. I went and bought bangles and got mehendi. Also enjoyed hot hot capsicum bonda. Sad that I dint have time to roam around longer.

'Before Sunrise' and 'Before Sunset'

After a long hiatus from movies, I watched 'Before Sunrise' and 'Before Sunset' one after the other. Spoiler alert - the movie is brilliant. It does not have a typical Hollywood touch to it. It does not have many characters. It does not have elaborate story line. But it is an amazing movie.

There is not much to disclose about the story line. In the first movie, the guy and the girl meet in a train, start talking and fall in love. This is a typical story base for numerous Hindi movies. What's so great? The whole movie is about the dialogue delivery. The protagonists go around Vienna for a whole day talking. They are on such varied topics. About their childhood, about ghosts, poems, love. At the helm of their youth, they talk about all the ideals any 20 odd year old girl / guy have. They are far from reality. They believe anything is possible in this world.

It is a treat to listen to them and try to make sense. As guessed, by the end of the movie, they fall in love. Since, they are from different parts of the world, they plan to meet after 6 months in that same train station. I could feel their passion for each other. They did not want to leave each other and part. It felt very real.

Cut to the second movie, it is about the same 2 people who meet after a gap of 9 years. They wouldn't have met after 6 months. They wouldn't have exchanged phone numbers of addressed to search the other. They have moved on with their lives.

They have aged, one of them is married, the other is in a steady relationship. They meet by chance and again spend the whole day talking going around Paris. This time, the topics are very real. Marital problems, job hazzards, ex-boyfriends, children. They have realized that the ideals they had are good to talk and write about. To live by them is very difficult. They have made peace with their personal lives and kinda blame each other for the situation that they are in. The guy is in a sad marriage and the girl is scared about committements. They reminiscize about how different their lives would be if they had met on the day they had decided to.

Ending to the second movie is left for the audience to decide. The romantics can believe that they get together this time. The cynics can choose to believe that they moved on with their mundane lives. It is a movie for people who love a good conversation and can sit through it.

Teach for India

I just came out of a presentation from Teach for India initiative http://www.teachforindia.org/. It is a movement where young professionals, under graduates come together to bridge the educational inequity gap in India. Teachers from this initiative will be posted in different schools in various parts of India where the education quality is way below the mean. They teach innovatively and this brings out a drastic change in those students. According to me it is a brilliant movement. If children who are deprived of education get this level of education, then the India that we know today will be totally different.

Now, coming to a practical point of  view. This presentation was organized in our college. It is a technical college where we hear words like 'Cloud computing', 'optimization', 'databases' day in and day out. Out of the blue, if a social cause like this is thrown at us, it is a tad difficult to assimilate the details and digest them. It will be at the back of our minds to do something good for the society. But this goal appears for our 'after retirement' phase. Not now when we are studying to be software engineers or computer scientists or DBAs. Hence, I felt the targeted audience by the TFI organization was wrong.

All said and done, I do feel bad that I am not in that place in life, where I can give up everything else and do something that makes me feel great.

Simple pleasures of life

Are we losing out on enjoying simple pleasures of life? This thought crossed me because one of my friends told, 'I ll like to come up with a computer program which will match 2 ppl based on their compatibility'. I was like, 'Really? Do you want to lose out on enjoying those moments where you are still getting to know the other person. Or the satisfaction that you actually found that person with whom you can be happy?'

Yesterday, I watched a play about Mahatma Gandhi. There was a scene in which Gandhi is kinda against technology because it is making the man very lazy. He (the actor) says, 'why do we need vehicles? Purpose of a man kind is not to reach places quickly. There is a higher purpose for this life. We can take the journey slow and enjoy every moment of it'. This dialogue actually struck chords with me. Please oh please, get off your computers, mobiles, ipods, ipads, other tablets, wii, nintendos, xbox etc etc and enjoy something natural :) Saying so, I am logging off :D:P