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Bargain Price!

I got out of the house today. It's an achievement!
Anyway, so I went to Crosswords (of course!) and I was a little disappointed. The outlet nearest to my place is quite small so they don't really have much of an extensive stock. Anyhow, atleast I got what I really wanted - The Kite Runner. I haven't really been doing much reading. Watching movies is pretty time consuming!! And I'm not happy with how fast time is going. Why does it do that? Exam week went sooo SLOWLY and now its like racing.
I also went to Planet M. There's a new outlet very close to Crosswords so that was nice and convenient. I wanted to buy the Laaga Chunari mein Daag album and there it was standing on the display. I turned it around to see the price and was expecting like a good 125 bucks atleast which is the usual for hindi CDs nowadays but low and behold it says 75 bucks. Wow! I was expecting less. That's cool. But there's more - it also has a bunch of bonus tracks from Chakde!, Bunty aur Babli, Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, Veer-Zaara, Kabul Express, Ta Ra Rum Pum and Fanaa. An all inclusive MP3 for 75 bucks. I had a hard time really believing it but here I am listening to the CD and I really only paid that much! I'm very happy! I finally have all the songs from Lagaa... and also Chakde! which I've been wanting for a while...
So I'm singing... Badal pe paon hain...!
It's pretty cool, I think in the aim of bring piracy down you can buy like most hindi film original VCDs for as little as 35 bucks. I say it's a good idea. I LIKE! :D
Look at me talking about bargaining prices like an old woman! Oh, I can't wait! :D

Give and Learn

I found this awesome link on one of my favourite blogs.

Free Rice - it's like a vocab game and every word you get right, they'll donate 10 grains of rice towards ending world hunger. It's fun and there's always Dictionary.com to help you out! ;-) Meg and I figured it's for a good cause so it's not really cheating. So try it out! You'll learn new words like frenetic = highly agitated or pare = trim or to jounce = to jolt and so on while helping to feed someone...

Bring on the movies!

Past two days have been good... i have been gathering lots of calories, little sleep and no exercise. oh whatever!

so i've watched a LOT of movies that i'm dying to write about. so let's start from the very beginning!

1. Miss Potter - Absolutely magical. I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. Its based on the life of a gutsy woman called Beatrix Potter who you've just got have heard about... Tom Thumb, Peter Rabbit - ring a bell?! If you liked Finding Neverland, I think you might like this too...

2. North Country - If you're looking to relax (and especially if you're a woman and looking to relax) don't watch this movie! It's a pretty serious movie that's based on a particular woman who files a case against a mining company for sexual harassment and gosh the things those men did, it really gets your blood boiling. I cried buckets for this movie so be warned.

3. Bridge to Terabithia – When I saw the trailers for this movie, I was pretty far from wanting to watch it but it’s actually not bad. Something about it made me feel like I’ve seen this before – I can’t quite figure out what it is…
4. Lagaa Chunari Mein Daag – Going out to watch a movie in Bangalore is no joke. I won’t get started on the mess this city is in due to all the Metro work and really what looks like pretty poor maintenance or planning and of course the most irresponsible drivers… Argh. Anyhow, I managed to convince my mum and aunt to go to Inox at Garuda Mall to watch Lagaa… with me. I liked it. I don’t think this is a movie for all. To some the storyline will seem pretty clichéd but actually it’s not your usual prostitute movie with all the “tumne is khandan ka naak kaat diya” dialogues (basically you’ve brought shame upon this family), we finally see some understanding, some love, acceptance and sharing of the plight of prostitution. Now THAT is a change from the rest if you think about it. I also LOVED the colour in the movie – it was colourful without necessarily being ostentatious. Rani looked gorgeous. Konkona – well there’s just no one like her. The bong babes - what can you say! ;) hee hee. Kunal – Ohhhh Kunal!! Even Abhishek Bachan looked good. And a happy ending… who can resist a happy ending. I’d say go watch it if you’re looking for a good “Bolly” movie. The songs, the dancing, the larger than life – it ought to lighten your heart. Watch the trailer here.
5. Breaking and Entering – Another of my brother’s downloads. It had Jude Law in it, so I couldn’t resist. Interesting characters, interesting storyline. Some bits got me confused and irritated just with the general stupidity of mankind. Have you ever watched a character do something stupid and yelled – “Why??? Why would you do that!?!” I have. At Jude Law, in this movie.
6. Sabrina – No, not the teenage witch, I’m talking about one of Audrey Hepburn’s classics. I just love that woman and it may seem strange but there’s something about black and white movies that colour doesn’t quite capture… Also stars Humphrey Bogart. I spent most of the movie trying to figure out where I have seen him before and then I finally figured it out - Casablanca (1942). "Here's looking to you, kid." If you haven't watched Casablanca, you ought to!

So you wanna change the world?...

...Well, what are you waiting for!?

Day three
Movies watched: 2 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. This book is still my favourite from the entire series and the movie just does the book no justice. But still I watched it, for the second time. It was playing on tv so... I need to go to the video shop sometime and also to the theatre to watch 'Lagaa Chunari mein Daag'. (I love Kunal Kapoor! and Of course Rani Mukherjee too... and Konkona Sen is also one of the best of Bollywood...) Oh, and I also just watched 'Surf's Up' ... cute movie. Total spoof on the whole reality show thing...
Minutes of treadmilling: 22 - Today I figured I can read while i'm walking which is good, cause treadmilling is actually REALLY boring unless you have some entertainment. It's like you walk kms and you don't actually get anywhere and the scenery doesn't change either...
Random thoughts: I'm really itching to go somewhere, experience life in a different way. That's one of the things I miss the most about school. If I think about it, I got to go to a lot of places from school. Be it class trips or voluntary trips. Orissa 2004 being the best. I want to do something like that again. Go and live with people the way they live in a village or something, do some hard work, sleep on the hard ground, shit in a hole. Maybe it doesn't sound like anything many would willingly do but man, it's in situations like those that you learn the most... Maybe next summer... Sorgie's interested too and he wants to make use of his newly aqcuired skills in hindi and I also want to go somewhere where I can actually speak to people so we're thinking North India but not yet sure what or with which organisation. If anyone has any ideas, do tell...
Song of the day: Well I have two today - 'What are you waiting for?' by Natalie Grant and 'Mountain of God' by Third Day ( I LOVE THIRD DAY!! This song is in WOW 2008)
Picture of the day: Courtesy of Sonu! I put some BLING BLING onto it! hee hee. This was taken in college some time back...

Free - in the greater sense.

Day two of holiday:

• Movies watched: 1 - 'Pan's Labyrinth'. Excellent, a little gruesome (I had to cover my eyes in some parts) but a beautiful story. It's a Spanish movie that was one of the Oscar nominees for the Best Film in a Foreign Language this year. ('The Lives of Others' in German won, which is also a great movie)
• Books completed: 0 - Still reading the Kim Edwards one. I figured last night what I really like about those stories are unusual and exotic settings... for example an American with his Korean war bride. Cultural diversity, she really brings it out nicely...
• Weight: I'm not going to tell you that! But I did check before I left Bombay and I'm hoping it'll reduce when I get back.
• Minutes of treadmilling (or treading the mill, baahaha, it's just shorter than saying walking on the treadmill): 20
• Song of the day: 'If you want me to' by Ginny Owen

The pathway
is broken

And the signs
are unclear

And I don't
know the reason why you brought me here

But just
because you love me the way you do

I'm gonna
walk through the valley

If you want
me to

Bring me a sweater

When it rains in Bombay, the temperature remains pretty much the same and it just gets stickier... when it rains here, it gets nice and cool.... I LOVE IT!

It's good to be home.

Oh, and I LOVE Mumbai airport! It's all new and jazzed up and spacious AND it has a Crossword which is my favourite book store. So I went there and I bought a book that's not on my list on books to read! Great going... It's the the 'Secrets of the Fire King' by Kim Edwards who also wrote this wonderful book called the 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter' which I had read during the Summer.

Secrets of the Fire King is a collection of short stories. I read two on the way here and they're pretty good.

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel got the Man Booker Prize in 2001, so there's got to be something about it, right?? Actually, I've only heard good reviews about it... Anyway, let's see if I get through my list far enough to read that one. I remember reading 'The Facts about the Helsinki Roccamatios' by Yann Martel which is a collection of short stories and I really liked it and his style of writing was appealing too...

Anyway, there are also some books lying around the house that I want to read so getting through my list looks pretty bleak at the moment. Sometimes just looking at Shantaram freaks me out! It is SOO huge!

We went a little crazy after finishing our exam on Friday and had a little photo-shoot... here are the results!

The longest week ever

It's STILL only thursday. This week seems to have been going on forever and I'm almost fed-up but I will not give up yet. Well, it's only french tomorrow and french is well french (don't worry if that doesn't make any sense). Last night, I was thinking about how great it is that I'm finally going home and I get a break from college for almost a month. The only bad thing is that I'm going to get a lot of thinking time again. I've been pretty good at blocking out thinking about stupid things these past few weeks cause of all the studying and well I just haven't had time, if I wasn't studying, I was sleeping or eating or laughing about the most random things (or stupid arguments, like a case of memory loss hahaha) with my friends and NOT thinking about some things that may bother me if I think about them. I'm obviously not going to tell you what they are, btw. :-P
I need to find things to do this holiday. For starters I have a list of books that I want to read:
1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (I have to read this for my book-club)







2. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (I started this a while ago but didn't get to finishing it)








3. The Life of Pi by Yann Martel







4. The witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho (its been a long time since I've read one of his books)







5. Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts







So my first trip out in Bangalore shall be to Crosswords! I probably won't end up reading all these books cause well, Shantaram and The Fountainhead are pretty sizeable books. But let's see I did manage to finish Gone with the Wind in like a week or something during the summer so anything is possible! ;)
I also want to watch a lot of movies but nothing comes to mind right now... Besides the 'Feast of Love' which is apparently a modern rendering of Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" which I love! Hopefully I might watch it this Saturday if I can convince the rest. Sonu is with me on this one, right?? PLEASE let's NOT watch Bhool Bhulaiya!! :S
I feel like watching some old movies, maybe some more Audrey Hepburn classics. I LOVE HER. I think I will also watch the other two parts of the Godfather while I'm at it. I actually liked the first one.
Oh, I CANNOT WAIT TO GET HOME!!! :D :D :D

Counting Down

Over the weekend, Deepak and Mr. Ruddock came to visit and I had the pleasure of spending Saturday afternoon with them (and also taking Deepak to my church on Sunday!)
Deepak came down from Pune where he is studying Science at Fergusson College. For the non-hebby's reading this, Deepak or a.k.a. "dada" and I went to school together in Ooty.
Mr. Ruddock came from Ooty where he went for drama week and now has gone off to some exotic country (the name of which I have forgotten. Mr. Ruddock was a history teacher at Hebron and I never studied history so I didn't really get to talk to him much at school so it was nice to have the chance. And actually under the thick Irish accent, he's a very very sweet old man who insists on paying your lunch bill! ;)
We had lunch (a pizza and chicken hakka noodles - don't ask why!) at this cafe at Colaba that I really like -Mondy's- and then after lunch we ventured to this island called "Elephanta Island" on a boat. The journey took about 45 mins and then we climbed many many stairs to see these caves and statues that are carved out of the rock there. It was quite interesting and was kind of nice to be trekking again (I also found out how totally UNFIT I am - I was literally panting which is not good, I lived in Ooty for five years, I should be able to climb hills!!)
Then we went back to the city through the ocean which is most unfortunately as polluted as is the city. There are soooo many ships out there dumping their dirty exhaust into the air and their oil into the water and of course the people of Bombay who have absolutely ZERO civic sense and throw all their garbage into the sea. It makes me SOOO mad. Meh. Anyway, let's not get started on that.
I'm half-way through my exams. So far so good. I've been studying quite a lot, just not sure if I'll get the results! Seriously, I can't remember being able to study this way, like ever. Not sure what changed. Actually even I don't get good results, this time atleast I can say, I really tried. Less distractions, I guess and of course, I believe God listens to my prayers and keeps me focused as well and somehow so far there haven't been any questions in my papers on which I have not studied at all.
Call it what you want, I call it 'Grace'.

Bah. Studying.

Yep, it's going great! ;) Lol.

World Non-Violence Day

What does that mean anyway?? Does it really serve any purpose?? We have soooo many days - St. Valentines' Day, World Peace Day, World Elder's Day, World Ice-cream Day (seriously now WHAT does that mean??) Mother's Day, Father's Day, Brother's Day, Granduncle's Day, Neighbours Day, My Fish Day... Okay so I made up the last few (and I love the fact that today being Gandhi Day or World Non-Violence Day means I don't have to go to college!!) but I mean, it's really bordering on ridiculous and why should there be a DAY to remind us of the things that we should be thankful for or be aware of EVERYDAY?? And how does non-violence day really initiate or encourage people of the concept anyway?? So we remember Mahatma Gandhi and his non-violent ways for today and the front page of the newspaper tells us to remember the importance of it but excuse me for being a cynic, I don't see what that DOES! We can talk and talk and talk about these things, where is the action? After a while these days just become tradition, aimless, fruitless, just another holiday.
Feel free to disagree :D
In other news, a couple of the girls in the hostel and I went to watch a movie called 'The Loins of Punjab' (I haven't mispelled it). It was one of those Indo-American movies with some swearing and sexual innuendos, but besides that, it was quite hilarious and quite sweet and quite cliche(or maybe prejudice is a better word here)-breaking which is the part that I liked the best, no, actually what I liked the best was the part where... wait, this might be a spoiler so I won't say it! ;)
Also, we got slaughtered by the aussies in Kochi today which is sad and I don't know what exactly happened cause I didn't watch the entire match but I was listening to the last part up until we hit a six and then we got caught out. Meh. Oh well, it's all in the game, I guess. ;) Yes, okay, well done Aussies!
More later,