Bangalore diaries - Open Air Theatre

I had heard about the concept of open air theatre but never experienced it. I always wanted to experience it and finally got the chance this Saturday. I was planning to watch Desi Boyz and my friend here suggested we go and watch it in the open air theatre. For both of us it would be the first time; so I booked the tickets for Saturday evening.

Ever since I have been in Bangalore it hasn’t been raining here, which was quite unusual as per the locals. And the rain gods decided to pay a visit this weekend. The moment I booked the tickets it started drizzling and continued throughout the weekend. We were wondering if the movie would be screened despite the rain. We decided to go anyways as the weather was quite pleasant in spite of the drizzle. The venue was some 15-20 kms from our place and we didn’t know the way. We started early.

The traffic wasn’t helping and nor was the drizzle as we moved in a slow pace. But since we had given ourselves a big margin we didn’t worry too much. It took us more than 2 hours to reach the venue. There was some marriage going on nearby which had added to the traffic. We asked the parking guard about the exact place of the movie. He said the movie is cancelled because of the rain. We wondered if we had come all the way just to collect the refund. We located the ticket counter and found that the movie was on. We parked our car and went in.

The scene looked wonderful. There was a big screen which was playing some old movie for the time being. In front of the screen at some distance there were some 10-15 rows of mattresses. There were people covering them and putting a couple of pillows on each mattress. After the rows of mattresses ended the rows of sofas started. The sofas looked good and could seat 2 to 3 people comfortably. In the middle of the sofas was the projector tent which was used to show the movie on the screen. On the far side there were 2 food outlets – one for popcorn & soft drinks and the second for cakes, pastries, samosas, sandwiches, etc. Overall the setup looked pretty good and we had already started enjoying.

Just as the movie was about to start, it started raining. Luckily there was a covered area at the back. The organizers had put chairs there as a backup plan. And soon everyone was in the cover. The movie started. As the rain stopped people started moving to the mattresses and sofas. We too went to the sofa, got a blanket to cover the wet seat and started enjoying the movie. It started raining again. I was in a mood to keep sitting there in the rain and watch the movie. But my friend had other ideas. So we moved back to the covered area. But most of the people had settled down well and didn’t come to the covered area. We had some snacks as well – samosas, cake, kebab, roll and coffee. The coffee didn’t taste like coffee, but it was hot and good in the weather. It was getting cold and my friend had put on jacket and covered up in blanket to keep warm. I was however enjoying the weather (for a change).

Overall it was a wonderful experience, something I would like to do again.

My eating habits

My friends know me for my eating habits. Mostly for all the wrong reasons i.e. I don’t eat this I don’t eat that. In fact whoever has eaten with me once would definitely know I don’t eat capsicum at all. And call it co-incidence that whoever’s house I visit for the first time for lunch or dinner, the menu for the day includes capsicum – either already prepared or about to be prepared. So I explicitly have to call out at the time of invitation that kindly do not prepare capsicum. And still I often end up having capsicum as part of the menu on my first visit.

One of my friends asked me to prepare a list of things I like and dislike. I was like “What?”. But she didn’t budge. So I sat down to make a list. And believe me it wasn’t as easy as I thought. First of all remember all food items, and then group them into – Do not eat, Like, Okay and Dislike. I did make the list and send it to my friend. But before I talk about the contents of the list let me see how many of you could actually guess the list :)

Bangalore diaries - Passing time

Its been sometime now in Bangalore and I think I am getting used to the life here. The one thing that prevents me from going all out in settling here is the fact that I know it is temporary. I will be going back to my home soon. And so it doesn't drive me to go out explore the locale for day to day needs, to know the neighbourhood, to make friends around. In short it doesn't drive me to know Bangalore as a place to stay but just a place for temporary station.

Lets see what all I can do here. Apart from office work I think I can do absolutely anything. I mean I can literally do anything I want to. There are no restrictions to follow, no routines to carry, no one to answer to. I have always thought about the things I would do if I ever get into such a scenario. And not that I am actually in that scenario I have no clue what to do. I mean there are things I would like to do but I something is stopping me from doing them. Some I fear I will not be able to do, some I am sure I won't be able to do, some I don't think is the right thing to do and some I somehow don't feel like doing. So I guess it leaves just one thing to do - do nothing. And if I somehow manage to do nothing then what will I do. Sounds confusing? Doesn't it? Well that's exactly where I am stuck. I want to do absolutely nothing but need something to pass time. Thinking about it would lead me to something called a cyclic dependency which is heading towards a deadlock.

Does it mean a routine life a better than this life? Does that mean having restrictions is better than having no restrictions? Does that mean it is good to have someone answerable? I am not sure if I could answer them in boolean i.e. plain yes and no. It is probably human tendency to want things they don't have and when they get those they don't want it. And I am no different. There are actually a few things I definitely want to do. And I have everything to do them. But somehow I don't feel like doing it. Nothings preventing me from doing it, yet something is preventing me from doing to it.

I don't think I will be able to figure out what is preventing me. The options left to me are either I drop the idea, or I do it no matter what, or I take some more time to think about it. The third option seems to be the easiest thing to do which is what I am going to choose most likely, at least for now. Wait and watch. Keep thinking about what to do and pass the time. I am sure the mind will be fed up with all this and decide the course of action. I just hope I have more patience that my mind...

Rockstar

Finally watched Rockstar today. I would say it was a decent watch. The songs and music was superb – thanks to A R Rehman and Mohit Chouhan; they have simply put an awesome performance. Ranbir Kapoor has done a wonderful job except the initial stages where in I found him on the verge of over acting. The heroine I felt was disappointing. But overall Imtiaz Ali has done a nice job with execution of the movie. And Khatara bhai deserves a special mention.

There were certain aspects of the movie that really touched my heart. One of them was when the heroine was getting married she asks Ranbir to come to Prague. Did she really mean it? I don’t think so. But Ranbir had registered it in his mind and was ready to sign any contract to go to Prague when he got a chance. Of course he didn’t give a damn about the contract. He didn’t realize initially that he was in love. And he never said so in the entire movie. But he felt that.

Another such instance is when the girl says we shouldn’t be doing it as it isn’t the right thing to do. But she knew she wanted to do it. Ranbir has been projected as someone who doesn’t give a damn what people think. You have to be actually that crazy to be in love. Most people don’t have that courage to do what they want.

Shammi Kapoor plays a nice role in the movie. The scene where he is playing the shehnai along with Ranbir who is playing his guitar speaks a lot. Ranbir had made fun of classical music by calling it monotonous. Shammi Kapoor proves Ranbir wrong not by defending himself but by playing different tunes with shehnai which makes Ranbir realize his mistake. When Ranbir stops playing guitar he actually acknowledges Shammi Kapoor without saying anything. The execution of the movie is brilliant.

If I look back at the movie I don’t think I would mind watching it again. Putting it in my friend Manas’s words I actually liked the movie for certain reasons. And I guess what I think the movie conveys is that you should rather do what you want to rather than do what seems to be the right thing to do. You have one life and it’s better to live it the way you want rather than living it the right way. It actually resembles a line said by Mark Twain “20 years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do, than by the one’s you did do. So throw off the bow line. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream Discover”. I wish GOD gives everyone the courage to do what they want.

To quote from the movie "Kyun sach ka sabak sikhaye jab sach sun bhi na paye..."

A goldfish that disturbed my sleep

“How can the alarm ring so early” I wondered in my sleep as I tried to locate my phone. I had been woken from a deep sleep. As I grabbed my phone I realized it wasn’t the alarm but the phone was actually ringing. I rubbed my eyes and read the name of the caller. It was a friend of mine. I took the call.

“Can you hold a fish?” she asked.

I asked “What?” still trying to make sense.

“A parasite has got on my goldfish and I doubt if it will survive till morning. I need to remove the parasite from its fins and for that I need to hold the goldfish”

I was beginning to understand things.

“But I can’t hold the fish” she continued “Can you hold the fish”

Her voice was serious and concerned. I hadn’t held a fish ever and the thought of holding a fish that was alive was a little scary. But as my friend was so concerned I said “I haven’t done that ever but I can try”.

She probably sensed my anxiety and asked for any other way by which she could hold the fish without hurting it. I suggested her a few ways and she said she would call me in sometime.

I looked at the watch. It was 1:34 AM. She was still awake and googling goldfish. She was concerned for her goldfish as her other goldfish had died a few days back. What she assumed to be baby fish turned out to be parasites and were actually killing the goldfish. The goldfish had come to the bottom of the jar and stayed there mostly which made my friend try and find out why it was doing so.

While I waited for her call I was wondering how am I going to hold the goldfish. If she didn’t find a way to get rid of the parasite I would actually have to hold the goldfish. The thought was a little worrying but I couldn’t have said NO.

The phone rang. She seemed relieved. She had managed to remove the parasite. She said “I used two pencils to hold the goldfish and removed the parasite using a toothpick. Now my goldfish is swimming freely”

I said “Cool. By the way why are you awake so late?”

“Koi kaam to hota nahi hai aapse ab baat karne ki fursat hai. So jao aap” she replied

All I could say was “Ok. Good night.”

This happened last night. Today morning she said that the goldfish was swimming happily and even took feeds from her hand. She was pretty happy. And in the afternoon she bought 3 more fishes to give company to her goldfish.

For those who like keeping fishes here’s a useful link in case they face similar situation as my friend - http://factoidz.com/keeping-tropical-fish-in-an-aquarium-how-to-use-salt-in-killing-protozoan-parasites-plus-an-amazing-video/ She used this link to find out the problem and then sorted it out. In the process she befriended her goldfish. Cheers to her goldfish…

Mind games the Mind plays

The mind is so powerful and yet it keeps playing such petty games. It makes you do great things and it keeps you from doing the simple things. It makes one climb the Everest while it makes one fear cockroaches. It makes things look so simple but prevents you from doing it. It makes the same food taste different at different times. It makes you say things which it feels is necessary and makes you regret after you have said it. It makes you support a point while talking to someone and makes you go against the point while talking to someone else.

The mind makes you believe things will be fine and then makes everything look like a mess. The mind asks you to accept things as they are and then challenges you to bring change. It says you to keep your life simple and then complicates it by increasing your needs.

The mind has the power to complicate the simplest of things and to simplify the most complicated things. I seem to be saying the same thing over and over again. Well my mind seems to have decided to play with me. It is really messing around and I don’t know what to do. It starts with a question and helps me come to a conclusion. We (I and my mind) are on the same page. We decide on the next steps and when it is all settled it pops up a question – “Are you sure?” I am like “We finalized it together and now you doubt it. Come on man you can’t do this”. It doesn’t reply because it knows it already did it.

I can hear it giggling and I shout at it “What the hell are you doing man? Are we not supposed to be one? I mean you are part of me; you should help me; not confuse me.”

No answer. More smiles.

“I can do without you dude.”

More smiles.

“Shut the hell up. Will you?”

Smile continues.

“Go to hell”

It stops smiling. At least I think so. But that doesn’t ease the situation. I know as well as it does that this is going to happen again. Probably this is why wise men have said that one should try and control one’s mind. They could have given a guidebook for the same but instead they gave many guidebooks. Go figure for yourself which one to follow. I think I will patch up with my mind.

Bangalore diaries - the first weekend

My first weekend in Bangalore turned out to be quite good. After the not so good first 4 days here I was looking at the weekend with a lot of hope. Things didn’t start too well as my friends here had other plans and I was to spend the day with me with nothing to do. I didn’t want to spend the entire day in hotel so I decided to explore the nearby areas. I asked the hotel staff for some nearby place that I could visit and he told me to go to Forum mall. He gave me the directions to reach the mall. I had to change a bus at Kundalahalli Gate (might still have got the spelling wrong) to reach the mall. I had already been to the mall for lunch twice and wasn’t too excited but still decided to go there as it also had a movie hall. I wanted to watch Rockstar but that was planned with a friend for Sunday. So I bought the tickets for the next available movie which turned out to be Immortals. It was a decent movie. After the movie spent some time in the mall and came back to the hotel following the same route. I didn’t want to have dinner at the hotel but there wasn’t another option. I switched on the TV, logged in to the internet browsing some sites. Then my friend called asking about my dinner plans. Since I hadn’t had my dinner my friend came to pick me up and we went to my friend’s house. It was the first time I had a cup of home made tea – it was wonderful. Then had Palak Dal for dinner and luckily it was my favourite dal. We spoke about certain things and it was time well spent. I also came to know that my friend had already watched Rockstar with someone else ditching me. We decided to meet the next day for breakfast and go some place.

Sunday morning started as expected. I called my friend who was still asleep and said wouldn’t be joining for breakfast, but would meet around noon. We met around 12:30 and proceeded towards my friend’s friend’s house. It was around 30-40 mins drive and I was asked to drive. The car being new it took a little time to get used to the car. But I must say driving in Bangalore is not fun at all. As soon as the car picks up speed a speed-breaker greets you. We reached the friend’s place and had a wonderful lunch. Then when my friend enquired about the places to visit in Bangalore we got the response as “There are no places to visit in Bangalore. But there are lots of places around Bangalore.” That came as a shock as I expected Bangalore to have some decent places to visit. We finally decided to go to Lal Bagh. It was a nice place to spend time with friends although it had nothing spectacular about it. The drive to Lal Bagh was awesome though thanks to GPS and blocked roads.

While returning from Lal Bagh my friend wanted to have momos and samosa – a deadly combo. No one knew a place where they could get samosas but they knew a place where we could get momos. We reached the place only to find that momos were out of stock. Awesome. We had a cup of tea and some pakoras instead. We then headed to my firend’s friend’s home. On the way they found a place where they got samosas which pleased my friend. We had a game of Monopoly. The international monopoly was quite different from the game I had played in my childhood. I ended up having the most number of cards, the least amount of money and the highest rent payer. We had soupy noodles for dinner and bid goodbye to my new friends. I and my friend drove back and thankfully I wasn’t driving this time. We had a decent discussion on the way and to continue it further went to my friend’s house. We had ice tea and a long discussion.

Overall it turned out to be a decent weekend and the first time I actually liked Bangalore in my entire time here.