Booscuthalaa - Untying the Knots

"Let's go out today evening. It's saturday after all" "Sure, movie at night?" "Yes! Panchatantiram has released!~ We must catch it today. The reviews are good" "Dinner outside?" Enga polaam? "Singapore Komalas? Their Hakka noodles is awesome!" "You guys should go to PalmGrove! It's a bit old fashioned but it's such a good slide of Old Madras that you MUST experience for sure" "I need to buy some CDs and also the latest Harry Potter book. Let's head to Landmark first "Hey then let's go to NewYorkers for lunch at Nungambakkam High Road. Yummy Italian Veggie food. I've been waiting to try it for long" "Full day outing aa appo?" "Why not?".. 

 “Hi! It’s been sooo long. I’m so happy you’ll finally made it to dinner” “I know! This year once things slowly started to open up, it’s been a crazy set of dinner hopping! Esplly with navarathri and Deepavali!” “Of course! Can I get you some water first?” “Sure!” “Have you seen the view from outside our window” “Wow! That’s beautiful! I can’t believe it’s the same city we live in” “Right? It was the biggest selling point of this place for us. The hill looks so lovely from here and especially on days when it’s raining, it’s so misty and incredibly beautiful!” Trrrringgg....  “Let me see who this is...” “Hey Raghu!!! Ehh... great to see you.. how are you? Hi Malini! Pl come in...” “Oh hi.. nice to see you... no wonder it’s been raining today. What a surprise” After some quiet talk among the women, “Ram - just realized - I had invited then home next week but they thought it’s this week. Eh... I’m so sorry” “ No problem .. the more, the merrier”  Do we have plates?  Don’t worry we have en

 I was surely wondering how Sudha Kongara can make an engaging film out of Captain Gopinath's aviation entrepreneurship journey. When seen at face value, it just seems like an underdog story which can be inspiring but hardly 'massy' to work across all centres in a state like TamilNadu. However, time invested in writing can never be overestimated. Over 2 years and several drafts (over 50 is what I heard) have clearly given the film an earthiness and relatability that is not at all easy to achieve for such a core plot.  All controversies about the caste angle kept aside, I really liked the setup of a protagonist from Sholavandan which is very close to Madurai where I hail from. The story of making trains stop in this small non-descript town struck an in instant chord. During several trips from Chennai to Madurai or the other way around, I have been extremely annoyed at why the train needs to halt at this small station just a few minutes away from the Madurai Central Station.

 "I don't want to learn to cycle. It's so exhausting to learn" "You just have to keep practising. You're gonna get it one day" "But when will that one day come? I"ve been struggling for ages" "Don't give up. Come on, let's practise now for some time" "It's extremely hot. It's 4pm. I don't want to go out now"  "You can do it. I'll be around with you. I won't scold you" "That's unbelievable. You will start shouting the moment I start cycling" (Unspoken thoughts) "Ok let's go.... "  After 10 mins that seem like it's 10 years,  "I told you - don't leave me alone. And you did exactly that. Look at this!" (pointing to a bleeding gash) "These things happen if you want to learn. You know what - you almost did it, just before you went down, you were by yourself for quite a few minutes"  "Aaaaaaaaa......"

 It's hard to believe that 2020 is drawing to a close. It's been quite a saga, hasn't it? I'm still happy that we managed to make most festivals in the 2nd half of the year quite fun with Phase 2 here in Singapore. Come to think of it, I've never had such a social Deepavali in years. Decades? Maybe.  So here, fireworks are allowed as far as they are not noisy. We did face some disappointments with that constraint, however - I realized just getting together with friends over lots of home-made food and chatting can make for a satisfying Deepavali too. We even had a formulaic Deepavali release in the form of the much delectable Soorarai Pottru that surely added to the festive movie-watching spirit.  We do have our favorite brands when it comes to fattening snacks but nothing like when it's home-made I guess. Am not judging but still I really can see (& taste) the difference when it's made at home. There is so much that the process of making bakshanam adds t

 “What are we making for Deepavali this time?” “Paati is with us this time. She’s so good at making bakshanam. It’s going to be a great Deepavali food-wise” “Thengaai barfi, Mixture, Ribbon Pakoda” “I’m also going to try Mysore Paagu this time. There’s a nice recipe I spotted on Kalki last week” “There’s this recipe for coconut balls we can make with Milkmaid it seems. So fast and so yummy”  “Also some Paal Boli. We will make it in advance and put it in the chiller. It will stay good for quite a few days” “As usual, some gulob jamun” “Are we getting crackers?” “Yes there’s a box I’m getting at work. That should be good enough” 

 "Let's prepare for an Open Day in our colony" "What's that?" "So, you could have a lot of performances lined up one after the other. A little bit of drama, music and dance. An english skit and a tamil skit. There could be a finale which is a Punjabi Daler Mehendi number" "Sounds exciting. Where are we going to do it?" "Of course at R uncle's place. They have such a large frontyard - it looks like it was almost meant for such shows no?" "When are we going to do it? How long will the entire show go on for?" "Maybe on a saturday evening. Let's start planning first. The plots for the skits, the cast, the songs for the dances" "We should practise meticulously everyday. Morning 10 to 12 and then again in the evening 4 to 6. It's going to be the best show ever performed in a colony"

  “Why didn’t you do it well? There was so much time you had to prepare”  “It was such a tough question paper. All the questions were so twisted”  “It’s just that you didn’t prep well. Don’t blame the question paper. How much did Harish and Vinoth get” “I don’t know. I don’t care” “Wait till you reach home. You’ll get good” “Just stop it. It was just so difficult. I don’t even like this subject”  “I’m going to devise a tougher model exam question paper for you next toke even before your actual exam. So if you do that well, no other paper can be tough for you” “!!!!”

An utterly refreshing watch! There has been a lot of criticism on how this is such a designed-for-upper-class kind of an anthology and I agree with that point. However, I wouldn't call that out as a point of criticism. It is the point-of-view of a certain set of people. Everyone's been raving about the houses too - especially the one in 'Reunion' - Rajeev Menon's film with Gurucharan and Andrea. Recently discovered that the location is actually a restaurant 'Madras Square'. It's open architectural style reminded me of Howard Roark and Ayn Rand. Very inspiring visually! Our personal favorite was clearly Ilamai Idho Idho. While Jayaram completely nailed the Yoga Master pretense, Kalidas and Kalyani's cutesy moments stole the show. Sudha Kongara's got such amazing skills in weaving melting romantic stories. Really looking forward to Soorarai Pottru after this one. None of the other stories really lived up to the hype of their creators according to m

 This was such an engrossing watch on Netlfix recently. After several months of dormancy, this was one series that pulled me into it - perhaps the concise 3 episodes season design played its part. There was a lot of noise even before the show went on air with apparently Mallya claiming that the show is full of lies & mis-interpretations. So, by the time the show went live on Flix, it had piqued a lot of interest. How much India has changed and evolved over the past 20-30 years. The series captures this so well. Across the 3 episodes, Bombay and Bangalore and some of most influential personalities from these cities come to the fore. While we have read a lot about the 'bad boys' in the news, what the series delivered very well is a more balanced & nuanced perspective of the story. It's true that all these 'boys' started out with very ambitious notions which seem to have worked very well upto a point. In the process, there are millions of lives that they have t

 As we start learning any art form, the teacher takes the center stage - also widely articulated as the Guru commonly in India. In some sense, a good guru becomes Godly, is rightly deified by the disciples. This is so normal with respect to the arts. I love those gurus who don't just teach and criticize but also appreciate their students! However, this is not true just for the arts but for so many other spheres as well. Career mentors are an often overlooked set of guru and whose values we realize much later than we should have. In some ways, I think we surrender to these gurus / mentors - in a very discrete but open way, but how importatn these conversations can turn out to be. More on this later... -

 So what's next? It's almost nerve-wracking to see that the US presidential election's counting is finally drawing to a close. What are we going to be discussing about next? Our lives are going to be filled with the void for a few days - maybe go back to Covid discussions?! Sometime in Feb this year, Covid conversation openers started. You know what I'm referring to. It was quite a rage for a few weeks. In our neigborhood in Singapore, the numbers started with  14 /15 per day. We panicked, moved to India for a few days (Am so thankful we did that trip in mid-Feb!) & returned in late Feb. Only to discover that the numbers in Singapore soon moved to the 100s and & in no time, 1500 per day was the average. Italy and USA numbers warmed up discussions in this phase. India threw every other country out of the chart. IPL took over next (for the cricket enthusiasts mostly) and Biden vs Trump followed up. What's next, what's next .....

 Nothing motivates me as much as having to deal with a deadline. Especially at work. Gives the much needed adrenaline rush to get things done. It's a shame, isn't it? But it works! As I keep procrastinating working on a project just driven by inertia (!) - these deadlines ring the alarm bell and pull me to the finish line. I often ruminate how much better things would be had I started working earlier on them.  Deadlines always take me to my IIM Days when a 11:59:59 deadline was the norm. You could really feel the feverish excitement / nervousness in the hostel lobbies as time inched towards the new day. Of course, there was a lot of disincentive when we didn't meet deadlines, so we tried really hard to.   We mostly struggle with keeping to deadlines in the non-work space. Though I've been singing for long, I hadn't performed for more than 30 min at a stretch in a really long time - decades. As I revived my music lessons in the past few years, I realized I had to tak

Interviewing -  That’s really a skill. Only a few do it very well. Maybe the more empathetic ones. I think the interviews we catch online these days are primarily based on creating sensationalism and click baits. And then there are the grilling interviews and noise pollution based debates. if you’re Tamil, you think of Rangaraj Pandey. If you follow national media- Arnab is shouting in your ears now.  So what are some of the defining features of a good interview.  1. Question to understand- In good interviews, A response mostly leads to a connected question or the part B of the question. This doesn’t imply that one needs to probe and probe. I’m just saying that an interviewer needs to listen and try to ask questions in an organic manner instead of trying to complete a prepared question paper.  2. Showcase the personality - Most celebrities resonate with certain aspects of their personality that are always in the limelight. A well researched interview often extracts more from them in a

I was chatting with a cousin a few days back and one thing she said stuck to me. The prevalent perception that talent is inborn. The other school of thought is that if you put in the hours, you can accomplish what seemed impossible at first. I used to subscribe to the 'talent is inborn' theory initially but I feel I've now become a convert. I've come to learn through these years that passion and the will to master a skill supersede innate talent that one may be genetically blessed with. I see so many artistes around me who have taken on something, worked on it & reached a certain respectable level - music, dance, running, design, photography. I realize that while growing up, a constant reference to a lack of inborn talent while trying to learn an art /skill can be quite a confidence-dampener for someone who's trying.Good lesson learnt no?

The one thing I've really missed in the last couple of months is the social interaction that happens in office. I never thought I would feel this way. The corridor talk, chit chats over lunch or tea, bumping into colleagues from other teams & just smiling - makes a lot of difference, doesn't it? I'm someone who draws energy from others, from a general sense of restlessness around me and this atmosphere of a physical office is what I yearn for now. Not to forget the 'me time' I used to get during my cab ride in the morning to work and the leisurely return ride by the public bus. Hopping into a store in the mall on the way before I board the bus, listening to my favorite songs during the 20 min ride - & so on. The simplest things are the ones we miss the most . Hey Vaccine - Come fast, I need my bus ride back!