If you are in Bangalore, do not miss this new movie 'Stumble' running in Symphony. The movie is very Bangalore centric and narrates the tale of a typical hardworking upper middle class family who are dragged into the lure of the new economy. The story jumpstarts into the bad days of the infotech economy of the city when everyone suffered or anticipated sufferings, and goes on to make an unsuccessful attempt show a dirty side of the money flow in and out of the system. Presented through the movie are plenty of humourous incidences, with a good mix of emotions. There is a panoramic(broad?) mix of various aspects of people's daily lives that a viewer may often tend to recognise with his or her own life. Fine lines in relationships in and outside the house, generation gap, pressures to perform, pressures of money, life and work are integrated well into the story line. The strongest point of the movie is that it is not a showcase of some amazing heroics that are not to be seen in real life, but a very realistic picturization of all kind of people trying to lead their lives in peace.
Anant Nag is at his usual best in the movie. Suhasini still retains her lively personality and seems to have a long way to go. Also starring are some familiar local names like Priya Ganapathi and Mukhyamanthri Chandru. A movie not to be missed.
I had been struggling for sometime to get the picture of a waterfall in a frozen form like this one. Finally got this after sunset, with an exposure of 3 seconds.
The waterfall is a popular place to visit in Coorg and is best done with a visit to Nagarahole national park and wildlife sanctuary. It is around 30 minutes drive from the park, and 80kms away from Madikeri.
Some people go any length to prove their low-liness. In Arkansas, a state in US, law prohibits execution of insane people. The workaround(nyt, registration required) they are doing is to drug the person to restore him and then execute!!! Now, who is insane?
Drivng into the city on Sunday night from Mysore was absolute fun. Having the company of big cars zooming on the road with little care for speed limits, and tailing them made the whole drive easy and pretty safe at any speed. Matching the energy of the big cars and many qualis' on the road and keeping in pace with them did not turn out to be an easy job. Remembered are the days when I was driving an Ikon, and on a stretch lasting more than 400kms into the city on a highway, we left fellow motorists high and dry and were dearth of match all the way, but for just one car which stayed on road for hardly fifteen minutes, and we had to let him lead only because he was often breaching the lines of safety....
Sometimes I wonder how people manage to sell something in a shop without even knowing what they are selling. A small conversation between me and a vendor at a computer shop:
Me: Namaskara
Vendor: Namaskara sir! What can I give you?
Me: I need some CDs
Vendor: What CDs shall I give? I have this and that and those blah blah...
Me: Give me Mitsubishi ones. Last time I had taken them.
They have a sleek case.
Vednor: Yes, I have Mitsubishi CDs. I have two types in that
brand - Blue and Gold
Me: How much?
Vendor: Gold is Rs.22; Blue is 20 bucks.
Me: What is special about Gold?
Vendor: It is Gold CD sir! Twenteee two rupees.
This one is a Gold CD. That is blue CD!
Since 2 more rupees was not a big deal, I was considering buying the Gold one if it had any better features. But it was apparent from what he said, that he had little knowledge about what was the big deal about the Gold one. Finally I decided to discover the difference myself and tried to study the features from the pack. Nothing was obvious. So I decided to take the blue.
Me: Okay, give me the blue ones. I want 5 CDs
And that closed the sale. The vendor did not even try a bit of marketing to convince me why I should go for the expensive ones. That set him back from making a sale of 10 more rupees(5*2) from me. Probably he must be missing a lot of sales everyday on many things like this. Why don't he just do a bit of homework and go home everyday a little more richer than he could be? At least for curiosity's sake, he should have asked the Mitsubishi guys about the gold CDs. Well, very content with what he has and what he gets, I guess.:-)
Excerpts from from 'A Gift of Wings' by Richard Bach.
***
"You'd better be careful what you pray for," somebody once said, "because you are going to get it."
...From time to time, when I was barnstorming the Midwest a few summers ago, a passenger or two would say, "What a great life you have, free to go wherever you want, whenever... Sure wish I could do it." Wistful, like that.
"Come along, then" I'd say. "You can sell tickets, keep the crowds behind the wing, strap the passengers into the front seat. We might make enough money to live on, we might go broke, but you're invited." I could say this, first because I could always use a ticket seller, and second because I knew what the answer would be.
Silence first, then, "Thanks, but you see, I've got my job. If it wasn't for my job, I'd go..." Which was only to say that each wistful one wasn't wistful at all, each had prayed harder for his job than for the life of a barnstormer.
..We always get what we pray for, like it or not, no excuses accepted. Every day our prayers turn into fact; whom we most want to be,we are...
***
As I was reading this, suddenly it seemed like all the questions that were eating me were resolved and the confusion in my mind cleared. But also courageous should the person be, who can grow up to pray for what he yearns, than what the world taught him to desire. We all are born in a world where we are taught to wish for, and be content with simple things in life, like a full time job, a place to live, a fixed routine of the day and eventually suckumb to a feeling of incompleteness and be left with a nagging desire to break free. Great are the people who pray not just for a living but a 'LIFE' and go on to live it to the fullest. I yearn to be like them and though stand much short of the courage to be so, hope to acquire it. And Bach, one of my revered heroes now stands much taller.
