Book review – The Alchemist

“Hi my beloved heart, are you listening?“

If ever you wondering whether I have gone nuts, no, I haven’t. I am just following what “The Alchemist” preaches. The book, written by Paul Coelho puts forward the quote “Follow your dreams”. I got the book for just Rs. 195 in exchange for gift vouchers I had with me. I had heard about this book long ago, but I was not into following the dreams that time. Rather I thought its about self-inspirational and motivational theme, the genre which I felt I ‘d never need. But having no other option than to get myself busy with some thing or the other, I starting reading about the alchemist and travelled along with The Boy in his journey.

There are several good quotes in the book, which are thought provoking and which provides the insight into the reality. Till the middle of the book, the quote which lingers around is the one which rhymes like, “When you work towards achieving your dreams, the entire universe conspires to help you to succeed”.For a second, I thought how the universe has helped me in achieving my dreams, when all I see is shattered dreams. Then again I tried to justify whether, what has happened is it what I dreamt of. I still don’t have an answer. Or maybe I am reluctant to accept the fact?

The book also speaks of love as part of the Soul of the world. Most of the religions and their practices speaks of spreading love and to love thyself and others. But I have not liked the way, the love story evolves in the book. The normal boy meets girl-love at first sight-kinda scenarios I can never accept, and I can never believe in it. But I do accept the quote it says, “listen to your heart as it speaks the truth”.

There are many more instances in the book, which makes us reminds of the old wise sayings of our elders. About life, about following our dreams, about reality, about the difficulties to face, about the omens we see, and especially, about relying on our heart and self. The strange thing is this book, as far to me, never portrayed about the emotional conflict and the social aspect we need to follow in the life.

There are many reviews online about this book, which speaks on and on about the inspiring quotes and how the book made an impression on them and all. This review provides some of the quotes provided in the book, while the wikipedia enlists the whole story in the form of summary.

Rating: 8/10

Lessons from management books

These days, I am interested in management books, which provides more insight into living life more beautifully. I came across many books, some of them which I read, some which I skipped, and some which are halfway. Of all, I liked the most till now, “The Present” by Dr.Spencer Johnson. The current one I have started with is the “Power of Subconscious mind” (will post the review soon once I finish it). There was also another book I recently bought from a book fair, called “FISH for life“.

In almost all books, I feel the first and foremost point advised is to enjoy the present.Make it fun or serious or with full concentration. But whatever it is, enjoy the time each and every moment. You can enjoy it by choosing what to do each moment, whether to help out or be helpful, or do something productive with utmost concentration etc. This somewhat relates to ‘follow your heart’ policy, or rather the subconscious mind (you can also call it intuition I guess). But how does the intuition thoughts get developed? “The Present” book says it all deals with the past.

Decision-making or having certain views rather called as attitude is developed from prior experience or the learned knowledge. Its this attitude or these decisions which makes your present more beautiful. You can find this saying everywhere : ‘learn from the past’. Indeed, every moment, we live comprises of the moments we lived on in the past, and it hits you like anything, creating an emotional turmoil. But its up to us, to choose how to live the current moment. You can brood over thinking over the past and get moody or dull, or you can remind yourself to move forward and work towards the future.

Attitudes can be for the moment you live or for the entire life. Just enjoying the present life will soon make you bored if there are no goals. Now, this goals can be either achieving your dreams, or some tasks you feel you should be completed in near future. This planning for future is not mentioned much in FISH book. Even in any interview, you can find yourself answering the questions of short-term goals and long-term goals. But how do we achieve them? They say you can make a realistic flexible plan to attain your goals. Does that mean some kind of compromise, by the word realistic? I guess it does. But if we were such a master minds to create a plan and follow them shouldn’t we be Gods? I guess that’s where the past experience and knowledge comes into matter.

“The Present” is very simple and does not drag at all. Its a just 100+ pages book which can be finished of within a hour or two by avid readers. For me, it was a simple inspirational book to read in my train journey en route home..

Book Review – The Marriage by Timeri Murrari.

A simple book. I felt it like a film. This story takes place in England. There are two parallel tracks, one is about the love story of Leela and Roger and the other is the problems faced by Leela’s father, Tekchand in the factory he works for. Both tracks are described beautifully and independently by the author. And towards the end, it has a grasping twist which lasts an strong impression in your heart for a while…

I liked the book for the detailed description of the author in simple words of the pain felt by residents living outside India. The small small simple things about India and its land and the traditional living, for which its famous for. The book is written long back I guess, and I can see the reflections of the old traditions and customs of the times of the farmers and landlords. The difficulties in earning for your family doing small jobs abroad and all..

The book also portrays the feelings and emotions of a young girl. A growing woman in her initial stage, struggling with the traditional values and also with her dreams and wishes. Though the place is different, I guess it could be felt by any girl living with the family far from their village home town, say, even in any metro city.

To say as flaws, I did not find any, except that the work trouble may not be liked the present generation, who does not think of the simple village life, but instead prefers to settle abroad…Hence altogether, i would give 8/10 for this sweet novel.

Film review – Mozhi….

I had been wanting to see this Tamil film from so long. Everyone said its a good film, but I could watch it only recently.If you ask me the story, its a simple one in which the hero is a jovial guy who falls in love with a dumb and deaf neighbour girl. There is nothing special about it to write an essay on it, but, at some points, you feel you are lifted towards the world of silence. In which only actions speaks; the sign language. The screenplay was good. The ending is easily predictable again, but the way it is portrayed, is different.

The film speaks of the different perspectives of the heroine who is dumb and deaf. It tries to explain what is “Mozhi” (words/speech/talk) in her view, what or how does music sounds to her. Apart from the main character, there are few characters which reveals the essence of revealing out the hidden buried pains in our minds. And how it affects our decisions and minds, in our day-to-day life. It asks us to weep out the pains instead of suppressing all our anguish and sorrows so that our mind is free… Also shown is the moving on in life by some people, though tragedy occurs in their life. To be short, an attempt to portray some trivial things of life… I liked only one song of the film, so music not that outstanding. The story spreads to too many lives of persons and is not complete with respect to one person.

Overall a rating of 7.5 to 8 out of 10.

NB: And the interesting point in this film was the main lead girl’s name was Archana!!!

Film review – Chak De India – Oye! Chak de!

It was a pleasant experience watching this film in the big screen of Six degrees theatre at Sathyam Cinemas, last weekend. Shahrukh Khan was rocking and dashing and smashing in this new role of a coach of Indian Women Hockey Team. I guess the reviews are already spread all over internet, mentioning the amazing and superb performance of the girls and SRK n all.

For me, it was a different movie from the usual love soaps. The character was inspirational and motivational to overcome the challenges and difficulties of the life, be it in a hockey team or in our individual lives. It was released at the apt time, when India celebrates its Independence Day. Its the second film of SRK which depicted and enhanced India as whole, the first film being Swades. At some points of the film, I felt the message being portrayed as, Where there is a will, there is a way. The music and background score also was inspiring and matching with the screenplay, though not so rocking. The 16 girls has given an impressive performance, almost most of them are new to the film industry I guess, but you don’t feel that they are new or just actors in the film. They feel like the-girl-next-door and you feel their victory as yours. The ending was easily predictable, but surely, its a one-time watch, and even watchable twice, for the tickling comedy!!

Altogether I would rate this movie an 8.5, though it would reach upto 9, if the second half was intriguing and better.

Film review – Life in a Metro

The film by Anurag Basu and UTV indeed represents mixture of emotions, relations, feelings, race for money, diminishing love, dependency along with filmy drama at the end in some stories. The few things I did not like was the tragic end in some stories and the projection of sacrifice by women. The dialogues were good and bare enough to leave an imprint. Nowadays I am really inspired by the words everywhere, be it in song lyrics or that of the film dialogues.
- “Is sheher ne mujhe bahut strong bana diya hai” – We feel we are strong but when the truth is city life is just weakening our soul.
- “Ye koi morning walk nahi hai, this is a race” – So true. People are running so fast in their life, not because they want to run, but as life is demanding that nowadays. Everyone has dreams to build on, and they just are running to attain the goals, without giving importance to the paths.
- The situation of Dharmendra’s character at the end regretting his decisions of life. We think we take the right decision based on the constraints we have and stick to it, but at some point of time, we do regret some of our decisions, but time might have flew away leaving us with no other option than to move on.
- People are craving for love and for someone who can really love them, and end up in some complicated relations woven to form a mess from which its hard to break free.
- “Unless you take out your car to the road, you wont know what capabiliities it has” – Take a chance in your life. So true…
- “Always go with your heart than mind so that you don’t have to regret later” – Aaah!! This is my favourite which really substantiate my view towards life!!

An overall rating of 8.5/10 for the theme, songs, character portrayal and all, which would increase upto 9 had not been for the melodrama of Monty and Shruti at the end.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention about Deep’s review and I agree it to be irritating when rock band is showing up everywhere…

Film review – Spiderman – 3

Yesterday, watched the Spiderman 3 in PVR cinemas Bangalore. It was not as fancy and thriller as expected, but still I liked several aspects of the movie. I agree, there were several flaws in the screenplay and the story itself. Moreover it was too complicated with so many characters, and especially with no explanation of the black crawling substance. I had liked Tobey Maguire in the Spiderman-1 film, and had almost become a fan of his, but now, not more. He indeed looks no more special, but M J (Kirsten Dunst) still looks cute and like the girl-next-door.
The main thing i like is the theme and the tagline: “The greatest battle lies within”. Exactly true. I guess this time, the director was overcome with emotions just like me and made the film, with a sentimental touch for the youth, who is ready to embark life on its own.

The symbolic representation of aggression, jealousy, revenge, in the form of black substance and the struggle within Peter to get out of it, gaves away the simple message that only you have the control of yourself. Though it is not clear why the sound of bells remove them. Symbolising church and evil n all???!

Few points of the film which really captured my heart:
* It is easy to bind, but hard to unbind – Yup! All the evil thoughts are easy to get into our thoughts, but very hard to rule them out.
* Each person is made of choices they make, and every person has the right to choose how to live their life – Life is indeed full of choices, and decisions, which we are supposed to make over time.
* Every one needs helps at some point, even the spiderman needs help – Each human being and even the strongest man needs help at some point in their life.
* Not all bad persons as are bad from heart. Its again the bad choices they made at some point in their past. The sandman chose bank robbery for saving his daughter’s life.
* A man needs to prepare himself for marriage by understanding his priorities. (I love Peter’s aunt so much!! )

But all these did not made the Spiderman 3 worthwhile as the first two in the series. The first and second was the real spiderman with stunning editing and photography and screenplay, while in the third, I guess, they tried to incorporate a bit of realism and ended up messing it.To cut short, the third in the series is meant not for fantasy but instead an attempt at family and individual values.
Overall rating of around 6.5/10

Hollywood vs Bollywood!

Lot many people I know are fans of Rock, Pop, Trance and other music. Also the Hollywood movies. They say its an awesome movie. Beautiful editing and storyline blah blah… I seldom watch English movies for one n only reason that, its hard for me to understand the dialogues!! But another thing I noticed is, all these people blame the Bollywood and regional films sometimes saying they are crap and boring and contains only masala and mushy stories… The Hollywood is well advanced I agree, but why do we forget that our people are also trying its best in Indian Film industry. The good films are termed as “art films” and are given bad remarks. They are directors and producers who earn a living through the Film industry. They do need money. Shouldn’t we the people encourage them to bring out more and more good films, instead of blaming them as show off films? Instead the films having a night club dance are being boosted for “unrevealed” reasons! Personally asking, I consider lot many films from the directors, Sanjay leela Bhansali, Nagesh Kukunoor, Madhur Bandharkar, Ashutosh Gawarikar, and few regional films. My wish-list of to-watch films includes the following:
Corporate, Hyderabad Blues, Guru, Traffic Signal, Kalyug, Woh lamhe, Life in a Metro, few Tamil films like Kanda naal mudhal, Unnale Unnale, along with the English romantic ones Music and lyrics, The notting hill, The Holiday, and the Spiderman 3 and Pursuit of happiness..

I have felt most good Indian Films portray feelings and reality. But isn’t there lot many romantic and mushy films in hollywood too??? I love them for the simple plain storyline. The entertainment films are given more importance by the families and for the youth, the violent action thrillers, amazing cinematography and direction are the main reasons for shifting to Hollywood. Maybe Hollywood is indeed good, but please don’t blame our Film Industry too… Its just a developing country!!! Give ‘em a break!!

On a side note, its comparatively easy to show action and thrillers, but very very hard to portray emotions and feelings and make people think of it!

Film review – Sillinu Oru Kaadhal

Last night, I accidently heard the song from the film “Sillinu oru kaadhal”(or is it “Jillinu oru kaadhal!.. bah! I dono!! who cares!). It reminded me of the film story again.

The story goes like this. Gautam(Surya) is married to Kundavi(Jyothika) and has a kid also. A happy family of age 8 years with the usual tensions at times. Then one day, while, Gautam is out of station, Kundavi finds his old diary, and starts reading it. In the diary, he says about his college days, his college love, Aishu(Bhumika Chawla), who is a Telugu girl and daughter of some minister (high position type!) and how they were in love, the happy days, and then finally the decision to run-away and get married inspite of her parents reluctance, and in the end, how they gets splitted up in the register court, cos of her father’s tactics..(Its shown in the film, that by the time, the villain ppl separates the love-couple, the knot has been tied between Gautam and Aishu.) The diary ends with a note, that his sole wish is to meet Aishu just once more.. Kundavi then decides to make the two people unite once more, to fulfill his wishes! And as filmy as it can be, Aishu is shown returning from Australia and is still angry with her father and family. Kundavi meets her up (And provides us a hint that Aishu is still living as Gautam’s wife!). After a stretched drama, Kundavi manages to make Gautam and Aishu meet at their house. The film ends with Kundavi returning back home, only to find a farewell note from Aishu to her, saying that she is thankful to her for this meeting before her departure back to Australia, and also assured her that, she realized from the talk she had with Gautam, that he loves only Kundavi now, and has completely moved on from the past… Thereafter Gautam and Kundavi lives happily everafter!

The film has a happy ending and the onscreen chemistry of Surya and Jyothika was a big hit as always. But the song, “Munpe vaa” portraying Aishu and Gautam of their happy college days is a bitter one, as in the end, its not portrayed what happens to Aishu and how she lives on. Why is that relationship not given that much importance from Gautam’s side? He was rebellious in his college days to break her away from her family and to get married. Why hasn’t he felt or given any thoughts to how she might have been living? Why did he hide the fact from Kundavi? Maybe cos he doesn’t think of it anymore. But if she too had married someone else and had moved on from the past, then we could have concluded its really a happy ending. Here, its absurd!! They say, the time is different, time heals all wounds, all pains… Maybe its true, but what about some scars which never heal? Maybe pains get cured, but how to erase those memories?

I guess life itself is absurd, leave alone the films and stories!!
Peace!

Film review – Swades

Recently saw the film, “Swades” once more. The film is really beautiful, and depicts India and the patriotism very clearly. I do wonder about the NRI’s (not the Non-Returning Indians, but the actual one. ) who have been staying there for either studies or job; whether they too think the same: to leave the job/studies abroad, and to settle in India.Personally I do like to have a short term onsite job, but not more than 6 months for sure!! Be it for living also I think I’d do the same. I even sometimes miss my home town in Kerala, when I am in Chennai, leave alone abroad!!

I agree, maybe the life is more easier and comfortable than in India, as they are more developed countries. But still, don’t they wish to travel in the MTC buses, and to pass the ticket! (Chennai buses!!) Don’t they wish to ride in the guttered roads and complain it to the person sitting next to you! Don’t they wish to see the natural ponds and lakes in their home town, with fields all nearby, to hear the grinding noise from the mill nearby, to see the children playing in the common playground, to have the tea from the roadside shop, and to watch the raindrops falling through the trees, to have the special home-made food from their grandma’s, and all the (boring) advice from her..(hehe ). The temples, the festivals, the crowd, the grains, as depicted in a rectangular box in the film. The vibrant colours of India!!

Indeed the song boosts up my spirit levels, the lyrics are so beautiful, and has plain message to people living abroad.

ye jo des hai tera, swades hai tera..tujhe hai pukara…

ye jo bandhan hai jo kabhi toot nahi sakta….