After a long and hard week of work, weekends usually mean getting some rest and catching up with the rest of the world. Being grad students means working on the weekends sometimes, but it doesn’t have to be the same as a weekday, so we can take it easy. I actually like to start working starting Sunday afternoons, whether I have any work to do or not. It actually helps me get over the “I hate Mondays” syndrome really quick.

Archana and I have a really lazy way of spending weekends. We spend most of the time catching up on the TV shows and picking movies to watch. It actually takes us an hour to pick a movie to watch and we usually end up not liking it. We don’t watch horror or drama, so that limits the choices. It’s almost always romance and comedy that wins the vote. Unless we want to get some regional flavor, we watch Telugu or Hindi movies and it’s difficult to find a good Hindi/Telugu movie that is intelligent and devoid of all the hyping up of the hero.

In Indian movies, the hero can hit a 100 people single-handedly without even using a weapon. It seems believable in Kung-fu movies where Jackie Chan jumps around taking a few blows but still managing to beat up a few thugs using the environment as props. It is also quite believable if Keanu Reeves fights 100 Agent Smiths in Matrix, because it is a fictional world. But, in Indian movies, the hero punches every thug into the air with just one mighty blow. Worse, the hero is almost always a lanky kid (who is probably the son of a veteran actor). The Indian hero is Superman, without a cape. Even in movies that does not involve a lot of action, the emotions seem unreal and over the top.

Our latest obsession is watching TV shows. We pick a TV show and watch all its episodes from its season 1 until we reach the current season. We started this trend with “Prison Break” and we quickly got addicted to the show. We used to spend our weekends just watching one episode after the other. The show is in its final season now. I guess the season finale is supposed to air on May 15th. It was a good show and even though we will miss Michael Scofield and his crew, I think the decision to end the show is a good move. It was getting predictable and it doesn’t bode well for the show that relies on surprising the viewer at every corner.

Currently we are watching the Heroes and loving it. Even if it’s getting a little contrived after 12 episodes, it’s still quite enjoyable. I hope it will be as interesting and fun as Prison Break.

Related posts:

1. Happy Valentines Day

Jagadish has long insisted I read ‘Gone with the Wind’. It was also made into an Academy-Award winning movie whose re release poster you see above. It’s a book he absolutely adores, and I never had any real interest in the so-called classics. I love mystery, thrillers, and some comic relief. Yet, he persuaded me to buy this and I did, and it lay around a few days when I finally picked it up after my exams.

I was hooked! I read the book straight through in two days. What a beautiful, beautiful story. For those who have not yet read this book, I implore you, read it! It is amazing. Here is a synopsis of the plot.

Today, all of a sudden, I thought of Rhett. And I thought of Jagadish. Today morning, I woke up in a fairly pleasant mood, but I was suddenly cross with Jagadish because of a few issues. As I always do when I get annoyed, I went quiet and refused to talk to him. Jagadish is an absolute mine of incredible patience. Very gently, kindly and soothingly, he brought me out of this moodiness of mine. It is little things like these that jolt me to the reality of how much he really loves me.

He reminded me of Rhett. Not that Rhett was kind or gentle. But Rhett so obviously loved Scarlett. He always let her have her way. He teased her, played along with her…made her smile, made her alive. Like how Jagadish makes me feel. Scarlett could stomp around, be mean to him, make him mad, and yet, he would continue to love her. Like Jagadish loves me.

Rhett was so practical, so thoughtful. Uncaring about what the society believed was right, but of a sound mind that knew what he was doing or did was not wrong, not immoral. Oh, he reminds of my Jagadish in so many ways now that I think of it.

Anyway, once again, today, I am thankful to God for putting Jagadish in the path of my life. He is my very own Rhett Butler.

(And I’m not going to be as stupid as Scarlett to let him go )

Related posts:

1. Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna
2. Love conquers (a lot, if not everything)
3. Catcher in the Rye

Valentine’s Day is a day invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.

–Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine is one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s an amazing movie with some brilliant lines that resonate through some good acting by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. It is one of those movies where you see Jim Carrey not resorting to his stupid antics and Kate is brilliant as usual. The movie is basically where a couple have a bad relationship and they try to erase their memories about the relationship(Its a fictional procedure). He starts reliving those memories that comprise the relationship from the earliest to the oldest as they are being erased. So we see the bad memories first where he is really happy that he is doing it and he starts regretting the whole thing when he starts reliving those good memories they spent together. It’s all a little surreal but a great movie nevertheless. I must’ve watched this movie a million times already learning the lines by heart. I really wanted to see this movie again on this Valentines day. I recommend this movie to all the people who have had heartbreak or been in a bad relationship or if you are just single. The movie is not about all those perfect romances we see in the movies, it’s about normal people involved in a normal relationship where there are bad things as well as there are good things. All we need to do is to try and resolve the bad while we remain happy for all the good that it has given us.
Anyway, on a more relevant note, this is our fourth Valentine’s Day together. Three anniversaries and four valentines days, its amazing how nothing has simmered down as yet. Archana has always told me how she had bad Valentine’s Days before our first. I’ve always had that in the back of my mind and I always wanted to make our Valentine’s Day a great one. I think we have been doing a good job for the past 4 years now. We have always been happy during this time of the year especially last year when Archana sent me 2 kg black forest cake. It was probably the first major surprise she had given me as a gift (I was always quite good at guessing her gifts). This year though, we went ahead and did something better. Most of you guys probably already know and there is no need to tell about it all over again . Of course it sucks that we have to be apart on a day like this but on the plus side of it, we get to celebrate it twice . For us, V-day starts 12 am my time and ends 12 am archana’s time, so we have a few more hours to douse ourselves in the celebrations compared to the usual 24 hrs time you get when you are living in the same time zone.

So here’s wishing you all a very Happy Valentine’s Day. I hope all the couples celebrate all these years of love and all the single guys/girls find love and happiness. Have a great day everyone.

Related posts:

1. God bless the weekends
2. Perhaps Love..
3. One..two..three..four!

A famous song and more recently, a Karan Johar movie is entitled “Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna”. I was googling for the release date etc for a friend of mine today and I came across something very interesting:

“There are three kinds of married people in the world. First, whose marriages are arranged. I’ve never understood that, but I’m sure they know what they’re doing. Then there are those who fall in love and marry their soul mates. These few, I believe, are the most fortunate people in the world. And lastly, there are those couples that marry for their parents, for money or play it safe and marry a friend. These are the most unfortunate ones in the world… and they don’t even know it. Until one day, riding the fast train of life they run into their soul mate, and are faced with the hardest question of all. What do you do when you meet the love of your life and you’re married to someone else? What do you do? What do you do?” – Karan Johar

This reminds me of a book I read by Deepak Chopra; although I dont remember the title, it was on similar lines. What is more striking, however, is Johar’s thought process. What do you do indeed? What do you do? Definitely some food for thought.

Related posts:

1. My very own Rhett Butler