Achieving my childhood dreams (or rather on-my-way)

This video has inspired me in ways I cannot describe. I have my childhood dreams and I want to achieve them desperately. But in the last few years, I have simply let my dreams bury themselves and die a slow death right in front of my eyes. Immensely disappointing and frustrating. 

Bullshit-thinking like its too big a dream or not having financial support didn't help improve my situation. Although some of it may be true it doesn't inspire hope. But all this ends. I will do whatever it takes to achieve my childhood dreams. 

I will list my childhood dreams and do whatever it takes to achieve them.

1. Become an Astronaut- Or to put it realistically experience zero gravity. Let me add here that this dream wan't inspired from the video. I always wanted to be an astronaut. I knew it was not practically possible all along... but hello, Thats why its called a dream people!! Until... I realized that I could experience zero gravity as shown in the video here.

2. Draw cartoons and make an animation movie.

3. Skydiving.

4. Explore the jungles of Amazon in a boat.

5. Make a nature video for Discovery Channel or National Geographic Channel.

6. Perform in a rock-band on stage.

These are humanly achievable dreams. Not some sci-fi fantasy stuff right? Lets see how things go. :)

Pigeons in the air- Cinemagram

Please bear with me because this GIF takes sometime to fully load. :)
It's a GIF I created using an interesting tool called Cinemagram available for iPhones.
The location: This place is called Chintalbasti, which is situated between Khairatabad and Banjara Hills.
All areas I have mentioned above are located in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.

Created with cinemagr.am

There's this place in ChintalBasti where all the pigeons of that area gather for a feast. One shopkeeper daily throws a huge bag full of seeds for them. Really nice of him.

Upon analyzing this situation I realize that the shopkeeper is also intelligently avoiding a huge problem. Pigeon droppings. I have a theory that birds (like all species on earth) never defecate near the same place they eat.

I also intend to prove this theory and have sufficient and unarguable proof to back my claims. I have observed the same behavior in *drum-roll*... HUMANS!!

I really am a genius.

Cloud Atlas is classic

Aaahh finally!! I saw Cloud Atlas! Ever since word came out about the movie I was terribly excited. Desperately waiting for its release.

But when the movie finished and I stepped out of the cinema hall I felt disappointed. Even though the concept was amazing and the way the film-makers wove 6 stories together was mind-boggling, in the end there was still an odd feeling. Something felt missing.

I'm sure I will never know what that odd feeling was but after a few days I realized that I was thinking about the movie more and more and was beginning to like it. Now I'm considering watching it again.

But again, I know that I will be disappointed. Its that recursive effect that the movie creates. Like an endless cycle. And that is what will make this movie a classic. Overtime it will surely become a great movie that everyone will come to appreciate the grand nature of this movie.

I'll make sure all my friends watch this movie too. Not just because it is a mind-boggling film but because of the ideas presented in the movie. Its just pure cinema. Something that we rarely see in Hollywood.

I genuinely bow down to The Wachowski Brothers and Tom Tykwer for making this epic. And I just can't wait to read the book now!

Random Photographs From Random Trips

Goan Crab

From the Goa Trip

Goa Again

On the way to Rajamundry

Ganeshji

On the way to Rajamundry

Somewhere near Rajamundry

Mallelatheertham Waterfalls

On the way to Mallelatheertham Falls

My brain, car windows and other random shit

I always wonder what I should blog about. I always start out writing something nice and then I back out. Its this fear on the back of my mind. My brain keeps forcing me to evaluate myself continuously and it makes sure I wont make any mistake. It keeps correcting me and doesnt let me take a leap of faith. So just to force my brain to surrender I will make mistakes and I will type whatever I want. I dont care about grammer and spelling mistakes for now I'm not writing a novel. Just go with flow. Whatever comes to my mind I wil just vomit it out.

There no need to thnk about what I'm writing cuz I dont see the point. I'm not writing a novel here. Its just a bloody blog. Hell not many even read this stuff. So I will continue writing random shit.

Today I will tell a random story. I was driving in my car to office (as I do everyday) and there waas this feeling of nakedness. NO. I wore my clothes. Inners outers everything. The nakedness I was talking about was because I had to remove the dark film on my car window because of that new rule in Hyderabad. Google it out. I dont have the patience to explain all that stuff. I'm busy typing. 

Now I'm feeling very tired. I think its time I go to bed. Good night.

My Horoscope

So I was checking out my horoscope the other day and I found this-

So I'm a Stubborn Asshole. Perfect. Even though there's more to me than those two words. I cant help but agree that it fits.

And yes the horoscope predicted correctly about others too.

When we believe all the positive shit written in different horoscopes. I see nothing wrong in reading something like this. And horoscopes are biased. They don't tell you bad things generally (or they just keep it to a bare minimum) and they generalize the good stuff. It's just like reading a warm self-help book. Very motivating.

So to summarize an already small blog post, all I want to say is horoscopes suck. Good night.

Shirdi Sai Review

I'm not really a devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba, but I do like the philosophy he advocates, of which the core is "Sab ka maalik ek" (Meaning "We all have only one master.")

Ofcourse this was not the reason why I went to the movie. I had to go because Mom wanted to watch it. So that's that. Never say no to mom.

Anyway the movie is about Shirdi Sai (duh!), his origins, miracles and events leading to his demise. It has Nagarjuna playing the lead role and is directed by the "Devotional Filmmaker" K. Raghavendra Rao.

I felt the movie was pretty interesting. I'm not a huge fan of devotional movies. I would love to watch them but these Tollywood people add lots of useless silly humor which makes it a pain. Even Shirdi Sai had many such silly moments which didn't make me laugh AT ALL.

Yeah. It was that silly.

It was solely Nagarjuna's performance that lifted the movie to another level. His depiction of Sai Baba was very accurate and you could feel that serenity in his performance.

The director Raghavendra Rao did a decent job with the movie. He is already an expert making devotional films on a large scale and it shows here. He was able to balance the mythological and philosophical aspects which made the movie pretty interesting.

But the director failed to clarify the origin of Sai Baba. Who were his parents? Where was he born? These are left open. Raghavendra Rao could have taken liberties in showing a good origin story, since he had already taken several "creative liberties" in other aspects of the film.

Overall it was a good watch. Of course I'm sure it wont convert people into devotees of Sai Baba (Which wasn't the intention anyway). But it will definitely give a better understanding of the life of Sai Baba and his unique philosophy which was quite radical for that time period.

The Price of Entertainment

So you've been watching a 20 second clip of two MP's fighting against each other on TV? You think what they're doing is "ethical"? Feel like debating about it?

Obviously, its not decent but do we need to waste an entire day on how they fought? That's what most News Channels do. They put the same clip on repeat. And they put a red ring to focus on the "center of action". Its just mockery. This is what the news channels actual mean by that red ring "Our audience is too dumb to figure out what's happening in a video clip. Lets POINT IT OUT to them."

Notice the Red Ring of Attraction

It kind of shocked me that News channels could show that clip continuously for more than an hour. It's the same methodolgy with any piece of news. 

Step 1:
Take a very sensational piece of news. If there's a small video clip, even better! 
Step 2:
Decide how many times to repeat that clip.
Step 3:
Boom boom boom! Bombarded viewers continuously with some background commentry. "Ab aap dekhiye KAISE do MP Parliment mein jhagadte hai!"
Job done.

I always wonder why the TV channels even spends time on such useless bits of information when there are many more serious issues to deal with.

There's another useless activity these News Channels perform. Showing whats going on in other entertainment channels. 

For example: One news channel gives a summary of whats happening in the latest episode of some Saas-Bahu-Bandhan Shit. That's news apparently. Very sensational too!

If you notice the trend, these news channels thrive on showing the same thing again and again. It really drives me mad!

I'm perfectly sure that there are more definite and better ways of pointing the point across. It just shows their lack of quality. Check out this link below and you'll know what I'm talking about.

http://stupidindiatv.blogspot.in/2008/09/india-tv-should-be-banned.html

Here's a screen shot of what India TV likes to show as news.

BREAKING NEWS BREAKING NEWS!!!

What's the bloody point?

Alright lets behave in a civilized way for a while and put all this aside. Let's move on to something else. Something very important. 

We have finally come to know that somewhere in a place called Khandwa villagers are protesting in neck deep water. They just want the government to reduce the level of the Narmada River Dam.

It took 10 days for the news channels to put this on air. 

For 10 days villagers stood in neck-deep water, so that the government would take notice.

I never expected this from news channels. They will make outrageous claims that their network is always first and latest in bringing news to the table. So what happened? The network people didnt have resources to send a team to Khandwa? I'm not going to believe that because they seem to be having resources to bring some unknown down-on-luck astrologer to predict the end of the world. 

Welcome to the Astrology show!

Here's what happens when news channels don't bring sensible news on time. A sad situation which could've been resolved faster.

The feet of a protestor are displayed as other stand in water during the ‘Jal Satyagraha’ or ‘insistence on truth by water’ at Ghogal village in Khandwa area, Madhya Pradesh, Friday. The protesters have been in water since Aug. 25 and are demanding compensation and rehabilitation for villagers whose homes will be submerged under water after opening the gates of the Omkareshwar dam in the state because of rise in water levels of the Narmada River (AP Photo).

TV show ramble

I was watching this show "Jhalak Dikh laaja" on Colors Channel today. No I don't follow that show! But I was forced to because I was sitting in the hall where the ladies of the house watch TV. 

Yes I could've shifted to the next room. But I'm too lazy. 

So I was watching this show and my brain was begging me to run away! The show was oozing with lousiness!! It was plain LOUSY!! What the hell was I watching??  But still, I was hypnotized! All the staged drama and jokes! Man they were good at capturing the audience attention.

So these are the conclusions I've made after watching this one show. Obviously it means I have a biased opinion. But this is my blog and I do as I wish.
So conclusions:
Not a single one of these shows can go on without one of the "star" participants getting injured and we get to see a sob-story flashback of how they recovered and fought back to dance on the show just in time. Well that's all good.

But then I saw something that totally pissed me off- One lady was so seriously injured that she couldn't dance. She begged the judges to forgive her and let her replacement do the dance. The replacement is an insanely awesome dancer, so obviously it was an awesome performance. Add the lady's arm injury and you have a perfect recipe for sympathy-votes.

That is insane! You don't dance you don't get votes madam. No excuses. We have to be fair. You simply can't win sympathy votes.

Sometimes I feel all this is just staged. What if the lady was faking it? Maybe she didn't practice at all and this injury was just a big cover up. It can happen.

Frankly, I detest all Hindi TV dance shows and even the game shows. Look at what happened to Kaun Banega Crorepati?? Those questions were horrible! The quality on such a respected show has sunk to such low levels that it's asking questions from Hindi soaps. I think that has to be the rick-bottom point of any game show.

I guess it's my fault. Its been a month since I've watched TV and I think I've missed out on a lot of "trends".

But I'm happy about it and I've decided not to watch TV anymore.

Weighty Issues on the back of my mind

I recently got my BMI checked. It said I was walking a tight rope. If I gained a little more weight then I would be obese. Obviously I can't grow taller.

So I decided to take a few drastic steps. From that day I have stopped using the elevator and taking the stairway. That reminds me of this song "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin. 

Its a great song! One of my very favorites. There are lot of strange facts about this song. Check out this page below to find out. Because I have better things to write. :-P

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=328

Ok now coming back to the point. I think taking the stairs really didn't help me much. So to compensate for that feeling I decided to play some ping-pong. Now that's a great energy burning sport. And people think it's a very childish game. Its pretty tough I assure you.

Why I Blog

A question I keep asking myself is "Why do I keep Blogging?"
I know why I don't blog though.
I am not a popular blogger in this blogosphere, so I dont have a "need" to communicate with an "audience".

After much thinking I think I know why I do blog. It's because I want to improve my writing and it's a great way to show-off my sketches, photographs, thoughts etc.

Yes I love to show-off. But I don't do it for the sake of becoming popular or getting more followers. (but if that's one outcome then I won't mind. )

I believe in being natural. We are a part of nature and hence being natural should be our ideal state. And I believe that every-time I post photographs and thoughts I am getting closer to my natural state and a step closer in defining what/who I really am.

A Teenage Girl's Take On The Dark Knight Rises

It's depressing when people don't understand the theme or emotion behind any movie... And when something like The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR) comes along things get even more depressing.

This movie has created such a huge hype that I'm sure there were many who had not even seen the first two movies. Which is good because TDKR will force them to watch the two movies again. I'm trying to hide a grin here.

So I was in my CEED coaching class. (A bit of background here... CEED is Common Entrance Exam for Design which is held in December. In the same coaching institute there are others who prepare for NIFT (fashion) and architecture exams) And as usual I can see TDKR craze in the classroom when I heard one girl say... "Dark Knight Rises is awesome re!!". This girl and a few others come here to prepare for NIFT.

So I was sitting nearby and somehow managed to enter the discussion. My main intention was to understand The-Teenage-Girls-Opinion-On-Action-Movie Psyche.

I did this by asking a very obvious question, "Oh so you also saw the Dark Knight?" I asked smilingly.

This girl enthusiastically replied "Yaaaaa! It wass AWESOMMMEEE!! you also saw it??"

"Yeah... It was a great movie!" I said. You can also note the sophistication in my voice here.

And here comes the moment when I almost choked. Because the girl then said, "But Batman came only 4 times in the whole movie na!!?" Emphasis on 4 TIMES.

WHY? GGZZZZTTT!!! What did she just say?? ZZZZJJTTT!! Did I hear that right?? 4 times??? Ooohh Christopher Nolan!! How could you do this!! You should've atleast shown Batman more than 4!! ZZT ZZT!!

I was searching my mind for something to say... I tried to defend that point and finally mumbled, 'That's not the point of the movie right?"

She said, "Yaaaa... but...... Hey have you seen The Amazing Spiderman??"

"Nope..."

"It's AMAAAZINGG you know!!"

---END OF DISCUSSION---

Gotham's Reckoning

I just can't wait for The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR) to release!! And what made me go crazy was when I read that Bane was going to be the main antagonist.

See Nolan's Batman Trilogy has always been about the villians. There's really no point in making a big-budget movie for the big screen where the bad guy is a small timer is there? Makes sense to me. Also since we already got a lip-smacking taste of The Joker in The Dark Knight then villain has to be even more bigger. And with Bane here we literally get BIG.

See What I mean.

But that still wasn't enough for me to jump and shout like a kid. (although it already had me running around like a happy dog). That's when I heard TDKR Background Score... And that was enough to push me into the vortex of TDKR hype-zone. Now I'm going dizzy with excitement.

The youtube link I have posted below is the OST known as Gotham's Reckoning by Hans Zimmer (God of background-scores). I couldn't move when I listened to it for the first time. A really amazing experience. That's what I'm talking about!! Yes!!

Now I'm the kind of person who believes that if someone wants to listen to any sort of music, they just have to let go and be lost in the grandness of sounds.

As I close my eyes and listen to this music it creates a feeling of infinite space around me. It's like an infinite canvas where I'm lost in the images of grandness and epicness. The roaring of the trumpet, the huge explosion of beats, the violins... It just oozes awesomeness! 

Now I urge you to hear this piece below in the same way. See if it makes any difference.

I listen to this one when I'm high!! Woohoo!

If you liked this one then you will definitely like these too:

My thoughts on Prometheus

It's entirely my fault. I had HUGE expectations from this movie. I don't see anything wrong with that. I mean consider this- 
1. It's directed by Ridley Scott (RS henceforth). 
2. It's an of-shoot of Alien (which is already a cult genre-bending movie).
and 3. It's directed by RS.
Before going into the movie I already heard a few bad comments about it from my friends. They said it was ghastly. But I knew they could never appreciate the Sci-Fi vision of RS and thought that they were being naive.
But still I lowered my expectations a bit and went into the cinema hall with an open mind.
But by the time the end credits were rolling I was frustrated. I had a lot of questions and felt disappointed. The first half was lovely with excellent visuals and a deep story. But the second half (although visually splendid) was the usual clichéd hollywood slasher movie.

On many occassions the movie looked silly. One character for example, a scientist, encounters a snakelike creature in a dark hollow chamber. Now any sensible guy would think like this- It's an alien. It's dangerous and it might kill you so STAY AWAY! 
But NO! This scientist thinks like this- Whoa what's that! Oooo it looks like a snake... Awww its sooo cute!! Hmmm... Let me pet this poor thingy, all it needs is love... He reaches out to it and It eats him inside out. End of story.
But putting aside the silliness, I found the visuals to be very captivating and the 3D was very clean and never a distraction. Beautiful imagery.

Also there were a few references to Christianity. For example, in the beginning there is a scene where a Quasi-Alien Being sacrifices himself by drinking some poisonous liquid from a cup and jumping into a waterfall hence sparking the creation of life. A parallel can be drawn between this and the act of Jesus drinking from his cup to end his life. 
Another reference- It is shown that the ship Prometheus lands on the planet on Christmas Day. And the main character "gives birth" to an Alien. Obvious reference.
I guess there are many more christian symbols in the movie but these are the only ones I could find based on my limited knowledge of Christianity.
Another striking point is that most of the characters die by the end of the movie, except for the one who has deep faith in God. So is the movie telling us that only a true believer of God will survive in the end? Is that a snide remark on Atheists? We'll never know.
But these are the kind of hidden symbolism that makes movie-watching a fascinating experience for me. It's like a vast mysterious jungle waiting to be explored.

Me and my Brain

This time of the day is when I usually fall asleep at my desk. My eye lids drop like crazy! Struggling to keep myself awake at work will be the biggest challenge in my career!

I desperately try to keep myself awake. I slap myself. Pull my hair. Stretch my back to the max. Pull my ears (My dada always told me... Pull your ears and you wont feel sleepy but it never works.) 

After a while I just let it go and doze away for a few minutes.

So I put my head and hands on the desk and close my eyes.

And then I think "What will my Boss think!"

My Brain responds back to me. It softly tells me "Go to sleep... Your manager is a nice guy. And frankly he doesn't even care."

I agree. "Yeah you're right. I worry too mu- But what if he comes and wakes me up and starts asking questions!" And suddenly I shake myself awake.

I hear my Brain saying, "You will PAY for your insolence!"

Yup I just earned myself a long sleepless night.

Creative Desperation?

This link:

http://www.wikihow.com/Be-Creative

I read the content in that link and got really inspired!

I needed THIS. It's something that I have to do. I have become insane enough to follow every word written there.

I have been delaying a very important task in my life, which is creating an art portfolio.

I was procrastinating it for more than a year now. But after reading this awesome article I know what I have to do. 

1. Use only pen, paints, paper and photoshop.

2. Follow your own path.
    Not sure what that is yet. But I do have a rough idea.

3. Have a routine. (Gotta work A LOT on this one)

4. Let go of perfectionism.

5. Ignore Trends (Biggie)

• No TV and No Radio
• Remove vapid elements of pop culture
• Dont try to fit your work into a genre
• Spend time ALONE

6. Ignore the past

Now I have made all of this public because once I tell the world what I'm doing I have to save myself from losing my reputation and hence complete the task at any cost!! 

Psycho I know. But it works. 

And desperate times call for desperate measures.

Life Update

Ok I've reached a stage of my life where I have an interesting job with a decent salary... But along with it comes a hollow feeling... Is this what I really want to do? I had a dream of becoming an animator. What happened to that dream?? I really don't know. Somewhere along the way I lost track of that dream. It faded into the background but always haunting me subconciously.

And yet there is a problem with my dream. Its not specific. I want to be an animator. Thats it. But in reality all an animator really does is just change the positions of the characters and create a set of motions. Now that's not what I want to do!!
I don't want to do the really technical part of the work. I've seen how it's done and definitely it's not what I want to do. I'm looking at a bigger picture here. I want to create visual imagery. I'm not calling it by the word "movies" because that gives a totally different meaning to what I want to do. I will be happy if I can just make small visual clips for the rest of my life.

iDesign Stuff & Logos

I designed this header for my company's Corporate Social Responsibility Unit known as Outreach. 

A few of my friends were asked to create the Profile Page for the Outreach Social Networking Website and so I helped them in creating this one as the "Head". Nice and simple isn't it? :)

This beautiful peacock I modified from a real photograph of a peacock. Added some effects in Photoshop and voila!

I frankly don't have a single clue to how I made this one. Was just messing around with the effects in photoshop and this design popped out.

Another result of my messing around. Was thinking of the Sun and how its rays emanate. So that made me think about abstract shapes and I drew this Squarish Sun.

Flower-Sun-Eggs. Don't know how else to put the idea across. Its just a nice looking logo. Somebody please use it!!! :'(

Two cute logos for somebody who plans to open a Hair Saloon for Women beginning with the letter "S". I suggest you call it "Sundar" or "Saheli" or something on these lines. :D

Stick-man Animation

Tried out the stick-man app on my dad's Galaxy Tab.
The app is good for creating these kind of animation clips... It has lot of options for changing the color, setting the background etc.
It'll be awesome if there were some ready made stick man figures so that I could get down to working on the action part. The worst part about this app is the rendering... I can only save the file in low quality... The app simply fails to generate high quality output. Hopefully they'll fix that in future releases.

Anyway this app is still fun to play around and I'm gonna have a great time with it. (Given that my dad gives me the tab)

Banishing a Ghost- A Story of Zen

There lived a husband and wife who loved each other dearly. One day the wife fell very sick and later it was found that there was no possible way to cure her. Upon realizing that death would soon take her away, she said to her husband, “I love you so much! I don’t want to leave you, and I don’t want you to betray me. Promise that you will not see any other women once I die, or I will come back to haunt you.”

For several months after her death, the husband did avoid other women, but then there are times when the unexpected happens and the unexpected did happen when he fell in love. Soon both got engaged to be married.

But on the night of their wedding, the ghost of his former wife appeared to him. She blamed him for not keeping the promise, and every night thereafter she returned to taunt him. The ghost would remind him of everything that transpired between him and his fiancee that day, even to the point of repeating, word for word, their conversations. It upset him so badly that he couldn’t sleep at all.

Out of desperation, the husband sought the advice of a Zen master who lived near the village. The master listened to his story with a smile and said, ”This is a very clever ghost. "It is!" replied the man. "She remembers every detail of what I say and do. It knows everything!". The master smiled again, "You should admire such a ghost, but I will tell you what to do the next time you see it."

That night the ghost returned to taunt the husband. But this time he did just as the master had advised.“You are such a wise ghost,” he said to the ghost, “You know that I can hide nothing from you. If you can answer my one question, I will break off the engagement and remain single for the rest of my life.”

“Ask your question,” the ghost replied. At that moment, the husband scooped up a handful of beans from a large bag on the floor, “Tell me exactly how many beans there are in my hand.”

At that moment the ghost disappeared and never returned.