Awards time (again!!)
Imp’s Mom has given me quite a few awards. What can I say? I am pleased to no end. 🙂 Thanks a million!
The Resonance Award
The versatile blogger
Lovely blogger
Kreativ Blogger
I love your blog
And finally, the Emerald Award!
I pass these on to each and every one on my blogroll. No exceptions this time. They all deserve it. 🙂
The random things tag
Madhu, a good friend, tagged me on Facebook. Since more people read my blog than my notes, and my notes are imported into Facebook anyway, I decided to do this on my blog. So, here we go. The rules are simple. Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.
Here we go!
- I am short-tempered and hyper-sensitive. But, I can keep my cool very long while teaching.
- I love bike rides. When the weather is cool, the road empty, and someone else is driving that is.
- One thing I hate doing is washing the dishes. I can cook, clean, mop, rinse. But dishes make me cry. 🙁
- I can’t resisting blogging about things that I find especially provocative.
- I am a compulsive debater, much to the chagrin of my close friends. This is because they find that they can never talk sense into me without me disagreeing.
- I love spinach. Of any kind and in any form.
- I am vegetarian, although the roasted chicken in the oven of my neighbourhood butcher in Paris looked delicious. 😛
- I find it difficult to talk to idiots, and to those who refuse to recognise they are idiots.
- People can make friends with me if they just spoke to me intelligently.
- When I get too angry, I start crying. So, people don’t know if I am sad or angry.
- I love to sing, even if others don’t like listening to me.
- I hate dancing. I have been resisting all attempts to make me dance.
- I cannot stand physical activity. It bores me, and tires me out.
- I like kids only if they don’t cry.
- I am greatly affected by personal insults and name-calling, even if I ignore it sometimes. That explains my decision to delete some of the comments to my previous posts.
- I find it difficult to think so much about myself.
- I sometimes wish I had a better sense of humour when I write. My friends accuse me of being too serious on my blog.
- In real life, I am rarely confrontational. I avoid conflict situations and try to maintain a balance in life.
- When someone says something nasty to me, I am incapable of coming up with a suitable comeback. It only strikes me 5 hours later.
- I am a punctuality freak. I get paranoid if I am not at least 15 minutes early to office.
- I would never forgive someone who bitched about me behind my back.
- Sometimes I wish people would shut up and let me concentrate on my work.
- I love talking. I was in fact labelled Ms. Talkative at work. 🙂
- I like dressing up sometimes. But most of the time, I don’t even use powder or cream.
- And finally, I quite organised. I can make to-do lists and cross them off periodically.
There! Now, I simply refuse to bug 25 other people to do this. Anyone is free to pick this up. But, I would greatly appreciate it if Cris could do it, since she seems to be the only one around to have not done it yet. Anyway, here we go! And also IHM, Imp’s Mom, Dinesh and Nimmy. 🙂
Slumdog Millionnaire
I finally watched Slumdog Millionnaire. Last week. Only, I have not had the time to blog about it. Let me take a deep breath before I give my opinion. I did not really like the movie. It was believable. It was certainly not overplayed, like some of the reviewers said. It showed the “murky underbelly of Mumbai”. But, it was still optimistic. In spite of all these positives, it did not work for me. Maybe because I expected a lot more. Maybe because I expected profound thoughts and perhaps some solutions to the problems plaguing the country. But, on the whole, the movie was a disappointment.
I might have liked it had I not built so many expectations around it. It is a good movie, but as Lekhni points out, there have been better movies. She lists Swades, Chak De and Salaam Bombay. I would list Pithaamagan, Sethu and the numerous Balachander films alongside. Or Mr. and Mrs. Iyer.There are too many good movies around to cite them all. Unfortunately, Balachander is never recognized for the legend that he is by our pan-Indian, let alone foreign audiences. Makes me wonder why.
To conclude, Slumdog is a movie I would watch once. It drags in some places. The casting of Lathika did not impress me. Nor did the interminable questions and police torture. But, I would not complain because I know it’s reality. I was also left wondering how someone who has grown up in the slums of Mumbai has a better accent than most well-educated Indians. In all, it would be a huge bonus if it did go on to win the Oscars. But, I don’t think I would be too surprised if it did not. I can’t judge because I haven’t seen the other entries for the awards.
Finally, I read that article that explained why Slumdog could only have been made by a foreigner. I don’t agree. Anyone could have made it. It only got noticed because a foreigner made it. Anyway, I am glad that our very own A R Rahman finally got some recognition. Three cheers to that!
Of I-pills and fast women
I am laughing rather hysterically making mom wonder if I have finally lost my sanity. 🙂 Our dear Mr. Kamat, who went around talking Hindutva crap on comments to my previous posts left a couple of more messages. In the first, he wonders if I am going to keep I-pills handy, because I am a fast woman and cheating is easy.
But, wait a sec. Just why is the I-pill so bad? It’s a contraceptive method, like any other. And why is the use of an I-pill considered the hallmark of a “loose” woman? I don’t get it at all. And yes, if I am really characterless, wouldn’t I be so stupid as to not use regular protection? I am insulted! I have enough brains to decide what to do with my life.Sadly, this comment is not directed at me alone. Theer is a deeper malaise. One that equates sex with sin, love affairs with pre-marital sex and pre-marital sex with characterless behaviour. Why can’t people understand that to love is not a sin? To express that love physically much less. They just don’t get it do they?
Also, the pill is supposed to be taken by women who cheat. But why? Why can’t I be married and happy, but not want or have kids? Why do I not, as a woman, have the right to my own body. People like Kamat, or Muthalik or anyone else don’t get one point. A woman is an individual in her own right. She is in control of her body. She has the right to decide when and with whom to sleep. She can also decide on whether and when she wants kids. Why is using an I-pill bad? I don’t think it is. Do you?
Edit: Missed out a word in that last paragraph. It made it seem like I was supporting children having sex! Sorry for the mix-up. 😛
Some randomness
For those of you who did not notice, there was a rather interesting discussion on my post on the Mangalore attacks. All I will say is this, I simply don’t care what people think. I am what I am, bigoted or fanatic or feminist, the tag makes no difference to me. And anyway. I got fed up of all that Hindutva crap and finally blacklisted that guy. On that note, I am wondering. Should I go out with b/f on Valentine’s day, so that I can conveniently blame my wedding on a couple of right-wing fanatics? Lol. I wish. Will be back with a better thought-out post on Hinduism as I understand it. But, for the moment, I risk being out of touch during the day. We are migrating to a more secure server at work and won’t be able to access the Internet during the day. One of the disadantages of working for a bank. 😛 See you soon!
