Walking the Walk

I stand before 2 roads

Hoping it will lead me to my yellow brick road

Eventually leaving me at my dream destination

Only that I don’t have a dream or a destination

Let alone a way to reach the way to reach it.

Maybe life isn’t about reaching a happy place

It is about being happy whilst while we reach it.

The only way to know for sure is by walking the path and 

not forgetting to

enjoy the breath taking view.

Look straight~like the eyes of god. 

( The object of this challenge is to write a poem in no more than 10 lines. Frame of reference is 'The Cross-roads' quoted from Kwesi Brew's poem, The Mesh. For Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads)

The story

I am very pleased to announce that this post marks #150 milestone for Steady Meanderings. No , I am not the kind who keeps tracks of these things , I'm very poor at statistics. However , I am very much addicted to social media and when I checked my memories on facebook for today , it came to my knowledge that 3 years ago on the exact same day was when this blog hit 100 posts. So I just counted the posts after that and voila! It was 149 ( You may never know with me , re count to be safe. I did count like 17 times. I do remember one accounts exam where I came to the same answer 9 times and the 10^th time managed to be different {and thankfully right} )

I could be a cool blogger who doesn’t fuss about this number and move on to the topic of discussion. Let’s face the truth , I am uncool.

I did write at length about my own blog once before in this embarrassingly juvenile post. ( Clickhere ) But history needs to be updated and a I want all the new readers to know the story of this blog which has shaped my identity and experiences over the years and moulded me as a person.

No , I am not going to go on a boring tirade of acknowledgements like an award recipient. I am going to just share with you all this blog’s story.

It all began one hot afternoon in Chennai summer of 2010 when S ( I hate using so many ‘I’s so switching to 3^rd person) sat in front of her archaic personal computer. She had heard that celebrities ‘blog’ and decided to ‘blog’ . She had ‘hi5ed’ ‘orkuted’ and ‘facebooked’ so why not ‘blog’. She followed some basic steps and apparently had created her own blog. What was she going to name it?

Ok this is getting crazy , switching to first person :P

I ended up naming my blog ‘ brainwaves unlimited’ as I was a big believer in eureka moments doing all the writing for you. It had a dark background and my first post was on ‘ Mafia Wars’, a game which reflected my love for Mario Puzo and ambition to be a Don’s wife ( the things one dreams of becoming in their childhood *sigh* ) One should give me credit for not deleting my horrendous posts. It provides quality entertainment.

 I kept racking my posts which no one had a clue about , I don’t think I even knew the art of facebook sharing or promotion back then. No one knew Brainwaves Unlimited existed. So what does the budding blogger do? Create another blog of course. This one was called ‘ Perceptions’ and had a pink background. So we had one blog for my brain and another for my heart. It took a while for me to realise that splitting my work in 2 blogs was counter productive as it looked like I hardly wrote in both the blogs and views came out to be less too. So I eventually combined both to become  “ Semi’s Stories and Sharings….” I always thought "…." Made one sound serious. Didn’t hit me for a long time that sharings wasn’t an actual word. Years rolled on and people started actually reading and reacting to my posts. Initially , it was read only by my school friends and relatives. My parents proud that their otherwise dull daughter was doing something productive , sent it to their friend circles. So I would have awkward moments when I would attend weddings and I would have adults who I hardly knew come up to me and tell me nice things about my blog ( red in the cheeks and quiet happiness that parents cared enough to share , Thenks Gaiz. ) 

I took up local journalism and spamming my friend’s walls ( not timelines)  with links. My initial posts are all light hearted and anecdotal – like this post hopes to be. Then like people transition the blog also did with more serious posts aboutaccidents and failures which hit my life finding a place here. High school saw me focus on the blog only when a ‘brainwave’ hit me hard. Somehow it survived through occasional updates. This has never been an ambitious blog competing for views or advertisements but merely a space where I voice out my thoughts or display some creativity and hope to engage in discussions or receive constructive feedback. This was followed by law school which meant lesser time for my blog which really stopped being updated. When I was applying for my editorial board I realised that ‘sharings’ wasn’t a word and I needed to rename the blog to submit it. So it became a more mature and less self obsessed ‘ Steady Meanderings’.

The name change brought in a responsibility to do something meaningful with it. So the ‘dynamic views’ template which looked good but wasn’t really functional was finally altered – that took a lot of effort as complacency sets in after half a decade of blogging.

I started participating in blogger communities like ‘ poets united’ which gave the jumpstart this blog needed. I also occasionally write for zeading and have started a wordpress blog ( blasphemy) where I promote anonymous content of budding writers. 

It feels like I have come a looong way from Mafia war days. Writing for 6 years , 150 posts only when inspiration strikes is an achievement which I can’t believe I have unlocked.

At one level , I write only for myself , I am not going to change my content for anyone. But , it gives deep satisfaction to a content creator when their content gets perceived in the way it was intended to be or gives rise to varied interpretations or provokes thoughts or debates. 

I would like to thank you if you have actually read the post till the end , it means you have been a part of my journey J and random feedbacks I get in my inbox or even an anonymous comment or criticism really makes my day cz no one wants to be not heard. On that double negative note I bid you goodbye!! 

( till the next post )

Samyuktha Semi Jayaprakash

Cinema Kaaram Kaapi

I used to be a cinema paithiyiam. Used to know every Cheran movie , every random flick on K T.V and used to fill journals with my stray observations about a new film , gossip or even song lyrics. Then college happened. And I got more hooked to English T.V shows. However , this sem break I got time to catch up on tamil cinema and renew my love affair with Kollywood. And since I have my own blog now , I thought why not note my stray observations on this space.

1) The movie watching experience  :

  So a couple of days back I was poring through Baradwaj Rangan's blog on Wordpress primarily because I was bored. Also , I found the discussions under his review to be greatly informative and entertaining. Many people were attacking the critic for expressing his opinion over the film. But what else are you supposed to do as a film critic?
The movie watching experience is a very subjective one and depends on what you expect from a film. Brangan likes to watch movies which emphasise form over content , the making must be good. Most front row viewers care about their stars and how they are projected. Some people come to cinema to 'escape' reality and expect wholesome entertainment with no messages. Some people care about what a movie conveys even if the execution eg.Kaththi. And so I asked myself what do I look for in a movie?
For me the film should be engaging and there must be some care gone into it. When I sit in the theatre it should enthral me and hold my attention in some way. Organic twists are highly appreciated too :P If the movie is trying to be emotional it should go all out and stay true to its genre and not try to be reluctant attempt.
One person's mokka is another person's pokkisham :P

2) acham enbathu madamaiyada!

 I ended up watching my first Simbu film and first GVM movie in theatre ( I think) Did you know the film was originally titled to be ' sattendru marudhu vanilai'! I think that title would have been more apt for this film. While the first half of the film is a tad slow it is very natural and shows a steady romance brewing between the leads. The road portions of the movie were very picturesque , however back to back songs bore you after a point. Watch out for the picturization of Thalli Pogathey song ( getting polarising views - I liked it) The second half proceeds at a brisker pace with well staged action elements. However , the last 15 - 20 minutes of the film were utterly inorganic with the entire story , contrived and leave you very confused when you leave the movie hall. It actually ruins the decent work made by the rest of the film I feel. The audience I felt were all overloaded with random info when they walked out of the theatres. And that is why I gave such a detailed review of this film. I do not how to gauge it at all! A very decent experience till the climax and S.T.R at his natural best and A.R. Rahman god level as usual. GVM should really get new stories repeating the same plot and characters movie after movie is just sad when you have such good technical ability and execution.

3)  Kamal gautami broke up gaizzz!!

 More importantly Kamal lost his private space completely. I know even Brangelina couldn't escape it but why are people so obsessed with the personal lives of actors? Do we scrutinise the personal lives of our doctors? Maybe we should , they hold scalpels over our bodies after all. But no , we go fulla into why Kamal and Gautami. Is it because of Shruti Haasan or Gautami's daughter or Ramya Krishnan. Romba mukkiyam. And even if you read all this nonsense don't judge the actor or his brilliant work on the basis of such unverified nonsense. It doesn't make him look bad. It makes you look bad.

4)  Too much youth pa

 I don't want to sound like a paati but nowadays they make movies for the 'youth' pasanga only. While there is sudden acceptability for sci fi , thrillers and other experimental movies and the traditional action , romance being rock steady and horror of too many horror comedies , where are the Family dramas and genuine comedies? I'm pretty sure family audiences don't want to watch skimpily clad heroines and stalker boy romances and Tasmac scenes and unnecessary violence in the name of U films :P

5) Scriptu choose panrathu

While someone should start picking scripts for Vikram ( paavam he keeps wasting his talent in duds) and Surya is decidedly unlucky ( most of his movies sound good on paper) why can't the average star pick a better script or atleast ask for some kadai instead of 2 hours and 20 minutes of the same gangster/cop movie he did 2 films back? There are so many good directors in the industry now yet our star vehicles are reluctant to change.
Not everyone can be a Vijay sethupathi or Ulaganayagan and be ballsy but be a bit Vishnu Vishal atleastnu we are asking.

So what do you expect from a nalla padam?
Did you watch Aym? Ungal karuthu?
What do you think about this whole celebrity gossiping culture?
What kind of genre would you like to see in Tamil cinema?
Who did you think picks the best scripts and who need to improve?
Let's discuss xD

Devil's Paradise

So within a day of pitching the idea , I come up with my latest blog idea ' Devil's paradise' . Here , any original work which wants to get published anonymously gets a chance to be so published. I introduce to you , the first post - a fictional write up of a 11 year old authoress and her writing ethics. Please leave a feedback as the budding writers may continuing writing only on your honest feedback!https://semisharings.wordpress.com/2016/11/07/quandries-of-a-11-year-old/

Click Here

The monster

When you were a kid

You would search for me

under your bed

the same monster

is now lurking inside your head.

Count to 10

Shut your eyes tightly to no avail

I will grow my gospel

In the darkest zones of your soul

Self doubt , green eyedness and low self esteem

Are only some of the seeds I sow

Their progenies will never really let you grow

Poor you ,

think sleep is a sweet escape

You forget each time that

nightmares are my favourite landscape.

I am the evil landlord

That vanquished your brain

When did you become the benami

Against your own benefit?

My name is pessimism

Do you even remember yours? 

So Imaginary Garden with Real Toads had this topic which really piqued my interest , the real fear which lurks in the night, So this is my contribution towards the same topic.