A new hope

 

Collective bad dreams

Spit us out of our

Stupified sleeps.

 

Denuded desires,

Chasing the ghosts of

Gone glories.

 

Midnight oil burned,

Moody mindscapes

Caught frozen in

picturesque landscapes.

 

I didn’t know what to do,

But she stood with me

With a lamp in her hand

And somehow that was enough.

Written for the Sunday muse and PU's Sunday pantry. Based it out of the struggle my team is going through this season. 

Ludo Queen

So in lieu of my recent continued obsession with the game ‘Ludo King’, I have come to the conclusion that life is very similar to a game of  Ludo. Most people think it is the oversimplistic Snakes and ladders and a few would like to think that it is a complicated game of chess. The fact is that while in Snakes and Ladders we have ZERO control of the game and we are essentially leaving it to chance , in chess we are the masters of our own destiny. Neither situation really reflects life as it is.

 

Life like I said is a game of Ludo. It is the culmination of a seemingly predictable algorithm coupled with pure roll of the dice and strategic movement of your tokens. There are 2 ways to play it – either aggressively look to take out your opponent’s tokens to move forward or play the safe game and focus on the moves which will lead you to not be killed. It is fight or flee all over again. But again it is a question of responding to what the situation demands of you. Sometimes if you chicken out of taking the token which is right in front of you , others might start attacking you thinking you are a weakling . Or sometimes, while all your tokens are in the safe zone guarded by luck you might get cocky and try to grab what is not yours and end up back in square one.

 

So don’t be a cock or a chicken. Be your own wonderful self! Trust your instinct always. The gut always seems to process past defeats in a better fashion than your logical brain .

Earn your coins , enjoy the journey however tumultuous it gets. If all your tokens are back in the hut , don’t give up automatically. Atleast in the algorithm based universe perseverance has a price. Remember, giving up never has no upside! Also remember that this is just some elaborate game and it makes no sense to take it so seriously. Death might just be the end of a simulation for all we know. Okay. I am going to stop typing now :P

 

(365 words)

Mahanati Hangover

There is something about this movie. It has invigorated the romantic in me and stirred me so much that I have no option but pen my thoughts on it. It is not that the film is without flaws – the ‘innocent’ phase of savitri tests our patience , the film maybe guilty of being too in love with its protagonist and background score was sometimes just TOO loud and it ( perhaps understandably) hesitates to go too deep into the character’s psyche or action. However , the film soars above because of only one reason – Keerthy Suresh.

Right before I had the lucky opportunity to watch this movie (twice) , Keerthy Suresh was my least favourite actress. Maybe because she acted in Bhairavaa , Remo and Thodari – the three worst films inflicted on mankind. Maybe because she was more Loosu than ponnu in her loosu ponnu roles. She isn’t typically glamorous or stylish ( not that I particularly care) nor did she show any acting skill which would warrant her inclusion in all the latest films.

Until now.

She begun the movie with the usual bubbly , enthucutlet beats. I resigned myself for a dud. But then Gemini Ganesan A.K.A Dulquer A.K.A ‘Ammadi’ dropping Kadhal Mannan entered and the film sprang to life. We could see why she fell in love , even though there were huge warning signs everywhere. He isn’t a bad dude either. It is just life. Then comes her transition into ‘Mahanati’ / ‘ Nadigaiyar’ Thilagam’ . Although I haven’t watched any of the movies which she acted out in black and white I could see the greatness. I could see the Savitri in Keerthy. Ganga became Chandramukhi. There was something awesome about her walking elegantly to the Mahanati BGM. Like Rajini walking.

Then her heartbreak and downfall. Damn Keerthy is good. I’m assuming she used prosthetics for the heavy portions and she emoted so well. Maybe I am praising too much. But she was worth it.

Also , all this throws light on the fact that the tamil and telugu industry really need to pump out more scripts for their heroines. They used to in the 50’s, why can’t they now? When everything is apparently more advanced.

The sets and art design made me nostalgic for a time I know nothing about. Madras with trams and taxis looked so good, I wish there were more period movies made. They have a charm which we somehow are not able to capture in our ‘now’ movies.

The songs are so good. ‘Mouna Mazhayile’ is all shades of romantic and mesmerizing. Mahanati BGM is so regal and ‘ Irudiyil enna Minjum’ is just haunting…. The direction , shots were really beautiful. Telugu Cinema with Bahubali , Arjun Reddy and Mahanati now is showing how to be grand and good at the same time.

What is the up

Hi guys. I have been trying to write a poem for the last half hour and have ended up deleting innumerable drafts already. That side of my brain hasn’t really been put to work in a good while and let’s give it some time to catch up.

So what are you all up to?

What Is the up

I am currently interning at a Tax law firm and I have to admit I am struggling with all the technicalities. But I believe learning is a long arduous and painful process and one day like the karate kid or Akshay Kumar from Chandni Chowk to China , I’ll be all ready and pro to face the world… or at least get a job.

Ponderings

I am back in Chennai for this month and I have to admit that it is very weird to be back in a place with only the skeletons of my past remaining… the souls have moved on to their respective futures and careers of course. Ah the other side of the brain is finally starting to flow guys!

It is so scary to think of the future and where I’ll be in a year. Out of college and with a job hopefully but where? Here where it all begun once and waiting to begin again? Or there? Or someplace which my brain hasn’t even processed yet?

It doesn’t help that the helpful elders keep throwing in innuendos about marriage! Like that is even in the horizon. I know that the voices will only keep getting louder and my poor grandmom is in for a rude shock when she finds out that it is not even in the outside of the picture haha.  

Latest Read

So I have been reading Patriot Games the book ( yes which became a movie with Harrison Ford in it) The book takes it own sweet time to come to the point and spells out too many procedures to be any fun. Worst is the casual sexism and racism which is just impossible to digest in today’s context. It was quite amusing and ironical to read about an America which didn’t fear terrorism and the philosophies which shaped the pre 9/11 era.

Latest movie

I watched the Hell and the High water yesterday and was really impressed by it. Jeff Bridges , Chris Pine and Ben foster star in the movie and the screenplay really does a good job of fleshing out their characters. So much so that even though you don’t agree with their actions you can still understand their motivations for the same. The move deals with Armed Robbery in a refreshingly honest way. Also , I think Chris Pine wins the Chris war with this one.

 Latest Show

I watch like zillion shows at the same time. Still I would recommend the Aussie show ‘800 words’ , It is a perfect replacement for Packed to the Rafters. It is about George Turner a recent widower who uproots his two teenage kids from Sydney to a small town in New Zealand called Weld. Doesn’t sound like much but the show has created a beautiful fictious land called Weld with a wide battery of characters who are all authentic. Each episode manages to be fresh and strongly thematic and I insist that you give it a watch.

So what is the up with you people? C’mon you have to warrant this earnest personal post with a comment atleast! Let’s build a tiny community J

The First Dosa

I would like to thank all my readers - new and old - for the constant support and feedback. Steady Meanderings has gained a new lease of life because of you all. You guys are my biggest blessing! :)

Okay that sounded so cheesy and so unlike me :P

Listening to feedback is very crucial  feel and I have been getting requests to revert back to my long articles and short stories. But you see the problem is that, once you cross over to poetry which is so quaint and beautiful , prose feels cumbersome ugly and crass. If  I can make my point in 50 lovely words , why stretch it out to a 500 inconsequential ones?
What I am saying is that I used to be a story teller but now I've now become a writer. I have been giving importance to style over substance and I know that is not the best thing to happen to me. So I will try to balance both and I am committing to that by registering it here.
Since a cross over from poetry to prose is not the easiest thing ever , I'm going to try to capture the stream of conscious thoughts that's flowing through my head right now.
We all have to start somewhere right?

This post's soul feels this way

The heavy poetry hangover is palpable but please bear with me.
My mom says that the first dosa is always bad. But only if you get done with it , you can move on to better crispy ones :) and that is what this post is attempting to do. Scratch the pan before making more delicious things.

 Blessing Midweek Motif - I have become an avid participant of the poets united's midweek prompts. There is nothing more satisfying for a writer than to find a community of like minded souls sharing their work and mutual appreciation :)
The midweek motif for this week is 'blessing' and like I said in the beginning readers are my biggest blessing.

" More often than not we rarely spot the blessings we have been awarded from the almighty nature. Sometimes because we don't recognise the almighty but most times because we don't know that they are a blessing. We are too afraid to open the gift life has awarded us. Especially since life loves handing out Jackfruits. Prickly on the outside but oh so sweet on the inside. "

"Some people may have had cheap jackfruit off the road. A cursing in a blessing disguise. Wolf in sheep's clothing if you may call it. And so when the real fruit of our labour comes along we are too afraid to taste them .What a shame"  ( I had a bad experience with it when i was 8. Now i have a lifelong aversion)

" Moving away from the now overused Jackfruit metaphor , sometimes we are not aware that we possess is a blessing. Only when we lose or afraid we are going to lose it , that goddamn curse turns out to be your bestie bff blessing,"

 " If you never ever do find out your blessings from your curses , may god save you. "

No post is complete without a ruby meme :D

My convoluted message is that 

1) Spot thy blessings asap

2) Cherish them

3) Don't be a complaining mona 

4) This can be in relation to people , incidents , the seemingly shitty  sucky trick life life played on you. 

Iwilltakethisoppurtunity to Thank Srishti Swati  and Raju / Mona Darling aka Rajeshwari for being there always. If i put myself through what i put you both through , I would have unfriend AND block myself. Thank you for ending up in ILS by accident and making my life so much better ^_^

I would love to put a pic up , but fearing gaudiness I am not putting up. 

If this post nothing to you , take my peace offering :- 

 

 

Okay bye. 

Kabali da!

Nothing screams CHENNAI more than Rajinikanth. The fervour with which he is ‘worshipped’ is looked at by outsiders with cynical and smug eyes. No one has ever managed to capture the public’s collective consciousness like him. When he falls sick , people pray for his welfare. He is seen as an extension of one’s own family. This may seem as pretty naive to many. But I feel it just embodies the welcoming and loving spirit of Chennai.

The almost individualistic human spirit which rose to the occasion during the recent floods.Celebrities and common people alike helped many silently and not so silently.

I heard many saying that the hype around Rajinikanth is being Media manufactured. While it does require strong muscle to put up so many posters and achieve visibility via tie ups with 5 star , Air Asia and Amazon they count for squat when people don’t accept it.

The fortunate or unfortunate truth ( however you see it) is that people have accepted Rajini as one of their own. They love him. I love him. There is something about him you just cannot ignore.

Ram Gopal Varma recently posted an ugly tweet questioning the Rajini phenomenon , basically making a joke about his looks. That is another reason why I love us. We don’t really care how our heroes look. ( we do care how our heroines look , but that is reserved for another day) Rajini may not act like Kamal Haasan but he has a villainous streak from his early days in his career which shines through in motta boss scenes of Sivaji or the vasi meh scenes in Enthiran / Robot.

The first movie I watched was Padayappa and to this date I watch it every time it comes on the television. To understand the rajini love you need to understand the emotions a fan goes through when you watch his movies. But how can I explain the gaped mouthed goosebumpy feels every fan feels when they watch a movie of his? The clichéd but mandatory Intro scene where you scream your lungs out , not really caring about the dialogues or anything else for that matter? The necessary SPB intro song where he reluctantly shakes his hips in his trademark style? The way he so coolly throws the cigarette/chewing gum in his mouth and his punch dialogues!!!

Punch dialogues are one line counters delivered in Rajini style. All else is shite.

The man has got style. You don't. That's it.

Rajini's legacy seems to have passed to Ajith and Vijay , who are both trying to capture the whole market which Rajini singlehandedly controls.

Some may say the golden era of Rajini films was the 90s and that those days are over. They are right. Devout passion is a thing of bygone era. And less important things like innovation in story and secondary characters are also required nowadays. That is why lazy clichéd stories like Lingaa don't work anymore. A good rajini movie always had good screenplay and pace though ( BAASHA , ARUNACHALAM , ANNAMALAI , need I say more? )

What makes Kabali more exciting though is that Rajini , the safe one has decided to experiment! He has finally hit the reboot button , move on with the times , and finally decided to show the grey in his non existent hair. He is being directed by a young talent who cares about filmmaking and not just moneymaking and produced by a veteran who cares enough about the moneymaking. He doesn’t seem to have a juvenile looking actress acting as his love interest ( seems to be a trend of 2000s , rajini of the 90s was married mostly or in mature relationships atleast) and there are a talented bunch of secondary actors around him.

And he still has swag.

Some things never change!

And yes , I am proud to be a Rajini fan . I am not going to be forced to be ‘ashamed’ of it because some wrongly westernised idiots think it is not ‘cool’ or ‘hip’ anymore.

What I am trying to say is

MAGIZCHI

KABALII DAA!!

P.S – Someone help me get tickets for the movie . For I am stranded in Pune  and really wanna try FDFS*

FDFS – First day first show for the uninitiated

Finding Fan(ny)

Every one of us are fans of something or someone or the other. Admiring artistry and enjoying entertainment are few of the aspects which distinguishes us as human beings. That being said, all of us can’t be like Mr. Sudhir Kumar Chaudary whose only occupation is to be a fan or a  Mr. Gaurav Chandna who is a kind of person ( albeit fictional ) that most people call a ‘fanatic’.

Very rarely do fans get to meet their icons. Most of the times , they meet their Rajinikanth only in their dreams and even those darned dreams don’t end successfully ( dreams are actually very richly symbolic. Always try googling your disturbing dreams. Trust me , there exist other interpretations apart from your garden variety id and sexual drive) . I once had a dream which involved me having a looong conversation with Mr.Rajinikanth and it was so realistic that it leaves me in unconditional joy to just think of them even today. Un/fortunately most people don’t have such awesome and vivid imagination and dream retention , so they have only a slim chance of meeting their icons. And even when they do , they most often blow it. Not everyone is lucky like my dad to win a contest and meet Sachin Tendulkar in person and have a conversation with him in person. ( No I didn’t create this post merely to insert this fact :P ) 

So what is the point of this post?

Well , let me start from the moment when the seed of this thought got implanted in my head. Facebook is a drab place nowadays until the next fad comes around.  Ice bucket challenge , book gifting schemes , lock screen challenge , the secretive statuses for woman empowerment day?! … the list keeps going. And joining this not so prestigious but certainly fun list is a ‘what am I obsessed with?’ challenge. If a person shares a status asking that question , you have to simply comment what you think they are obsessed with. A simple enough challenge. It really helps you know what type of crazed fanatic the world thinks you to be.

In my case , people thought I was primarily obsessed with :-

a)      Chennai super kings

b)      Grey’s anatomy

c)       Books

d)      Coca cola

This set me thinking. Almost all the things I’m currently obsessed with are either defunct , bad for my health , have overstayed their welcome. And the one thing I should be doing – reading books is getting kicked to a corner. So I’m going to dig into each of these obsessions to get a better understanding of fangirling . Or fan boying – don’t wanna be called a ‘feminazi’.

The csk fan or

The type of fan who still loves something or somebody who no longer exists. We refuse to believe that the thing we love/worship/ look up to doesn’t actually exist anymore. We look back in time constantly thinking about the glory filled days of the past with pride and tear filled eyes. Books get over , Tv shows end and teams get destroyed or suspended for their stupid owner’s fault. And we the fans bear the brunt and have to live with memories of ancient words and scenes and recycle old material on facebook to get likes :P The harry potter fandom is a thriving one which discusses dramione and chickron theories like they happened yesterday. Friends last aired last 12 years ago. This is to say that loyal fandoms always survive. That’s why a reboot of a full house or arrested development has managed to happen. CSK fans will always believe that their team will come back in 2 years and all their players will somehow magically reassemble to re live in the golden era of IPL cricket. Till then IPL is dead to us.

The grey’s anatomy fan is a fan who has stuck by their show for 12 seasons and still crave for more in this short attention span era. A grey’s fan has endured the show’s leads go through  bombing , plane , ferry boat , car crashes , irretrievable break down of marriages and regular exit of primary characters. A grey’s fan is one who cherishes their long history. We know our obsession is not the currently ‘trending’ one and that our creator has herself greener stories to write about. Yet , we still have a beating heart , we win people choice awards and cry every time O’malley is mentioned or when characters leave. We are secretly happy they didn’t get killed off. We are the loyal , patient ones.

The bookworm is an increasingly hard to find species in today’s digital era. Kids of this generation are exposed to so much visual stimuli that books feel like they belong to the dinosaur era. As much as I love technology , I also despise it. I used to be able to read like a monster now I keep getting disturbed by the darned whatsapp. I am sad to say that I am not a bookworm anymore. Only a few books transport me completely to their world – like Jefferey Archer or Salman Rushdie. The excitement has waned. I am now a fake fan impostor-ing by buying tonnes of book and then going through periods of guilt. Sometimes , I get my groove back and devour them though. I’m pretty sure there are others like me.

Coca Cola fan. More like someone who befriended a sexy enemy and don’t know how to ditch them anymore. I very nearly had kidney damage due to it recently , so trying my best to avoid it. It is a very alluring obsession albeit a very dangerous one.

So from this personal analysis I have learnt that :-

1)      Fans are basically Gryffindors. Loyal to a fault

2)      They can get caught in toxic obsessions

3)      And let go of fruitful ones when more junky ones come along.

S

                So what do you readers Fan girl/boy about? Do you have any incurable obsessions? Or waning ones? Do you get addicted or maintain your sanity? Please leave a comment :) 

But , Have you?

The day has come

where Meredith is without Derek

Castle is without beckett 

and there is no sex scene in game of thrones 

I repeat ,

and there is no sex scene in GAME OF THRONES!

The day has come , 

Sachin is seen without his bat 

his perfect persona somehow incomplete ; 

csk is without a match

its heart still beating 

in the million hearts of its faithful fans

The day has come 

you are finally out of college 

All those million dreams 

you got in bed early for , 

have suddenly become real.

Point is , the day has arrive 

But , Have you?

Be careful what you wish for , 

they so often say.

When you shut your eyes

a bit too tightly 

you tend to get removed 

                                                                          far away from reality 

You open your eyes 

sudden glare of reality 

overpowering your dreamy eyes

into tears of submission.

Wearing the cooler of attitude 

through the seemingly 

eternal summer of reality

can shade your perceptions forever 

in almost irreparable ways.

Only time will tell, 

if you can outlast your

current state of affairs 

But Don't 

be too happy if you do.

cz the winter hasn't arrived yet 

but maybe this time 

you can arrive first. 

~The newsfeed of a fangirl~

Said a genius once

Reblogging quotes which make sense to me today.

A Short peek in to my news feed :P shows the toils and randomness of a fan girl's life I hope xP
Happy new year ppl! :)

1.Remembering painful quotes by fav characters! and waiting for your fav t.v show to start again . 

McDreamy is always right!



2.Dismembering the memories of dead characters till it hurts :'( 

Slexie too sexy to stay alive :'(

3.Reading morbidly inspiring stuff like this xP

start clearing that pile this year everybody! (especially me :P)

 

4.Reading depressingly funny stuff like this which indicates how old you actually are :P

kids nowadays :/

  5. Deceivingly deep ones like this :P      

Deep actually.

6. Sadly true ones 

food over bros :P

7. Controversially hilarious ones 

Don't care if I'm reported lol this is just too hilarious xD

8. One tree hill quotes <3 

I hate Peyton but so true.

Lucas sucks though :/

9. You don't say ones 

Let's end it with mindboggling fact of the day :P

10. Then the ones that describe you perfectly!