Reviews, Reviews

Movies
Kung Fu Panda is a must watch. It is all kinds of adorable, voiced by an all star cast and super animation to boot. I swear, animated movies just keep getting better and better. The attention to detail is fantastic; everything from the very Chinese theme (pigs, noodles, ducks!!) to the detail in each character was excellent. My only gripe is that sometimes the movie moved so fast that I couldn’t really catch all the subtle bits, like how the viper had little lotuses above her eyes; I only saw that at the end (though this may have been because Pissu kept disturbing me with text messages of how she was spying on RD at Odel). The movie is pure awesomeness, so go watch it.

Also went to see Hancock today, and was not overly astounded. It was entertaining to be sure, but nothing to leave you gasping in awe. I will say this though: Will Smith has really sexy hands and Charlize Theron is smoking. I mean just smolderingly so. Especially at the end when she’s in the boots and the... well I wouldn’t want to give it away.

I really want to watch Dark Knight which has been getting super reviews, but the chances of that being shown here are low to none. They’d much rather showcase cinematic masterpieces like Sir Last Chance, the trailer of which I saw today. The hindi songs, Anarkali on an Orbitrek, the policewomen in midriff bearing outfits and of course Anarkali’s scintillating kitchen chair dance all surely make this a must see. I might even drag the notorious Fedexpress for this one, it’s his kind of movie.

Reads
Finally got through The Inheritance of Loss. If ever a book has utterly suffocated me it’s this one. Sheer will power and curiosity kept me going. The story in itself is an interesting one, alternating between mountains and New York, focusing on a few main characters with larger themes woven in. The writing itself however was my problem. There’s no doubt that the woman is a master at detail, and I for one love detail, but never have I seen so much detail; she veritably force-feeds you pages and pages of it. Her grasp on the characters is beautiful though. It’s at once sympathetic and critical, and she had truly done justice to the synopsis of the book for it claims she “illuminates the consequences of colonialism as it collides with the modern world”. She really brings out the immigrant experience, and I found myself identifying with certain lines, for instance “And they couldn’t wait for the shopping… triumphantly translating everything into American currency; and while the shopping was converted in to dollars, tips to the servants could be calculated in local currency: ‘fifteen hundred rupees. Is he mad? Give him one hundred, even that’s too much.” So true. Shobs and I can often be seeing gleefully leaving a shop having spent “only 20 bucks men!” and then haggling with the trishaw man for a meager 50 rupees. The shame.

I breezed through Alentejo Blue, however. Monica Ali is fast becoming another one of my favorite authors. I loved her Brick Lane, and I love this second work of hers. Her writing is detailed and insightful, yet not pretentiously so. It’s a light read, entertaining and interesting. It’s the kind of book you can read again and again, and discover something new each time.

Theater
Made a last minute solo trip to watch Noir last Sunday. "Funny. Not so dark", I would have called it. Some of the plays fell short while some were bloody hilarious. I primarily went to watch Marsh Dodanwela, having seen him do a piece last year at Barefoot, after which I promptly fell in love with his acting, but it was the chemistry between him and Rajinda Jayasinghe which carried the plays. Their comedic timing was excellent, their accents on point, and their acting superb. The Lifeboat is Sinking was absolutely my favorite. "Choose Sherwin, choose!!" Hilarious. On an aside, I really must go for more of these things alone, it is absolutely enjoyable and hassle-free.

Gigs
Just the one, and I will keep it short, dare I rave about it too much. As predicted, Sach has done a fantastic review here, and I suggest you read it because there’s nothing much left to say. I do have my two cents though, one of which being the audience. It was disheartening that a band of such immense talent can draw so little a crowd. Maybe it was the lack of advertising, maybe rain and traffic and checkpoints. All in all though, they should have by now garnered enough die hard fans who would come, fair weather or foul. I only heard them once before last year, and I was an instant fan, I don’t see why others aren’t drawn to their music. One thing about Thriloka’s music is that on top of being entertaining and pure pleasure, it’s also very clever. I don’t know much, or anything really, about timing and music arrangements, but just listening in you can tell that there is a lot going on in there, lots of complex twists and turns. They did a cover of Earth Song which, I must admit, didn’t please me at first because lyrics had no place there that night, but by the end I thought the song fitted in pretty well with the rest of the items, though that may well be me taking the title of the song literally. Sarani Perera, let me tell you, is hypnotic on his guitar. He made the sexiest music that night. And the band itself is so in tune with each other and enjoys themselves so much on stage that it makes the music that much better. It’s annoying that I don’t know the names of the songs to write down which ones I enjoyed exceptionally well; the 2nd one and then I lost count. Reading Sach’s piece, I was beginning to think she was a bit of a song-recognizing maestro, and then I realized she had a program. Oh. I should have got me one of those. They’re playing again on the 27th I believe, and I will be there if damn SAARC and strict fathers don’t get in the way, and I suggest you go too.

Post Gig High

Just got done watching Thriloka and I'm still on a high (the OR at SSC may have something to do with that too, actually). Suffice to say I'm not in any state to put together a comprehensive review so I'll leave that up to Sach and Chaarmax, who will no doubt do the honors.

All I can say is that I fucking love this band. They are completely original, at least to my untrained, mainstream alternative ear, and have incorporated a whole variety of great instruments in to the lineup. The musicians are kickass. Their pianist is one of those flamboyant types with the head movements and extravagant hand gestures. Their lead guitarist made all kinds of sexy music, and the percussion guy was awesome. And their drummer was fabulous. Really, he did things with the drums I've never seen before and I think there was a loop pedal in there somewhere. OK this is how much I liked them: I bought a CD. Yes, I spent real money to support a band. How do you like that?!

Ok, well I DID say this wasn't a comprehensive review. I'm rather incoherent at the mo. I swear I'll spellcheck this in the morning.

The First

Her head was down, nose touching paper, scribbling furiously, insanely, large looping black letters, blurred by tears. A letter? She hadn’t done that in years. A note then, to him and her. And him. And her. To you who didn’t care anymore, and to you who broke my heart. To you who dared cross me and you who cut in front of me in line. Night turned to dawn, and dawn to day as she wrote on, her anger all consuming, frustration coursing through her veins. Tears of self pity, hopelessness, desperation. She felt it all, so keenly, too keenly.

She hadn’t smiled in days. Not really anyway. Just those half hearted types, brilliant on the outside, empty on the inside, never quite reaching the eyes. Her life was a sham; her friends - did she even have any? Love - what’s that? Laughter - can’t quite remember. The past forgotten, the present dreary, the future hopeless.

Something was happening to her, something big. It loomed over her, dark and forbidding, threatening to envelope her, mind, body and soul. She could feel its weight pressing, down, down, all the way down, for she had reached the famed edge of the precipice, one step forward two steps back updownroundandround thetimehascomethewlarussaid what to do oh whatta to do.

...

Odds and Ends

The weeks are flying by. I turn around and its Friday again and we’re inexplicably at Zanzi, again, rubbing shoulders with the under-aged and overdressed. Last night was great though; they had the right mix of hip hop and house, the crowd was decent, my crowd was decent, plenty of eye candy and lots of free booze. And a night with free booze is always a good one.

Lots of bits and pieces this week. For starters, we went to the zoo today. Shobs and I on 4 hours of sleep and me on hangover remedies. Please remind me to never ever smoke again, no matter how many cute boys offer me cigarettes. It’s a bad bad habit, and I have the cough to remind me. But vat to do, all I wanted to do was sleep, but I’d promised the sister I’d take her so off we went. It makes me a bit sad, that place. I haven’t been in years and it still looks exactly the same. The cages are still tiny and dirty, the animals all look old and tired and defeated, somehow. Lions, tigers, leopards, all in tiny cages and enclosed areas, looking broken. The reptile house, as always, fascinated me, and I just spent an entire semester learning useless facts about monkeys so I regaled everyone with them: “now the Orangutan, descending from Sivapithecus, identified by its dish shaped face and elaborately flared zygomatic arches, is a solitary creature, sexually active aprox once in nine years…” All the thanks I got was a ‘shut up, you sound like Ross’. Well boo to you. Philistines. Ok, so I also took this picture. What can I say, I’m a bit of a perve.

I’m really enjoying work. It may be that I even love work. Shobs has two weeks left, and we were contemplating taking off work to fit in as much as we could, but then again, neither of us really felt like not going to work. Workaholics? Quite possibly. If you do what we do, you would be too. She’d kill me if I posted any of the pics I’ve taken of her or the videos (I’m a little teapot, with actions), but this I’ve gotta put up.

A visual of the songs we’ll be singing today kids, starting from top left It’s raining, It’s pouring (if you look carefully, you’ll see the old man snoring) and then moving counter clockwise to Row Row Row Your Boat and ending with some song about a garden. I swear, she was born to amuse me.

And I’m back on the road. Behind the wheel that is. My road rage has calmed down quite a bit, and I believe I might even be a passably good driver in a country that has road rules. I told Shobs when she got here, ‘two things you need to know about our roads. One, everyone’s always in a hurry, and two, there are no rules’. Little did I know how true that is, but I will not begin a rant since I’m in quite a good mood and have no desire to lose it. Though I will say this: Die bus drivers, DIE! I’m also told I have a bad habit of drifting to the right. I don’t know, driving puts me into a daze, and before I know it I’ve been driving for ten minutes and have no idea how I got where I am because I was thinking about something else. So you know, if I accidentally bump into you.. it wasn’t on purpose.

Daddy-o took us to this restaurant at Mount hotel; I can’t quite remember what it’s called, some Cove. It’s right on the beach, open air, good food, super secluded and, if I hadn’t been with the fam, ridiculously romantic. Take your significant other and go. I recommend the baked crabs.

I finished reading An Equal Music. Vikram Seth, marry me. I’d seen the book lying around for weeks, but it was as if I was meant to pick it up at the time I did. I was struggling through Inheritance of Loss (more on that when I finish it) and this book soothed my soul. It’s about a violinist and his quartet, and his love lost and found, and Vienna and Venice. It’s about real people and real emotions and well, now I have to go to Venice.

This event you must go for. The gods have been kind. Musically, I have not been entertained since I got here, but at long last, I get to hear Thriloka playing again. And, wait for it... it’s acoustic. You say acoustic and I say love. So just come and then we’ll all go out for a drink after. Who’s we? I have no clue, but I know some of my favorite bloggers will be there. Till then, then.

Weekend Schmeekend

Saturday-day
6.30: awoken by rude phone call. I better be ready in 20 minutes or else.

7.30: sleepily fumble for bathing suit et al.

7.45: get yelled at for not being ready in above mentioned 20 minutes.

Bentota Beach Hotel. What a fabulous place. Hit the beach, then the pool. By 12 everyone's starving and we are literally queued up outside the lunch place ready to rush in the minute the clock struck 12.30. What a fantastic buffet! We were in there for 2 hours gorging ourselves. Well worth the Rs 250 I paid. (God, I love family connections!) After lunch, the itis hits. So we go our individual ways. Me with a book and music to the beach, Shobs and the sister to the pool, the others to god knows where.

I'm currently reading a Vikram Seth book, and he is fast taking his place in my favorite authors list. This book, An Equal Music, it makes me want to cry. More on it when I finish. I spent a couple of truly fabulous hours under that tree by the sea. The most blissful time I've had in weeks; the breeze in my hair, some Marley playing in my ear, the sun and sea. Snooze city baby!

Saturday-night
Why not round off a great day with some drinks and dancing eh? So off we went, me and the Shobster, to meet the peeps at CinnGrand. God, how I detest that coffee shop. Of all the pretentious places, in the lobby of a hotel. Gah. I feel like a bug under a microscope.

But the bar, now that's an entirely different story. I love quiet, open spaces with lots of trees and soft lighting. Breeze Bar is just that. There was a band playing in a corner, sort of soft background music, the moon was out, nice breeze, candles.. And this is where I tell you that girls are annoying drama queens and the less I have to deal with them the better. Having gotten rid of the annoying gits, we settled in for a chat and some music. Chats nowadays seem to almost always end up in remember-whens and insane laughter. Good times, good times.

Around 12 we up and left for Zanziba. Since there was a fancy party at Casa, which none of us were inclined to go for, we figured Zanzi would be relatively quiet and relaxed. Wrong. Apparently that's where all the Casa rejects headed. And I may well sound like a snob for saying that, but if you could have only seen.. well actually, you're probably better off for not having seen. You know how at every club there is always that one weirdo who'll be dancing by himself with the weird moves? Well it was like they were holding a convention and everyone attended. Shobs and I spent much of the night sitting by the bar dying of laughter. And everything just kept getting funnier with each drink. Speaking of drinks, they need new bar tenders. Ones who actually know how to mix drinks. And I've never been in a place that had such a dearth of cute boys, so the first decent looking boy who flirted with me, I smiled back at. Up until Shobs looked in the direction I was smiling and went "T, he's 15!". I knew I kept her around for a reason. I'd say that was a night for the books, simply because I have never been so well entertained at a club. It was like front row seats at a freak show.

As for Sunday, well, that's God's day. Also, a day of rest and sports. The cricket final was fantastic. Wimbledon, not so much. As I type this Nadal is up 2 sets and there's a rain delay. Nadal is playing fantastic tennis. He's aggressive, ridiculously quick and has smart placement. Too bad I'm rooting for Federer on this one. Federer is playing well too, but has the annoying habit of fucking up a really awesome volley with a stupid shot. Guess I'll find out what happens tomorrow, and maybe catch a replay as well.

Update: Oh. Em. Gee. What a match. What. A. Match!! Well done Rafa.

Over Tea-d

All this talk of tea and coffee just reminded me that in aprox. 1.3 hours I will receive what will be the first of 3 cups of tea for the day. Shobs and I were just laughing about how we'll probably drink more tea on this trip than we've ever drunk in our lives. She likes tea so she's quite enjoying it.

But first, for anyone wondering, I removed the previous post due to the overwhelming volume of questions about nudity. I wouldn't want my minute readership to think I have nekkidness mania like Spectral. Whether I do or do not is besides the point.

Moving swiftly along, I like coffee better than tea..

I'll give you a moment to safely file away that important bit of info.

And we're back.. but I won't say no to a nice cup of plain, ginger tea. Problem is there's no ice tea, like there is ice coffee. Oh wait, there is. But no, it's iceD tea, not ice tea. You can't pop a cup of tea in the fridge for a bit and then drink it eh? That would be gross. And weird. But I suppose you can take a bottle of iced tea from the fridge and drink it. That wouldn't be gross OR weird. Unless you're the kind that thinks it is, in which case..

Anyway my point being that in this weather no one, well I, really can't handle hot beverages. So there I am, sipping my 3 cups of milk tea at work, sweating profusely with every sip. Just refuse you say? Well yes, but that would be rude, and also its not too bad, that milk tea. Of course its more along the lines of, as Cerno said it, "a cup of condensed milk and sugar with a few drops of tea" but on a long tiring day, it ain't half bad.

A few days ago I hinted oh so subtly, and we all know I am nothing if not subtle, that I rather prefer plain tea and I didn't think the word would go down the line to the tea maker but lo and behold, I am now presented with a cup of plain tea 3 times a day. Awesomeness. Still a tad too sweet for my liking, but one must count ones blessings, like the fact that my calorie intake has been halved.

I've lost my train of thought and am rambling. I apologize. It's because I'm trying to get dressed, blow dry my hair, and find out where the car is because I'm late for work, all at the same time. Let me end with a flourish, by cursing Barista and Coffee Bean and Commons and all those hoity toity places that charge an arm and a leg for a decent cup of coffee. Starbucks prices in a third world country, whatever next!!

Quotable Quotes

The Duckling: it wasn’t a date. it was an.. outing.
S: an outing? An outing??
Undisclosed: I’d take an outing. All the guys I meet just wanna do me.

Cinco de Mayo
BLi: you, me and Jose. Tonight, my place.
Me: I don’t usually do threesomes, but I’ll make an exception for the Hispanics.

At night, studying in our respective beds
Me (throwing down Plato’s Republic in frustration): This isn't English! What the fuck is he talking about? (quotes Calvin) As a philosophy atheist I think I should be excused from this.
O: As a naked brown girl atheist, I should be excused from dealing with your lack of bedtime attire.

O (stalking object of desire's facebook wall): why’s she asking him all these questions?? Skank. Hasn’t she heard of google?
Me: nobody ever got laid by googling.

Discussing future suitemate
O: so who’re we getting?
Suitemate (Indian) S: I think its an Indian girl
O: another brownie? This is fucking America. I’m supposed to be the majority!

First day of Spring Break
O: there's no one here, we got the whole place to ourselves!
Me: think of the possibilities...!
O: yeah! we might as well just run around naked.
Me: of all the possibilities.. that's all you could come up with?
O: ... well, not together.

Me (modeling new outfit for S): you like?
S: hmm maybe if you stood up straighter. You know, carry yourself a bit.
Me (throws back shoulders, sticks chest out and sashays across room): like this?
S: I said carry yourself, not prostitute yourself.

The Duckling: here, I don't like boys. They're dumb.

Ugh

Damn you, food poisoning! And I am absofuckinglutely craving Darwin's margarita ice cream.

I think I'll just mope around, watch Wimbledon and be a bitch to everyone in general. A wise little boy once said "nothing helps a bad mood like spreading it around" *evil grin*

Also, is the juice worth the squeeze? I sure hope so, but I have my doubts.