Eat Pray Love: Live Live Live

I began to write this today morning but my thoughts denied the expressive power of an opening paragraph. Then as I tucked myself in bed post midnight, something struck me like lightening. I couldn't sleep after that, so made myself some coffee and here I am with a piece of philosophy - The world is predominantly made up with two kinds of people: the wise and the bohemian. This was that lightening moment.

The wise: I have been given an orientation on the science of living a few years ago. Get married by 26-27, have your first kid by 29, the second by 32. By the time you retire, your kids are grown up and settled. There in a nutshell, wisdom was parted to me. In summary, the moral suggested that all the "agenda-items" expected of you during your lifetime, should be executed at the right times. And I do believe, that to a great extent this works for a lot of people. Some are lucky to find love, get married and live this science very successfully. More often, parents make the match, the love may or may not happen but the entities conform to the science of living through very healthy companionship. Some may not be very happy after a while, but accept it as fate and work harder to be happy in the given situation. Its a very well established proven path for years and this has become the living prophecy. Truth is, it works with defined roleplays and the society on a larger scale appreciates it.

Then there are the species of the bohemians: These people are aware of the wisdom shared over the years; they understand and can comprehend the wise science of living. However their instincts are often guided with the adventure of unknown. The unknown in life or the unrealized of them. And this journey of self-realization supercedes the comfort, security or compromise of wisdom. Liz Gilbert's is the latter story. You will have to walk in her shoes for a while to empathize and relate to its serenity.

Liz is a writer who has potentially made the most of her material success but somewhere in her relationships she has lost touch with her personal self - partly making choices to make a marriage successful and then being a girlfriend soon after the marriage is over. Quite often when some part of your life hits rocky mountains, you take a step back and assess! What the F is possibly wrong? And so on her quest, she decides to take an year off to travel to Italy, India and Bali.

Well, as I walked through the movie with Liz, I was left with a very serene, sensitive and spiritual impression. In very small bits the real Julia shines on the screen, however for majority of the part we are getting to know Liz Gilbert who in my opinion is a very kind and sensitive person. She is consciously working to put the love and lust behind, to understand the person she is without it; probably establishing the balance of her life. The movie does not have any larger than life moments that Julia has delivered in many past performances, however, it delivers a deeper and sublime peace. The message is very profound in its three word simplicity: When you 'eat pray love', you have learnt to 'live live live'. If you are already doing it, then this movie gives you another soul-friend Liz Gilbert and if you are not, this movie may inspire you to find something more about yourself.

The Eat part: The other day, Kirit, a friend of mine posted a status message on FB saying he was relishing rich cashews, something that he is prohibited to do. During the same time, I was munching on two yummy 'besan' laddoos being very well aware that I haven't seen the face of my gym in the past one month. When the irresistible craving for food takes over, you simply want to enjoy the relishing moment without worrying how the calories impact your physical anatomy. The simple plain ecstasy of 'bingeing'. Liz lives this eating joy in Italy coupled with learning the Italian language of provocative gestures. As she leaves Italy, she is served a grand thanksgiving dinner by a local family that she befriends during her stay. As they say their thank you (s) over the dinner table that is devoid of turkey, Liz tells them how happy she is to see the happiness wrapped around her in other people's lives. Even if your life has hit the rocks, on some occasions one can be happy relating to the happiness of others. 

The Pray part: The message she gives herself in this phase is to 'forgive' herself for letting go of her marriage and the hurt she has caused. The other day, Vikram asked me "Do you think I am a good person, a good son?". I zapped out a bit and told him "Well, I think you are a decent friend. However, I cannot justify or deny the good son part. You have to decide that for yourself. If you can be at peace with the son that you have been, then you are a good son. Period." That is the core of every individual. The review you give yourself of the role plays you play in life. The lover, the father, the spouse, the mother and the friend. You have to be happy with who you have been and if you are not, you have to strive to arrive at that happiness quotient. The world may look upon you as selfish or failing or any such multiple dimensions, however you are the sculptor of your own destiny. You hit and hammer yourself the way you deem fit to produce a piece of art that you are going to be content with.

The love part: "If you want to love, love. If you miss someone, miss". Hold not the emotion, feel and live it. I believe, the larger part of the problem is not to love, but to expect the love in return. Are we in some sort of a way programmed to expect this as humans? And is it really worthwhile to unlearn this programmed philosophy and learn it the other way? Truth is one cannot dictate how and who to love, one may only have a temporary capacity to manipulate someone into loving. If you find someone who arouses the feeling, the greater good is to act on it and love. It will find a way to transform and evolve, probably into the greatest love at one extreme or a faded and forgotten story at the other end.

Now, time for another theory. If the world is probably divided into the wise and the bohemians, they probably end up on the 'compromise' and 'loneliness' scales respectively. Count out the people who have found the perfect world of love, passion and happily ever after. However, people on both scales are probably a happier lot with the choices they make. The wise are happy because they make the most of their circumstances while the bohemians try to make the most of new experiences that come to them. If I was not to find my perfect world, I most likely see myself on the 'loneliness' scale. Not either scales are bad, they are meant for people with two very distinguished philosophies. 

Throughout the movie, Liz has been told to find herself a man. The wise did that because they are so ingrained with this philosophy and believe it works. Majority of the times it does, may be. However, may be sometimes we like to try out the new, the unexperienced when the joy of the proven doesn't excite us. The greatest part of the movie to me is the fact that Liz could leverage her friends and use her power to finance permanent housing for a lesser fortunate divorced woman in Bali. That is the legacy of being a great human being; extending your support to make life better for somebody else. That one gigantic deed is probably as worthwhile as making a marriage successful. May be it cannot be equated, but in my world, it is as significant a success story as anyone else would probably credit you for a good working marriage.

While she took an year off to eat, pray and love, the moral may be to try and inculcate that in our daily lives. Pick a sunday and feast on some of the finest foods. I had pick one in two months and binge on belgian beer or wines with some exotic foods that I probably wouldn't do on a working day. Not for the reason of calories, but more to avoid the frog-like-sluggishness in the post lunch period. Make way for God in your daily lives. Love. Be happy. I would probably add exercise, running and swimming. And one day, if you cant make a sense of everything that's going around, you give yourself a break. Introspect. You will probably find some answers and some you wont. And for the ones you don't, live live live because life is quite often your quest to seek something that you believe is missing. 

I hear the book is better so I shall read it. I am not sure whether everyone is going to like this one, but I was happy watching it. Its probably because I like to sit across a table, grab a beer and share someone's life story.

p.s. I think the movie was cut partially, sad sad people !

Going the distance: In love, one travels all the possible extra miles

This Valentine's day of 2010, I decided to watch 'Valentine's day'. Swiped my card online for two, without a date in mind and to my very pleasant surprise PVR decided to make me that privileged credit card holder who got a ticket free. I smiled ear to ear. I was very pleasantly surprised. I thought the stars were working in my favor so I decided to call on someone random and hook up for a date. Date-disaster would be an extreme and mean description; however I wish I could be more diplomatic about it. Another day would have been fine, but on Valentine's day, c'mon, St. Valentine's would be so ashamed of me! Although, another very pleasant surprise was the movie itself. Multiple stories woven into one seamless beautiful fabric. I loved the movie. Great one time watch. However, I said to myself "This cant be the my valentine's day. Its one story to be alone, but another to inflict a wrong date onto yourself". So there, I swiped the card again for a late night show; ticket for two, and this time I decided to take a friend along. And you guessed it right, I got the second ticket free, this time too. Honestly! So, in summary, in spite of an ok date, and a great-one-time-movie watch what made me happy for that day were the two free tickets. I felt special about being chosen by the cosmos for two free tickets. Simple things like these that pleasantly surprise us quite often come as infringement benefits in our day to day agenda activities.

Last saturday on 2/10, Gandhi Jayanti, I experienced the same thing after having watched Drew Barrymore and Justin Long in "Going the distance". And if you haven't experienced the "pleasant surprises" of life and are a movie buff, I recommend this movie one-100%. It will give you that pleasant-surprise-joy. I had no POA and had already watched Anjaana Anjaani the day before. So V, a dear friend of mine, and I decided to catch up at Phoenix mills, browse around and catch this movie. My mum liked Drew Barrymore, when I took her to see Charlie's Angels part II. She didn't care about hot Madison Lee or anybody else, however after the movie she told me ....."Ae mala ti hi awadli, chaan diste" translates into - "I liked Drew Barrymore, she is beautiful". However, though I like Drew, I wouldn't go for a movie just to watch her. Justin Long would be extremely far-fetched; the only place I remember him from is from the movie"*something* Creepers". So without expectations, we got seated in the movie stalls to spend time with the movies. 

Do yourself a favor and dont miss this brilliant piece of work. A very realistic, simple, well crafted, very well directed heartwarming story of love-in-today's-date. This is one of those movies where script does the wonders, and the start cast brings the story to life. You don't go here to appreciate a Julia's or Leonardo's performance, however, you end up loving the chemistry of Erin and Garret played by Drew and Justin respectively. It may not come equipped with the marketing gimmicks to entice you into a ticket purchase, and is very simple and ordinary at face value; but it is going to make you feel so damn good at the end of it. Its a four starrer all the way, and there is not one instance you can pick and criticize. Very recently, I believe UDAAN was another such nice piece of work.

So this a story about Erin (ERL) and Garret. Erin is a writer and completing her graduation from Stanford, however possibly running a decade behind where career is concerned. Garret is much younger and the last time he cried over breakup with a girl was as a child. Obviously none of the girls stuck around, because he was lesser involved in each of them. Then as cosmic connection would have it, both of them meet over a Centipede game. Now, trust me on one thing, when it comes to love stories of real or reel life, cosmos sometimes has a major role to play. Its inevitable destiny and I believe in it. The aim is to bring two people together.

So the not-so-involved Garret meets the charming and carefree Erin (soon going to be journalist) over a Centipede game followed by beer. This is followed by "Erin, welcome to my bedroom" and Erin appears pseudo-shocked when Garret's roommate plays a romantic background score to spice up the late evening. There's then a 3-way. I mean, conversation followed by a you-know-what-follows in the late-evening now, don't you? Then the story begins and you will experience the warmth and love of a fine picturization. This will last for those couple of hours followed by rest of that day. I shall attempt to give you a brief.

Instead of an ugly quite exit the next morning, E and G decide to catch up on breakfast. G expresses his interest to see more of her and she obliges with her phone number; making it perfectly clear that she was going to be around for six months after which she is headed back to school in Stanford. Six months fling by in a perfect honeymoon period as they find themselves in awkwardly parting ways at the New York airport. They believe that wasn't a good ending and decide to give long distance relationship a try. Erin moves back to west coast with her sister and Garret stays in New York where his work is with the music industry. Then, the surrounding people of friends and family intrude on the long-distance relationship status. "Is it exclusive?" This surrounding friends and family are some of the funniest people you will know in the movie. They are awesome and fun. Remember Amy, who plays Rachel's sister in friends; well she plays Erin's sister here. You will encounter these individual conversations lead to random blowjobs and pussy-licking, however, if you keep speech etiquette out; you are going to be on one roller coaster laughter. 

The relationship gets the "exclusive" label on verbal phone agreement as has been in practice. It progresses to depict the hardships of long-distance, where you are not always equipped to meet the person you love for reasons of monetary limitations or move to either location on account of lack of job opportunities given the economic curses.

Love doesn't keep knocking at your door. Its not the daily vegetables that you pick up at some supermarket or vendor on the road. Getting someone to have sex with you is a lot easier than to meet the person who you would like to take out for a morning breakfast, share your most favorite movies, the bands you have loved and the future ones you would like to support. And in response, have someone who understands every bit of what you say or how you feel about things. That connect happens very once-in-a-while and cosmos plays a role in bringing them together the first time. The rest is for individual entities to work on. The chemistry of these two actors is so natural that you wouldn't imagine them finding somebody else in their latter lives with such synchronized rhythm. The two of them  probably understand this and therefore invest all their heart to make it work as far as they can. That's why you will love this movie.

Circumstances change, hard work sometimes becomes too hard and doesn't pay off. They make decisions that will keep them happy and satisfied in the long run and they convince us of that. They convince us of the love they have and that's good performance for a movie. 

Apart from the chemistry, the movie also educates you on something called as "dry-humping". It brings with it loads of laughter and brings the "statue" game back into fashion. "Maya, Statue!" is the funniest line you will hear in the movie. 

I was very pleasantly surprised with this one. I was happy at the end of it and left behind with an impression that "when it comes it to love, people travel all the possible extra miles."

Anjana Anjaani, Hello there GORGEOUS STRANGER!

For the first ten minutes, I was lost with the stock market debacle. Not that I get anything of the stock markets, however, I was sure that those ten minutes could have had some substance. It did have a moral though - that when people lose money in the stock market and you are the cause to it, you become suicidal. And so Ranbir goes to jump off a bridge where he meets Kiara; who is ready to jump down herself - however she gives us a good laugh for a couple of minutes before that. 

 There is another 10 minutes of forced comic disaster. Actually, you laugh because its really very stupid and funny to imagine how both of them end up in the same hospital, bump into one another, walk out in scrubs and how Kiara refuses not to walk ahead of Ranbir who in her opinion wants to peek-a-boo in her panties! And then Kiara goes mad and talks about "signs" and I am touching my forehead calling out "Oh, My God! Could this be any more lame?". However, this is the end of most of the movie disaster and fun begins. Though, please note, you do laugh a bit through this piece of time.

The comic timing which was 'w-t-f' then finds a new originality. Kiara and Ranbir keep you laughing for most times. This is when life happens. Two strangers meet, they bond, get to know each other and especially when they are "suicidal" - they want to live the days of their life before they kill themselves. Even when you have no money, you have time to do whatever in the world you wish to do. And the most important, you have absolutely gorgeous company to do it (only, they realize it much later).

The movie has very original lines that bring you laughter. Honestly, I cannot exemplify this humor in words - it has to be watched and enjoyed live. Onscreen, both are a gorgeous couple. In my personal view, I dont think either of them is beautiful; I kept thinking there's something wrong with Priyanka's nose all throughout the movie. However she oozes the oomph throughout the movie-hours and you love this sassy girl. Her humor makes her sexy, endearing and fun. Ranbir on the other hand brings the character "I am a good guy at heart" very alive. Every movie that has this earthyness about him, has give a hit. He becomes the almost perfect guy, one would want to spend their life with. *APKGK, WUS - absolute hits*. His Rocket Singh was equally touching. He plays his character very convincingly and is intense, making him brilliant at what he does. Both of them have star qualities, and this is one movie, where you wont complain if the stars are acting. The coupling grows on you engage in your movie time.

There is a scene, where Kiara is beautifying her eyes with a liner and the camera brings seminaked Ranbir in the background. With poise and passion, she walks upto him, rubs the foam off his lip and naughtily clarifies that she wouldnt mind going out with him without his shirt. This is the "moment" in the movie and one good reason to watch it on the big screen. One of the most silent, passionate scenes I have seen in a long time. Its speaks all "make-love"  without the actual "love-making". Ranbir's raunchy nipples and a quarter of Priyanka's visible breasts just adds to the sauna-steam effect. And this is the 'moment' why you will forgive director Siddharth Anand, for the first lame 20 minutes.

Kiara has a history too. Past childhood love affair gone bad, something that she cant get over. While this late evening, she stands stunning in red, the next morning you will find her weeping over her ex. In all honesty, that is how ex love-affairs are for some people and therefore I was sold with the next morning situation. People take their own time to get over ex(s). Some may be never do. But when you do, I believe, its a snap reaction - Like flipping a coin from tails to head. And you would never flip back to the same love-emotion again. For you, its over in one snap judgement. I recommend watching "CLOSER" to all the movie lovers and you will know what I mean. Towards the end of this movie, Natalie Portman tells Jude Law "I am not in love with you anymore". Jude: "Since when?". Natalie: "Since this moment". And that is the most powerful scene in that movie. For every person I may know or not, please feel free to comment on "Does getting over an ex happen in one snap judgement and that one judgement can take x days, months or years?"

Now, into AA, say after 3/4th amount of fun-time, there is some blah blah story that moves on and in the end, the lovers meet again. And then there is the drama of the "engagement ring" and "proposal". Honestly, I have never been impressed with the most of the proposals that happen in movies and "cheesy" is the right term for them. I mean, the airplane-smoke script, or ring in some fancy foods being served and then people around clapping and "awwwwing" - What is it? A circus or a proposal? Seriously, I wish to know who enjoys this and why? I am sure there are good reasons, so please do help me understand what is this joy? May be there is something I will learn. 

As I was talking about "moments" before, here's my best proposal one. From one of my top 3 favorites, Notting Hill. The guy, doesnt even propose to Anna (Julia Roberts). She asks her manager, to ask a reporter to repeat an already asked question again. And for me as an audience, the movie is only progressing. Nothing extra-ordinary happening. And then the reporter asks Anna "So Anna, how long do you stay in the UK then?" Anna takes a pause, looks at Hugh Grant and says "Indefinitely". And within the next 5 seconds, the entire British Press gets that she has fallen in love with the doe-y eyed Hugh Grant. And cameras go flash-flash-flash and Julia has the twinkle in her eye. She smiles, subtly and then broadly. And smiles some more. And there are only flashing cameras followed by a song which ends in a pregnant-bump. I mean how outstanding is that "commitment" or "proposal" that conforms to only one word "indefinitely" with some bright and shiny smiles and a lot of camera flashes. It says everything and that is the "magic" some brilliant directors showcase in their work. Its not about thegheesa-petta dialogues or the ring, its that one extra-ordinary moment of joy where you decide to commit your life to someone and what diamonds can really buy that?. Ofcourse, Julia is Julia, and may be she can pull off a scene in one word. However, if Roger Michael can give us such impressive powerful magic - I wonder why dont a lot of others atleast attempt to do something different? Or does the conventional ring/marry me/people applauding drama sell? Ofcourse, "Speak less, say more" is not everyone's gift. I hear, Warren Buffet, sent one letter an year to all the CEOs of his company and that was the business conversation he had with most of them. Wow!

Back to AA, towards the end you will notice when Kiara is kissing Ranbir, its almost like she is feasting on her yummiest dish. Cant blame her * You should see the size of both their lips * :). There was a 2-minute wisdom talk by Tanvi Azamee on suicides, which sent a strong profound message on the importance of life. I keep referring to Ranbir by his name, because I really do not remember what his name in the movie was! I enjoyed the movie, especially after a very long and active day at work. I caught up with the 11:20 p.m. show and I was happy to watch some eye-candy onscreen. Later in the wee hours of morning, I found myself singing to one the songs in the movie. And I dont sing, seriously. So obviously, songs are very peppy. I would give it a 3/5 and believe the movie will be a much above average hit. May potentially make more money through word of mouth!

p.s. There was this v annoying bunch of 5 women and 2 middle aged men who kept laughing more than required during the movie. I think there should be a code of conduct in movie-halls ;).

Neelum, Thank you for your advice

So a friend of mine, sent me a message one day and I decided to take her advice.


Love always,
JG