Sunday, November 26, 2006

Casino Royale

Well went for Casino Royale today. I am not a fan of bond movies, but then this really surprised me. One of the thing you notice about the movie it is not your conventional Bond. Daniel Craig is not your normal Bond. HE is not suave like Pierce Bond Brosnan or Sean Connery,. He is raw and as my friend pointed out, he looks like a beast. But then this is supposed to be the first Bond movie. So there is no need of hime too look suave.

WEll the movie soundtrack is cool. The title track is cool and the opening credit i much cooler. Love his dialogue with Judi Dench and then with Eva Greeen. Well then the screenplay is writen by Paul Haggis (the man behind Crash, Million Dollar Baby). The acting is great here. Especialy by Daniel Craig and Judi Dench. This Bond is vulnerable, gets emmotionally hurt and acts. What you notice about this Bond is that there is not much gadget. The stunts ar breathtaking especially the first stunt. Thats really cool what hapen in the construction site. Then the Casino game is cooler.

The movie is tad too long. But then the twist plausible and i thouroughly enjoyed the movie.

So now i got to say the name Bond James Bond :)

Sunday, November 19, 2006

The End of the Weekend

Well its the end of the weekend. Well nothing much did happen. Sick in bed so had to take rest for most of Saturday. Missed my work out (even though I had to do cardio) and missed salsa classes :(

WEll did spend a loads of time on the net chatting and getting to know people. WEll people who to seem what they are may not be who they are and what you can do will also surprise you. You may learn about a side of yourself that you didn't want to know exist.

anyway its a new week, new things to learn, new deadline to face, new friends to make, new perils to face. A whole lot of new stuff.

How great is your faith???

Well today during mass seen an old lady who guess was pretty poor financially, get down on her and bow before the altar. I remember of one of the passages from the bible where a widow puts inall that she had in the offering box and Jesus said that she was the one that gave her all. Well felt the same way looking at this lady. Felt like her faith just dwarfed mine.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

God

"What if God was one of us? A slob like one of us?" Sang Joan Osbrune in her song ‘One of us’, what was her only hit (or at least I haven’t heard or liked any of her other works). But this raises a nice question, what if God was one of us? What would he be and look like? Sorry all you of the fairer sex for using the male gender as I look at God as a ‘Father Figure’ (Get it??). If you are an atheist please lets put aside all your beliefs and conviction and assume that there is a God.
If you were to meet God face-to-face, man-to-man (or woman-to-man, what ever pleases you), what would he look like? Since he is the creator of all things, it would make him a mighty and powerful King, ruler of every possible thing (hell being the exception). So he would be dressed in all his finery, with a magnificent crown made of all the precious stones (and even stars) on his head. And since the earth is over a billion year old, this would make him a grand old man. So he would have a snow-white hair and long flowing beard (just like Head Master Dumbledore, from the Harry Potter books). But it is said in holy books that God created man in his own likeness. So God could look like anyone of us. He could have long hair, or even a short one, he could have it spiked, coloured, bleached, whatever. He could be wearing body-fit shirts, jumpers, 3/4th pants, shorts, dhotis, kurta-pyjamas, anything. Or the best he could be dressed formally, in a smart trouser, shirt and tie, or even a well tailored suit. But some people believe that God is a spirit. Someone you can only hear, but cannot be seen. Someone present everywhere.

Now that we have discussed what God would look like, what would you say to him when you meet your maker? Would it be a formal "Hello your Majesty, I am (your name), the one who you created on (your birth date)". Or would be an informal "Hi there God. Remember me? I am the one you created (fortunately or unfortunately)". Or would it be a simple "Here I am Lord", since God knows each and every one of his creation like the back of his hand.

Let say God gave you all his power for his powers for say a day (or week, months). What would you do? Maybe rid the world of wars, sadness, hunger and poverty, of Saddam Hassein and Osama Bin Ladens and all the terrorist networks and also all those powerful but dumb leaders. Of bombs and destructive elements, make the world one happy place to live in. Above all World Peace. You deserve the Miss World, Universe, Galaxy, etc. if these are your intentions. Or would you be selfish enough and do everything that would make your life comfortable. Like getting that look you always wanted, those bulging biceps, wash board abs, that wonderful bust line and waistline and that striking good looks. Make everything well for you and all you care about. Get those grades or promotions that you were always chasing after. And the list goes on. But then what happens to the rest of world? You are not the only person living on it.

Whatever your views and beliefs on God, for me God is someone like (or is) a Father to me. A person who has given me my independence. But has given me a conscience to distinguish the right from wrong, good from bad. Someone who listen to my every pray and every demand, but gives me only that what is good for me. Who reprimands me when I have been bad, in his oswn way. These are my belief in God, care to share what yours are?

"Does Money get you Love and Respect?"

"Does Money get you Love and Respect?" this was a very interesting question that was raised in the Lunchroom leading to a very intense and passionate discussion. Which in turn lead me to question myself, does money really get you love and respect? As an experiment I sent a mail with the same question to the entire office and asked the same to a couple of friends in order to get their point of view. The replies were very interesting and insightful. They ranged from simple ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ to some with an explanation for their answer and not to forget a nice Marathi poetry to drive home the point.
There were many who felt that money did get you love and respect, and why not? In an idealistic world money may not get you love and respect. But in reality does this hold true? There are so many instances in our daily lives where money helps us win the love and respect that we want and crave for. Money is like a flame that burns brighter when you have it in plenty, attracting a lot of moths and insects. Snuff it off or dim its intensity and most of these moths and insect would leave it for other brighter flames.
What I gathered from experience and from all these replies is that money is an important factor in life. There are couple of instances in our daily lives to prove this point. Take, for example, the recently concluded talent show Indian Idol. Before being crowned an Indian Idol Abhijeet Sawant was just another face in the crowd, a person from a financially backward background. One would care less even to get to know him better. But now that he has won the competition everyone is clamouring to get a slice of his fame. From the usual distant relatives (who were previously unheard of) to the newly discovered friends and neighbours, even teachers and the normally opposing parents of his love interest, all suddenly want to be recognised through him.
This is just one example. Another would be when parents look out for prospective spouses for their children. They would definitely be looking at candidates who are financially stable or even well off. To be frank, which parent would want their daughter to marry into a family who are at lower financial strata than they are, or their sons marry a girl from a poor family? Such relationships are often met with great opposition and the child is often dissuaded from going ahead with marriage. And even if the marriage does go through there would have to hear accusations like you married my child for their money.
The best example I could give to support my view is our habit of giving and receiving gifts to/from our loved ones, parents, siblings, lovers, spouses, children, friends, bosses, colleagues. Why do we do so? Because we want to show how much we appreciate them being part of our lives and that we care about them. But don’t we also give presents to win over angry spouses and girlfriends, to bosses so that they can keep us in mind during promotions and reviews, to employees so they would be content with their jobs and respect the management. When a guy tries to woo a girl he sends all the best presents and flowers to try to impress her and win her heart. Wouldn’t a couple words like ‘I love you’ or ‘I like you’ do? When you’ve forgotten those important occasions like birthdays and anniversaries, or have gotten into an argument, how do you get out of this sticky situation? Simple buy her a beautiful (and expensive) present or take her out to a beautiful (and once again expensive) restaurant to get her back. Why wouldn’t a simple sorry do? Forgotten to say good-bye to your child in the morning before leaving for work then promise to get her them something special when you return in the evening. This also includes birthdays or whenever you want them to pass their exams with flying colours or you want to bribe them to keep a secret. And then who doesn’t like to receive, especially present. I know I would be utterly disappointed if I didn’t receive presents for my birthday. It would make me feel that no one loves or cares for me. If anyone got a present for my sister and not me (especially from my dad when he returned from Dubai) it would definitely leave a feeling of being unloved or uncared for.
But can we call this love and attention and respect TRUE? What happens when we have no money to spend or to give presents and go out on romantic dinners? A colleague of mine once told me that if you do not respect someone mentally then you do not respect the person at all, no matter how much you try to show you respect that person. Can we apply the same assumption in case of love? Whom or what is being loved here? Is it the individual or the individual with the cash? The truth is this is love but not true love. All these people are fair weather friends. One sign of trouble and they are ready you to dump you for safer and more promising pastures. Their love and respect is definitely not true because they do not love you for who you are but for the cash that you have.
Well whatever is our point of view truth is that money influences our life greatly, knowingly or unknowingly. We all reach our opinion after our own experience, both good and bad, and I respect (truly) you for that.
A big thanks for all those who replied to my mail or talk the time to give me their point view. If I offended anyone then I am sorry. This little article is not meant to change your point of view, its just putting down what I felt about the topic after reading and listening to all the replies to the question. Once again thank you. I would like to end by just saying that if you love and respect somebody do it from your heart and really mean it.