kaapimusings

I ended up watching Barfi this weekend…after panning and attempting to get tickets several times we finally managed to get seats for an evening show on Saturday and armed with caramel popcorn, coffee and coke we marched in and settled down to get entertained. Like the popcorn we were munching the movie began on a rather sweet and salty note… Barfi and his frothy love story were sliding down our throats with considerable crunch and ease, but in the end we were left with the not so nice bits that just never seemed to end…hard and difficult to chew and digest…While the movie is really long and never really aspires to be a serious take on relationships and living with people who have special needs, it makes some very pertinent points on life and perhaps the most discussed and least understood topic in the world… love... a majority of adults or even teenagers and children, may feel they have felt in love at some point of time or the other…whether its with a pet, a girlfriend, or a boyfri...

I happened to watch the domestic violence episode of Amir khan's satyameva jayate and though the facts about domestic violence never fail to shock me what shook me to my core was the fact that more than half the population of women in this country are victims of domestic violence and according to another statistic over 64% of women in this country have faced abuse within the confines of their homes. While its easy to say that we know men beat women and have been doing so for years, what was hard for me to digest this time around was the fact that they felt they were justified in doing so. Like we whip a horse or raise a cane at a dog to scare them or force them to obey, men who abuse women believe that if they are angry it is their right to hit their wives to keep her in check or treat her literally like a punching bag to vent their frustration on. Where does this diseased mentality come from? Where do these values come from? Where have we gone so wrong in our education, in our ...

The first time I read Rebecca I fell in love with the book. The haunting, sometimes thrilling often heart wrenching novel by Daphne du maurier made me an instant fan of the author and I have ever since recommended the book to many people wanting a good book to read. However the other day I saw a cinematic adaptation of the movie and for the first time I saw the story in a completely different light. While the novel is an extremely well written and intelligent spin on traditional ghost stories and blue beard room tales of dead ex wives, the film in its effort to stay true to the book drags endlessly. Perhaps we have grown up on a diet of high adrenaline thrillers where the camera twitches endlessly or horror films where dead people actually reappear to haunt the living. But there in lies the brilliance of Rebecca. She speaks no lines, she never makes any ghoulish appearances and yet in her absence she is omniscient, ever present and omni potent. Du Maurier through some very cleve...

I always thought that moving homes was going to be easy for me. After all I had shifted twice in Mumbai and packed my stuff umpteen number of times in Symbiosis and when we kept moving homes in Mumbai. However this time around the feeling is different. This time around as I pack my belongings I feel like I am letting go of something precious and invaluable. I never thought of myself as someone who was very house proud-I never spent hours in the kitchen. I used to be annoyed at the thought of cooking and keeping a tab of work to be done around the house. Keeping surfaces dust free annoyed the hell out of me. I wanted to work and I honestly felt sometimes that it was unfair to expect that I would be a marvel at house keeping simply by the virtue of being of a woman. But all that changed when we decided to move to Singapore. I think for the longest time, I was living in some sort of psychological denial where I used to keep telling the world that we were going but never really made the ef...

As it continues to rain and drench the sunlight trying to struggle through my window, my mind wanders to some monsoons gone by. We are often fickle when it comes to rain, changing our like or dislike for it as it suits our mood. While one is all alone at home with nothing but the sound of raindrops hitting the AC for company, it casts a film of gloom around everything it moistens. However I remember a time when my friends and I walked through the rain, trying to squeeze two or three of our not so tiny selves under one umbrella. Seeking shelter in Andheri Mega Mall after gorging on some Chinese food, we waited for the rains to stop while we indulged in some caffeine therapy. Coffee has a way of making you feel warm and cosy from within, like someone wrapped a blanket around you from inside and held you close. Over coffee began photography, as my good friend Gattu, ever eager to display his I -phone began to take some pictures of us. Some were candid, but most had us strike absurd and m...

There are very few things that can bring a smile to my neo existentialism these days, Rakhi ka swayamvar is one of them. Over the years Rakhi sawant has created an a brand out of herself.. she is bold, outspoken, melodramatic, self made and a child of the increasingly sensationalist media. So when Rakhi announced that she was looking for a groom suddenly people sat up and said... really?? Thus began a reality show where Rakhi Sawant and 16 rather intimidated men held hands and moonlighted in different parts of a rather well decorated fort. All the men were in love with her and and wanted to marry her and in a world where men are often rumoured to be commitment phobic, here were 16 men who couldnt wait to tie the knot and took full advantage of this launch pad as their claim to fame. Mouthing wonderfully scripted lines, it would be hard to find a bunch of more liberal and broad minded men in one room at any given point of time. The attempts to profess love often bordering on the ridicul...

What began as a seemingly inanane discussion, ended up placing the seed of creativity for my next post on this long neglected blog where I stop to comment on this that and a lot more on my interesting experiences of life. This post is dedicated to my four loving room mates, my closest friends for the past three years and now my family. I often wonder what life would be like without them.. Mumbai is so impersonal in its treatment of people that I feel deeply grateful to know atleast 4 people who care about my whereabouts and in whose life my presence makes a difference. I am going to code name them Sneezy, Grumpy, Sleepy and Dopey. Two of them are tiny, but Grumpy and Sleepy though not vertically challenged quite fit the bill so we shall save them further angst. They have decided to christen me Snow White, which I personally consider quite pompous, given the fact that I had very little to do with my genetically bleached persona.. but anyway.. so it shall be... We are quite a happy group...