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shahana dastidar
Thursday, 27 August 2009
"In this world nothing can be said to be certain..
...except death and taxes."
Benjamin Franklin (1705 - 1790)
On Monday evening my grandmother passed away. She was my last surviving grandparent, and even though she'd been ill and bedridden for many years - it was still a huge shock. The pic below is of her and my grandfather shortly after they got married. That was sometime in the 1940's I believe. I bear a strong family resemblance to her as does my mother; although when I was at her age in this pic, I weighed about 100 kilos more.
So CLEARLY, this Blogging business has yet to become a habit since its been a week since I last wrote - and I was hoping to post every day. So I'd just like to give a big thanks to everyone who's been leaving comments - on the website and by email.
Hi to Eltee, hope you're writing down all your ideas. Also thank you very much to the Anonymous reader who let me know that the Qawwali is on Thursday and not Friday. Hello hello to the Duck Designer. And thank you Mr.Stamina for letting me know that I'm a 1000 times funnier in writing than I am talking. :) I'll just take that as a compliment. For those who don't find my writing very amusing, you can now accurately and mathematically guess the humour quotient within my conversation.
Anyway, now that I know at least 5 people have read or (hopefully) are still reading, I shall become incentivised or incentivated or whatever ....... and post more regularly.
Also part of the busy week, I start work on Sri Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar in Punjab. Also known as the Golden Temple and one of the holiest sites (if not the holiest site) for the Sikhs. More on that as and when I start work. Didn't want to lamely leave you with another picture from Wikimedia Commons as I have been doing. I hope to post some of my own, if and when I visit Amritsar. Until then wiki it.
I sat down yesterday to watch some TV. To get my mind of things (kno' wha' I meen???!). Of course, it never works. And the effort was absolutely DOOMED to failure because the first movie that came on was 'Pretty Woman'. Anyone who's read my previous post on the subject will know about my extreme love for romantic comedies.
After a bit more flipping and surfing, I found 'Hitch' with Will Smith and Eva Mendes.
Then I proceeded to take a huge hammer and battered the TV to death. Some things just cannot be tolerated. And I don't care if that is domestic abuse.
I did see a very nice Hinglish movie this weekend called DevD. Hinglish is the urban Hindi-English mix thats commonly spoken in Delhi and Mumbai. Also look up Chin-jabi which is Chinese cuisine in the Punjabi style. Well it owes very little to China except the very heavy and cloying presence of Soy Sauce. Good stuff.
So there was a heavy dose of Punjab in this movie 'DevD' - which was a quirky re-working of Devdas, the classic tale of the tragic lover who drowns his sorrow in wine, women and song. And pines away for his lost love. And basically just Dies. Which is what all tragic spurned lovers should do really instead of moping about so much.
DevD is a quirky enough new version that I hesitate to label Bollywood. And the quirkiness sort of did away with the tragic ending with no loss. Also it had a lot of Delhi in it. The schoolgirl MMS scandal, the incidence of the BMW running over the pavement dwellers, delicious momos et al.
Of course almost anything would be an improvement over the previous version of Devdas. Why does Shah Rukh Khan still exist? Why has he not been recognized for the great big HAM that he is, sliced, shrink-wrapped and sold. Bah
Again for all the non-believers out there
Portsmouth 1 - Arsenal 4
and what, you may ask, doth happen with the Champions League
Celtic 1 - Arsenal 3
Awesomeness.
This was their return match at the Emirates. If you remember the Gunners won the first leg too. Lovely stuff...... EXCEPT.....coming Saturday is the match against Manchester United which is not going to be quite so easy methinks.
Thanks to my most lovely friend Shel, I was fortunate enough to see ManU play Pompey (thats Portsmouth) at Old Trafford last season. Portsmouth had the wee little Peter Crouch then. Of course ManU won 2-0 but it wasn't a very convincing victory. Slightly more convincing than ole Cristiano's histrionics though....
Anyway I leave you with the shortest novel in the world (and a fairly sad one too) -
"For sale: Baby shoes. Never worn."
Thats it. Thats the novel. Its by Ernest Hemingway. It took me a few days to complete it but I must say I enjoyed it very much. Ironically people have been using it to justify the complete mindless babble that is Twitter. They say that 140 characters is enough to express one's most profound thoughts.
Only if you're Hemingway, mate.
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Comments:
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Oh Tony, it's not about you.
I can say that because I got one.
Shahana, your grandmother's beautiful, may her soul rest in peace.
My condolences to you and the rest of your family.
I am trying to write more ...
I'm now graduating to actually strategising calls.
I'd almost agree with you about a quick end for spurned lovers, the only thing is while they're moping a few of them actually produce really great material.
Like the songs, I LOVE sad love songs.
I like to belt them out at full volume with a great grin on my face, joyous in the fact that I'M HAPPY! and someone's grief feeds my joy.
(okay really, I don't care about how the music's produced)
And the poems (the good ones, that is), they're nice for when you want to wallow for a while.
Of course these worthy efforts only make up a small percentage of the current offerings, but they're almost worth it.
I'll look out for DevD, sounds interesting.
Looking forward to news and pictures from the Golden Temple, when you start there.
I began reading Hemingway's novel by the way and couldn't finish it (just cos I don't have time right now). But I want to say about these kind of books, I think you can only read as much as YOU have (nothing in there, nothing doing).
I admit this may not make much sense.
Ciao.
I can say that because I got one.
Shahana, your grandmother's beautiful, may her soul rest in peace.
My condolences to you and the rest of your family.
I am trying to write more ...
I'm now graduating to actually strategising calls.
I'd almost agree with you about a quick end for spurned lovers, the only thing is while they're moping a few of them actually produce really great material.
Like the songs, I LOVE sad love songs.
I like to belt them out at full volume with a great grin on my face, joyous in the fact that I'M HAPPY! and someone's grief feeds my joy.
(okay really, I don't care about how the music's produced)
And the poems (the good ones, that is), they're nice for when you want to wallow for a while.
Of course these worthy efforts only make up a small percentage of the current offerings, but they're almost worth it.
I'll look out for DevD, sounds interesting.
Looking forward to news and pictures from the Golden Temple, when you start there.
I began reading Hemingway's novel by the way and couldn't finish it (just cos I don't have time right now). But I want to say about these kind of books, I think you can only read as much as YOU have (nothing in there, nothing doing).
I admit this may not make much sense.
Ciao.
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