Mainly, though, they become such on the night before the exam, when suddenly you realize (in your dream mostly, and sometimes really as well), that you don't know anything. You stare at the question paper with visions of failure.

I love letters. I like to read and re-read a lot of my mails from time to time. I like to think about what I was thinking then, what the context was, and then, by some weired connections which is my brain, I remember the place, I wrote the mail, the things I did a few minutes before etc etc. Ah! I love these Brain-memory-daydream jumps!!!

So, I watched two really beautiful movies over the past two days. Both movies, raised the bar for good movie making just that little bit, and mostly because there was passion in telling the story.

I have been wanting to watch Children of Heaven since the time I read Swati's review of the movie. I love the magic of childhood, and the movie, as promised, reminded me of those days. The movie reminded me of a couple of things about being a child, which I yearn for even now.

I still want the childish hope and optimism. I loved the double life, that I could manage between the real world and my world of dreams, and how I, without a worry, could jump and hop between them. And, that is the childish optimism that I refer to. My dream world was a reflection of how I wanted things to be in the real word(mostly, I also had fairy-tale-ish worlds too), and I was sincerely optimistic that events in the dream world will turn out real. Now, though, it is a pain to be so surrealistically optimistic, but the days on which I manage such a dream, and stay hopeful seem so much more beautiful and valuable.

As a child, we could let our imagination paint so many dreams, that we (atleast me and my sister) hardly had a huge list of materialistic demands. Knowing quite well, that on our birthdays, we could get whatever that we wanted, our demands would still be small things that fascinated us in the week (forgetting millions of other things that were in vogue a week, a month earlier), and we could be so happy with the clapping doll, the train set. All we needed was our imagination.

And, it does not need stating, the movie, also reminded me of my sister. Our childhood was magical, as we dreamed the same dreams differently, and lived it together. Almost all my cherished childhood memories involve playing some game with her. Now, that I think of it, I hardly remember us being separate during holidays and evenings and all.

I digressed.

Coming back to the movie, I connected with it because it reminded me of such thoughts and more. The story is about Ali, losing his sister, Zhara's shoes. The kids, despite being 9 and 6, are mature, given the poor family that they come from. They decide, not to tell their parents about the missing shoe, not because they are scared of getting scolded, but because they know that their parents cannot afford one in the middle of the month. Despite this maturity shown by the kids, the story maintains the beauty of kids, as such mature conversations is immediately followed by the immature and innocent hoping and optimism of the kids. Like, when Ali convinces his sister that he will come 3rd in a long distance race, because the third prize is a pair of sneakers. Or, when they follow the girl who is now wearing Zhara's lost sneakers in the hope of getting it back (and maturely coming back, when they realize that the girl is even poor-er). Or, when after winning the race, Ali, panting, asks his coach, did he come third.

Another scene which stands out for its innocence, is when Zhara's mother asks her to server some tea to the kids father. Zhara, does it. All this while, the father is cutting sugar meant for the mosque. The mother, asks Zhara to get some sugar for her father. Not wanting to walk again, she just points at the heap of sugar lying in front and says, but pa, there is so much sugar here. The way the scene was set up naturally, while the objective was to highlight the poverty of the family, through words exchanged by the parents in the scene, was sheer brilliant movie-making.

The other movie that I saw and really loved was Mudal Mariyaathai. Desi movies, most of the times flirt with the thin line between telling the story and losing the plot in showcasing the hero in the lead role and more often losing that too in trying to sell the movie as some story, bu t with the big hero in it. Bharatiraaja could have lost the plot in trying to make a movie with Sivaji Ganeshan. But, instead, he treated Sivaji as the character Mailsaamy, and in the process gave a memorable movie.

The movie is about a lonely Mailsaamy, who has married, not out of love, but to save the family honor, who befriends a rather talkative Kuyil, and how they slowly start to like eachother. Of-course, there are sideplots, mainly to make the viewers empathize with a middle aged village leader falling in love with the much younger woman. But, the side-plots gel well with the central plot, and unlike other movies, the empathy is not contrived.

My favorite scene in the movie is one where everything is obvious. The director had shown Sivaji being mis-treated by his wife, and explicitly it was shown that he did not get good food. Presently, he finds himself in Kuyil's shanty, where she has cooked a rather delicious fish curry. The scene as it was set-up offered no surprises. You knew that Kuyil will offer the food to Sivaji, and he will refuse it ( he is the elder, upper caste guy blah blah), but he will finally eat it, to please her. It was given. Still, the performances by cast in the scene, the way Sivaji spoke about not wanting to eat, but his eyes showed the lust for the food, the way Radha, understood that he wants to eat, but maintained that he was doing it for her etc etc etc was simply mind-blowing.

Illayaraja's songs and more importantly the background music also smugly fit with the story. It stopped, stuttered, flowed, rushed, with the story, and was like a invisible cast in each scene, which ended brilliantly with the BG score for the final scene. Mailsaamy is in his death bed, and Kuyil comes to visit him. They hold their hands together, and the scene flashes back to brief spurts of happiness that they shared with eachother. In the background, the signature track of the movie slowly starts to hum. As the flashbacks go past the screen, the song picks up tempo (and volume), and reaches a crescendo. The happiness of Mailsaamy and Kuyil, flows into you through the song, leaving you believing (despite your skepticism) that Kuyil can cure somehow cure Mailsaamy. And then, life flows out of Mailsaamy, and the song in the background, from its high pitch, falls quickly to a sad hum. Sadness now flows through the cast and the song to you, as the movie slowly draws to its end. Absolute Brilliance.

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Updates
1. The biggest update is that I have no updates. No flashy story to tell, no mega research results to boast about, zilch. I am still struggling with the courses, the assignments, and still staring into my code, trying to figure what it is that I want the code to do. (However much I struggled with the Bio course, it has taught me a lot. Maybe I will post about it later)
2. oh!ya! I am learning to drive (again). And having a tough time, reminding myself that you have to turn across the road when you turn left and turn to your side when you turn right.

Till the next time then!
Cheerio!
Kaushik

There is something about an underdog sports movie, any underdog movie. You know the plot. The team/ hero/ lead will win against all odds. That is a given. But still, you love it. Because, it is not the story, but the story-telling, it is not the victory, but the fight.

Hoosiers, is one of the best coming-from-back, underdog movie, I have seen. And it is all in the process of winning. It is about a small school, from a small town, winning the Indiana State Championship. It is about a forgotten coach redeeming himself. But, you do not cheer for the super speeches the coach gives, or bite your nails in the finals, when everything boils down to the final second. Everyone is a winner by then. The tension is in the smaller matches, when the town shows up to support a team, they no has no chance of winning. You know, because of the premise of the story that they will win, but still, you mutter a silent prayer for them, you jump with joy with every basket, you cringe when they go down, you cry with the team, and you are not watching a movie, but living it.

One scene really stood out, for it showed how the coach could inspire confidence. The town team had defied odds and reached the finals, which was to be played in Indianapolis. And, they were awed seeing the big stadium and the huge galleries. The coach, however, takes out a measuring tape, and makes them measure the dimensions of the court, and says, it's the same as it is back in our gym. Amazing morale boosting scene.
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It is spring break here now. And the weather is warming up, and so is the mood. The hopeless depression of the winter, is giving way for the warmth and wishful hoping of the spring. And it feels good.

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So, on Saturday, A, J and I, were putting aratai (adda, bantering) in J's home. It turned out to be one of the more memorable evenings here in Madison. It was like an evening I dreamed of spending for a long time. It started with an take away Thai food, a not so great movie (The Holiday), an hour or so of useless chatting about schools and mischiefs and other not-so-important, but funny stuff, that is stuffed in our heads for times like this. Later, late into the evening, we started playing Hangman, but only with Hollywood movies. Another remnant of school days, boring classes spent playing this game. Instead of drawing the hangman, each guess had to be got correct by the time you run out of words in -Hollywood, Hollywood, being to signify English movies. So, we laid out the rule that, we would only play with English movies, and A, the walking IMDB, was guessing movies off, even before J and I could think of it, and setting us, tough, obscure movies. Finally, J decided it is enough, and set us a movie, and insisted that she write ********* instead of Hollywood, just for a change. We went on with it, and found no English words at-all completing the blank words, and A, suddenly jumped up, and said it is Alai-paayuthey, the tamil movie. J, had set us up. And it made my evening. It was cute, sweet, innocent, wicked, mischievous and beautiful. And, a small, nice memory, for other such Saturday evenings of pure fun with meaningless anecdotes and time-pass games.

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Have I changed in America?? I think so, for I visited a temple 250 kms away today, after refusing, all of the last two years in Mumbai, to go to temple 250 meters from my home. And this is the second time in America, I have been to one. But it was beautiful, and the drive was fun, and the whole day great. But, to put a different spin to it, the temple indeed helped me. The past week had been kind-of tough, and I was feeling a bit down, and the temple, somehow helped. I don't know how, but thats why, I guess it is hard to explain God. Amen.

Cheers!
Kaushik

PS: Was supposed to have posted it last night, but surprisingly, there was a power cut and I could not post. But, then, the dark streets and the rain (ya! rain, and no snow) reminded me of Bombay. It was not the noise of a downpour or the silent drizzle, but somewhere in-between, a periodic patter-patter, like a lullaby, which, strangely reminded me of monsoon evenings, sitting in 524, at the Vashi toll-naka, looking at the rain fall into the sea, and waiting to get home to a hot cup of chai. Amen to that thought too :-)