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Monday, November 26, 2007

Sweet November

Itni shiddat se tumhe paane ki koshish ki hai-
ki harr zarre ne mujhe tumse milane ki saazish ki hai


Take 2:
Ladies and gentlemen,
Kehte hai agar kisi cheez to dil se chaaho to poori qayenat usey tumse milane mein lag jaati hai.

Humari filmon ki tarah, humari jindagi mein bhi end tak sab kuch theek hi ho jaata hai.Aur agar theek na ho to woh "The end" nahi.
Picture abhi baaki hai mere dost!


Ok I watched Om Shanti Om again. So what? Even if it meant sending my mind to graze grass- once more. But I had an occasion. I met Dada almost after one and a half years on the Thanksgiving weekend in Boston. I had last seen him in May 2006 in Noida, when he was about to leave for Pittsburgh.

PR (my roomate) had not watched it either, and we had made a pact that we would watch it together. But I cheated and watched it online last weekend. So, PR , her boyfriend VR (who had come over for the weekend too), Dada and me went out last Saturday to catch the flick at Capitol (Massachusetts Ave. Arlington, MA 02474) It was a neat 30 minutes drive from South Boston. I don't think it would have taken less than 45 minutes had we been in India.

I am so much used to multiplexes, that the hall looked disappointingly old. But then I decided to think of it as the "old age charm" that is intrinsic to the city. Even the red bricks of Harvard emanate it. Nothing justifies the parallelism with ivy plants better.

Believe it or not- I saw Harvard Square for the first time at night and had decent Indian food at The Bombay Club ( recommended). In short, the weekend was a typical Bollywood masala movie with an array of emotions hitting us folks :D

Wednesday:
Dada asked if I would be free this weekend and I replied in affirmative. He reached Logan airport around 10:30pm and reached home by 11:05 pm and we spend talking almost the rest of the night trying to catch up with what we had missed.

Thursday:
I decided to start with the Skywalk at Prudential Center, where you can have a bird's eye-view of the whole city and then decide upon where to go next. We had a turkey lunch for Thanksgiving and met an Indophile couple.

In the evening we met up with one of Dada's old school pals.

Friday:
I showed him around the Emerald Necklace.

Saturday:
We got out to the Bayside near my residence and I clicked some matrimonial ad-worthy photographs of Bro.

Sample :


Specially, with the ultimatum from my parents that he has just an year's time to find someone of his choice or else they will start looking for him :D

Btw, he looks more like Dad now, doesn't he? Though we have both got Mom's dimpled chin :) Quite a good looking family , eh? :D


Here's another facet of Mr. Amitabha Kar for you. Did I mention that one of my classmates had a big time crush on him ? :P (Sorry for embarrassing you in public Dad . I know you are blushing right now. Hee hee )

Went to Central Square for lunch at a Bengali restaurant and to Massachusetts Avenue in the evening.

Sunday:
Lazed about in the afternoon, honestly tired. I tried to work on my pending project report but had to cook for one of Dada's friends who was coming over for dinner. Dada helped with chopping the vegetables for fried rice and in creating an ambiance by playing songs . Recently, he has a surge of writing Shayeris. I want to locate the inspiration. Any clues?

Monday:
Woke up at 2 AM to work on the report which was giving me nightmares. If I am dreaming about it, it IS serious.

Bro will be leaving in a while. Don't know when I am going to meet him again. Maybe in December for Christmas at my aunt's place in DC. I'm glad to have a sibling to create memories with.

We have both changed in our own ways. I found him to be more care-free, more jovial and he observed that I have matured a lot, have become less expressive of my emotions maybe. Honestly, I feel I have become more like him and he has become more like my previous self.And since the growth was in vectorial opposite directions, the changes seem greater in magnitude from our present reference frames.

PR couldn't believe he is my elder bro 'cause of the way I boss over him all the time and try to micro manage things. But he understands that it is engendered out of the fact that I expect nothing less than perfection from him.

Thanks Dada, Pu and Viv for the great weekend.:)

P.S Btw, have you noticed how those lines from OSO are so eerily similar to
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it from Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist ?

Everyone deserves to find his/her happy ending.
All the best.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

not that your bro needs it, but here is an article about how to make yourself or your pictures look more attractive:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7082478.stm

Aparna Ganguly said...

Advice such as this is never redundant my dear friend :D
Btw, I found another article here, Partner choice 'shaped by father
I agree. At least, I desire a man who is an interesting conversationalist, is a health freak ( strong enough to goad me sometimes :p ), is professionally competent, is a dandy, cooks well and makes an effort to rediscover himself - all like my father. And yeah, a strong jaw line and/or a fine chin would also help :D

Aparna Ganguly said...

Btw, have you ever been in the opposite predicament? Where you want to keep a low profile or want to appear less interested but your gaze sends wrong signal? I choose people I want to look into the eyes of .. consciously :D It helps.

candid diary said...

Combination of a great model and a wonderful photographer.

Anonymous said...

gotcha...

bole toh aap humein firse mil hi gayi!!

ab mai bihar cm ke post se kya hata?? aap ne toh humein chor ke country road pakar liya..

ab trainwa leke toh nahi naa aa sakte virginia warna aa jate..

aapka lalu

saikat said...

gr8 to see dada's pic after a while...n i can understand u have freaked out the last few days :)

abt the OSO thing...have made up this..

'picture khatam...no issues...popcorn abhi baaki hain mere dost'

any takers from the popcorn industry...:P

tc..

Sam said...

hey... u seem to have had a gr8 weekend!!!
cheers to dat...
as for ur dada, i pity his state... parents can really hit u below the belt on this one... and thus be smart and hunt one down urself... its hard.. but not impossible!! :)

Sam said...

btw, how abt a pic of the emerald necklace?

Anonymous said...

I can't find a Bengali restaurant in Pune, and you have one over there?

As for OSO, I liked:

> The great beginning: Rishi Kapoor singing the Om Shanti Om in Karz
> ...picture abhi baaki hai dialog!
> The Akshay Kumar scene (until another blog-pal showed me the 'original' scene on an YouTube clip.

Aparna Ganguly said...

@candid
Who? :P

Aparna Ganguly said...

@saikat
Lol..that reminds me I had popcorn with butter topping after a looooooong time. As soon as we got the tickets and got inside, I saw the snacks counter and asked bro to get me popcorn and coke. Half the fun of watching a movie is sharing popcorn and having a great company. OSO is the kind of movie you'd hate to watch only by yourself. :D I'm so gad we went out. Missed you kid

Aparna Ganguly said...

@sam
Our parents are pretty liberal and give us a free hand most of the times. But it's the concern of most Indian parents to get their sons and daughters "settled" before they turn 30. Specially when you are through with your studies for a while and "they" think that you're earning enough to sustain a family. Honestly, a I00 K annual income here is mere middle class.
I can still remember the horror on my mother's face when I argued that it is not possible for me to juggle between a job and family and I'd prefer to remain single all my life- she tried to rationalize from every perspective possible- including my spiritual liabilities to this world .

Btw, you can view the slideshow of Boston Public Garden of The Emerald Necklace in a previous post here

Aparna Ganguly said...

@shantanu
Quite a couple of them if you ask me. I think I saw one in Quincy too. And they are pretty popular. It feels good to see people from different cultures appreciating authentic Bengali food. Dada went crazy over Shorshe-ilish and got it packed for home too :D I had dined there the first day I had landed in US . I was pleasantly surprised to see an American friend manage a bony fish like Ilish , something which even North Indians feel clumsy at. Don't know about other cities here, but Boston is pretty multicultural.

Aparna Ganguly said...

P.S @ OSO
There were a lot of funny instances in the movie where you can laugh your heads off.
At the end of the first song, SRK and Farah have an adorable squabble where they are tearing each other's hair over Rishi Kapoor's jacket and SRK asks " Tu iss film ki director hai kya ? " :D

I loved it where SRK pretends to be a South Indian superstar and says "You shotgun. Me Murrugan. Mind it" and a guy keeps chanting the same lines and overdoes things.

The excesses of Bollywood movies and melodramatic filmi mothers have been dealt with appreciably well. Only if Manoj Kumar could see the humor in the spoof.

And the award ceremony is more than hilarious. The ultimate subtle joke was when Priety Zienta, Rani Mukherjee, and Bipasha Basu are followed by Sanjay Kapoor who says " Om Kapoor aur main.. sirf dost hai " LMAO

Anonymous said...

Hi Sis,
You have changed a lot - more on the serious note vs. tone.
Thank you for putting the pic in the blog. Never knew that I am looking good Vs. good-looking until you took a few of the photos.
Dada.

Anonymous said...

hall main to movie dekhe hue zamana ho gaya hain :|

mujhe bhi popcorn khana hain *dreams*

Abhinav said...

I don't like multiplexes, though the way they have proliferated in India, it is hard to live without them. ;-)

BTW I haven't seen OSO and don't think I'm going to see it either. I am a great SRk fan (had a rave about him published when I was in the 11). But in the tiff between Bhansali and SRK, I side with Bhansali. I doubt if any of the commercial Indian directors even know how to tell a memorable story with a camera the way Bhansali can.

Anonymous said...

@opposite predicament: doesn't happen with me, i always keep a low profile ;-) you know the one about the mathematician and engineer? the mathematician looks at his shoes while the engineer looks at your shoes! Und ich bin ein Ingenieur.

Aparna Ganguly said...

LOL. Sie sprechen gutes Deutsch. Wo haben Sie gelernt? Btw, I ALWAYS look at the shoes when I meet someone for the first time. Speaks a lot about the person. Aber ich bin eine Ingenieurin nicht :P

Anonymous said...

hhaha..lemme tell you who was your Dadas inspiration of shayaris ;)
Sach mooch..pyar mei log shayar ban jate hai...lekin sunne wale bhi hone chahiye :)...thanks for the great weekend :)

Aparna Ganguly said...

@Pu
LOl.. that's for sure.. Thanks for being the only genuine audience.. :D
You are a real sweetheart :-*

And yeah, will remember this weekend for a long time to come :) Honest

Aparna Ganguly said...

@Dada
Lol.. Oh come on! You are my brother, how can you not be mirror cracking material :P

But yeah, beauty lies in the eyes of the beer holder/ beholder. This time in the lens of the camera holder i e me. Caught you unaware on this one , didn't I? However, Img_0184 of 2007_11_22 is still the best of the lot.

Btw, don't worry about my change. It's pretty superficial I am sure. Inward I am still the sis you knew :) Love & Hugs

Aparna Ganguly said...

@Abhinav
Some people are caught in the web of their own greatness and can't break free. I am sure Bhansali was great with the camera and gave a surreal beginning. But Dostoevsky's adaptation onscreen can be delusive. I'd have preferred someone dreamier than Ranbir Kapoor for the part.

And was it his destined part
Only one moment in his life
To be close to your heart?
Or was he fated from the beginning
to live for just one fleeting instant,
within the purlieus of your heart

Will try going beyond the 5 mins this time and then maybe I can comment on this. I'll still suggest u to watch OSO if u want some clean, mindless humor.

Anonymous said...

Sie??? Du kannst mich duzen.

Shoes are like GRE scores - good ones don't help you build an impression as much as bad ones hurt your image :-)

Aparna Ganguly said...

@arnab
LMAO. Now, that's an original! Du bist sehr lustig. Bis später. Ich habe eine Klasse jetzt.