Free n' Wild

Manfred the Mammoth, Diego the Saber-toothed Tiger and Sid the sloth were the weirdest herd I ever came across. Their adventure entertained millions around the world in 2002. If you’re wondering what am talking about, well, am talking about the animated movie Ice Age. This funny and enthralling movie, set 20,000 years ago, during the titular Paleolithic era, is one of the animated movies I enjoyed a lot.

The story line is simple. The unlikely team encounters a dying human mother who relinquishes her chirpy toddler to the care of these creatures. Hoping against all odds to return the little guy to his migrating tribe, the members of the herd need to establish trust among them, which apparently is not an easy task in a harsh world of predators, prey, and pushy glaciers. How they become a team is kind of similar to how the lonely ogre and the irritating donkey became a team in the "greatest fairy tale never told", Shrek. Manny is annoyed with Sid, and after he saves Sid's life from a pair of (prehistoric) rhinos, he just can't seem to get rid of him!! Diego joins a little later, trying to steal the human kid from the pair and take it to his own pack.

Show/Hide Full Post...

The movie is real funny and the show stealers are Sid and Scrat (a…err…saber-toothed squirrel? He’s kind of half-squirrel half-rat, and hence the name, I guess) especially Scrat even with the short appearances he makes now and then. The pun in the dialogues is hilarious. Overall, a great, wholesome entertainer. Am eagerly awaiting it’s sequel, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, which is to come out this summer.

Few days back I watched Madagascar, yet another animated movie, this time from the makers of Shrek and Shark Tale. Yes, am an animated movie enthusiast too…heehee. Well, basically, am an animator, you know. Anyways, if Ice Age showed the "humane" side of the animals (or maybe it’s the "animale" side), Madagascar in a way deals with the inhumane side of humans. Maybe not directly, but it sure does, I feel.


So, what’s the plot? It’s about 4 animals, best of friends. Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller) is living large on steak and applause at New York's Central Park Zoo. The same goes for Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Melman the hypochondriac giraffe (David Schwimmer, who is annoyingly whiny. Well, that’s the character). The only complaints come from Marty the zebra (Chris Rock) who always dreams of the wild, the world beyond the fences of the zoo. A bunch of penguins successfully break out of the zoo in the hopes of reaching Antarctica. This prompts the zebra to realize that he could visit his wild roots and he breaks out of the zoo on his 10th birthday. His three friends break out as well in the hopes of returning him to the zoo. Things go wrong. The escape bid is seen by us simple-minded humans as a sign that the animals desire to return to their natural habitat and soon the bunch of “don’t-know-what’s-wilderness” wild animals are boxed and shipped by animal rights people, to be released…where else…in the wild. But a series of unfortunate events ends with them getting thrown overboard, into the sea, in the boxes. And that’s how the animals hit tropical Madagascar, ruled by King Julien XIII, a lemur (hilariously voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen). And then the trouble starts. The king enlists the "New York Giants" to scare off the predatory Foosa. But Alex, his own lion instincts aroused by starving and missing his fav steaks, digs his teeth into Marty's butt. He'll take his steak where he can get it.

The movie wasn’t up to my expectations, as someone made me expect a little more than it delivered. Like one of the reviews online says,

Less like Shrek, meaning hilarious and heartfelt, and more like Shark Tale, meaning manic and exhausting, Madagascar will keep kids distracted without transporting them to wonderland. Unlike recent age-crossing animated goodies, Madagascar is juvenile and deeply generic.

Now, for a moment, just think of what the animals that we keep in the zoo could actually be wishing for. Most of them never know what their real home is like, what their life actually should be like. If they ever get to go to the wild, would they survive? Tarzan grew up in the jungles, and when he finally came to civilization, he was in trouble. But he had Jane with him. What would animals do if they had to go from civilization to the jungles, which ironically is their real home? They should have been born free, free and wild. It’s sad, I feel. The first time I thought about that is when I watched Born Free a very very long time ago.

Anyways, Madagascar the movie, is an enjoyable one and has it’s share of laughs to offer too. Cohen as King Julien - the lemur, steals the show from the entire cast whenever his character is on screen. For me, the best part of the movie was the song "I like to move it, move it", featuring Julien. God, that was hil-LLarious, and I guess even the team at DreamWorks loved it. It’s featured in the movie, and again during the end titles. And a special music video comes as a bonus with the movie too.

It’s worth it.

Nuts!

…for what I am.
…for being the way I am.
…for not being able to change myself.
…for hurting so many of you.
…for hurting YOU.

I hate myself…for being me!

The Question Is, Why?

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

- Neil Gaiman (English born American Author of “The Sandman”, b.1960)

Ok, I don’t hate love. But is love really an overrated factor in life? No, I need to be more specific here. Not love in general, but that love you have for a special someone. That’s the one am talking about. Let's see...

Show/Hide Full Post...

You meet a person of your opposite sex (err… or maybe your own, in case of gays or lesbians), you become friends, get closer, know each other so well, and one fine day realize you can’t live without each other. You sit and think.

Is the friendship turning to something more?

After much brooding and brain scrambling, you come to a conclusion.
Yes, am in love.

You look around. You see yourself in a wonderland, filled with green meadows, beautiful flowers, clear blue sky, crystal clear stream, butterflies fluttering by. You search for someone you can break this new discovery to. And finally when you do, they all flaunt you. Make fun of you. Feel happy for you. Or maybe even feel jealous of you. But you don’t care. You get on with your newfound life. Your new found interest. Your love.

The first few months, everything goes great for the two of you. It’s just love everywhere you go and in everything you do. And why not? You are best of friends, now more than that. But as life goes on, things start changing. Something seems different every time you care to look around. The wonderland has fewer flowers. There are signs of a thundershower in the sky. The stream is much drier than it ever was. You don’t understand why. You suddenly seem to be too obsessed with your love. Your best friend is now someone you often have arguments with. Sometimes even fight with. Somewhere along the way, you left the fact that your love was your best friend who stood by you through it all. You tend to find faults with that person which you never cared about earlier. Sometimes that ends up in turning you whole life into a hellhole. One fine day you decide 'maybe we should be just friends'.

And that’s where you end. Just friends. Not even the best friends you used to be. It’s a total fall out. The question is, why?

Why is it that we tend to hurt the person we love so much?
Why is it that as friends we have no reservations whatsoever but as lovers things change between the same pair?
Why is it that as friends we understand each other better but as lovers we seem to have so many misunderstandings?

I know what you must be wondering now. “What happened to this guy? Did he breakup with his girlfriend or something?” Oh, no. Never. But we did go through some bad phases. And at times I even thought I shouldn’t be ruining her life like this. I thought maybe I should let her go ‘coz she’s never gonna be happy with me. I told her that I got such thoughts. And she asked me if I could actually get her out of my system.

I thought about it (just for a second, heehee).
Hell. No. I can never get her out of my thoughts. I go nuts if I don’t see her even a day. She’s my dream. How can I ever let go of that?
And she told me, neither can she.

And we were back to being normal people again :)

Somebody had asked me, is it really worth being in a relationship? Sure there are quite some moments filled with love that you may cherish, but so often you have problems cropping up and you end up hurting each other. Is it worth all the trouble just to enjoy those few nice moments?

Yes. It is worth all that and more...for me atleast. Even though we have had so many bad moments and have been at the verge of killing each other (exaggeration, kindly note...we ain't that bad ;) ) the fact remains that the moments we cherish are the best we have ever had and will anytime overlay the bad moments. Like the warm hug after "settling a fight". That is so amazing, that no matter how bad or stupid the fight was, everything disappears...just like that.

The difference between friendship and love is how much you can hurt each other. I feel, instead of just falling in love with your friend, maybe you should try befriending the person you love too. I don’t know if that’s how it works, but it ought to, right?

I have a fool in me. One who feels too much, talks too less, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. I need to tame this fool. And life can be a lot better. It’s a thought worth trying. I would, 'coz I dont hate love.
And my special someone, is really worth it.

Like someone said,

Dance as though no one is watching you.
Love as though you have never been hurt before.
Sing as though no one can hear you.
Live as though heaven is on earth.

Naheeeeeee...!

Damn it!

It’s happened, just like I was afraid it would. I’ve been tagged!!!
And hence the melodramatic (??) title for this post.

(For those who don’t know what “Naheeeeee…” means, it’s “Noooooooo…” in Hindi... Err... Hindi movies to be more specific… used mostly by characters who are getting abused, tortured, tormented, raped, killed and so on. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?)

The deal is, I’ve to give a list of 15 things I would like to do before the age of 40. Grrrr… Nivi.. I’ll avenge myself for this.

Hmmm. now…me being the dreamer I am (not the ones I dream with my eyes closed, but the ones I do with them open.. and somebody said such people are dangerous. Ahem! Point to be noted by some people… *wink* wink*) I have a long list of “wish I could do” and “man, I have to do that” things. Picking just 15 from them that I think I wanna do before am 40, ain’t that easy. And right now, am too busy to even write and post something. But somehow, I manage.

So, 15 things to do? Before the age of 40? Now that’s something to wish for, considering that I’m fast entering the last year of my 20s. That leaves me with just 11 years, but what the heck! Here goes…

Show/Hide Full Post...

1. First things first. I wanna fly to Australia. No silly, not growing my own wings for that. I mean I wanna go to Australia. I’ve been planning on this for quite a long time. And I even dropped it a couple of times from my list of must-do things, for various reasons. But now, with support from all sides, am working on it and hopefully this will be the first thing to be granted in my long list of wishes. Probably before 30.(Fingers crossed tight. Ouch!)

2. “Drop the bomb and snatch Sin.” I know what that sounds like, but don’t worry, am not planning on a WW3. Those who know me and the Sin am talking about, and is aware of the issues we face in getting together, would have got the picture now. And for those who don’t, am sorry, but it’s hard to explain. So I wouldn’t go into details on this now.

3. My DreamWorks. YES, am talking about DreamWorks, the Hollywood production house, and NO am not planning to buy it out. But I wanna set up a small studio like that and grow big from there on. Am an animation and sfx freak. I love cartoons. I love comics. I love superhero movies like Spiderman. Am a graphic designer and animator by profession, and I’ve struggled and sacrificed a lot to be where I am now, even if it doesn’t seem like a big achievement when seen by an onlooker. My own studio, like DreamWorks and Pixar, is my ultimate dream. Am working on that, and just for y’all to know… if you ever come across the name cubixart sometime later in your life, remember me. ’Coz that’s where am gonna start. That’s gonna be my studio name. (www.cubixart.com)

4. Repay my debts…both in kind and/or cash. Yes, I owe a lot of them both to a lot of people, even if they never asked me for anything in return, for their unconditional support in the most crucial phases of my life. My parents, my sister, my cousins, my friends, all included. My only concern is, am late in doing it.

5. Be a hunk. Woo the babes.
(hahahahaha… Me? A hunk? Wooing babes? God! Hahahahahaha…)
Ok, jokes apart, am talking of working out. Getting into shape. (No wooing or shooing babes involved here, I swear). Never in my wildest dreams did I think people would call me FAT! Hmmm…I think this should have been first on the list. Anywayz.

6. Dream room, in a dream house. Now that’s one of my crazy dreams. ‘Coz everybody has a dream house and so do I…but my dream room, is different. My dream house can be on the beach, in the country side, in the jungle or even a lush green hill station. But wherever it is, I have this dream room in there that’s totally…completely planned, designed and built in my mind. From the material of the door hinges to which button switches on what. I have no intentions of discussing that here though, ‘coz it’s my dream room and it’s gonna be there only in my mind till I actually build it. It’s gonna be unique and now y’all know something like this exists in my head ;)

7. Adopt a child. My humble contribution towards the millions of needy children in the world.

8. Horses. Dogs. I love horses. I love horses. I love horses. Such beautiful creatures. And I love dogs. Such faithful and adorable beings. I wanna have a lot of them around me. That’s gonna be a long term plan. Not something to be done before am 40. But atleast, I’ll have a couple of dogs and maybe a horse. Now don’t picture me on a horse in the streets of Bangalore. Nevah! This is definitely gonna be in Australia only. Be a part time cowboy maybe :)

9. Fly a helicopter. Another of my long cherished dreams. I love ‘em choppers. Always have had a fascination for them. Amazing machines. I so badly wanna fly one. Not just fly IN one. I used to say I’ll do it at least once before I die. But then, what’s the point in trying to fly it when I can’t even figure out if it’s the controls or my walking stick that am holding????

10. Travel the world. Ok, maybe not travel the whole world before am 40. O’coz I could do it if I wanted to, right? That crazy old scientist did it in just 80 days when even the Wright bros were repairing bicycles, didn’t he? Anyways, the point is, I wanna travel to as many places as I can before am 40. I wanna travel in such a way that I can enjoy every single moment of it. Am not that keen on taking a flight and going and staying in some star hotel and going around in a cab, nope. I wanna live every moment of that travel, to the fullest.

11. Learn to dance. No classical dance nor to be a great dancer. And I don’t mean just jumping around like a mad monkey in a discotheque. Just wanna learn to move myself to the music. Just get into the groove. (I can hear someone laughing…)

12. Go trekking... into deep jungle. Back to the jungle. I love it. And I wanna explore it. Deep. Deeper. The last time I went to the jungle, I really missed trekking into it. I was like a child who was taken to Disneyland but not allowed to take any of the rides. It was terrible.

13. Drive an off-roader, top speed, filmy ishtyle. I love cars. I love a few classic ones. I love a few that “has class”. And I love many of the off-raoders. I love driving too. I just wanna rip across the terrains in a sturdy vehicle, once at least.

14. Be romantic. Am very unromantic as of now. Am quite horny, but not so romantic (heeheehee) I don’t buy her flowers. I don’t sing sweet li’l stupid songs to her. I never went down on my knees and said “Marry me” or “Be my valentine” to her. I never took her to a couples only party and jived to the music. I never had a candle light dinner with soft music playing in the BG. I never popped surprises at her. I never bought her things I would have really love to. In other words, am never romantic. So it’s high time I did something about it. I wanna take her to the beach and walk on the wet sand, holding her hand and the cool breeze on our face. I wanna spend the evening with my arms around her, enjoying the sun set. I wanna jump out of the corner with a bouquet of flowers, just to see the surprised expression on her face. I wanna do a lot of things. And all that and more before I start using dentures.

15. And the last but not the least thing I wanna do. Kiss in the rain. Do I need to elaborate on that? I guess not ;)

Phew! Ok, this is a quick draft. Didn’t do any mathematics to find out exactly what 15 things I would like to do in the next 11 years. But these are the 15 things out of the many more that I wanna and may do. Things I may not be able to enjoy much at an older age as I would now.

Do pardon me.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Just a li’l confusing, that title…eh? It’s just a quote from my all time favorite movie, Forrest Gump. And having said that, this post is, more so than not, a li’l review of that movie. Oh yeah, I know…it’s a li’l too late a review for a movie that’s 11 years old, but what the heck!

Ok, first let me tell you why am posting this now. Well...it so happened that 2 days back I was checking out some community sites and while registering, they all asked me what’s my favorite movie. And, though I have a bunch of them to talk about, Forrest Gump is like the best one. I don’t know many people who like that movie as much as I do. In fact, most of them ask me what’s so special about that movie, that I’d watched it like a million times and can still do it another billion. And the truth is, I don’t know.

Show/Hide Full Post...

So yesterday, I just let my mind wander into that fascinating world of Forrest Gump. Just wanted to see if I can really figure out why I love it so much. Is it the movie I love, or is it the character?

Directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Tom Hanks in the title role, with a supporting cast of Robin Wright as the love of his life Jenny, Gary Sinise as Lt. Daniel Taylor, Sally Field as his oft-quoted Momma, Forrest Gump was one of the best movies of 1994. It won the Best Picture Oscar for a reason, along with the Best Actor by Tom Hanks. One of the reviews of the movie says…

“Ever find the grind of life getting you down? Is the day-to-day struggle threatening to drag you under? If so, there is a movie out there that can replenish your energy and refresh your outlook. Passionate and magical, Forrest Gump is a tonic for the weary of spirit. For those who feel that being set adrift in a season of action movies is like wandering into a desert, the oasis lies ahead.”

Hanks is by far one of the best actors we have today. He had won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in the movie Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump won him the second, the very next year. In Philadelphia his character, Andrew Beckett, is a gay law graduate with a promising career ahead of him, who finds himself to be having AIDS. The firm he works for fires him for an unjustified cause and he takes his case to a number of lawyers, including Joe Miller (Denzel Washington), a black. But none of them is willing to represent him. . The scene where Andrew comes out of Miller’s office, feeling dejected and alone, is still one of my favorites.

Forrest Gump is basically one simple man's journey through life. And boy! What a journey. The movie opens with Forrest sitting at a bus stop, waiting to go see Jenny after being apart from her for years. Forrest strikes up a conversation or two with the people that come and wait for the bus with him. Or, more accurately, he keeps talking regardless of whether anybody is listening or not.

“Hello. My name's Forrest Gump
You want a chocolate?
I could eat about a million and a half of these. My momma always said life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. Momma's talking nonsense, of course. You know exactly what you're going to get in a box of chocolates. You just have to read that little piece of card inside the lid.”

Forrest grows up in Greenbow, Alabama, where his mother runs a boarding house. He is a little "slow", his IQ being 75, 5 below the state's definition of "normal", but his mental impairment doesn't bother him, his mother, or his best and only friend, Jenny. In fact, the naiveness that comes through a limited understanding of the world around him gives Forrest a uniquely positive perspective of life. The movie is done as a flashback, with Forrest taking us through all the major events of his life and narrating them. During the three decades of his life that he takes us through, we see him grow up and going through school, college, become a star football player, join the army and become a war hero in Vietnam. He meets the President three times on different occasions…

(Forrest meets President Richard Nixon, who asks him where he is staying, and then offers to put Forrest up in a much nicer hotel. Forrest is shown making a phone call at the hotel to send a maintenance man to the suite, which is being burgled. It turns out to be the Watergate Hotel and implies that the phone call he made began the infamous Watergate scandal, without him ever knowing it!)

…appears in a talk show alongside John Lennon and he even becomes a highly successful businessman in the shrimping business with his fortune invested in “some kind of a fruit company” (oh, and that’s Apple Computers, by the way!!) by his friend. And through it all, there is one defining element in his life: his love for Jenny. She is never far from his thoughts, no matter what he's doing or where he is. He writes to her every single day, even when at war in Vietnam!

It seems Forrest Gump's warm reception was not universal. This is what I found from the net.

Particularly outside the United States, the film was viewed as extended and undeserved praise of ignorant naiveness, a stereotypical trait widely associated with Americans in some quarters. Others note that Gump's successes result from doing what he is told by others, and never showing any of initiative of his own, in contrast to Jenny's more forthright and independent character who is shown descending into drugs, prostitution and death. Still others point out that much like Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire," it was a premature overly generous homage to the Baby Boomer generation. Like Joel's 1989 single, the film celebrates what that generation witnessed (but to which it did not contribute), criticizes what that generation condemned (but to which it does not offer corrections), and yet absolves it of any responsibility for its shortcomings and failures.

But I think Forrest Gump has several messages to convey, some of which are less obvious than others. The most important of them however is a word of advice, not to give up on life. Why surrender when you don't even know what lies ahead or round the corner?

The movie, based on the novel by Winston Groom, is however said to be quite deviating from the book. I haven’t read the book, but really would love to. I haven’t been able to get hold of it, as the ones they sell here is the movie version. Anyways, it seems much of the beginning of the film is the same in the book, albeit Zemeckis's Gump is far more placid and naïve than Groom's abrasive, judgmental cynic. They say the film's quote of "Life is like a box of chocolates" wholly reverses the novel's sentiment of "Being an idiot is no box of chocolates".

Whatever be it, Forrest Gump is my favorite movie and will remain so. But why? Am not so sure yet, but I think it’s mainly because of the innocence of the character, which remains a child in heart and spirit, even as his body grows to maturity. And maybe for the message - never give up on life. And I love the innocence and the hidden wisdom in his seemingly stupid words.

“My momma always said life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get. Momma's talking nonsense, of course. You know exactly what you're going to get in a box of chocolates. You just have to read that little piece of card inside the lid”

“My momma always said you could tell a lot about a person by the shoes they wear.”

“Stupid is as stupid does.”

[Speaking about his Vietnam days]
“We was always taking these real long walks, looking for this guy named Charlie.”

“The best thing about visiting the President is the food! Now, since it was all free, and I wasn't hungry but thirsty, I must've drank me about fifteen Dr.Peppers.”

[In the Watergate hotel; on phone with security]
“Yeah, sir, you might want to send a maintenance man over to that office across the way. The lights are off, and they must be looking for a fuse box, 'cause them flashlights, they keep me awake.”

[When his girlfriend Jenny runs out of rocks to throw at the house where her father molested her]
“I guess sometimes there just aren't enough rocks.“

[Speaking about Lieutenant Daniel Taylor]
“He was from a long great military tradition. Somebody from his family had fought and died in every single American war. I guess you could say he had a lot to live up to.”

“Bubba was my best good friend. And even I know that ain't something you can find just around the corner.”

“Bubba was gonna be a shrimpin' boat captain, but instead he died right there by that river in Vietnam.”

“That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just run across Greenbow County. And I figured, since I run this far, maybe I'd just run across the great state of Alabama. And that's what I did. I ran clear across Alabama. For no particular reason I just kept on going. I ran clear to the ocean. And when I got there, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well turn around, just keep on going. When I got to another ocean, I figured, since I'd gone this far, I might as well just turn back, keep right on going.”

“My Mama always said you've got to put the past behind you before you can move on.”

“Mama always said, dying was a part of life.”

“We were like peas and carrots, Jenny and I.“

“I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it's both.”

[When Lieutenant Daniel Taylor asks him: Have you found Jesus yet, Gump?]
“ I didn't know I was supposed to be looking for him, sir.”

And my personal favorite:
“I may not be a smart man, but I know what love is.”

The tag line for the movie was, "The world will never be the same once you've seen it through the eyes of Forrest Gump"

How true!

The Magic Of The Illusionist

Ever been mesmerized by a magician? I have.

If you ever went for a magic show at the local fair as a kid, and was shocked to see a woman being "cut" in half using a saw and then sighed in relief when she was "joined" again and brought back to life, or was amazed by the guy who got into that empty trunk and just vanished, only to re-emerge from the crowd, am sure you know what am talking about.

Magic is every man’s fantasy. It could be just to amuse people or, for those who don’t believe it’s just an illusion, to make their every wish come true. Who wouldn’t love to make the nasty, useless politicians just vanish with the snap the fingers? Ok, that’s just my wish, ‘coz I just hate them. My point is, everyone has some wish they really wish they could make come true, by magic.

But this post is not about those wishes and how to make them come true. This is about a guy, a cool dude… named David Copperfield. Oh no, not the David who had a tragic and dramatic childhood, fell in love with Emily and Dora and finally married Agnes, as in the Charles Dickens classic. Am talking of that David Copperfield who can make that pesky neighbor of yours vanish in the blink of an eye. The illusionist! The magician!

Show/Hide Full Post...

Both the audiences and the critics alike have hailed David Copperfield as the greatest illusionist of our time. And I agree. This guy is amazing. He has vanished the Statue of Liberty, walked through the Great Wall of China, levitated himself from the Grand Canyon and made audience members disappear and reappear in places they never ever expected. They say he became the first person to escape from Alcatraz, something that Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly attempted but never succeeded.

I had a VHS tape of his show where he made an airplane surrounded by a ring of spectators, disappear. But the main number was making the Statue of Liberty disappear from the eyes of hundreds of people watching it, from the multiple cameras taking continuous snaps of beautiful women with the Statue in the background from different angles , and the news and TV crews flying in the helicopters around the statue. And an estimated home TV audience of 50 million watched this live. It was one breath taking moment, even on a video.

Now isn’t that amazing? A guy whose résumé lists Statue of Liberty, an airplane, a 70 ton Orient Express train car, apart from the many people and himself as the “things” he’s vanished; and escaping from the Alcatraz prison, from imploding buildings, and a plunge over the Niagara falls, unhurt, as some of his best adventures. How cool is that!

I grew out of the fantasies of being a magician as a kid itself. After watching a handful of guys doing the same stuff… cutting and stitching, floating babes and the here’s the card you picked numbers, I was bored. But later, when I watched this guy in action, I was like…WOW! Magic and illusion can be this exciting? I’ve totally lost interest in those stupid card tricks and the across-the-table magic doesn’t excite me at all. But David Copperfield's tricks? They are different, and he never stopped making the world gasp.

If you never saw this guy in action, try to. Videos are good enough. And to give you a gist, here’s a clip from 15 years of his amazing shows.

Remember. Magic... is just an illusion!

A Few Miles Down Memory Lane

I haven’t posted in a while. I was a li’l too busy at work. And then, I got some time. But I didn’t know what to post about. So I’ve been going through many more blogs on the net. A lot of them had shared their memories and experiences with the netizens and reading them took me down my own memory lane, by a few miles at least. And I wondered. Did I have fun? Did I miss a lot in life? People talk about their college lives with so much excitement, that sometimes I feel bad that I never got to live that life.

Yup! I never experienced the “college-life” as we all know it. ‘Cause after the school days, I ended up in an institute where the word “fun” (as you and I know it) topped the DO-NOT list. When most of my old friends were enjoying the newfound fun in college life, I spent 3 years getting up at 5:30 in the morning and rushing to catch the bus at 6:40am, so that I reach my college by 7:30am, and change into the blue working dress and be in the “section” (oh, we didn’t have classrooms ‘cause we were “precision engineers” in the making, and so it was purely practical…surrounded by dozens of machineries and scores of tools and tones of raw and finished materials!) by 7:48am. It was followed by a hectic day, slogging our asses off, literally. The lessons weren’t in books and it was never something to be done sitting down comfortably. It was really physical and tiring. Hard labor, you could say. The day ended at 5:38pm (Yeah! That’s no exaggeration. Our working hours used to be from 7:48am-5:38pm), and then it’s time to run to the rest room and freshen up and rush to catch the next bus home. Reaching home at 7:30pm, tired and sleepy but no choice, it’s time to take a shower, have something to eat and sit with the assignments. Finish it off by 1am, taking enough care to do it right and neat, ‘cause any crap work, we would end up with a complete re-do command, and o’course that’s on top of the next days load of assignments.

Show/Hide Full Post...

So you see, college life for me was different. The fun for us there was the tiring works. We used to crib a lot those days, but believe me, after the graduation, we had trouble sitting idle. All of us were looking for jobs that would keep us busy the whole day. But that doesn’t mean we were just working and did nothing else in the college. We had our yearly Xmas celebrations, which used to be the biggest show in that part of the world; we had village camps, tours, cultural nights, sports and games. We had our 45 days of “implant training” when we were sent to a production unit of our college, some 500KM away. And the guy in charge of us was younger to us and so we had our share of fun, which was in fact a huge share. Umm, I think we did have it after all, in the right dosage maybe.

After the third year, we were sent to different companies to work or rather get our “industrial training”. I ended up in a new-to-me city in another state. Coimbatore. The company I got into was sad. It was a horrible place to be. We (that’s two of us) used to do our work from 8:30am to 5pm, but that was a lot for us though (compared to our college that is) ‘cause of the nature of the work. But luckily we were our own bosses there, and in fact boss to a few others too. But life used to be boring, our only entertainment used to be a movie every weekend, or going and staying with our friends who were in the other parts of the same city. Budget was limited, which explains why life was boring, I guess. We had to fight with our manager every month to get our pay, which, after a quick lesson in “how to swear in English”, he used to give us in installments, with a smile. With that li’l cash we used to have our li’l share of fun.

The company was a component supplier for many engineering biggies and the production department used to be “up and running” through the day and night. Our department was to design and manufacture new tools and moulds and also to make sure the production runs smooth. So, more often than not, we used to get “emergency calls” from the production department in the middle of the nights. This became too much to take and we had to do something about it. And, we did too. We used to lock the door from outside and get back in through the back door… and the “emergency calls” used to fall on deaf years. We used to wake up, irritated, but then the knocking stops when they see the door is “locked” and we go back to sleep with a naughty smile. We used to go out every evening just to kill time and walk around and get back to the room after dinner. Sometime we went for late night movies and got back by 2 or 3AM, walking some 5-6KM across the city. Our gates used to be locked and the watchman used to be on his rounds with a Great Dane assisting him. We used to wait for them to go round the corner before jumping the huge wall and sneaking into out room. The watchman seeing us was ok with us, and we never worried about the local police station which was just a stones throw away either. But the dog! Man, he was huge!! The scariest creature I’ve ever confronted.

Then one fine day…communal riots broke out. Bomb blasts killed many later on. We were there through it all. But it never affected our lives in any other way than just multiplying our boredom. The cinemas were closed. No movies for many weeks. Our only entertainment was shut down. Finally, a couple of weeks later, one cinema opened up and was showing Air Force One, the dumb movie starring Harrison Ford. But the public were not ready to go enjoy their lives after the serial blasts, and to add to their scare was a van loaded with explosives which was still ticking. The explosive experts were trying to defuse it. Well, that was in another part of the city. So we went for the movie. I still remember how we entered the hall and saw ourselves being a part of just a handful of the “daring” ones. We watched the movie expecting a bomb to go off under our seat anytime! We actually risked our lives for a dumb movie that showed the heroic tactics of an American President!! Was it worth it? I don’t know. But it was fun.

I had some good habits back then too. Because our fun was limited, we had more time to ourselves in that one year. So I spent the time reading a lot of magazines, novels, classics and even tech manuals. I even read a book that taught me how to fly a helicopter! I just had to get my hands on a machine to try it practically. Oh well, ok, but I could have tried it at least. And then I used to write a lot of letters. I was in touch with a lot of my old friends that way. I also kept a diary, which I used to fill in everyday…in detail. Apart from all that, I learned how to manage my budget. With the measly amount I got every month (trainees, u see), I used to buy a music cassette and a big book to read every month, buy every magazine I need, travel home once a month, watch at least one movie every week and still have enough for the daily chores.

We hated the life back then, and used to count the days, waiting for the training period to get over. However today, so many years later, when I look back, it makes me smile! And I have to admit that it never occurred to me back then that our sufferings would be pleasant memories someday!!

Life. It’s funny sometimes.