SHREK FOREVER AFTER - Deja vu

Yeah .. just back from watching the movie and am left with a very 'wanting' feeling.
For me the movie fell short of expectations.
The main theme is - You dont realize what you got until you lose it
Aside - dont sign documents when you are drunk, read fine print of documents
and as for contracts, always find the exit criteria Midlife crisis, married life Vs bachelor life

3D - Not skilfully done. Good in parts where it shows, otherwise inadequate
Comedy - movie carries on Puss and Donkey. The usual dose of comedy from Donkey as in other Shrek series would've saved the movie.

Overall - Deja vu, slightly serious theme, good graphics but storyline not slapstick, comedy definitely could've had more, Great kids movie, but wont appeal entirely to adult audiences

OVERVIEW:
Rating - 3 ***
Genre - Animation
Duration: 1 hour 33 minutes

Chennai Summer and its People

So, as a Chennaiite I am proud to be a South Indian.
After all its a hot and happening place. More former than the latter. But the best thing is how we people can adapt to almost any other weather in the world ... irrespective of extremes of hot or cold. Having stayed here most of my life, I thought facing north India would be difficult and standing Chicago winter .. almost impossible. But I was pleasantly wrong.

The North Indian summers are notorious for the 'loo winds', heat waves through the day and most parts of evening and basically dry heat. But .. we get used to it. American summers .. nothing at all as romantic as they are portrayed in films and magazines... are just as hard to get acclimatized to. But we get used to that too. Any Chennaiite who has shopped in the month of May.. in the Khatri Veyyil in the bustling T.Ngr crowd and heat and dust ...accomplishes a feat that most people of the world cant. So thats our advantage. Our kids graduating high school HAVE to go out in the sun in the month of May to get applications for various colleges, to apply, to visit colleges etc ... and this is just what toughens them for life.

We learn valuable lessons of life from the weather. And because I understand how powerful nature is, I humbly bow before it and request some respite from the heat.
Happy Shopping Everybody !!!!!!!!

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON - WHAT A BALM

Movie Review - HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON
This is my first movie review.
and I got 3 words for it - PRESPECTIVE, BRAINS over BRAWNS, DESTINY

Yeah .. everything changes once you change the perspective and see it again. It could be from a child's point of view, or just another dimension of looking at things. Viking Chief and all of the Vikings had been slaying the pest dragons for 300 years and no one thought of any other way out. And then comes a young lad who thinks .. why slay them .. instead train them and make PESTS into PETS and live in harmony. I was bowled over by the perspective shown subtly in the movie.

Not everyone has or needs beef for a successful life. What you are is what you think you can be in your mind. So take that brain to task and see what more you could be. Hiccup in the movie could have trained to kill the dragons .. after all his predecessors had been doing just that. But he uses his mind to find a way out of this bloody mess through love, respect and brotherhood.
Hiccup's words "I saw fear in him" - everybody and everything has fear.. when you realize this fact, you start seeing the world differently. Fear drives us. Let not the fear control you.. but you control your fear.

As for Destiny, I do not conform to the definition given in www.thefreedictionary.com
"The inevitable or necessary fate to which a particular person or thing is destined"
Hiccup in the movie didn't. He blazed a new trail for others to follow. Even if others do not follow .. your trail is left behind.

What more .. a complete visual treat as a 3D movie. Kids will enjoy and adults will learn lessons for life. I did.

OVERVIEW
--------------
RATING - 5 *****
Genre - Animation, adventure, fantasy
Directed by - Chris Sanders
Dean DeBlois
Running time - 98 minutes
Music - John Powell
Editing - Darren T. Holmes
Studio - DreamWorks Animation
Distributed By - Paramount Pictures

OMRON SEM-2 Automatic Blood Pressure Monitor

Features
Large LCD Digital Display – displays BP and also the pulse rate
4 AA batteries or AC adapter
Durable Easy wear cuff
Memory to store previous readings up to 60 sets
Hypertension indicator

Correct Measurement Posture
1. Sit upright with your back straight
2. Place your arm on a table so that the cuff will be at the same level as your heart.

Price
$45 in the US from amazon.com
$110 Singapore dollars
INR Rs 2600-3400

OMRON SEM-2 is the first Blood Pressure Monitor in my house and am quite happy with it. A very handy device. A gift from my fastidious husband to my in-laws. Thinking of presenting one to my parents as well.
It uses the oscillometric method of BP measurement and displays it in digital format. It’s very easy to use. Just insert the cuff. Press the STAR/STOP button and the cuff inflates automatically. When measurement is complete, the cuff deflates automatically and the blood pressure and pulse rate are displayed.
If the systolic or diastolic pressure is outside the normal limits then the heartbeat symbol flashes when result is displayed – this is the hypertension indicator feature.

Vacation for a cause - Bala Bharati Siksha Samiti Summer Camp 2

Ok, so it was a 15 day camp and my son, myself and my friend had to get from Chennai to Hyderabad. last minute didnt get tickets .. so my friend said we are going to travel sleeper class. I said ok, its been 8 yrs since I have traveled sleeper class, so now's the time to renew my memories. The wonderful thing about this and about everything else in life is - PERSPECTIVE.

I was worried.. how would my son cope.. we've always traveled in A/C blah.. blah .. I guess in reality I was more worried about me coping. My son had a blast on the train.. he didn;t know anything different and that was a lesson learnt for me.

As we reached the camp, I awoke to the sight of greenery, mangrove trees, beauty, nature as we know it. I was thrilled. Our acharya introduced us to the parents in such superfluous words .. I thought here go my chances of even thinking about returning back. Now I have to stay and complete the entire 15 day camp !!

Mangalore Air crash - behind the apparent

Another news article, another plane crash, yet another tragedy ...
thats what goes through people's minds when they hear such news ...
the same went through mine. But I thought .. wait a minute.. things are not so mechanical .... and wanting to go deeper.. I read every single article in the papers.. and then the tears started rolling. For a few brief moments I put myself in the shoes of the bereaved families of the victims and I choked ...

The papers say that The Civil Aviation Minister has taken moral responsibility for this. But he is hardly the person to blame and like Barack Obama once said .. the blame game ends with me; I think that the true reason for this disaster needs to be dug out and person/persons/system identified and corrective steps taken.

A thought which scares the living daylights out of me ... what would have been going on in the minds of the people aboard the fated flight the few seconds before the inevitable. Thoughts of family? The all-pervading God?Chances of rescue? Some kind of turbulence? Bad dream?? Or actually thoughts of death ???

A lot of people ..... 158 is a HUGE number ... every single life has some kind of attachment ... parents, wife, kids, relatives, friends, colleagues .. to think that the thread gets cut short right there is heartbreaking.
Of course.. no words can describe the anguish ... nothing can compensate for whats lost ... for the life snuffed out cannot be restored. But life as it is .. must go on .. it does...they manage ..the period of despair wears out .. life continues in its ceaseless journey. We live and we learn.

Vacation for a cause - Bala Bharati Siksha Samiti Summer Camp 1

A kids' summer camp where as a volunteer you are expected to be up by 4:45 AM, help the 90 odd kids, get up and brush ... get them to drink customary 2 glasses of water, exercise, bath and be ready for flag hoisting in an hour, help them with their yoga and pranayama while Acharya leads the session, help serve breakfast, help kids down the breakfast and funny tasting health drink, take classes on human values, serve lunch and dinner conduct out-of-the-ordinary art classes, drama classes, come up with new and exciting games for the games session, teach bhajan and sloka in the evening bhajan class, organize culturals/daily talent show after dinner and then ensure kids are asleep by 10:15PM, attend volunteer meetings till 11:00 PM and then if some steam is still left, practice the martial art Danda so you are ready for the next day's danda class at 6 AM. In between all this find time to wash urself and your clothes, eat food, document the sessions, practice danda, plan and brainstorm cultural programs for the last day fest, sort out some fights among kids, heal some bruises with love and hugs, some with dettol and cotton, attend a few sick kids, clean the camp and some other stuff I cant think of right now!!! Of course I didnt know any of this before I landed as a volunteer at Ravirala-the summer camp place in Hyderabad, but I cant imagine how easily I fell into this routine and how much I enjoyed the journey of self discovery.

Quite unexpectedly I went to this summer camp for 8-14yr old kids, a vacation of sorts where I chose to be a volunteer while my 5 yr old son could be a participant. Unexpected it was because .. when my friend was extolling the virtues of this particular values-based teaching summer camp,
it never did occur to me that I actually could be a part of all this. It was when I was narrating the conversation verbatim to my husband, he impulsively said why dont you have this experience ... of serving .. learning ... discovering about yourself.

I was bowled over and thought what an experience it would be for me and my son. My friend.. bless her heart did a reality check with me quite often to get me used to the idea of a very basic, rough and brash summer camp where 6 hr sleep is a luxury, mattress is unheard of, and yoga and pranayama are the cure for fever, body aches, etc. Not to mention the language barrier - as most classes, talks, lectures would all be in Telugu. I thought my Hindi and English would come to my rescue while interacting with kids, parents and other volunteers.
The thought of returning back to basics excited me as much as it intimidated me. But the seed was sown and there was no returning back. So pack I did .. as few essentials as I would need because as a volunteer we had to follow the dress code of white salwaar kameez with red bandhni dupatta.

Danda-The Lost Self-Defense Martial Art Form

How many times in your life are you presented with an opportunity inside of an opportunity ? And how many times do you actually grab it?

My opportunity for self-discovery - A residential summer camp in Hyderabad where I volunteered in May 2010; this I will cover in another blogpost.

The opportunity inside the above opportunity - A chance to learn DANDA (pronunced DHANDA) a martial art form lost somewhere among today's more popular Karate, Kung-fu, Taek-Won-Do.

For someone who's generally a little skeptic about new ventures, I cant believe the gusto with which I took to learning Danda. And it all happened by chance.
Volunteers at Bala Bharati Shiksha Samiti summer camp handling 90 kids, my friend Anu and I met Raj Anniya one day and all of a sudden he offered to teach us Danda, so we could teach the older kids in the batch.

Danda - a martial art form uses a staff about 4 ft long, goes through various levels
and finally comes to Danda Yudh. As all art forms it has its own set of Vyayam (exercises, some of them feel like karate chops and kicks)

Day-1 Spent about 4 hrs in the hot sun, learnt the basic movements from Guruji and finished with calloused hands and arms paining from wielding the danda. Nevertheless practiced hard at night and got ready for Day 2 classes.

Day-2 Classes started for the two of us at 6AM and in 1 hr we had to get good at Prahara Maar. The 'zoop' sound of the danda kept us going and we started classes for the kids in the morning.

3 more classes later and having learnt many many more movements and having practiced late nights and early mornings, I left the Ravirala camp ... a changed person.
Oh! Also had the kids perform a demo for their parents on the last day and as Danda teachers .. we looked on proudly ...