Random funde

Okay i lied, not exactly random :). I wrote this for something but it couldn't be used their so thought of putting it here. These are some funde from my all time favorite movie Shawshank Redemption. If someone reading this hasn't seen the movie then they should stop right here and go n watch the movie ! If one ever wants an example of motivation, persistence and self-belief, there's none better than one from the legendary movie 'The Shawshank Redemption'. The movie is based upon a novel 'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' by Stephen King. The movie tells a story of Andy Dufresne who is incorrectly sentenced for two life imprisonments for killing his wife and her lover. The movie shows how inspite of all the difficult circumstances Andy Dufresne keeps the self-belief to not only plan his escape from prison but also motivate his friend Red to get out of it. The whole movie can be summarized by three of its dialogues (yeah it has too many good dialogues to choose from but still):

1. "Get busy living, or get busy dying.": If ever there was a list of most motivational quotes ever this will end up right at the top. The movie shows what all hardships Andy had to face, starting with her wife cheating on her, being sentenced falsely for murder of his wife and her lover, the hostile prison environment, regular beatings from his inmates and so on. But inspite of all these things he lived as if he was just living a "normal" life. He would carve chess pieces out of rocks to complete a chess board, build a great prison library, help a young inmate with his studies and not to mention helping out the guards with their tax returns and helping warden with his scams. When one is in difficult situtations(as Andy was) it is very easy to lose hope and focus, one starts to blame the other people, circumstances and infact everything for his current situation rather than trying to get over this difficult phase with complete dedication and persistence. This is what the other inmates like Red were doing, they had resigned to their situation by calling themselves "instutionalized", but Andy said that it all comes down to a simple choice - "Get busy living, or get busy dying". Either you can "die" by cribbing about the past and all the wrong things being done to you, or you can decide to "live" and find a way out of your troubles. The path to "die" maybe easier but it leads to nothing in the long run, while the path to "live" can be really difficult and long (around 20 years in this case for Andy), but the results are far greater (living a "free" life in this case). Everyone confronts diffcult situations in their lives, but its very important to keep your focus and persistence and get through those difficult periods. Overcoming each difficult situation only makes the you stronger.

2. "Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of the things and no good thing ever dies": Hope. If you don't hope for anything you won't succeed in life. You have to dream in life, if you don't dream and hope for anything then you won't work to fullfil that dream and hence you probably won't succeed in life. So the key is to dream of something good, dream of something which makes you happy, dream of something you always want to do in life and then work with complete dedication towards achieving that dream. You might face a lot of difficulties in it, but that happy and successful feeling, you get when you achieve that dream is worth every ounce of effort. In the movie Andy dreamed that he will go to Zihautenejo, a town in Mexico. He went through all the hardships, "he crawled through half a mile of foul smelling shit to come out clean on the other side". It was this dream and his belief in that dream, that helped him get through each difficult circumstances and eventually get out of that prison and reach his destination.

3. "Salvation lies within": Basically you have to save you own ass :)

Yeah i know quite a serious talk, but its okay for once in a while i guess :D

Firsts

It's been close to 8 months since i came here. And in these 8 months there have been a lot of firsts for me. Starting off with my first plane journey and first foreign visit to these:

-> First snow fall experience (NJ)
-> First time watching the ocean (Pacific)
-> First time going to a beach
-> First IMAX experience (Dark Knight)
-> A road trip
-> Cruise
-> Hike
-> Walking across golden gate bridge
-> Playing soccer at beach
-> Having BBQ
-> Live music concert (Linkin' park this saturday!!!)

I hope there are a lot more to come :). Writing after a long time, have been pretty busy with work in last 2 weeks or so..meanwhile the soccer/football season is starting next week. Couldn't wait for more. Hope to write more frequently :)

A New Life

Just a couple of days ago i completed 2 months in US. It has been a start of a completely new life for me. On Jan 14th for the first time i boarded a plane and that too for a 15 and half hours flight to NJ. It was a decent experience overall. I had taken a window seat just to enjoy the view from the plane, but i realized it late that throughout my journey i'll be in night sky so nothing was visible :). The staff was quite friendly, but the in-flight entertainment was pathetic to say the least. It did had a personal screen but the choice of movies, songs and programs on those were simply awful. So i had to re read my fav novel 'Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy' by Douglas Adams. I hardly got a 3-4 hr sleep, so it got a tad boring journey. On Jan 15th early morning i landed at EWR airport took the baggage and got a shock to see my cab driver in a suit and a big car. This was all about reaching US.

After reaching here my new life begun. I have taken the biggest risk of my life, in what so far had been a pretty copy-book life. This is my attempt at breaking free. So the first one and a half month of my stay mostly involved studying for interviews and giving interviews. In between those i went to NY a couple of times, watched several movies, went to CA for interview, dealt with a few complex situations and that's just about it :). Till now i can say the people here are quite friendly, the country is far more organized, the place is more colder. On just my second day here i dared to walk from the train station to my guest house which was about 1.5 miles and i was just vaguely aware of the path. And pretty obviously i got lost :). I was without a phone in that chilling winter evening, and unlike India its pretty hard to find pedestrians here whom i could have asked for the directions. I knew i was somewhere pretty close to my place but still not there. I asked for the directions at couple of shops and a few ppl as well. One of the showroom person gave me a printout of the exact map to my guesthouse from his place !! It was great. And it was only after reaching that i realized that i had passed my guest house atleast 3-4 times but just couldn't recognize it as i came from its back side ! In all i spent around 3 hrs roaming around just like that !


Since last 2 weeks am doing nothing, i've been spending almost whole of my time sleeping, watching movies and playing FIFA 2008. Meanwhile i have also broken a long dry spell of not writing a blog post for almost 2 years. Now am just waiting for my joining date to start working at a place i wanted to work at since i planned to come here, not to mention am waiting eagerly to work at hot shot company am gonna join there. With that my new life will really begin !

Om Shanti Om

I haven't wrote a blog post in ages and today i have finally decided to overcome my laziness :). A few weeks ago i finally saw the movie Om Shanti Om. Wanted to write a blog post immediately but have been pretty busy lately with my new life. First of all this is not a review of the movie these are my general views.

I would start by saying that Om Shanti Om isn't a movie, it's a fantasy of an actor who has realized that he has now achieved everything in his career and has now decided to do things which he always wanted to do ! There will be pretty few people in this world who might be doing exactly what they want to do in life, infact some of them might just be in a completely different profession than what they love. But even if they are in same profession as what they love they still have one or more desires to do somethings the way "they" want it. Somehow there are very few people who are actually able to fulfill these desires because of lack of opportunities, lack of finance or some other reason like that. But there are a certain few people who are able to complete these desires. These people are the ones who have already achieved so much in life that they are then completely free to experiment and hence fulfill their life long dreams. This is simply what Shahrukh Khan (SRK) seems to be doing lately. He is doing roles which he has always dreamt of doing like portraying Don. A lot of people say he is copying, he is not doing anything original or things like that. But he doesn't care as he has grown in a stature which is above all these things, he now is simply living his life the way he wants it to be.

If Don was simply a remake (with a little change in story) of the original Don, Om Shanti Om was a complete fantasy. Not only did he relived Rishi Kapoor in Karz but also did things which he would have dreamt of like bringing almost entire film industry on screen in a single song and a few other things as well. As i see, the aim of making this movie seems to be that making of it should be atleast as much fun (if not more) as its viewing. Its not a movie for the critics, its a movie for people who like casual fun movies.

With this i finally complete one post after almost 2 years !! I hope to write more frequently now as i have lots to say !