Yours truly has been hitting the (yoga) mat with a vengeance over the past one month. By the time my mom left two months back I was back to where I had started a month earlier.
However since I have resumed my yoga practice, the journey has been fruitful.
Results have been wonderful considering I am a dietician’s nightmare and once upon a time was my gym trainer’s badge of shame.
I have not lost weight but my horrible wings have significantly melted. For the first time, I have something called a waist and I have already begun hoping for a 26 inch waist. It is important and essential to aim big and thin if you happen to be living in the land of size zero women.
I did not expect much when I began doing yoga. But now I am willing to kick ass if anyone nods in approval.
For me yoga is one of the best ways to gently initiate the body into losing those extra inches and becoming flexible. When I now look back to all the frustrating days I could not lunge down and touch my feet and count up to five, I smile.
While doing surya namaskar, I still cannot touch my knees with my forehead without cheating a bit but I can do a lot of other acrobatics which gymming would have never helped me do. Despite the aching joints, I have never injured myself.
I am allowed to go on at my own pace and be lazy. I coax myself gently everyday and sit back at the hint of slightest discomfort. I am not lifting weights that sent my body into the distress mode. And yet I see muscles yield and tone up.
My spiritual journey is yet to begin as my yoga practice is solely focused on losing inches.
But I am seeing benefits, which can only come when you are calm, at peace and connecting to your inner self although for a second at a time. My skin has a healthy glow. I no longer slouch and can sit with a straight back effortlessly. I feel less anxious at work. My self worth has gone up and I am more in touch with myself.
Yoga to me is almost feminine. It is not aggressive but artful. It asks you not to confirm but find your unique style. It lets you be awkward and slow but steady on track. It has also showed me a side of myself which I did not know of-determination and focus.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Duplicity ripped
One minute into the movie and I was already on the verge of a heartache watching Julia Robert’s shabby makeup, sagging face and near frumpy dress. I have never been much of a Clive Owens fan and I was unimpressed by the witty tete-a-tete that made their love making (no flesh flash here) inevitable.
But I think that was the strategy-incremental pleasure!
Duplicity is about two espionage aces who decide to cash on the war between two cosmetic giants. The movie takes you back and forth in time lest you lose the thread of events. And what unfolds is an impressive, cerebral drama.
In the dog eats dog game our corporate spies are engaged in, mutual trust is hard to sustain. Mutually suspicious and ever ready with preemptive moves, they are however not above human frailties of insecurity, loneliness and need for love.
Julia though the scheming bitch is jealous and ready to dump the swindle as Clive Owens justifies seducing other women as part of the game.
Keep your ears open each time Julia and Ownes rendezvous. Their dialogues as they steal away private moments are the wittiest.
The leading actors are perfectly matched. Clive Owens looks handsome and Julia older (I am still hung on to the pretty woman).
I do not know if Julia and Owens have chemistry but Owens confrontation with Julia years after their first meeting is high power. It helps that Julia’s makeup gets better after the heart breaking first scene.
An interesting shot in the movie is the scuffle between the two cosmetic company heads. Shot in slow motion, the scene, which plays along with the credits, beautifully captures the expressions and body languages of the warring men as well as the onlookers.
I would have considered my 100 dollars a little better spent if the action scenes (whatever was there of it) had been better executed. The theft of the formula was a cakewalk.
Agreed the movie cannot be attacked for the trite stealing scene, as it fit in its scheme of events but after laughing at all the implied humour, I expected more from ex-CIA and MI6. Haven’t they heard of James Bond or is MI6 Bond sui generis?
A sucker for high adrenaline and dramatic endings, I was however happy with the movie’s end.
The audience is let into the fun much before it dawns upon the leading characters. But then maybe the movie and its characters were antithesis to the Bond genre.
But I think that was the strategy-incremental pleasure!
Duplicity is about two espionage aces who decide to cash on the war between two cosmetic giants. The movie takes you back and forth in time lest you lose the thread of events. And what unfolds is an impressive, cerebral drama.
In the dog eats dog game our corporate spies are engaged in, mutual trust is hard to sustain. Mutually suspicious and ever ready with preemptive moves, they are however not above human frailties of insecurity, loneliness and need for love.
Julia though the scheming bitch is jealous and ready to dump the swindle as Clive Owens justifies seducing other women as part of the game.
Keep your ears open each time Julia and Ownes rendezvous. Their dialogues as they steal away private moments are the wittiest.
The leading actors are perfectly matched. Clive Owens looks handsome and Julia older (I am still hung on to the pretty woman).
I do not know if Julia and Owens have chemistry but Owens confrontation with Julia years after their first meeting is high power. It helps that Julia’s makeup gets better after the heart breaking first scene.
An interesting shot in the movie is the scuffle between the two cosmetic company heads. Shot in slow motion, the scene, which plays along with the credits, beautifully captures the expressions and body languages of the warring men as well as the onlookers.
I would have considered my 100 dollars a little better spent if the action scenes (whatever was there of it) had been better executed. The theft of the formula was a cakewalk.
Agreed the movie cannot be attacked for the trite stealing scene, as it fit in its scheme of events but after laughing at all the implied humour, I expected more from ex-CIA and MI6. Haven’t they heard of James Bond or is MI6 Bond sui generis?
A sucker for high adrenaline and dramatic endings, I was however happy with the movie’s end.
The audience is let into the fun much before it dawns upon the leading characters. But then maybe the movie and its characters were antithesis to the Bond genre.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Today deserves a special mention!
I cooked chicken curry and mushroom paneer matar and if the ratio of gravy to chicken pieces is ignored, the perfectness of the masalas and the look on P’s face made up for the three hours spent sweating in the kitchen and whining over the dough that refused to yield to the belan!
Huh!
The kitchen looked well in control as I successfully dealt with the minor hitch of chicken pieces and the onion/spice paste not letting off water and P was impressed. But his smirk was back in place on his third round as my patience burnt with the rotis.
So how did it turn out?
:) That says it I suppose.
Huh!
The kitchen looked well in control as I successfully dealt with the minor hitch of chicken pieces and the onion/spice paste not letting off water and P was impressed. But his smirk was back in place on his third round as my patience burnt with the rotis.
So how did it turn out?
:) That says it I suppose.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
What I know of Kamla Das
My Grandmother's House
There is a house now far away where once
I received love. That woman died,
The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved
Among books.
I was then too young
To read, and, my blood turned cold like the moon.
How often I think of going
There, to peer through blind eyes of windows or
Just listen to the frozen air,
Or in wild despair, pick an armful of
Darkness to bring it here to lie
Behind my bedroom door like a broodingDog.
You cannot believe, darling
Can you, that I lived in such a house and
Was proud, and loved...
I who have lost
My way and beg now at strangers' doors to
Receive love, at least in small change?
(The poem for some reason reminds me of The Dark Holds No Terror by Shashi Deshpande)
There is a house now far away where once
I received love. That woman died,
The house withdrew into silence, snakes moved
Among books.
I was then too young
To read, and, my blood turned cold like the moon.
How often I think of going
There, to peer through blind eyes of windows or
Just listen to the frozen air,
Or in wild despair, pick an armful of
Darkness to bring it here to lie
Behind my bedroom door like a broodingDog.
You cannot believe, darling
Can you, that I lived in such a house and
Was proud, and loved...
I who have lost
My way and beg now at strangers' doors to
Receive love, at least in small change?
(The poem for some reason reminds me of The Dark Holds No Terror by Shashi Deshpande)
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Gag power
On Tiananmen’s twentieth anniversary, it's fear of public angst boiling into active protest in a cauldron of online mobilisation and propaganda that led to an official blockade of many websites.
In popular lingo, Blogger, Flickr, Twitter, Livejournal, Tumblr, the Huffington Post, Microsoft's Live.com, Hotmail, MSN Space blog tool and search engine Bing (Fox News) were GFWd or great fire walled (WSJ) couple of days before the d-day.
You Tube got the axe recently when a super popular spoof video on government censorship led to million plus hits from around the globe.
Google reportedly had to fall in line with sarkari diktats to be unblocked. Wikipedia, Facebook and MySpace too have been at the receiving end at some point of time.
Chinese government’s hassles with the Internet arise from the harm it does to its image and legitimacy. It is a crack that lets in too much of light.
Look at the possibilities-
The unknown and undocumented tragedies of hundred flowers campaign, cultural revolution and the long march would had crashed servers if cheenis had online access back then.
The impact of clips and personal experiences from ground zero on six four flashing on millions of computer screens is unimaginable.
While it is easy to clamp on erring and belligerent reporters, editors and newspapers, the Internet presents a unique dilemma for law enforcers. The plethora of social networking websites, online newspapers and blogs has made pursuit of the non-conformist tough, endless and more technology driven.
Luckily for people living in Hong Kong, ‘freedom of speech’ is still not off limits. Though the local media does toe the government stand, delicate issues are still debated and reported in newspapers and discussed unbridled online.
Hong Kong is the only city in China where wide scale demonstrations and gatherings are allowed and tolerated.
It is this rare privilege which enables Hong Kongers and mainlanders to congregate year after year at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay and light candles in reverence and in defiance of government stand on T.
Last night nearly 150,000 people gathered in Victoria Park. It was overwhelming for someone like me who has grown familiar to everyday cribs of local apathy to social issues. If numbers can speak, the event sent across a very powerful message.
Check this SCMP video of yesterday's vigil:
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.d53bd88267636ee6a3e27910cba0a0a0/?ss=News&s=Video&bcpid=1873859731&bclid=1557820190&bctid=25326003001
It is quite ironic that the shrewd tool of economic development, which the government uses to woo people, restricts its own actions when it comes to governing Hong Kong.
PS:
I worried about chances of any violence or police action as I hung on the fringe of the massive crowd. However to the best of my knowledge no one was manhandled or barred from expressing their views.
Policemen acted like efficient cogs ensuring crowds did not block roads and traffic flowed smoothly. Even at the Causeway MTR station, trains waited an extra two minutes to take in more people.
The only thing I wondered about was how many would had turned up if authorities had cracked down. For me it is a defining point in understanding the power of protest. I read somewhere about some Tiannanmen student leaders who are now settled in the US and run businesses that have investments in China. Is that not a tacit giving in or is it affirmation of the fact that youth’s idealism metamorphoses into cynicism and acceptance of the status quo with age.
It also appears that branding the pro democratic protests as a student unrest is a slight misnomer. Participation and deaths of common people is under represented in popular discourse.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/48304,features,the-tiananmen-square-myth-both-china-and-the-west-distorted-the-truth-about-the-massacre-human-rights-amnesty-deng-xiaoping
I also read about the tanker-man who stood, shopping bags in hand before advancing tanks 20 years ago.
In popular lingo, Blogger, Flickr, Twitter, Livejournal, Tumblr, the Huffington Post, Microsoft's Live.com, Hotmail, MSN Space blog tool and search engine Bing (Fox News) were GFWd or great fire walled (WSJ) couple of days before the d-day.
You Tube got the axe recently when a super popular spoof video on government censorship led to million plus hits from around the globe.
Google reportedly had to fall in line with sarkari diktats to be unblocked. Wikipedia, Facebook and MySpace too have been at the receiving end at some point of time.
Chinese government’s hassles with the Internet arise from the harm it does to its image and legitimacy. It is a crack that lets in too much of light.
Look at the possibilities-
The unknown and undocumented tragedies of hundred flowers campaign, cultural revolution and the long march would had crashed servers if cheenis had online access back then.
The impact of clips and personal experiences from ground zero on six four flashing on millions of computer screens is unimaginable.
While it is easy to clamp on erring and belligerent reporters, editors and newspapers, the Internet presents a unique dilemma for law enforcers. The plethora of social networking websites, online newspapers and blogs has made pursuit of the non-conformist tough, endless and more technology driven.
Luckily for people living in Hong Kong, ‘freedom of speech’ is still not off limits. Though the local media does toe the government stand, delicate issues are still debated and reported in newspapers and discussed unbridled online.
Hong Kong is the only city in China where wide scale demonstrations and gatherings are allowed and tolerated.
It is this rare privilege which enables Hong Kongers and mainlanders to congregate year after year at Victoria Park in Causeway Bay and light candles in reverence and in defiance of government stand on T.
Last night nearly 150,000 people gathered in Victoria Park. It was overwhelming for someone like me who has grown familiar to everyday cribs of local apathy to social issues. If numbers can speak, the event sent across a very powerful message.
Check this SCMP video of yesterday's vigil:
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.d53bd88267636ee6a3e27910cba0a0a0/?ss=News&s=Video&bcpid=1873859731&bclid=1557820190&bctid=25326003001
It is quite ironic that the shrewd tool of economic development, which the government uses to woo people, restricts its own actions when it comes to governing Hong Kong.
PS:
I worried about chances of any violence or police action as I hung on the fringe of the massive crowd. However to the best of my knowledge no one was manhandled or barred from expressing their views.
Policemen acted like efficient cogs ensuring crowds did not block roads and traffic flowed smoothly. Even at the Causeway MTR station, trains waited an extra two minutes to take in more people.
The only thing I wondered about was how many would had turned up if authorities had cracked down. For me it is a defining point in understanding the power of protest. I read somewhere about some Tiannanmen student leaders who are now settled in the US and run businesses that have investments in China. Is that not a tacit giving in or is it affirmation of the fact that youth’s idealism metamorphoses into cynicism and acceptance of the status quo with age.
It also appears that branding the pro democratic protests as a student unrest is a slight misnomer. Participation and deaths of common people is under represented in popular discourse.
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/48304,features,the-tiananmen-square-myth-both-china-and-the-west-distorted-the-truth-about-the-massacre-human-rights-amnesty-deng-xiaoping
I also read about the tanker-man who stood, shopping bags in hand before advancing tanks 20 years ago.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Duan Wu: May 28
Dragon boat festival or Duan Wu is celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month of the Chinese year.
According to Chinese lore, on this day, Qu Yuan, a minister in exile drowned himself when a Qin ruler defeated Emperor Huai of the Jin dynasty.
When Yuan’s body could not be found, local people threw rice, eggs and wine into the river to feed fishes, reptiles and water spirits so they would not feed on his corpse.
Another myth traces the festival’s origin to ancestral worshipping of the dragon by Bai Yue people, the first settlers in the Guangzhou area of China according to Britannica.
For me the festival turned out to be much more hectic than anticipated but high on the fun factor. I went along with a bunch of friends to watch the boat race at Discovery Bay, a picture perfect residential area mainly targeted at expats and high-end income local families.
Watching sea waves break silently against the shore and halos of clouds form around hilltops, it was hard to believe that the place existed just 30 minutes rides from the uber life of the HK island.
I am unsure how a more traditional race would look like but in a city so high strung on the Laissez Faire philosophy, it was interesting to watch people unite into teams and compete.
(Found this blog for pics of the race. There are many more capturing the HK life
http://tdmphoto.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-06-02T17%3A56%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=3 )
A quick Wikipedia search on drummers led to this-
PS:
1. If you remember the terracotta army (from the "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor", the latest in The Mummy series) it was built during the reign of Qin Shi Huang (of the Qin dynasty), the first emperor of a unified or imperial China (Wikipedia)
According to Chinese lore, on this day, Qu Yuan, a minister in exile drowned himself when a Qin ruler defeated Emperor Huai of the Jin dynasty.
When Yuan’s body could not be found, local people threw rice, eggs and wine into the river to feed fishes, reptiles and water spirits so they would not feed on his corpse.
Another myth traces the festival’s origin to ancestral worshipping of the dragon by Bai Yue people, the first settlers in the Guangzhou area of China according to Britannica.
For me the festival turned out to be much more hectic than anticipated but high on the fun factor. I went along with a bunch of friends to watch the boat race at Discovery Bay, a picture perfect residential area mainly targeted at expats and high-end income local families.
Watching sea waves break silently against the shore and halos of clouds form around hilltops, it was hard to believe that the place existed just 30 minutes rides from the uber life of the HK island.
I am unsure how a more traditional race would look like but in a city so high strung on the Laissez Faire philosophy, it was interesting to watch people unite into teams and compete.
(Found this blog for pics of the race. There are many more capturing the HK life
http://tdmphoto.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-06-02T17%3A56%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=3 )
Two strong touches of tradition in the competition that were clearly evident to me were the dragon faces and colourful decorations on boat fronts and drummers perched on the boat edge.
A quick Wikipedia search on drummers led to this-
The drummer or caller may be considered the "heartbeat" of the dragon boat, and leads the crew throughout a race with the rhythmic beating of a drum to indicate the timing and frequency of paddling strokes (that is, the cadence, picking up the pace, slowing the rate, etc.) The caller may issue commands to the crew through a combination of hand signals and voice calls, and also generally exhorts the crew to perform at their peak. A caller/drummer is mandatory during racing events, but if he or she is not present during training, it is typical for the sweep to direct the crew.
PS:
1. If you remember the terracotta army (from the "Tomb of the Dragon Emperor", the latest in The Mummy series) it was built during the reign of Qin Shi Huang (of the Qin dynasty), the first emperor of a unified or imperial China (Wikipedia)
2. Click on the link for some more observations on the festival. Unfortunately I could not eat zong zi, apparently a must have on Duan Wu.
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