Tag: Blog

Sharing Movies

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One of my friends from University and I are learning Spanish together. We started this project with completely different motivations, at completely different points of time, but bumped into each other along the way. Since then, it’s been a lot of conversation over text in Spanish, aside from which we’ve both, admittedly been using Google Translate a fair amount to learn new phrases we’d like to incorporate into our ever-growing vocabulary. Last week, when we were talking about Spanish as a language, I made the suggestion that we read Harry Potter, a series we’ve both recently re-read, in Spanish, taking a cue from my best friend who has intended to read the series in French. This morning, I asked if he had seen Coco, a movie I hoped we could enjoy in Spanish. He hadn’t, so we set up a time and decided to figure out the mechanics later.

A few hours later, we reconvened and grappled with technology. We didn’t find the Spanish version, but I was keen he watched the movie, so we went along for the ride in English anyway, synchronizing time across devices.

The last time I went to a movie theatre to watch a film was probably a year and a half ago now, or even two years ago. In Bangalore, I’ve largely been for movies with my school friends, and with streaming services becoming so popular and movies available on the internet pretty much a week after their theatre release, I haven’t really felt that urge to go, or to share my movie-watching experience with people. My mum’s usually my movie companion. We watch a movie or two, or three, every time we get to spend time with each other. Quite often it’s biographical, or animated, and watching Coco today, an animated film, made me think of how many movies I would have watched with my family had we been in the same house in these times.

I’m yet to meet somebody, across the age spectrum, who has a passionate dislike for animated films. I do know individuals who aren’t particularly fond of them, but animated films feel like one of those few things the world agrees is universally good. If the animation is well done, the story can be absurd, and bizarre, but it will still be a lovely film (for me atleast). I can’t speak for everyone, but what I love the most about animated films is how child-like they make me feel again. Childlike innocence is a lovely thing, and animation, as a medium – even when you have sophisticated storylines and plots, seems to capture that innocence like nothing else ever has, does, or ever will.

Watching Coco today with a friend was an excellent reminder for me, of why I enjoy sharing the movie-going experience with my friends, and in a very strange way, made me really think about why I stopped going to the theatre in the first place. We were talking at different points in the movie, checking out Spanish lingo, mostly, but still, communicating what we felt about the film as we felt it – a laugh here, a tear there. That surprise when the plot twists, a pause to discuss and explain it.

When I was in Grade 10, Skyfall came out, and a group of us from school got together at the Central on Sarjapur Road to watch the film. To date, that has to be one of my fondest movie-watching memories. We ribbed each other so much as the movie unfolded, and then, before we headed our separate ways (since we all had curfews back then), we legitimately spent time discussing the movie, and the kind of things that would have to happen for the next one as a consequence of everything that panned out.

When Coco finished, my friend and I just chatted for a few minutes about how lovely the entire experience was. I’m going to try setting this up with more friends now. I don’t discuss film and TV much with many people at all any more, and maybe this is a way to get back to it all.

Cars

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Today, a large amount of the day was spent watching reruns of Top Gear and The Grand Tour. When I was a child, we had a subscription to Gulf News, which came with these incredible supplements from time to time. Thursdays was Entertainment Plus, Fridays was Friday, and Wheels – I can’t remember when Wheels was, but those were the happiest days.

I fell in love with cars at a very young age. My father first spotted this affection I had developed, when he bought me toy cars, and encouraged it by helping me remember the models of cars and teaching me how to identify them on the road. He also took me along to the car showroom every time he went, whether it was for a cleaning service, or for a regular servicing. I remember falling in love with racing games too – the Need for Speed games that my mother’s cousin so kindly burned CD’s for me to ply on my grandfather’s computer in Bangalore, and the Need for Speed: Most Wanted which was my first PSP game. Aside from this, of course, there was the Midnight Club games, and Grand Theft Auto, games that my friends had which involved a lot of car racing and learning cars better.

I was thrilled about these and even did a scrapbook one year of supercars. For a very long time, I was certain I wanted to go into automobile design or engineering. I drew images of cars every chance I got. They were poor sketches, but I was so proud of the kind of configurations I imagined for these cars – the power they would have, the kind of technical specifications that would make driving these cars a luxury.

I’m a Formula 1 nuthead, and I’ve started playing the games online, which has naturally led to me falling in love with the sport more. Watching Top Gear today was a nice blast into the past, a fun reminiscing of my childhood dreams.

I still have a Lego set of a car I need to finish one day. Aside from that though, the only big celebration I’ve had that’s been car-related has been the day I got my Drivers License. Of course, the day my mother trusted me enough to sit in the back seat without running commentary was another milestone.

Watching Top Gear today was also a moment of attempting to reconcile my love for these fuel-guzzling machines, these engineering feats with my desire to ensure the environment is preserved and protected. There is a love that Top Gear hosts and motorheads have for these big, bulky engines, and developments of these engines. A large amount of the driving experience is determined by engine power, and engine sound.

I spent a chunk of time watching Formula E as well. That series looks incredible, and I hope we’re able to get to a point with electric vehicle technology, or hybrid technology that’s both fuel and cost-efficient, while preserving the noise/sound/experience that motorists enjoy.

I also really hope Codemasters incorporates the Formula E series into their F1 games. Those street circuits are fabulous. Would be so much fun to drive.

Cooking Coincidences

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Today, for lunch, without any prior discussion – I cooked cabbage curry at home, my mum made cabbage curry at her house, and there was cabbage curry at my grandparents’ place too. This isn’t the first time this is happening – it occurred sometime last week with carrot curry, and I think some other day as well.

I wonder how these occur

In my mind, I imagined the cabbage Gods pulling us all towards that vegetable. I’m fairly certain we all cooked it the exact same way: mine with the least amount of salt, and my grandmother’s with the most. Mine with the most amount of spice, and my grandmother’s with the least. I could replay the resistance with which I combated the urge to cook and finish the cabbage, I wanted to eat aloo fry again – but I countered all those forces and reached for the leafy thing, chopped it up and cooked it as rapidly as I could.

Cooking coincidences like these feel like they mean far more when they happen within the family. In a lot of ways, it felt like a small reminder of where I get my passion for food from. Not literally, but in terms of the food I’ve first eaten – the food I’ve loved all my life. I could go eat all the pasta and pizza in the world, but I know I’d want to come home to Indian food occasionally. Palya is a reminder of that emotion.

Hair Maintenance

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This is the longest I’ve gone without cutting my hair. I’ve explored my relationship with haircuts on this blog, here, for example, but it’s only when you don’t have the ability to get a haircut that you’re able to truly define what the haircut means to you, and what, in a sense, it’s always meant. As a child, my father instilled in me very early on that I ought to have neatly cut hair. At University, I often relied on my benchmates in class to confirm whether my hair was long enough to necessitate the solo trip to the barbershop, and sitting through episodes of a Gujarati sitcom I did not want to enjoy but enjoyed anyway. The frequency with which I had my haircuts dropped from one every month to one every alternate month. My haircare routine was simple. Oil my hair once in a week, maybe twice, when it was longer, and shampoo every alternate day – to help with general cleanliness.

The shampooing felt necessary because of how much I sweat at college. There’s a humidity in Gujarat that just doesn’t exist in other States I’ve visited, and every two days I felt unclean if my hair wasn’t shampooed – because it began to smell, or something of the sort.

Now, this long hair I’ve now grown, which somedays, feels like a mane because it’s grown out the sides and the back, and merges into my beard when I grow that out, needs so much extra maintenance. It refuses to sit in place and behave the way I want it to. The thing I’ve learned about why haircuts are necessary, for me, isn’t just the practicality of having shorter hair. It’s also about being able to let go of this weight that grows on us month-on-month. It’s the same with nails. Each time you allow them to begin growing afresh, you allow yourself the opportunity to let go of all the stuff that’s burdened your head for months past.

Now? Things are a mess.

Vacuum Cleaners

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The first house I properly remember living in is a perfectly-sized apartment for a young one and two adults. It’s the house I remember having my first sleepovers in, where we folded out the green sofa we had and my friends and I slept there. It’s where I remember spilling milk on the wall because I accidentally knocked down an entire glass with my right hand, and it’s where I first remember eating my mother’s pizzas. Aside from these memories and more, including a bunk-bed surprise, my first tryst with a vacuum cleaner comes in this house.

We had a vacuum cleaner at all of the houses we lived in when I was younger. Now I’m not sure what brand it was – and whether we had only one vacuum for all those years or not, but I’ll explain whatever I remember of it. Memory is a fabulous thing, but it’s likely that the vacuum cleaner I describe is a blend of two vacuum cleaners we had. The only things I’m certain of is that it was either a Hoover or an Aftron, and it was either red, or silver.

The rest is honestly a whirr. Quite literally, a whirr – the most powerful whirr you’ve heard. Biswa has this lovely segment on the irritating sound that motorbikes make, and my vacuum cleaner hit that frequency and more. It was not possible to live in peace in that household when the vacuum cleaner was on. The size of the house made everything echo so you heard the vacuum whirring about 4 times for 1 whirr. While we moved across the corridor to a new house, I think that was the thing I was looking forward to the most – the fact that there was an extended passageway and multiple rooms made it almost certain that in the hall, the television would be protected from the vacuum cleaner’s engine.

That was not to be.

I disagree with this Physics principle on emotional grounds, but I learned that sound travels fastest in solids. Never was that more true than when one wall separated me from the vacuum cleaner. I was in the hall, watching television, eating food, while the house-help that assisted us with maintenance vacuumed the rooms. But the sound traveled through the walls and pierced my ears like nothing else.

I knew I would love living in India when we moved here and didn’t have a vacuum cleaner. The jadu did all the jadoo and swept away all sound. For years, I lived in silence, yet a clean surrounding at all points. Till I went to live in France for 6 weeks. The vacuum returned, and with it, all the trauma of my childhood. I was really grateful for a small house and a roommate, because I had to vacuum only half the time, and I could stay outside and far away from the sound when vacuuming was being done, but oh man – on the days I vacuumed, how I wished that these things made less sound.

I thought my saga with the vacuum cleaner had come to a close. Till this lockdown happened and I was home alone. Remember how I said we didn’t have a vacuum? Turns out, our vacuum was in hiding all along. My parents told me where it was to make my life easier, and the convenience of everything has made me love cleaning up the house and doing the chores every day. Vacuuming is a joy because you can see dirt disappear. Dust vanishes before your eyes revealing smooth surfaces. I am no longer scared to make a mess because I can vacuum it away.

I’ve learned how to deal with the sound. My solution so far has been to vacuum quick. It’s worked. My ears can tolerate short bursts of this (and the mixer), so I try not to expose myself to it for too much time on any given day.

However, I’ve made another discovery about the vacuum cleaner, a discovery that has changed my life – and is the sole reason I wrote this post.

You see, my assumption about the vacuum cleaner is that it sucked dust up into the unknown; a void where all dust disappeared never to be seen again. This morning, after finishing up my vacuuming I noticed the vacuum felt considerably more heavy than it did at the start of the month. Then I noticed some flaps. Naturally, I opened them. Lo and behold, the vacuum had an interior!

First, I examined the source of my pain, the vacuum’s motor. After which I found the vacuum’s dust bag where I saw a collection of all the dust and hair the vacuum had sucked up over the past month. I gagged.

Turns out, dust isn’t decimated by the vacuum cleaner. It’s collected and stored for us to clean out. For it’s convenience this machine really sucks, I must say. First it makes that horrible sound, then I have to see and clean the dust it collects? We need a vacuum cleaner that instantly burns all the dust it collects and leaves ash or something. Some technology advancements are owed to society after this medical crisis blows over.

That’s been my adventure of the day.

GloPoWriMo 2020: 22/30

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Today’s poem asks me to use a saying from a language other than English, and make that the starting. I picked “The pillow is the best adviser”, a saying in Swedish.

Sleep

When confronted with the unpleasant,
The difficult, the disenchanting,
I put my head on my pillow, and close my eyes, and
Try to drift off for a while,
Amidst tears, and even when I’m upset, I hope
Pray, that I’ll wake up wiser,
Particularly since the pillow is the best adviser.

 

GloPoWriMo 2020: 21/30

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Today’s poem provides a lovely opportunity to look at poems from other languages and create a homophonic translation.

I picked the following verse from the poem, Meteor, which is originally written in Slovak. I wanted to pick a language without a Latin base to make it tougher for me to create  a homophonic translation:

Pripravili sme ti strašnú smrť.
Nechali sme ťa klbčiť sa so šelmami.
Mysleli sme si, že si jednou z nich.
Dovolili sme ti skrížiť
mliečne zuby s ihličkami,
lastúry mäkkých nechtov s pazúrmi.

Here’s my translation

Meteor

Primarily, smells suffocated me,
Not smells to combine with salami,
But smells yes, those smells, shallow and rich,
Drearily smells, they squeeze
Millenniums and ruby, entangled origami,
The story makes nectar seem like blasphemy.

 

Open-Ness

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There are several things I’ve taken up during this lockdown: things I’m finding helpful to give me a sense of routine, as well as mini-goals to look forward to each day to keep busy while being away from University and sitting at home. So far, I’m enjoying all of them. For the most part, each day feels distinct from the last (on occasions I don’t write, the days sort of meld together). I start each day clearly knowing what I’m trying to do through the day, which I find particularly helpful, and I end each day feeling grateful for having the day to spend the way I’ve wanted to – without University pressures or anything of the sort.

I have, however, noticed one thing. Most of this, whether it’s the research I’m working on, or the new skills I’m trying to learn, or even the reading I’m doing – it’s all happening on open-source software systems, or openly accessible sources that are not behind a paywall. Paywalls are prohibitive, and that argument stands, and yes, of course, I could get behind the paywall by paying a fee and breaking it down. However, most of the things I’m enjoying at the moment, including plays and concerts are happening on software that doesn’t contain paywalled content – take Twitch, or YouTube.

This is an incredible thing.

I fully understand neither Twitch or YouTube are fully free, but you get my point. The content I’m accessing is free, and for the majority part, most content is. Select portions of content are behind the paywall.

Now, I’m conservative with the money I spend, so it takes me a while to commit to spending on something, including books and resources. I usually turn to open source stuff anyway, since they’re almost at par with their paid compatriots.

However, the current success of openly accessible things is telling me one thing. After this coronavirus pandemic ends, I’m joining the open-access brigade with more passion and fervour. I understand the economics of things, but I think the open-access model can be made viable if people chip in and actually contribute to things, and financial backers end up backing these open-access things. And opening up access opens up a world to the person creating whatever media is being consumed because more people will consume the good.

Atleast go freemium.

And not barebones freemium.

GloPoWriMo 2020: 20/30

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Today’s prompt is very nice. It asks me to write about a handmade, or a homemade gift I’ve received. I’m grateful to have people who have gifted me some really, really meaningful gifts over the years. This one stands out though:

Cookie Bouquet

Glass stirrers wound tightly with royal blue chart paper and a
Purple ribbon held the sweetest gift I’ve received – a bouquet of
Twelve cookies.
These golden disks of joy wrapped in
Tin foil to preserve freshness,
Forgetting that I was a monster who ate them all at
One go.
The cookies lasted twenty minutes at the end of the day
I was giddy:
Didn’t know if I had won every jackpot,
Every carnival game,
Or if it was just love –
The subsequent nap confirmed it was but,
A sugar rush.

The Theory of Music: A Personal Arc (II)

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In the first part of this personal arc, I basically explored what theory of music had become for me at the time: a personal project – something to set my mind to. I wrote that post in the first week of March, having just completed my ABRSM Grade 5 Music Theory exam – at a point where I didn’t worry too much about the result at all. Truth be told, I frankly didn’t think about the results past that first week. Too much has happened in the world generally, and to me, personally, since. The events of that week, and of that day feel like a blur in my memory, since most of my time went in preparing.

My results came in this morning, and I was elated to discover I had passed.

I was thrilled. Of course, some portion of this joy came out of passing the exam and not having to think about that Grade anymore. A larger portion, however, stemmed out of the fact that I had accomplished these results by self-studying. Mind you, these are not excellent results – I achieved a Pass. However, the satisfaction of seeing my own effort bear fruit and reflect well according to the yardstick to which I prepared is not something I’ve experienced to often before. Large swathes of material have been taught to me, or I’ve been fortunate to have good teachers for. With the ABRSM exam, I had access to the same resources everyone preparing for the examination did: the standard examination content. It felt nice to look at today’s result, and say – hey, I did that!

About 15 minutes in, after telling my parents, I had some time to step away from things and look at these results a little more carefully. Yes, I had done that. I had actually put in the effort to prepare according to the curriculum designed, and actually learn everything I was interested in learning for the exam. It was uncanny, therefore, to think about the role the Universe had played in all of this. What prompted me to look up music theory, when I was at home in December – when I could have chosen any project at all? How great was it that an exam was available in March, giving me precisely the right window of opportunity to prepare? How fortuitous was I to be able to study for that exam – and write it, exactly 7 days before the number of coronavirus cases in India began to rise?

I looked at the results a little differently. They felt blessed – like some conspiracy had worked in my favour, and I felt more grateful – not just for all of this, but for the background I had in classical music that allowed me to tap into a reservoir of knowledge while preparing for the examination. For the network that enabled me to ask my friends doubts where I had them, and for the means to afford the preparatory material and the examination itself.

When I looked beyond the results, I thought about how much this examination gave me. It gave me a chance to study and drive myself toward an objective of mine, and an opportunity to rediscover classical music in a way I had only shallow knowledge of before. I am no expert on theory today, but I loved learning all the information I picked up during the examination, and I’m eager to see how much more I can learn. It rekindled and reactivated a part of my brain I had put to ‘sleep’ mode for 6 years, since Grade 11 and my antics on FL Studio.

Aside from all of this, it got me to think closely about why I gravitated toward theory. Why does theory fascinate me? Why do I enjoy studying theory? Of course, the easy answer lay bare in front of me – these were the only examinations I was confident of preparing for without guidance. Other optional answers also felt easily accessible – that the theory examination is a prerequisite to the practical examinations with the ABRSM at higher grades, and that they help with a holistic understanding of the music we are training to play, and all sorts of things.

My love affair with the theory of music, however, pointed me to something very fundamental about the way I approach things. I thought back to Grade 11, and why I struggled with Physics the first time around. The theoretical foundations we had built in the subject at the IGCSE were toppled on their heads, and with poor guidance, coping with that change felt seismic. I thought back to things like fractions: the easy stuff that people understood in Mathematics because they could envision fractions as practical problems, but I found ridiculously difficult because they felt so abstract. I struggle with videogames that don’t have explanations for actions: which is why I couldn’t play Ratchet & Clank well, ever, but I could play Runescape reasonably okay.

It pointed me to how I prefer understanding and studying things – from the ground-up. Theoretical information somehow feels like it brings a sense of order and stability to the practical. Even if as an afterthought, or an aberration that helps to elucidate a creative passion, the theory underlying artistic license fascinates me because it suggests that things in this world as explicable. That fundamentally appeals to me, and the fact that there is a dynamism to this explanation owing to varying perspectives and schools is something I find most enjoyable.

So yes, I passed my theory of music exam, and the theory of music has become a part of my daily life. Along the way though, I had the chance to think about theories generally – and I liked that very much too.

Equanimity

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This is a word that’s been floating around a lot in my vocabulary and the literature I read over the past few months. I haven’t actually ventured forth and written down my thoughts about the subject because I didn’t feel like they had formed entirely. I do, however, use this blog as a place to keep track of the way my thoughts progressed, and in a sense, it seemed appropriate to write about this as well.

I’m trying to be more equanimous in accepting reality as it occurs. This is difficult, for there is always a version of things in my head – the way things ought to be. For me, I build off of what I envisage taking place, and where that does not occur, I struggle to cope with that. It places a stress on me that feels inescapable when things anticipated or expected do not take place, and in the past, I have fallen prey to that stress.

It’s impeded relationships with other human beings. My relationship with my own parents, for example, very often, slips into conversation where I begin doling out information on what I believe should be the response to a particular situation – and not as a matter of opinion, but rather as a matter of fact. It feels to stray into the absurd very frequently, when I remove myself from the scene and view it as an outsider.

Learning about equanimity, the word – and the depth of interpretation that arises to the word has injected fresh perspective in my life. At present, all I feel about it is that I mistook the phrase and the attitude to mean surrendering to reality completely. My original understanding of the expression was one of nonchalance, that you stopped trying to impact reality – because you accepted this is the way things were. I can’t accept that because it feels purposeless, and observing things around me without impacting them feels like being a spectator and a participant in the game of Life simultaneously. I can’t do that.

I understand today, however, that equanimity is accepting reality as-is, to fully understand it, and internalize it – so it does not push you to extremes in any decision-making, or activity, or life at large. It doesn’t mean you stop impacting reality, but rather, you do so with heightened awareness about what that reality is.

I don’t have much else to say about it yet. If I do, there may be a part-II.

Gated

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The onslaught of COVID-19 has seen us evacuate the University premises and find safe havens elsewhere. After considering some options, as I had to, I have returned to my childhood home. Today’s my first full day back, and with my new routine and the task of managing household affairs, I feel like a regular neighbourhood Uncle. Minus the job to go to, I can, in my present state imagine a life like this.

Wake up early, go for a run, meditate, bathe, read the newspaper, eat breakfast, do some work, cook & eat lunch, get household chores completed, get to more work, cook & eat dinner, spend time reading, and sleep.

And repeat.

Today, on my run, all I could think about was how much I feel like I’ve taken the gated community I live in for granted. Growing up at least. I loved living here. Never complained about it or anything, but it feels like I took the amenities and facilities I was provided, and the comfort that I lived in for a ride. My friends visited me in my compound in May 2019, and a distinct thought they all relayed to me was that I lived in a resort of some kind. I’ve always maintained that the locality I live in is distinct and atypical of the rest of the city. You would be forgiven for forgetting you were in this city. It smells different. The people are different, the roads are different. The rules are different here. Within the gated community I stay in, things take on an even more absurd shape and colour. Squabbles are more petty than anywhere else I’ve ever seen in my life, and egos run high within a small community trying to get by.

It’s essentially a microcosm of any society, so to speak. I guess it just takes on a different sheen in this part of town.

However, the other part the run showed me was the protection this gated community offered. It was my safe place. It always had been. I had come back here on terrible days at school and let those terrible days subside. I had allowed good days to get better. I had used the community as a crutch on innumerable occasions, especially over the past five years at University.

Now with this COVID-19, this gated community offers no unessential human interaction, but a supply of groceries whenever you need it.

It’s the perfect isolation zone.