it's very interesting to read anonymous comments on the blog...

you keep wondering, who would have come here, read this, said that...

wow, its been ages since i have come here... its actually been a long long time... (i dONT know how many times i start a post with the first line like this) but this time its actually been too long, mental time space too... now toh this blog is quite redundant anyway, all those ppl who checked it once in a while, or wanted to know what i am upto, would have gone back... my google analytics page shows the number of visits in dark red... even the blogger layout seems so alien... alien... anyway, feels like an alien overall anyway... shifted to a new city, never thought i would be in this city... a complete alien here... in an alien workspace... with an alienated (for me) working process... also worked in a format that s alien to me... a lifestyle that is alien to me... huh!!! trying to figure why i chose to be an alien... feels like Manoj N Shyamalan is going to cast me... hehhehehehhe,...

doNT get me wrong, i doNT think everything alien is BAD... in fact some of it is quite interesting... like new things are good... but alien just makes you feel disconnected, disconcerted... the problem is its been a while and that alien type feeling hasNT gone yet... doNT think it will go but most probably i am just eXaggerating as i always do, by just re emphaisizing... its just that the last few months have been quite unsettling... unsettled from a place which was "home" to a place which is anti home (alien) and then the work, way of work, everything with it... thankfully, the lucky ass that i am, always have nice ppl around me... or rather always have ppl around me who are nice to me... :) and this "series" of events in the past few months has re inforced that thought... nice to meet nice new ppl... getting back in touch with ppl who were home base (& which shattered eventually)... nice :) all sorts of possibilities lie ahead... but nothing that seems to be heading in any direction... in a fluX... getting a bit bored writing this... will STOP here...

just to recap my situation/life...

work... doNT know...

stars... miss them so dearly...

home... ...

"perhaps the quality of love canT be measured by it's duration."

"you doNT stop loving someone just because you hate them".

--hanif kureshi's intimacy

"But it is the truth even if it didn't happen"

- Ken Kesey's "One flew over the cuckoo's nest"

i don't know which is more inspiring :
love or the absence of it...

reason or the absence of it...

freedom or the absence of it...

availability of time or absence of it...

absence, in general...

"Alas, in love it takes so little to make a person desperate"

- from Milan Kundera's Immortality.

i was just trying to flick ash off the cigarette, it broke...

sometimes i wonder if i am trying too hard to smoke a broken cigarette...

and then i realise, i should NOT be smoking anyway, 

it is injurious to health and all, you know!!!

well, you wait for something to be happening since ages... and this is what you were looking forward to... the thing that was occupying the chunk of your life... your perfect recluse... and you couldNT wait to get it over... and then it happens... and its over... just like that... now what do i do??? ugh...

it's NOT fair... it is absolutely NOT fair...

you live with an idea for over a year and a half and all... it consumes the major part of thinking and the conscious time in this period of time... you work on it indulgently for about 8-9 months... whatever changes in your life, doesNT change in your life... this was one thing that remained common, constant, perennial... it was your eternal escape in this period... and all that will be left of it after tonight would be a DVCAM cassette and a dvd????? (it is bloody scary!!! and i doNT want to let go and i just want it to be here... in the making... for my recluse... and you worry shit that everything comes down to this... to a couple of hours in the studio... but what will be left of it all??? a bloody cassette and a dvd????!!!!!?????? ugh, not fair.... i can already feel the void... i have seen a lot with this thing, been through with a lot with it... and it leaves us with just a tangible thing which you can keep duplicating at your whim???!!!???? interesting is that your whims and fancies were NOT entertained by it, through out... it just made itself and you were just a mere spectator... no really, is film viewing a thing about being spectator or is it filmmaking???? more and more it seems it s the latter...

a friend commented the other day that i believed what i did was the coolest thing ever, wasNT it??? i said i dONT know,.. but i do know its beautiful... what did i do for it anyway, i was just led, mislead by it... and i was merely watching "it" take a life form... where i couldNT do anything with it, and i was just a mere additional burden on it, maybe...

it certainly made itself... and how... that is beautiful; the fact that 8 ppl (some of them hardly know you, some who know you since forever) in this world would pool in considerable amounts of money to let you make it... the fact that the laZy ass you would get up and 4 in the morning and go on a borrowed scooter on a 100 km ride for the recce... to the fact that you will find someone to come along with you always, at that time, without any conditions despite knowing the fact that sometimes you tend to sleep while riding the scooter... its beautiful that you would be able to find that one person (who inspired you for it all in the first place) out of thousands of people spread across several villages... the fact that a friend of yours would come down for 10 days or so, adjusting his other project dates accordingly, work for free for you... that two other students would work for you for free whenever called for... the fact that you call for a NON AC car (and it was quite hot), the driver likes you hence switches on the AC but charges you NON AC fairs... the fact that a random equipment dealer lets you out all the shoot equipments without any advance or deposit or anything... the fact that a senior sound guy does all he could in post for free... or the fact that the struggling editor (who once was your junior in college) takes up studio bookings and pays it for by himself (and doesNT even like the edit)... or that your friend(s) doNT mind meeting you after ages only coZ you need a place to crash and freshen up for a couple of hours... or that a friend would pay for your dinner and beer realising that you doNT really have the cash to have THAT dinner or THAT beer THERE... the fact that you could call a person halfway across the world on their cost just to frustrate them with your cribbing about how things are NOT really working out... or the fact that the person who lives ten minutes from your place (but hardly knows you) comes over to place to make coffee for you coZ you are having a headache after the edit is NOT going anywhere... or the fact that when ppl are doing favours to you, they still listen to you shouting on them (at international long distance calling rates they are paying for) coZ of no real mistake of theirs... or the fact that a person would come all the way from a corner of mumbai to another (and that is more difficult than travelling in between cities) so that they could help you all night through (despite the fact that they have to be in office neXt morning) without cribbing and in fact listening/pampering your tantrums...

the film??? just seems like a by product by now...

got a call from my grandma yesterday, she did get the letter i had sent her... :)

snail mail works....

and how....

wow!!!

i love this painting by van gogh... and i love starry nights anyway... wow!!! could stare it forever... it is like eternity... and maybe it has something to do with the fact that the weather around that time in ahmedabad is better... as in there is at least a tinge of breeZe and for some time you can even forget that you are actually living in a boiling pot!!! but there i digress again... i doNT know what is it about this painting & i doNT want to know but there is something about it... and there is something about the sky full of stars...its just there... and i doNT know when i was staring at it some time ago and there was someone staring at it, breathing neXt to me... and it was the most wonderful feeling... just lying there under the sky neXt, someone breathing there with you... 4.9.... it was not the same person who had introduced me to the painting though... i remember making breakfast with her(the person who introduced me to the painting), that s when i started that actually and it was lovely... and i realized i loved making breakfast... NOT necessarily cooking but just making breakfast... there is something about getting up, getting late and rushing about to make it in time... and we would always be running a bit late... even if we get up early... and quite a funne scene actually... both assigning works to each other in between the the morning stuff - shower, clothes to clean, the cleaning lady, tea, blah blah blah... and eggs man, they are awesome... that s probably one thing almost impossible to screw up... a friend used to make it for me when we were living togethter some three years ago... he mailed me recently... i miss him to much... still wear the watch he gave to me... anyway, i made some eggs for my friend who was here for some time with me... and he seemed to have loved it... the trouble is that he would keep telling everyone who would come to my place about it and i would end up making it for everyone... hehehehhehe... but it was fun... i have known this guy since the past three years now... or is it four... four yes... we have had our set of misunderstandings... but the seXy part is we never spoke about it to each other... every tom dick and harry seemed to know about it, eXcept on each other s face... but this time it was different.. we really spent some quality time with this guy and i really love him... there was this one time when i dreamt or day dreamt early in the morning that he has come to my room and broken my lapTOP... i rushed to his room, and when he woke he told me that i had broken his camera in his dream.... hahahhahahhahahha anyway, this time somehow all our conversations would end up on girls, relationships blah blah... (maybe that also has to do with the fact that the professional life discussion turns out to be night marish hehehehhehe ;) but all this talk about girls and all reminded me of school days man... i remember the time when this friend of mine called me to tell me that he had a crush on this girl and i also liked this girl, hehehhehe but he sounded serious and all... anyway, that s when i probably started to talk to him... and hence we have talked a lot over the years... about a lot... anyway, just add a little cheese to the omlette and its heaven... its beautiful... but the fact of the matter is that we doNT see the beauty in things around us... and there is so much of it all over... beauty.. there s a concept... the dictionary meaning : beau·ty [byoo-tee] the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest)... hmmm... that s a lot of sense for me... beauty... john cage... the sound of the scrubbing of utensils, the rhythm of it... sound of train passing through stations, the language of announcements keep changing... the newspaper being put on water, the water blotting onto it... the fear of being photographed and yet readily doing it for someone... a glass breaking... or a broken glass... the yearning to be with someone... to be with someone... a pair of slippers lying neXt to a bed... getting up in the night to someone sleeping neXt to you talking to you in a lang you doNT understand and going off to sleep... that perfect track shot... that little girl with those blue eyes... the older girl sitting neXt to her... the fact that to get a shot right a 130kg guy would climb up a ladder which wouldNT support half his weight in a position where he caNT even fit... that perfect cut... the shot which goes on and on and you need NOT cut it... cinema... hiroshima mon amour... kieslowski... bresson... stalker... the sound of the cold drink bottles with the opener in the intermission in a cinema hall... the sound of a guy who is panning salt in the middle of nowhere... the kids who push the train from within with the belief that their pushing would get the train rolling on... clouds in your car when you were going uphill and you were sleeping... chai... the girl sitting there with a book in one hand and chai in another... that chequered shirt she wears... my own blue striped shirt... comfort... discmofort... the person who would walk all across the borders of gujarat... the person who is able to get over these material needs... food when you are dead hungry... french toast but in pieces and some vanilla essence in it, honey on top of it, a bit of whiskey too... someone cooking for you... someone cooking with you... someone ready to give you company for meals when that person doesn't even have to eat... vodka... wine... white wine... chilled beer in the middle of a hot summer day... dinner at home... home... breakfast... making breakfast with someone... making breakfast for someone still sleeping... someone sleeping... starry nights... someone somewhere in the other corner of the world seeing the same starry nights but breathing neXt to you... 2nd and 3rd grade photos of someone else... someone reminding you of your childhood.... poetry... parents... grandparents... the letter you wrote to them but never reached them... your grandma teaching you chess... tantrums you threw as kids for your parents attention... what you believe of the world as a kid... games you played with your family when you were a kid... the games you play online with some people now... people inspiring you to do stuff you never thought you could or would... certain people you allow to take liberty with some of your never to be broken rules... the anXiety to check mail every morning.... someone... the best relationship you could have had but never had... the person who was meant for being with you but it was not meant to be or was it... longing... blog entries where you doNT know what you started with and what you end with... listening to santana while writing stuff which is not going anywhere.... stuff in which you doNT really know what is happening or where is it going... or which is going nowhere... life...