I am a Twilight Fan, Sue Me.

I have to say that I am a Twilight fan. Yes, you might be scoffing as you read this and must be thinking, “This chick is lame.” I know, I know, it is a lame book, but to those who have read it, you have to agree with me about how addictive it is.

It is unbelievable on many levels excluding the fact that there are vampires and werewolves involved. I mean Bella calls Edward beautiful, who the hell talks like that? Edward is practically in a live-in with Bella and Charlie doesn’t know that despite the fact that he’s a cop. Bella simply takes Edward in after he leaves her for seven months for other vampires to eat her up without a word. She becomes pregnant by an undead person. Her willingness to become a vampire is staggering. And the fact that Edward can actually resist her even though he is a 108-year-old virgin. Yes, I agree that all those things are lame and unbelievable and silly. But, it is insanely addictive. (I mean, let’s face it, the book doesn’t have much of a plot. It’s all about Edward and Bella.) Stephanie Meyer’s writing is haunting and addictive. You don’t want to read the book, trust me, you are forced to finish it because it will keep nagging you even after you have turned the last page (just as it says on the back cover). The same thing happened with her other book, The Host.

That’s why the movies weren’t so good, because they cannot capture the addictively haunting essence of the book into the movie, Although Breaking Dawn did outdo itself and I am a Robert Pattinson fan through and throuugh. So yes, I agree that the book is lame and the plot is non-existent but the book is addictive as hell.

Julie and Julia

So I first decided to watch this movie because it got a 75% rating in Rotten Tomatoes and if you know how annoyingly critical Rotten Tomatoes is about each movie then you must also understand what a huge feat it is to score such a high rank. Second reason I chose to watch this movie is because I saw that Meryl Streep was cast in it. I simply had to watch it.

The movie is long and it features two true story lines. On the one hand you will find Julia Child, the famous writer of a cook-book (I hadn’t even heard about her until now) which is played by Meryl Streep. She gets married to Paul Child which is played by Stanley Tucci at the age of 40 and she remains a virgin till then. They so desperately love eachother that you instantly know that Julia found a man who made it worth the wait. Julia Child is bored with her life. She is making hats as a hobby. She was a former government employee but she seems to have quit the job now. Over dinner one night when Julia says that she wants to do something and her husband, Paul asks her what exactly does she really, really love and “To eat,” she says without hesitation. She decides to take cooking lessons and does surprisingly very well. Throughout her part Julia Child is simply adorable. The sounds she makes while she talks, her body language, her passion for cooking, her love for her husband just makes her so beautiful and adorable and what’s the word I’m looking for? Hmm, cute? Yes, that’s it. It makes her so cute. You just want to hug her. She wants to make French Cooking simpler for American women who don’t have cooks. She meets many obstacles on the way but in the end she gets her cook-book published.

On the other hand we have Julie, who is played by Amy Adams. She is also a government employee and when she gets home after answering hundreds of calls everyday and being yelled at, the only thing she finds comfort in is her kitchen. She thinks of it as predictable. Comforting. When her friend’s blog starts to become popular, she decides to start a blog of her own, saying that she has thoughts of her own too. She decides to finish Julia Child’s cook-book in 365 days and decides to blog about it. Along the way she develops loyal readers and gets attention from the legendary Judith Jones the very publisher of Julia Child’s cook book. In the end she does complete her target and her blog, and finally finds something that she’s good at.

What I really liked about the movie is obviously Meryl Streep’s acting. She is just so dynamic. And then on the other hand we have Amy Adams who does a great job at playing Julie. She wants to do something with her life which does not include living with her awesome husband in Queens above a pizzeria or going to her boring government job and answering a bunch of phone calls. As she makes her way through the cookbook, she repeatedly claims that it’s like having Julia Child in the very same room, as if they are having conversations. She is undoubtedly devoted to her and that is so sweet.

The movie is so beautiful and romantic. It shows two women who are so different but so similar at the same time.

Time changes everything, but food? I don’t think so.

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

I read a lot of Young Adult fantasy novels back in the day. I stopped because I thought I had become too mature and didn’t want to read some teenager whine about how awful her life had become just because she had stepped into this awesome-hot world.

As it turns out I hadn’t become too mature and I was craving a good Young Adult novel like a drug. As usual for recommendations, I logged into goodreads and spent a fair bit of time until a book caught my eye:The Iron King by Julie Kagawa. It is the first book in the Iron Fey Series.

I won’t go into the summary of the book because guess what? You can get that on amazon. What I really want to talk about is how amazingly well the world was made. The characters were OK. The protagonist wasn’t anything special, just like other teenage protagonists-whiny. As usual the protagonist is fearless and would give up anything and everything which includes her life to save her loved one and somehow she always happens to be the special one who can defeat the villain. Yeah, that part is old and there is no originality in the book in that sector. The male leads were alright. I’m just really tired of reading how hot they are, you know. I mean I bought that when I first read Twilight and how Bella drools all over Edward. But does it have to repeat itself in every novel? Can’t they describe what a good guy he is? It’s all about the looks these days, I tell you.

What really enticed me and compelled me to complete the novel was the world she created. It was called Nevernever and all the fey (Single: faery, Plural: fey, Pronounced as “fairy”) lived in it. Fey ere nothing but creatures born out of human dreams and myths. So basically, everything that we believed it not to be true actually exists in Nevernever. And then there are kings and queens and royal politics. The plot is good. Not great. Not Harry Potter great but good enough. It won’t make you scoff in annoyance at every twist and turn and trust me there are plenty of those. It keeps you entertained.

I would give it a 3.5 out of 5.

IPL Experience

It was all decided that we were going to go for the match on Wednesday. The tickets were supposed to be bought. But at the last moment, the friend who was going to buy them said they were unavailable.

My friend, S and I are crazy for Viraat Kohli so we decided that we were going to go stand outside the stadium before the match and see if we can get tickets in black. We didn’t get tickets till 8 15. My friend and I stood outside listening to the cheers and the music playing inside and seethed with jealousy. 2 overs were already over when a guy came along and sold us the tickets for a bomb. We took the chance and went inside. Funnily enough we didn’t check which level or stand it was before we paid the price. Luckily for us they were of North Stand Level 1 tickets.

When we entered, the atmosphere was contagious. Almost everyone was in blue. We could see Mumbai Indian flags rolling in the air. And every ten minutes we did the Mexican wave. I wonder how the players played in such a lively atmosphere.  How did they concentrate on the game? Didn’t they get distracted?

Thank God Viraat Kohli played for a long time in that game. We certainly deserved to see him stretch and saunter sexily on the field for the price we paid. Oh God, and when his muscles tightened when he was going to bat…hmm…I have no words for that.

All in all I had an amazing IPL experience and I proudly say, “Paisa Vasool”.

Life=Train Journey

So as a fellow Mumbaikar I travel by train a lot. It’s convenient, cheap, no need to worry for people like me who don’t know their roads. And well, Mumbai is sort of known for their local trains. But today when I was going to catch a train a certain theory sort of dawned on me. Catching a local train in Mumbai literally equated to life.

Don’t believe me?  I’ll prove is to you.

Let’s equate every train that comes to an opportunity. So there are some trains that come more frequently than others. If you are looking to catch a train that comes frequently, don’t rush to the railway station, don’t climb without a ticket, and if you do miss it, don’t feel too bad about it. The other one is on its way. Don’t regret it too much. Then there are those trains that come once in an hour or once in two hours. Now, those trains are important. They won’t come again and again and there will be more passengers too cause they don’t come too often. Be well prepared for those trains. Buy your ticket in advance, know the time at which the train is coming, reach in advance, rush to climb into the train so that you can get a seat. But if you do end up missing that train as well, don’t regret it either. Nothing is worth regret. Think about, well, other modes of transport. There is the bus, or rickshaw or you can go by foot but don’t change your destination however difficult the journey gets. Or you can choose to wait for another train. And the fortunate thing is that you will be prepared for this one.

There are long journeys and short ones. In a long one you probably manage to grab a seat, hell, even a window one. But then there are the short ones in which you have to climb at Parle and get down at Mahim. In this you might have to stand the entire way and even with half your body lolling out.

There are those that are really crowded and then there are those that are barely filled. Which one do you want? Don’t go where the crowd goes. Find your own way out.

And of course, like normal life, even the train is divided into classes. If you are in the second one, try your hardest to get into the first one but don’t get greedy about it either. There isn’t anything amazing about the first class. Just some cushioned seats and the journey is mostly a short one. So be satisfied if you can with your second class but then don’t kill the desire to be in the first class either.

Lastly, I don’t mean to sound wise because I am not wise. This is just something that got me thinking. You are welcome to come and ridicule my theory.

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Satyamev Jayate

So I saw Satyamev Jayate and it is brilliant. The problem with Indian media is that they sensationalize it a lot. Whether it is the news or a sitcom or a reality show, in order to get TRPs they’ll resort to anything. But Aamir Khan and his team has done just the opposite and achieved the same results as any sensationalized TV series. He hasn’t added sentimental music or an ad every ten seconds to push the viewers into watching his show. His teaser campaign was done brilliantly that it made me get up at 11 AM on a Sunday morning. /

His script is so strong that he doesn’t need to resort to such petty ways. A particular news channel showed Prince falling in the pit for two whole days. Does that show Indian News Channels don’t have any news to cover or does that show that Indian journalism is that weak? It was frankly annoying to watch the same thing again and again and again. To top it off they even showed the same clip again after a year. Aamir Khan’s show has left you with the thought.

He has done his job and humbly asked for our support. And support him we will.