Of Growing Up and Twilight, Harry Potter and Other Casualties

There was a time when I was crazy about the Twilight series. And by crazy, I mean the mad crazy levels where one needs rehab. And I have written about it too! But then between finishing reading the series almost 3 years back and now, a lot of growing up has happened, which makes you laugh at your once-upon-a-time choices. It started last year when I saw Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 1 with a friend who had no clue about the Twilight series and and when I explained the story, the look I got from my friend was like was well, rather not be explained! Obviously, what would you get when you tell a person that you were crazy behind a book who's story was about a love triangle between a vampire, a human and a werewolf. And the human chooses the vampire over to werewolf and the dejected werewolf turns into a pedophile falling for the human and vampire's kid! Yes, it sounds funny, but read the books. They would make you want to get rehab! They're so addictive. Anyways, so since I was over Twilight, I thought I'd see the last installment of the series, Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 only to laugh about it. And laugh on me. The movie was strictly ok. Because there was only Bella in it and so less of Edward Cullen. Who wants to watch Twilight for Bella?! And in the middle of cursing the director for too much of Bella (I was wondering if Kristen Stewart had an affair with this director too. Does this sound like I read a lotta tabloids... Damn!) yeah, so digressions apart, amidst wondering why I liked Twilight at all, there came this song in the last 5 mins wherein they showed a flashback of all the 4 movies, and my long lost love for Edward and Twilight resurfaced with full force! Ah! Old romances do die hard! There's just something about 'forever' that make women go weak in their knees. Maybe that's why the diamond companies position diamonds as things that are there forever!

Growing up has a lot of casualties. Like one was not liking Twilight anymore. Another is that you stop sugar coating your words while giving advice. Have too many close friends dealing with 5-6 years of relationships breaking down. So earlier, when hope, faith, be positive would do the trick, you're now telling them to just accept that it's over and move on. People find it weird to listen to it from a person who believed in YRF romances and Twilight of course! Well, growing up does that to you. Changes your outlook in life. But, sometimes life isn't a bed of roses. Sometimes, to cure a wound, you just need to have a firm hand, cut and suture. Like a surgeon. (Yes, there's too much of Grey's Anatomy in my blood right now. You can't blame me. McDreamy is hot. Denny was hotter, though. They should have taken a better looking Meredith! Just like how Top Gun would've been much better with a better looking actress.)

Also, SRK had sent out a nice tweet which I feel is very true when Yash Chopra passed away, which was something like, when someone dies, a part of you dies with that person. Well, that's kinda true. Not just with death. With every person who was there in your life at one point and isn't there anymore, that person takes a part of you with him/her while leaving. A part of you kinda dies. Not in a very creepy Horcrux way though. (Horcrux what? Well, oh yeah, I 've been a Harry Potter fan too :P) 

I read this interesting article about being in your 20s. And there was this one point that was so freaking true. It goes like 'You’re going to lose touch with a lot of your friends. With some people, it will be expected but with others it will feel like a punch to the stomach. No friendship is truly safe in your twenties. You’re undergoing so many personal and professional changes that there’s bound to be some casualties along the way. Don’t worry though. You’ll end up with the ones that matter. If someone’s no longer in your life, it’s for a reason.'  And this practically sums up your friends equation between beginning your life in 20s and ending it. And I'm in the first half of 20s and already scared at the rate we're losing touch with friends.

I had been to a friend's engagement sometime last week and I just remarked to another friend that how when we were studying together, 5 years back we knew what our friend's other friends are upto and now, we barely know what happening with our friends. At least some of them inform you about their impending weddings/engagements, for the others, you're left at Facebook's mercy! I dread the day when a friend would invite for for their wedding through an invite on Facebook!

Enough serious thoughts for a Sunday evening! Time to listen to A Thousand Years from Twilight again and getting lost into Twilight again :) Brings back sweet memories of the past. Craziness was fun. Anyone game for watching the series again next weekend over popcorn and girly giggles for Edward? Do send me an invite on Facebook :P

Hope reading this blog today was as good as reading this blog back in 2008-09 :) Do let me know. Can do with some ego massage :P

Ishaqzaade.....Kahan Hain Ab Jahaanon Main!

* Spoiler Alert: Read at your own risk*

I was rather eager to watch Ishaqzaade because the promos looked very promising, I like the director, Habib Faisal's previous work Do Dooni Char and I like Parineeti Chopra. She's different from all the other newbie actresses we have. She's cute, has a dazzling smile, possesses great screen presence, is confident and can act! Definitely better than her sister! I went in with a lot of hopes for the movie and didn't come out completely disappointed. It was an ok-ok movie where the characters were well etched and could have been used to bring out a better love story, but weren't. The love story wasn't convincing. They fell in and out of love rather easily....! It was like a nice meal with all the dal, subzi, chapati and chaval....but the achar was missing that made the difference. Maybe all the UP style adaptations of Shakespeare's work should be best left to Vishal Bharadwaj for the complete meal feeling. 

Parineeti Chopra doesn't disappoint. Arjun Kapoor is haawwttt .....until he opens his mouth! I loved watching him on screen, but the minute he delivered a dialogue, I went into a self-question mode wondering how did I find him hot! He looks and acts like Abhishek Bachchan, with a side angle resemblance to Pratiek Babbar. Seriously, didn't he get better actors to emulate? He can't eat with an injured arm, but can easily do push-ups with the same arm. But then, that's the case with all our Bollywood heroes. Even with all the criticisms, he's far more tolerable  than his cousin, Sonam Kapoor! So I'll give it to him. 

The music is refreshing good. Pareshan and both the Ishaqzaade songs are my favourites. I don't know if  others could feel it, but I think the starting music of the Ishaqzaade title track had a little Jan-Gana-Mana feeling, maybe to drive home the point of National Integration because of the Hindu-Muslim angle in the movie. Also, one can't miss the last note of the movie where they mention how many people die because of inter-caste marriages was very Satyamev-Jayateish. Speaking of the end, I didn't like it. I'm the typical Bollywood audience. I want to see a 'Happily ever after' ending, guess I'll have to watch DDLJ and its last scene of 'Jaa Simran Jeele Apni Zindagi' to have a feel good feeling. 

The final word is that the movie is a good one time watch. Should you spend money to watch it in a theatre? Well, that depends on how much money you have! I would recommend waiting until it comes on TV and hope that it doesn't get canned at the nth minute ala The Dirty Picture.

Chalo, am off to finally see The Dirty Picture. 

And yes, I'll try listening to the many requests I've got to start writing again/writing more frequently and shall come back soon :) To all the regular readers, a big thank you for sticking by all my writer's mood swings and still staying loyal and pushing me to write more :)

Of Growing Up and... MLIC!

There are days when you want to do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just eat, sleep and repeat the routine. I thought I was the only one suffering from the most extreme bout of lethargy, when my friend, Ajay came with a theory to my rescue. A theory called - 'The Mid Life Inertia Crisis (MLIC)'. Mid life crisis because you're stuck at the crossroads between not wanting to grow up and having to grow up. A time when everything changes. The only good thing that comes out of it is that you start loving and respecting your parents more than ever (yeah, but that still doesn't reduce the number of altercations you have with your Mom over your 'training period' in the kitchen). That was about Mid Life. Actually, I was arguing that it should be Mid Mid Life because, well, you're just a little over 20, so Mid Life sounds really OLD! But then, Ajay argued saying that looking at our current lifestyles we'd be lucky to get to the other side of 40. True. And the Inertia bit in the theory was the lethargy of being comfortable in our current lives to that extent that we don't want any change to pull us out of so-called-comfort zone (e.g: marriage!)

I don't know how many of you actually got the theory. If you didn't, let me know, I'll get you in touch with Ajay.... he's looking for more bakras to validate his theory!

Just before writing this post, I was feeling so lazy that I thought I'd sleep it out, but some brainwave asked me to listen to songs from Wake Up Sid. And I did. After YouTubing the video for Boondon ke moti, all I wanted to do was open my laptop and write! There's something in that song that just livens you up! And yeah... the added benefit of seeing Ranbir getting wet in a white shirt! (oh damn! I sound so lecherous!) I so miss raving about Ranbir to my friends....something I haven't done in years. You have to watch Raajneeti to see how evil and scheming can be hot. You have to watch Rocket Singh to see how honesty can be cute. You have to watch Wake Up Sid to know how rich, spoilt brat-ness can be endearing! 

None of the current bunch of actors come even close to him in terms of acting or even looks! The one who comes close to his name...Ranveer Singh... is just an irritatingly cheap wannabe copy of Shah Rukh Khan. What he doesn't understand is that to be cute by being tongue in cheek, you need to have a quick wit and not the desperation to grab a co-star/rumored-to-be-girlfriend's ass on national TV! 

Something that happens along with growing up is the increase of impatience! I just saw 5 secs of a song from that Ricky Bahl movie and spewed venom on that poor Ranveer Singh! 

One more thing that changes with age is the definition of love. Or maybe it's just coming of age. Love, I think becomes a tad boring as you grow up. Or maybe we just realize that it isn't exactly a fairy tale world out here! Love isn't what SRK showed in his movies.... it's about that effortlessness in writing about it which isn't there anymore. It's more than love these days. It's not wild anymore.... there's no drama in love....because the talk about 'responsibility' takes it all away! Or maybe it's just me.... I'm so used to having so much of drama in my life that the complete absence of it makes me....impatient and annoyingly lethargic! My life may not have drama, but the best thing about being a writer is that you can add drama in others' lives! I'm planning to restart writing the story that I had left mid-way almost 2 years back! Hope I don't let the laziness come between the laptop and me!

Ah! I don't know what I have written. Just wrote the first things that came to my mind! Hope you liked it:) And you know what makes the MLIC more depressing... the rational fact that the world ain't ending in 2012! 

Happy new year, BTW!