Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Watching the Hunger Games Catching Fire Movie

This post has spoilers for the Catching Fire book and movie.

I watched the movie last weekend, my first movie of 2013 (that I watched in a theater). (My last movie was in November last year – Talaash, so you could say it traumatized me so much I haven’t been back since. (It was just a really bad movie. I can’t even find anything good to say about Aamir Khan.))

Anyway.  I’m glad that this was the one movie I watched this year. It was definitely way better than the previous movie. It started out great and kind of petered out in the second half.

I loved the first half hour: Katniss’s PTSD and the victory tour. Without Katniss’ internal monologue which is really most of the books, they did a great job of conveying what she was thinking and feeling. Her shock and trauma after the last games, especially when she goes on the victory tour and is reminded more vividly of her dead friends and victims. When they go to District 9 and see the families of Rue and Tresh, and Peeta offers a generous gift and then Katniss finally gathers the courage to speak and weeps as she remembers Rue. Katniss in the movie cries in public where book-Katniss never would, but book-Katniss talked to us directly and told us what she was feeling, and movie-Katniss only has her expressions and her voice, and can’t communicate her thoughts to us directly.s

Sunday, December 15, 2013

Mumbai Protests Against Section #377

So, I've meant to tell you for a while that I've moved to Bombay. I've been writing the post in my head but haven't gone down to actually writing it here, and this is an awkward time to tell you, because how can I tell you that I was at the Mumbai protests without telling you I live here now?

Anyway. It was my first time at any kind of protest, and I'm glad I got off my butt and went. Because it's awful, what happened. Because I need to show my support, even though I went by myself and didn't know anyone there, I showed up, and I feel slightly less ashamed of myself. 377 doesn't criminalize me, but that doesn't mean I support it.


Sunday, December 08, 2013

Don't let the comments get you down

I wrote this some months ago and thought it was too banal and obvious to put up. But well, here it is anyway.
 
I experienced a moment of personal growth a few days ago. I saw a comment on one of my marketing posts that had been picked up on a site other than the one it had been originally posted on, a comment that lamented how useless my post was.
 
Funnily enough, it's the first time that's happened to me (for a business post).
 
In itself, this isn't a big deal. Lots of derogatory comments on the Internet, right?
 
What was different to me was my reaction. I was able to shrug it off with a mild feeling of amusement.
 
For someone who used to lie awake at night with a weight in my stomach over disagreements with other bloggers or commenters, this feels like a big deal.

Sunday, December 01, 2013

In Response to Someone Calling a Tree Majestic

Majestic? No.
How can you be so
When you are so fragile.
When puny man can kill you
Mutilate you, annihilate you
Because he needs space, or light, or timber.

Not a shade of cool shade, not a whisper of breeze
To show where you lived and died.
Where your broad trunk rose above the ground
Bearing boughs and leaves stretching into the sky.
Just a slab of concrete
Covering where your roots once dipped in deep.

The same as all the rest of the concrete all around.
Not a seed, not a memory
Survives.