Author: Swati Sani

Fountainhead -the movie

In one line, its good but not good enough!!

The movie does not do justice to the book. The characters barring Roark and Wynand no where come close to what they have been described – specially the physical appearance of Dominique.

At some places the characters mouth dialogues as if they are just reciting them, without understanding, to anyone who has read the book and understands it, this is very apparent with one exception of Ellsworth Monkton Toohey – he was just as despicable in the movie as he is in the book.

A big disappointment, was not finding any mention the Stoddard Temple and Dominique’s statue carved by Steven Mallory. Also no where to be seen were Mike the construction worker Catherine, Toohey’s niece and Austen Heller the man who first gave work to Roark.

In the book, Gail Wynand lives. He lives on as an emotionally dead being a defeated man who gave in to second handers. In the movie, he is shown to have committed suicide. I wonder what prompted Ms. Rand (the screenplay of the movie is by Ayn Rand herself) who have this change. I surely did not like this diversion from the book. It kind of redeems Wynand. The man saved Banner over his soul. He did the act knowing its full consequences, he did not deserve to be redeemed.

Movie recommended only if you have read the book.

Music Review

Picked up the much hyped Veer Zara audio CD for two reasons, I liked Madan Mohan’s compositions and I like Yash Chopra movies.

My first reaction was that of disappointment – the music does not have that classic feel which I was expecting, the lyrics are good, but I expected more out of Javed Akthar

However, the music grew on me and after listening to the entire CD twice, I want to hear more.

The second CD in the album is truly a collector item.

Recipie for two – a perfect lazy Sunday – and its spoilers

Wake up, stay awake for a while then cuddle and sleep – wake up late
Hot coffee with newspaper -spend an hour reading
Roam around in the garden, take some pictures, talk to birds and squirrels
Have a nice breakfast (fried sausages, eggs and bread)
Aasim Wakes up – has his milk and watches TV
Work around the house a bit/work on computer
Settle down to watch an old Hindi classic
After one CD laze around some more – go for bath
A friend pop’s in
She is in a lousy mood
She makes you feel lousy too
Friend departs
Keep telling yourself – think positive – don’t get upset over others behaviour
Feel better
Start the second CD
Doze off before climax
Wake up
Another friend calls up
you realise you have been taken for a ride over something (trivial for him – it matters to you)
You try to reach him
he is unavailable
go for shopping and dinner outside
return after shopping
have nice and simple home made food
Aasim sleeps early
Watch TV -there is nothing good on it except Mask of Zorro -that too dubbed in Hindi
Read/watch FTV
try to sleep
try to sleep
try to sleep
its past midnight
fall asleep

Only the ones who have raised a Calvin will understand this

I was neck deep in work, aasim comes near me and says something (I could not understand it – his mouth was full)
I asked him again without looking at him -what’s it?
Aasim “oi homp ap pommnn imm mmm mooummt”
I “what?”
Aasim “oi homp ap pommnn imm mmm mooummt”

Then I understood – “I have a pond in my mouth” he was trying to say – with a mouth full of saliva!!!!

Gaim – Yahoo problems

Was wondering since morning as to what happened when I came across this

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5245821.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed

// Yahoo on Wednesday began blocking Cerulean Studios’ Trillian software from communicating with its instant messaging service in its latest step to fence its popular client from third-party integrators.//

Well, people like me go back to YM official client till gaim recovers.

[update]
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Unable to use YM either just upgraded to 1.0.6 – it just does not connect 🙁
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[/update]

Kahna II

It was after 10 years that we took a holiday to Kanha and it was a very rewarding experience in every way.

Not only did we see the wild life so closely, we learnt a lot of lessons on a personal level as well.

Visit to the jungle made us respect its laws. Mankind no longer belongs to the jungle, he has been alienated from the jungle much too long to even decipher them. It takes a while to realise that it is the tiger who is giving you a privilege of sighting him – so what if you are on an elephant back – one leap and the tiger can reach you at 10 feet. One slap of his paws and a man can be disemboweled. Its when you realise that you can be on the menu of that beast you start to respect him. That he did not even roar at you is his privilege. Tigers in the jungle can not be compared to those kept in the zoo. These beasts of the jungle live their own lives at their own terms and quiet a few have been known to turn into man hunters (if not man- eaters).

Like any other species, each animal has a character, out of a population of 128 tigers of Kanha, about 8 or 10 are show-offs they make themselves visible and pose for our photographs! How we capture them is our skill as long as we respect the space they demand. You cant get down from the elephant, set up a stand, wait for the sun to shine brightly to photograph wild animals. When it comes to capturing the wild, its your skills with the camera that matter –À mauvais ouvrier point de bons outils. To prove the point there are compositions which Aasim has taken with a 1MP camera which are better than any of ours.

Talking of blaming and pointing fingers, says here that he was disappointed and pointed fingers at the guide for not showing us anything. Why, the same guide showed brainz a sloth bear and a leopard the very next day and the same jeep driver who was with us on first day evening went with Uncle Stevens to show a tigress on mud road and tracked her for more than 45 min. When we are in a jungle, the beasts we see are the ones that willingly come out and show themselves off. Animals and birds are far more sensitive to sight and sound than us, I am sure that scarlet minivet sitting on the tree top spotted us and allowed itself to be photographed, so did the peacock that almost posed for us and I am humbled at the thought.

Another incident that I now feel ashamed about was directing my disappointment towards our tour guide whose vehicle broke down while we were returning -it wasn’t his fault, there was no way he could have anticipated that, I knew it, but at that time, I did point fingers and again a talk with Uncle Stevens made me realise how wrong I was. We, in a fit of anger, and disappointment, find it very easy to point fingers and blaming everyone else for what we think as wrongs done to us – this not only is a sign of immaturity but also that of a weak person, a loser!! never do we introspect and rationalise.

Both above incidents combined also put in perspective how we most of the times tend to focus on the trivial details and lose out on the much grander bigger picture – À bon entendeur, salut.

This jungle trip taught me to be more patient practical and put the perspective where it belongs – In wide angle

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