The Terminal

A similar situation from one of the best movies by Stephen Spielberg, The Terminal was building up in my real life. Tom Hanks as Victor Navorski, who arrives in New York from Eastern Europe, suddenly becomes a man without a country and he is forced to take up residence in the JFK terminal. Likewise I was sitting in the terminal of Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai, after changing two flights from Abu Dhabi and flying for almost six and-a-half hours. The saddest part was that I still had to wait for another 7 hours or so for my flight to Trivandrum, just like Victor Navorski in that terminal!

Accidentally I met Philip Eilmer from Austria who reached India for the first time with some great plans to explore its history, heritage and culture, starting from God’s own country. He was on a months vacation and was about to kick start the journey from Trivandrum, then a road trip to Kochi which includes a boat trip in the Alappuzha back waters and from Ernakulam to the tourist paradise, Goa and from Goa to Mumbai and back to Vienna, Austria. From our conversation I understood that he had done a wonderful home work, planning the trip and understanding the culture, civilization, population, each and every minute detail including the food system in each state, he is about to visit. We shared our views regarding the cultural difference, education system, work conditions, politics, people and resources in both countries. He was really excited and all set to visit some of the places and study more about India.

I realized that only 45 minutes were left for boarding the flight when they announced for security clearance. I had a nice time with him with such an interesting conversation and had a photo session and a coffee in between. We again met at the Trivandrum Domestic Airport about one and a half hours later. I wished him the best for his journey ahead and gave him my contacts. When I was walking to the parking area where my mom would wait, I was just thinking about the whole time I spend at the airport terminal. It was such a good experience from my perspective because rather than spending time with an ipod (which is my favorite pass time), communicating with a person from another part of the world, from a different culture, understanding his society, country and its history, was more exciting. More over I was happy to share with him my knowledge of my homeland.

I reached near the car park and mom was already there. She was happy to see me after 3 months and I got into the car. As we were driving home, I told myself “I’m going home”, what Victor (Tom Hanks) told to the cab driver in the climax of the movie.

J4L- Bal Tricks for a publicity...

Is Bal Thackeray looking for some cheap publicity as always? I don't think the statement Sachin made in an interaction with media on completing his 20 years in International cricket, is wrong. He had said "I am a Maharashtrian and I am extremely proud of that. But I am an Indian first. And Mumbai belongs to all Indians. " I strongly believe that Sachin didn't hurt the feelings of any Maharashtrian or he moved into the field of politics.

At least Bal Thakeray could have congratulated the maestro for completing a milestone and get himself in to the news columns other than making these kind of verbal attacks. Whatever! We don't have to give our ears to hear these kind of non sense. Let's honor the Little Master for his success and bringing Indian cricket to its heights. Long live Sachin...

J4LColumn- Driving in Style!!!

Hei friends, I just got this funny thing out there from the internet...I don't know who the creator is, but it's pretty true and enough for a laugh!!! Along with a cartoon, the post is before you...

Driving Styles...

One hand on steering wheel, one hand out of window.

- Sydney

One hand on steering wheel, one hand on horn
- Japan

One hand on steering wheel, one hand on newspaper, foot solidly on
accelerator. ..
- Boston

Both hands on steering wheel, eyes shut, both feet on brake, quivering
in terror
- New York

Both hands in air, gesturing, both feet on accelerator, head turned to
talk to someone in back seat
- Italy

One hand on horn,
one hand on holding gear,
one ear listening to loud music,
one ear on cell phone,
one foot on accelerator,
one foot on clutch,
nothing on brake,
eyes on females in next car,
- Welcome to INDIA!

J4L column (Just for a Laugh)- Leader recovering

Long Live Jackson...

This Is It- an attempt to reel in some money from the Jackson name, but the fans seems genuinely willing to pay the ticket price and keen to see an icon soon after the shocking news of his death earlier this year.

The director is offering an intimate and honest look at the man who became "The King of Pop". The result was a guaranteed seller at the cinema. It's for sure that we won't be wiping away tears with a white gloved hand but I think this memory lane movie is a must see and a good enough reminder to load some Jackson classics back on to our mp3 players.

Somebody gonna hurt real bad!!!

I felt like I'm dead. I was lying on the road, next to my bike and people gathered around. Then only I realized, it was an accident! My bike crashed into another bike near the junction. I got up from there with my head weighing a ton, pain on my knees and bruises on right hand and leg. Two of my friends were among the gathered and they came to help me and it was them who argued with the rest of the people who witnessed it. Somehow I escaped from the scene without losing money for a compensation or anything.

I was bed ridden for the next two days and all my friends heard about the accident which I tried to conceal because it's the third accident in six months. There was a serious discussion between mom and dad as if they lost all their hope and whether I should continue using my bike. Suddenly, on the second day I received a call from my friend Vipin Pahela whom I used to share my secrets with, planning serious things, roam around with, chase those chicks in the city and had workouts in the gym. He was like blaming me for not letting him know about the accident I met with. He said, he never expected that I covered it up with him also and I told him , "Pal, its not like that. I'm ashamed of myself to crash my bike often like a kid who just started pedaling". Before completing the conversation, he hung the phone and reached my place in 10 minutes.

He sat next to my bed on a chair, with both his legs raised from the floor, on to the bed and eating those fruits my relatives had brought for me. In between he said, "The injuries are not up to my expectations. I thought it was a big accident!". I was terrified and sounded to me as if he wanted me to get killed. He was the type of guy who took serious matters as silly and we have to expect the most 'inappropriate' comments at the 'appropriate' times, to which I was used to. After an hour, he went home. Thats the last I heard from him for the next two days.

After reaching home from college, I thought of picking Pahela from his place to go to the gym and then a late night ride through the city. Reaching his place, I waited outside, giving him a call. Something similar to an Egyptian mummy came out of the house, almost half of the body wound with bandages and a black eye, it smiled at me. It was him! I asked what happened and he started narrating the story. He was on his way back to his home from college after the evening lab classes. As usual he was speeding at almost the top speed of his bike, Passion Plus can achieve and suddenly he felt like the pressure at the back tire is low. Without wasting much time for a pit stop, he turned around and checked. He didn't realize that the bike was almost off the road and was late to apply the brakes or to make a decision. Making a roaring sound,it crashed to the field by the side of the road and the rest was like a dream. When he concluded, I said, "The injuries are not up to my expectations. I thought it was a big accident!". This would exactly have been how my face had looked like when he passed this comment two days before, I thought and we burst out into laughter!

curiosity kills the cat!!!

It was a Friday evening 4pm, we both were on our way back to our apartment from the super market, buying food for dinner and some house hold stuff. My friend was forcing me to accompany him to the gym and I was in a state of dizzy because its a weekend and I opted for an outing. But we didn't know that both of our plans are going to change.

We took our way through "Pond's Park" near Al Qusais and saw the usual joggers who are trying really hard to maintain their frame and others who admire those lean and trim frame but belong to almost obese category. All of a sudden, I noticed a girl in pink t-shirt and black navy jogging bottoms and I waited till I could see her face to pass a comment to my friend. "Man, A Goddess!", I screamed and he turned his face around to watch the beauty. I saw him dropping his jaw at her sight. She was tall, lean but with perfect shapes and had a nice face from which no one can stop staring at. She was walking slowly inside the park and we almost took three laps in our car around the park, each and every time she seemed to me like a moon in the day. I asked him, "What's your stance on jogging?" He shook his head and drove to our apartment.

Within 10 minutes we reached Pond's Park in our jogging outfits and landed inside the park as if we were on a daily routine. She was just behind us, taking her third or fourth lap. I told him to slow down the pace so that she could pass and its always better to walk behind a girl. We realized that she was noticing us (each of us believed that she was looking at one of us). After completing the lap, she headed towards the exit and I was just behind her without realizing that my friend was not accompanying me. Although I felt awkward, my heart compelled me to do the traditional oldest dirty trick of its kind and I followed her. She increased the pace, headed towards the next street and entered into the apartment which is next to ours. I was happy that I traced down where shes living and ran all the way back to the park. He was waiting for me at the front of the park.

We went to our usual swimming routine and while in the pool, she was our hot topic. Later the whole night we thought about the unknown girl and we discussed on our further proceedings including to jog daily at her timings, meeting her, "accidentally" bumping in to her, jogging together and later deciding who should go with her according to rule of 'Survival of the fittest'. With these brilliant master plans, we slept with beautiful dreams.

Next evening, finishing our works, we reached the park by 4pm, a little early as we 'don't want to miss a thing' and waited for almost an hour and suddenly, the treat of our eyes dropped in and we jumped off the bench and started our first few steps. We saw a big fat guy accompanying her and the guy was talking to her and staring at us in between. We smelt something fishy and thought not to burn too much fat or it may cause heavy trimming. So cutting short the time for jogging and yesterday's nights woven dreams, we left the park after taking one lap in the opposite direction. On the way back to the apartment he was cursing me for destroying the whole plan with my over excitement and following her. I didn't say a word because I knew that he was cent percent right!!!

Life after life?

I like horror movies a lot. But i watch those kind of movies rarely. Of course, I don't want to get frightened the following nights of the movie. But every man has a desire to get frightened and that's why even most of the horror movies are made. Recently, I watched a nicely portrayed horror film in which I didn't realize until the climax that I was watching the ghosts for the whole one and a half hours. It's Alejandro Amenabar's "The Others", starred by Nichole Kidman and released in the year 2001. It's very clearly and cleverly, the director ratchets the suspense slowly, first illustrating Grace's problems in taking care of her children and later she had to encounter with the intruders in to her isolated mansion off the British coast, which questions her sanity. I don't want to reveal the suspense to those who never had watched this movie. I would highly recommend you to watch this movie, if you haven't yet!

Coming to my point, there is something which haunts me after this movie. But its not some ghost which happens to haunt me for two three nights after watching those "Booo" movies. My thoughts goes like this.

Is this the real world which we call so?

Is this our only life?

What happens to us after death?

Do our souls live in another world after death or they share the same world with us? so and so...

All these questions still remains and science still finds hard to answer all of them but man is always busy with his scientific inquiries and research. Almost every religion teaches us to believe in God and a life after death depending upon ones karma. Christians believe in life after death, in heaven or in hell, depending on the deeds one do in his life on earth. Likewise Muslims believe that all good deeds will be weighed against bad deeds on the last day, the day of judgement called Barzakh and their heaven or hell is decided. Hindus believes in reincarnation of souls through a rebirth and the souls continue their journey. It teaches that death is not the end of everything but it's a temporary cessation of physical activities and an opportunity for the souls to review its programs and policies. He himself creates his heaven and hell depending on his karmas in his previous life. But it fails to explain convincingly the origin of the increasing number of souls that are being born and the soul still remains the intangible mystery.

To find out some of these mysteries I googled through many topics. The common thing I saw in most articles is 'Near Death Experiences' or NDE's, a phenomenon reported after an individual has been pronounced 'clinically' dead or very close to death, comes back to his normal life. With the advancement of medical science, more and more patients are surviving clinical deaths and almost everyone have experienced the same feeling. The most related explanation of those who had such experience is about a journey that they almost took in their afterlife. They felt like levitated and travelling through a tunnel without any walls, towards a bright source of light where calmness, serenity or an absolute dissolution can be felt. Later a panoramic view of their life as if they were watching it on a big screen. Even blind people have experienced the same.

Consciousness is something believed to be something out of our body and it can exist far removed from our body but there is no proof that consciousness can survive death. The scientific explanation for NDE is as simple as it's a vision produced by brain which ends upon permanent brain death. Its a sensation the patient experiences due to low oxygen levels in the brain and when brain is deprived of oxygen, people become totally confused and thrashed around. Likewise science have got lot of things to explain and find out, while NDE researchers do not have anything to prove because the circumstantial evidence is in their favor. Science have got lots to prove against the claims of both NDE researchers and religion.

I'm not taking you much in to the researches and developments in the field of parapsychology, the science dealing with existence, causes of psychic abilities and life after death, in which i have knowledge about. These all started from my curiosity out of watching "The Others" which proves that there is something for everyone to think and question about our existence, death and a mysterious life afterwards, on which no science have a perfect explanation because of its lack of clues and which I call "Life after Life".

a spendthrift shopping!

I felt the vibration of my mobile when the doors of the Dubai Metro closed and gained momentum for its journey from Khaleed Bin Al Waleed, the Bur Dubai station. It was my friend at the other end. He asked " Buddy, Where you now? Just wait there at Bur Dubai. I will come there and pick you up. I left my office". It's often that he comes out with a last minute plan, I thought and said "Nops man, I've already started from Bur Dubai". I told him that I will get down at Deira City Center and will reaching there in a few minutes.

I managed to walk some distance with my bag when I received another call from him and we agreed to meet at the nearby Virgin Mega Store. It was on the first floor and I saw him at the book section. He loves to read a lot and he always found time and money for his favorite books until I introduced him to the torrent sites. Now...he spends more time downloading all those books than reading. He seemed busy with his Blackberry and was typing something and it was the names of all those books that he wanted to download. To my surprise, he had noted more than 30 titles of B-books and he was smiling at me and that smile felt like a thank you note and now he is saving lots of money without purchasing new books.

I told him that my shoulders are aching because of my bag. He told me to wait a couple of minutes and saved another 100 bucks by noting down more titles while I checked out the twin sisters in identical pink outfits, standing in the nearby music section, enjoying some new English album releases and chirping away at each other like some nice birds. I tried acting cool forgetting my shoulder pain. Suddenly he interrupted me, pointing towards the title "101 ways to write killer Resumes" and smiled. Immediately I whipped out my mobile and started snapping away at the cover pages, saving myself some money. At last we came out of the shop and headed towards Sharaf DG, the electronics shop. He took the bag from my shoulders and entered the shop and I knew where he was heading towards. The Camera section! It was for the fifth time in this week I am accompanying him to the shop. I also liked to check out the new gadgets but on that particular day I was too exhausted and cursed him in my mind. As usual, he checked out both Nikon and Canon DSLR's and took some close ups and portraits of mine and distant snaps to check the clarity difference. No sales person attended us because they knew that our next step is to pretend discussing with each other like professional photographers and heading to the exit, saying that we will come back next day.

Stepping out of the shop only because of my compulsion, we went to the basement parking where the machine which validates our parking tickets. They started charging for parking from last day onwards which was already introduced a month ago and was free of cost to make the customers used to it. The security asked us to validate our ticket. He checked his back pockets in which he usually keeps the ticket, later his front pockets, shirts pockets, wallet and again the back pockets. He asked me whether I have seen the tickets and I said, I didn't along with checking my pockets for a confirmation. Before the security we both made some movements of Michael Jackson, checking our pockets and wallet and said him we lost the ticket. He pressed a key on the machine and told us to pay and collect the new ticket. On the screen what we saw is "Loss or Damage of the ticket- 150 AED". Seeing this he was shocked, stepped back and 1.50 in changes which I took out of my wallet fell on the floor. The security gave us a leaflet where the details are mentioned. Only for four hours, the parking is free and exceeding that time will be charged 20 bucks onwards to 8 plus hours costs 150 AED and over all the same word what we saw on the screen. I felt like high voltage electricity passed through my body and I started checking his pockets and wallet, took his cars key and ran towards it.

It was of no use when I searched in the car and we went to Virgin Mega Store, where he virtually saved hundreds of AEDs and to Sharaf DG where we checked the new brand cams, took closeups, portrait and other gadgets for free. We walked down the way once again and checked every where we went minutes back. We came back to the basement where the security stood and asked to validate or else pay the fine. If I had a chance I would have kicked his face, I thought and walked towards the car and checked. Finally he said, "Dude, I think we will loose 150 AED ". My mind was searching for some crooked ideas and failed to find a good one.

He walked towards the security and I followed him. The security pressed the button and the ugly screen again come off asking his money and I felt like he was about to pay for the names he had noted down. He told me to take the cam and capture the rare event but I got little confused whether he is out of mind. He put a 100 AED first and like a thirsty Vampire, the machine asked another 50 AED which he put later to get the new ticket. We walked towards our car, without saying a word. Before getting into the car, seeing my face, he asked, "Dude, Shall we make a move after our spendthrift shopping?" and we burst out in laughter and I heard the echo our loud laughter and I saw the security standing confused looking at us and he seemed like thinking, we would have gone mad, loosing our money. It continued for another 5 minutes and to stop it he told me, "Dude I think you don't mind to spent money for at least 2 days to buy our daily food and all".

inspired out of a movie...

A Thursday noon and it was in Al Quasis in Dubai, where my friend's flat is. I was using the toilet with my laptops on and I heard my friend asking something like "How's that movie? man". I came outside after finishing things off and asked him which movie. He said "Wake Up Sid". Being a movie buff I used to see a minimum of 10 movies in the theater and more than 20 movies at home when I was in my place. But the last few months, I wasn't even reading the reviews of new movies. He started explaining me the story line. A story of a lazy guy who gets succeed later in his life! We didn't had much plans and it's being a half day we were planning to do something. In 5 minutes we got ready for the movie and we are all set to go.I heard a buzz from my laptop and I checked who's that. It was a friend from US, where he is doing his Masters. I sat down for a chat with him and we shared our happenings. It took me more than an hour to wind up the chat with him and its late for the movie. The next show is by 8.30 pm. Anyhow we decided to leave the flat at least to get some fresh air.

On the way to the mall where the movie is, we checked in to his office. He had to sign some papers and bills and managed to get out of there in half an hour. It was at the right time we reached the mall and its usual, a theater is the only place where I reach 10 minutes before the movie and once again I proved I'm punctual. We had two different flavors from the nearby Baskin n Robbins too because we were already starving out. Don't know why! and I never ever heard or read that sleeping for long hours will burn carbs down and drain out us of energy. Finishing those ice creams, my friend was still starving when he saw a lady in the next shop preparing some advanced version of Masala Dosa kind of thing. She is using Nutela, the thick chocolate cream and mayonnaise instead of masala and my friend was already in the queue along with those fat guys and slim arabic ladies whom i admire for having these kind of things whenever they get the chance and still maintain their looks. But unfortunately my friend missed to eat that new generation dosa because I realized that the queue is too long and I wasn't ready to miss the movie intro.

We took the tickets for AED 30, the indigestible price and more than 10 times the price of a movie ticket in Kerala and ran into Cinema 3 where the movie was screening and our seats were at the right corner of the theater. The theater was almost packed so we didn't had much choice for a better place to sit. The movie started with the Kuch Kuch Hota Hai song on behalf of the production banner, Yash raj films who made the block buster movie, KKHH 11 years back and the banner still believes that movie as their luckiest and they remain one of the big banners. The movie started with the introduction of a lazy but honest guy from Mumbai named Siddhart in short Sid (Ranbir Kapoor) on a hard try to mug up something on the night before his exam. Me and my friend looked face to face because we are really surprised to see that the director portrait how lazy Sid is within 2-3 minutes. We stood froze because it was something similar to our story, the same lazy dudes who managed to get through our exams to get a degree at the last moment. Sometimes I felt that I was even worse than the guy in the movie because he is among the books, at least on the night before! The likeness of the character transformed from me to my friend when we progressed through the movie because Sid is financially sound and his dad owns a firm and a job was awaiting him to complete his graduation exams and the better part is he got varied interest. Both of them admire Porsche Cayenne, Nikon D100, PS3 and eat lots of chocolates just like some kid. He would have killed me if I had told this to him.

Like the strong foundation of Burj Dubai, the building that achieved the glory for being tallest in the world ever built by man, the first half of the movie facilitates an adequate groundwork for the story to progress. Along with a powerful script and better casting lead by Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen, Anupam Kher, Rahul Khanna, Ayan Mukherji, the debut director was weaving a story which make every guys relate something to his own life. The role played by Supriya Pathak as Sid's mom was really touching with the essence of humor, a Punjabi mom who tries to catch up with his son's frequency in order to get a chance to be with him when ever he is at home, making him good homely food and he always denies it because he liked to be it with his friends. I felt there is a good communication between the director and the audience because there was a good response for every scene even if its a serious thing, comedy (there is nothing particularly did to bring the comedy as you can see there isn't any comedians in the movie but it came at instances) or for anything. Konkona Sen showed her class with an acting which needs a loud round of applause without any cleavage shows or by coming up in a bikini suddenly in a song, even the director got lot of chances by creating a moment for sexual awakening for Sid in her apartment or at some night party. She was a perfect fit for an elder character to Sid and mentions two three times in the movie itself that she looks more than 5 years elder to him. The second half was also interesting where we see the slow transformation of Sid from a kid to a man avoiding the usual Bollywood theory of an overnight transformation by throwing a song, realizing his passion and working towards it, grabbing a job with his on effort. Although the movie ends without making any change of what we had expected, "They met each other in a monsoon rain, run towards each other and hugs and lived happily ever after" thing, we were really happy and I felt some form of "transformation" in me.

We got out from the mall and spoke each other those all things which come across our mind like Ranbir's simple, neat and believable performance, his previous movies, about Konkona Sen and lots. We decided to stay focused in our goals and achieving our dreams. Along with these huge goals and aims we still had a plan to go to Zabeel Park where some night clubs are situated. We reached there by 25 minutes past 11 pm, but it was already closed as it was Thursday. FYI, the clubs are open till 12 midnight only on Fridays. We got little worried and drove our way to flat with the Sankar- Ehsaan- Loy trio music of Wake Up Sid on our lips. When we reached the flat, it was me who downloaded the songs from some site and both of us decided to sleep at the earliest so that we could rise and shine next morning and start working to achieve our goal.

What I heard is "Wake Up Sid...Wake Up Sid" in Shankar Mahadevan's voice and he has been singing the same song for more than 50 times and I heard only it by then. I saw my friend still lost in his deep sleep with a smiling face. I looked at the clock and it was 10.15 am. I kicked him up and he slowly woke up from his dreams and looked at me and seeing my angry face, threw a smile which became laughter and finally we are laughing our heart out, sitting on the bed realizing that no one can change over night just like the director narrated the story where Sid was gradually changing and realizing his field of passion and proceeding and came out successful in his life.

What we have to understand is, life is a long journey with lots of struggles, up and downs, worries, happiness and everything. What we have to do is- first, we have to find our passion, know whether it's what we were searching for or whether we are trying to make ourselves happy or we are doing it for someone else happiness. What not to do is to try not to become something that we are not or try to find happiness where we can't. If we are waiting or planning for an "Overnight Transformation" its difficult. If we are focussed at doing one thing which we have real passion in our only one life, whatever it be the result, don't hesitate to do it, at least give it a try, the slow transformation occurs within us and I followed the same here writing my first blog and I'm not sure whether it's a good one or not, but I believe I have a passion for this and I did!