Friday, February 18, 2011

Speed of Mind

Light travels faster than anything else known to man. But a human mind can travel faster than light. And a fickle mind like mine can beat all records of speed whatsoever perceptible to human kind.
I was made to realize this when I was a child. Well being fickle minded isn’t really considered a virtue. If it were, then all this propaganda about keeping your mind in control would have been meaningless.
It is indeed very difficult to control your mind or your thought process. And you could test that anytime anywhere without having to do much. You just need to sit at one place with eyes closed. Eyes need to be closed to shut out all distractions. But if you are one of those who can shut out their mind to the outside world with or without eyes closed then you need not really have to keep your eyes shut.
Once you are in that position you got to try to channelize your thought process towards just one thing and try to bring your mind to a state of nothingness. Simple, right? Is it really?
Well I tried and this is what happened in my mind -
“I can see nothing. It is pitch dark around me. Of course! What else do you expect when you close your eyes so tight? Yeah, but do I really need to keep them so tightly closed. I can just normally close my eyes. After all thoughts will not enter my mind through the eyes .I need to keep my mind focused on one thing. I should be thinking only about that one thing. What should I pick? Movies are my favorite. I could perhaps think about one movie and concentrate my thought process on that. But wait no, movies shall have more than one character so my mind would still be thinking about more than one thing at a time. Ok let me concentrate on one actor. Who should I pick? Kareena Kapoor is a good choice. She always looks pretty. But how should I imagine her in my mind? What was the latest movie that she acted in? Oh boy- I cannot remember. Yeah got it – Golmaal 3 it was. But I haven’t watched the movie and neither have I seen too many promos. Don’t remember how she looks in the movie. Remember Ajay Devgan though .And he looks pretty weird with that short haircut, Guess that was just to add the humor quotient to his look. Not that he had any better hair earlier. I actually liked Farhaan Akhtar’s hair styling in Rock On. Oh what a movie. That movie reminds me of caramel popcorn, Diwali and my friend Elizabeth. I remember having gone to watch the movie with her during diwali and also we had had caramel popcorn after long. It was quite an experience. Actually caramel popcorn tastes very nice when mixed with plain salted popcorn. The sudden ‘sweet taste’ of caramel thrown in between the salted taste of popcorn just makes you want more of it. Come to think of it I am quite hungry right now. Hell with meditation, I don’t mind making some quick microwave popcorn and catching a nice movie !!!!”
And that was the end of my concentration. I forced my mind not to think any further in search of the ultimate truth rather focus on the current for now.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Julie and Julia

Feb 04, 2011: Last night I watched this movie called ‘Julie and Julia’ on TV. It is a story about a famous cookbook author (Julia Child, played by Meryl Streep) and one of her ardent fans (Julie Powel, played by Amy Adams).
Julie works with the Customer Service Department of an Insurance Company and is quite hassled by the calls that she gets from irate customers. She tries hard to solve their problems but loses a bit of herself every time she gets screamed at. Back home she has a loving husband; a cute little house and a bunch of super successful female friends.
Just when, the stress at work and the feeling of not having achieved much in life begins to break her from inside; she hits upon the idea of starting a blog. Her supportive husband encourages her to write a blog on cooking – her only stress buster in life.
Julie picks the famous cookbook by Julia Child which has 524 recipes and decides to take upon the task of trying them all in 365 days! And she also decides to maintain a daily blog of her cooking experience.
The film showcases her experience in completing the feat and the reaction within her and of the world outside to her daily blog. Not to mention the fantastic visuals that corroborate the whole cooking experience.
The interesting part is how the film goes into flash back every now and then highlighting Julia Child’s (the author of the cookbook) endeavors to get her recipes published. Now although these two characters are several years apart in time, space and circumstances- the film is successfully able to sketch some very profound similarities between their lives. Especially how they achieve what they achieved. I particularly liked Meryl Streep’s performance in the movie. She has demonstrated the ability to bring sheer joy to your cooking experience just by watching her.
There are some fascinating elements in the movie which is sure to grab your attention for example, when the movie depicts Julia Child’s quest to do something with her time; she tries everything possible from hat making to taking bridge classes before she finally discovers her real passion for cooking! On the other hand even after Julie figures out that one thing that will keep her mind off her stressful job, She never tries to quit her job in the movie, instead she shifts her focus to that one thing that brings her joy.
All I can say is that the movie is sort of going to stay with me for long. I feel I connected with the story at many levels!! That’s not all, there is some good news too. After watching the movie I feel like blogging more (good news for the readers) and cooking more often (good news for Vikram)!!
So happy reading people and happy eating Vikram!!