If you think I am going all senti on you guys, relax! Not likely. This is more a reflection of how I have changed in the last 10 months or so - some changes I made willingly, some happened to me whether I liked them or not and I was dragged kicking and screaming into a few more…10 months ago, if someone had asked me about kids, I had two replies - one was that I already had four, Buddy, Rocky, Sammy and Raju - the second was that I would have a baby when I can put him in a crate with food and water and go to work and not worry about him for the rest of the day. All my husband needed to get me to change my mind was a bottle of wine (I know, I am not too expensive) and a good massage.
Now when I look at myself in the mirror, I can barely recognize myself (I will kill the person who points out it must be because of the dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep the last 5 weeks). I actually feel pretty maternal towards my son (I am allowed to stretch words to mean whatever I want them to mean on my blog) and I don’t even mind the hour-long feeding sessions every three hours, as long as they give me the chance to catch up on my reading. So far, I haven’t dropped my baby on his head even once - I probably changed about 200 diapers so far and spent 514.75 hours feeding him (not that I am counting or anything).
The most surprising thing is that inspite of my chronic backache from all the feeding, the lack of sleep and the lack of anything close to a life of my own, I am extremely happy with how my life is at this point. I see my cutie smile at me once, and I am his for this life and more. I grumble at him when he wakes me up at 11:00 PM, 12:30 AM, 2:00 AM, 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM - sometimes all in the same night - I threaten to ground him for life, but then suddenly when he flashes that little toothless grin of his as soon as I show up at his crib is more than enough to make up for everything. I feel so in love with this tiny little baby, I sometimes feel my heart will burst - do I sound like a new mom now? It must be the sleep-deprived, addled brain of mine talking :)
I had no idea the deal was to write nice stuff about Ravi in return for the GMail invites. Ravi, I promise to not start the Blog Mela again until you have a winner-worthy post ready for it - thanks for the invites ;)
I was going to post a review of the movie “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban” today. Then I read the news and felt stupid for posting nothing but fluff for the past few months. I am reminded this is the day and age of snuff videos (ala Nick Berg) and pictures of gruesome death (see Paul Johnson) - who cares if a bunch of kids fought a bunch of make-believe problems in a fantasy movie?
I know I have been very effectively hiding under the veil of being pregnant and refusing to acknowledge the awful things going on around me. I am keeping up with everything, even though I am not talking about it. Things depress the heck out of me till I pretend nothing exists anymore but me and my baby. I have been playing ostrich for far too long - time to stop pretending and start talking about things that matter.
Oh yeah, fuck the Islamic radicals and the camels they rode on!
Of course, it isn’t like any of these inhuman bastards will admit that they killed Paul Johnson to satisfy their bloodthirst - they did it for a reason, supposedly -“The statement said al Qaeda had killed him because of “what Muslims have suffered from American Apache planes and their rockets.” …Didn’t the bleeding hearts tell them that the way to heal problems and resolve issues is by talking to each other, hold hands and sing peaceful songs? It is also interesting how everything is blamed because of what America supposedly did to the poor, wittle Muslims “in Abu Ghraib, al-Hair, Guantanamo, Ruwais and others”. I am still waiting for them to explain how this plays into their so-called mission statement -
“This act is to heal the hearts of believers in Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula,” the group said.
Most of the dead from Saturday’s attack were among the 6 million expatriate workers the kingdom relies on to run its oil industry and other sectors. They included: eight Indians, three Filipinos, three Saudis, two Sri Lankans, an American, a Briton, an Italian, a Swede, a South African and a 10-year-old Egyptian boy, according to the Interior Ministry statement read on Saudi television.Like someone pointed out in another blog’s comments, per Salman Rushdie, “the terrorist wraps himslef in the world’s grievances to mask his true motives”. It is truer than ever with these hideous death-cult worshippers who revel in shedding the blood of innocents.
If a dynasty falls in Detroit, does it still make a sound?
Hell, yeah! Screw the Lakers! :D
Hum Tum is a surprisingly well-done and stylishly executed Indian version of “When Harry Met Sally”. It is almost as funny as the original it tries to mimic without bothering to be bold enough, even while translating most dialogues from English to Hindi - like the famous one about men and women not being able to remain friends - sex always comes between them in the English version, while it is Pyaar (love) in the Hindi version.
Saif as Karan Kapoor, a fun-loving flirt is breezy and fun as usual in a way that mirrors his “Dil Chahta Hai” role. Rani Mukherjee as Ria is alright playing the straight person to Saif’s nutball antics. The songs are not that great except for the title track, which was pretty hummable. On a side note, did anyone who watched the movie get the feeling that the script originally required Karan and Ria to sleep with each other at the end of the title song? That was not how it went in the movie, but the conversation between the two after the song really doesn’t make any sense unless you assume they have slept together.
All in all, a pretty different movie for the desi crowd and very entertaining too. Don’t miss it.
MadMan has a pretty interesting discussion going on at the “cartel’s blog” about - AnarCapLib: Spirituality without religion? To be real simple, spirituality and religion are two different things. I think many people use religion as a tool to hone their spiritual side, while religion is not a necessary ingredient in achieving spiritual satisfaction.
Man in general, is a pretty conceited being. I think most of us would be disappointed if someone told us all our purpose in life is to be born, live, die and be part of the biological waste on the planet. We cannot stand to believe that our lives are essentially similar to those of any other living beings on earth, except for the fact that we can think more and have mastered the capability of making ourselves and others around us miserable. We believe we are special and need to believe that there is some higher purpose for our birth other than just a biological cycle.
This is essentially what I think spirituality means to most of us - a way for us to try and figure out some higher meaning in our mundane lives - a way for us to give ourselves some kind of purpose. this exercise doesn’t necessarily require us to believe in a higher being than ourselves (as religion requires), just a higher place for us human beings in the animal kingdom’s hierarchy. The belief in higher beings only gives us one more level of beings with a special purpose in life, so that makes our wish to give our lives a higher meaning not so much of a daydream.
p.s. I know this can come off pretty cynical, but that is not how I mean it at all - this is how I see most people using the terms religion and spirituality. I am not commenting on the pros and cons of religion or spirituality either - to each their own.
… that seems to be the line of thinking these days for most people, as in this case of a father who abused his child to death, via A Small Victory - No One Ever is to Blame. This evil, evil man’s attorney is going to argue that somehow it is not his fault but is somehow caused due to his ancestors being enslaved, oh, about a few hundred years ago. Michele smacks the argument down pretty good in her post and I completely agree with her that I am amazed that this guy’s attorney can actually spew that kind of crap in front of a judge with a straight face. Maybe the next time I feel like smacking a white person, I can do that and then claim that it was because white Britishers lorded it over my countrymen pre-Independence. It is abhorrent that a sadistic father caused his child’s death by abusing him and it is beyond reprehensible for him to try to blame it on anybody else but him.
I hope he fries in hell!