Cloverfield

Start was not a bang. For the first 15 minutes Ranjith’s biased view was playing on my mind. But then when Ranjith shared his viewpoint about Slumdog Millionaire, I thought of discounting his opinion and thought of giving it a shot.

Made in a documentary style the film starts from a surprise party which is being captured in a camcorder by the protagonist’s brother and later his friend. 20 minutes into the movie, your head starts moving along with the video camcorder through which the events of the story are captured and viewed.

A kiddish concept of a monster movie (Godzilla, king kong etc….) has been portrayed in a very mature way. The director’s effort in making the audience live the experience of a monster attack is commendable.

There is no effort to give any dumb explanation of the existence of a monster rather this piece of art is unlike any commercial movie a pure and a sincere effort from the director to give creativity a free hand.

No less than 8 out of 10 is what this movie deserves for its shear brilliance of presentation.

2 Years Later

While I was doing my routine exercises in the morning today, I realized how lucky am I to be in the ground. 2 Years back my hopes of again running had started fainted after my accident on Feb 11th when I had a major disc collapse.
For me it has been a miracle but for Dr. Shivaji it was a routine case which got in order with nothing but only some exercises.
For me the experience has taught me the real meaning of phrases like "Body is a temple", "health is wealth" etc. at an early stage in my life (though the lesson was really tough) and had not to wait for the old age to teach me.
Tough I am not as athletic I used to be 10 years back but I carry a very positive hope to recover 90% of my those abilities soon. And 20 years later when I revisit a post title "20 years Later", it would recount a very positive Journey Post Feb 2007.
Manish Saini

The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons

There are genres like Drama, Fantasy, and Mystery etc but till date no one has been able to attribute a right genre to the movies like “The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons”.

Fantasy is what this movie is called. But Fantasies are not as detailed as this one.

This is what I would call a “Concept Movie”. Fitzgerald thought of a simple concept that “What would happen if the human life was to move reverse – from old to getting young?” Had the concept been that we live in a world where everyone lives a reverse life – I would have definitely agreed to put this movie under the genre “Fantasy”. It would have been pretty easy to make a fantasy out of it.

But the movie is based on a person who is born old and then goes on to become younger with time – Benjamin Buttons. The detail into which the movie goes is touching and heart rendering at times.

When one grows younger and discovers the gift of good health, he enjoys it more than he would have done otherwise. On the same time it is much more painful to see your loved ones moving in the other direction. The pain aggravates when you discover that you are going to meet your kid halfway as a playmate rather than a father. What do you do? Do you raise the kid?

Think of the dear ones who have to see you move from a young man to a kid and then to a toddler when you loose your words and finally as an infant. Seeing a old man reuniting with the Almighty is pretty easy but happening this to an infant was heart rendering. Being a father myself to a 55 days old kid, it touched me more than I think it would do to may others.

Though I would have enjoyed the lighter part of it too (had it been included) – retiring at the peak of your health and touching the height of your career when you can actually enjoy it most. But the mood and tone of the movie did not allow taking it that path.

Hats off to the writer of the movie who could go into such details and also the director who did a real justice to the concept.

I would rate this movie as 8.2 on a scale of 10.

Manish Saini

Coming to terms

To chose the name for my kid has been the most difficult work I have done till date in my life.
Kanav is not the best of all names but in the end I agree with Shakespeare.
Today he is 53 days old and me and Preeti are gonna remember this day throughout our life for an unexpected incident which happened just a few minutes back.

I was watching Apocalypto on Star movies intermittently watching it with Preeti's serial while Kanav was trying to sleep in her lap after his dinner/night dose.
With his eyes half open and half shut, he laughed and smiled like a grown up. He had done this few times in the past 50 days.
Being alone I just kissed him and told him (as he was looking in my eyes) "Baby, don't worry.....now you are with us, and we will make sure that we keep you happy throughout your life. Now we are your mom and dad baby and we love you and will keep loving you."

As soon I said, we are your mom dad........the hell broke loose. He started crying like he never did in the last 53 days. Not even when a week back he was given three injections in his thigh.
Preeti couldn't control herself. I thought it could have been because she suddenly realized that kanav does not believe she is her mother. But then it was mixed emotions - both the previous one and the also that a mother who sees her kid crying like mad dogs can't control herself.

I had to take the kid and make him realize that he was just a kid by playing with him like one.

A few days back I had just learnt that kids in the first 40 days can remember their previous birth and they see images from their past and talk to them.

My kid on his 53rd day is now coming to terms with his new found reality..................May God Bless his soul.

Manish Saini

The gone year was pretty eventful especially towards the end both personally and professionally.
But the year ahead is full of challenges and hurdles which need an extra effort to scale. And for this I need to make a few promises to myself -
1. I would be more disciplined with my physical health.
2. I would make my family financially more secure.
3. I would spend "atleast", 5 valuable hours every day with my Kid.
4. I would professionally orient myself on a quarter to quarter operational mode
Though not very tough but still pretty challenging for me. Let us do a thorough revision at the end of this quarter.
Manish