TWO FILMS IN A ROW.....AND AM UPSET NOW Did I ever tell you guys that if I had been offered a little more, I would have been in the film making side of media. I had a day job as a journalist and I was living in a hostel and just about making ends meet. I was doing an evening course in Film Making at the St Xavier's College, Bombay. And just to let you all into a secret, Sanjay Leela Bhansali and I would be back benchers. He was not very talkative but we did not need to be because we got to see some of the most fabulous films back then. And no I did not get in touch with SLB ever. I also made a terrific friend for life. Niren Dutt would take me around on his bike to all these fantastic places, which in retrospect were a tad shady but back then it was adventurous and I gave a damn. Niren left us during the covid times. And he is missed. And once we finished the course, I have no idea of what the other people did, but Niren continued with his marketing job with some packaging company...
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A VISIT TO KANHA SHANTI VANAM. SHANTI, SHANTI, SHANTI.....
Peace has been redefined. At least for me. I went on a visit to Kanha Shanti Vanam, just for a night. It was sheer happenstance. The ambience gets to you, even as the sun beats down harshly. I mean there are arbors and someone has thought of growing creeper vegetables along with flowering plants in these spaces. And the evening breeze is so soothing as the fragrance of jasmine fills the air. That we were being driven by a friendly Phanindra in a golf cart added to this charmed visit. This Heartfulness institution is all about meditation, centering yourself and finding that calmness between living in the now and being able to receive it with the grace that is needed. There is a morning and evening meditation for those who visit this place and we went to the largest meditation centre in the world, capable of seating one lakh persons at a go. At 5.30 pm sharp the meditation starts to end with a 'That's it' from whoever is leading the meditation. O...
THE KASHMIR FILES If it had been an ordinary movie review, it would have been a breeze. But this is more than a film, with a lot of attention on it in the last couple of weeks. They said that they did not get permission to air the film but when they did, the CBFC had passed the film without a single cut and the PM also posed for a photograph with the team involved in the making of the film. People not keen on meeting people because of the covid protocol, took the trouble to go to theatres to watch the film and damned the pandemic. Some of them returned because the shows were going housefull. And then everyone has an opinion. And if you still had not watched the film, where have you been is the look given to you. It has become an emotion and after the film there were quite a few wet eyes. I watched the film at the Jubilee Hills Club, who have an awesome screen and a superb sound system. And by sheer accident since we are not members. Saraswati Raj Valabhneni, a friend whisked...
ELECTIONS AT THE PRESS CLUB, HYDERABAD It happened after two years, considering the pandemic and so the elections at the Press Club was all excitement and enthusiasm. And I use the words loosely for messages for votes are still coming in and probably will till the last vote is counted. Most of my press friends know what and where the Press Club is, but for my other friends, this place is opposite Eenadu office, next to the RTA office with the other side being the residential quarters of Bella Vista, which used to be a royal palace of the Nizam and is now familiarly known as ASCI or Administrative Staff College of India, which imparts training in the field of Civil Services Development. Earlier it used to be opposite the Nizam College, where we used to drink on the terrace, late into the night and the snacks would come from the second floor of the building. Though a couple of chairs have been known to fall from up there, we all found our way back on those narrow stairs. Now the Jou...
10 DOWNING STREET We are a group of women and in those days of yore, when going out was easy, would get together at least once a month for lunch and normally meet at 10 Downing Street, that pub of Hyderabad, with the same name as that of the official residence of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom but obviously so much different. With wooden interiors, heavy furniture with leatherette covering, it had and has an island of a bar, where one has spent quite the number of evenings. When it was first inaugurated in Hyderabad, it was the place to be seen in every Saturday night. With a small dance room and David Masilaamani, popularly known as Black Jack, at the DJ Console, it would turn magical while we danced, sweated and drank the evening away. I do not have too much of a memory of how Murali and I returned home. But we were back home each time, blind drunk and a guaranteed hangover the next day, but come the next Saturday and we were ready to visit the place again....
NOT SO EQUAL I posted about the Statue of Equality and the trip I had with friends. I then slept over it and got up all roiled to think that though built recently, it was still disabled friendly. There would be Agama Shastra to stop you from doing good for the aam junta because it is a temple and to be studied and later constructed only by those few learned ones knowing about this shastra and of course all about what God wants and needs. Give me one good, friendly priest, who will explain why the Agama has to be followed to the `t' even now. We are still following many rules set during the British times, including in areas like education and prison reforms to mention a few.... But considering people are building houses close to temples; airports are being built in every small village; keeping all this in mind a few changes can be made, especially for the differently abled. The Statue of Equality is not a temple. It is built as a tourist attraction, already giving it the status of ...
A TEA CEREMONY Murali and I are part of a group and there they held a virtual tea ceremony, for the early-bird ladies of this group, with a Japanese lady presenting it to us from Kyoto. Very charming, she with a kimono and all that. It was an interesting hour and more with a lot of questions and answers. Primarily there is no way the Japanese tea ceremony can be enjoyed by me to the fullest, because you need to sit in Vajrasana for this. I cannot go on my knees to look for my dropped gold ear stud. And then these days they serve only macha tea, I think it will remain a ceremony, at least with me. Macha tea is the latest fad, a dark green in colour, beaten to a froth with a bamboo whisk and drank from a tea bowl, the final sip slurped with a sound, to announce that the tea is over. Like I said before, not happening. I will slurp, to announce that I am enjoying every sip but from a rakabi, where treacly, hot and fragrant tea is poured on to a saucer from a continuously boiling kettl...