Back when I was still a cherubic little boy with little knowledge of the world and its ways, life was mostly simple. Worst, you had to deal with multiple, yes or no questions and a lot of stupid faces. If that wasn’t enough, you could always count on someone else to take care of whatever was bothering you, just by bawling at the top of your voice. However, things started to change over time, and I was expected to tie my own shoelaces, and brush my own teeth. With passing days, life became more and more bothersome, as responsibilities were heaped onto my back without any sign of benevolence.
13 yrs later I walked out of school, thoroughly unsure of what I was going to do, as people around me drew elaborate plans about their future. I was the only one without a clue. I wasn’t too keen on writing the medical entrance. Although I do not cringe at the sight of blood, pulling someone’s entrails out, somehow did not appeal to me. Then there was law. Well, you know what they say about lawyers---they have no conscience. I intended to preserve mine. Engineering, seemed to be very much in vogue, and there were more institutes offering the course, than there were applicants. 4 years?? …piece of cake!!! Too bad, I got the wrong flavor!!!I appeared for every single entrance exam one could possibly register for, only to get creamed by each and every one of them. With my rank, I couldn’t afford to be too picky. Off the list, SCT seemed to be the least disreputable, and so I applied. Well….appearances can be deceiving. It didn’t take me long to discover that I had landed myself, in one of the most godforsaken places on the planet.
4 years have gone by; I’m not any closer to being an electronics engineer than I was when I began the course. Apart from a few genuinely sweet people, most of the teachers in our college, are disgruntled with life in general, and are just looking for a chance to screw you over. And with a university that’s even more messed up, you’ve got a surefire recipe for disaster! All these years, I have wondered what prompted me to make this distinctly wrong choice. Maybe it was the illusion that all engineering graduates end up in well paying jobs, with a lot of benefits, and a good contingency plan. Maybe, that was what urged me to go against my better judgement. I refused to listen to that little voice that has always whispered encouragingly into my ear guiding me the right way. With just the right amount of attendance and only a handful of back papers I’ve somehow managed to stumble along. My inability to keep pace with my mates, during project discussions and other academic activities, subjected me to condescension from my peers. We barely have 6 months left in college and almost everyone is looking to augment their bachelor’s degree with something more, and I’m still stuck with 3 uncleared papers.
Despite the occasional story about a physician who left to become an author or an attorney turned singer, the overwhelming majority of unhappy people choose to stay miserably stuck largely out of pride. The idea of having wasted all these years, in pursuit of that coveted degree isn’t as scary as disapproval from people we love and care about. Rather than fear of wasting the degree this is what prevents us from making the jump.
Writing as a career has yet to find the mass acceptance in India. It is considered as an offbeat career that is supposed to be done in your free time or as a hobby. I’ve always been very passionate about writing. Somewhere in the corner of my brain I’ve often toyed with the idea of writing professionally, but not having enough confidence in my abilities, it never materialized. Once I’m done with college, I seriously intend to take up writing as a full time profession. This time however, I’ll have a B-tech degree to bolster my resume. After all a B-tech degree has to amount to something; not everybody has one!Even though,I may not do anything related to my field of specialization ,a few years down the line,I’ll still be an electronics engineer….a shitty one at that, but an electronics engineer nonetheless!
So far in life I’ve had this abiding belief that everything happens for a reason. The key is to find the lessons. Maybe this was how it was meant to be. I have a feeling everything is just going to snap into place. Well, if they don’t, I suppose, I could always return to SCT as a janitor!
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
My First Movie Review! ...Inception the neverending psychological thriller :D
There are movies you like and then there are movies you like. So how does one judge a movie? What are the defining characteristics of a good movie, whatever the genre? Of course it should be emotionally engaging; we should feel for the characters and have an empathetic attachment to what s going on on the screen but it should be cerebrally stimulating as well. It is very rarely that a flick is so effective in the second department that it messes with your brain and alters your entire mode of thinking. True to its imdb review “Christopher Nolan's mind-bending, intelligent, exciting and disturbing sci-fi extravaganza, blends the best of traditional and modern filmmaking.”
I watched the movie on the day of its release, and again today with a few other friends, and I found it extremely intriguing. I found myself mulling over the different plot points of the movie and arguing with my friend DJ over our theories about the ending, and different details of the story in general .We were so obsessed with the whole notion conveyed by the movie and all its complexities,and constructed elaborate theories for some of those bothering questions we’ve been having since 16 July. However I don’t expect even a third viewing will be sufficient to nail things down. Besides,its so baffling and ambiguous that different people may have conflicting and contradicting opinions, just like we interpret our dreams.
Leonardo de Caprio plays Dom Cobb an extractor specialized navigating people’s minds, and stealing information from deep within their subconscious. He is assisted by his point man Arthur, who does background research on his subjects .They offer freelance espionage (well it is implied) to any client wealthy enough to pay for it, for which, he is wanted by most of the law enforcement agencies on the planet and he’s constantly on the run. When his most recent job turns out to be a failure, he’s offered a chance at redemption, if he s able to perform the perhaps impossible act of "inception”. He assembles a team and starts working on an exceptionally complex, multilayered dreamscape where they plan to place their subject and plant an initial seed of a subconscious thought that will eventually grow to a major, conscious decision that he would not otherwise make. What follows is a wild head trip, through this visually spectacular, labyrinthian world embellished with such ravishing detail all painfully constructed by Nolan. When things go wrong,the team has to deal with several issues, not the least of which is Cobb’s own disturbed subconscious.I cannot risk revealing more of the plot without spoiling it for those who haven’t watched the movie yet.
Though conceptually similar to an earlier movie “Shutter Island” which also starred De Caprio, however “Inception” is much more complex, exploring the idea of “dream within a dream”. The plot is so intensely composite but the director expertly gets the characters to stand around explaining the complexities of the plot at regular intervals,so that each and any unanswered question the audience may think of is answered. For such a complex plot the movie is coherent, and paced to perfection that we are always there right in the middle of everything. It is also very visually outstanding, without resorting to 3d or too much CGI. At one point when an entire cityscape folded in on itself the audience was left dumbfounded with awe. The movie also boasts of a stellar cast, but they do little to progress the plot, and there are moments when they are just standing around occupying screen space. The camera work is impeccable as the movie moves on to its latter half and we delve much deeper into the characters’ subconscious, with action occurring at multiple levels simultaneously. The score isn’t Zimmer’s best work, yet it gives us a sense of anticipation.
Bottom line? With “Inception” Nolan establishes himself as the foremost mainstream moviemaker of Hollywood. Despite it being an impossibly audacious concept, Nolan manages to pull it off with ease. Yet there is one thing he fails to provide us, and that is closure. Like most other Nolan movies the audience is kept guessing. As the ending credits roll no one knows for sure whether he’s still dreaming or not. Give us closure, Christopher Nolan , our subconscious yearns for it !!
Rating: 9.5/10..
I watched the movie on the day of its release, and again today with a few other friends, and I found it extremely intriguing. I found myself mulling over the different plot points of the movie and arguing with my friend DJ over our theories about the ending, and different details of the story in general .We were so obsessed with the whole notion conveyed by the movie and all its complexities,and constructed elaborate theories for some of those bothering questions we’ve been having since 16 July. However I don’t expect even a third viewing will be sufficient to nail things down. Besides,its so baffling and ambiguous that different people may have conflicting and contradicting opinions, just like we interpret our dreams.
Leonardo de Caprio plays Dom Cobb an extractor specialized navigating people’s minds, and stealing information from deep within their subconscious. He is assisted by his point man Arthur, who does background research on his subjects .They offer freelance espionage (well it is implied) to any client wealthy enough to pay for it, for which, he is wanted by most of the law enforcement agencies on the planet and he’s constantly on the run. When his most recent job turns out to be a failure, he’s offered a chance at redemption, if he s able to perform the perhaps impossible act of "inception”. He assembles a team and starts working on an exceptionally complex, multilayered dreamscape where they plan to place their subject and plant an initial seed of a subconscious thought that will eventually grow to a major, conscious decision that he would not otherwise make. What follows is a wild head trip, through this visually spectacular, labyrinthian world embellished with such ravishing detail all painfully constructed by Nolan. When things go wrong,the team has to deal with several issues, not the least of which is Cobb’s own disturbed subconscious.I cannot risk revealing more of the plot without spoiling it for those who haven’t watched the movie yet.
Though conceptually similar to an earlier movie “Shutter Island” which also starred De Caprio, however “Inception” is much more complex, exploring the idea of “dream within a dream”. The plot is so intensely composite but the director expertly gets the characters to stand around explaining the complexities of the plot at regular intervals,so that each and any unanswered question the audience may think of is answered. For such a complex plot the movie is coherent, and paced to perfection that we are always there right in the middle of everything. It is also very visually outstanding, without resorting to 3d or too much CGI. At one point when an entire cityscape folded in on itself the audience was left dumbfounded with awe. The movie also boasts of a stellar cast, but they do little to progress the plot, and there are moments when they are just standing around occupying screen space. The camera work is impeccable as the movie moves on to its latter half and we delve much deeper into the characters’ subconscious, with action occurring at multiple levels simultaneously. The score isn’t Zimmer’s best work, yet it gives us a sense of anticipation.
Bottom line? With “Inception” Nolan establishes himself as the foremost mainstream moviemaker of Hollywood. Despite it being an impossibly audacious concept, Nolan manages to pull it off with ease. Yet there is one thing he fails to provide us, and that is closure. Like most other Nolan movies the audience is kept guessing. As the ending credits roll no one knows for sure whether he’s still dreaming or not. Give us closure, Christopher Nolan , our subconscious yearns for it !!
Rating: 9.5/10..
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