Musings of an Idiot

Random Review of FIVE

2010-02-09T09:47:00.003+13:00

I was surfing the net, searching for a layout I like for the re-design of Unkreative website and as things happen I stumbled across a review of FIVE on Empireonline's forum. Here it is for your eyes:

FIVE
Written by: D.F. Mamea and Anita Crisinel
Starring: Richard Thompson, Anita Crisinel, Marjan Gorgani, Andy Sophocleous, Amit Tripuraneni, Tahi Mapp-Boren
Running Time: 76 minutes

Wanna hear something crazy? I almost swear I dreamed this last night.

Five is one of those films that not even New Zealanders know about, and, to be honest, I didn’t either, until I saw it on the shelf of my local mainstream video store, a review quote on the front of the DVD sleeve touting it as a “beautifully shot film with a story that any fan of David Lynch’s work will enjoy”. While I am by no means a Lynch fan, I must say that I was intrigued that something coming out of New Zealand could be compared to his work, so I picked it up. However, this slow-burning psychological thriller, in which nothing is what it seems and everything makes as much sense as your typical Lynch film wrapped in a net curtain and thrown in a smoke room, should appeal to more than just the Lynch set, as it overcomes a pretty hefty number of flaws to deliver one of the most strangely compelling New Zealand films I’ve seen.

Five starts off as a fairly conventional tale of five ex-flatmates and good friends who come together to go on a hiking trip a year after the suicide of a close friend of the group and lover of one of them. Belinda (Crisinel) and Rajit (Tripuraneni) are happily engaged; Henry (Thompson) is still a little odd after the Emily’s (Mapp-Boren) suicide; Chris (Sophocleous) is unusually moody and secretive; and Zara (Gorgani) is heading off to Boston in a matter of days. The characters all seem to have secrets hidden from each other, and the film does take its sweet time revealing a fair number of them. However, the plot takes a turn for the fucked-up around twenty minutes in, with Rajit having a crazy dream that slowly begins to come true. I can’t say too much more about what happens, as every minute from then on is potentially a spoiler, but needless to say, shit goes down, and it goes down hard. The almost-painfully slow pacing of the twenty minutes beforehand, developing the characters and making you care for them, is paid off somewhat with the remaining fifty-six minutes, and while the pace doesn’t pick up a hell of a lot, the slow-moving nature of the film does become less noticeable by this point, the obvious Lynch influences, the stunning cinematography (making exquisite use of an environment that really should have been used for many more films of this type before this, the New Zealand forest) and the minimal but noticeable foreshadowing of the plot’s numerous strange developments creating a captivating jigsaw puzzle for the audience to put together and an incredibly ominous atmosphere to go with it.

Of course, as I’ve mentioned, the film faces a fair few hurdles in trying to achieve what it wants to. The score, composed by none less than three different people, is clearly influenced by the work of composers like Angelo Badalamenti (Mulholland Dr.) and Howard Shore (Se7en), but it often fails to match the atmospheric creepiness of their influences; rather, it strays into overly telegraphic territory at some points, and painfully overwhelming and intrusive at others. Much like the films of their primary influence, Crisinel’s amd Mamea’s script also suffers from some rather inane dialogue, and this problem is compounded by some inconsistent acting, particular on behalf of Thompson (worrisome, as he has a key role with some of the juiciest moments) and actor/editor/producer/director Tripuraneni. However, the actors do pull it together when required, and they excel when it comes to small moments, like Rajit’s ill-advised joke to Zara in the car on the way to the national park, or Sophocleous’ delivery of the line, “Just thinking,” one scene after a monumental outburst on his behalf. There’s a subtlety and intelligence to their performances that often buggers off for periods of time before coming back, but when it does decide to stay, watching these five act off each other is intriguing and gripping.

This psychological thriller wears its influences on its sleeve, and this is made all the more obvious by some of the film’s obvious flaws (Crisinel and Gorgani, though both two of the better performers in the film, have nothing on Naomi Watts in Mulholland Dr., whose performance distracted from a lot of that film’s flaws). However, if you get through the first twenty minutes, Five pays off in a way more films should – it keeps you guessing, it keeps you hanging on, and, most importantly, it keeps you captivated, right up until the stunning conclusion. It’s a Lynch-esque film that doesn’t hold pretensions of high befuddlement – it’s a simple tale, but built and executed as such that it’s far more satisfying than the work of that respected auteur, and all the more laudable, given its obviously shoestring budget.

Verdict: A solid and gripping thriller-cum-character study with an ingenious storyline and stunning cinematography making up for the generic score and the often-dull dialogue. Don’t listen to the twats on IMDB when it comes to this, and try it for yourself.

4/5

I guess I owe a thanks to the reviewer for watching the movie and then taking the time to review the movie. I am sure the acting concerns that the reviewer has will be negated in 'The Moments In Between'.

Later,

Amit

Teaser, Armed Cops & Sichuan

2010-02-07T20:03:00.006+13:00

Crazy week!!! This whole week I've been pre-occupied with conceiving and then editing the teaser trailer for 'The Moments In Between'. I finally managed to finish editing it today and here is the trailer for your consideration.

Besides that we had a crazy morning on Friday when one of our flatmates had to call in the cops because she heard someone in our house. There did turn out to be a man in our house and he had armed himself with our kitchen knives. Quick action by the police meant that the intruder was quickly subdued without anyone getting harmed. The incident in detail would make for a whole post {it was about 4 and half pages of writing when one of the cops took our statements about the incident} but that would be sensationalism. The long and short of the story is that pepper spray is nasty stuff and the landlord is getting a second set of front door locks put in.

Last night went to dinner at HP8 {49, Nuffield Street, Newmarket} with Benji, Shuzhen {Benji's girl friend}, Vicky & Vincent {Shuzhen's friends} & Lance. It was an amazing Sichuan meal and it works out very reasonable when you share the dinner amongst many. All the dishes were great but my firm favorite is Spicy Sichuan Fragrant Eggplant. Most of the dishes were not that spicy accounting for various tastes of the group but I did manage to convince Benji & Lance to try Dan-Dan noodles along with me. It was the spicest dish we had and Benji couldn't finish his bowl and also said that he is not going to let me talk him into trying any of my recommended dishes in the future :-). Well worth the visit.

Sichuan dishes

Trying another awesome dish

Vicky & Vincent

Benji & Shuzhen

Lance enjoying a beer to ease off his Dan-Dan noodles

Benji & Me

Shuzhen & Vicky

Me finishing off a bowl of Dan-Dan noodles

That's me for now.
Later,
Amit

Auckland Anniversary Day

2010-02-01T10:14:00.001+13:00

It's a long weekend on account of Auckland Anniversary Day and I've spent majority of the time on 'The Moments In Between'. On Saturday, shot another scene for the movie and it was a smooth shoot. The performances were great and we managed to get it done in a couple of hours because it was just Sarah, Lauren and me. We were lucky that the weather was perfect for the shoot, especially considering that it's been bucketing down through later half of last week and even this entire weekend. Here are a few screen grabs from the shoot.

Caged

Trapped

Mistakes

Sunday was spent editing that scene and it cut together nicely. After that I went about compiling and stitching together all the scenes that we've shot, to make it look like one continuing storyline rather than individual scenes clubbed together on a timeline. So far it's working and the first 38 minutes of the movie are essentially locked for now. The task for today is editing another scene that we shot a few weeks back and once that's in place I'll be able to add another 2 scenes to the timeline. All in all - we are halfway through the movie and I'm pretty pleased with the way it is shaping up.

Last night went over to Devonport onto Mt. Victoria {it's more like a hill} to get a view of Auckland City since there were fireworks display at 10.30 PM. I was sort of apprehensive because when it comes to fireworks display Auckland is piss poor and the last couple of times I caught those - they were pretty poor and underwhelming. Thankfully the display was beautiful this time around and definitely worth the long drive onto the shore to get a more panoramic view of the city. Here are some snaps from last night.

Auckland Downtown & Harbour bridge

Fireworks lighting up the sky and water

Travelling through space and time

Mysterious conversations

Time to edit some more.

Later,

Amit

Sichuan in Auckland

2010-01-31T21:14:00.000+13:00

Ever since reading that book on Sichuan cooking by Fuchsia Dunlop, I've been searching for Sichuan eateries in Auckland and needless to say it was hard work trying to track down these restaurants as there are a prolific number of chinese restaurants which offer all kinds of chinese cuisine and thus hard to isolate Sichuan dishes there. After much driving and testing here is my list of Sichuan eating joints that I know off in Auckland. In order to compare them I decided to only try 'Kung Pao' chicken and the rating is out of 5 stars. I've left out service since I ordered most of them as takeaways.

Taste of Sichuan [471 Dominion Road, Mt Eden; 09-6390989]
Taste: 3.5 || Quantity: 4 || Ambiance: 3 || Friendliness: 1.5 || Price: $15-$20
Note: An authentic Sichuan joint. There weren't many people there both times I went there and the customer service was definitely a bit off as I didn't really feel welcome. The additional dish I tried here was Dan-Dan noodles which were yum.

Sichuan Cuisine Chinese Restaurant [95 Anzac Ave, CBD; 09-3091898]
Taste: 3 || Quantity:4 || Ambiance: 3 || Friendliness: 4 || Price: $15-$20
Note: Another authentic Sichuan joint. The place was packed and understandably the order took a while to come even though it was a takeaway {about 25 minutes}. I also tried Dan Dan Noodles but I much preferred the ones from 'Taste of Sichuan' or 'HP8'.

Spicy House [557 Dominion Road, Mt Eden; 09-6315128]
Taste: 2 || Quantity:4 || Ambiance: 3 || Friendliness: 4 || Price: $8-$15
Note: Not sure if it is authentic Sichuan{maybe it is} as I didn't taste any sichuan pepper in my dish and I couldn't find Dan Dan Noodles. Superfast service with very generous serving and very reasonably priced. The place is small but was packed every single time I went there.

HP8 [49 Nuffield Street, Newmarket; 09-524 8488]
Taste: 4 || Quantity:4 || Ambiance: 4 || Friendliness: 4 || Price: $20-$25
Note: Authentic Sichuan place with nice ambiance. Dan Dan Noodles were awesome and were only $4 for a bowl - which more than fills you up as a snack. Overall slightly more expensive restaurant but the ambiance and the food more than make up for it.

Sichuan in Remuera [333 Remuera Road, Remuera; 09-5233038]
Taste: 2.5 || Quantity:3 || Ambiance: 3.5 || Friendliness: 4 || Price: $15-$20
Note: Pretty disappointed with the dish actually - it wasn't spicy at all even though it tasted alright. The place has decent ambiance and people were starting to stream in but doesn't make up for the average dish. Maybe they have some other specialty dish.

Sichuan Restaurant [31-33 Broadway, Newmarket; 09-5231668]
Taste: 4 || Quantity:4 || Ambiance: 4 || Friendliness: 4 || Price: $20-$25
Note: Nice ambiance and it was busy when I went there. Pretty helpful staff. The menu didn't have any chinese dish names written on it - which is surprising considering that all the customers in the restaurant was chinese {bar me}. And I asked the staff taking my order about 'Dan Dan' noodles since they weren't on the menu but apparently they do make them. The noodles were alright but not like HP8's dan-dan noodles. The same restaurant has a branch in Glenfield {75G Porana Road, Glenfield; 09-4409642} for anyone wanting to check out the cuisine on the north shore.

It's been a expensive effort because of the price of the dishes, so I am leaving out one of the more central restaurants {Imperial Sichuan - listed below} and I also found a few more restaurants which are not as central and handy as the one's above but the list is as follows and I'll try them if I change upon them in my travels {or alternately you can post a rating in the comments if you've been to the restaurant}.

Imperial Sichuan Restaurant [164, Parnell Road, Parnell; 09-3089689]

Sichuan Steamboat [525-529, Ellerslie-Panmure Highway, Mt. Wellington]

Sichuan Restaurant [50B, Cavendish Drive, Manukau; 09-2637273]

Genius Chinese Sichuan Treats [115, Onehunga Mall, Onehunga; 09-6364284]

My pick of the lot - HP8 and then Sichuan Restaurant on Broadway. It's not somewhere where I'd eat everyday because of the prices but definitely worth going once in a while.

Till later,

Amit

Falling off the map: Some lonely places of the world

2010-01-23T20:20:00.001+13:00

Finished reading 'Falling off the map: Some lonely places of the world' by Pico Iyer & it turned out to be an enjoyable journey through 1989/1990/1991 through various lonely places like North Korea, Paraguay, Bhutan among others. The writing style is unique because of the sarcastic and observational humor & it does take a little getting used to before you truly start enjoying those experiences. I am now a fan of Pico Iyer's travel writing and I'll see if I can track down some more of his books at the library.

To me - one of the lonely places of the world is our own mind. I think even though we are social animals the increasing pressures of modern world {and our own prejudices} are making us more and more lonely. And as a result the physical social connections are being replaced by virtual social connections like online gaming, chats etc. And strange as it might seem - even though we are more & more connected to billions of people via technology, we seem to be heading towards a more lonely place in our minds. 'Solitude' and 'Loneliness' are essentially the same thing with our attitude & beliefs towards it changing the meaning of the words from 'solitude' to 'loneliness' and vice versa. Hopefully more and more people decide to choose 'solitude' over 'loneliness' as I think it's the healthier of the two. Talking of solitude - I watched a documentary called 'Encounters at the End of the World' by Werner Herzog and it definitely defines solitude in a visual form. Highly recommended watch as it is hauntingly beautiful and raises some very interesting questions from within.

Last week, I've had a script meeting on 'Apsara' and the next draft is due from Angelique in a fortnight or so and I am looking forward to it since the meeting turned out to be a fantastic brain storming session with lots of relevant and positive feedback passed onto Angelique to strengthen the story. I've got a script from Mr. Mamea to read through and I've been dragging my feet because of the hectic time schedules but I intend to get onto it this coming week.

Also next weekend planning on filming another scene for 'Moments' and once that is filmed and edited, I'll be able to lock down the first 40-50 minutes of the movie. Working without money on a small movie like this is hard work and I've got to keep reminding myself as to why I started the project in the first place and keep pushing myself to finish it, even though from time to time the challenges and circumstances tempt me to just abandon the project. But due to some faulty genetic wiring in my head I can't just abandon the project. So even though the project is going way slower than I had anticipated and planned, I am still determined to have it finished this year.

Thats me for now.
Till later,
Amit

Mt. Ruapehu Climb

2010-01-11T17:25:00.004+13:00

WOW, What a weekend it's turned out to be. Kit, Sara, Kelly & me climbed Mt. Ruapehu - the highest mountain on North Island - all 2797 meters of it. Oh and it's an active volcano. :-)

It might be easier to recount the experiences if I break them down into days since it was quite an experience. And a quick note - All photos are enlargeable by clicking on them.

Day-1 {Friday} THE WAIT
Friday turned out to be the agonizing waiting day. The plan was to leave Auckland around 12.30PM, so as to reach Ohakune by 5.30-6.00 in the evening and have an early night's sleep as we planned on starting the climb of Mt. Ruapehu at 2.00 AM in order to catch the sunrise at the top. But boy did the plan fall flat on it's face. We were taking Kit's car but he had booked it in for a service on the day - which threw the time out big time as the mechanic kept postponing the time when the car would delivered. It was constant text and phone calls between Kelly {Sara was at Kelly's place}, Kit & me and it felt like we would have to cancel the program altogether because of the delays but we finally managed to get going around 6.30 PM.

Sara kicks an embarrassed Kit as Kelly smiles

Happy to finally be on the road

Kit driving us to Ohakune

Long journeys can be boring

Something obviously amused me

A religious biker - you don't find many of those around

The drive itself was pretty uneventful and we had a dinner break at Te Kuiti before heading on towards Ohakune. The one observation that we did make was that we would come across 1 car every 5 KM in the stretch between Te Kuiti and Taumarunui - a distance of 65KM. Things you do to pass time. :-) We got to Ohakune at 11.00 PM which meant that we could get about an hour and half's sleep {after accounting for the time to settle in and fall asleep} before we had to get up at 1.00 AM in order to start the 2.00 AM climb.

Day-2 {Saturday} THE CLIMB

All of us woke up on time and got out of the house at 1.30PM. The good thing about climbing the mountain is that you don't have to start at the absolute bottom. There are car parks at 1600m level - which is the starting point even during the winter skiing season. On the way to the car park,we spotted 2 wild deer, which is pretty unsual and we were excited about that and that definitely put us in the right frame of mind for the climb. The last time I was at Mt. Ruapehu was in August 2005 during the winter season and I didn't know what to expect in the summer season, especially since we couldn't see the 'bigger picture' in the dark, with our head lamps. Kit had a spare ice axe which he gave to me and gave me a quick tutorial on how to use it to make footholds in the ice, break a fall etc.

Wild deer in the headlights

At the car park in pitch black

Kelly with a head lamp

It's a good thing we couldn't really see too much otherwise the height of the mountain might have daunted us. The only person in the group who had done the climb before was Kit and we were following his lead.It was a hard walk and we took a few breaks from time to time to get used to the thinner air and the falling temperature. It was a challenging climb moving from loose rock to more firm footing to ice to loose rocks again. Kit decided to carry a thermos of hot coffee while I carried a thermos of hot tea and it was nice being able to drink something warm when everything else was freezing. It is extremely hard drinking water since it gets so cold up there and all you can do is take small swigs from time to time.

Kit enjoying hot coffee

Sara enjoying Hot Tea

Kelly taking a break

The Mountain & The Moon

Climbing in darkness

Breaking Dawn

The night started breaking around 4AM and we started wondering if we had miscalculated the sunrise. At the same time we were doing good pace and we were wondering if we'd get to the top before the actual sunrise but Kit kept us focussed and on track by telling us that it'd get really steep towards the top and it would take us a lot more time towards the top. And he was right. We also changed our direction slightly to move towards the east side of the mountain, so we wouldn't miss the sunrise if we had indeed miscalculated.

Sara and Kelly take a breather

Kit finds a good route

Bird's eye view from the top

The ascent continues

2/3rd of our way up the mountain, Kelly started feeling unwell because of lack of sleep combined with the physical exertion and the height and temperature, so Kit asked her to turn back and return to shelter - the last {first from top of the mountain} chairlift station. Once Kelly started her descent back - Sara, Kit and me continued towards the peak and we caught the sunrise from near top.

Sunrise over Mt. Ruapehu

Light spreading over the land

We still had a little bit to climb and it was probably the hardest part of the climb.It was like a sheer wall and to add to the challenge it was pretty stony - small stones with big stones, so it was hard to get solid footholds to keep climbing easily. You basically have to use your entire body to crawl up. There were atleast 2 'Oh Shit' moments for me as the stones slipped away from under my feet and I was scrambling on quickly with my hands to hold onto dear life. One mistake up there and it's pretty easy to fall to your death. It's also amazing that in moments of danger your whole being kicks into another gear and you start doing things instinctively - in survival mode. Another thing that changed suddenly was the wind had picked up going from West to East and it was beating us into the mountain. It made the final ascent extremely hard.

Taking a photograph up on the mountain meant a long hard struggle to remove your gloves, unzip the camera bag, switch on the camera, compose a shot, take a snap, while keeping balance on uneven terrain while bracing against the wind & then putting the camera back and putting on the gloves back on again. Something so simple became such a big challenge in the extreme conditions at top of the mountain. So needless to say I value all the picks taken on this trip - especially the ones on the mountain during the climb.

Once we got to the top - we took a short break on the north side of the mountain, behind a small rock outcrop. It protected us from the wind and then we decided to walk across towards the main crater.

We take a breather behind the rock outcrop before heading towards the crater

Sky opening up

This was probably the most memorable part of the climb because it was a bigger challenge than any of us had anticipated. Kit was leading the way and because he was experienced on ice - he was making good ground but I was struggling against the strong winds as I was cutting in footholds in the ice on either side of the mountain as we were on the ridge and Sara was behind me {and she didn't have an ice axe}. Half way on the ridge - the wind really picked up speed and I was finding it harder and harder to make footholds as my face and tip of the fingers {even though I was wearing gloves} started going numb in the freezing winds and the sheer drops on either side of the mountain started playing on my mind. The problem was that there was no way you could take a break without freezing yourself on the top,so I looked around to see how Sara was doing and she was sitting down with one leg on either side of the mountain. I didn't feel like continuing any further and asked her about her thoughts and she said that she didn't mind going back down. On the mountain- one has to work with the conditions and it is better to be safe than sorry because there is literally no room for mistake. And with the wind really bashing our already tired bodies, it seemed more sensible to turn back rather than being fool hardy and continuing on. So we yelled out to Kit and told him that it would be better to go back as we didn't feel we could make the journey across the ridge successfully. Kit agreed to the assessment and so we turned back.

The descent begins

We started making our way back. If you are an experienced climber or trekker, you would know that the descent is always harder than the ascent. The ascent might take more time but the descent is where your endurance is really tested. Plus you are using an entirely different set of body muscles to balance yourselves as you try to climb down.The top of the moutain was again the hardest bit to climb down as you get used to shifting your centre of gravity and also the loose rocks combined with the super steep mountain side. Sara was like a race horse and she did awesome time climbing down and was ahead of us while Kit tried dragging himself down across the snow to save on clambering down the hard bits but he had to give up after a while and return to clambering down the rocks as he was feeling tired and didn't have enough strength left to support the fall of his whole body.

Mt. Taranaki in the distance

Back towards the Turoa side

We chanced upon 2 climbers around the half way mark as they were making the way to the top. The knees felt like jelly by the time we all caught up at the closed cafe on the mountain. Kelly was feeling a lot better and it was good that she did not sccumb to falling asleep as that would have been bad at that height. After eating some food and catching a break we continued our journey downwards and it was pretty uneventful for rest of the way down. I did get teased for wearing a pair of jeans for climbing. :-)

Crossing paths with some climbers

Kelly relieved while Kit takes a sip

After drinking last of the tea - which had gone cold after the climb to the top

Kit, Kelly & Sara looking back at what we had climbed

A successful ascent completed - the team @ the car park

All of us were thrilled that we had actually achieved what we set out to do. The whole climb had taken us about 7.5 hours round trip and a few congratulations later, we were back to the chalet in Ohakune to catch up on some much needed sleep.

View of Mt. Ruapehu from the chalet we were staying at

Ohakune town centre

We slept for 4 hours odd before we grabbed a bite to eat and then headed out to Tokaanu, an hour north of Ohakune, where the hot pools are located to relax our battered bodies. It definitely did us heaps of good as it relaxed the muscles. We took the long route back to Ohakune via the Desert Road, which is weirdly scenic. It's rugged landscape has it's own charm. The only thing I remember after that is that we grabbed dinner at one of the restaurants and I was asleep as soon as I hit the bed - an added factor to it would have been the severe cold I had picked up from the mountain climb.

Kit smiling at the mountain

Celebrating the climb and the trip to the hot pools with a drink

Desert Road

Power lines

Rugged NZ Landscape

DAY-3 (Sunday) THE RETURN

I woke up feeling much better at 6.30AM, which meant my body clock was almost back in synch. Kelly, Sara and Kit woke up in their own time and we cleaned up the chalet, which Kit's family {& Kit} had let us use for the trip. All of us had a good banter and great laughs on the way back - which made the journey back seem shorter.

Kit signing off on the calender detailing the successful climb

On Kelly's suggestion we stopped over at Waitomo to get some information about the caves and ended up doing an impromptu glow worm cave tour. It was fantastic and it's a pity that we were only allowed to take photos at the end of the tour, away from the main glow worm formations. It definitely whetted my appetite and I might go back later at some point to do their longer 4 hour abseiling adventure you go in deeper underground and explore the cave systems. We grabbed lunch at a cafe {I think it was called HuHu cafe} just down the road from the information centre. The service was extremely slow and the portions were small but it had an awesome spot and it was a good break to our return journey.

Waiting to get into the glow worm caves

Towards the end of the cave

The stalactites

Getting out from the cave

We got back to Auckland in the evening and after that it was farewell time, with the next trip being planned in Feb for doing Tongariro crossing {might add in climbing Mt. Ngauruhoe to make it more interesting and challenging} - supposed to be one of the best 1 day hikes in NZ. Overall it was an awesome adventure with friends and I am filled with a sense of achievement and excitement.

Now it's back to the humdrum of Auckland till the next trip.

Amit

Fantastic Mr. Fox & Sichuan Pepper

2010-01-07T22:39:00.005+13:00

I picked up a book at random from the library as it looked interesting. It was called 'Shark's Fin & Sichuan Pepper' by Fuchsia Dunlop. That was a day and half back and I've finished reading the book. It is compelling, funny, insightful and a real page turner. It's a highly recommended read for those wanting to get an insight into China - through their food, obviously. The biggest compliment I can give to the book is that it wanted me to search out Sichuan restaurants in Auckland and give them a go. There are also a couple of reciepes from the book I intend to try -especially 'Dan Dan Noodles'.

I watched a few movies in the meantime - 'Choke' {dark adult humor topped by Sam Rockwell's performance}; 'King of Kong' {a documentary which had me looking up the latest Donkey Kong records} and most recently 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' - which is one of the most charming and funny movies that I've seen in a while. The stop animation, the style, the pacing, the humor, the voice work -everything is top notch. A highly recommended watch. If you don't walk out with a grin on your face then something in you has died a long time ago. :-)

Tomorrow I'm going with a few friends to Ohakune - which is central north island and on saturday morning we will be hiking up Mt. Ruapehu. The weather forecast is good and I am out of my comfort zone as it's my first proper mountain hike - a fantastic combination to prepare for the Mt. Kinabalu climb in April.

Later,
Amit

Resolutions

2010-01-02T17:25:00.002+13:00

A New Year is a time for resolutions and I'm usually pretty good at keeping them. 'Memories of Tomorrow' started as a new year resolution in 2004. I just did a quick search on the interwebs and found this article. Out of the top 3 resolutions that people make - I am going in the opposite direction on 2 of them {while the third one is invalid as I don't smoke and I don't intend on taking up smoking}.

1) I don't want to loose weight. I am happy with my weight. My resolution though is to loose more body fat %age. Last year my aim was to get it down to 15% by the end of the year and I achieved it. This year the target is to get it down to between 8-10% - which automatically leads to the next resolution.
2) I don't want to exercise more. I 've infact reworked my fitness schedule so I'll be spending half the time that I spent at the gym last year. The key is increasing the intensity in the 1 hour at the gym, so I'm not overtraining myself - which leads to more injuries and muscle loss and is also detrimental to health in the long run. I'm also cutting down the active workout days from 6 to 4.

And the last resolution for 2010 that is not fitness related is to finish off 'The Moments In Between' by August 2010. Voila!!!!

That's me for now,
Amit

I'm good, Thank you.

2010-01-01T20:15:00.003+13:00

People who wish me 'Happy New Year', in person, must think I am a retard {sorry correction - mentally challenged} or something. I'm usually so startled by that unfamiliar phrase that I end up looking blank and after a minute I leave the person confounded by saying 'I'm good, Thank you.'

Why am I startled? I don't know - maybe because I've been working through the holidays {to save up for my Borneo trip} and for me - today is just another day. I'll eventually get used to the greeting and will probably start saying it as well out of courtesy in following social norms but it's still a pretty bizarre phrase to me right now. I am not mentally challenged - I am just stunned. Like I said 'I'm good, thank you.'

Here's to a great 2010.
Amit

Year End

2009-12-29T12:29:00.003+13:00

I sold off my Polaroid camera as I've been using my LX3 more and more and I can't justify keeping 2 cameras and also lugging them around with me on my travels. So farewell Polaroid. Here is what one of my bedroom wall looks like thanks to Polaroid.

It's my first day off in a while and I am just chilling out even though I've got to digitize and edit the scene that we shot most recently. I guess I'll get to it either tonight or tomorrow. Watched a couple of new releases recently ' Sherlock Holmes' {alright movie with fantastic character work from Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.} & a swedish movie called 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' {fantastic in every sense of the word}. And currently reading a book called ' My Desert Kingdom' which is proving to be an interesting read.

Going to the movies over the holiday season is crazy - the cinemas are packed and you get to see a lot of interesting characters & people. One of them was this girl who was standing in the line behind me along with her boy friend. For the 15 minutes that they did stand in the line -she was constantly nagging and annoying her boy friend on why she doesn't watch any movie. It was amusing for 5 minutes but after that you wanted her to shut up and wait for her turn or just go home. I think the boy friend got fed up after 15 minutes, so they left the queue. Another interesting character was a guy sitting 2 seats to my right, who brought into the cinema hall his own stock of whisky and soda and a full meal packed into his backpack - which he finished through out the movie. So no more movies at the cinemas for me till the end of the holiday season.

Hope you are having a good holiday season.

Later,

Amit

Holiday Work

2009-12-22T20:59:00.005+13:00

The year seems to flying past faster than I give it credit for. The business presentation went really well and I am pretty happy with how it shaped out in the end. The next major thing I can remember after that is the shoot for Tessa. Tessa wanted to make a video for her Phd presentation and that involved me sitting behind a red screen and then do a narration afterwards. Angelique and Xien helped out with that and it was good fun. Here is an image from that shoot (courtesy: Angelique)

Silhouette mine

One of the fun processes for making a shoot happen on 'Moments' is the borrowing of cameras and radio mics and I've been lucky that I've had supportive friends. I had to go and pick up one of the cameras from Simon but ended up having a few drinks at Dan's party, which is where Simon had lodged himself and it turned out to be just what I needed to relax a little so I could plan the shoot for 'Moments' between Tarun, Lorraine & Matt on sunday.

Mike Lowe & me having a chat while Simon poses

Enjoying the afternoon sun and a conversation

The sunday shoot turned out to be lots of fun even though it was an improvisational scene. Tarun was funny as hell and there were a few points where I couldn't control my laughter even though I was behind the camera. Alan George - a guy I met on the shoot of 'Rhodes 2' did the second camera and I am yet to digitize the footage but know from the shoot that we have enough material for me to edit a nice scene together.

Straight after the shoot was a drive to Lance's parents place for a christmas dinner with them and Tania & Andrew and Lance & Tai & her mom. It was an amazing evening with lots of great food and great conversations and laughs. Here are some pics from the evening.

Gorgeous Sunday afternoon

Tania, Andrew & Lance

Tai's mum, Tai & Tina

Chris looking through binoculars

Through the looking glass

Chris cooking some sausages

After the feast

Clouds rising

Andrew, Tania, Tina & Chris while sharing puzzles and stories

Tai's mum, Tai & Lance

Tai & me - she is not that tall - she is standing on a couch. :-)

Watched 3 movies recently - 'Avatar'; 'Observe & Report' & 'The Wackness' - Avatar was an amazing 3-D experience but the story was pretty average and predictable. It's a good watch in 3-D is all I can say. 'Observe & Report' was pure genius and so was Ben Kingsley in 'The Wackness'. Next up is 'Sherlock Holmes' when it releases later this week.

I finally did a fitness test after 2 weeks of recovery from my left shoulder injury and it was a mixed one but tending towards positive for most of the part. My weight is 65 KG's but my body fat %age has gone down to 15% {from 16.5%} which means I have gained more muscle mass. The downside of the test was my VO2 max levels - which have gone down to 48 {from 49.8} and I guess I need to jump straight back into getting my cardio levels up again after this extended break.

That's me for now.

Till later,

Amit

December in the park

2009-12-13T20:55:00.000+13:00

It's been an incredibly busy period since my last post. I had a very short notice surprise audition come up as the actor who was originally cast for that part couldn't do the part because of personal health reasons. I did get the part and did a 1 day shoot on the TV feature and that turned out to be a fantastic experience. The other audition that I did went well and that again was a fun experience.

Since the work on 'Moments' has slowed down in terms of production, I decided that a way to speed up the process in the overall scheme of things would be to start compiling the scenes that have already been shot and edited to find out where the holes are and what needs to be done to fill those up. One of the holes was covering up dialog cuts in the scene between Tarun and me, so I went and got some pickup shots at 'The Whitehouse' as we didn't get any cut aways the first time round when we shot the scene there. We'll be shooting one more scene next sunday, which is a meaty scene and that should give me some consolation about the pace of the project. It's been a hard year but after the past couple of weeks I am declaring my year closed on a high note. Anything good that might happen between now and end of 2009 is a bonus. 2010 here I come.

Friday evening was the staff Christmas party and there wasn't anything terribly exciting that happened at the party. Yesterday I had a long overdue catchup with David & Christina and it was nice way to spend Saturday morning and afternoon. In the evening, I went to 'Christmas in the Park' along with Benji and it was bizarre event. There was something terribly off with the whole vibe of the event - it was like one huge coca cola commercial. It's supposed to be a family event but then you look around and see people getting boozed and stoned while kids and teenagers are running around. Both Benji and me almost got food poisoning over there when the thai stall served half cooked chicken skewers and they gave replacement sticks that were half cooked as well. The jerky pork kebabs from the Jamaican food stall more than made up for the earlier culinary misadventure. But to be on the safe side Benji and me decided to get a tequila shot on our way back, to negate the one bite of half cooked chicken that we had earlier.

Christmas in the Park

Beautiful sunset

Auckland Hospital

Distant viewings

Walk back

Grafton Cemetery

Bunch of people enjoying the cool air

The tequila shot

Earlier this afternoon, had a picnic lunch at Grafton Road cemetery which Angelique organized. It was an odd choice of location but a good one. It is bang in the middle of the city but it has so many trees and is pretty quite. It was an opportunity to catch up Tessa after ages and also got to meet Angelique's boy friend besides meeting some very interesting people.

Picnic at Grafton Cemetery

Sunshine

Sun and Shade

Flowers over a grave

Angelique & Kelly

Anna & Xien

Me & Tessa

End of picnic

And now it's heads down, preparing for the business project presentation that I've got to give to the TVNZ top brass tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Later,

Amit

Movies and all that stuff

2009-12-02T06:40:00.000+13:00

My age and look and ethnicity means that auditions are far and few in between. I consider myself lucky even if I get 3-4 auditions a year, so it was pretty frutrating only having 2 audition till Oct and then suddenly having a couple of auditions come up while I was overseas. Typical huh!!! Well I had another audition recently and it went really well, even though I didn't get the part. As an actor - the best thing is to prepare well for the audition, give it your best shot and forget all about it as soon as you walk out of the audition room. If you get a follow up call then good for you otherwise you just carry on as if nothing has happened. I've got another audition this year, so I am pretty happy that this year will end with atleast 4 chances to showcase myself to casting directors.

'Rejected' is in the freezer as it has nowhere to go right now and the script is not in a position I want it to be and the script development process is extremely slow. The best option was to put it on freeze and concentrate on the existing project and other potential projects. Off the potential projects - 'Apsara' has got some legs and it is currently in active development. The script is by Angelique - a close friend and an ex-film school mate and it is being produced by Paula Jones. The script is funny, quirky and has a visual flair and it matches up with everything I want to explore and I guess I'm lucky that the script wasn't already picked up by someone else. More on that in coming months.

The production on 'Moments' is going slower than anticipated because of the holiday season combined with the usual scheduling conflicts associated with 'no budget' movies. Instead of stressing out about it, I'm just playing it by the ear and going with the flow. All this obviosuly means that we won't finish the movie in March'10 as originally planned and it might get pushed back by a few months.

An independent writer was in constant contact with me via email wanting to see if I wanted to direct her script in 2010 with a very miniscule budget. I said no to it because I wasn't getting answers to all the questions I was asking about the project and that's never a good sign. Topped up with unclear roles and responsibilities it was a disaster waiting to happen & all this without even seeing the script itself. After a lot of thought I wrote a very detailed mail as to why I can't accept the project and the response I got made me crack up laughing and I subsequently deleted all the emails related to the project. The final email from the writer/producer goes like this
"Subject: Re:Hey AMIT, in CONFIDENCE
Morning Amarbir, thanks again for the email - much appreciated, all the best for your future endeavours:-).
Kind regards"
Amarbir is another Indian film maker based in Auckland and he is also a good friend of mine. So she obviously asked Amarbir about directing the movie as well or her next person to ask is Amarbir or maybe she confused me for Amarbir all along. I don't know and I don't care. :-)

I scored a couple of free passes to NZ Premiere of 'Morris: A Life with Bells on' - a UK indie movie. The writer/main actor was there for Q&A, so I went along last night and it turned out to be a small but funny movie. Definitely worth a watch. It definitely puts a grin on your face.

That's me for now,
Amit

Weekend in photos

2009-11-29T18:52:00.004+13:00

The weekend has been long and fantastic so I'll try and let the photos do all the talking for the most part. And to get things started here are a few arty pics I took over the weekend time frame with the theme being 'RED'

FRIDAY NIGHT:
Lippizanears play Jazz Music @ Wine Cellar Backroom. Underground music scene with the musicians improvising the pieces in front of a live audience. Fantastic music and a very unique experience. Also got to catch up with Tahi {one of the actors from 'FIVE'} as well as Andrew {one of the composers on 'FIVE'}.

To the Wine Cellar

Improvised music gig

Symphony of sound captivating the audience

SATURDAY MORNING:
I had to cancel this weekend's shoot and the workshop because of continuity issues with the talent. It looks like the next window of opportunity to shoot that scene will be somewhere late in December and if not in February. Canceled shoot meant I could attend the Grey Lynn Festival. Awesome food stalls and I tried atleast 6 different kinds of cuisines. I wanted to try more but my tummy was full. Some awesome drum pieces from different bands and some unique stalls where you could pick up some cool stuff. It wasn't cheap though and I managed to pick up 2 very small items that I needed for my room for $2 each.

Kids gravitating towards the drums

An artist making a sculpture

Hungarian Candy

People just chilling

Food stalls

A drumming band captivate the audience

Knights and kids

Group drumming

People checking out the stalls

Walking

Hula Hoops

Craft stalls

The main stage and the people

SATURDAY EVENING:
Boxing class as usual which also turned out to be one of the toughest classes in a long time. After the boxing class - the core bunch of us who have been doing it for a while went out for some drinks on Sale St. Cool venue - expensive but a good vibe and the food was awesome. Ended up coming home around 12.00 at night.

Steven, Kit and Kelly

Dennis waiting for the food to come through

Kit obviously telling something exciting to Kelly

People on the dance floor

Kelly, Sara and their friend {I can't remember his name} enjoying the amped up music

Me sharing a laugh

Dark and mysterious

Walking towards the car

SUNDAY MORNING:
The first order of the day was a catch up meeting with Kathryn - who is one of the country's top script writers and was also my colleague when we were teaching at South Seas. We hadn't caught up properly in almost a year and a bit, so it was a breakfast at The Fridge in Kingsland. The Chicken n' mushroom pie at that place is amazing. Very divine and one of the best pies I've ever had. Also bumped into Richard - one of the producers on 'Nowhere to Love' - the project that I was doing that got shelved in 2006. It was brief since he was rushing off somewhere but we intend on catching up sometime soon.

Quite morning in Kingsland

The Fridge

Sunday afternoon went into grocery shopping and doing some cooking. And earlier this evening I went and had drinks at The Malt, as Dave de Lautour - one of my friends {who was in the same acting class for a while} had come visiting Auckland briefly and was returning to LA tomorrow. It was a good catch up as I got to catch up with other friends from the acting class as well as from the film school.

All in all a fantastic weekend.

Time to catch up my beauty sleep as a 6 day week beckons.
Later,
Amit

Transition

2009-11-20T21:48:00.002+13:00

Transition is permanent and I am caught up in it's tides.
Nothing seems permanent,
except for each moment that ticks by.
A speck of dust in this cosmos,
so insignificant and so adrift
moving away from everything
like the stars in the crying sky.

Space

2009-11-13T22:16:00.004+13:00

A very small and quick update. I am fine. The journey was long but uneventful. I love Hong Kong airport. Watched 'The Brothers Bloom' and '500 Days of Summer' on the flight from HK to Auckland and slept for the rest of it. The girl sitting next to me was fun to talk to. It took a day for me to get over the jet lag and just getting used to the space and the order in NZ. First day at work was cool - just slipping back into the thick of things. First day at the gym was hard work and could only manage 30 minutes of cardio and I definitely need to work harder to even get back to the fitness levels before this trip.

That's me for now.
Amit

Farewell India

2009-11-10T12:51:00.000+13:00

'Khansama' was a no go since it was a very small restaurant and we ended up going to 'Terrace Bay' in Punjagutta and it was a fantastic experience as the food was by far the best I've had in Hyderabad - that's besides mum's home cooked food. The ambience was nice and the service was impeccable. The only negative point I can think of is that even though it is called the Terrace Bay - there aren't any views to boast of - if only it was a couple of floors higher. Recommended starters Goulauti Kebab and Patiala Tangdi.

The last 2 days have been pretty weird for me - on one hand I've been mentally preparing myself for the grind as soon as I get back and on the other hand there is this sense of sadness about leaving mum and dad. I guess it is a good decision on my part to visit them every year - that's the least I can do at this point. The last couple of days disappeared into packing up and also saying farewells to everone either in person or on the phone.

In those 2 days I also managed to sneak in one more telugu movie 'Pokiri' {after abandoning 2 movies after 30 minutes or so as they were boring and nothing happened in those 30 minutes} - it was a popcorn flick and was entertaining for what it was but the problem I have with movies like that is the unrealistic expression of violence. The hero can single handedly kill 100 odd goons without breaking a sweat or spoiling his perfect hair style after a massive 10 minute fight. The other thing that struck me was that most of the female roles in bollywood movies are pretty minimal. The heroine is required to dance in a couple of songs; be able to first hate the hero and then fall in love with him without any emotional reasoning; and then should fall into distress so that the hero can come and save her. There are variations to those simple combinations but most of the movies do tend to do that - atleast all the ones I saw followed that pattern, I am generalizing and there are movies which do actually give the females an emotional arc and a better tie into the story but in general it reflects on the gender equation within the Indian society. Maybe I should try my hand at making a 'masala movie' and see how much I can enhance that equation. :-)

Today dad came down with severe cold, so only mum came to drop me off at the airport. The drive to the airport is now much quicker because of a new expressway which cuts about 20 minutes off the journey time but it is still a pain driving 30KM odd from the city to get to the airport. It was a quick drop off and I had to ask mum not to cry as otherwise I'd have cried as well. Hyderabad Airport has free 45 minutes internet access for travelers but the only hiccup was that you needed a cellphone number for them to send you login details - if you are using it for the first time. Apparently it is for security purposes but in a way it is silly because what if the international traveler doesn't have a local cellphone on which to send the login details to?

On the domestic flight I got a pleasant surprise as sridevi akka's husband was there, going to Bombay a.k.a Mumbai as well. We caught up at Mumbai airport briefly before we parted ways and I caught the free transit bus from the domestic airport to the international airport.My onwards flight to Hong Kong is not till 4.00 AM, which means I am here writing this from the waiting lounge in Mumbai Airport {no free internet access, so will be posting this once I get to Hong Kong} after finishing all the security checks and immigration requirements. My initial impression of Mumbai airport when I first arrived in India was pretty bad because of the state of the arrival lounge and all the construction going on outside but the departure section of the airport is actually quite good. Pretty flash I must say and I wasn't expecting that. I don't think i'll be able to sleep till I get onto the flight, so I'll just be drinking lots of water and doing some work.

My India trip this time has been fantastic in a very different sort of way. This is the first time in ages that I've spent so much time with my family and it felt really good even though I remained at home most of the time {instead of travelling heaps}. There were times when I was exasperated at the things around me but it was still good being in the midst of all that was happening. I got to know more about my family and also learnt a few things about myself - like i've changed a lot in the past 6 years; i was a pampered child in many ways when I was studying {i guess because I am the only child} etc. Most of all it cleared up some things in my head about things I need to improve and change within myself to become a better person.

Farewell India, for now.
Amit

Food and more movies

2009-11-08T08:10:00.001+13:00

Hyderabad is famous for various things but in terms of eating the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is Hyderabadi Biryani. Biryani from Paradise Restaurant is supposed to be really good but I tried it last year and I was pretty disappointed as it was nothing special and this time I decided to try some from Four Seasons Restaurant {they have a branch in Kondapur} and the biryani was amazing. I'd rate it 9/10 in terms of taste, texture and value for money and definitely a must try if you are in Hyderabad. The other restaurants I've tried are Blue Fox, Blue, Ginger Court & Angeethi - and of those I'd recommend Angeethi as the food tasted nice and the ambience was nice as well. Planning on trying out Khansama later this evening and will update this post to reflect on that experience. All in all the food the Hyderabadi food is amazing but the city needs to open up it's palate a bit more to give international cuisine like japanese, thai, vietnamese, indonesian etc a chance to titilate the taste buds.

Dad arranged for a driver to drive me around yesterday, as I am now completely useless at driving anything in India because of the chaotic traffic and lack of regard for any kind of road rules. The idea was to take a few snaps at Charminar and Hussain Sagar Lake before finishing off the rest of my shopping. I finally managed to take a few snaps that gives some inkling about life in Hyderabad. It was a saturday morning, so it's not crowded much which explains the empty space in the photos. Incidentally - this is the only city where I can use all the 3 languages I know while conversing with anyone and I do like that.

Sleeping under the tree

Fruit vendors setting up shop

A foreign documentary crew interviewing some cops

Street Vendors

Charminar

Lazy Saturday morning

Horses and Bikes

Traditional rural dress - Dhoti-Kurta

Fishing in the polluted stream

Afternoon nap

Traversing the streets

It's metal alright!!

Taking a break

Push cart in the midst of heavy traffic

Hussain Sagar Lake

Connecting the world

Waiting for nothing

Since mum and dad's old DVD player wouldn't play a bunch of DVDs i decided to shop around for a new one and at the electronics store I was switching between all the 3 languages without realizing it since the salesman was doing the same. After purchasing the DVD, I went ahead and purchased a bunch of DVDs so that the DVD player wasn't sitting there in the house just as a show piece. Once I got home I ripped into a bunch of movies. The best of the lot was a telugu movie called 'Gammyam'.

'Gammyam' flowed naturally and it was well acted {without overacting for most part}, well edited and well directed. It was a pleasant surprise as compared to 'Ajab Prem Ki Gajab Kahani' that I watched a couple of days back at IMAX. The other movies I finished watching were 'Sarkar' and 'Shootout at Lokhandwala' - I had started watching those movies when they were screening on TV but had given up on them because of the 15 minute commercial breaks. 'Sarkar' was well shot and well acted but the editing was off because the pace was dead slow because of excessive use of looks and glances. The movie was short as it is at 2 hour run length but if it was paced right it would've been 1.5 hours only. 'Shootout at Lokhandwala' was again well shot but it was an action flick and the shoot out does get pretty mind numbing after a while. Another movie I watched was 'Welcome' - it was a comedy and half the movie was funny and good while the other half just dragged on and on and on. It's almost like the script writers spent most of the time writing the first half of the movie and just mashed together the ending to complete the script.

A thing which throws me off in all Bollywood movies is the dubbed audio. The film makers don't use synch sound while making a movie for obvious reasons - India is too noisy and there is no way that they can get clean sound without a massive production budget. The only movie I know in most recent times that used synch sound is 'Lagaan' and they had budget over runs because of that decision. I am dreading doing ADR for just one of the scenes in 'The Moments In Between' because it is so tedious and hard to capture the same essence and inflictions and meaning to the words recorded in ADR, even though the words are the same as those on location. So I do admire the fact that all the movies here are dubbed over from start to end and for most part the performers and the directors and the sound editors pull off this impossible task with remarkable results. It does get distracting when the words don't match the lip movement and that's something that can't be avoided when dubbing over dialogue and that's the price that bollywood movies pay for having crisp audio.

Anyway, that's me for now.
Later,
Amit

Movie this and movie that

2009-11-07T07:41:00.000+13:00

The past few days have been pretty chilled out. No shopping or outing or anything of that sort - just family time, which also means no photographs. Sridevi akka and me did go to a meeting with a producer from one of the top Telugu movie production houses and it was an interesting meeting.The crux of the meeting was that Telugu cinema is not ready for new stories and only big movies with big name stars sell - even if the story is the same old; and that there is no space for new directors. Hindi cinema has opened up a little and they are more open to new film directors and new stories as they can recoup the costs from screening at multiplexes. Either way forming contacts here would take ages - 6 months and upwards and if you add on the time for getting a movie off the ground it can be anywhere upwards of 2 years before you can even roll the cameras on set. So not an encouraging sign and will have to start thinking on how to raise money from the market here.

We went to see a bollywood movie yesterday evening and the first thing that came to mind was that IMAX was ripping us off in NZ. It costs about NZ$6 to buy an IMAX ticket here while it costs about 3 times that amount in Auckland. And the thing it is no different than the one in Auckland, right down to the seating. Unbelievable isn't it? The movie that we saw was a new release and it was pretty average - all style, not much substance - a masala 'fillum' to the core. I'm definitely not used to the song and dance sequences in movies anymore as they annoy me most of the time they come on as it breaks the flow of the story. If only they moved the story forward or kept the pace going it wouldn't be so big of an issue for me. After watching a couple of hindi movies my impression is that technically they are well made but it is the story and the pacing that they flounder on. In terms of cinematography - most of the movies tend to be shot simply with composed/locked off frames rather than moving image for the most part. It definitely speeds up the shooting rate and probably keeps the costs down. The only place where they go nuts with the camera movement is in the song and dance sequences - to add a dynamic to it obviously.

A noticeable difference in the way movies are now being marketed and sold in India is that the local market is now borrowing heavily from Hollywood style of opening a movie wide and recouping most of the costs within the first 2 weeks. And this is largely due to the fact that Hollywood studios are putting money into Bollywood since the market is huge and they are trying to get a toe hold in the world's largest film producing country. Even 10 years back you would see movie posters boasting that that the movie had completed 100 days or 150 days or 200 days at the cinemas - but not anymore. Now a movie that completes 100 days is a legend. Most of the movies come and go within 3-4 weeks and if it runs beyond that it means that it is super hit. Strange how foreign money has influenced and changed the way indian film industry markets and sells their movies - even though there is not much difference in the product itself.

Reading local newspapers is always interesting. In New Zealand I'd be annoyed that world news wouldn't get as much coverage in print or television and the focus would just be on NZ news but on this trip I realized that it holds true for all countries - the focus is always their own news with foreign news being touched on as an afterthought almost. The only true global TV Channels that I've seen are BBC and CNN as their range of news is worldwide. Reading some of the recent news articles here is worrying to say the least. There are articles like people committing suicide because they are unable to cope with the massive pressure exerted by the system for them to perform according to the system's expectation of them; or that of some farmers using Pepsi mixed with fertilizer to grow a bumper crop at a lower cost as the cost of pesticides is high; or the percieved threat India faces from China in several areas of trade as well as national security; or the increasing internal security threats in the form of naxalites and maoists. It's like the society is reaching a crucial point in time where a major change is bound to happen.

Your best laid plans disappear without a trace in India. I had planned on learning how to cook atleast 4-5 dishes and I had also planned on going to the gym to keep my fitness levels up and also to keep a regulated diet so as not to put on weight. Well the net result of those plans is zilch, nada, nothing. Maybe next time I'll bend the mystical forces at play in India to my will.

It's the last couple of days on this trip with my parents and I'm feeling sad as I feel helpless and useless in doing anything to help solve their worries and their pains. The only thing I can do is take that pain with me to keep reminding myself not to waste the sacrifices they've made ,despite my faults and shortcomings, to get me to the point where I am today.

Till later,
Amit

Hyderabad Again

2009-11-01T11:58:00.000+13:00

Yellow

Team Work

A rose

Last couple of days in Vijayawada were uneventful and basically spent lazing around. There was some last minute shopping on Saturday evening for vegetables, snacks and a set of clothes. The highlight of saturday was the trip to the vegetable market. It was an experience - it was dusty, it was crowdy, it was noisy and it was stinky - a complete sensory overload. Probably not the best place to buy vegetables but they are very cheap there and I guess that's the reason everyone goes there. It has been one of my better Vijayawada trips as I didn't fall sick this time around and i'll miss the hospitality and the family time more than anything else.

A guy selling green chillies

Local Vegetable market

No one buying his vegies

Crowds doing their vegetable shopping

The train journey back was not enjoyable again even though the condition of the train was heaps better than the last one. This was because they didn't switch on the AC even though it was an AC compartment. It's very annoying and wish there was some kind of customer complaint service to address that problem. But knowing India - even if there was such a system the complaint book would either be ignored or lost or be tampered with and the problem would still remain.

I much prefer the weather in Hyderabad to Vijayawada as it isn't humid and it is actually easier to breath. Since this morning I've had a trip to a local eating joint to get some breakfast and a trip to the barbers to get my hair shortened. Breakfast is cheap - NZ$0.80 for a dosa {as compared to NZ$8 and upwards for a dosa in Auckland} and it just makes me wonder if I should get into food business back in NZ since there seems to be huge profit margins.

My hair seemed to grow faster this time around and I've had to go for a hair cut within a month as opposed to every 6-7 weeks when in NZ. The barber was again cheap with the trip costing me $2.50 for a hair cut and shave while a hair cut alone costs NZ$15 and upwards in NZ. The experience was interesting though- I've got a massive scar at the back of my head from an operation when I was a kid and my regular barber in Auckland usually takes care to cut the hair in such a way that most of the scar is covered up but here the barber just went all out and trimmed the whole lot so now my massive scar is on wholesome display. :-) And the shave - holy crap - it felt like he shaved my whole face. I am afraid I'll now turn into a werewolf or something when the hair regrows.

Most of my shopping is done and only very small things remain, so the rest of this week is going into socialzing and doing important house work.It's hard to believe that the holidays are coming to an end so soon. I'll try and take more photos in Hyderabad, where my photo tally stands at a grand total of 15.

That's me for now.
Amit

Temple!!!

2009-10-29T11:25:00.001+13:00

Ever since I've been here, mum has been trying to convince me to visit a temple and I've been resisting it. For some reason I just don't feel like visiting temples this time around and I was trying to stay true to my stand where I refused an opportunity to go to a temple as recent as yesterday . But she has been very persistent in her requests so I finally gave in and the plan was to visit a local temple this morning. It was an interesting experience again as the temple we went to was small and not as big {and thus not as commercial} as Kankadurga Temple - the main temple in Vijayawada. Climbing the stairs to the temple was a journey through various kinds of smells ranging from the pungent to the aromatic and everything in between. The best part of the trip was the top down view of Vijayawada and I got some cool shots. If you compare the cityscape of Hong Kong and Vijayawada you can see that Vijayawada's cityscape reflects the chaos within the order while it is the exact opposite for HK.

Tractor load of people

Chaos within order

Street vendor selling Custard apple fruit

Walking away

A local sweets and delicacies workshop & kitchen

Crumbling houses and rising apartments

Household chores on the roof

A maze of wires

Sleeping on the roof

Vijayawada cityscape

2 kids flying a kite

Dwellings

A cow trying to eat some furniture

Vijayawada into the horizon

Empty streets in the morning

Guy selling flowers - they were cheap - 30 nz cents for 2

Walking on the flyover

I might be wrong but there seems to be an increased obsession with religion in India now. It was there to some extent even when I was here till 2003 but it seems to have accelerated so much more in the last couple of years. I don't know the reasons for it but it is pretty weird seeing how deep the influence of religion has become across all social classes. Another random observation is that people in Andhra {it might apply to India as a whole but I can't generalize as most of this trip has been in Andhra Pradesh} don't listen properly. You'll say something, they'll nod their head in agreement and they'll go ahead and do something completely different. When you tell them that's not what was asked for or said, they'll finally come around to doing what you originally wanted after you repeat your instructions a couple more times. And I am saying this not from one incident but from multiple incidents - big and small. It's like people choose to do what they think you want them to do without even listening to what you just said. No wonder getting any kind of work done here is a major hassle.

Trying to watch a Hindi movie on tele is like running a marathon. I was flicking across the channels and found a movie that I had heard good things about and decided to watch it but it was an exhausting experience. As it is Bollywood movies run between 2.5-3 hours and when you have 15 minute commercial breaks after every 20 minutes of the movie, you soon loose track of the story and subsequently the interest in watching the movie dies. I left the movie when it still had another hour or so to go as I was tired from the effort. DVD's or watching it in a cinema theater is the way to go for any Indian movies. The broadcasters here need to learn that the advertisers won't be getting value for their money if the target audience is lost because of too much advertising in a broadcasters eternal quest to maximize their advertising revenues.

The 4.45 AM wake up call because of the temple visit combined with the last couple of nights where I couldn't sleep properly as the mosquitoes were enamored with me, is killing me and I think I'll go and have my late morning nap now.

Till later,
Amit

TV in Rural India

2009-10-27T11:35:00.001+13:00

A couple of days back I went and visited the village that I've visited since childhood because grandma's sister {'amma'} and her husband ['tatha'] have their house their, and it was a very different experience. What was noticeable was the distinct lack of children playing around on the streets and the stillness of the place. From childhood memories as well as from the 2005 trip, I know that in the evenings there is a lot of hustle/bustle on the main village road with kids playing and people doing household chores and socializing. This time around it was quiet - there were only 2 or 3 kids playing and they were curious enough to come looking for me as I was carrying my digital camera around trying to see if I could take any snaps.

2 kids and a chicken

Looks like the outreach of satellite TV into rural India has had a huge impact on the village lifestyle. The set-top box and subscription to 100+ channels in rural villages costs about Rs.70 odd a month {from the information I overheard} - that's NZ$2 per month. I guess the reason they can provide it so cheap is that they earn money through advertising revenue generated from reaching a bigger percentage of the population. When we were kids, if there was a major TV event like a cricket match or something, almost the entire village would gather at tatha's house in order to watch it as that was the only television in the village. Now every hut has it's own TV - so no more sense of an event or sense of community. I guess the good thing is that means there is development in rural India and the bad thing is that they are now watching crappy daily soap operas and forming an unrealistic view of what a city life is.

Mother and son

At the mango farm

Local farm hand bringing a vegetable

Local farm hand and his wife

Dragonflies

One of the best things about visiting 'thota' [literal translation: farm] is the awesome food the amma cooks up. Her chicken fry dish has been the best chicken dish I've had since coming to India this time. It was unbelievably awesome. A distant second is 'Ulavacharu Chicken Biryani' from DV Manor in Vijayawada. It is always a strange feeling seeing the faces of people you've known since childhood, every passing year. For some reason I always imagine people with the same faces as I remembered them when I was younger and the toll that age takes on the face and the body seems unreal. You don't want to believe your eyes but the reality is that everyone ages and that is a fact of life.

Tatha

Amma cooking a traditional sweet delicacy {crunchy on the outside and sweet on the inside}

Time spares no body but the mind and spirit still rules - Great Grandma

Amma whipping up the delicacies

The matrimonial thing isn't going too well for me. Gyanender uncle is of the view that I should find my own life partner because in terms of arranged marriage to someone from India, the relationship most probably won't work out because of the unusual profession I am in and I can totally see his point. Besides that the arranged marriage thing on surface sounds so simple as a concept but it is so incredibly complicated and twister. In that aspect there are several things that work against me: a) hair {or lack of}; b) country {people only want US or UK}; c) profession {only a docotor or an engineer or a IT professional would do}; d) age {under 30 only thank you very much}. So all in all pretty much everything about me is not acceptable to the Indian society at large and I find it highly amusing on one hand and very angry on the other. Who knows what's gonna happen on that front? I don't. Looks like I'll be doing my own finding once I get back to NZ. :-)

I love the home cooked food that Lakshmi aunty is serving up and the pearls of wisdom and company of Gyanender uncle that the stay in Vijayawada has been extended till end of this week. There are no more relatives to meet and no more marriage bureaus to go to, so I'll be spending some quality time with them {even though I skipped going to a temple visit this morning}. I might buy a pair of shorts and t-shirt later this evening and I might even get some much needed exercise over the next few days.

That's me for now.
Later,
Amit

Hot!!!!

2009-10-25T04:20:00.004+13:00

1.5 KG in 20 days - that's my achievement so far. I'm loving home cooked food and I guess I'll just have to hit the gym extra hard as soon as I get back to Auckland. :-)

Vijayawada is hot. It is 35 degrees right now and that's been the consistent temperature ever since I've been here and it is end of October when it is getting cooler. It's hard going out during the day and the best time to check out the city is in the evenings but then it is just traffic and chaos as usual. Traffic is not as bad as Hyderabad because Vijayawada is a smaller city but the driving across the country still remains the same. Being a smaller city also means that things are more affordable - like a pair of jandals costs about NZ$2 instead of NZ$12 and upwards like in Auckland.

Getting on with life

Driver and driver's assistant in an auto-rickshaw

Selling wares

Rusting

Walking the main bridge

Yesterday all of us went to visit the small factory unit that my aunt is setting up and it was a fascinating trip - not just because of the factory unit. There was so much about rural India that I started noticing just now, it is true that when you are within a system you don't notice anything or see anything different since you are living it. But once you are away from something for a while - things start standing out. Like one of the things I noticed was the slabs in front of houses in rural areas - it is an odd design for a house but it serves a very functional purpose - people sit in front of their houses to see the world go by and it becomes their social interaction point. We live privileged lives in cities while the 'real country' lives in villages and that balance has been changing rapidly everywhere - not necessarily for the good. The imbalance is going to hit us all sooner rather than later.

Rural Andhra

A farmer transporting some hay

A bicycle :-)

Spokes

Of buffaloes and sitting on the roof

A guy fixing a machine

Sunset over the factory unit

A boat sailing across Krishna river

Nothing much going on right now except the marriage thing as usual and it is a fascinating experience just going through it. Lots of fodder for analysis of the Indian society and social systems but that'll be some other time. Oh and I managed to bruise my right thumb pretty bad when I slipped and fell while rushing across a few stairs. It should come right soon.

That's me for now. Time to enjoy some more awesome food.
Amit

Hello Vijayawada

2009-10-22T22:26:00.001+13:00

It is a strange feeling going to social events and noticing people judging you based on how you look. And in my specific case - people looking at you weird because I don't have much hair on my head. You see, in India, everyone is very particular about their hair - it doesn't matter if you are fat,unhealthy, arrogant, stupid or anything like that, as long as you have a full head of hair you are part of the crowd. And if you don't fit in the crowd then you are marked to be judged whenever you step into the public. 7 years back I would've been embarrassed by such social situations but now I can't really give a shit about Indians preoccupation with appearances and superficiality.

A trip to India is incomplete without a journey on Indian railways and that wish was fulfilled earlier this morning when mum and me took an overnight train from Hyderabad to Vijayawada. I must say that it has been an exhausting train ride and I've never felt this tired throughout this current trip - even if you include the 12.5 hour flight from Auckland to Hong Kong. We got berths in 3rd AC car so we could sleep on the overnight journey but the AC in our compartment was switched off for most of the journey in order to save money or something. What that meant was that the compartment was stuffy as hell and hot - which in turn meant that I only got 4 hours sleep in total - which is why I felt so tired after the journey. I've slept for the better part of the day and I am now feeling refreshed.

Vijayawada brings back memories and I have a love-hate relationship with the place. I love everything about it except the weather as I tend to fall sick when I am here and this goes back to when I was a kid - it might have to do something with the combination of the heat and the humidity. My first impressions about Vijayawada at 4.30AM were that the roads were heaps better than Hyderabad but that it was quite hot even for that time of the morning.

Kids playing on the road

Stroll through the local market

At Vijayawada club

The best part about coming to Vijayawada is visiting the family. I love spending time with my uncle and aunt over here and they've always been supporting me ever since I can remember. They took me under their wings for an entire year when I was in 6th Class and got admission into a school in Vijayawada. It was my detoriating health due to the weather in Vijayawada that pushed my parents to take me back to Delhi and go through the tricky process of getting me admitted into a school mid-way through the year in Delhi {because of the different school systems in different parts of the country}. Besides that my uncle is the one who supported my independent film making efforts and I wouldn't be working on my third project without his initial support.

Veni and me*

My guardian angel

So far it has been a quiet day in Vijayawada - I caught up with my grand dad during the day ; went to a marriage bureau on insistence from one of our relatives after being woken up from an afternoon nap where I had a dream in which I found someone of my own {maybe this marriage thing is playing on my mind - more than I would give it credit for}; visited Vijayawada club to have a look around - courtesy of my uncle; and enjoyed some awesome home cooked food - some of the dishes that I haven't had in ages.

Grand dad, Grand mom and me

Grand dad now

Nothing major planned for rest of the time and will see how the rest of the trip pans out.
Later,
Amit

* Mom's youngest brother, Raja uncle, got this photo of Veni and me taken when we were in Guntur {a city 1 hour drive from Vijayawada} - just before I was put into the boarding school over there -{I am guessing this must be around 1985 or something}. Apparently he got scolded for it because he took us to the studio on an impromptu plan and we never got dressed in 'proper' clothes. :-) I used to love Raja uncle's impromptu outings as it kept things interesting and a real surprise. When I was later in Vijayawada -he was the one who used to take us to heaps of movies and one of the earliest movies I remember seeing with him are Jackie Chan movies like Police Story, Project-A and also movies like Herbie goes to Monte Carlo and heaps more.

The state of things

2009-10-20T19:16:00.000+13:00

Yesterday I spent the day with one of my cousins and her family and it was an awesome day. Her and her family have recently shifted from USA to India and it was insightful getting their views on settling back into the Indian society. My cousin has given me a couple of low budget telugu movies that I intend to watch sometime this week to catch up on the local film industry scene. I loved spending time socializing with her and her family and it made me wonder if I should actually spend more time socializing when I am back in New Zealand. Over the past few years I've cut down on my socializing heaps so that I have more time on my hands to focus on movies but that leaves a social void and I guess I need to find a balance between work and social life.

I watched 1 and half bollywood movies over the past couple of days and I enjoyed the one I actually finished completely but didn't really care much for the one I left half way. The one I liked was 'Taare Jamein Par' and I would've loved it if there were no song and dance sequences plus for the better part of the movie the acting was understated. The other movie I tried watching was a remake of an old hindi movie called 'Don' and the new one looked slick but the acting was over the top and there was no cohesiveness to the storytelling and I couldn't really see any point in the remake since there was no unique point of view.

One of the things I've noticed here is that most people tend to go on huge diversions/detours while talking. You'll be having a conversation and mid-sentence the topic would change randomly to something not even closely related and after sometime the conversation would again veer back to the original conversation, somehow. And during the entire period, you are expected to know exactly what everyone is talking about. It can be slightly disorienting and my coping mechanism is that I phase out of the conversation till it comes back to the one I was following. :-) The other thing is people don't like introducing themselves when they call up. They expect you to recognize their voice and again it is very disorienting - especially when you can't recognize their phone numbers. It is fine if it is someone you've been talking to on a regular basis or someone you've talked to recently but calling up after ages and then expecting to just know who you are talking to is rather presumptuous.

Andhra Pradesh is a strange state in the sense that the government is promising unsustainable welfare schemes for the masses like offering rice for Rs.2 a KG {about NZ$0.05 per KG} with a limit of 20 KG's per person - for people living under the poverty line. Mind boggles when you think that at retail the rice goes upwards of Rs.25 per KG in India and in New Zealand - it is more like NZ$2-NZ$3 a KG. The price differential is borne by the state government and the burden of which ultimately falls on the middle class - which gets taxed more to cover the financial shortfalls. As it is there is global food scarcity and with populist and unsustainable schemes like this you have to wonder how much lower can the politicians scoop to stay in power.

A different aspect of the state is that the work ethic in general is poorer than other Indian states - people like to make a quick buck and don't even want to work for it. Hyderabad boasts of major multi-national software firms having their offices in the city but that does nothing to change the imbalance of work culture leaning towards inaction. Once you scratch the surface there are so many things you see that you don't like and in general the Indian intelligentsia doesn't like those faults either but the system is too big and too flawed for anyone to even try and fix it. Small steps can change the course of things but I am not sure if that'll ever happen in India - even in a global economy as the balance of trade is shifting towards emerging markets like China and India where whoever enters the market gets assimilated into the local way of thinking and functioning in order to make profits.

I might be sounding negative about the way things are in India - I am not - I am perplexed, surprised and at times outraged at the state of things but this is not my fight. Sometimes I wonder if New Zealand had a similar population explosion and scarcity of resources would people be the same as people are here in India - good natured despite all their flaws or would we see an uglier face of humanity? I wonder.

Amit