Day 480: Simple Sunday

13 March, 2011

A simple Sunday of Chai Lattes, films, Thalassery Biriyani from Swaadhisht and relaxation.

Nothing major. Nothing productive. Nothing out of ordinary. Except for the fact that I attempted meditation before I hit the bed.

So was it beautiful? Oh hell, yeah.

It was the best preparation for the upcoming couple of weeks which is going to be an uproar in terms of the amount of work - both in office and with Mausams. Which is also why am resorting to meditation - just to keep those nerves calm.

So yeah, bring it on.

520 more to go.

Day 479: Interview with Rupture

12 March, 2011

A few days ago, a lady from a production company Rupture had called me and said that they were making web infotainment series on Indians in different fields in Singapore and would like to profile me as the film maker in it. As highly amused as I was at the prospect of being called a "film maker" (after all, am only 1 feature film old and that too the most independent, experimental of it all), I accepted the offer.

Today was the shoot for it. The venue was the Arts House, same place where we would be premiering the film. The whole set up was casual and relaxed, the people were friendly, the anchor was hilarious and I was comfortable enough.

I don't know yet how much of what I spoke really made any sense, but it was total fun for sure!

A different experience!

521 more to go.

Day 478: Miserably Small. Incredibly Beautiful.

11 March, 2011

The day that the horrifying earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. The aerial footage of a massive wave systematically wiping off a town was the most disturbing thing I have ever watched. Home, vehicles and presumably humans and animals being washed away. Cars on a highway nearby speeding as much as they possibly can, from the gigantic wave closing in hopelessly on them. When land, water and fire were against man, all at once - nature at it's cruelest.

It brought a sharp awareness of how blessed is to live a life through normally enough and how lucky one is if death too is a plain affair.

All the events that made me smile during the day then felt both miserably small yet incredibly beautiful.

a) Catching up with a few of Mausams team members and together going to watch a dance show at my good, old alma mater NUS - bringing back memories of my own days of dance performances at the same venue, in front of a similar audience.

b) Printed Mausams posters and flyers in my hands - complete with the rating.

c) Giving the first flyer to my dance teacher at NUS, getting her blessings for the film.

d) Having a stranger coming up to me, asking me whether I was the one who made the film Mausams and how she can get the tickets.

e) Fun dinner with a couple of the Mausams cast and our dear young cinematographer.

Like I said, all pathetically little but incredible beautiful events because at least am around today alive and kicking to be able to experience them.

522 more to go.

Day 477: Rating!

After all that confusion and worry over a censorship rating, Mausams finally got a "PG" rating today!!! Yay!

It makes my day SO much, I can't do justice to it in words!

More so because no matter what, with or without rating, we had decided to start printing publicity materials tomorrow at 10am. We could not possibly wait anymore because this was the last weekend to make any decent publicity efforts. We had decided that the rating would be a "TBC" on the materials temporarily. This, however, would have meant that once the rating is out, whenever that may be, we would have had to go for another round of printing, which in turn means more money, time etc.

But this evening, at 9pm, this sweet chap from MDA called and confirmed that the classification process is done and that we have our final rating!

We can start printing out publicity materials tomorrow at 10am with the final rating.

Yes! Thank you God!

523 more to go.

Day 476: Philosophy

9 March, 2010

As the title very clearly points out, am gonna philosophize. So either you stick on reading and wise up or you run for your life. You make the choice now.

Alright, for those who decided to stick on... this is the story.

Now that Mausams is making a slow exit and leaving a gap of a few extra minutes a day in my life, I decided to go back and restart my pursuit of an enlightened and peaceful mind.

It all started with the book "The Autobiography of a Yogi", which to me, more than anything else, tells the story of how you can do whatever you want in life as long as you work for it. If you work on it with the due intensity and determination, never once giving up, you can even be in complete control of your mind. The book then goes off to say that with complete control of your mind, you can do even the most improbable things like time travel or levitation etc. But at the end of the day, all of it starts with the simple task of meditation.

I have always believed in the power of meditation. The fact that it is so damn hard to do in itself should mean that there is something pretty intriguing about it. To genuinely shut off all sounds and images for one's mind is pretty difficult for seconds, let alone minutes and hours. So being able to do that, I believe, would come with its due benefits including...the most important one for me...the ability to not get stressed out about anything.

Only issue - I never meditate. I used to as a child, I have had random bouts of wanting to get back to it (and with some reasonable success for a couple of days too) but never was successful in maintaining the habit.

About a year ago I signed up for the lessons on a particular meditation technique. This one is prescribed by the Self-Realization Fellowship established by Paramahansa Yogananda, the author of The Autobiography of a Yogi. The whole intent is to learn a very systematic way of meditating, something more scientific than religious.

So yes, I had signed up, got the lessons via mail and then happily ignored them. I did feel a pang of guilt every time I see the stack lying around in the house, but I simply did not have the interest or the determination to get working on it.

Until today. Today I decided that instead of reading The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest before I go to bed, I will read the SRF Lessons.

Which was a brilliant decision really.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the first couple of chapters (the meditation lessons have not started yet and these are introductions). They basically re-emphasize the philosophy of if you want to, you can. In their case, they are talking more about how it is possible to elevate your mind over and above all the worldly pleasures and concerns if you indeed work on it with a steely steadfastness. It all boils down to will power, after all.

To cut a long story short, by the end of reading those chapters, I was feeling really good. Very positive. There are so many issues both at work and with the film still ahead waiting to be tackled, but somehow after reading those chapters, I felt that they are manageable. I had not even started to meditate, but I was already feeling that my mind has calmed down. I felt that these problems too, like everything else before them, would be solved one way or the other and there was no point in stressing over it. It was just a matter of keeping at it.

With that overwhelming feeling of faith and relief, I was ready to go to bed a very happy person.

Beautiful.

524 more to go.

Day 475: Mausams for Charity?

8 March, 2011

The profits for all my previous productions (plays mainly) had gone for charity. I usually produce the show, i.e. make the necessary investments, but cover the costs with ticket sales and give all the profits towards charity. Whatever the profits were (sometimes in a couple of thousands, sometimes in a few hundreds), there was always a feeling that at least the whole exercise benefited someone somewhere other than just the working team who gained some memorable, fun experiences.

With Mausams I had not intended of doing the same for the simple reason that even breaking even, let alone making a profit, doesn't seem likely. Even though the costs are really "minuscule" when associated with a feature film, it is still a reasonable sum personally and my screenings in Singapore are not going to cover it.

So somewhere in the back of mind I had this nagging (almost guilty) thought that this time my project is not doing anything for a bigger cause. Somehow that didn't seem right.

But to be frank, I had not given it too much thought either because I also didn't want to get into the very tedious process of finding a suitable charity that I believe in, organizing special screenings for the purpose, finding out what the donation process would be etc. You would be surprised at the work needed for these things sometimes! It's not as simple as writing out a cheque! They are not always straightforward and I didn't want to go through the hassle since am fighting enough fires with the current issues regarding the ratings and screenings of the film already.

But today, as I was trying to spread the word about the screenings with my friends, one of them popped up and suggested this idea of doing an exclusive screening for a charitable organization that she is part of. And better still, she offered to figure out all the logistics for the event herself!

It was like a message from God! Looks like Mausams is destined to contribute something for the bigger cause after all! Obviously, I pounced on the offer.

The whole deal would be finalized only post the screenings that have already been planned in Singapore and also depending upon the suitability of the film to the audience at the charity. But at least a door opened for me to throw out the nagging feeling and at the same time not really having to put in much effort, because the ball is completely in my friend's court. But I sincerely hope it works out!

In any case, the offer made my day!

525 more to go.

Day 474: That Thing Called Motivation

7 March, 2011

It was one of those blue Mondays. Lack of interest in working, zero motivation, feeling utterly and completing disgruntled and lazy. You know the type.

After making some really unsuccessful attempts at being productive, I ended up feeling rather frustrated. On top of the lack of motivation my eyes were back to their tearing and itchy selves, making the work look harder than ever. In short, it was a sad little situation.

So I did the only thing I could do at that time. I packed my stuff and went home in the afternoon.

I relaxed the whole afternoon, only attending to the important emails and calls. Later in the evening I went for a jog and then had dinner with hubby and a friend who came over, topping it up with Tiramisu at the end.

And THEN, I got down to work. I worked a fair bit until midnight. I wouldn't say that I was swimming in motivation by now, but things were definitely better. I dunno whether it was the relaxed afternoon or the jog or the Tiramisu that did it, but I wasn't at least feeling like banging my head against the red wall of my study. And yes, the productivity was way better than in the morning when I was just staring at the laptop being unable to make sense of whatever I saw on it.

So yes, in a nutshell: today I didn't force myself to do something that I absolutely didn't want to but instead, waited it out until a drop of motivation was available.

It made a world of difference.

626 more to go.