Day 466: The Girl Who Played With Fire

27 February, 2011

Am not recommending the it or gonna say that it is the best I have ever read, but the day today revolved around the book - The Girl Who Played With Fire (to be referred to as TGWPWF from now on). I can't remember the last time I sat down and just kept reading a book an entire day! Not because I hadn't come across such books (in fact, I had come across quite a few that are far nicer than TGWPWF) but because I never had the time to sit through a book for that many hours at a stretch.

Of course the book was gripping and fast moving (but had several details which could have been avoided, in my humble opinion) so that definitely helped me to sit through it at a stretch as well.

Yesterday was Doing Nothing and today, this. Am beginning to really enjoy the post-Mausams calm!

534 more to go.

Day 465: Doing Nothing

26 February, 2011

Alright this is interesting. Today was the beginning of several weekends to come, when I actually would have time to do nothing. After months and months of packing activities into my weekends thanks to the film, today there was really nothing much to do!

Sure, there had been a few weekends in between when I did take a bit of a break but then there was always the sight of a truck load of work coming up in the future weekends. But today, I didn't even have that! Work on the film is dwindling (I only did a bit for poster and other publicity work) and I don't plan to start on any project for the next few months. Which means not only do I have this weekend of doing nothing but am gonna have several more to come too!

I was so in love with the whole idea that I didn't even get myself to do any exercise today... or even watch TV for that matter! I just ate, slept and read a book.

And I thoroughly enjoyed this do-nothing-day! So content!

535 more to go.

Day 464: Incredible!

25 February, 2011

I had the most incredible day today!

a) There was some terrific response flowing in for Mausams teaser trailer released yesterday. I could feel even my cast and crew jumping up and down with excitement! My phone was buzzing throughout the day with calls and SMS, with everyone trying to tell me how many fantastic responses they got. It was all very encouraging really!

b) I realized that for about 1 year now, I have been working with someone who comes from one of the most prolific cinematic families in India! He told me that he completely could relate to my passion for film making and it is something he had been wanting to do for the longest time himself. And the conversation led from one thing to another, until he let me in on the secret that his parents, uncles, cousins etc. are some of the leading directors and writers in the Indian film industry! I was speechless!

c) I was contacted by the head of a local production company who is making a web infotainment series and wanted to feature mausams in it. But more importantly, she was a film maker herself and from her note, I felt that she really appreciated the effort at independent film making. When that comes from a fellow film maker (that too a professional one), it really makes your day!

d) A friend from university came forward to help with media contacts just when the Mausams team felt stuck with no media contacts. That was like a godsend!

In short, things were pretty rosy. That was an incredible day end to end!

536 more to go.

Day 463: Mausams Teaser Trailer!

24 February, 2011

YES! Finally, it is out!

The Mausams Teaser Trailer.

Needless to say it is a huge milestone for me!

www.mausams.com/promos-trailers

537 more to go.

Day 462: Back to Normal!

23 February, 2011

Today life finally got back to normal. The hubby and I have had ridiculous amounts of travelling the last few months... both on business and personal trips and we had hardly spent any time at home as per what would be considered normal. While holidays are fun, with all the excitement at work and even the filme, I have been yearning for some quiet, regular time at home.

I must say that I had been getting back to this regular life to some extend over the last one week, but hubby had continued to travel to multiple countries.

The good news - as of today, he has finally completed his 7-countries-in-1-month travel plans and has promised to stick around in Singapore for a reasonably long time to come. And that makes me feel like things are back to normal now.

Sure, we did get into one of those random fights as soon as he got back home from his trip, but I guess that just made life all the more normal. So yes, that was good.

538 more to go.

Day 461: Balance!

22 February, 2011

Today for the first time ever, I could do the toe stand pose in yoga completely! It requires some ridiculous sense of balance and I finally managed to it! Sure, I could hold it only for 2 seconds, which means I cant really say it was a "check!", but it makes me feel really really good!

539 more to go.

Day 460: "There's nowhere else on earth I'd rather be"

Today was one of those days that I really enjoyed. In fact I enjoyed it so much that am gonna write this post to some considerable length, unlike the my micro posts that I had been getting away with over the past few weeks (or months?). Good news is also that I even have some spare time since am already done working on Mausams for today (done by 11:30 pm vs. the usual routine of 2am), which is quite brilliant!

So here I am comfortably settled on my chair and all set to tell today's story - over a banana and a glass of milk.

Before we start, let me tell you that the day wasn't special because one major mind-blowing event happened but because it was sprinkled with a lot of little events, which when put together, ends up being pretty mind-blowing! And these cumulatively-mind-blowing-little-events are:

a) Talking over the phone, for the first time, with a person whom I had gotten pretty close to over the past several months - I had written here about a girl based in Australia who had been following this blog and who one day, via an email, gave me a great surprise and thereby completely making my day. Since then, we had been regularly in touch with each other but only over chat. For some reason it didn't occur to either of us to pick the phone up and talk. But today we did, and we talked, and it was awesome!

b) Getting the first response to the Mausams teaser trailer from a member outside of the team - The teaser trailer is almost complete and I wanted to get the opinion from the "public", i.e. somehow who had not read the script or have much idea about the film. The chosen one was the girl above, and she loved it! Which in return made my day again!

c) Getting back to kickboxing class but more importantly making a big deal out of it - My colleague and I went together for lunch time kickboxing class. The class was fun but more fun was how we felt oh-so-important for having achieved our health goals for the day. Even the unhealthy lunch, Chai latte, dinner were all justified because hey, we went kickboxing afterall!

d) Dream team coming together - Mausams post production has been hard. I mean very, very hard. Post production is hard enough when the team members are located in one location, but in our case we are making things work with my sound designer/composer in Chennai, editor in Mumbai and me in Singapore. That's nothing short of a nightmare. And my hope and prayer and dream had been to have my composer and editor together in the same location as me just so that we can finetune the last few bits together. But I had no idea how that could happen because everyone had his/her own limitations until today it was confirmed that both of them would be coming to Singapore in March to complete the last and final cut! My Dream Team is coming together! Finally! Great new and fingers crossed!

e) Smiles at work - I had been battling one horrifying... lets call it "situation" .... for the last 1 month but today that situation was resolved. I felt really good about it and couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the day!

f) Having dinner alone - After a really long time, I had my dinner (sushi, just in case you are interested) at a restaurant (Ichiban Boshi) alone, with just the company of a book. Whenever the hubby is not around I usually pack my food out and eat it at home while watching TV. But today I sat in a restaurant and poured over Yann Martel's Beatrice & Virgil.

And as I sat there, enjoying my sushi and book, Bryan Adams sang out (obviously Ichiban Boshi doesn't care much for Japanese music and associated authenticity)...

Here I am

This is me

There's nowhere else on earth I'd rather be

And I felt, yes. Indeed.

540 more to go.