Day 863: Reliving Mausams Before IOK!

It was a very interesting day!

My Malayalam short film, Inganeyum Oru Katha, is due for its online release tomorrow. The very last minute I decided that am unhappy with something in the already uploaded and ready video, and so decided to re-render, re-compress and re-upload the whole thing all over again. That's the obsessive, compulsive me.

But as I was doing that,it dawned on me that I am so much more at peace this March 31st than the same day last year! Because the same day last year, we were struggling to get a DVD ready for the Mausams screening on April 1st. All the drama of March 31st and April 1st last year, have been shared here --> March 31st and April 1st.

Anyway one thing led to another, and soon I was just spending the whole day going through the Mausams premiere pictures, the videos of audience reactions to the film, the messages they wrote on the guest book, the behind the scenes video, video of my vote of thanks etc etc. A year has passed but the images were so fresh in my mind and with the pictures and the videos, it was almost like reliving the whole Mausams experience once again! I know am being a sentimental fool, but I couldn't get enough of all of it!

It was indeed beautiful!

137 more to go.

Day 862: Seeing & Hearing!

Today I had another visit to the gynae's, and the time the scan showed us the baby progressing nicely from its pea shape before to something that actually resembles a baby! The hubby immediately proclaimed that the baby looks exactly like him (dont ask)! We could also hear the heartbeat of the baby today!

Surreal and more than just beautiful!

138 more to go.

Day 861: Moulin Rouge!

When Moulin Rouge, the musical film, came out some time in 2001, I was a huge fan. More of its music than the film itself. It was my first musical film experience and i thoroughly enjoyed it. It even got me to be an assistant director for a musical in my university called 'Beauty World', and also to later write, produce and direct one on my own called 'Bollywood Beats'.

Anyway, point being that I was quite the fan of Moulin Rouge. After regularly listening to all its songs for the longest time, I guess I moved on and completely forgot about them until today.

Today I happened to listen once again a bit from Moulin Rouge on TV, and immediately I went on to YouTube to get hold of the rest of the songs. And I spent pretty much the whole evening listening to them over and over again, especially my favorites - Come what may, Elephant love medley and Your song. Not only did I listen to them, I also blared along at the top of my voice. Evan McGregor's pitch completely matches mine and I could sing along for most of them!

What a blast!

139 more to go.

Day 860: Basheer!

I am taking to reading in a big way these days, given that there is much less to do... Rather, much less that I can possibly do, these days.

And am very happy to announce that I am starting on my favorite Malayalam author, Vaikkom Mohammed Basheer, now. I like his works so much that once I had even adapted one of his short stories for the stage, and put up a play. This was a long time ago, in 2008 - it was one of the three plays under my production 'Kathaah' and this story was called 'Mathilukal'.

So yeah, I have always loved his style of writing and when I last went back to Kerala, I bought a set of his complete works - two HUGE books.

I didn't get a chance to take on these two mountainous books before, but now it feels like the best time. So I have started and am thoroughly enjoying myself!

It is indeed Basheer to the rescue!

140 more to go.

Day 859: Eventful vs. Expectations!

After that rather disastrous day yesterday with its last minute redemption via sketching, I had very little hope for a good, or more importantly productive day.

But it turned out to be pretty eventful, or at least as eventful as things seem to get these days.

My day began with a call with the Ostrow and Company folks for a strategy session.

Then today, I actually managed to do a lot of work unlike yesterday when I struggled.

Then I ended up revising the artwork for Mausams DVD case and DVD itself, as a next step from the strategy session. Also a next step was to figure production stills for each of their various requirements.

Post all of that, I went for a 4.5km walk with my mom, which made me feel pretty productive also!

I also received quite a few movie making related emails today - two from people who want to be pa of my next project, whenever that may be and one from a friend so wanted me to review his storyline for a film. I responded to all three and felt inexplicably pleased about the whole deal.

Nett, it definitely was a more eventful and productive day than I had expected and that makes me feel really good !

141 more to go.

Day 858: From Sucky to Sketching

I had quite a hopeless start to the day. With great determination I made my way to the office on a Monday morning, only to throw up within 5 minutes after I got there, after which I readily got back home. Obviously, that sucked. I have a million things to do at work but the body is simply not co-operating. Sigh.

The rest of the day was pretty awful too with nausea and fatigue, so nothing much really happened.

At about 8pm I realized that I really got to do something to turn around this day. Something that would make me feel good without completely sapping me out!

Suddenly it struck me that I can sketch! I have a set of pretty much unused oil pastels at home and I decided to make some use of it.

So that's what I did. Just for about 2o minutes I covered a whole sheet with pink and purple pastels. And it felt awesome!

142 more to go.

Day 857: School Friend & Family!

It is always lovely to meet up with your friends from school but unfortunately such occasions tend to be very rare given that everyone from school, i.e the close friends, are scattered around the world.

But today I got to meet up with a dear friend from school, who has recently moved to Singapore! It's probably been about 13 years since we last met each other. We had lost touch since I moved to Singapore but thanks to Facebook, we had found each other once again just a couple of years ago.

And now her company has moved her to Singapore and she is here with her parents and her baby.

Today all four came over to my place and we hit it off like we've never had a gap of 13 years! It was really cool! Not just me but my mom also hit it off very well with all of them and we had the most pleasant evening, catching up on each other's lives and sharing the unavoidable school and hometown gossip!

Very happy to have a part of the old school life here in Singapore!

143 more to go.