Days 739 - 741: Missing Days?!

28 - 30 November, 2011

It's almost like 3 days have gone missing. That's what it feels like because that's how ridiculously busy I had been at work the past few days! I was clocking in about 14 hours on an average each day, with additional hours of emailing, working on presentations etc., that I don't think I even had the mind space to wonder whether my day was beautiful or not!

But I am OK. I am pretty happy, in fact. I am exhausted, sure, but I feel good. Which should mean that all the days were good. Busy but beautiful!

So yes the days are almost like they went missing. But they were beautiful missing days.

259 more to go.

P.S. Am adding this as an afterthought. I managed to think back and realized that there were a few things I did rather enjoy about the days. The late night scrambling for sandwiches in the office pantry on 28th, the video conferencing meeting (that always seem to give me this great feeling that am using such "high-tech" stuff) on 29th and last but not the least, the wonderful training session on 30th - it was one of those where they share a lot of inspirational brand building case studies, something that I always love. So well the days are not altogether missing from my memory... but well not changing the initially written content above because well... what's really the point?!

Day 738: Next Level Normalcy!

The Sunday was also pretty much spent on getting back to normal. Which basically meant the routine Murugan Idly visit in the morning, dropping the hubby at his work post that and then getting back home for a long afternoon and evening of watching TV, reading, writing, and other such things that normally belong to an eventless Sunday.

But this "getting back to normal" day had a special twist because I cooked Aloo-Gobi Paratha with some awesome egg curry for dinner. In the earlier days, this would have contributed to an entire blog entry on its own, but now that am turning into such a regular cook of awesome food, this is turning out to be part of my "normal" day as well! How cool is that?!

I already like this normal day but this last bit took it to another level of normalcy altogether which I LOVEEEEE!

262 more to go.

Day 737: Perfectly Normal!

This morning the hubby got back from Delhi! This made me happier than usual!

You see... we had gone to the wedding in India together, but after that he had stayed back in Delhi while I came to Singapore. Given that I ended up sick in Singapore and he ended up sick in Delhi, neither of us were in the best of spirits the last few days.

So it was really great to have him finally back at home this morning!

And the rest of the day was spent exactly the way we would have spent a perfectly normal, jobless Saturday - watching T.V., eating tons, taking a siesta, going for an evening outing (it was to Orchard Road to see the Christmas decorations followed by dinner at Clarke Quay) and lotsa chatting.

A perfectly normal and absolutely lovable Saturday!

263 more to go.

Day 736: Back to Scripting!

It was another day of work, recovering from sickness, going over the wedding photos and videos all over again etc.

But I felt like it was time to get back to some productivity beyond the obvious, so I decided to get back to my feature film script.

After some effort, I completed scene 3, which had been stuck for weeks now!

The holiday is over and am back to work!

264 more to go.

Day 733 - 735: Yet Another Bunch of Memories!

22 - 24 November, 2011

Thus the wedding comes to an end. On 22nd we made our way from Lucknow to Delhi and I carried on from Delhi to Singapore, while the hubby stayed back for some work. 23rd and 24th were spent in catching up on work, recovering from the unavoidable sickness, uploading pics and videos etc.

But what was commonly beautiful for all three days was that we were reliving all that fun once again -by looking through the pictures and the videos and discussing all that happened an umpteen number of times!

Yet another bunch of awesome, terrific memories!

265 more to go.

Day 732: Wedding Time!

Finally it was time for the wedding day!

In the morning, after a fair amount of photo-taking and dancing to the dhols, we made a very long but fun bus journey to Lucknow, where the wedding's to take place.

My dad also flew down from Kerala to take part, so we could spend a little bit of time together as well.

The wedding was fun as usual - lotsa dancing during the baaraat (procession), lotsa food, lotsa chatting, etc.!

It lasted until 5am by which all of us were dead tired! But a day well spent!

268 more to go.

Day 731: Festivities, Photography & Triveni Sangamam!

The wedding festivities carried on through the day!

It started off with the Haldi ceremony where the groom gets his beautification done - in other words, he gets oil and turmeric (haldi) applied onto him, to get this skin to glow for the upcoming wedding. This ceremony usually ends with not just the groom covered in haldi but the rest of the attendees as well. Right after the groom was adequately smeared with oil and haldi, a haldi war raged ensuring each and every soul present gets drowned in haldi too! That included me too! Sigh!

After the Haldi war and follow up cleaning, it was time for the Janevu ceremony of the hubby's youngest cousin brother. Janevu is the official "Brahmin"-ization of a Brahmin, something all Brahmin guys are supposed to go through. So this young boy had his turn today and he seemed pretty pleased with the entire proceedings. After converting him to a true blue Brahmin, we realized that we have some free time.

So we made our way to Sangam (or Triveni Sangamam, as we call it in Malayalam), which is the meeting point of the rivers Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati. You can literally see the different waters of Ganga (brown) and Yamuna (green) merging, while Saraswati is supposed to be hidden somewhere below.

The Sangam visit was truly fascinating - for several reasons! The fun boat ride to the meeting point of the rivers, the hundreds of birds flying around, the puja performed in the middle of the river, watching people dip in the holy waters at their meeting point with the help of a platform set up with several boats tied together, the visit to the nearby Hanuman temple the specialty of which is that the Hanuman idol here is sprawling on the floor vs. standing upright, etc. etc. etc.

But what was most lovely was the beautiful foggy atmosphere and the resulting serene look of the waters, the calm bobbing boats and the quiet shores beyond.

Post the Sangam visit, it was back to wedding festivities. It was time for Nikaasi, the official farewell of the groom as he leaves his house to bring his bride home. Since the professional photographer didn't turn up for this one, I was picked to do the photography for the event. I must admit that I made quite a show of getting everyone to pose proper or hold their poses longer so that I can get their snaps right! How fun!

So yes, another super hectic day but a very lovely one at that!

269 more to go.

Day 730: Tilak, Sangeet & Dance!

In the morning, the hubby and I set off for the Allahabad airport to pick up brother and sister in law who were to arrive from Singapore. Given that we reached the airport pretty early, we decided to drive around the area for a while. That was pretty nice and it was a good opportunity to see a bit more of Allahabad.

The airport itself was quite interesting too. It was the civilian terminal of the indian air force and was situated in a beautiful, quiet area, very much away and different from the rest of the city.

After picking up bro n sis, we made our way back to the wedding venue for the Tilak ceremony which for me, basically meant getting dressed in a gorgeous sari and having a fab time!

After the ceremony, everyone went into major preparation for the upcoming Sangeet in the evening. There were songs to be prepared, dances to be rehearsed, program schedule to be made, props to be finalized etc. There were last minute additions to the program and we even had new dances being choreographed until an hour before the show! In short, it was chaotic and huge fun, really!

And then of course, it was time for the sangeet! We had a fantastic time going through the concert! I enjoyed watching all the performances as much as I enjoyed performing myself. It was the culmination of all those days of rehearsals and I had a great time performing! I must add that at the very end of one of my dances, I lost my footing thanks to a very slippery floor and let's just say that I ended the dance in a pose very different from what I had intended. But even that didn't mar my excitement and happiness!

Here are the videos of the dances we performed:

My solo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bON5m23VBI

Couple dance with the hubby: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1RBOZYMo-A

Post the sangeet, it was another round of great food, fireworks and some mindless dancing to the DJ's music!

Thus another awesome day came to an end!

Day 729: Allahabad!

Early in the morning today, we set off for Allahabad!

After a reasonbaly long wait at the Kanpur railway station (which was made less boring by the several fascinating sights we were subjected to - a family with 8 kids, a conversation between a Hindu saint and a Muslim haji, an effort to help a pigeon who was struck by the blade of a ceiling fan, etc. etc.) and an eventless train journey, we reached Allahabad and made our way to the hubby's uncle's place, where the wedding preps are underway.

Then of course, it was all about catching up with the family and the wedding preps!

Lotsa food, lotsa dressing up, lotsa photo taking, lotsa singing, lotsa dancing especially in preparation for tomorrow's sangeet function, lotsa talking, lotsa laughter, lotsa fun!

271 more to go.

Day 728: A Kanpurian Day

Today's the second and last day in Kanpur during this trip, as tomorrow we will be leaving for Allahabad for the wedding. So we made the most of it by ticking off every item in the to-do-in-Kanpur list!

This include:
A) Having a lot more yummy food including the very special postha and a lot of others that I don't even know the names of, which were yummy nevertheless!
B) Having the lovely Motijeel chai in the small clay containers. It's really like the most awesome chai!
C) Having the super good Indian Chinese food at Chinmi.
D) Having the really yummm meetha paan (sweet betel leaves and condiments) post dinner.
E) Yes, the list above is all about eating but we did do other things like, driving around in the foggy early winter days, which I loved!
F) Visiting a very close friend's new born, where the hubby made quite a drama of how to carry the baby.

And then a perfect Kanpur day came to an end. Until the next time!

272 more to go.

Day 727: Incredible India!

Early this morning, the hubby and I set out from Delhi for Kanpur.

Every time I am in India, so many amusing incidents happen that thoroughly entertain me! And this time was not too different either.

Here are a few instances.

Incident One:

We are at the airport, at the Go Air check in counter. While the Go Air official prepares our boarding passes, the hubby engages him in some meaningful conversation.

Hubby: Is the flight on time?

Officer: Yes.

(Pause)

Officer: But.... you know...

(Pause)

Officer: These things... one never know...

Hubby: Oh...

Officer: Yeah...

Hubby: Is the flight coming from somewhere else or is it already here?

Officer: Oh yes yes. It is right here...right outside.

(Pause)

Officer: But one never knows about these things... you know...

Hubby: Yes. Of course.

Incident Two

We pick our luggage up from the Lucknow airport luggage belt and walk towards the exit. Right then a rodent crosses our path and makes its way, also towards the exit. There are three security guards at the exit and they notice the rodent.

Guard 1 kicks the rodent to Guard 2.

Guard 2 kicks the rodent to Guard 3.

Guard 3 kicks the rodent to Guard 1.

Meanwhile, the hubby and I are waiting for the guards to finish off this game before we can actually exit the airport.

Guard 1 kicks the rodent to Guard 3.

The rodent gets tired of the game and finally manages to free himself and rushes out into the open. He immediately rushes back in, probably worried by the sight of hundreds of human feet outside, all ready to kick him around.

The three security guards get alert now. Who goes first? Guard 3 lifts his leg but he is a second too late.

The rodent rushes in, way beyond the reach of the guards' physical extremities, and rushes into the State Bank of India cubicle inside the airport. There it shall stay until found again and the hubby and I get to finally make our exit from the airport.

Incident Three

Our cabbie, who is taking us from the Lucknow airport to the Kanpur home, stops the car midway on the journey, to fill petrol.

We carry on and after a while, he stops again. This time he honks a couple of times, but the chap who is deeply asleep on top of a wooden bench, covered in layers of woolen blankets, at whom the honks were directed, doesn't budge. The cabbie gets out of the car and walks towards this air filling machine next to the sleeping chap, and uses it to fill air into the car's tyres. He then puts back all the gear in their rightful positions, gets back into the car and drives away. The sleeping chap continues to sleep. I ask my husband, "Isn't he supposed to pay for that air filling thing?". Hubby replies, "Yes. I would think so." OK then.

We carry on and after a while, the cabbie stops. Again. After appropriately parking the car in a highly congested and narrow road, the cabbie gets out without a word and walks across the road. The hubby and I watch him, wondering what the need is this time. The petrol tank is full of petrol and the tyres are full of air, what could it be now?

The cabbie walks to a paan shop and gets himself a doze of paan (betel leaves, a favourite snack/digestive of Indians especially in the northern states). The hubby, "It's 7:00 am. He is having paan now?". I shrug. What am I supposed to say? The cabbie returns and starts the car, as if it was perfectly normal to leave your passengers behind without a word of explanation, let alone apology, as you go and get yourself paan-ed. The hubby, who for some reason takes a tone of apology, asks in almost a whisper, "Brother, will you take us home now?" The brother responds, "But of course, brother." Cool.

So as you can see it was a very eventful journey all the way to Kanpur. Incredible India, Indeed!

In Kanpur we have a fab time, catching up with dad-in-law, mom-in-law and also grandmom-in-law, who is like the sweetest person I know, really! After the catch up, it was time for a LOT of yummy food. Then began the wedding preps. We are here to attend the hubby's cousin's wedding and the parents have done all the necessary preparations for it - like designing the clothes (my dad in law is an expert fashion designer), getting them sewed, getting all the accessories ready, etc. All that the hubby and I had to do was to make sure the clothes fitted alright, get the packing done etc.

Then it was time for some routine shopping, eating more yummy food from different eateries in Kanpur etc.

In the evening we attended the birthday bash of one of the hubby's best friends all the way from childhood days! It was lovely to meet the birthday boy, his wife, as well as all the other friends whom we hadn't met in ages! The party went well into the night and we had a lovely time!

So yes, fantastic, eventful day!

273 more to go.

Day 726: Larry Crowne!

Today we made our way to Delhi, from where we are to take a flight to Lucknow from where we are to take a cab to Kanpur, the hubby's hometown.

On the flight to Delhi, I happened to catch this lovely Tom Hanks - Julia Roberts starrer called Larry Crowne.

I had never heard of this film before and the only reason I watched it was because it had Tom Hanks and I believe that he makes no wrong movie choices. So I watched it and I was blown away by the simplicity of the film!

I absolutely Loved it!

Thus the holiday begins on an excellent note!

274 more to go.

Day 725: IOK Music Release!

Yup!!! After a day of major work in the office, followed by making coriander chicken in 30 mins (yeah, am like SO into cooking these days), followed by another work call that lasted until 10pm, I sat down to make the montage video to go with the final Inganeyum Oru Katha Theme Music. For those who are still unaware of what this is, it is my Malayalam short film.

And the video was done. The song was uploaded.

Thus the IOK Theme Music was released!! (Here's the link!)

Yay!!

275 more to go.

Day 724: Frustration to Gobi Parathas!

Well.. well... what a day!

I did pretty much like the stupidest thing in the world, which left me frustrated for a good couple of hours! Here's the story...

I was to attend a play directed by a friend and very happily I left home, in the pouring rain, to go to Fort Canning Park where the Drama Centre is located.

Everything went off very smoothly till then. In fact, I was almost chirping and hopping because the cabbie, a very sweet chap, even offered me his umbrella to get to the building from the car park! He said, "You can take it. I have another one." How generous is that?! Anyway, I didn't take that of course.. instead I simply dashed to the nearest shelter I could find to take cover from the rain.

So yes, everything was rosy and nice and I decided that I will wait for a few mins before making my way to the Drama Center which is just a little distance away. After all, I was well ahead of time, so all was good.

Except, I figured out in a few minutes from a map of the park nearby, that the Drama is not located at the Fort Canning Park.

I was stumped. How could that possibly be?! I was pretty certain that it was location for the Drama Center... I mean, I myself have performed there a while ago!

A bit of googling told me that yes indeed, the Drama Center was located at Fort Canning Park but since 2005, had shifted itself to the National Library building.

Blah.

This basically meant that I had to immediately rush to the Library. Only that the universe wasn't making it any easy for me to get there. It was pouring cats and dogs, I had no umbrella, the park is in the middle of nowhere and I had no human beings or vehicles around me and the taxi company was unreachable via phone as is the case with Singapore every time it rains. In other words, I was stuck. Majorly so.

So I ended up staring at the rain for about 40 minutes until a blessed cab happened to pass by. Given that it was too late to make it for the play, I just returned home.

Needless to say, it was frustrating.

But what the heck. You can always turn the day around. So I decided that I shall cook and make something super cool like Gobi Parathas (cauliflower breads, north indian style). After going through a few recipes online, I felt I was ready to take the plunge.

And I did.

And the Gobi Parathas were awe.freaking.some! Even the hubby looked surprised at the quality (*snort*).

Thanks to that always-ready-to-come-to-the-rescue option of having some awesome food, which is made even more cooler by the fact that I made them themselves, I went to bed a very happy person!

276 more to go.

Day 723: Historic Stuff!

Given that I had a bit of time today, I decided to bring some order to all my online stuff. Over time, I seem to have accumulated a variety of email ids, Facebook pages, blogs, websites, short films on youtube and vimeo, picasa albums etc. etc. that had happened as I worked on different projects. There had been no focus on putting everything in one space so far, and that was something I thought I should probably start working on.

So I created a Google+ page as a one stop place for all past as well as upcoming works.

and a Youtube channel where I brought in all my short films so far.

More than bringing some order to my disorderly online world, this exercise got me to start looking through old photos of my plays and also to watch all my old films.

They brought back a ton of memories and more interestingly left me with the feeling that are all so... so... Old! They seem so far away! The oldest amongst the lot would be a play which was done in 2007 (pics are available in the G+ link above) but even that seem so long ago!

Anyway, at the end of the day I probably didn't achieve much in terms of organizing things because I still have a whole lot to do... but it was nice to go back to all that historic stuff again!

277 more to go.

Day 722: Rahman & Ranbir!

Today I saw a phenomenal performance on screen by what I think are the best actor and best musician from Hindi cinema today - yup, the movie was Rockstar and the actor & musician were Ranbir Kapoor & A.R.Rahman respectively!

(OK, I know A.R.Rahman is probably the best musician in Indian cinema today and not just Hindi, but let's not get technical).

I didn't add the movie itself in the list because after an exceptional first half, it turned completely ridiculous, at least to me.

But my God, the level of genius these two men displayed is just mind boggling! Acting, music, soundtrack par excellence! Must also give credit to the director for so beautifully visualizing the songs as well.... if only he had a better script in the second half! Oh well.

But am so very much awed!

Completely made the day to watch such fantastic talent in Hindi Cinema!

278 more to go.

Day 721: Knowing it.

You know how people always have this question "But what do I really want?"...."What would make me really happy"? It happens in terms of career, family, even hobbies ... in other words, life in general and as a whole.

When people ask this question, they don't usually find an answer. Same with me, really. I am a very good list-making human being but in totality, even I stumble at this question at times.

But today I think I totally cracked it!

Yup, in a decently articulated statement, I shared this thought with the hubby. The question "What do I really want" and my answer to it.

His response was, disappointingly enough, "Oh it's so amusing to see you thinking so much all the time."

OK then.

But the whole point is that at least for the time being, I know what I want.

Am not gonna share my decently articulated statement here lest the world also gets amused... so that shall stay with me.

But today is an awesome day, because I know it!

279 more to go

Day 720: My Music!

When I don't have anything particularly exciting to do or when I don't want to do anything particularly exciting in spite of having several options, usually out of sheer laziness, I tend to sulk. To avoid sulking I tend to listen to music that makes me wanna smile. That almost always works.

So today, after a pretty eventless day of work, I went for a jog. After that rather eventless jog, I took a work call at night which lasted until about 10:30. That was also pretty eventless - rather, it went smoothly enough, so am glad it was eventless.

Anyway the point is, it was all rather eventless.

Which invariably led to me sulking and that's never good. I had to solve the issue before I hit the bed so that I can enjoy a good night's sleep.

So I sat down and listened to my favourite songs. After the first few random but nice songs, I realized that I was listening to the songs from Mausams and Inganeyum Oru Katha, one after the other. That felt really good!

It's like I am listening to the music and then I suddenly go, "Oh wait a minute... what movie is this song from? Oh, it's from my movie!" You see?

Sounds super egoistical am sure, but hey, it is a very surreal feeling!

Of course, I am very aware of the fact that the songs were all results of pure genius of a couple of my friends and that it has pretty much nothing to do with my work. But that actually makes it even more awesome - the fact that they put this together for a couple of minuscule films of mine!

Well to cut a long story short, one I started to listen to what I consider my music, I felt like the world was indeed pretty exciting even without having done anything exciting for the day and that there is a lot of hope and goodness and dreams and smiles and all such wonderful things in it!

And I went to bed a very happy person!

280 more to go.

Day 719: Happy Exhaustion!

I was ridiculously tired today. Like really really so. I didn't realize that the very happening weekend would end up making me feel so drained!

Oh well.

So what did I do? After work, I went off for 10 straight hours of sleep.

10 hours of sleep is already something pretty beautiful I would say. But that's not really the highlight of the day.

The highlight was that I was having this glow inside throughout. Whenever I think back about the weekend and all the film work that happened, I keep smiling to myself! It is so wonderful to get together with a great team and make something, you know? And the feeling lasts way after the process is over, which is even more fantastic!

So yes... I was super duper exhausted, but very, very happily so.

281 more to go.

Days 715 - 718: A Wonderful Long Weekend!!!

4 - 7 November, 2011

I had such a fantastic weekend! Like a really, really awesome one!

It was a long weekend due to Eid and the bulk of it was spent on completing the shoot of my Malayalam short film Inganeyum Oru Katha! But it is probably better to do a list as there is more to it than that... so here we go!

a) On Friday after work, I came back and cooked Baingan Bharta (a Punjabi dish with brinjal) by following an online recipe. Yes, I am indeed getting very seriously domesticated! Who would have thought?!

b) Post the Baingan cooking and dinner, it was time for shooting one of the scenes for IOK. I had a pretty significant role to play in this scene, so I was more of an actor today than a director. The character I play is alway nagging and shouting at her husband, and I had a real fun time doing that!

c) Post the shoot, it was of course, time for general chit chatting in spite of the fact that it was already 1:30 am. Oh well... general chit chatting is always welcome and thoroughly enjoyed, so am not complaining about that!

d) On Saturday, after a dance rehearsal session together with the hubby, I made bread rolls. Yup. And I was very pleased that the hubby wiped off the whole of it within seconds!

e) Interestingly culinary experiments didn't end there for the day. Post the bread rolls, I immediately made some really yummy egg curry for dinner! You see what I mean by serious domestication now?

f) After dinner, it was time for shoot of the next scene in which I again had a significant role to play. Once again, I thoroughly enjoyed acting! After being just a director for so long, I had begun to forget how much fun acting was! So this was really awesome! I must, however, admit that before the shoot this weekend, I was really nervous. I had not done any major acting projects in a long time and I had little confidence on how I will be able to manage this. So it was also good to conquer the fears and go through the experience, in spite of how it would all turn out at the end!

g) Just like the night before, this acting session was also followed by another round of general chit chatting which went well into the night. But just like the night before, nobody was complaining!

h) On Sunday, it was time for an outdoor shoot! This time, I was back to my full fledged director's role. The outdoor location was Labrador Park, which is always really lovely. Today the weather was more beautiful that the usual and we had a great time shooting there. In fact, even the issues such as the noise from the crowd around didn't seem to bother me at all. I felt on top of the world, for no apparent reason really!

i) Post the long shoot, I met up with a bunch of students from my university who are making their first feature film! They wanted to talk on screening options etc. and it was lovely to meet them. I always love to see people getting together and working on a creative project and the passion, dedication and ideas this bunch seemed to have was really inspiring!

j) Post that meeting, the hubby and I met a few friends for dinner at Mozza at Marina Bay Sands. It was our first time at that restaurant and the food turned out to be pretty good even for a non-lover of Italian food like me! And the fun conversation that accompanied the food, made it a really good dinner overall!

k) On Monday, that is today, we had the last and final schedule of the IOK shoot. And most nicely, it had the entire cast and crew involved! So we had a great time shooting and having a last round (for a while at least) of catch up as one big team together!

l) Post the shoot, my brother and sis in law came over to work on the one last dance we had to prepare for the upcoming wedding. So it was choreography and dance time once again, and that was very good fun too!

m) Then it was time to organize all the IOK footage into a hard disk, to be sent to Mumbai, for editing! The editor for IOK is the same as the one for Mausams. He is based out of Mumbai and I had to get all the footage to him through my hubby who is on his way there tonight. Honestly, getting the footage tidied up was quite strenuous but I managed to get most of it done just in time, before the hubby had to rush for his flight! But there was a lot of satisfaction in feeling that I technically have my entire film in that disk and now it is all set for the next round of work!

n) I must also mention that I just got the final version of IOK theme music! We were planning to launch it within a week or two and it is all ready to be shared! So exciting!

o) Last but not the least... the hubby and I booked our tickets to Las Vegas for just a weekend, to pick up the Silver Screen awards for Mausams! It cost us an arm and leg but we didn't feel like letting go of this experience! Super duper excited!!

OK, a really long list, that.

But a truly beautiful one!

282 more to go.

Day 714: A Little Bit of Everything!

Today had a bit of everything that I like or I feel happy about.

A little bit of good work in the office.

A little bit of work on my short film, Inganeyum Oru Katha.

A little bit of catch up with a few old friends.

A little bit of family time.

A little bit of reading.

A little bit of music and dreaming along with it.

A little bit of awesome food.

A little bit of chai.

A little bit of dance.

A little bit of blogging.

In short, a little bit of everything. But a whole load of happiness!

286 more to go.

Day 713: Silver Screen Award!

The most wonderful and very much unexpected thing happened today!

It all started with me reaching out for my phone just as I woke up in the morning. I was still almost deep asleep when I opened my email on the phone and glanced through my inbox. One of the subject lines "Nevada Film Festival...." caught my eye and I opened the email thinking it might be a Film festival rejection email or maybe even an advertisement for a film festival.

Because the truth is I had applied to this festival several months ago and had completely forgotten about it. It was very much off my radar, mainly because I had no hopes of getting into it.

Anyway, back to the email. I opened it, and in my very sleepy drowsiness, I scanned through its contents. It was saying something like "congratulations"..."won the Silver Screen Award".. etc. I rubbed my eyes a couple of times and read through the email again, almost certain that I could be misinterpreting the whole thing. In the second or probably third reading, it looked clearer that they are indeed saying I won some award. But somehow I couldn't be sure. What if it was a mistake and am not the rightful recipient?! After all, the email had started with "Dear film maker" and not in my name?

That's when I noticed the line "the complete list of winners is given below" and then a list of films beneath that. And there I saw... under the Silver Screen Awards, it said "Mausams by Shilpa Krishnan Shukla".

Mausams just became an "award winning" film!!!

I sat up gaping. For how long, am not sure.

Like, seriously! Who would have thought?!

Even as I woke the hubby up I said, "I think.. Mausams won some award?!" It was just surreal! I just couldn't believe it!

And from there it just turned to one awesome day! I immediately shared the news with my cast and crew and family and everyone was on top of the world! My editor even called me up at 5am his time to respond to the SMS I sent him!

In the evening I went to the temple and thanked God for so much kindness! This was then followed by celebration via skipping yoga and instead do the exact opposite thing on the health meter - i.e have the awesome thalassey biriyani from Swadhisht! Yumm!!

I must also mention that while winning the award was nice, what made it a lot nicer was how all my wonderful friends responded to it! My Facebook notifications simply went bonkers! My phone remained busy throughout with calls and messages! Everybody was so thrilled and happy for us, which was so incredibly sweet!

I felt like giving one fat hug to all of them!! God bless them all!

This one goes to the Mausams team and everyone who supported this tiny film in any whichever way! Thank you!

287 more to go.

Day 712: A Date!

These days, given that the time I get to spend exclusively with the hubby are so rare and so far between, each such opportunity easily gets into the blog as the "beauty-for-the-day" story. The last such story was on October 2nd, i.e. a month ago... so you get my point.

So yes, that's what made the beautiful today as well! The hubby, very magnanimously, announced this morning that he is free to spend the evening with me. And immediately I threw my yoga plans out of the window and freed up my calendar.

Thus the evening was spent on some good food, drinks, lots of conversation involving some list-making (every time we talk, I gotta a make a list of things to do in my life... it's some kinda weird obsession), and even some dance rehearsal for the upcoming wedding.

Nothing out of this world, but exactly what I had wanted and what made me very happy!

And yes, am gonna get brownie points for such a romantic entry.

288 more to go.