If not movies, what could the world use to connect Spain and maybe Mauritius?

   The most beautiful things in life are inexplicably simple. They remain the most basic to human existence, which is why even in today’s times of celestial changeovers, love stories still work. In a pounding tone of a testament, arrived early this year, one such movie that will stay for a very long time to come in the hearts of movie lovers. By the middle of a snowing December, as I watched ‘Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya’ again in remembrance of the best movie experiences of the year, I realized, I almost let the year pass by without making a memoir of the ones that were so heartily endearing this year.


2010, of course, saw some dynamic flashes of – as they say - contemporary cinema. From the gigantic Avatar to the simple and brave Udaan to the heart touchingly simple and real ‘Angaadi Theru’ to Toy Story to the most recent masterpiece, Social Network, 2010 undeniably did its share of filling our ever evolving quest to experience good cinema. I am sure there were other great ones that I missed. So I won’t rate them in any potential order, not even in order of my personal preference. They all belonged to different kinds. But I guess what I am trying to say here is that, of the entire lot, Vinnaithaandi varuvaaya, to me, seems the simplest, the oldest, the most impactful.

It’s amazing the kind of effect this outrageously clichéd subject of the Goddamned love can have, again and again and again and yet again on people. I mean, who else other than us, Indians would know better how many million times have they tried to show in million bizarre ways, what love was!? But, it still works. Amazingly. In a strange, illogical, beautiful way. I couldn’t help but smile in contented agreement, after watching this movie, that, even by the turn of the first decade of the 21st century, there’s nothing more that fills our heart than some good, old fashioned love. It’s probably corny but hell, it’s true.

This is in tribute to one such good work of cinema. In a way, it’s nice to wrap this year up on a note of love – it may not be the best movie of all time but it’s certainly going to be a beloved. The way the love happens in the movie, the way it does not after a point in time, the music and the perfect little ending where they let the love be what it was and move on to life is perhaps the story of every other someone you will find by the curb of the street.

Because we’ve all been in love or will be or are hoping to be and would still hate it and love it at the same time for a thousand beautiful reasons.

Madurai - there's a lot more to it

                
                  Today, while the evening is sinking under an outrageous temperature of -4 degree Celsius, and I have nothing but a dead old plate of lettuce to consider for dinner, I am dreaming about one of the most heartwarming feasts I have ever – I’m sure – had.


It was sometime by the wry end of an Indian summer when we were on a road trip by the lustrous looking, newly smartened up NH7. If you had been driving long over the same road during the pre-makeover days, you will know what I am talking about. The new NH7 is a driver’s perfect Indian dream. So, anyways, after what seemed like a glide of a ride from Nagercoil to Madurai, we hunted around – late in the night - utterly famished – but still unwaveringly unanimous (all of us and that was quite rare) - for this little, old place that – stories said – was a rare treasure to a food lover’s soul.

Hmm..so we did arrive at this dreadfully rusty looking, almost invisible (no boards, no flashing lights!) rugged building that stood on not more than 500 sq feet of ground in its entirety which included the family room, of course - the only one, about 5 * 5 (I’m serious), in size, which by a hair's breadth could seat about six hungry people.

We looked around and beamed in pride - We were at the unbelievably popular(for the what it looked like) ‘Konar Mess’.

With the infamous stories we had been religiously collecting about the restaurant, we were not surprised. Not even when we saw a string of dimly lit wagons along the whole street outside Konar Mess, in which, we later heard, the big wigs of the Madurai circle (dons/dhadhas included) dined. Uh –uh! I think we were far too starving for any surprises.

When the table was, at last filled with what we had been craving to see, in sheer glee, we let our tongues drop flat onto our plates. And then followed an evening of a south Indian delight of meat!

          My favorite was the Kari dosai – a kind of ghee-roasted dosai with fried, spicy, minced mutton filling – the most popular pick of the menu. To soften the crispness, Kari dosais are traditionally accompanied by a small bowl of mutton gravy – simple and authentic. As we began nibbling those pieces of wonder down, we let a gush of pride roll over in honor of the experience.

So then I dived into what was considered yet another sin-not-to-have by the Konar-mess-lovers-club. So next appeared on the table, a plate of steamed idiyappam with the accompaniment of a bowl of Mutton Chukka (Mutton Chukka varuval to call it, in native fondness) that rather smelt like a tangible mesh of the best assortment of south Indian spices.

It looked dark, rough, kinda jagged but tender to touch. It was not the typical chukka I had believed I was a fan of. There was definitely a secret ingredient, I could just smell it.
I didn’t ask; didn’t feel up to it. But ever since, I almost gave up ordering chukka elsewhere.

Ohh! And - Of all the bites of intoxications we blissfully indulged in, that night, Mutton Kheema (I can’t precisely remember more details of what I ate this with) deserves a pat on the back too. It wasn’t my order and by the time I wanted to, they ran out of it.

            That’s one grave misfortune Konar mess can mercilessly inflict upon you. You need to be quick enough to let the orders move in to your table. They vanish from the pantry at the blink of an eye and you do not want to go through the depression of watching the last plate land up on your neighbor’s table.

As a traveler that cannot just hop onto Madurai every other day, trust me, that, can be pretty heartbreaking!

The most beautiful time - quite literally !

In my list of 100 awesome things to do in life, I think this should show up somewhere in my top ten – the feeling you get out of the entire experience of destination-less driving during the time of the gorgeous fall. I mean - nothing but mindboggling colors all around. It’s like a dream, only absolutely real!

How do I describe this? Hmmm…Imagine how you might feel when you blend in softened sweet butter with cream and caramel to strawberries? Hmm..not a very fair equivalent, there.

But the leaves! My God! What the hell happens to them around this time? They wither so beautifully and blow around the town in - here's the magical part - yellow and burnt orange and deep red and purple and faded pink and ...

anyways, sometimes, when the feeling measures off to a strange, unexplainable place, I don't get any words in my throat. This, I guess, almost makes one such hell of a feeling. So I would rather stop and simply say -

They die so gracefully, I mean the leaves, that it melts your heart and makes you want to bottle them up !

At Book People, this weekend

  -  Reading and signing ! Here’s to what started to seem like almost a meltdown - Three cheers and keep them coming in more spirited bottles, God.


So, all you (which is - only very,very few as of this date) people that I know in this still alien but beautiful town of Richmond, please find your way to the store at five on Saturday.

So, I guess, see you there, right?


Book People, Richmond, VA

ENDHIRAN – The pre-experience fiesta!

And the countdown to what better be(!) a feverish cinematic experience has kicked itself off in all the glorious spirits – I’ve decided to run pretty high along!


Because, here’s what I am ready to binge in – our ego – in all logical sanity –does deserve a second chance after the Sivaji debacle(! - again) – Here’s my freakish why – And all this is besides another irresistible, self-invited attempt at pulling out that spare neuron out of Shankar’s brain (which we believe he’s born with). It’s a movie-lover thing that we simply cannot go blind over !

Anyways-

One-and the safest bet of all - Shankar’s sensibilities – we are hoping against hope that he did sit over his book of learning while the world was recessing, on what went wrong with his last experiment with, well, the almost same team . If he tragically didn’t, God save his divine status quo in the critics books.

Two-and this has to be the trump – the world class team involved – from the visual creators of Avatar (and terminator! and Jurassic park!) to our very own masters of the soil – Rahman and the late Sujatha .

Three – One of the best thinkers Tamil Cinema sadly had to let go of – the late Sujatha’s writing - So this movie ought to live around a story despite the gig and the unavoidable need to cater to the mass. It was born out of Sujatha’s head, something that has not often gone wrong.

Four – And Finally – the demigod himself ! This probably could make one of the last sparkling moments of the incredulous journey of RajniKanth, the phenomenon, no other star has experienced. I’m touting for Endhiran for a very good chance for the man to begin his humble sign off from limelight. So, give us a last Rajni- experience while you can and move around as you hear younger voices (but still the claps). Maybe you are done. Almost!

And lastly – here’s what we might be missing – Sujatha’s dialogues. A better cinematography (not that Rathnavelu could go bad under such expectation but where did Ravi K Chandran or P.C Sreeram have to go!?) and the classic Thotta Tharani !

I will keep away from commenting on the music. For those who had to hiss under the breath(like me) in devastated expectations, come on, it’s Rahman, after all and he does need to make compromises with a Rajni film. But who knows? It might just get grander on screen.

In utter and complete hope that my spirits hold up high, in the same (if not higher) ecstasy, after I come out of it all, I am going back to the syndrome now.

If it lets me down, I am gonna give up on nobody but you, Shankar – YOU !!!!

Another sweet review

 - from Sarah Norkus, author of Eleventh Summer(which is a very beautifully told tale of a painful childhood), Until the wind changes and now The Secret Diary of Sarah Chamberlain.

- 'Really enjoyed reading 'Sugar Spring Tales'...very good introspective writer. I could feel the joy, anger, or pain of the characters through their thought processes.  My favorites stories were Autumn Leaves and Train Tales.
Renu has a gift for writing and I look forward to reading more.'
 
 
A deeply felt word of 'Thanks' to you, Sarah !!!
 
eleventhsummer

Forget 'title', what's that thing?

       I haven’t met anyone or experienced anything in the last four hundred odd hours that could have stood the remote chances of throwing in some random seeds of inspiration in me.

I feel blank.

Yup. After about twenty minutes in plain, blank nothingness to drag to this line, I’m convinced I do. What am I waiting for? An angel to slide down the sky and hand me a magic wand and kiss me in the forehead !? Gosh. For God’s freaking sake.

But actually, as a matter of everyday thing, what sort of sign is it when you have checked sleep out that door on a cool, moonlit night, because you wanted to spend some time in the living room listening to Savage Garden with a bowl of hash browns, but the song that a decade earlier sent warm butter across your heart, does – nothing, now and you realize, to shitty misery, that you have been scraping that empty bowl too long.

Honestly, what are we supposed to do when the infamous inspiration is hiding under the dead? - Mine might have slipped right off my wrist.

Sorry, I’m running fatally low.

No. I just ran out, actually

 
*

And things do move on ..

A few words from the first glorious review of ‘Sugar Spring Tales’, from the ceremonious hands of Linda Heinrich, author of Jason’s Helmet.

-  just finished reading the book. Wow! It was delightful. At first I had a problem with the adult endings, but after awhile I enjoyed sitting back and letting my mind wonder about what would happen next in the lives of these characters.

After we left Richmond, we drove to Toledo and then to Charleston, West Virginia. I read to my husband while he was driving. He enjoyed the stories also. I can certainly see this book in a gift shop.
...
 
Linda – Here is a clichéd but genuinely heartfelt ‘Thanks’ for all the encouragement and most importantly the kind smile you carried when I first got to meet you.

Visit Linda Heinrich here.


*

It's good to halt every so often before moving on..

"If we are to live life in harmony with the universe, we must all possess a powerful faith in what the ancients used to call "fatum", what we currently refer to as destiny"
                                                          - quoted from the movie 'Serendipity'.

Sometimes, life takes you on a beautiful trip to places where you’ll find yourself. And you’ll discover a little something that nobody knows about you, but yourself. And when it happens, against all audacities you have ever clung on to, the best and the only thing you can do is throw your arms up in the sky and let everything that’s supposed to happen – happen, beautifully.


New York City is one such sign of a dream that merrily smiles back at you in all the right spirits of life, with such passion that a tear of hope will occur to even the most unbelieving of hearts. Amidst and under the overwhelming dreams of millions of souls that step into this city for making life bigger or to bask in the sheer joy of experiencing the seductive charm of the place, this glorious city is a woman who is artistically majestic, classic and tender – like she’s warmly taking you into her palm, giving you all that you had hoped for. And you feel alright about everything. Yet again.

It felt like some abstract beautiful life again to live thru’ this one week of some of the very best and the most exhilarating moments I’ve had in a long while. Falling in love, all over again, is probably what had happened.

Here’s to this little city of the world, that is romantic in the pure sense of what it means .


Here’s to life and all the little stops we make by those destinies that were waiting for us to arrive.


Here’s to love -


Video - Northern Sky - Beautiful Moment


*

Of life and its tentacles..

.... Had been at the much hyped Hanover Book Festival, this Saturday. Typically lived up. Exactly like the end of other much hyped sensations that leave us like thawed peas – pale and wrinkled ! But there is one thing I came back home with. Met, among a bunch of others who had a platter of books to their credit, the lovely and warm Sarah Norkus, author of the successful ‘Eleventh Summer’ and the graciously sweet Linda Barron Heinrich, author of ‘Jason’s Helmet’. Both Sarah (Sally, as she is fondly called) and Linda accepted copies of ‘Sugar Spring Tales’ for an honest review and almost moved me to dramatic edges of surprise by offering me signed copies of their hugely successful books as – here’s the brilliant part – a token of encouragement!

Spending more hours walking around the tables of authors like – gulp! – Joanne Liggan (who also organizes the event every year) than at my own, kind of unshackled the staggering tensions of a newborn. It’s a big, big world of millions of brilliant writers! Save my dreams, dear Lord !!

In other news, I’m psyched up (in an uncertain way) about what the world is raving about.  ENDHIRAN.  Sure, I can’t help jiggling over kilimanjaro. And Boom Boom fires up some wildly cosmic imaginations under my nose. Yet, here's the thing - While I’m bobbing my head in utter defiance to every Rahman-loving  soul, I can’t help the shagged doubts underneath. Remember the gig around Sivaji? I’m hoping Sankar did attend his classes on learning from your own mistakes.


AND - My blog needs a visit to the spa. A tired looking daisy hanging around the Babylon of a mud-brown backdrop is just not happening!

*

Any particular word to describe this ???

     
                 You know, just as you think you have eventually made it to slowly bounce out of the phase of your life that was smitten by doubts and fears and questions , there surely comes another point, virtually looking like a gasp of fresh breath but ruthlessly restoring the same doubts, fears and the same itchy questions, into your soul.

Great people leap through it, to greater heights, to better places in life where they would later preach about how determined they stuck through to win over the bloody hiccups (basically, I’m guessing , it’s the same cloud of fears and doubts and questions).


But what about the not-so-great people? What about people like me, who life likes to dabble with, quite generously? What happens in stories like mine?

I’m talking about this book I wrote which I went wandering in the streets of publishing world with, seeking people who might just want to take a look at what the shit I am gabbling away about. Who cares? The world is fast becoming faster and slow heads like me - I mean, how fast do I have to run?

Well, ‘The Reading’ at the writers club this weekend went okay, literally. Because all I could manage, within the realms of my limited capability was to READ and sell – here’s the freakiest part – ONE copy of ‘Sugar Spring Tales’. I mean, ONE !!?? Out of a whole bunch of people who nodded away ?? And I had these fantasies of….

….well, anyways, let me not get deeper. Life is bloody strange.

Later back home, as I couch-ed my aching soul under a blanket, with a huge red bowl of microwaved popcorn on a particularly somber Saturday evening, making up to watch ‘How to lose a guy in ten days’, one of my old-town buddies pops up on the phone, saying, as-a-matter-of-factly, ‘Look, I ordered your book and all that, but if it is gonna end up being anything like your soppy blog, I’m gonna have you refund.’

How soppier could life get?

“I’m just kidding. Let’s hope your book is unlike you.” She chuckles.

But, like Julie Powell, in her book says, ‘Can we NOT look at the brighter side, for once, please?’

Will be reading ..

..and hopefully signing at the Chesterfield Writer's club this saturday (Jul - 17th).

If I pick myself up to the point of holding a sale record of five copies that day, I would come back home to a toast !!!

In other news, a few good souls did actually order my book online. How can I tell you that I'm trying my best to remain humble on my ass while the spirits are soaring up in the sky !!!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you !!!

Sugar Spring Tales

is now available on Amazon -
http://www.amazon.com/Sugar-Spring-Tales-Sandhya-Renu/dp/1451537204/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1278472345&sr=1-1

Also, on createspace -
https://www.createspace.com/3438540

Please, please, please - buy a copy - You won't be utterly dissapointed - I promise !!

Are you listening ?
Anyone ????

Life – a dream down !

It feels crazy, sort of emotionally destabilizing ! In the past twenty eight years, six months and twenty seven days, if there has been something that I was unbelievably sure of, it is this simple dream that I dreamt, over and over, night after night, so many times. And today, as I am writing this, that dream is quietly sitting next to me, folded into 160 pages, covered in an angel white glossy wrapper, titled ‘Sugar Spring Tales’. I don’t exactly know what is going through my mind. As I said, it’s kind of weird. But this experience of a year of writing and living with that dream has been liberating, heart-wise.

SO – that is that ! But after tones of hopelessly optimistic calls to various book stores, libraries and book fests around my new town, I came to terms with the fact that nobody damn wants to buy it. I will hang on though – her highness pride is something I have decided to let other times have of.

The book will be available on Amazon from next week for $5.99.
As for this moment, it is sitting for owners on

https://www.createspace.com/3438540

So buy it, if you feel like it. Please.
It only finds meaning at the reader's hands.

Would make a big deal of difference to my life - real big !

Meantime, I shall wander around the streets of hopeville, to find that gracious soul who would, for a change, smile, when I tell him, "I am a freaking new author. Could this lame soul please have a little room amidst these millions of books written by masters and geniuses ?"

If life is beautiful enough for that to happen, I will let you know.

At the very last, Thanks to you for reading this, for reading some of the most horrendous but true ramblings I made you read ! And Thanks if I have succesfully sowed in you, a feeling to just damn buy it.

CoFfEe Is NoT mY CuP Of TeA !

- or so to say for a filler !

As on today, life is like the weather at the Smoky Mountains - hazy, with a tiny glint of oblivious adventure !!
Who knows where I'll land up next...

The aftermath of snow can leave you in strangled moods

There are days when you feel absolutely fine with your life and there are other times when you couldn’t care less. And it’s not like being torn between a scrumptious looking chocolate parfait and pineapple flavored cheesecake, on a rare trip to your favorite restaurant. I mean, that’s a very difficult choice.

But if on a Friday night, after the neighborhood has cuddled into sleep, you are skimming through pages of an age old book that hasn’t made any sense to you, so far, but you hang on to it anyway, with some Ilayaraja songs playing from youtube and the endorphins haven’t quite come to work yet, strange for a Friday, then something just doesn’t feel right. I have never been an Ilayaraja-person. And if a book doesn’t engage me after 20 pages, to heck with it, I am done. For over a couple of seasons, I have been arguing with my own abilities to think right, find what I want. If it’s change that’s at the door, buzz off, I am not ready yet. And if it’s age, excuse me, can you not see that I am trying to make something out of my twenties before they become just rustic pieces of a photo album?

I guess some things don’t really care for your opinion. Age, for instance. But maybe, you can play around with the choices, like deciding to embark on a scavenger hunt, looking for your dreams. Some things utterly confuse me. For example, me. Why would I still want to run away from the idea of becoming a mother, after almost four freaking years of dwelling in holy matrimony? That’s weird, if you are brought up in a society that equates being thin to underprivileged financial standing. My friend's mother stared at me in disgust, followed by faint pity, like she just discovered that I had been undergoing treatment for mental impairment, when I told her I hadn’t thought about babies, yet. Is it entirely my fault that all my cousins and friends (well, almost) just came back pregnant after about two months of being married? I mean, that’s just not fair on me!

But under such scenarios, what I think works, is just sigh your agreement. Sometimes, in utter honesty. Like the song ‘ tendril vanthu ennai thodu’ that is making some kind of magic out of my speakers, right now. It belonged to the eighties, probably seventies. It’s Ilayaraja. It’s from a movie I haven’t seen. But what the hell? It’s just a brilliant piece of art. And it makes perfect sense during these random after-dark hours on a Friday. There’s no arguing with that!

Resolutions - I am gonna stay away from them this year

Alright – I shouldn’t be totally let down here. I go out of my inconsistent way every once in a while to get consistent. Failing at it invariably is a sad but true story of my life – that’s fine, for now. But as the year cracks open – wait, it’s a new decade and everything, I am going to pull my socks up and do what I believe God knocked into me because he knew I almost suck at everything else. Let me start this year off with a ‘Thank you’ for making myself believe I have something I could, may be, kind of, sort of, do – writing!

And this time, I am shredding the horizons. This blog has been a starter, most wonderfully! And I hope I don’t let it die. Blank spaces, make better alternatives for a canvas done not so well, so I shouldn’t be bothered about having let this blog stay blank while I was undergoing creative impairments.

Okay – First things first. 2010 has been officially marked as the ‘dream year’ in my diary. For one reason, I have picked up the guts, shedding all my fears and diffidence and questions and some more of them to become an AUTHOR !!!!!

I am just hoping it’s not too early to put this out here. But those of you who do check this blog out (I know that’s not gonna be more than five or six or seven or may be eight, but sadly not more), please wish me luck. I need oodles of them!!! I am gonna try and fill in my progress up here.

So if things go blessedly well, by spring, I will have in my hands, a little something that I will keep near my pillow for the rest of my life – MY BOOK !!!!

Happy New year, guys !

Wake Up Sid, for God's sake !!

Every once in a while you need a movie – a good movie, that’s like a warm bowl of soup to soul – that has slices of baked veggies, meat to chew and rich broth to fill your heart in the right places.It stimulates, embraces and brings back to life the cells inside us that we often forget the existence of. And then it reminds us of those small moments that slowly become worthy enough to be called ‘Life’. There, if you come to realise, lie silently inside, so many little such cells that we leave behind with every birthday. And in this big, big world, sadly, I have no many reasons to believe such movies come by that often.


What’s new? Umm, nothing. Two people no different from you and I, yet beautifully different from each other. So? Umm, nothing again except that I can vouch for my belief here that, everyone, anyone can see a bit of him/herself in one of the protagonists of the movie. A phase in life that unwittingly transitions life from a frivolous and a safe place which had friends and fun and truck loads of ease over to a more thorny, duller looking world surrounded by people who you sometimes can’t believe are part of your daily life. Can we please agree on that?
If you haven’t yet, please grab a DVD (if newer movies took over in theatres), or – hate me for suggesting this - sneak into a pirated weblink ‘coz for heavens sakes, we need such movies.

In other news – my ipod is obliged to be nicer to me for getting featured in 3 consecutive posts for I got it richer by a song – ‘iktara’ from this movie. Some songs strike gold in your ears and dangle like ear-rings wherever you go .
Beautiful one !

In the crust of a sleepless night.

I am wandering around my tiny living room at 3:56 AM. Have been up since 2, I guess.

Pigged out on a bowl of left-over grapes, read for an hour, reloaded my ipod and arrived at being clueless to what else I could do, trying to keep at the nightly hush, so I don’t disturb my peacefully sleeping husband. I admit, sometimes I doubt my own levels of cerebral stability. I just like to call it, umm, let’s just say - hyper.

There are times you completely want to immerse in yourself – trying to redo the basic stuff that you thought you were made of and man, there has been a handful of moments when I have felt the desperate need from the roots of my heart to rebuild my entire self, all over again. This is one such phase, I just know it. What has changed is my ability to respond to such moments. That I no longer linger around my bed fighting sleep or being a mute spectator to meticulously detailed free shows my mind offers, about my life or just numbly laying there, terrified to move, glaring into darkness for, god, a bad long time, is a change that has merrily swung by. I am surprised I could ramble into the kitchen, hunting for a midnight snack, or open my laptop and write away the thrill of living thru’ such hours or simply settle to a couch with a book that makes me want to smile between lines.

What’s intriguing is that even at his hour, I am not in constant hunger to go back and have what I never did, in the first place. That’s untypical of me. How many people can say that? :)

Square peg..

alright, in a round hole – Me in every clearly describable sense of it!

It’s petrifying to see how people bend themselves to round-er pegs to fit in more easily, some even go out of shape. I should just quit giving away pieces of time and much larger peaces of mind to extended families who think the nicest thing to say to me is how a respectable woman my age should already be a mother or at least pregnant and how they think your avant-gardism is clearly heretical and a path to failure.

Honestly, I am quite with them on the being-confused part. But, really, who isn’t? Living in an already explosively-populous world where you get to hear at least a couple of breaking news every month, of some one your mom knows, getting pregnant and trying to reassure your mind of simply staying steer-clear can be stressful !

The world is round! What am I to do with the square peg I am born with?