"No Complaints"...

The Monday gone by was the Labor Day here in the US. That meant that it was a long 3-day weekend. One of my room-mates' sister was here for the same. And on Sunday night, we all went out to Santa Monica to have ice-cream at a very famous place. There was a huge line - ten times the length of the shop - outside the place :D But the ice-cream was totally worth the wait :) Thereafter, we drove up to within a mile of the Hollywood Sign, at about midnight.. The iconic letters looked beautiful in the night light..

On my first shift at my part-time job thereafter, my co-worker asked what I did at the weekend and I told him  After that I asked him how he spent the weekend - and he said he worked on two of the three days. But he finished it by saying that he had "No complaints".. The reply certainly set me thinking.. I had been told a couple of days ago that I manage to find depressing stuff in all things. But, I am very adept at making myself feel happy whenever I can.. I can control my mind.. Yet, and I guess that's the big point, never have I ever said "No complaints"..  Two simple words with very deep connotations..

A couple of other interesting things have also happened over the last couple of weeks..  I found someone rather similar to Aamir Khan's Rancho in 3 Idiots :P .... There is this Chinese girl who lives near my house, so we run into each other in the university bus a fair bit.. Now, what she does is that she comes to attend the class on Operating Systems - she isnt registered for it but just likes the subject so is there without fail.. Apart from that, she told me, she has also attended a class on Screenplay in the Cinematic School!! She said she liked that class too but it was too long - 4 hrs - due to an included movie screening.. (Me thinks it would be a fun class :) )

And I guess one last thing I should note is the "Please and Thank You " culture, here in LA, or at least in USC. Everyone is really polite and helpful here, and almost seem sorry if you are made to wait before your work is done. That is really good to see..

PS> I also had an Amreeki Paratha with choori and kaanta, or Pancake with a fork and knife : D Its good but not even a patch on our dear desi home-cooked Parantha :D 

Der Lagi Lekin.. #ZNMD

It has been a long time since my last post - the hectic start to life as a grad student is to blame for that. I finally watched Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara after landing in LA and totally loved.

More than anything else, it is the song "Der Lagi Lekin.." that I cant get out of my head. It would be truly awesome I could feel the peace of mind that is displayed by Hrithik's and Farhan's character by speaking to Katrina and Deepti Naval, respectively.

The lyrics of the song are so beautiful that they give me the goosebumps every time I hear the song. My favorite lines from the song are:
"Koi sunaye joh, Hasti muskarati kahani
Kehta hai dil, Main bhi sunu...

Aanson ke moti ho, Jo kisi ke nishani
Kehta hai dil, Main bhi chunu..."

It really would be wonderful to find magic in someone's story and see pearls in someone's tears. Whenever I listen to this song I think how wonderful would be the day if I could say "Maine ab hai jeena seekh lia.."

PS> I found the movie so wonderful that I even wrote a piece for the university's newspaper's, Daily Trojan, Movies blog imploring American students to see this amazing Hindi movie. Sadly my editor felt the movie is too old to be covered - Koi nahi I can post it here :D

Here it is:

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, loosely translated as We Only Live Once, is a Hindi movie, which has done remarkably well even in the US. Directed by Zoya Akhtar, the movie released last month and received an impressive global response. The movie’s storyline, based on the theme of male bonding, transcends language barriers. The movie’s strong IMDB rating of 8.2 – one of the highest for a non-English movie – is a fair indicator of its popularity.

The movie is the story of three friends – Arjun (played by Hrithik Roshan), Imran (Farhan Akhtar) and Kabir (Abhay Deol). After Kabir is engaged to Natasha (Kalki Koechlin), the three of them decide to honor their pact of a going on a three week long bachelor trip to Spain. Each of the three is allowed to use one adventure sport, which the other two must also undertake to strengthen the bond of their friendship.

In Spain, the trio meet Laila (played by Katrina Kaif), who is their deep-sea diving instructor and who strongly believes in enjoying life to its fullest. Laila’s happy-go-lucky nature is in stark contrast to those of the main protagonists – each of whom is grappling with inner demons. Over the course of their Bachelor trip they slip deep into the sea, dive from the sky and go bullfighting; and eventually overcome their deepest fears.

An idea about the movie’s ability to overcome language barriers can be gauged from a delightful scene in the movie, where Imran is cuddling up to his Spanish lover Nuria, played by Spanish actress Ariadna Cabrol. The two lovers do not understand each other’s languages – she only speaks Spanish, while he only understands Hindi and English. Yet, when he pours his heart out, in Hindi, she understands how tense he is and consoles her, in Spanish. And he is touched by it and is thankful to her.

The most praised aspect of the movie has been the soulful Urdu poetry of Imran’s character, penned by his real-life father Javed Akhtar. The poetry has been played as a part of background score and adds infinitely to the movie’s appeal.

Another much loved aspect of the movie has been the cinematography covering Spain as a delightful tourist destination. The wonderful streets, the deep sea and the skydiving sequence have all been delightfully covered as the leading trio go around the country.  

With its beautiful locales, strong characterization and soulful background score - the Indian movie is definitely one that should be seen by all cinema lovers, irrespective of whether they know Hindi or not.

Here’s a little sample of some of the most fascinating poetry from the movie:
Jab jab dard ka baadal chaya

Jab ghum ka saya lehraya

Jab aansoo palkon tak aya

Jab yeh tanha dil ghabraya

Humne dil ko yeh samjhaya

Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai…

Duniya mein yunhi hota hai

Yeh jo gehre sannate hain

Waqt ne sabko hi baante hain

Thoda ghum hai sabka qissa

Thodi dhoop hai sabka hissa

Aankh teri bekaar hi nam hai

Har pal ek naya mausam hai

Kyun tu aise pal khota hai

Dil aakhir tu kyun rota hai …

Living in LA between an ocean and a desert, with hills for company :)

So I am here at Los Angeles. It was a long journey, with three well distributed flights - 5.40hr from Delhi to Singapore, 7.40hr from Singapore to Tokyo and 9hr40 from Tokyo to LA :P

Me @USC :)

To say that USC is an international university would be an understatement - it takes in more foreign students every year than any other university in the US. And my first few days here have been nothing if not full of international exposure :p. My first visit to the university campus laid down the marker to be honest. While looking for a photocopying machine I ran into a couple of Frenchmen who were also looking for the same. They are here on a semester-long exchange program from their French B-School. The first thing I was asked after I told them I was from India was if I played field hockey. Woah, I thought, Europeans talking about hockey!! Even we dont do that much back home in India, unless we are playing Pakistan :D Apparently T really enjoyed playing hockey and had seen some big stars play in the European league. And the surprise didnt end there -  he had even played cricket!! When I finally asked him if he had played football (or, soccer as its called here) he told me he didnt like it much because it is a very rough game. It was quite interesting to speak with a French guy who would rather play hockey and cricket than football!! A slight shame was that he was unaware of Major Dhyan Chand's iconic statue in Austria. He was also surprised to know that Delhi's hockey stadium, named after the great man, has a capacity of 25000 ppl - about 30 times that of the stadium in his city :p

The next day I ran into a drunken immigrant who seemed to think I owned the shop next to the bus stop :p Wonder what gave him the idea? :p The same day I received a Namaste from a local bus driver - he was very helpful too and guided me to the nearest eatery, something that my grumbling stomach badly wanted :p
Earlier that day, me and my roommate had helped a Vietnamese student open her bank account. Suffice to say the international nature of the university pretty much hit me in the face straight up :P And then, something something else hot me - the jetlag and the gigantic 1230hr time difference from Delhi. I would sit somewhere and couldnt keep my eyes open.

That weekend I went to the Gurdwara here- the langar was awesome :D. I also went to the Griffith Observatory thereafter and bought a ticket for the space presentation there but pretty much slept right through it :p Only remember the last part - the orator said, "We are all made from star dust. So when we travel to the space in our space trips, with our telescopes and in our minds, we are going home." (Note to self - Visit the Nehru Planetarium next time I am home in Delhi :D )

The view from Griffith Observatory - with downtown LA in background

And the other side offered a good view of the world famous Hollywood Sign!!

Hollywood Sign!!

The next week the experiences continued - this time at the International Student Orientation at the university. And that brings us to the title of this post. By a stroke a chance, I seated myself on the same table for lunch as the guest speaker for the orientation herself. She was one of the Board Members of the Alumni Association and enlightened us with some interesting facts about the city of Angels during lunch. She said that LA witnesses weather unlike any other city because it has the Pacific and sea-breeze on one side and the Nevada desert and its hot winds and the other. So it is bright and sunny here and there is hardly any rainfall. And to top it all off, the Big Bear mountain in the vicinity offers snow-capped peaks near Christmas time even as Malibu Beach enjoys a warm sunshine - All in the same city :O

Beach, Ocean, Hills and Skyscrapers: LA has it all :)
(Taken at Santa Monica Beach)

 She also said that public transit here is awful - made me feel happy that the Metro back home in Delhi ensures Delhites can never complain about public transit being poor :)

What was also interesting during the orientation was that all the students working with the orientation team were undergrads, and seemed to be lively personalities and studied subjects such as East Asian Culture, Theatre and Cinema.  The self-confidence that those guys portrayed left me wondering if any undergrad, or grad student for that matter, in India could be so self-assured. And to think that I am a good three years elder to them, with an year-and-a-half industry experience, but nowhere as self-confident as them.
The orientation day also saw me meet more foreign students - including a Chinese student who, although was not good with English, was here to study Music. Wow, I thought!! A piano player coming across the world to study music - just incredible.

Also, met a Mexican student and discussed food - she really liked Indian food with all its likeness to Mexican food in terms to spices (something I was able to observe that first-hand when I ate at a a Mexican place the next day :) ). She also said LA is like half-Mexican and half-everyone-else - and in my little experience here so far, hard to disagree with that :D

The next day, as the Orientation continued, I met a Dutch grad student here to major in Communications. She used to work at the Amsterdam Arena back home in the Netherlands and it was great to discuss football with her :) Though I have to say she didnt really want to talk about her team's defeat in the WC final :P But she quite liked it when I told her how I had lost a bet, and made of several friends lose it too :p, when the Dutch beat Brazil at the QF stage :p :D (Didnt discuss the FB backlash though :p)

A big difference in LA from Delhi is of course the traffic system. Pedestrians have the right of way here (a HUGE change from Delhi :p ) but they can be fined as high as $200 if found to be abusing this right by jaywalking!! And of course, US follows a left-hand drive system. So to take a left you basically have to wait in the middle of the road for the traffic going straight to slow down and give you space to move. I have absolutely no doubt that such a system cant work in an overpopulated India, where everyone is in a hurry - all the time :P

This post is already very long but my experiences arent done yet :p - I have also enjoyed the company of some amazing fellow Indians as well. The bakar at my resistance has been amazing - covering topics ass diverse as US and Indian education systems, the economic recession here, and Anna Hazare and corruption in the country - there have been some heated discussions I must say :p A weird thing here though has been the gutbaazi - Chinese students stick with other Chinese students, Koreans with other Koreans and Indians with other Indians - with other people from their own regions.

My classes will start next week so I will probably not get time to write again - agle 2-3 baar ki kasar nikal di issi post mein :P

PS> A big discussion is on again here :P