Growing up and Growing old

On a cheeky note, we all grow older at the rate of one year per annum but we grow up at different rates...

Case in point, the 25 something crowd of more than 20 guys who happened to be in the theater last night for a show of "Mayakkam Enna". Had gone to watch the evening show with Balaji last night and it was a full house.

Mayakkam Enna (you can watch trailer here) is a movie by Selvaraghavan with his brother Dhanush as the hero. If you thought this was some feel good, masala romance movie that targets the twenty something youth, you may be mistaken.

It is a visceral movie about a group of friends growing up and growing old based on the circumstances they face in life. Some deal with the hand they are dealt with courage and conviction while others simply struggle to pick up the pieces. Selvaraghavan does a fantastic job of creating vivid images of the characters with all their idiosyncrasies and Dhanush stands out as an actor. The heroine steals the show throughout the movie. A first timer to Tamil movies, this girl can act.

It is a treat to watch a heroine in a Tamil movie get a chance to show her acting skills as opposed to just showing herself for a change.

Went to the movie without knowing anything about the movie. Had not heard about the storyline, the cast, nothing. Just that Sangeetha watched it the previous night and said "you will like this movie because there is a lot of good photography in the movie".

Came out loving it. Sad part was that the crowd of guys totally spoiled the movie going experience. They simply could not handle the serious scenes and would start making loud ridiculous comments to the whole theater which was not much different from little kids who act out to crave attention.

Was telling Balaji that one needs to be a husband and or a parent to understand "the growing up" aspect of life and clearly this crowd was not ready for it.

This movie was 80% tragedy, 20% happy go lucky and another bonus 10% if you managed to connect the dots between the two.

A must watch for a mature audience!


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Time Traaavellll....

Blogging has become a luxury with the busy work schedule and the new early to bed, early to rise routine for the last 8 weeks..

Was going through old blog posts to see what we were doing last year same time and http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifsaw this post..

Last weekend saw us rearrange the kids closet and suddenly realized that both these pieces were still there! One was to be a hand me down to the little one and the other one was a fight to the end for the donate pile. Our kids will put top notch lawyers to shame when it comes to making a case for keeping their old clothes.

As usual, could not resist the temptation to do another juxtapose photo..




They really enjoyed dressing up and posing for this one!


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Perseverence from the kids

They had the faith that their daddy did not have..

They believed that if you plant a seed and keep watering it daily.. someday, someday a plant will grow..

They laughed back when their parents told them that some plants will not grow in northern California because they are not meant to be!

But...




The day after they left for India, we were surprised to find a mango spouting!

Let us see if this will survive and become a tree....


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Time travel

Could not resist this juxtaposition...


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Neeyum Naanum (you and me)

Watched Abhiyum Naanum on DVD. It was a great movie. Came out teary eyed in a lot of places. First real sappy daddy movie to hit the screens in a long time.

Even the big girls were all wiping their tears, possibly thinking about their dads?!

Most of the things in that movie have happened for real in this house. The girls as much as utter a sound, daddy will be right next to them. The alert level in the house for the girls getting hurt is always at Orange, much like the San Jose Airport since a few weeks after 9/11. Daddy is still designing airbags in his sleep that will make sure that there are no scratches on the kids if they get in an accident.

If this movie captured our past and present very accurately, then it is offering a very scary glimpse of the future for daddy.

There is a lot of growing up to do, for sure.

Just remembered this post and the comments that followed! It is not going to be easy for me to see my girls say bye to me.

Funny thing is they already know that they can live without me but it is me who cannot live without them and this theme came as a self realization way before this movie was made!

Hell, I should have scripted this movie. Okay, just kidding..

Those occasional flashes of truth fade into the background in an instant and we are back to the "my child" obsession.

One thing is for sure. I treat my FIL with a lot of respect. He is the only person who could put things in perspective for me when my kids decide to get married. Not my wife, not my parents, not my kids. Only the FIL can give me advice on what it means to become a FIL myself someday.

Maybe he has no profound wisdom to offer me and will brush it aside with stuff like "achcha baba" or "chalta hai" or some such thing which leaves you staring into space going "what was that?" , or maybe he will take me aside and bare his soul on what he was thinking at my wedding....or maybe he will start a school for prospective FIL's and offer coaching classes?

Only time will tell.

Hopefully by that time, this dad will be wiser. One can always hope, no?


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Could it be?

My wife seems to get on my nerves exactly the same way my mom used to get on my dad's nerves.

If your thought process is drifting towards "Sundar, don't be stupid. San and your mom are both women. You and your dad are men. This is standard operating procedure!",now, hold that thought.

There are a million variations of annoying a guy. My MIL pisses off my FIL, but her modus operandi is completely different. The irritation factor is there, but the things that irritate FIL are way different than things that irriate my dad! I also get to observe similar phenomena with my brother, BIL, friends, other relatives.

Okay, now if you are thinking "Sundar, But you and your dad are genetically similar. Maybe the same things piss you off!".

Granted that I grew up swearing to myself, not to be like my dad when growing up, but invariably the genetics catch up and Sundar at 35 is not very different from his dad at 35. Sundar at 12 was a lot different from his dad at 42, but who knew!

Still, it takes two to tango, or foxtrot, or waltz, or quick step or viennese waltz for that matter. That said, San is not genetically related to my mom! Then how come she manages to tick me off, the same way my mom irritates my dad? This got me thinking last night...

Is San becoming who she is because she has to constantly deal with me? Is that because I am increasingly approaching my dad as I grow older? Or am I becoming who I am because of constantly dealing with her? Are we essentially reliving what my parents lived through? How come we are not reliving what her parents went through when she was young? Or was it very similar? Does this mean that my kids are going to suffer a lot? Why do I sound like Deepak Chopra? etc. etc.

A million (okay, okay, a few dozen!) questions race through my mind now. At this point, cannot even think of a scientific experiment to prove or disprove any of these thoughts! Well, we watched Deepak Chopra on PBS, so at least the last question has an answer.

Should we even bother with the "will try to be different than our parents" bit? Is it pure naivete that drives us to think we will be any better than our parents when we are kids and once we have kids of our own, we grow up and realize why they were always pressed for time, tense, unable to focus a lot of times, make the decisions they made, etc. etc.

As I am about to hit the bed, can only think of one thing an ex-boss told me when his second kid was born (this was during my bachelor days).

"The world has two types of people. People who go through parenting and people who don't!"

Seems to sum up my thoughts for the day!


ps. Apparently this post makes it look like I am "Buddha" personified and that fact alone is getting on her nerves!

pps. We don't always irritate each other. Only when we bark orders to the other person when screaming kids are involved.

ppps. I get on her nerves as much as she gets on mine, but this is MY blog!! ha ha ha..

pppps. The ppps. should have read "I get on her nerves much much more than she gets on mine".. (Thanks to a reader for pointing that out..)


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Overnight Wings

Once upon a time, in a land far away,
lived a happy couple, who entered family way!
Before you knew it, they had a kid or two,
Lost sleep, track of time, but were happy to
In time their little ones grew up
Left home for far away lands
To study, work, and even hold hands!
And it was their turn to enter the circle
of big tummies, gurgles and school
The all too familiar routines
that were tiresome yet cool!


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