Days 351 - 355: From Good to Awesome!

17 - 21 December, 2013

In my last post, I had written about how the days have gone from being pretty bad to pretty good. Now in the last few days, I can safely say that the days have gone from pretty good to pretty awesome! Several awesome things have been happening:

1) The dub for Aravindum Aarumughamum is finally complete! It took staying up until 6:30 on friday night/saturday morning to get this done, but thanks to a cup of exceptionally good black coffee and a lot of humour and wit from the team even that late into the night, we managed to get through it. It took me another late night to complete the entire sync and edit of the dub but then... soon enough, we were done! And it felt awesome!

2) We, the culture team at work that organized the Christmas party, had a really nice celebratory lunch at the Ku De Ta restaurant in Marina Bay Sands. This was a gift given to us by the boss, for the good work ! The lovely atmosphere with the cool, breezy weather, the gorgeous views, the delicios Japanese bento set that ordered, as well as the fun conversation that flowed throughout, all made it a really nice experience.

3) I had  been pretty much stuck with the ideas for episodes of the Malayalam sitcom that I had started to write, but now I have a new thread in my mind. I haven't yet written it down, but this is already a great start!

4) I started to pack for the last and final trip of the year - back to India!

5) I finally started to feel that December is here! Work was easing off, mainly because nobody is around to not let it ease off; The work on the film at my end was finally pretty much done, I was beginning to think about the holiday finally (and panicking about the packing, if I may add) and I even managed to catch a Bollywood film, Dhoom 3, in the theatre. I was visiting the cinemas after three whole months... I don't think that kinda gap has happened ever before, but that's how busy it has been! It was great to be back... and I think I enjoyed the film more than anyone else. Sure, it has a mindblowing list of flaws, but just watching it for the performance of Aamir Khan and production design, was good enough for me.

6) I had two really good yoga classes!

7) Thanks to Youtube, I am still receiving messages from strangers on Mausams,even though the film is almost three years old now. Especially when I feel like I am in a rut with the dubbing or some other issue with the film, one such message quickly pulls me out and up and I feel like this is all worth it! Everytime this happens, I feel so thankful!

Nett, am an awesomely happy person! 

Days 108 - 113: So Much Happening!

I really wish I had the time to write individual posts for the past few days because there simply seems to be much happening these days! But I am too caught up and my bullet-pointed highlights will have to suffice. So here we go!

a) Housewarming - My brother-in-law and wife bought a new apartment in Singapore and had their housewarming. The hubby, the little one and I were there for this very special moment in their lives. It is always lovely to see people's dreams come true and I know that this was a big one for them! It felt really good to be part of it!

b) Farewells - Both my mom and my father in law left for India over the last few days. Farewells are never nice but the upside is that you really treasure the last few days and hours spent together! It was no different this time as well and I thoroughly enjoyed the quality time that we spent!

c) The Pool - This is a real big one! The little one took her first trip to the pool and it was nothing short of awesome! Initially when I placed her on her floating ring in the water, she started to wail, probably due to the cold. So I took her out and got her to dip only her feet in the water. After the resulting acclimatization, she seemed to enjoy a lot better. Before we knew it, there she was comfortably settled on her floater ring and thoroughly enjoying her "swim"! All my maternal instincts came out and I felt oh-so-proud of my water baby! Of course, she spent more time trying to eat the floating ring than playing with water, but let's ignore such small distractions for the time being. I had the best time with her and after her time in the pool was done, it was my turn! My last swim was two days before delivering the little one, so it's been a while now. But my first postpartum swim wasn't bad at all. I managed to complete eight laps, which is a decent average for me. Loved the water, loved the experience, loved the evening!

d) Compliments - Who doesn't love compliments! When someone comes and tells me that he/she likes something I had worked on, I am immediately transported to cloud nine. And over the last few days, I was told by one person that she loves my blog and by another that she watched my film Mausams for the second time and by yet another one that she loves all my films so far! Not one, not two but THREE! Which means triple trips to cloud nine! Very thankful, very humbled!

e) Duxton Hill, Lucha Loca & Auntie Kim's - These are my discoveries over the last few days. Duxton Hill is a pretty "happening" place in Singapore and the not-so-happening me had never been there before. But I really liked it. It had old shophouses that have been converted to pretty nice retaurants. I had dinner at a place called Lucha Loca which was pretty good too. I absolutely loved their grilled fish which came up with an awesome spiced sauce and their housepour red wine was great, unlike the watered crappy stuff that's usually served. Another discovery was Auntie Kim's Korean restaurant on Thomson Road. It looked like pretty authentic Korean food. I had noodles with fried meat in soy bean paste (which is black in colour) and it was super yummy! I love it when I make such discoveries...it's great to have a few new very promising places to go to!

f) Work, Reading & Schedule - Work's progressing wonderfully and I am really enjoying myself. I had two late night calls and by late night I mean schedule like 7 - 10pm and 7 - 11pm on the two days. It's crazy but I am still enjoying it because I managed to squeeze in a yoga class on one day and play-time with the little one on the next, so I really can't ask for more. I am also managing to get some reading everyday especially  during my commute to and from work and sometimes during bedtime, once the little one has slept off. This is something I am enjoying a lot too. During the weekend, I also managed to watch a few movies (the Tamil film "Pizza" was my favourite!), which is of course, an activity that I always enjoy. I am still a long way from having a regular routine but for now, I am at peace with things just the way they are.

Like I said, too much happening. All exciting, all beautiful! 

Days 60 - 63: Miscellaneous Highlights from Kerala!

1 - 4 March, 2013

I wish I had the time to write detailed posts every day for the duration of my stay in India, because that's how fascinating and eventful each day is. But that's not to happen because I simply do not seem to get the time! So I am gonna make do with a quick list on the highlights over the last few days.

1) Visits to the Agathimandiram old age home and Parvathy bhavan, a home for mentally challenged ladies - Made a quick visit to both the places, something I have been doing regularly over the last few visits to Thrissur. The reality check when you meet the inmates of such places is an absolute must.

2) Visit to Guruvayur temple - This is again a mandatory event on every trip back home. This time, the visit coincided with the Guruvayur annual festival and I was amazed to see how grandly the place was decorated! The shiny lights, the endless number of Krishna idols, the rangoli decorations, flowers and lighted lamps gave the already charming place an added beauty. Loved it!

3) Shooting for Mausams "It's a Wrap" video - My editor who is in town to meet the little one, had this brainwave that we should have a behind the scenes video on Mausams. Given it's the journey from an intended home video to a feature film that did reasonably well in terms of audience acceptance, festival entries and such, he suggested that it would be good to summarize everything into a short video - to tell the story of its journey as well as a tribute to the cast and crew. But this required a shoot with me - an interview style video where I narrate some of the stories behind the making of the film. After a few scheduling issues that cropped up because of the little one's mood swings, we finally managed to get it done. I had a good two hours being in front of the camera, as my dad managed the little one who behaved pretty well during the time.

4) Visits to Maangottukaavu and Pazhayannoor temples - After a beautiful drive through some of Kerala's best untouched scenic landscapes, we made a visit to these two temples. It was my first time at both the places and I really enjoyed myself. I must mention that I was totally amused to see Pazhayannoor temple crowded with... well, cocks and hens! Just as I entered the temple, I noticed there were just too many of these birds around - on the walls, on the deepasthambham, on the donation box - pretty much everywhere! It was then that I discovered that this is something unique to this particular temple. Apparently these birds are  offered to the temple by the devotees. How cute!

5) Shopping - Made the mandatory shopping trip that follows every visit home. Am always amused to see the large number of new stores that seem to have popped up every time!

6) Food, Food & of course, Food - Seriously, with the kind of options available - be it my mom's cooking or the stuff that we get from all the restaurants, Kerala simply has too much good food! I have been gorging myself on everything starting with amazing coffee (Aryaas) to yummilicious chocolate cake (Elite supermarket), from prawns fry (Luciya Palace) to kozhakatta (from neighbour's house), it's all been way too good! 

Eventful and a ton of fun!

Day 22: Another Distribution Offer (In Vain)!

Today I got a note from an agency interested in distributing my film Mausams.

I didn't take it forward because well... this is not the first time Mausams has had such an offer. There have been a few before and I even had gotten into a temporary contract with one. However, none of it worked. For a really unexpected reason. I figured out that I simply do not have the movie in a format that is required for most platforms! Yup, I have a film that these people say they liked but the output quality is not up to the mark. When we made the film and finally rendered it, the quality was just enough for it to go on a DVD. It was a very very last minute job, just a few hours prior to its first screening. Just getting that one DVD working was such a big deal and we never went back to it to afterwards. What I realized later was that most of the distributors need a much higher resolution than what we have, and many even need a HD format, while Mausams was shot on SD.

When I started working on Mausams, it was meant to be purely a home video. My thinking was that ... I have a script and am gonna make a film with no money which then translates to no good camera, no lighting, no proper sound equipment etc. etc. I just wanted to tell the story with whatever means I had which was.. well, nothing much. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to the production quality from the start but to be honest, just the writing, producing, directing, shooting, dubbing etc. were hard enough for me that I didn't really think beyond it.

And I had no idea that the film would be so much bigger than it was ever intended to be. I had no idea that it wont be just a home video and that it would get the screenings that it did, the award that it did, the film festival selections that it did, the distribution offers that it did. All those were just unplanned (but very welcome) bonuses.

Anyway, back to today... when I got the note from the distributor, I simply wrote back to her saying that I don't have a good enough format and am not interested in pursuing it further. It was a tad bit disappointing.

But it was also incredibly fulfilling to know that yet another distributor found my product worthwhile!  That in itself made the day awesome! 

Day 2: Blue Farewell, Not So Blue Feedback!

It was a rather blue day. Reason being that my mom, who had been around for the past three months, finally returned back home to Kerala.

Not only will I miss her presence, her awesome cooking, our marathon movie watching together etc., but also her help with the little one. She was super hands on the past two months and I didn't have to bother about many things at all. So definitely gonna miss that!

But then luckily, every blue day comes with a few not-so-blue moments as well.

I had released my film Mausams online just as we got into the new year. The first screening of the film was in Singapore in April 2011. Since then it went to a few film festivals, the last one of which, the Delhi International Film Festival, just wound up in Dec 2012. So I figured that it is time to release it to the wider audience and hence, released it online.

Looks like a few good souls already watched it and they were sweet enough to send me feedback on it. So the day was peppered with a few messages, all positive (yay!), coming in and that brightened me up considerably!

So yes, just as the dreaded day of saying farewell to my mom approached, it ended up being a little less sad thanks to the wonderful feedback that came in about my little film.

All's well.