Day 292: The Little One's Birthday Celebration Begins!

Yup, it is almost a year since the little one popped out of me. Time does pass at breakneck speed. Her actual birthday is on October 30th but there is a custom in Kerala where I come from to celebrate birthdays as per the Indian calendar (lunar calendar as opposed to the Western solar calendar).

And the little's one's birthday as per the Indian calendar was today. And we decided to have a small, Indian celebration.

The little one got dressed in a pretty peach dress which was a gift from our helper and was the first birthday gift for her for the year! The dear helper had managed to get her son, who is back in India, to buy the dress and send it across via a friend! How nice of her!

Then we went to the Toa Payoh temple. In spite of living very close to it, I had been here only once before. That time it was under renovation and was chaotic. But today, I fell in love with it! It was not crowded at all, the ambience was peaceful, and the priests and staff were very nice and courteous. I really enjoyed being there!

We performed a small puja in the little one's name, sat around for a little while to soak in the sanctity and then made our way back home. The little one too seemed to have a great time - her eyes were droopy with extreme sleepiness but she was still alert, thanks to the excitement of the puja, the thavil and naadaswaram music and the wonderful colours of the temple around her!

Back home, our helper made some delicious payasam/kheer (dessert) to make the celebrations grander, which was again very nice of her.

That was pretty much all the celebration. I was initially planning for more but given that I had a flight catch to Beijing on a business trip in the afternoon, we didn't do anything more elaborate.

But it turned out to be perfect celebration. Small yet beautiful!

In the afternoon the hubby and the little one accompanied me to the airport to see me off to Beijing. It was very hard to leave her behind especially on her birthday, but I was thankful for this beautiful child that I can call mine, and everything else in my life right now.

And I took off to Beijing, a very happy mother!  I will be back and the celebrations will continue! 

Day 291: The 2-Month Late Birthday Celebration!

Yes, the hubby and I share our birthday and it was two months ago. But we celebrated it with our gang of friends here in Singapore today.

This is what happened.

Over some random conversation, I asked the gang whatever happened to our birthday gifts this year, because we didn't receive any. So they promptly reminded me that our birthday treat was still due, and no treat means no gifts. OK fair enough. We were in Europe during our birthday and since then there was never a good time when everyone in the gang was present for a treat, so it was indeed due.

Thus, this Friday, we gave our birthday treat to the gang at our new favourite place Pind Balluchi. And it was a real fun celebration because everyone from the gang, kept up with the occassion, and wished us "Happy Birthday! And watching my excitement whenever someone did that, even the waiters at Pind Balluchi wished me when we were leaving. I felt like a school girl, in school on her birthday, wearing non uniform "colour dress" as we used to call it, distributing sweets to fellow classmates. It felt awesome!

Post the dinner and one round of drinks, we made our way out of Pind Balluchi to find another place to hang out for the rest of the evening. Just as we stepped out in search of the next hangout, there was a thundering noise. We realized that it was the rain slapping down hard on the high ceilings that covered the paths within Clarke Quay. There was a sudden gust of wind and it turned pretty chilly. I loved it! It was lovely to walk around listening to percussion above, enjoying the cool weather and the breeze, and occasionally coming in the way of the rain that gets blown into the covered paths. I felt like it was the perfect "birthday" celebration!

After walking around for a while, we found no other place in the whole of Clarke Quay that offered a quiet spot serving drinks, so we went back to Pind Balluchi. Yup! So we were there two times in a single evening and over a bottle of Sula wine, had a nice long conversation, well past midnight! I hardly stay that late out anymore because of the little one. So this was a nice change and the perfect end to a tough week at work.

I hit the bed a very happy person.

Days 285 - 290: Packing, Durga Puja, Pind Balluchi and Getting Over 14 Hour Work Days!

I realize that I haven't been updating this blog as frequently as I would have liked to. But it's been crazy the last several days. Like C.R.A.Z.Y. Work's been super hectic. I can't keep track of when the day starts and when it ends, and time's passing by before I can even blink.

The good news is that I will soon be on a week's break, to celebrate the little one's birthday (yes, she is turning one already and YES TIME PASSES BY SOOOO FAST!), together with both sets of her grandparents back in India. But before the holiday, it's like I really have to earn it by bending backwards and breaking my back with the workload. But it is OK. As long as there is light at the end of the tunnel. So here's a quick recap.

1) Packing - in anticipation of the workload and business trip that's coming up before my holiday, I started packing well in advance. I am not a fan of the packing process - especially these days when the little one's list of things run for a few pages, but it does give a great deal of satisfaction once it is done. And I did get it done - so yes, am satisfied and am looking forward to the big fat family holiday!

2) Durga Puja - For the past couple of years, I have been a regular at the Singapore Bengali Associations Durga Puja celebrations. I love the huge pandal with the gorgeous idols of Goddess Durga, the festive spirit with the performances and delectable food and the hordes of Bengali women decked up in their typical cotton (and non-cotton) saris and beautiful jewellery. This year too I wanted to take part in the festivities and dropped by their pandal. I have to say this year it was a bit disappointing because there were separate entries for members of the association and the non members, like myself, gathered directly in the part where the idols were placed, thereby making that the most crowded with a lot of commotion and resulting loss of sanctity. Nevertheless, I did enjoy being there and watching the ongoing activities. The idols were still gorgeous, the women were still decked up and the spirit was still festive.

3) Pind Balluchi - after a weekend that somehow turned out to be more hectic than it should have been, we decided to have our routine Sunday date night at somewhere new and different. And by chance we found Pind Balluchi in Clarke Quay. It is apparently a popular high end chain in India, but I wasnt aware of its existence until now. But I absolutely loved the ambience, the food and the fact that they were giving everything away at 20% discount as an opening promotion. It was a good date night indeed.

4) 14 hour work days - Most of the week saw me working for 14 hours at a stretch. And I really mean at a stretch. There was hardly any time to even attend nature's call or have a proper meal. I was rushing from one meeting to another, or working on one document or other, with my head in constant state of high frequency buzzing. At several points in time I felt frustrated, I could feel my temper rise and my mind and body really feeling stressed. In other words, I was in a state I was not proud of and something I wouldn't and shouldn't be writing on this blog about. But I am writing about it because after about 3-4 days of that high intensity marathon, it hit me that I am not really doing the right thing. I very consciously stopped and took a step back. I consciously told myself that all I can do is do my best and then let it be. There was really no point taking things at work so personally and to try and fix everything perfectly. After that conscious talk with myself, thing have been far better. Work days are still 14 hours but at least I don't feel as bogged down by it anymore. Also, to end every hard working day with a little bit of cheer, I got the hubby to come on a few gastronimic-centric date nights during the week. We hit our favourites Ichiban Boshi for Japanese one day and Fifth Season for Indian Chinese another day.

Like someone wise said before, it is really all in the head.

Days 282 - 284: Aravindum Aarumughamum Picks Up Steam!

9 - 11 October, 2013

It is just about a month and half before we will be shooting Aravindum Aarumughamum. Given that there are multiple business and personal trips coming up for my team and myself, we are now trying to make the most of the time we find ourselves all in Singapore. Which basically means that we now rehearse even during weekdays.

Two days this week, we rehearsed well into the night.

I have also started with the mock shoots.

My cinematographer who is in Mumbai (but will be flying down for the shoot) has started to take stills for storyboarding. I spent all of Saturday morning putting those stills together into a moving photoboard.

I completed the pre-production sheet with the schedules, costumes, location and props details.

In other words, so much have happened on the project in the last few days. Together with work, little one and workouts, this has been one hell of a hectic time, but definitely a fun one!

Now am really looking forward to the shoot! 

Day 281: Distribution Offer!

Today a film distribution company based out of Chennai contacted me to check whether am interested in giving them the rights to distribute my short film "Inganeyum Oru Katha" for the TV channel in Singapore. These guys are the distributors of all Malayalam and many Tamil films for TV channels in Singapore and Malaysia and are pretty genuine people.  They had watched the film online, liked it and wanted to pick it as part of the weekend short film segment they are planning to introduce very soon.

While this was a great offer, I have got to mention that there was no monetary reward offered and it was just "exposure", like what every other independent film maker has to put up with. But given that I had not planned to make any money out of this short film anyway, and that it was simply meant for YouTube, this offer was pretty exciting for me! If nothing else, you get to talk to real distributors which makes you feel like you are a real film maker yourself!

There are still details to be worked out before anything will come out of this, like the format they need it in, the logistics and contracts and such, but for today, am pretty happy that there was an offer for my little film! Who would have thought! 

Day 280: The Morning Sunshine!

I realize that the title sounds like the jingle for some coffee brand. Well, the story am about to tell probably will look like the visuals in a coffee ad as well.

But what the heck. They are happy ads after all!

It all started with the little one deciding to go the extremes of NOT sleeping. After hitting the bed at 11pm yesterday, she woke up first at 1am, and then at 3am. After which, she slept off at 4:30am. Yup, she was up for an entire 1.5 hours, singing and talking to herself, extremely loudly. Then she again woke up at 6am and then finally at 7:30am.

Which basically means that by the time I had to get ready for office, I was an irritable, sleep deprived wreck.

But to office one must go on a Monday morning. So with a lot of determination I set out of my house.

I took my usual bus, sat on my usual seat, and plugged in my headphones to listen to the usual songs. But this time, I wasn't enjoying the ride. All I wanted to do was sleep but the realization that I could not and would not be able to until after at least another 12 hours, made me feel miserable.

I rested my head on the glass window, hoping for some rest at least on the bus, while wallowing in some world class self pity. Once in a while, as the bus took certain turns or as it passed a patch of less vegetated area in a certain direction, a strong, warm, beam of sunlight would strike my face, blinding me momentarily, and really annoying me. Every time it happened I would curse in my head - Why is it so hot? Why is the sun so strong? Why am I not in my bed fast asleep?

That's when I noticed this old Indian man in the seat opposite mine. He was facing in my direction, thanks to the face-to-face seating arrangement these Singaporean buses seem to have resorted to these days.

There he was, gazing out of the window, like everyone else in a "window seat". The bus took another turn and suddenly there was the sun out again, blazing in through the windows. I screwed shut my eyes and turning my face away immediately but I noticed that he was still gazing out of the window, up towards the skies, the sunlight splashing his face and looking absolutely at peace.

Wow. That was a rather small thing, but had a profound effect on me. It took me only a second to realize that much of my misery was inside my head.

The next time the sun made its brilliant morning appearance directly above and fired through the windows, I gently closed my eyes, turned my face up directly towards it and enjoyed a few moments of the warmth that it exuded even through the airconditioned interior of the bus.

Without his knowledge, that old man and I shared a moment of camaraderie.

And suddenly I didn't feel that miserable anymore. I was simply waiting for the next turn of the morning sunshine.

Day 279: The First Official Review!

Even though I have made a few films now, I have never received an official review on any of it, other than the casual feedback I have received from several people. I must mention that am always thankful to anyone who bothers to give me feedback, but my point is that so far there has been no review featured in the media.

As of today, that's no longer the case!

A couple of days ago, I received a note on Facebook by a RJ in the Malayalam station "Voice of Kerala" in Dubai. He hosts the show called "Reflections" which reviews short films and he wrote to me to let me know that he will be reviewing Inganeyum Oru Katha in the next episode of the show.

And today was the D-Day. When it was just past midnight, I tuned into the station online and streamed it live. I had butterflies in my stomach when it started, wondering what exactly would be the reaction but well, I was left speechless at the end of it. He gave such a thorough analysis of the film, picking on every single point and talking it at length, and that too, in an extremely positive manner! His words were extremely encouraging and I would say that it has inspired me to make even more films.

Yes, I am on cloud nine. My first official review and that too so positive. How much more blessed can one get?!