Day 368: Resolutions - 2013, 2014!

It was a rather eventful year and I had been wanting to write out a "close out" blog entry for it. 

However, the last few days of the year were so very eventful that I am getting to this only now, on the 13th of January, after blogging an immense amount of backlog over the first few days of the year. 

So why was this year eventful?

Firstly, when I started on the year, the little one was only 2 months old. If that itself doesn't make it eventful, what does?!

Secondly, since I had a baby on my hands, the obsessive compulsive persona of mine drew up a long list of resolutions at the beginning of the year, covering various facets of my life. The idea was to ensure that I don't go "out of touch" with my extra curricular activities with the new, intensive routine.

So yes, I drew up what I thought was a pretty adequate list of resolutions - not too laid back, not too ambitious.

And like I mentioned here, I managed to not only tick off every single resolution, I even "overdelievered" on almost every single one of them as well! 

Here's what happened.

1) Resolution: Take 1 break every quarter. 

I ended up taking 5.


2) Resolution: Travel to 1 new country. 

I ended up travelling to 5 new ones.


3) Resolution: Write 1 feature film script OR 50 blog posts OR 5 short stories/scripts. 

I ended up writing 181 blog posts, 1 short story, 3 episodes for a sitcom, 1 short film and 1 screenplay for a friend.


4) Resolution: Exercise a total of 100 days. 

I did 169 days.

5) Resolution: Go for 50 classes of yoga. 

I did 66.

6) Resolution: Have a special celebration for the little one. 

I did that by taking all of us, including both sets of her grandparents to Kashmir. In midst of that beauty, with the closest people to her, I thought it was more special than I could have hoped for.


7) And last but the not the least, Resolution: Arrange a special gift for the hubby this year. 

And I did that by planning and executing the Scandinavian cruise with the surprise elements of the birthday decor, birthday cake etc. He tell me that it "absolutely exceeded his expectations", so am happy with that !

On top of this I saved a little more money than I had targeted to and I completed the shoot, edit and dub for a short film (Aravindum Aarumughamum) which wasn't even part of the plan!

Nett, it was a terrific year and I am super thankful for everything! For a wonderful family, for a wonderful set of friends and for having had the energy and health to complete all that I had on my list!

Now, coming to dear 2014. 

I once again drew up a long list of resolutions. It featured everything from travel to films, from writing to family and from work to workouts. 

But then, after a few days, I decided that it won't do. I realized that this year, I don't want to be in a constant state of stretching myself. My work is super demanding in my new assignment and after a few years of what seems like non stop racing, this year, I would like to take a  breather. This year, I would like to relax.

So the original list has been cancelled and now I have a new one where the focus is on relaxing. I am not asking myself to write anything - no scripts, no stories, nothing. I only have a few resolutions related to workouts and better eating, because health is wealth and all that. 

In fact, I don't even have a resolution on the number of blog entries I should be writing this year. If I feel like it, I will write. If not, nothing. And that applies to everything else as well - scripting, filming, everything. 

Atleast, that's the plan. Let's see where that goes. 

And with that, here's wishing everyone a very Happy 2014!

Days 341 - 348: The Bad & Then the Good!

What a rollercoaster ride it has been over the last few days!

On one hand, a lot of undesirable things happened -

a) A riot broke out in Singapore - something that hadn't happened in the last 40 years.

b) I had a messy presentation to the management.

c) The hubby and I had what's probably our longest lasting fight ever, probably because both of us are so overworked and stressed out.

d) The Singapore Air Force came and erased... and I repeat, ERASED all the footage we had shot over one morning (this was the reshoot of one of the scenes for Aravindum Aarumughamum). Their rationale - we were shooting too close to their base. And even though nothing was captured of their base in the footage, they chose to erase it. I did ask them to come and intervene a bit earlier the next time if they don't want shooting in that area, because really, letting us shoot for three whole hours and then coming and erasing everything is not really top notch consideration.

e) I worked past midnight 3 out of the 5 working days, and also had a work call until 8pm on Friday for good measure (yes, work is still crazy).

f) I was constantly suffering from dry, itchy eyes and a headache to go along.

Then things changed.

a) The day after the messy presentation, I gave another presentation - a real kickass one at that.

b) I was extremely saddened by the riot that broke out - especially since the ones responsible for it were my fellow countrymen from India, but then it was heartening to see that there was a lot of good discussion on how to improve the conditions of the labour class in Singapore so that these things don't re-occur. I was particularly happy to note that nowhere in my Facebook timeline did I see a xenophobic or racist comment - at least I know a bunch of good humans.

c) The hubby and I made up after the fight and to celebrate, we even hit a Bikram hot yoga class together. That used to be one of our very popular couple activities but we had not done it for almost two whole years now and to get back to it was awesome! Just like old times!

d) The location we ended up shooting that ill-fated scene in (we were shooting it for the third time now)  was not as nice as the earlier one near the air force base. But we had to make do with it and after hours of slogging in the hot sun, the shoot for Aravindum Aarumughamum was finally done. I guess I am happy about that, in spite of all the pain.

e) When I got home after the long day of shoot and reshoot, I recounted the day's experience to the hubby, in a rather animated manner. The little one caught a whiff that all was no well - her mother was clearly upset about some erased footage. So she came over and tried her best to console me - she patted my cheeks, hugged me, and laid her head on my chest and mouthed some words that sounded almost like asking me not to worry. It was the first time she had reacted to anything like that and my heart turned into a gooey emotional mush. I felt that all was indeed well with the world!

f) Then something awesome happened - The background score for Aravindum Aarumugham started to come in in bits and pieces and I absolutely, completely LOVE it! Suddenly all the frustration evaporated and I was reminded why I go through so much effort to make a film - clearly, I enjoy the process - yes, even including the downs!

g) I realized that I have overdelivered on every single resolution for the year 2013. I had a long list with very clear milestones to be achieved. I had very meticulously prepared it given that it was the first year of motherhood and am happy to say that I am very pleased with the progress. It was tough, but it was good. I plan to do a detailed entry on what the list had and how I fared - but that will happen at year end!

Am still rather exhausted and can't wait for a nice break, but in spite of that, I am genuinely pretty darn  happy!

Day 255 - 263: Ideas, Messages, Films and Personal Records!

13 - 21 September, 2013

When I had started to write this blog, my aim was to complete at least 1 blog per week. Clearly, that's not happening. Not because I am not getting enough good stuff to talk about every single day, but because I am up until my nose with things to do. Work's super hectic, am trying to squeeze in as many days of exercise and as much time with the little one as possible and she, even in her tenth month of existence, refuses to sleep through a night without getting up at least four times, which is tiring me out! So when I get back home after work, all I want to do is catch up as much on sleep as possible.

But there's been progress in my life over the past few days and am going to do a quick summary of highlights:

1) I have broken my own personal record for the number of days I exercise. In my very obsessive, compulsive manner, I have been counting the number of days I exercise in a year, right from 2010. The highest so far was 126 days in 2011. This includes yoga, walking, dancing, cycling, swimming, jogging, DVD workouts, anything of the sort. Now am super proud to announce that as of today, I have exercised 132 days in total for this year and we are still only in September! I must also note that this is way higher than the 100 days I had as part of my 2013 resolutions. SO awesome!

2) It is probably all that exercise but it looks like I am no longer at my heaviest nor my largest. It is still a long way to go until pre-pregnancy levels but am very happy with the progress.

3) I have struck upon an idea for a sitcom in Malayalam, and am pretty excited about that. I have a name, a theme, character outlines and even the storyline for a couple of episodes. I shared the thought with a friend, who is also one of my regular actors, and he was pretty excited about the whole thing too! This could be my next project, maybe, but what's exciting is this stage of being struck by a brand new idea and developing it in my head!

4) Interestingly enough, I have also struck upon an idea for another short film. Maybe I will write this one out soon and it can be added on to my pile of will-make-it-some-time-in-the-future scripts.

5) A few lovely people, unrelated to each other and unknown to me until now, wrote me rather nice messages. Few, after watching Mausams, and the others after reading these blogs. I always feel pretty thankful when people take the trouble to do that and of course, getting any kind of encouragement for these things is one of the key reasons why I can keep up the drive to continue making films or continue writing this blog. So thank you folks, it is very much appreciated!

6) Work is getting more and more hectic by the day and surprisingly enough, am still enjoying it! That's always a good thing!

7) I have also managed to meditate more number of days than I thought I would. It is still not everyday...for some reason I get rather sleepy by the time the little one hits the bed at night (which is already well past ten or in many cases, even 11) and end up not meditating. But I do hope to make it even more frequent and turn it into a habit, even. But so far, so good.

8) We have also resumed rehearsals of Aravindum Aarumughamum after a gap of a month. We have had a couple of rehearsals so far and I am happy to see that it is coming together very nicely. Slowly but steadily!

9) Last but not the least, Inganeyum Oru Katha has managed to cross 150,000 views on Youtube! Who would've thought!

Day 6: The Priority Exercise!

When I went for my Yoga class last Friday, I took some time to read the articles that were pinned on the notice board there. Most of them focused on the New Year and how people make resolutions and what needs to be done to actually stick to the resolutions, etc. One article in particular caught my attention.

It recommended a simple exercise to come up with an inspiring yet actionable list of resolutions. Key to note is that it forces you to prioritize the resolutions so that you don't end up with a laundry list.

Now, I do have a list of resolutions for the year already (but of course). How can the obsessive compulsive list maker in me not have one already. But I do feel that its not really an optimal one. Sometimes I feel that I am not maximizing my capacity with this list, sometimes I feel that anything more would be unrealistic, sometimes I struggle to break down what I need to achieve between the short and the long term.

So yes, this article was fascinating for me. I read it with much interest and then..... completely forgot about it.

Until today.

Today, when I caught myself with  some free time, I decided to go through the recommended exercise from the article and see what comes off it.

And lo behold!

After quite a bit of back and forth, after some major contemplation on the various options and their pros and cons, I got a prioritized list of things to do for the year. To be honest, some of them were hard choices to make. For e.g. Do I actually shoot a film or do I just focus on scripts? Do I get back to work as fast as possible or do I spend some more time exclusively with the little one? Do I pick up my astrology lessons once again or do I only focus on the yoga? Etc . Etc.

And I think I have a rough idea where I want to be. I won't say I have completely cracked it all, but I do seem to have made some progress.

So yes, the priority exercise helped. I am a little clearer and less confused and that's always welcome!