The Prestige

Last night, we watched The Prestige. I loved the movie. Its a story of two rival magicians; both obssessed with being the best; their relationships & the sacrifices in their lives (to the finish where the magician kills himself as a cost of the prestige; the final part of a magician's trick). Towards the end, the movie makes a beautiful leap from the logical illusions (being dished out as magic) to the surreal (portrayed ironically, as a scientific invention).

The plot is like a jigsaw puzzle - the movie goes back & forth in time and the crucial piece of the puzzle is revealed in the climax. The moment you get it, you want to watch the movie all over again in the light of that last piece :)

Terrorism

It’s frightening to read the news these days. Not only has the ‘war on terrorism’ failed in eliminating terrorists; it has led to their multiplication the world over.

It makes me wonder: Why do people fall prey to extremism more easily today than they did say 10 years ago? What has changed so significantly in this decade? How did intolerance increase so much so suddenly the world over?

Is it just the end of the cold war & the power center moving to the US, that did it? Is it that the information throughout the world flows more freely now, making people more aware of the inequalities in the world, creating more ‘clashes’ between ethnicities? Or is it that there just is so much misplaced hatred in our world that we don’t need a reason anymore?

Noodle House

My love for oriental food has reached a new high these days. I’ve been lunching at the Noodle House almost every day & their Thai Chicken with Cashew Nuts is to die for.

Warning: Could be too spicy if you're not born with an Indian or Thai taste palette

Global Village

I dont know what we were thinking, but we decided to battle the traffic & the multitude of crowds at Global Village this Friday. It was absolutely mental & there were no less than a million people in there!

Here are some of the interesting pavilions this year ( from top left clockwise: Greece, India, China & Hungary)

And a few interesting faces (from top left clockwise: the tea-seller at the Syria pavilion, the balloon-vendor & a bunch of forlorn looking dogs hanging off the games stalls)

Is everyone likely to cheat?

Steven Levitt makes a remark in his book Freakonomics that ‘Everyone cheats…if the stakes are right’. What would you do if one day you were to magically become invisible, would you still live your life with the same principles; he asks.

I’m not sure what the answer is. But in my mind, ‘conscience’ & ‘fear of getting caught’, are completely different things.

Quidam

Cirque Du Soleil is performing Quidam in Dubai during DSF & last night we saw the performance. It was my first experience of Cirque Du Soleil & I was so impressed! It is an outstanding combination of ballet, acrobatics, dance, theatre and yes, circus.

PS: The picture on the side is not exactly related. It’s a Henri Matisse titled ‘La Danse’ and I was vaguely reminded of it while watching the show.

Dubai Marathon '07

Yippie, we ran 3 km at the Marathon (Himanshu clocked 20 mins, I clocked 25 mins) and we almost collapsed by the time we reached the finish line, but we did it! This is us with our medals :)

Summer

I love this painting; its made by S H Raza & titled 'Summer'. I guess one has to experience summers in Dubai to really appreciate this piece of art :) (If you've visited the Middle East in summer, you can actually see the heat in yellow, orange & red)

Babel

According to the Genesis, when Men decided to build an arduous Tower of Babel to reach Heaven, God in response to Man’s arrogance, confused men by creating languages. As a result, mankind got scattered in all parts of the world in separate pockets & communities & the project of Babel failed.

The movie Babel is a great contemporary story comprising four sub-stories in different corners of the world today. Cultures, languages & lifestyles clash to reveal how similar men & women are once you see beyond the superficial differences. Although the movie seems a tad prolonged at times, I thought it was a great experiment. A must see.

The New Year & all that jazz

We had a blast in our short holiday to India. The lesson learnt: Consumption of alcohol may cause you to believe that everything everyone says is funny. But now its back to Dubai & life as usual.

I’ve been thinking about what my new year’s resolution should be and can’t make up my mind between ‘Get Himanshu to quit smoking’ and ‘Check my blackberry less frequently'. Both would’ve been really ambitious resolutions, so I finally chose a third option which was ‘Listen to music more often’. I’ve also made a mental wishlist of the holidays I want to take, the work I want to do & the books I want to read in the year.

So here I am, all optimistic about another ambitious & exciting new year! Happy New Year to all !