MOVIE REVIEW: AFRICA UNITED (2010) - A JOURNEY OF AFRICA WITH THE RIGHT MIX OF FUN, ADVENTURE, REALITY & FOOTBALL

(www.africaunitedmovie.com)

Africa United, first feature film by Debs Gardner-Paterson is heartwarmingly hilarious, humorously thought-provoking, fantastically realistic and unassumingly hopeful. It is a story about a group of young children in Rwanda undertaking a cross-country trip to make it to the inauguration of the South Africa 2010 World Cup football.

The movie starts with Dudu who is a young football enthusiast and lives in the slum with this younger sister, Beatrice. He is friends with a young, talented and aspiring footballer Fabrice, who gets selected for the trials to be a part of the Africa United Team for the World Cup inauguration ceremony. His mother, however, is not keen on his inclinations towards football. So, without telling her, Fabrice along with Dudu and his sister head towards the venue. But they end up in a different country and miss the trial. Their only hope now is to get to South Africa for the inauguration. What follows is a long journey through different countries which reveals them to different situations, some of which get out of control. They meet George and Celeste under such circumstances during the cross-country adventure.

Dudu is confident, creative, resourceful and unflinchingly optimistic. It is he acting as Fabrice’s self-appointed manager who leads the team on their journey, sometimes with disastrous results. Fabrice is talented but lacks confidence. Beatrice is kind, generous and hopes to become a doctor someday. George is learning to cope with his traumatic past, with much help from the group. Celeste is self-assured and hopeful despite her circumstances. Together they are a formidable group, taking on a mammoth task.

The story is interspersed with a tale narrated by Dudu to the others, in the form of animation and mirrors their own story but presented as a fantastical tale, a testimony to Dudu’s fertile imagination. The young actors breathe live into their roles bringing believability and an endearing quality to their performances.

The adeptly written original screenplay by Rhidian Brook takes you through an interesting journey of Africa. From poverty to AIDS, from young war soldiers and terrorism to child bride and prostitution – serious topics are touched upon in an intelligent and entertaining manner, almost as matter-of-fact as we would in real life.

With the Brazil World Cup 2014 round the corner, if you are on a lookout for anything and everything football and are leaning towards the world of movies to add some fuel to that excitement, be sure to watch Africa United. 

Why I Cannot Imagine A World Without A Coldplay Song

(Members of Coldplay, courtesy www.coldplay.com) 

The sound of music permeates all aspects of our existence. In fact, music is a crucial part of our existence today. We wake up, we jog, we work, we travel, we eat, we sleep and we even talk with music in our ears. And it’s not just one single kind of music. There are as many types of music, if not more, as there are emotions. With new and upcoming artists experimenting with different sounds/genres, new forms of music are being created as well. Being surrounded by so many different artists, it is hard to be influenced by just a single kind of music or to be exclusive to one particular band/genre. But there will definitely be that one artist/band we identify with the most. Someone whose songs sound and speak like the way it would have had we been able to do so.

That someone for me is Coldplay and the voice of Chris Martin. The first time I heard Coldplay (and saw them, actually just Chris Martin) was when the music video of ‘Yellow’ was played on a music channel. I was surfing the channel and saw this somewhat weird looking fellow crooning away and stopped to listen and see how the video was going to end. It ended with a sunrise that gave birth to a musical association which is still going strong.

One cannot deny the effect a Coldplay song can have. Whether it is The Scientist, Trouble, Warning Sign, Yellow, Lost, Speed of Sound, Fix You, Lost, Violet Hill, Paradise or Every Teardrop… the effect is real and deep. One song or the other has resonated with us and led us through our heart breaks or rough patches in our lives. A Coldplay song no matter how it sounds, whether ecstatic, painful, hopeful or festive, never exists in vain.

I remember taking a long walk in the rain to my office, getting completely soaked while listening pensively to a Coldplay song like We Never Change, A Rush of Blood, 42 or What If. I have shed a few tears listening to some other songs like Warning Sign, Trouble, The Scientist or Fix You, contemplating about a lover or a friend or someone I lost. Then there are those which renewed the love in me like Green Eyes, Yellow, In My Place or Strawberry Swing, as if falling in love for the first time. Not being a heavy metal fan, I used to envy those who would bob their heads in tandem with the music. But then I did the same with my own Coldplay songs, banging my head to the Speed of Sound or to the tick-tock of Clocks or more recently dancing away to the drum beats of Every teardrop. Pick up a moment from my life and most definitely there will be one Coldplay song or other that will define that moment for me.

Over the years, the sound of the band has developed and evolved, especially with their most recent albums. Many hardcore fans of the original, or should I say earlier sound of the band have complained about the band changing drastically. I agree they sound a lot different from their earlier albums. But I don’t believe it is to such a great extent and so abruptly that they have completely lost their identity.

Change is something that is bound to happen. We cannot resist it. Each individual goes through changes in their lives resulting in certain changes in the way they look at things or the way they feel or act. I certainly have changed a lot since the time I first heard ‘Yellow’ and I am sure the band members and especially Chris must have gone through a few (not necessarily similar) changes  along the way as well. And it reflects in their consecutive albums. There is always a risk involved with trying out something new. But that cannot mean that one should stick to the same old stuff regardless of thinking and feeling differently. An artist who never risks, risks becoming stagnate and obsolete.

(Cover Art of Ghost Stories, courtesy www.coldplay.com)

Come May 19 and their new album Ghost Stories will be out. They have already released a few tracks (Midnight, Magic, A Sky Full of Stars) and two music videos (Midnight and Magic). As of now, Magic is turning out to be the swan song for me, especially with the beautiful music video shot in black and white with Ziyi Zhang.

After the songs were released, I read a fan saying the band is no longer the same. But for someone like me, who cannot imagine a world without a Coldplay song, I am already falling in love with the magic of their latest tracks.

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Coldplay official website: www.coldplay.com

Pre-order the album (out on 19th May, 2014)

- iTunes http://smarturl.it/ghoststories
- CD http://smarturl.it/ghoststoriescd
- Vinyl http://smarturl.it/ghoststoriesvinyl

Fear Of Losing You, Mom

Days go by like they always did. But with each day I fear I may be losing you. Slowly and in uncertain ways. The memories of our times together and the moments which made my day are fading away it seems. I try to recall some instances sometimes and I am unable to remember the details which were once at the back of my head. All the details are falling short and missing a piece or two. Perhaps that's also one of the reasons why I gather any photograph I find of you and keep it with me, because I fear someday I might just forget how you looked like as well. I know that would really be the end of me.

When I went back home the last time I stayed there for almost three months. Everything has changed. The house we lived in has been rebuilt again and a building stands in its stead. Even though I stayed in the house made on the same grounds we build our home, it felt much colder and more of a stranger's than ours. The whole family has changed. So, what did I really expect? Looking back is not a good thing. Yet it gives me respite from dealing with the present situation and the awkwardness in the name of a family that ties me to the house.

I spent days just looking through old trunks and boxes where I had stored all my stuff this time as well. I cried like a baby when I went through the old notes and diaries. Since we (brother, sister and me) were all so young then, we didn't have an inkling of what was going on in your world or the adult world. I read about all the operations you had and how and what you felt as you went through each one of them. I cried for being such a child and not knowing the difference in the way your eyes spoke to us. The days I was playing around while you were feeling sad and lonely somewhere else. I know that I was a child and I could not do anything at all. But this unreasonable guilt gets hold of me sometimes and I can't escape it.

You have been the best mother one could ever ask for. You never let us know what all you were going through while we were growing up. You let us have a happy childhood. You let us have a happy memory of our times when we were young. It's impossible sometimes to imagine a person could do so much and sacrifice so much even with everything in her life almost compelling her to let go. But then you were a mother of three young children with unknown and uncertain future ahead of them and you needed to be there for them. I wish I could be a parent like that some day. To love someone else more than anything else in my life, including myself.

And I thank you for your love and for never letting go. Even though I am still at lost about you not being there anymore, I am thankful at least I had those great years with you. You held on till we were all grown-up and able to stand on our own feet. Then you slowly let go. I saw it coming but I was always in denial. And my denial stole away the last few days I could have spent with you, lying next to you and telling you stories like you told me when I was young, till you fall asleep and enter the dream world.

Love you and miss you mom.

Housefull Memories

The way time flies. The way it seems it was just yesterday. And the way it feels how soon it has ended. Things change. Sometimes so fast we are left wondering if at all it did. Sometimes so slow we never realise it has.

I am sitting alone in a corner of the house I made a home in for over 5 years, with just a bag to carry the few things still remaining, while the empty spaces around me overpower my senses. I always thought how much sentimental can one get about a non-living thing like a house or a dark spot on a wall. Much too much. As I was talking to a friend about how perfect our memories will always be, because they remain the same, I felt the change sink in. This house is going to be a memory now. The moment I step out the chapter will be closed.

Five years is a long time. Yet it all comes down to this moment. I look at the empty walls and the empty floor. There was once a table there. I used to place my books there. I danced my 'funny dance' out there on my sister's birthday. I scolded my pet dog here for chewing the slippers. I stood outside on the balcony many a night when I was feeling low. I cried myself to sleep on the bed which used to be here, after I woke up from my sleep, terribly missing my mom. There were ribbons and paper flowers on the wall there on my surprise birthday party my sister organised where all my close friends dropped by.

How can I not get sentimental then, when there's so much to remember and cherish?

It's time now I pick up my things and head to the new place I would soon learn to call home. After all, not all change is bad, most turn out better than we hoped for. 

Thank You

(Image courtesy: good-wallpapers)

It was 'Thank You Day' on Friday last week. I didn't know it. Not even when my boss held out a bag full of Eclairs and simply said, 'Thank you' to me. I asked 'Why?' and she repeated 'Thank you' again. So, I took one Eclairs and said 'You are most welcome'. It was only when we were told to head upstairs for the celebration did I realise what day it was.

On the way back home, it made me think. Who would I be thankful to? The more I thought, the more names and faces cropped up in my mind. There's so much to thank for and so many people to be thankful to in life. Our lives can never really be our own in its entirety. We owe a lot to many people right from the moment we were conceived in our mothers' wombs till the time we breathe our last. Perhaps beyond too.

One single life is never really a journey taken alone. There are too many people who shaped our way, created milestones for us, laid down the foundation of the roads we now travel upon. There are those strangers too who stood on the sides helping us replenish our energies by handing out drinks and food, and whom we may not even remember by faces forget about by names. But they made a difference somehow in our journey.

Several names appeared in my mind. My school teacher who made me realise that I mattered, I was somebody too, and encouraged me to voice my opinions and share my thoughts. My best friend in school who always stood by me and stood for me, even when he risked making enemies with few other classmates. He showed me what it means to be a friend. I am still learning to be one. My first love who showed me what it meant to be there for your love and how I failed miserably in doing so. I have always lived up to that lesson ever since. My best friend in college who knew me all too well and told me some harsh truths about me no one else could have or cared enough to tell me.

Over the past decade or so, I have truly come to know what a remarkable person my mother was and how much of her I see in all three of us. She was a person who lived in subtleties and expressed the most in silence. When I recall some of the innumerable moments I have shared with her, I see another side of her I never saw before. Maybe I was too young to understand then. I am thankful to have had those moments and to be able to relive them again. I see so much of her in my sister too, even though they are very different persons. I have lived most of my early years with my sister so we have a different kind of bonding than the one I have with my brother. And in the recent past I have grown to admire, respect and love her so much more. I am grateful to have her in my life. Although I can be a pain sometimes like most other brothers tend to be!

My life in Delhi brought few good friends and few mentors who took me under their arms ready to guide me in my professional life. I will always be indebted to my first boss for his trust and confidence in me. It will take me a few more years and a couple of other jobs to realise just how instrumental he had been in shaping my career. One of my colleagues played a vital role in my actual media world education. I have followed few of his rules and broken quite a few more! And as I find myself in a new job, I am grateful for all the past experiences and to my past mentors. I am thankful too for the opportunity that I have received at a time when the odds were against me. I know fully well the responsibility which entails this trust and I remind myself everyday of the work ahead of me.

I have been fortunate to have a family who supports me and loves me no matter what and who makes me feel I belong. I have been fortunate to find friends who somehow understands me better than I do and are not afraid to show me the mirror when I falter. I have been fortunate to have had teachers and mentors who nurtured and moulded me to better prepare for the world ahead of me. I have been fortunate to have had the chances which came my way despite the innumerable mistakes I have made. I have been fortunate and that's why I am grateful.

Our lives are never our own for so many people have had a hand in making it what it is. No one ever really makes it on his own. And as I laid down in my bed that night I offered a silent 'Thank you' before going to sleep.

Feeling The Best Despite Not Being At Your Best

I used to think that if you are feeling low or not-too-well physically or otherwise, it was impossible to enjoy no matter how much things seemed promising. I have been proven wrong on more occasions than one; the latest just recently.

If you have a good humoured outlook towards your setback, you can still conjure up enough confidence to have a good time. It greatly helps if you have some crazy friends around who are more than willing to hit the high notes with you.

The way I am as a person, it is never easy to come out of my shell. And ill health adds another layer to my reserved nature, rendering me unfit for society. However, this time I decided to have a blast nonetheless, laughing at my own hoarse voice induced by the flu I caught a few days back, blowing the guts out of my nose even in public whenever the warning bell rang or startling the heavens out of people with my frequent hysterical sneezes. Of course I covered my face with my handkerchief, unlike few closely related people I know!

I have realised that I have more often than not ended up having a good time when I had hesitated going out and meeting people in the first place for various reasons. Having had zero or negative expectations made the unexpected delightful experiences so much more pleasurable.

You are down in life only when you accept that you are sincerely in the 'downs', chasing away all the positivity from your life. When you change your outlook and see that a good time is independent of circumstances but entirely dependent on how you react to them, you realise you can still feel the best and have a good time even when you are not at your best.

Here's to more good tiiimmeess.. acchhhoo!! Excuse me!

NUNGSHIBI - OUR ADORABLE PUPPY

[Sharing a post from my other blog (http://todearmom.blogspot.com) about Nungshibi (meaning adorable/lovable in Manipuri), my pet dog.]



I have to tell you about Nungshibi. I completely forgot. She was a month old puppy when brother brought her in on his way back from office. She was injured, bitten by another dog and the only one among her siblings to survive. The same day sister and I had come back from Shillong and we were so surprised to see her. She was really hurting and in a really bad condition. Sister, who always wanted us to have a pet at home, was ecstatic. But brother spoiled her excitement somehow when he said he is just getting her cured and then letting her go. Weeks passed and I was taking care of her, washing her wounds and bathing her, cleaning her mess and feeding her. Sister would keep on pleading with brother and us to keep her. I didn't mind keeping her. And when I took her to the vet, suggested by Sunny, I made up my mind to keep her. What really made me sure was that the name of the clinic read Max Vets. I knew it to be a sign, considering how much I loved our Max and how he had to spent his days at home away from us in his last years. I had always felt bad about it. I still do sometimes when his thoughts come to me. The last time I saw him on my visit home, he seemed weak and wanting of love.

It hasn't been easy though, bringing up a pet in a city, especially in a neighbourhood like ours with hardly any access to a clean green park at a walking distance. Since I have been in charge of caring for her from the time she came in, potty training her to do her business was quite a task and a test of my patience. Every time I was about to lose my patience and scream or shout at her I keep reminding myself of how you took care of all the pet dogs we had, whether it was Ruby or Jumbo or even Max. You were always so calm and patient and they loved you the most. There are rare occasions when I do lose my patience. I guess some things are not easy to learn.

Once it was confirmed that she would stay, naming her was a challenging process. Sister insisted on Julie and even succeeded to some extent. I on the other searched the net for some fancy foreign language names. Came up with few even. I started to call her Juliski combination of Julie and Iliski, Turkish for relationship. When I told Sunny, he was like, "Why do people get so excited about foreign names and all? Why can't they simply use the language they speak? At least name it in your native language if you have to else choose something in Hindi or English." He was right and I promptly thought of some names. Finally I selected Nungshibi. She must have had an identity crisis during those initial stage when she would be called by so many different names. I would call her something and sister would insist on something else. Then brother would try his own versions and so would Bishnu.


She's around six to seven months old now and really strong for her age. And quite a rebellious little doggy she is. Sister keeps on complaining, so do the rest of the people who drop by at home, that she is so aggressive and over-excitable. Her colour is same like Ruby and Jumbo. We had thought of calling her Ruby but I didn't want to.

She is sleeping beside me now. It's funny the way she goes to sleep. She would walk slowly and then all of a sudden fall down on the floor and go to sleep. The first few times I thought she hurt herself or something. It's way more funnier to see the way she actually sleeps, funny little poses, lying flat on her back and her legs stretched out:


Then there's one where she tilts her head ninety degree to her body, I was worried sick she might have twisted her neck or something when I saw it the first time.

She helps me keep sane. Like Max did when I was staying alone at home while all of you were away. Some nights I would get up from bed, not being able to sleep and walk out on the verandah, sit and stare at the stars. Max would come sit next to me and I would talk to him about you and about how I felt. I do that sometimes with Nungshibi when she's sleeping because when she's awake she's hyper. There's no time to be sentimental or nostalgic. It just vanishes away. That's how much she can keep one busy.

You would have loved her a lot and she would have definitely love you the most.

Love