Galore' de Gator Nights

Penning this entry as an audition for a student blogger role :)

The gator audience joined forces with Theseus and Phaedra to check whether their souls are immortal + divine. With a steady supply of popcorn and cold drinks to support their mortal cravings. :P

For all those Adams and Eves out there who wish to take a bite of the Apple, Gator Nights supplied a plethora of skins for those sleek gadgets. Gator Nights also gave fellow gators a chance to impress the shutterbugs at the red carpet. For those who stay away from the public eye, there were wacky n witty dog tags to help rescue hungry gators in distress. And to top the rescue mission, there's always a pancake or 2 at the Midnight Breakfast.
Our verdict: Spring break round the corner..Will miss you Gator Nights!

Ganz N Roses

I have a Parsi friend, and he recently invited us to the Baha'i prayer meet hosted by his friend. After the prayers and a jam session, there was an open house of sorts. His friend and the friend's wife are globe-trotters and have spent years in Cameroon, Brazil, Israel, India, Korea..the list goes on. The group that got together was also of a mixed ethnicity and religious adherence. We spoke about global peace and spiritual awakening. Stories were narrated to stress that tolerance can be brought upon only by opening our hearts.  

A critic once critiqued something. The manager of "whatever-he-critiqued" was extremely angered by the unflattering critique. He wished to prevent the critic from sending out further articles. He sent out 3 goons, who simply stood outside the critic's house threateningly. The critic was a brave man. He trotted up to them, and asked if they were thirsty, and told them that they could use his loo. Initially, the goons were gruff to him, but soon they warmed up..and even dropped in for lemonade or to watch TV.

A guy was about to be mugged. He said to the mugger.. "whoa! I have money simply to buy me dinner. But why dont we go out together and share the meal." The mugger was taken aback, and spared the man.

All I ask for, is that the aggressors give the peace-talkers enough time to atleast get their thoughts across. 

Carmina Burana

I was  spell-bound by Black Swan, and thrilled when a ballet- Carmina Burana was organized at the University. Attending a high profile performance is a beautiful affair, and it was cool donning my dream dress.

It was funny when the choir entered from the audience, my friends had a good laugh over it. Also my 1st contact with western classical music sung live, which is several octaves different than the Indian music.

It started with a performance by defrocked priests and nuns. I was surprised when the dancers danced on their entire feet, and not just on their toes as I had expected post-Black-Swan. The bleak dressed dancers soon exited and we saw Adam-Eve and the serpent. The trio were on their toes, and an excellent performance by the ballerina playing the serpent. Soon Eve succumbed to primal attraction (KUCH BHI story..as if God intended the PG-13 version, where stork visits the couple and drops the baby in mom's lap!!!!). The next scene was springtime- to symbolize the joy and life of procreation. Brightly dressed performers performed acrobatics-modeled steps like cartwheels, modified trapeze where the girl swings from  one guy's arms to other's. In the second act, the indulgence in games and alcohol was portrayed to go out of control. This act featured an intricate backdrop and vibrant costumes.

The third act, as the performance's website rightly calls it: is both profound and profane. Adam is crucified, is resurrected, renews his proximity to Eve post-resurrection with extra vigour, and reaches spiritual heights through carnal pleasure. Osho anyone? This would be the last performance by the prima ballerina (Eve), and judging by the rounds of appalause and the standing ovation, this was a fitting farewell. 

Take 1: A few reasons to stop bitching about India

Dear Mr. escapist CyberGandhi.. its very easy to create a negative picture of India. You will be touted abroad, may even win a Pulitzer for your enlightening blog. But, instead of name-calling, why dont you focus your creative energy in, say, making a user-friendly teaching aid? You did rant about literacy rates in India and all in your blog..why dont you help address it?

Here is my 1st take on A few reasons to stop bitching about India  (Inspired by Chetan Bhagat's blog ).... as a response to Mr CyberGandhi's complaino-log A zillion reasons to escape from India.

I am not a economics person.. nor can I argue against your statistics about how many tortures have been inflicted and how many were apprehended..
Your blog portrays it as if all the evil incidents happen only in India, and if you escape from India, you will lead a secure life. As a keen observer of human nature, I know one thing.. any human inherently enjoys wielding power. Whether he uses that power to mend the situation or bend others is the question. People need to be taught to use their resources for others, how would that be helped by running away from the problem instead of tackling it at its roots?

There are many more cars on US roads than in India, even though the public transport system is awesome.
We Indians too are getting better cars conforming to global anti-pollution standards. You crib about public transport..I hail from Pune, and I just checked the Public Transport connectivity to and from all the suburbs I could think of in Pune. The service frequency is reasonable. Even in US I know some buses which have an hourly frequency, and no one gives it a second thought. We frequently don't get to sit in the crowded buses in US as well. If the bus in US is full, the bus driver doesn't allow more passengers to get in, so that we dont spill out from the bus doors. The "couldnt-enter-the-full-bus" junta don't demand to sack the bus driver.  

The real problem is not the inadequate infrastructure, but the population growing by leaps and bounds.. I hope we know why cities face this brunt of overflowing population? Because of people like you and me think about escaping the current scenario rather than driving the change.

You speak of discrimination against women.. how is escaping elsewhere gonna change that? Corruption? What if each one of us stops offering bribes.? The problem is not the society..its we the Indians who make up that society.

Mr CyberGandhi, I appreciate that you atleast attempted to identify and enumerate the problems. Kudos.. All I ask for is that it shouldnt just end at complaining loudly..


P.S..Yes, Shrikant, one more convergent blog. Sorry for that :) Couldnt help venting my thoughts at that unbalanced blog. 

In and around Gainesville

I was forever on the go for the past 19 months.. not that we dint venture out once in a while..but mostly weekends were dedicated to getting your work done. And now when we can afford to slow down and take in Gainesville..
Off track to Paynes Prairies state park.. stepping into tall grass.. and returning unscathed.. only when we returned to the starting point did we read the warning that one should not go to the tall grass..because 1. alligators lurk there.. and 2. alligators lay eggs there, and are aggressive++ if they perceive us as threat.. I guess the only reason we stepped out alive was that it hasnt rained in a while in Gainesville..and there isnt enough wet soil for alligators to lay eggs.

Trip to Lake Alice and UF Bathouse..took some awesome sunset pics there..
A visit to Butterfly rainforest and harn Museum of Art..
Trip to Devil's Millhopper..The largest sinkhole in Florida..
Impromptu Picnic at the Stoneridge Lakeside.. wonder how could we miss out these wonderful spots..
Bike hike to Hawthorne trail.. Off the beaten track..biking away to glory.. there was a pretty spot of Sweetwater branch under a bridge.. me and a friend climbed down to check it out.. again something which is highly risky in Florida..
Morning side Living History Farm.. whosssssssssh and the Time machine takes you back to the 1900's. Feeding the animals.. eating homemade biscuit..India-like butter and sugarcane syrup.. There was a family asking their kid to be bold and pet the cow.. Saddened me to think that the same family will go home and have hot-dog for dinner.. :(

Many more to come.. Life's good.. or rather it is as good as we think it is :) 

Dinosaurs, Mayan Prediction and Melancholia

Is there any rule out there that a commercial movie has to be 2 hr long? The first half of Melancholia drives one nuts, me and my friend left the theatre when part II started. But IMDB rating and overall user reviews made me go back the next day to complete the movie. Wish that the director had made just the part II as the whole movie.

I was a 12 yr old during the Y2K thingy. Computers didnt affect my life in any remote way. I didnt care if the age of a person born in 1920 would be registered negative or not. I was sure some one would have enough sense to, say, add 100. I came to know of this 2012 madness thanks to the Facebook event "2013". By now I had read about paranoid people who died with fear on Y2K. These memories "flashed upon my inward eye" on seeing the character Claire in the movie suddenly get out-of-breath for no logical reason during the fly-by of Melancholia. On the contrary, a kid approaches the situation in a rational way and designs a contraption to ascertain whether Melancholia is approaching/ receding and measure its speed.

A meteor could have banged into the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs. Basically, there are 2 main scenarios that could have killed the dinosaurs..the earthquakes due to the collision, or cutting-off of sunlight for a long time that wiped out the food-chain. Melancholia deals with both the scenarios. Justine sheds her depression and is in control of the situation. The protagonists built a magic cave on an open ground..and had a stock of supplies. But, sadly, the astronomer protagonist commits suicide anticipating the collision. If you are making a movie, dealing with the current sensitive topic, that could reach a large audience..its your responsibility not  to send out wrong ideas. Google led me to several doomsday preparation websites. Some suggest shifting to Africa..!! Unless we ship food enough to last a lifetime, we would use up all the food reserves in Africa and starve anyways.

Personally I dont worry about 21st December 2012. If something is really gonna happen and wipe out the WHOLE human race, you cant do anything anyways. End of one calender simply marks the next eon. Then why waste time brooding and mulling? There's much out there to explore.. and (sic Melancholia) enjoy while it lasts :)

Harn Museum of Art

My friend from Dallas is visiting Gainesville. Had an impromptu visit to the Harn Museum in the University. Funny how I completely missed this one for so long.

We started with Sebastiao Salgado's Photography Exhibit. The 1st goody goody images were rajasathani toilers at the Canal project, which reroutes Sutlej and Beas waters to Rajasthan. It was good to read that the project attempted at planting trees to prevent the advent of the desert. The next subject was Dhanbad coal miners. British wanted to extract coal as cheaply as possible, who cares about destruction of ecosystem, or the weakening of soil structure. Apparently the British system of quickie-mining let in oxygen, and led to incarceration of the coal. The next set of disturbing images were sealing the oil wells post gulf wars, and extreme under-nutrition post exodus from the subjects' native land. These self-funded images have captured and kept alive a censored piece of history: a role-model for budding photographers.

The next cheerful section was contemporary art. One intriguing artwork was Oscar Wild, by Hernan Bas. B My friend thought it referred to grave-diggers. My interpretation of the hazy human figure was that it was an allusion to the Picture of Dorian gray..the hazy figure progressively looks more wicked and older.  One appealing feminist photograph was "I am not a Persian carpet". The female artist stamps her body with persian carpet motif to assert that there is much more to being a woman than just her beauty and nationality. "Old man's cloth" is a quilt made up of..wait for it.. made up of sewn together aluminium caps of wine bottles. Misnomer maybe. Should have been called a "teetotaler's cloth" :P. Two headless mannequins wore the "home-made bulletproof vests". They refer to a grim incident where the Romanov family heirlooms were sewn into kids' clothing to safeguard the riches, which couldn't prevent the kids' brutal death. 

The art in Harn Museum has a pervasive theme. The exhibits refer to unfortunate (and possibly forgotten/ fact-suppressed) incidents like rich enslaving orphans, assassination of General Sandino, Black Wall street, and Colonial imperialism. What triumphs is the artist's ability to seek out the silver lining in that grim cloud.

Sirens

Went with Rick-Dana n Team Asha for a drama performed in the Hippodrome State Theatre-Sirens. This is my 2nd visit to a theatre in the US. The one for Dallas symphony was similar to any theatre back home. But the Hippodrome is a courtroom remodeled as a theatre. The audience is in close vicinity to the performers.

Awesome minimal set: a blue floor with 4 small rectangular blocks (serve as seats, or rocks on an island)  and a huge block (serve as a table, a ship's deck or the Siren's lair) . Windows etc suspended from the ceiling by wires. The lead pair is in their fifties. Great timing and chemistry.

After the drama, the lead actress- Nell Page talked to us briefly; to answer any questions- one of the few advantages of hanging out with Dana. Nell thanked us for being a wonderful audience. She mentioned that audience transfer their collective energy to the actors, and the actors retransmit the energy during the performance. According to her that's why the recorded plays are so flat, they lack the audience vibe. Its awesome, especially when it comes from a veteran actor. I remember my 1st rendezvous with Aayushyavar Bolu Kahi..Sandeep Khare too requests that the auditorium lights be dimly on, so that he can see the audience.

नेता असावा  लोकाग्रणी.. तसा अभिनेता रसिकाग्रणी..