Ratatouille - go see it

August 29, 2007 | Filed Under Point of View, Theatre & Movies, food & drinks, life's answers | 6 Comments 

I have been away from this blog for a long time. It’s not as if life didn’t present opportunities to write here. I wasn’t short of time or things I could write. I spend many a Saturdays and Sundays wanting to write something but just not getting around doing it. Yet I am here, it’s more than midnight and I am writing. I have a silly user guide that needs to be converted to a powerpoint presentation, the kinds that want to make you quit your job or take a sabbatical to introspect on life. But, as I said, yet I am here.

The movie has had its effect on me. My eyes welled up during the movie and for a moment I thought I had survived the Total Perspective Vortex and come out of it alive and with greater wisdom. While that’s a contentional statement, the movie has indeed made me a different person.

It touched me in several ways. Firstly it’s about a rat, who aspires to be a chef. Which I think is a metaphor for a person wanting to do something away from the rat race. I am fascinated by culinary arts, and my eyes have always lit up with the idea of cooking and presenting to the world. I have aspirations of having a restaurant of my own. It’s a very fascinating idea, if you feel like hearing about it meet me over coffee.

It also categorized cooking under art, something that I too strongly believe in. and every person who cooks brings his or her own flavour to the stew. So the movie addressed the art angle and the constant struggle of pursuing art versus pursuing the struggle to earn a good livelihood.

And finally it spoke to the critic in me. Or rather had a drink with the critic in me, spoke sounds too much give and take. Amazingly two of the best dialogues in the movie are voiced by the supposedly antagonistic character, who is a critic. I would have put them here, but I would rather you hear it in the movie itself.

Some movies have defining moments. But very rarely does there come in a life - a defining movie. Go see it.

It has humour of the best kind, the kind that you will talk long after life has passed you by. And on idle Tuesdays when you have nothing to do and feeling a little heavy about life, you can remember this movie and make yourself happy.

And if you still want more from a movie, it’s a movie made with a lot of love and care. It’s tasty and is garnished well with a cherry on top.

Cheers! to Pixar and Walt Disney, and everyone else who is a part of the movie in any little way, even if you were just a garbage boy.

My grandmother told me that today’s night is a big one, God apparently writes the fate of us people for the whole of next year on this night. Many muslims pray the whole night to please God. I told my grandma that I should butter God up too, she found my statement funny. Thinking about it, the night does have a good feel about it and may be God-willed that I see the movie today. Must thank God for being such a wonderful God and willing such good things for me.

And all you people remember that the annual performance appraisal is not a recent HR invention but is as old as the hills.

Shandy on the beach

March 31, 2007 | Filed Under Goa, Travel, food & drinks | 2 Comments 

It was not until the third day of Goa that I discovered that Shandy is the perfect drink for the beach. Particularly after 12 noon and before 4.00 pm.

Shandy is a mix of beer and lemonade/sprite. I like it three quarters beer and one quarter sprite. You may like it differently. I had it at a beach near Aguada fort and there were kingfish kababs to go with it. The combination is quite a gastronomic delight.

It goes well with the sun, the beach, the water and the view.