Curtain Raiser

Ohh blogspot, I've missed you so.. I'm sorry for my temporary transgression.. Wordpress just looks pretty you know, I couldn't help myself.. It didn't mean anything I swear! You're my one and only! Your beautiful ease of navigation, your wonderful ability to let me see my followers.. I don't know what I was thinking when I got bewitched by Wordpress. I promise I'll never cheat on you, ever again.. 

Obviously, I'm referring to my new film blog on wordpress. For some reason (I can't even remember) I always wanted to own a blog on wordpress. When I got an assignment to start a group blog, I jumped at the opportunity of finally doing that. And oh God what a mess! It was like struggling to walk through the jungles of Congo. Never again! *shudder shudder*

Now that I'm back here, I just realized that I haven't blogged about so many blogable incidents. I wanted to talk about Sir Robert Swan's electrifying lecture about his walk to the North and South Poles that had me and a crowd of 1000+ students and faculty on their feet cheering wildly. I missed a chance to write about my awesome trip to the Sanjay Gandhi National Park accompanied by Sanctuary Asia's Director Dr. Anish Andheria. I'd like to think that I WILL get around to writing about both someday.

Today, though, I want to write about our college fest - Xuberance in Colours, organized by the Public Relations batch of XIC. A flashy stage with a cool poster in the background and a royal red carpet leading up to it, rows of white chairs neatly lined up, and beautiful pink and blue speckled cloth giving a shamiana type effect, the venue was set for a rocking party. It felt nice to see everybody dressed up for the occasion. Most importantly, it felt nice to get an occasion to dress up for! All my nice clothes are just gathering dust :(

Coming to the fun part of the evening, I performed a group dance with my classmates. While changing in and out of costumes, I missed other performances and that was my biggest regret. But then, nothing can compare with the joy of dancing, especially for such a huge crowd! We danced on a medley and since we didn't do a single dress rehearsal before this, it was a miracle that we all managed to .. let's just say, perform as planned :P I was grinning like an idiot throughout, coz it just felt so damn good.

I watched the other performances and cheered wildly when my favourite teacher won the award for Pied Piper (a teacher whose lecture you'll never miss). Then came the DJ with the most terrible selection of tracks ever and we all said to each other "Itne paise mein itnaich milenga". Food is always the best part of any event and we hogged on paneer, dal makhani, raita, rotis and kulfi! The party was supposed to continue at Big Daddy's, but I came home thanks to a documentary shoot the next day. Moreover, I wanted that part of the evening to be the most fun part. Swaying to Raghav's Leke pehla pehla pyaar and aloo chaat playing in my head, I merrily made my way home, feeling blissful about the wonderful evening! :D

To fleeting moments...

 She stood on the edge, the very edge of the earth. On the cliff of the highest mountain she could find, that overlooked the deepest valley in this world. She looked down on rows of pretty flowers, having names and fragrances unknown to her. A sudden feeling of elation began to creep over her, as she realized... She realized she was growing wings. Wings that would once and for all cut off the strings that held her down. Held her down to what, she did not care to remember. Closer and closer she moved to the tip, feeling more adventurous by the passing minute. Her heart leaped up and settled down, unable to recognize the purest form of ecstasy. 

On tiptoe she now stood, with a naughty smile on her face. She lifted one leg, standing like a ballerina on the smallest edge of the cliff. The anticipation heightened her euphoria. A fleeting moment in time, captured against a purple-orange twilight. The ballerina on one toe, the bird with her wings stretched out. And just like a bunjee jumper, like a daredevil, mischievous bunjee jumper, she stepped off, as if stepping off a curb..

Into the wide abyss that was the valley. And her heart soared, this time not pushing away the pure elation. Her wings spread out and caught a steady wind. She didn't want the wind though, to keep her up. She wanted to beat her wings, to beat them till she could justify the reason she was given them... So she went up, higher and higher, and flapped her wings to her hearts content. Up and above she flew, now free from unknown shackles... After what seemed like an era, she tired, and caught a slight breeze, enough to keep her up..

And she remembered her daredevilry, as she twirled on tip toe, at the edge of the highest mountain, painted against a twilight sky, forever captured in a fleeting moment...

It sucked me in!

After reading this spoof on Twilight, even before I knew what it was, I'd pretty much decided never to stoop to the level of reading such, well let's just say, no-brainer chick lit. Like I'd mentioned in this post, I'm not a big fan of the fantasy world, and I didn't want to be anywhere near an "ordinary girl with no defining characteristics, whom every girl could relate to". Of course, what good is reading about an all-too-perfect Adonis who doesn't even exist in real life? And like I said, vampires?? Urghhh

So it is with great shame that I admit that I did it. I read the damn book. Not only did I read it, I actually liked it. Not only did I like it, I ran over to my neighbour, whom I'd caught reading New Moon, and asked for a copy of it. Not only did I sigh in world-weary disappointment when she said she didn't have it, I jumped three floors high when she offered to give me the movies for all 3 books instead. The shame of it all!

I think the absence of a love life, and the absence of time to go hunting for a good book is responsible for all this. I picked up the book because I didn't have anything else to read. A random chapter told me that I was reading something akin to Mills and Boons. Now this is where the hormones kicked in. Yeah yeah I'm not a teenager anymore, but remember, absence of love life? 

Oh well, the heart likes what it likes. This isn't to say that I completely let down all my defenses and got carried away with 'The Book'. No siree, not a hardened journalist/critical appreciator like me. Throughout the book, I kept making objective observations like, "My god, she doesn't have a life!" or "My God, what a slut!" or "Whooooshhhh I wonder if he has 6 or 8 pack abs?" Err... never mind.

This is a strong example of why its always more fun to read the book than to watch the corresponding movie. The girls will agree with me on this anyway. To make a few comparisons between the book and the movie (I can't believe I'm doing this!), I'd say, Pattinson tried really hard and with a few good camera angles, they got his devilish smile in. Stewart was pathetic. She was nowhere close to the whiny, immature, self-deriding Bella in the book. I don't think she expressed anything except for screaming when that vampire guy broke her leg. 

The Cullens were pretty apt, but somehow I'm imagined them to be much taller than other people. The scene where Edward steps in to defend Bella against James could have been fiercer. I'd imagined them to be transformed almost into animals. I thought the baseball game was damn good in the movie. It was slick and fun. 

Of course they've totally messed around with the story, but that's ok. The only thing that was totally not right was the romance between Edward and Bella. A part of the blame should fall on Stewart because she didn't emote a damn thing. And of course the 2-hour length of the movie didn't give much time for their slow romance to blossom. 

I don't know if its just me, or did Bella's Dad look really young? I actually found him more adorable than Edward! Alright, I've embarassed myself enough now. I've written like a real Twilight fan, *shudder shudder*

I hope I get over the obsession soon. Excuse me now, as I satisfy my bloodlust for New Moon.

Image source: http://www.comingsoon.net/