Magic Letter Box

Another movie review...it's 'The Lake House' this time...
I'm usually not a fan of those movies that demnds that you lock up your brains in a box and leave it outside the theater and then be entertained by the movie....
Inspite of being one of those 'happily ever after'type, Lake House still was fun. A fantasy told in beautiful settings.... a little cabin house with a magic letter box...enduring love that reaches beyond time, space and distance...a long wait and well... power of persuasion... all crafted together to make a modern day fairy tale...Romantic movies aren't my favorite genre, but ya... everyone has a childhood where we loved Snowwhite...we locked our brains hard and still love to watch a pretty girl living with seven dwarfs and the prince charming...So for sometime we locked our brains... and smiled on.. and...watched the magic letter box with curiosity of 6 year olds watching snow white...
And end of the night, I had a new e-mail id, one that suits my virtual existence... MAGIC LETTER BOX :)

United 93

I watched United 93 yesterday.One of those good movies, I would say. A simple and sincere account of a handful of normal people who got into an extraordinary situation. It's actually true that heroes are never born... situations make people heroes...Everyone aboard U 93 were plain normal, but as one of the reviews for the movie says, they they did something that we wonder if we would do.
As it goes, one would never know what really happened aboard that ill-fated flight, but, this is probably the closest assumption that we could make.
The movie is taken in a very plain way with no big star cast or specialeffects, giving every respect to the topic being handled.
United 93, recommended with 5 stars!!

About snow... and blessings

Now that I've said about rain... I really have to talk about snow..
If I haven't told before, it was one of my greatest ambitions to be join my uni. Things were never simple and we almost never made it.... but we did.. ( we- me and Nirupama)and all the way my prayers somehow always had snow in it....
While I was in India and still unsure about whether we would make it, I used to always tell mom that my next Christmas would be white...
I loved Scotland from the moment we touched down...I could always feel the presence of God here with us... probably the strength of my mom's prayers...
And I always look for instant messages from God
;)Now, this bit, I know it's funny, but this is not MSN.... everyone finds it funny... but it works for me and I trust it.... now it goes like this.... I might be watching TV and might just say a secret prayer.... if the next commercial that appears say....'we bring good things to life' I tend to beleive that my prayer will be answered...funny... but trust me the above one happened to me...)So my most memorable instant message came on the night of christmas eve, 24th December 2004... it snowed for the first time in Glasgow... I will never forget that first time I saw snow fall in my life... It was not snow fall....it was a heavenly feeling.... soft flakes of snow falling very mildly....like stars... I could feel the divine presence... Glasgow was all decorated with Christmas lights ( it's a tradition of the city and the lights on is a big ceremony a month before Christmas)and the whole city looked like an old coke ad (an old one which shows a Christmas procession)...it was amazing...it was my first snow... and it came on a Christmas eve...
The next day morning I woke up to my life's first white Christmas... and when I walked down to the Cathedral...the pavement was white... the building roofs and lawns... all white.... the enchanting cathedral partly covered in snow...
I didn't have much to say in the Cathedral... I just said
Thank you God... thanks for everything....

P.S: I waited for a year to make it very sure that the message was clear, about the white Christmas.... it didn't snow on Christams day this year... it hadn't previous few years either...so I beleive it was God's way of telling me that he is there for us...
P.P.S: And there is a small bit more without which this wouldn't be complete... I didn't have a digital camera to shoot the snow pics then, Niru and I bought our Sony five days before going home, going home after 17 1/2 months....four days before leaving for India, as I walked down for job my mind just said... 'God, if it would snow one of these days I could show the pics to my parents'. well, the second week of March isn't the period of heavy snowfall anywhere... not in Glasgow of all.
But it snowed.... fom midnight... for 8hrs... Glasgow recorded it's thickest snow fall of some few years...I got my pics( that one is the first one ).... My family loved them.....Thankyou God...if this isn't the message what else is??

Summer rain

Rain.... I've always loved rain...Grey rainy evenings brought me a tranquility always...Sitting on the bed next to big glass windows and watching the rain.... Playing with the kitchen set...Fetching rain water....Paper boats...Picking a wet news paper in the morning...Even going to the school under an umbrella...I always had the most special colors in them.. Violet, pink,yellow, red, green....
This time when I went home I was watching the home video of the floods my dad and brother shot for me... There was enough water for my nephew to sit on a thermocoal boat and roam around...it was so much of fun and Adi looked so happy....I missed the rains in India...I was just wishing that I hadn't gone back in the peak of summer....
I missed the wet garden and the smell of the mud....I just wished if it would rain...
Rain is never the same in Glasgow...When you are living at six or seven degrees it's more of a pain...and the winds are so ferocious... My beautiful pink umbrella is a real fighter though...
I miss the rains in India... The monsoons are a part of home... The tranquility comes from being with the most loved people in the most loved place....And probably because it's only at home that you can wish for anything and your wishes are granted...Like my wish for a rain...
It rained all night after I watched Adi's video... And fetched wet newspaper in the morning....
Summer rains are probably the best part of living at home....It's like life...Something good is always in the waiting....