Random Update #3

Published August 28, 2017 / by Elizabeth / Leave a Comment
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~ writing here is something that I really wanted to do, but when I get the time, I really don’t want to go through the process.

~the lack of posts on this blog will continue for some more time unless I get back my mojo by virtue of some miracle..Highly unlikely :)

~ my third child is due in a month. I am expecting the baby to arrive early.

~ i prefer to work in office rather than from home. But since it is risky to travel much in the last month, I have decided to work for 2-3 weeks from home till the baby arrives.

~i have read some good books over the past few months. Some of them were re-reads and some were new. Overall satisfied with the progress.

~ i was very excited about reading on my kindle until recently. But these days, I prefer to go back to physical books. Then I feel that kindle books are overpriced too.

That is all for now…Cya…

Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte – Classics Club #6

Published June 28, 2017 / by Elizabeth / Leave a Comment
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Agnes-Grey-by-Anne-Bronte

I do not exactly remember why I decided to read Agnes Grey as a part of the Classics Club challenge. The only possible explanation is that I wanted to stick to something which might be an easy and light read. Then I always liked re-reading the Jane Austen type of novels and this seemed to suit that category, yet by an author I have not read before.

Reading a book is easier, but writing about it here is much more difficult these days. I try to force myself to write about the Classics because reading and writing about them is the very intend of the Classics Club challenge. Your challenge is not fulfiled until you actually write about the classics you have read. And that task seems to be much easier said than done.

Agnes Grey turned out to be a story just I thought it would be – an easy and light read and I didn’t have to exert myself to finish it and was not bored.

Agnes finding her family in a tough financial situation decides to take up the job of being a governess to children of well-to-do family. She sets out to do her task to the best of her ability, but her pupils doesn’t turn out to be so favorable to her instruction as she would have preferred and this leads to lots of hardships for her.

Anne Bronte’s writing is fluid, Agnes’s character is almost perfect, yet there was nothing notable in the whole reading experience. I cannot recall a single sentence that I wanted to highlight on my kindle. May be this is the fault I found with the book.

There are quite a few characters in the book, but none of them made much impression on me except Miss Murray. Otherwise Agnes Grey is a read and forget kind of story. Nevertheless I am happy that I read it.

Ok Jaanu(2017)

Published June 3, 2017 / by Elizabeth / 1 Comment on Ok Jaanu(2017)
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Ok_Jaanu_poster

In the first few minutes of watching Ok Jaanu, I wondered if I am actually watching an Indian movie. Because you don’t usually see a man & woman (both strangers) get acquainted with each other, become friends and even get sexually involved in such a short time. The relationship’s progress into a no-strings-attached live-in relationship is even faster. In the quest for creating a modern day live-in relationship, the story progresses quite fast in the first half to fall back into a slow emotional drama in the second half. In the second half, the pace of the story slows down – the families get involved, it is time to move ahead to pursue career goals and they reevaluate where their relationship stands!

Ok Jaanu tells a story of two individuals -Adi and Tara who don’t mind casual relationships, but doesn’t want any of it to disturb their career aspirations. They are very clear about what they want to do with their life – no marriage and puts forth this fact before they go ahead and start a live-in relationship. Both are planning to move to different foreign locations, and when that works out, they will say goodbye and move on with life.

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To be frank, the plot line that I loved most in the movie was the soothing love story of the Retired Judge Gopi and his Alzheimer’s affected wife Charu who are brought on screen by none other than Naseeruddin Shah and Leela Samson. Adi and Tara lives in one of the rooms in Gopi’s house when they pursue their no-strings attached relationship.

Ok Jaanu is fun to watch for the on-screen chemistry between Aditya Roy Kapur and Shraddha Kapoor and of course for the mature love between the judge and his wife. But there are lots of instances where you come across with the incredlous plot twists; the second half turns into a mushy emotional drama which doesn’t affect you much.

The climax is fast and things happen before the viewer realizes what actually happened. I enjoyed the movie but then story line was not convincing. Somehow I could not find it realistic even though set in modern times. Nevertheless a movie that is watchable especially if you are watching it using Amazon Prime Video.

Links: Wikipedia

IMDB

Kerala

Published May 7, 2017 / by Elizabeth / 2 Comments on Kerala
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indian railways kottayam railway station

After so much of anticipation and planning, we did finally manage to get ourselves to Kerala to celebrate my mom’s 70th birthday. The planning consisted of booking 4 sets of tickets and the planning all went into a disarray in the last week before travel.

My husband’s grandfather died all of a sudden which meant he had to travel to Indore urgently. His office work was already piled up which meant that traveling with us to Kerala was doubtful. I was just thankful that my brother was traveling with us and I could go with him. Also my live-in maid managed to suffer from backpain due to some sort of nerve compression and she was in utter pain. I had half mind to ask my husband to stay back since I didnt want her to make the 6 hour long bus journey to her native. Thankfully she was better by the day of travel and actually insisted on visiting her native. Finally TH managed to come with us.

Traveling in train was uneventful except when a rat decided to eat my husband’s laptop bag. I had put a few bakery buns as emergency snacks for us and that caused the attack. It was even more interesting when I had another bag next to it which had biscuits, bananas and lot more eatables. So we ended up buying a laptop bag before we traveled back.

We are having second thoughts on traveling in trains when there is a longer duration of day time travel. The son seems to want to climb up and down and do all sorts of circus in the train which makes it very stressful. Bed time trains are better when you can eat supper and put them to sleep right away.

The weather in Kerala was much better than we anticipated though there were moments when we just gave up due to the humidity. We did spend an entire night sans light & fan because of the thunderstorms one afternoon, and the inverter charge didn’t last enough to switch on the fans. Thanks to the heavy rain, we could sleep without much fuss.

A major highlight of my trip is always that quick trip to my favorite shop in my small town. This unassuming place has all types of good quality clothing for all ages and we have been purchasing most of our things from here including TH’s shirts. I love the fabric section of the store. Alas, that section was too crowded to approach that we left the store without even making an attempt. I realized I may get hurt in this vulnerable stage if I attempt to buy fabrics. We did manage to buy clothes for the kids, so the trip to the shop was not entirely wasted.

Overall I enjoyed meeting our families and the birthday celebration was a total success too. I am so happy that my parents are ever so understanding and doesn’t complain about my short & infrequent trips to home. I wish I could stay more, but I really really need to save my leaves for my baby because I am entitled to just 12 weeks of ML for the 3rd child and have to use my leaves to spend some time with the newborn before resuming work.