The Namesake - Its all about Parents

I probably am not the right person to comment about this movie but since i came back after watching this piece of perfection,my heart has been repeatedly asking me this one question.Have i done Justice to my parents for all the sacrifices they made for me,and constanly my mind has been trying to elude this question of my heart as a part of the escapism i usually take to when i know that i am wrong.Finally not being able to handle the pressure i did give the answer to the question breaking into a few drops of tears.
The movie is a splendid work of perfection as i already mentioned,hats off to Mira Nair for handling the story with astuteness,The movie kicks off with the arranged marraige of Ashima(Tabu) and Ashok(Irfan Khan).A special appreciation should go to both for actually potraying the ideals of a first generation indian couple trying to make their lives in the USA.The story however pivots on the name of Gogol Ganguli played by Kal Penn who has just fitted the bill.Ashima and Ashok have two kids and they try their best to give them everything that was probably not at their reach back in India,the kids as usual look at their parents to be autocratic leaders as most of us think.The adaptability problem with the Indian Kids is also potrayed nicely at the locality the fammily settles down.As Gogol grows up he faces a lot of intimidation from the other students about his name.
He eventually at one point even goes back to change his name to his other good name Nikhil which was decided a not until he was actually 6 years old.The name Gogol had to be given to him since he needed a name on his birth certificate before he could be discharged out of the hospital after birth.as a kid Kal Penn chooses between Gogol and Nikhil and it is his decision that made him to be called Gogol.Gogol decides to major in Architecture and also finds a white girl friend for himself.The real transitions of the culture was potrayed at this point when Gogol tells his girlfriend "you should know certain things,no kissing and no holding hands while we are at my place",this might be too hard to reason out and rationalize to arrive at a reason unless you are really a indian because still at a lot of places in India this is a common practice.Infact in one of the scenes when Ashima and Ashok are at the Taj mahal,conversing about the Taj Mahal itself with hands in each others and when their son approaches them you can clearly see them relieving the hands of each other.
Gogol still goes on to be some one who really does not understand the care and concern of his parents and stays aloof on their beliefs he brings home his girlfriend to send off his dad before he is to be off for a semester to ohio,its then when Ashok tells him all about the name Gogol why he was named that way and about the Train accident,which actually provoked him to venture out and explore this world.There was one of the dialogues that caught me where Kal Penn asks his dad if his name reminds him of the accident and Ashok answers saying that it reminds him of everything that happened after that,and says every day after that had been a blessing.Gogol goes to spend the week end with his girl friend,and thats when tragedy strikes Ashok passes away due to a heart attack.Thats when a lot of the reality strikes Kal penn.He really feels the pain of the loss of his dad and even tonsures his head voluntarily.A sequence of events actually cause a rift between Kal penn and his girl friend and they split up.
Gogol goes on with his life and then the concerned mom looks into a groom for him and asks him to meet her ,entry zuleikha robinson and she truns out to be the striking cosmo girl and like a perfect choice for Kal penn he starts dating her and they end up getting married,things go fine for a while and Ashima decides to leave back to india since both her kids were well settled.Again Gogol faces problem in his marital life and his wife leaves him for a old boyfriend.Ashima knowing of her sons plight offers to stay back,but Gogol pursuades her to go ahead with her plan and leave to india.Thats when he finds a book gifted to him by his father when he graduated from high school.Memories start playing back images in his mind and he thinks of this particular day where he and his dad were at the beach and they walk down a few rocks to get a better view,Ashok then realises he has left his camera behind and tells Gogol that there is no camera and he has to remember this picture inn his mind,since there is going to be no photograph.The inquisitive kid asks "How long do u want me to remember this? and Ashok answers saying "Remember this forever and alsoremember we both travelled a lot to come to a place from where there was nowhere to go"these lines just really made me feel the love of a dad.
I came out with tears rolling down,I might have been an emotional person but i cant really remember the last time a movie made me shed drops of tears, it could have been decades.I felt like shouting out loud Dad I love you......but i never did and i know my dad too does feel the same towards me but never gives his thoughts words.It really made me feel a lot guilty and i felt really useless for a few moments.The Name sake could have been about one couple who came abroad and stayed there thinking what is best for their children but i am sure it reflects each and every parent living even in India because i have simply seen in my dad and mom that urge to get whats best for me.Its only that i refused to realise that for a long time and still keep refusing it.I seriously dont have any idea why i do that ..................May be that was the Plan of the setup.

Freedom Birds at the prison

Whola.......Capre Diem,Here comes the meaning for this ,if you are still wondering. It is commonly translated "seize the day", though a more accurate translation might be "pluck the day". One interpretation of the phrase might be as an existential cautionary term, much like "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" with emphasis on making the most of current opportunities because life is short and time is fleeting.I could not find a better term to describe my class of 2001-2005 computer science Jeppiaar engg college.We were held captive at a place that sucks to its core on earth,but did live through our days by just following one rule as the mantra "Break the Rules".

This was on 2001 August 15 th where it was proclaimed independence for my motherland on Aug 15th 1947 mine was hocked for just one purpose my Bachelors in Engg..hmmm......disasters apart these pages are just to record the memories while they are still afresh.Frist few days at college were kind weird we were just made to sit along with all other department guys and still that fear and roumours we had had heard about the college and its strict rules were hauting us.It took me just a few weeks to liberate myself from these fears and to try and lead a normal college going life while for others it was a herculean challenge.The first few months were the most dumb days of my college life a weird creepy feeling when u would be busted for talking to ur neighbour,or for just ogling at a girl kept coming on and off,and the Block incharges were considered to be almost like the corridor gods because we were at most of the times made to plead our guilt(various stupid defenitions given by the adminstration for that) with them and they had the power to either convict us or lead us to our liberation which would save the pain of doing an office duty for a day or so.......Now for pople who are unfamilar with this concept.(There were a lot of losers in our class who never got to do this office duty...and those who do not belong to this idiotic educational trust).U are made to stand outside the office room of the college .Apparently the place were the most powerful guys of our college served the so called disciplined educational trust in whole of chennai, u are not allowed to have lunch along with the other students or your classmate,although u will be provided lunch at a later time of the day when every other student has finished his lunch.however the attendence was given as present in class for the days u did a OD .Occasionally this may be accompanied by a additional punishment of not being allowed to board the college bus while u are on OD and being asked to write pages of painful assingments throughout the day.

Other than the assignment writing part i found OD's usually enjoyable and hence didnt mind staying out for them,since u get a day off from boring lectures and your attendance was intact.Ok....now coming to the first story.This happens in the college hostel and hence all the facts are of the second person syndrome and may not reflect the exact truth...(just in case ;)).There goes a ECE guy who was quiet a favorite among all hostelers at that point of the time and he was caught in a so called CRIME.He was taken into custody for breaking the rules of the hostel and made to do OD coupled with a few more punishments i mentioned above.As it goes every problem make a hero arise this one just had an over imapact and made many heros to arise and made like most of the hosted guys giving a conduct certificate for the poor guy saying he could not have done anything wrong.This is what triggered the big guns in the college since they can never bear heads flocking together they asked for the conduct certificate in writing and all our heros did give one ,this apparently seemed to be a trick to consolidate all the guys who protested and they all just walked into the trap this resulted in all of them doing the OD eventually.:-)........

A few days pass and a few guys fake some fainting incidents and make their way out thro sheer acting skills.Finally the uprising was given a stern warning and was allowed to get back to classes.The comical issue here was my class especially had a hell a lot of hostelers and almost all of them were made to stand out and our class had just 6 guys sitting in and the bunch of girls.However the instuctors were given instructions to carry on with the classes,and they did as told....First year of engineering was especially interesting since it was filled with common courses,like physics,chemistry,math and english being one among them.The English instructor Dr.Mangalam Neelakandan is my favorite and i am sure a lot of u guys out there would already be cursing me for this.but i saw her as a person who demanded perfection in everything she wanted to happen,and at places where that perfection was not avaiable she atleast wanted to see that dedication which could lead to the perfection.

My other favorite Was Mr.Sathyanarayan who was our Engineering drawing instructor and also the guy who was the man to study mechanical engineering from.I always pittied him for being caught in such a hellhole ,being a man full of ideas and innovations he was never given and window where he could venture out to reach his goal of inspiring students apart from just educating them.I however was always pumped up in his class and his subjects also eventually turned out to be my favorite ones.The other two favorite for everyone in the whole campus were Dr.Chitralekha and Ms.Jaculin who took chemistry and Physics respectively for all of us.The other favorite was Ms.Malini and she was a awesome teacher in maths and always had a impression that i was the troublesome dude in the class(i however was one among the really cutest kids in the class who always maintained a low profile and kept quiet) so she would always pick me up for asking questions.

This was the general scenario in which the classes were going on a semester was gone and we had exams where the for the first time a bi mester system was announced for the 1st Year students at engineering.It was fun time when we had culturals and sports time.I being a big mouth at times was hibernating at high school never came out for any extra curricular activities.But in college i decided to shed my old skin.The first day was filled with fun ,the first two days of our culturals was a combined event with boys and girs perfoming together.This however was shaken by one of our heroes i am about describe in the coming events.First day was group singing and i having a donkey s voice wanted to sing long time.(aasai yaara vittuchu).i ventured into making a team and finally brought a group of C.Karthik,Suresh.C K.V.Karthik and i am sure i am missing some one else .of course i was a part of the team and we sang peta raap from Kadhalan.Apparently we sang without a just one mic in our hands and it probably turned out to be good that we won the first prize for that.The mic clause is included to describe another tragedy at a later stage.

This is the Golden day where our Dilip Kumar was given the name Cappi i hope all of u realise who Dilip is because once when i told a guy in ECE about dilip kumar he could never recognise the person and i had to bring in the name cappi to kindle and reconnect his neurons.The same day as the group song was the day of the cricket match since i was not there at the match i am hoping to see some commments about this,from the guys who were around.We faced a massive defeat and most of the guys were back the next day for the events.
There it was Adzap the day i was most curious to explore.Allegedly i was a good creator of innovative ideas (the truth was i had a black book which was a compilation i carried from school).we were given the topic of some brand saree which we had to market.and i got into work,the team was Dilip,Mayank,Charumathi,K.Kavaita,venkatesh and I.Hopefully i didnt leave anyone out.we got into the game and the first two ideas were normal ones the third one is the one that started the speculation.now guys if u are wondering why a seperate culturals for boys and girls is going on in our campus the great Jeppiaar engg college this guy is one of the reasons.The great cappi was to play a sage who is in a penance and there are girls trying to disturb his 'thavam' so normal girls come around and try to distract our sage,he does not give in but when he realises the girl wearing out company's saree he was not able to stay in his state and breaks his penance and goes behind her.Cappi being a natural actor in this context went in and got himself completly involved into the scene and the expression he made while going out behind the girl marked the beginning of a new era .

The other commendable perfomances in the events were that of Manoji,Anish and Shanmugapriya who were adjudged the best Blades avaiable at that time in the college all of them walked away with the 1st,2nd and the 3rd places in the event.There was splendid performance going on in the Sports section by our "Why Blood" Prasanna making his way thro all the jumps and some of the track events.he turned out to be that years outstanding perfomer.He won accolades in the high jump,long jump and triple jump events.The competion was intially going on fiercely between the invincible EEE guys and mostly the CSE and IT guys but in a day it was dramatic change by the ECE girls bagging all athe events that day in the girls division.that led to a disaster and toppled all our hopes.There was still drama left in CSE with Anish ephrem rising to the situation and taking everyone by suprise and clocked and awesome timing in the 100 mts he also proved succesful in other track events.Finally it was a close race for that years championship and the ECE won it over all.

The other thing i am not able to forget about 1 st year is Mr.Veera the year incharge he was the only reasonable guy among a bunch of idiots who never even really understood the way the things work in the world.Huh...How can i forget to mention Mr.Sivakumar the workshop dude who used to be as cool as the students and was the only consolation at our college the first year.hey everyone this is just an attmempt to make a snapshot of all my happenings in life for the first year of college.i cannot state a lengthy statement as it is in commericials .but this blog was just an attempt for fun and never intended to hurt anyone.if i am amissing any of our first year events do add them in.
signing off