Gravity: Movie Review

I decided that I would spend the end of this evening watching a nice movie with my hubby. I say this because it has gotten rare for us. After a lot of channel hopping we settled down for Gravity that was being aired at HBO.

The movie was halfway.

The lead actress is Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) who i an engineer as an astronaut on her first flight. The commandor of the space event is Matt Kowalski (George Clooney).

A team of astronauts boards Explorer the spaceship, goes outer space on a mission. It encounters a sudden catastrophe that renders the team of astronauts dead, and only the two main leads as survivors. Eventually things go worse and Matt lets go in order to let Dr. Ryan to survive.

My take on the movie: it is a gripping movie. Totally motivating.

Things I learnt from it:

1) sheer determination is needed to survive , whether on earth or in space.

2)never give up. Never, ever give up. The world runs on logic but survives on miracles.

3) acquire knowledge. Reap as much as you can. You never know when it will save you.

4) Dr. Ryan had no one for her on the earth. She lost her only daughter. She had no reason to survive. But she did. She did not lose it because of anyone. She won it for herself.

5) She faced so many problems , all alone, beyond human contact. If she could survive them all, why can’t we?

6) Matt Kowalski encouraged her throughout the time he was with her. Give thought, love, empathy and care to those around. You never know when your strong words can help a person to stop quitting.

7) be strong. Set goals. Fulfill them. Dream well. And live those dreams. Let no one or nothing stop you. Life is lived only once. Tick those bucket list items. All of them.

8) lastly, be grateful. You are created by a creator. When Dr. Ryan says she’s running out of oxygen, I thanked God for giving me oxygen without count or tax. When Dr.Ryan thought about her dead daughter, I thanked God fo my two living children and the joy I have with them. When Dr. Ryan survived space debris crashes, I thanked God for keeping me accident safe till now. When Dr. Ryan was giving up because she has no one on earth waiting for her, I thanked God for my loving spouse and family. When Dr. Ryan said she didn’t know how to pray, I broke down. Because I know how to, but don’t like I always should.

If anything, we should stop being ungrateful.

Tonight, I will sleep inspired. I have goals too. I have things to accomplish too. I have lots of things to be thankful for.

Great Movie. Hats off to the brainchild of this movie!!! Amazing acting, dialogue, sequence.

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you mom.

 

 

Thank you mom, for doing everything for me, to let me be 28 today.

It is my birthday, but the celebration should be yours. You kept me safe in your womb. Provided me with the best of nutrition.Took care of me in my sickness.Jumped in my joy and held me in my sorrows.You made me strong emotionally and spiritually. You gave me your superpowers. You taught me how to fight the world with a smile. You taught me strong values. You gave me tough lesson to live life straight without falling out of cliffs or swaying away into river currents. You taught me the power of a women with complete charm and resilience. You left behind your dreams, your happiness and hung on to dear life, all for my sake. I bow my head, ashamed for all the times I thought you weren’t doing things in my interest. I was always wrong, you were always right. I saw all of your tears and every payer you made for me on the prayer mat. I love you my mom. I love you for giving me life.

I love you for making me 28 today mom. All I did today was to get born. The celebration is yours my mom.

 

Linkin Park, never the same again.

Ok. So I have given up listening to songs. Why? Another time, another post. But right now, I want to vent out.

I had some down times in my late teens. Everything was chaotic because everyone was in college and I was idle at home doing nothing. I was dead bored and dead angry. Although my family abhorred music, I jumped full fledge into the music industry. Into the world of songs and tunes. The music helped the time go fast and my NEED FOR SPEED cars sped even faster.

I was a big fan of Linkin Park. My brother introduced me to Numb and it was my ringtone for three years straight. It was amazing to hear the bare voice of Chester Bennington.

My favourite ones of their list were Numb, In the End, Crawling, New Divide, From the Inside and Iridescent. They healed me somehow. I was hung to them.

Yesterday, when I read about Chester Bennington, I really went numb for a moment. No matter how many times we know that death can come to any one and at any age, still the heart refuses to register the deaths of young people. Chester was 41. That isn’t old age. But he is dead. He died with a piece of everyone’s heart who loved his songs…..

 

Running the cogwheels

The Holy month has just passed by. I absorbed as much of goodness as I could. Schedules have restrung to their old order. I am back.

My day begins at dawn. With the arrival of my hubs from work. His breakfast and the days-going fill my belly. I go back to sleep, peaceful till mid morning when my two toddlers take turns for pee and poo and tv and brekkie. My day of awakefulness and normalcy actually begins at noon or an hour after.

I take a rushed brunch and begin my meal preps that last for about two to three hours. Along with regular intervals of pees and poos. Then the internet gets on so I do my customary social media surfing until my late lunch. After that my kids have their meal. And then I get time to do anything till 6.

I either play subway surfers or learn typing on Alison.com or come blogging, like I did now. Then I take tutions for a 9th grade student right upto 8 o clock. I then do not understand how it suddenly turns 11 in the night and I jump back to my glorious bed.

It does appear that I don’t do much. But I get dead tired. The washing of clothes, the running after and feeding the toddlers, the meal preparations, the sweeping of my room, the clearing of the kitchen top. Everything. Its tiring. But all this are brain freezing chores.

There is a list of things I need to be doing beside these chores.

I have to learn French, learn MS Office, learn typing perfectly. I have to homeschool my moody daughter, and also teach her Arabic. I have to stitch a few clothes. I have to teach my son to hold a pencil and draw upon instructions.

Each of the above tasks have sub-lists. And just the humongous-ness  of these tasks make me collapse back…to my glorious comfy bed. Magical place indeed!!!!

Hollow from the inside…

Its been a long time, without you my friend. I’ll tell you all about it, when I see you again.

I really missed bogging all this while. I had so many posts in my head everyday but really, I really couldn’t muster the time to grab the laptop to type. I love blogging.

A lot has happened over the past few weeks. To begin with, my better half got my mobile phone fixed. Thanks to him, it works like new. Well almost. But it is much better. No more virus bugging me every instant. Battery is much better. I also got a cool back cover for it.

There is a destination I aim to reach in the next year. So got our stuff together and made our move. Hoping God lets everything go smooth. Big Goals ahead on this on!

Who said God doesn’t answer prayers. Sometimes you don’t even have to ask. My son got circumcised  a couple of weeks ago. My sister in law visited us for two days. Her dad asked her to wake up one late afternoon. After much mumbling, she sweetly said,” Daddy please let me sleep, I din’t catch a wink all night”. There was so much emotion and sweetness in her voice. My heart ached for my dad. At that very moment boundless tears flew out of my eyes. When will I get a chance to say something like that to my dad. (My parents and siblings live abroad in the KSA). Lo and Behold! The very next day my dad called up saying Grandma isn’t well and he is coming to India in two days time. MY EXCITEMENT KNEW NO BOUNDS. One ache, one sigh from my heart, and God sent my dad instantly overseas. Right to my house. Grandma is in a vegetative state with no medications. Just waiting for her time. Only I, only I know that God sent dad for me. And not for any other reason. I hugged my dad hard when he came. I couldn’t stop my tears . He has gone frail, but stronger in faith. His enigmatic charisma beheld my eyes and heart in awe. I love my dad. I missed him so much. I got to bond with him for a week. And then he bid goodbye. He went back to mom and siblings last Tuesday. (Well, now I am missing mom)

It has been very hot this summer. Temperatures really shot up. I have become really tired of constantly washing sweat filled clothes. And the current keeps cutting off. Two days back, hubby and me decided to move our furniture around to give a fresh look to the room. Beneath my dressing table he found a mouse. A dead mouse. It did not stink. There were no insects around it. It was dead. Along with the other dust I swiped it into the dust pan. I got a moment to look at it closely.

It taught me a lesson for life. Stagnant things become hollow from the inside. Stagnant things are dead things. There is a huge difference between being Constant and staying Stagnant. Life needs to have principles to be governed by for consistency. These should be imbibed to evolve in life. To move in life, even if it is moving behind or ahead or sideways.

That mouse got stuck. It couldn’t figure out a way out of its situation. So it sat stuck. It died. And the summer red fire ants ate up every single nerve, organ, everything of the mouse. Except its outer body. They permeated through its skin and ate it up. They left it hollow. When we found it, it did not look dead. It appeared very much alive. It’s when I shooed it with the broom, that I found it was dead, and hollow.

I got goosebumps at the realization. Never stay stuck, never. Always evolve. Always move ahead. Always, always keep moving.

On the Wall.

Walls are awesome. Weird statement, I know. But I am fascinated by walls. Each time I look at a wall with leisure, my brain begins ticking as to what can I do to make this wall look outstanding? So, to satisfy this appetite I worked upon two walls of my room.

I tried my hand at a corner vector and two Arabic calligraphic designs and words.

All it took was a pencil, an eraser, ruler and glossy black paint. And TIME 🙂

After much surfing on google images, I found this really intriguing corner design and worked it up on the wall with a sight modification.

I couldn’t get my hands on a paint brush, so I used an earbud to do the painting after the outline.

The Arabic word here is Al-Hubb. It translates to the emotion of Love. (And hence the little crayon red heart).

 

After a while, another wall of my room was bothering me. It was just to empty. So I did this. Its a reproduction of an image I came across on Instagram.

This is “Muhammadur Rasul Ullah” in Arabic. A part of the Kalimah, that states Muhammaed (P.B.U.H) is the messenger of Allah.

 

Designing

My mother is a very creative lady. I admire her to the moon and back. She has always designed clothes for me and my sisters. Beautiful frill layered frocks to tops and shalwar khameezes. She even wore a lot of her own self designed clothes. She modified plain sarees and blouses. I remember she transformed a plain white shalwar khameez by hand painting it flowers with fabric paints!

I have always been fascinated by her work and wished I could do something similar. Inspired by her I attempted my first Saree and Blouse modification.

As part of our cultural tradition my parents have given me many designer sarees. Among the lot, my mom personally chose some plain georgette sarees for me.

I began with the Green one.

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I bought a golden zari-work lace from the famous Lad Bazar of Hyderabad, India. It was a plain lace altered with a pattern of leaves and small flowers.

I bought golden stones and emerald stones along with Fevicryl Fabric glue. I stuck the emerald stones on the lace. As for the golden stones, I pasted them on the saree in a polka-dot fashion with exact measurement to give it a polished look.

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It took me about three months to complete the entire saree, given that I worked for about an hour or two per day.

Next, I purchased an elastic shimmer velvet blouse from amazon. I used the remaining lace to transform it.

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Since the Pallu, covers the front, I worked only on the sleeves of the front side. Using both the stones, I pasted flowers. The remaining portion of the lace were used as border/piping on the sleeves and lower back. The back side looked a lot plain. To give it a fancy look, I cut up individual patterns of the lace and pasted them in an organised manner.

The finished blouse looks like this:

 

I plan to wear this on a future ceremony in our house.

I have many more ideas and sarees and dresses to design or remodel. Will post them as I do them!