The donkey wedding

Hello everybody,
I'm so sorry I've been so irregular with my posts. I have a lot of things going on (project submissions, exams and stuff). Today morning, the news was on, and I heard this report about people in some town getting two donkeys married! There is a belief that getting two donkeys married brings rain. So, if rains are delayed, people perform this ceremony. It's a silly tradition, but it doesn't harm the donkeys in anyway so I don't mind it very much. However, today morning, it was for a different reason that they were performing the ceremony.
Some organization had cheated some people, and the government had supported that organization. The donkeys were supposed to symbolize the government and the fraudulent organization and the wedding was to show that they were working together. They were comparing the inefficient/fraudulent organizations to donkeys! It was such an insult to the donkeys! The sad part was, people thought that it was a completely logical way to protest! Donkeys are useless, was the assumption! I was infuriated with it. I hoped the donkey would kick those people (who were insulting it). But then realized, if at all it did such a thing, it would be beaten and chained!
This got me thinking about how we humans think that we are above all other creatures and punish them for not obeying our orders. Imagine a situation where one person was insulting another person and the other person was prohibited from even objecting to it! That's the situation of every creature on earth other than man. For no fault of theirs, the donkeys were being publicly insulted! I know, they would not have been able to understand that they were being insulted, but even the ceremony, the people, the garlands were all irritating the poor creatures. Why did they have to tolerate all that? Because, if they didn't, cruel humans would beat them up!
We humans perform innumerable such acts against animals. The severity behind this act wasn't much (the donkeys weren't harmed in any way), but it was wrong. The concept of attributing bad traits to an entire species is not right. Also, expecting them to behave well when crazy rituals are performed on them is unfair.
Do let me know about your thoughts on this topic in the comments.
Until next time,
Bye!

Living in the now

Hello everybody,
I hope each one of you is having a great day. Today I decided to do a post on a new life policy or way of life that I've been following for a while now. It wasn't really a conscious or well-thought decision; I just decided to think about everyday life differently. I've always been averse to change. I enjoy small changes in routine; but only if I know that things will be back to normal after a while. However, I find major changes scary. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've decided to pursue my Master's degree abroad. Living in a whole new country, all by myself! I can't imagine a bigger change than this. I live in a big city, with a lot of good colleges; so I easily completed my undergraduate course staying at home. But now, since I've decided to pursue my Master's degree abroad, I most probably would take up employment (after I finish the course) in the same country (because of better career prospects). This means, these few months before I leave for college are my last few months at home! I will have to leave behind everything that I've EVER known from the time I was born! Thanks to technology, I most probably will be able to keep in touch with people here. But my little Tee (my pet cocker spaniel)... I would miss him terribly. Being the quiet person that I am, I was also quite apprehensive about having to talk to new people, having to make new friends etc.
For these reasons, I had started to dread the future. I was gloomy and irritated most of the time. Most people in my situation would have been excited for their future and there I was pretending like something terrible was about to happen to me. So, one day I decided to change my attitude and that was when I started to follow this new policy: living in the present. I know that sounds silly; but it really helps. I realized that I was wasting the time I have by thinking about what may or may not happen. When you think about life that way, it reduces a whole lot of stress! I don't mean to say that I won't plan for the future or work towards having future success. I really don't know what the future holds. There's no point in thinking about things that may never happen.
From the time that I've started to follow this policy, I've been happy! I love my work, I'm happy that I earn (until my internship ends at least), I'm happy about the time that I get to spend with my family. And who knows, if I keep following this policy, I probably will be happy when I move abroad too! I would concentrate on my college work, and not think about my life here. The trick is to live in the present and not worry excessively about the future or brood over the past. Like Oogway says, 'Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the "present."'
Do let me know in the comments about your views on this topic.
Until next time,
Bye! :D
P.S This life policy (I don't know if that's what its called) would completely fail during rough patches of life. During that time, having faith in the future and hoping for a better tomorrow would make more sense.

Movie Review: Cinderella

Hello everybody,
I hope you are having a great day. I finally got to watch Cinderella (last day last show) and I'm glad that I did. It is the perfect fairy tale told as it should be. I think I've watched every movie based on Cinderella and to watch one that sticks to the original is actually refreshing!



The movie sticks to the story that I've read as a kid. Lily James plays the part of Ella well; however, I think they've overdone the 'country girl' look a wee bit. Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger play the role of the step sisters perfectly. Their arrogance and dim-wittedness is apparent from the first scene. Their overdone makeup and gaudy dresses do complete justice to their characters. Lady Tremaine, the evil step-mom is played by Cate Blanchett and is very convincing. Cinderella follows her mother's last words 'have courage and be kind' and never says a word against her step-mother who is super mean to her. There are a few instances in the movie where I felt like punching her in the face and Ella doesn't say a word! Once such instance is when she forbids her from having breakfast at the table. Ella drops and breaks her plate in frustration (in the kitchen of course!) but obeys her step mother. The evil lady also tears up Ella's mother's dress (which is beautiful by the way) just before leaving for the ball. The final punishment that Lady Tremaine and her daughters get for all that they do isn't justified I felt. The fairy godmother is played by Bonham Carter and I think can play any role perfectly. She first appears as an old woman. The makeup for that part has gone completely wrong. She looks very weird as the old lady. But that scene is about 30 seconds long, so it hardly matters. Once she turns into the fairy godmother, she looks a little silly (because of the huge dress and tiny wings) but like a typical fairy godmother. I thought Richard Madden wasn't the ideal choice to play the prince; but he's quite convincing and plays the part well.
Coming to the costumes, first let me talk about the dress. It is amazingly pretty. It is big, glittery and flows! The shoes, and by shoes I mean the shoes, the glass shoes, didn't quite live up to my expectations. With the amount of technology available now, they could have made it look a little more magical. The fairy godmother's wand keeps emitting a kind of glittery magic-y stuff; that should have been added to the shoes as well. If you notice most animated Disney movies have that around magical things. Her everyday clothes were nice, believable yet kind of what I would imagine Cinderella would wear.

Expectation

Reality

The computer effects used for the carriage scene are good and add a bit of humor to the movie. The mice half transformed into horses, Mr. Goose and the lizard footmen look quite funny. That was the only humorous scene in the movie; but of course the movie doesn't belong to that genre so no more of humor is expected than is already present.
Overall, I'd say I loved the movie. Would totally recommend it to you if you liked simple stories with happy endings or if you were into Disney princesses. Even if you were'nt into such movies, I would still recommend it to you because, really, what's not to like in Cinderella especially when its been made by Disney.
If you have watched the movie, do let me know your views in the comments.
Until next time,
Bye! :D

PS: This is the first time I've posted an actual review, I'm not sure if there are any rules to be followed. If there are, please do let me know!

The race to #AT2UI tickets

Hello everybody,
I hope you're having a great day! I had a crazy day today. As many of you may know, Lilly Singh aka Superwoman is going on a world tour (A Trip to Unicorn Island) AND she is coming to the city where I live! I love Lilly and I've been super excited  from the moment she announced the tour. Today the tickets were to go on sale at 1:45 pm. So me and my friend (who is as big a fan of Lilly as me) decided to buy the tickets as soon they opened if the cost was around 1000 rupees. However, we had presumed that the show would end at some earthly hour so that we could reach home before late.

Today morning the minute I reached work I checked the tour site just to see how many hours were left, and to my surprise, it said the tickets were open! Immediately I checked out the details and saw that almost all seats were still available. I tried calling my friend (who's interning at another company) but wasn't able to reach her. I kept tracking the seats and they were quite a lot of seats empty. However, the show was to start at 8 pm and the place is at least 2 hours away from where we live. I was a little concerned about this but my parents agreed to pick us up after the show. My friend's parents were a little concerned about the time and she took a while trying to convince them. I checked the tickets at 1 pm and there were about 20 seats left in 3 categories. I had a meeting at 2:30 pm and had to finish lunch and be back by then. So while my friend was convincing her mom, I went to have lunch (at around 1:30). At 2 pm my friend called me and told that her mom agreed and she was trying to book the ticket but the tickets were sold out! I had completely missed the fact that a lot of people would visit the site at 1:45 pm (the announced time for the tickets to go on sale). I rushed back to see the same message. We kept refreshing and retrying and once in 10 minutes or so a few seat would appear. We tried booking them but both of us had problems with the transaction. Finally I gave up at 2:29 as I had my meeting then. My friend kept trying with no luck. After my meeting, I tried again. The transaction was almost complete when there was a problem and my card got blocked!
After another half hour of cribbing I asked a senior friend in office and she agreed to pay for it with her card. She had some work to finish and finally when she came and I tried to buy a ticket, it displayed an official SOLD OUT message!!! Not a single ticket was available in ANY category.
That ended my race to buy a ticket for A Trip to Unicorn Island. An hour of blaring music, a movie and a blog post later I think I'm finally at the stage of being okay about it. I wasted an entire day at work, got my card blocked and ended up without tickets to the show. But, its ok... I've learnt from my mistakes. I should have bought the ticket in the morning when I had the chance. Waiting it out isn't the solution to every problem. Any #TeamSuper fans reading this post? Do let me know in the comments.
Until next time,
Bye! :D

My first admit!

Hello everybody,
I'm excited to announce today that I received my first admit to pursue my Masters at a reputed university in USA! As I mentioned in earlier posts that this year would be a year of change for me, this was what I had in mind. I wasn't sure earlier about how things would turn out and hence hadn't told you that I had applied. But now that I've received an admit, I'm pretty sure that I would be taking up the seat if all other things fall into place.
The application process to US universities in a very long process and is quite complicated. When I joined my undergrad college, choosing a college was so simple. Where I live, admission to (most)undergraduate colleges is based on a board exam. Once the ranks are announced, counselling is conducted in 5-6 centers (in different cities) and there is a central system that displays the available seats. Students are called to pick their seat in the order of their ranks. If a seat you wish is available, you pick it up. Its simple and straight forward.
But in the US, the application process itself involves a long procedure. You need to take up the exams, fill in the application forms, write a statement of purpose, request letters of recommendation, pay the application fees and then apply. And even after applying, it takes close to 4-5 months before you get a response. Waiting for a response is quite scary especially when you see others receiving multiple admits. However, I wasn't really nervous as I already have a job in hand; but still, I was a little anxious. Every time I logged in to my mail I would cross my fingers and pray that I hadn't received a reject. Getting no response is better than getting a reject I feel.
Yesterday, just before leaving for work, I checked my mail on my phone. I saw a new mail with the subject 'Update on admission status' and I could see the word 'Congratulations' in the preview line.I was super excited and skimmed over the important details and read it out to my parents who were equally thrilled. I received my first admit from the university I was most keen about.
I still have to finish a lot of procedures that are required before I can be admitted. I still can't imagine moving away to a new country and living away from my parents. I will write more about this in my future posts. Do let me know if you have any thoughts about studying abroad.
Until next time,
Bye! :D

Saying prayers

Hello everybody,
I hope you're having a great day. Today I thought I'd do a post on why I think prayers are helpful. I do believe that there is some power that controls the universe. I don't endorse idol worship and complex rituals, however, I think giving a form to that power/energy makes it easier to imagine. I'm in the habit of saying prayers in the morning before leaving home. I don't really believe that there is some entity called God who sits in heaven and makes a note of all our prayers and goes around trying to make them true. I think prayers help us to take a moment and think about what we'd like to accomplish that day. It helps us make a mental list of goals for the day or week. Once we have goals set, it is easier to work towards them. This is the reason I think saying prayers in the morning is helpful.
Also, the thought that there is some super power that can help us in difficult times, reduces the stress on us. Isn't it soothing to think that there's someone to help you out during tough times? We usually think about positive things when we pray. Positive thoughts give us energy to face tough situations.
These, according to me are the benefits of saying prayers. Do you pray everyday? What according to you are the benefits of saying prayers? Do let me know in the comments
Bye! :)

Struggles of being a Socially Awkward person

Do you feel anxious to meet someone you don't know very well? Do you prefer to send an email or a text message rather than make a phone call if you are given a choice? If your answer to those questions was yes, you probably are socially awkward. But relax, a lot of people are... just to different extents. How do I know? I've been reading about this stuff for quite sometime. I have always been awkward in social settings. I prefer to stick to my close set of friends and avoid situations that may require me to interact with strangers. I recently took a quiz that said that I was 67% socially awkward! (not surprising... but the quiz did not look very authentic so I'm not going to leave a link to it here)

To give you an example of the kind of struggles I face on a regular basis, recently, a person in my team whom I worked with closely, resigned. During his send-off, most people spoke a few words about him and thanked him. It was a small gathering of about eight people and I could have spoken if I had wanted to. But I over thought (as always) and decided not to because I felt only people who knew him for a long enough duration had the right to talk then and it would be silly of me to say something, having worked with him for only about a month. So I kept quiet. After the "send off", I felt guilty for not having thanked him as he was the only person in my team with whom I had had any form of interaction (except my manager of course who had hired me). By then, a lot of people were coming to talk to him, wish him luck etc. I had to find someway to say thank you. So, at some random point of time, I went to him and gave a kind of a mini speech that I had said at least ten times in my mind by then. It was such an awkward thing to do! I literally died of embarrassment; but at least I was able to say thank you. I still don't know how I could have done it in a less awkward kind of way. 

This was just one incident when I've felt the need to become more confident and social. I had no problem discussing about codes, logic and other work related stuff; but when I had to express a human emotion like gratitude, my brain just switched off. I've made up my mind to make an attempt at improving my social skills. I will do a follow up post on tips that I've found online, observed others follow etc that could help one become more sociable. I also hope to follow those tips and let you know about any progress I make. Do let me know in the comments if you have some tips.

Hope for the best!
Bye! :)