no more snow

'Balance' of 'Bow'

It's been a long time since I have written a blog....Anyways, I need a bit more time to settle down at this new place -with this new life- before writing a decent 'fresh' one. For time being I would like to share a funny write-up - LIBRA Woman SAGITTARIUS Man, which I got from net written by famous astrologer Linda Goodman. Found it very funny and interesting.... as I now have a good reason to read it. :P... For all Sagi's like me and Librans like her... enjoy. Will be back soon with some original posts... tc Arun

"My liking for parties, George."

"My fatal gift of humour, dearest."

The average Sagittarius man is not as marriage-oriented in his youth as he might be, or as the Libra girl would like him to be. She thinks in terms of togetherness in the total sense; so, naturally, if she's in love with him, she images rings and vows. There's nothing wrong with that; in fact, a marriage between them would likely be successful and stimulating. But if this man doesn't work the wanderlust and curiosity out of his system before he weds, he may satisfy those powerful Jupiter urges after he weds. Which is preferable? Now I've done it. I've given the Libra girl a choice. It will take her a time to sort it all out and make a decision, and we can't just wait around while she's carefully considering all sides of the question, so best to continue with our examination of her relationship with a Sagittarius male. She'll catch up with us later.

Not all, but many male Archers are reluctant to leap into legal liaisons the first moment they're sure it's love. It isn't that this man is against marriage, but he just managed to break loose from his family's smothering hold on his mental, emotional and physical activity, and he needs some time to bask in his freedom, before losing it again. After he's satisfied himself that world is definitely round, tried on two or three jobs or careers for size, read up a little on Tibetan mysticism, traded in a dozen or so cars, mastered the art of hang-gliding in the Rockies, tried out some cross-country skiing, adopted a score or so of homeless animals, made an attempt to run for political office—and checked out every third girl he sees (at a distance, Libra — stay optimistic !) to confirm his opinion that his own Libra lady is as supremely smooth and superior as he first thought she was—he'll be ready to settle down to a discussion of a long-term commitment.It seems wiser and safer to allow the Archer to shoot a batch of his arrows into the air first, then have the assurance when he returns that most of his curiosity and some of his longings have been fulfilled, and that he's now anxious to start out on his quest all over again, this time with his woman by his side.On the other hand, if she lets him go free, and he roams too far, he may forget to return, get lost somewhere out there in his beckoning dreams—whereas, if she'd been firmer from the start, he might still be holding her in his arms, while they listen to the silvery sound of rain on the roof —or holding her hand, as they stroll toward the stables to take a moonlight ride on their horses, smelling the sweet hay feeling the cool night air on their cheeks. I just don't know. What do you think, Libra ? (She's back with us now, and should have decided. No, she hasn't. I can tell by the frown wrinkling her lovely Libra forehead. Well, we won't rush her.)

Naturally, there are exceptions, but whether or not to marry is one of the major problems facing this particular 3-11 Sun Sign Pattern man and woman who are in love. Libra unconsciously feels frustrated unless she's sharing life’s ups and downs, joys and sorrows, hopes and hassles—with another person. Libra woman alone is like a pair of Scales with one tray missing, so you can see how it makes her feel useless. You can't weigh anything into perfect harmony and balance when half your equipment is missing—and the man she loves is the other half of this woman's equilibrium equipment as a total human being. (Unless she's one of those intensely dedicated Libran career women, with a compatible business partner, in which case she'll be content for a reasonable length of time—but not forever — without a mate.)

A Sagittarius male doesn't actually fight togetherness, because he isn’t fond of being alone either. He's much happier with

a friend beside him as he clowns and bounces and seeks his way along today's trail, leading into tomorrow's highways. If the friend is also beautiful, dimpled, sweet and huggable, that's even better. If she should also be bright enough to match wits with him and exchange philosophies (which this girl surely is, and they some), he has no objection if she grabs her camera, field glasses, pup tent, sleeping bag, canteen and flashlight, and tags along with him. It's only when she starts leading the conversation into dead-end streets like buying property or taking a steady job that he strains at the leash. When he's older, he'll move his lawn and pay his taxes like any other man, but meanwhile, there are sirens out there, singing to his heart a song more seductive than her Chanel, her charm, her delectable dimples, and sadly. . yes, even more alluring than her soft embrace. Jupiter rules retirement in astrology and this often causes Jupiter-ruled men to decide to retire first, and work later. They get it backwards.

The Libra girl has stopped frowning. She's smiling now, with that expression of sweet bliss you always see on the composed features of a Libra-who's reached a firm and final decision. She's rejected both choices, am settled for one in the middle, to make it come out more nearly even. She won't try to hold him, nor will she allow him to go tramping around the town the state or the world, mailing her cards and letters. She will go with him. Good girl! See? I told you she'd catch up with us.
Its an excellent idea for the Libra woman who loves an Archer to goalong with, rather than to try to force him into her mold. However soft,gentle and velvety her manner, he'll sense the danger of being smothered andbecome restless. She should realize from the beginning that she'll nevercompletely control this Centaur-Clown creature with the sparkling eyes brimming over with dreams. He was born into the vibration of a masculine Sun Sign also ruled by the masculine planet, Jupiter, and although Libra is a masculine sign, Libra's ruler, Venus, is all feminine. In some ways, this may seem to give her an advantage, because she can think like a man, yet appeal to him in irresistible female ways. It’s a powerful combination, but it will never force a double masculine macho vibe such as the Archer's to submit to petticoat persuasion—or if it should, he'll be genuinely miserable within, try as he may to hide it. And the purpose of love is happiness, not misery.

He will be attracted by her fine mind, and touched by her optimism, so like his own. She looks for the same silver linings as he, behind every cloud. Since she tends to live in a world of her imagination, troubles are never quite real to her. Even those that do manage to penetrate her dreamy consciousness with the sharp stab of reality are normally not allowed by Libra to remain there for long. Her clever mind and talent for logical deduction will usually find a way to solve any problem —or to de

liberately discard it, before it grows into a major crisis. She's amazingly capable of turning her back on ugliness, once she’s decided there's no way it can be beautified. Sometimes, a Libra woman will solicit admiration, even when she's aware that it's flattery, and to some degree insincere. She can talk herself into believing anything, true or false, if it makes her feel cherished—one reason why Libra girls marry early and mistakenly. Still, there are those lovely times when her very optimism turns a negative into a real positive, through the sheer steadiness of her faith. It doesn’t happen every time, but enough times to convince her it's worth trying because there's always the chance that maybe tomorrow .....

She is, however, sensitive to hurt, and to sharp words. With all her ability to paint rainbows over grey clouds, and despite her natural Libra longing for peace and harmony at any cost, if he pierces her soft heart with too many stinging arrows, she'll weigh him in the cold light of Libra logic, and find his love too lopsided for her. She admires his cleverness and quick wit, but she won't be his pincushion or his dart board.
A Libra woman respects honesty and idealism, because these are qualities she possesses herself. She enjoys parties and people, social gatherings, art and music, as much as she enjoys reading, learning, debate and all forms of mental challenge. The Sagittarius man is molded in just the right shape to fit her needs and desires. The perfect woman for him must be generous, outgoing and gregarious, be his mental equal and his heart's twin. She must believe, as he does, that tomorrow will be a better day, and think it's exciting to do things on the spur-of-the-moment. He needs a woman who never nags him, who believes in his dreams, understands the word "free­dom," and who will be kind to his animal friends. A Libra woman is molded in just the right shape for the Archer. She's probably molded in the right shape otherwise too. Being such close relatives of Venus di Milo, most Libra girls inherit her appealing curves, feminine mystique and classic beauty, which is even more effective sculpted in the flesh than it is in marble.

He's quick to sense every unspoken mental, emotional or sensual desire in her, almost before she knows it herself. He's also quick to resent the appeal of his Libra lady to every male within the radius of her completely irresistible Venus smile. They admire her mind, along with her other attributes, and since she so enjoys admiration, she won't discourage them the way he'll expect her to—and will finally demand that she does. She's not as fiery as he, and will probably be more tolerant of the way other women are excited by his contagious enthusiasm. But with both of them so attractive, and exuding such a love of life and people, romantic jealousy can't be ruled out as a danger in their relationship.
People in love can fall out of love as quickly as they fell into love, when they have only their sexual chemistry to interest each other. There's not much chance of that with Libra and Sagittarius. They'll always have plenty to talk about. She sees the small boy behind his bravado, and would like to spend her whole life educating him. Every Libra woman has a schoolteacher hidden somewhere inside her. He's so curious about everything, understanding how a woman feels and what causes her emotions intrigues him. He has a thousand questions, to which she has at least two thousand answers. He’ll teach her a lot too, with his quick grasp of what's really important.
“What will I do?” she worries. “I don't know whether we belong together or not. My heart is optimistic about our future, but my mind is pessimistic.”
“You can't decide our future by what your intellect tells you alone.” (His eyes are saying more intimate things.) “The intellect alone is an unsuitable instrument for accurately measuring an extraordinary emotion like love. The mind is clever, but the heart is wiser. Trust your feelings.” He takes her in his arms, holds her very close, then kisses her nose lightly. “Listen to the rain on the roof, like that first night we were together. What do your feelings tell you right this minute, darling?” (He's quick.)

It was not cockroach in cocktail then... As this website id reads it was ‘centurs’. I wanted to call this film club ‘Centurs Creation’. That was 4 years back.

As Wikipedia says - Cen`taurs, a savage race living between Pelion and Ossa, in Thessaly, and conceived of at length by Pindar as half men and half horses, treated as embodying the relation between the spiritual and the animal in man and nature, in all of whom the animal prevails over the spiritual except in Chiron, who therefore figures as the trainer of the heroes of Greece; in the mythology they figure as the progeny of Centaurus, son of Ixion (q. v.) and the cloud, their mothers being mares.

I was always been fascinated by this mythical creature in my childhood, ever since the I first got introduced to Greek Mythology. My slates and books used to be filled with pictures of horses. Centurs can be identified as a good combination of Good and Evil, in other words those qualities we can truly call ‘purely human’. Anyways my intention is not to talk about Centurs here. I just want to share thoughts about a film I did immediately after college days.

After college days, I was in Kerala with Ad filmmaker Vinod A.K for three months. Since then he is my only Guru and the production house ‘Veye’ my second home. All that I did later in life, is what I learned from him.

Those days, I was really confused about the realization of a fiction though I was somehow comfortable crafting a factual film which we call by the name ‘documentary’. Due to some personal reasons I returned back to Chennai and joined a firm called Newmedia Television. It was then the plan of doing a short film came into mind. There were quite a few concepts, but I was so touched by one thought that flashed in mind which was about ‘My Mirror’. I shared it with friends Joseph Alex and Titty Joseph. Both were initially confused, but then got convinced by the storyline.

Anbu said that he would do the camera for us. Friends, Anjana and Soumya quickly accepted the roles I described them. Titty’s classmate Rahul joined as the Production Controller. He also found us the other few very important actors for the film. In fact, the whole process of Mirror was an imitation of what I saw at Veye Films. My intention was to say a powerful story and in that process learn how to do a fiction.

During the whole process we had our own complications. Camera was supposed to be a character, Mr. Mirror and there was a scene in which the protagonist needs to throw the mirror. Anbu tried a lot of ways to identify an appropriate solution, but finally the best was to actually throw the camera. I decided to do the protagonist and in that scene throw the cam to Anbu’s hands and later the other character Soumya would take it and keep it back in the tripod. With our adventurous cameraman, in just two takes, we finished that shot. As soon as I took the cam from tripod and walked, Anbu scrolled down quickly to the other corner and when I threw it he caught it and kept it steady down. In all the other scenes the camera remained

the most obedient actor, ‘My Mirror’. My special regards to Titty who gave different looks for the same room for each scene according to the changing time.

Even after all this, with the final film I realized one thing - it is not conveying anything that I wanted a My Mirror to say and I ended up having a BIG Complex. I even thought of not attempting anymore fictions in life. The mistakes were, doing the film in English, acting the protagonist myself, bad time management, one big mechanical error with camera etc etc. Hence I kept the film hidden in my DVD pouch for almost 3 years. A few months back my friend Sachin happened to see it and told me that he liked the whole concept and I must breathe some life into it. Thus this film happened again. A few weeks back I started re-writing and re-editing it. And today I am presenting you ‘My Mirror’ in a better shape, though I still accept that it still retain a lot of mistakes including me and my language. Kindly accept it as an amateur filmmaker’s first effort exploring the media of film. Thanks.

Warm regards,
Cockroach

Sea Sonata

If sea is love, she is sea…& if she is love, sea is she…

She is a mother for some…

She is a lover for some

Wind and the waves are whispering the sonata of sea. There are a wide range of performers too…children, fishermen, birds, a lazy dog... and me…

‘Sea sonata’ is a kind of docu-fiction on seaside. It’s a montage of visuals shot at the beaches of Chennai. I am not trying any Flaherty touch here. There is no connection between the shots…and…no specific story to tell you. It’s the flow some random visuals on the backdrop of the music of wind and the waves. In fact I would rather switch of the monitor of my comp and loop the sound of sea…the sonata of the sea…it’s soothing…taking me back to the laps of nature.

It’s about the fisherman’s way back with his catch…It’s about a lazy dog…it’s about the Kattamaram (boat) dancing with the current; it’s about the children of sea…it’s about a little girl waiting to get tickled by a naughty notorious wave…It’s about me…it’s about sea…
‘Sea Sonata’ is for those who admire the golden sand, the gentle breeze and music of the wind and the waves, of Chennai seaside. For a few minutes, let me take you from your seats to the bosom of sea…

Yours Truly,

I have an open question. Have you ever had the experience of living a story you read in your childhood…. something which you can’t forget for this life time…? I’m sure we all have not just one but quite a lot. There is one such cute story I read in Reader’s Digest sometime in my childhood that still makes me feel excited. The day it came, the date, the title, the author….everything just faded away from my mind…except for the key concept. I read it in my 5th or 6th standard. I don’t remember when and where I got this book from, but sure it was an old copy of Reader’s Digest with more chances of it to be my uncle’s who used to be a lecturer in English. I’m touched by the story since then and had visualized umpteen times in mind.

The idea of making it a short film came to mind hardly two months back, while working. Quickly I shared it with some good friends around and they all joined me in fulfilling this thought. I must thank my colleagues Tintin and Venki for their support first. I was supposed to shoot the film with Tintin but on the location because of some vital constraints as I suggested, Tintin without any hesitation, passed the role to Venki who came with him just to help us out in the shoot. Veni, my friend from MCC was a special surprise for me coz I never thought that she would accept my idea of making her the leading lady of the film. And she just took it as her own responsibility, so I hardly had any trouble in getting the right dialogues and expressions from her.

Two learning experiences from Joebin:

1. The best learning experience for me in the film was Joebin himself, the 6th standard student in the film. He is my friend Deepu’s cousin. I was in the impression that it would be really tough to make kids act and he just proved me wrong. I explained him the story and dialogue only once on the location. After that I was busy explaining Veni about her expressions. In between, Joebin came and ask, “Arun Chetta, what is the dialogue after this?” We all got astonished when he said that he was trying to by heart the dialogues till then. He was in the impression that like in a drama he has to continuously deliver the dialogues. And guess what I never had to tell him, “Boy, now you have to do this”, at any point of the shoot.

2. Joebin who taught me this again. In my planned film, he was not supposed to smile anywhere. And if you now see the film the last smiling shot of Joebin is his creation. You believe or not, even though I had seen the film n number of times this particular shot is sure to bring a smile.

While the presents of my colleague Tintin was a positive energy while shooting the first scene, it was Raita who took that task in the shoot of sec scene. Whether it’s while talking to her or being with her I am happy and confident. Coz as she herself says she has one BIG mouth, that can’t be kept shut…What you say Raita? Guess I must take you to all my shoots. So that I feel free of any tension, laugh a little extra and may be live one extra day or week…

I want to write a few lines about Antony, but revealing his roll in the film may as well take the suspense of the film. So let me just leave it with “thanks……..”. Also my hearty thanks to Anbu and Vadivel for helping with the right location and equipments.

Only two of my films kept me happy from the first day of ideation till its completion, though the excitement levels are always high any film. One is “In Search Peace” and the second is “Yours Truly”. “In Search of peace”, was the visualization of a dream I had. So doing that film was an experience of dreaming again. And “yours truly” made me revisit my childhood.

And a million thanks to the writer of the story who remained successful in keeping his story live in my mind from the time I read it. I have not taken anything else form the real story accept the key concept of it. And the screenplay is made totally different by cutting down all the other characters coming in the story and by making film really crisp with only two scenes and two meetings at two different point of time….showing the intimacy of the two characters and that single promise…