Movie Review: Begin Again, a must for your eyes, ears and heart

There are movies that put their message, their story, their 'drama' out there- in your face- and then there are movies that subtly express 'life' in just one scene; and that also is so subliminal that you feel it somewhere inside and little while later know you understood. All I'm trying to say, it that it's just so relatable when it's not so in any apparent way. It doesn't have to be. I'm talking about the only worthy release of the past week- Begin Again. 

Starring Kiera Knightley, Mark Ruffalo *twinkle-eyes*, and Adam Levine, Begin Again is a movie simple and sincere to music, love and relationships. In summary, it's about Dave (Adam Levine) cheating on his songwriter-partner and girlfriend since 5 years, Gretta (Keira Knightley) while on tour; Gretta ends up in a bar with a friend who forces her to sing on stage, where Dan (Mark Ruffalo), discredited record label guy falls for her talent and wants to produce her album. 

Begin Again is good because it fails to accord to a typical movie plot. I love how Dave genuinely wants to get back and isn't just another boyfriend who gets rich, cheats and doesn't regret it. I love how Gretta and Dan don't have a steamy moment which they both would regret. Theirs is a complex relationship with underlying tones of respect, appreciation, friendship and care (nothing romantic!). But what I love is the most is how each character evolves individually through the movie. 

The movie narrates the story using a series of flashbacks; which is not confusing, and very interesting! New York looks like a dream as usual and Keira's singing skills are more than a pleasant surprise. 

My favourite scene is one in the end when Gretta is at Dave's show and has a sort of epiphany of her own choices and future by looking at the audience and the effect her kind of music has on people. I realize, at the end, her earnestness in wanting to make her music reach to the audience. 

So that's why this movie isn't about romance or breakups. It's about love for life, for relationships and above all for music. Do take time out to watch it. If nothing else, it will be and hour and forty five minutes of good music to your auricular nerves. 

Let me what you think! 

Soul, Soil and Sustainable Living...

Hello!

I'm always trying to make small changes to my lifestyle to live healthier and in a more sustainable manner for the planet. I don't get too excited and make big changes because, let's face it, it's too much to do overnight and no one hardly ever can stick to it.

I've been reading and trying to follow a few things from Doreen Virtue's book called 'Angel Detox' (yes, I'm into Angel therapy). Clubbed with my reignited vigour for gardening, I found a simple yet significant change to living healthier.

In her book, Doreen talks about Bisphenol A, or BPA, which is a chemical used to make plastics stronger. This BPA is responsible for a long, long list of health issues. This material makes our water toxic especially in the heat, including leaving your bottle in the car. The bad effects of using plastic to us and the environment has only been talked about too much already.

So, the first change I made was to get stainless steel water bottles to replace all the plastic ones in my house (just in time for summer too). Then I came up with a way to make the best possible use of the bottles instead of putting them in trash.

Luckily, I used a new technique I learned at a gardening workshop by Green Souls, Mumbai. I cut off the mouths of all the bottles to use them as pots. Here's how!

To cut off the bottle-mouth, I heated a knife and used it to make the process easier. Then to make holes in the bottle for aeration (learn about it in my previous post), I used one of tools/cutlery/what's-its'name. Once again, I heated it on the stove to make the holes in the plastic easily.

Make a set of holes between the length of the bottle, or a little closer to the top to attach it to the grill. Cut the plastic ropes and put them through a set of holes. Next, fill in the bottle with mulch, cow dung, compost, soil using the 'sandwich technique' I spoke about in my previous post and plant a seed/plant in it. I simply used small bamboo branch from a huge bamboo plant my dad maintains. I'm planning to get creepers for these soon though. 

But that's all! Just tie the strings to the grill and beautify your windows and view it offers! :D 

Holes made close to the base for aeration. 

Look how well the chawli plant has grown in just a few days since my last post! 

I've recently also added Mint and Curry plants to my garden. The fragrance both these plants offer is heavenly to cure a headache. 

Do tell me what you think of this and also if you try this technique out. Looking forward to some of those comments! 

I've found soul in the soil: Re-ignition...

Hola!

This one is coming after a long, long time, isn't it? But I can't be blamed. After the shift from a terrace garden to a grill-garden, I felt like I was bumped down from first class to economy. I felt so restricted in trying new things due to a space and weight crunch. Hell, I had to leave behind some of my too-big-to-put-on-the-grill sized pots.

Yet, nature has no ego and it found its way to connect with me again. And the attraction of nature is hard to resist. Even Facebook was material to this reigniting relationship. It introduced me to a community called 'Green Souls', a group of people who are enthusiastic about organic urban farming, practice it, and preach it too.

After months of not being able to go for any of their workshops, I finally attended one on the 2nd of March 2014 on 'Kitchen Gardening'. This event made a lot of changes to my life. The first (and embarrassing) one was that I traveled by a  local train after a few years. My day was quite adventurous in my attempt to travel to and fro Koparkhairane and Chembur. And the second, and good, one was that I learned about new ways of taking care of my plants.

Turns out, our 'regular' way of gardening is WRONG. There's this Japanese urban farmer and author called Masanobu Fukuoka who says that we should simply pick tips and techniques for taking care of our plants from nature itself. There is NO forest which is made up of just soil. It has a lot more elements in it.

Although, I could not implement everything I learned at the workshop because I'd have to redo the entire garden all over. However, I've decided to slowly and steadily implement changes to my garden and live a nature-blessed life.

Here's how I'm (re)working on my garden....

One of the troubles I've faced for years is that some plants get burned due to overexposure in the sun. The way to tackle this is to cover the top layer of your pot with dried leaves. Isn't it just too simple? Well, yes! Even in forests, dried leaves simply fall down around the tree. No one picks it up to 'clean' the area. It's just there and the forests live happily ever after... until humans go and murder them.

So that's the first thing I made sure I'd do. 

I started reworking the pots by removing the dried leaves from the plants (and saving them to use as a 'shield'). 

Now, coming to the most important lesson I learned...

Just putting soil in a pot isn't going to work for the life you are putting in it. It needs an ecosystem to survive. It NEEDS some types of insects and materials other than soil. God only knows how many of my plants caught some bug or infection that ruined it, which then made me consider packaged manure or even insecticides. Keeping the garden organic just seemed impossible to do.

Once again, nature provides us with answers. The best way to pot plants is to use a 'sandwich' technique. You shouldn't just shove soil in the pot. Instead, put layers of dried leaves (mulch), cow dung, goat dung and soil. Ideally you should put mulch at the base, top it up with soil and cow-dung, followed by a little more mulch, soil and goat dung(or cow dung if you don't find goat poop :P). Then cover the top layer with dried leaves again for protection like I mentioned above.

This works wonders, just as nature should. :)

Last but not least, the hole in the pot should NOT be at the bottom. Nope. Not at all. For the soil and the organisms to exist healthily, the pot needs proper aeration. Putting a hole at the bottom just drains away all the water and nutrients from the pots.

Therefore, I heated a knife and made holes at the sides of the base for the bottom of the layer to get proper air supply, and to ensure there is no soil erosion. I also added some smaller holes a little below the top rim of the pot.

An analogy of this method to nature is that, some amount of water is always stored in the earth. There will always be a cavity in the hills and mountains that provides the trees with annual water supply. Similarly, any extra water that you may have put in the pot, gets stored at the bottom without getting drained out.

Brilliant, eh?

So, that's all for today, folks. There is a LOT more coming your way as I try to reinvent my gardening skills and try to make sustainable and natural changes to my lifestyle. Watch out for more!

Adios!

P.S.- If you can, do read the book 'One-straw revolution' by Masanoby Hakuoka. I'm reading an e-book version because I couldn't find the hard copy. (I hate reading e-books :( ) Anyway, this book is about he quit his job to promote urban farming, and how he worked out new ways of cultivating farms. The best part about the book is that it's not just about that, it speaks a lot of humans with respect to nature. It's quite thought provoking. 

Excuse me while I kiss the sky... AGAIN!

Hei hei! 

Just a few days ago, I had two trains of thoughts in my mind. 

One was: I realized I hadn't written a post for a long time and realized that inspite of travelling to so many new places in the last two months, I wasn't really motivated to write about anything. Subconsciously I thought that I was done with this blog and I'd delete the whole thing off some day, soon. 

Well, the second one was: As I'm almost near the end of my exchange program at Finland, I thought that I had seen everything I wanted to here. Damn, I had seen the main reason I chose Finland as the destination for my exchange- Aurora Borealis and snow. However, like every human being, sadly I was greedy for more, but I thought, 'what are the odds of seeing the northern lights in Vaasa?' (FYI: the answer is very few!)

Luckily, I'm sort of lucky and the sun felt kind, so he did some of his solar mojo and bam! we earthlings were granted with strong northern lights which personally, I never thought would be seen from Vaasa. Oh, and that's not all. I saw shooting stars too. 

Did I hear you think 'lucky bitch'? It's true, you know. 

____________________________

Aurora Borealis- Northern Lights
Sighted: 17th March, 2013 

Location: Vaasa, Finland 

Note: None of the pictures are Photoshop-ed at all, apart from being stamped with the credit. You may use the pictures to post it elsewhere, with the blogger's permission or if you provide sufficient credit. Thank you. 

The images in which the northern lights are very light are the ones that were taken near my residence in the city, with a lot of lights. The better ones are ones which we took in the dark. We went to a nearby beach, which obviously had no lights around, to get the best view of Aurora Borealis and I've also never seen the moon 'shine bright like a diamond' before this. So yeah, note for the future: Best sighting of Aurora Borealis is seen with minimum lights around. 

Au revoir,

Miss Bee.

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Excuse me while I kiss the sky...

Moi!

There are a few, only a few, moments in life when you feel like someone up there has been listening to you. I experienced one of those moments on Saturday. 19th January, 2013, an otherwise insignificant date, gave me one of the best moments of my life. I am one of the few lucky people on the world who experienced Aurora Borealis- the northern lights on a trip to Lapland, Finland. 

I came all the way to Finland, for an exchange program, hoping I would see the northern lights. Damn, I even bought a new camera that could capture the lights. However, the forecasts said the probability of Aurora sightings seemed dim for the weekend. The weather was cloudy when we reached Lapland.; and everything made me think that all this effort, all that hope was worth nothing. Luckily, I was wrong. God, or at least the weather, gave me a peak at this beautiful phenomenon. 

It truly was one of the most amazing things I have seen, ever. I saw it for about fifteen to twenty minutes, after which they went a little too dim to be captured by the camera. The northern lights, were always in motion. At one minute they were in one part of the sky, and then somewhere else in the other. I don't really know how else to describe the feeling to you, except maybe saying it was 'beautiful' a million times or so. Words really seem futile for it. 

So here are the pictures I managed to capture. I'm so glad I bought this camera (Olympus SZ-14: It's really cool!) and it managed to capture the northern lights, as many other cameras that people around me were using couldn't. Therefore, a special thank you and a big hug to my daddy dearest who let me buy another camera! (I left mine in India. *hides face*)

Presenting Aurora Borealis: the northern lights! 

Sighted: 19th/20th January, 2013 

Timing: Around midnight 

Location: Lapland, Finland 

Note: None of the pictures are Photoshop-ed at all, apart from being stamped with the credit. You may use the pictures to post it elsewhere, with the blogger's permission, or if you provide sufficient credit. Thank you. 

"Excuse me while I kiss the sky..." 

-Jimi Hendrix 

I hope, someday, y'all get a chance to see the lights as well. :) Going to post more about Lapland soon!

Au revoir,
Miss Bee.

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Here's a beautiful video that will show you more about the northern lights (posted by VisitFinland).

The sun, the moon, and everything in between...

Moi!

The weather here, in Vaasa, Finland, is so weird. It's the coldest it has been since I've been here. It was -19 degrees Celsius this morning and I can see the sun today after maybe five or six days! *phew* I can't even begin to express how good it feels to see the sun. The afternoons here seem like Mumbai's evenings and the rest of the time feels like night. It's funny how the weather is so gloomy and dark, and the snow is, of course, white. Such a contrasting, pretty sight.
Even the Finns say that it's the darkest time of the year. I sure as hell believed them.... until right now.

It's -18 degrees Celsius, the sun is shining brightly, AND I can see the moon in the sky. It's beautiful! Also, thanks to daddy dearest, I bought a new camera. So, I've tried to take my first panorama shot, ever! I'd like to believe it's not so bad. These were all taken today. Enjoy the pictures!

The sun rising... my first ray of happiness today. :D 

Wish I could frame this scene up... So serene. 

  

And here comes the moon, at around 13:45...

My first panorama shot! Tried to get the moon and the sun in the same frame. Of course you can't see the sun because it's shining so brightly right now! Let's hope, I get better at this. 

Hopefully, I'll have pictures of the Aurora Borealis to share with you soon enough! (*IF* I get to see them) Heading to Santa Claus' Village this weekend! Ta-daaa!

Au revoir,
Miss Bee.

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The Finnish line...

Hei!

Happy new year! 2013 has been a 'new' year indeed. How? Well, for starters here I am writing a blog post, after God knows how long, in a temperature of 8 degrees Celsius below zero. Finally, finally, finally I'm here in Vaasa, Finland for an exchange program for a couple of months. Well, I've been here 10 days now and I'm both, glad and not so glad to be here.

In 10 days alone, I've experienced so much; a culture so different; a city so...white, thanks to all the snow as you will see; the weather so cold. It's been overwhelming. I've not only learnt news things in a new place, but I've learnt so much about myself. The further away I am out of my beautiful(referring to Mumbai), comfort zone, I'm finding bits and pieces of who I really am... or at least what I want to be like.

That's a lot of philosophy in one post, ain't it? Since it's my first post this year, I'd like to share a couple pictures of Vaasa for those of who, like me, had no idea a city called so existed. So here goes!

The view from my bedroom

First attempt at making rice. Doesn't look so good, does it? I blame it on the lighting. :P 

The portion in the picture is that of a frozen sea! And Finnish people actually find spots in it to go fishing! 

The university in Vaasa where I'm studying  

The university in Vaasa where I'm studying  

That's pretty much it for now. Shall write soon with more things to share about my experience here and about Finland. Lots of love to Mumbai, and everything/everyone in it! I really miss the warmth, the food, the sun, the people, the sound and even the traffic!


Au revoir,
Miss Bee.

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Grandiose (adj): impressive or magnificent in appearance or style, esp. pretentiously so...

Hola! 

With this post, I'd like to confess something. It's 100% true, so try not to laugh. 

I believe all of the following things are real: Santa Claus, mermaids, goblins, witches, wizards, Hogwarts (and everyone in it), aliens, angels, archangels, fairies, Peter Pan, Mary Magdalene, existence of multiple universes/ galaxies, the Hatter, Absolem, Wonderland basically, and  Ganpati Bappa among many other things. But I do not, oh, wait... do NOT believe that what happens at St. Teresa school shown in Karan Johar's Student of the year could be true in any of  galaxies that exist.. 

Clearly, I just saw Student of the year and trust me, since the 11th minute of the movie I had been waiting to get back home and write a review on it. So here it goes! 

What story? 

The title of the movie makes the story one of the most obvious ones and no, there will be no surprises waiting for you (if you still haven't seen it). Two boys, Rohan and Abhimanyu, fight over a championship award, both love the same girl, Shanaya, she's confused about them both, ta-da ta-da d-dah... 

If you're the kind of person who likes to watch movies that make sense and have a story, don't go for this one. It does NOT make sense and the story sucks. The whole setup is ridiculously unbelievable. The school which is supposed to be in ___ (I seriously don't know where exactly), looks better than any private school in the US. 

Oh, and the amount of skin-show in this movie is 'woahhhh'. I am now aware of all the veins and nerves that run through the bodies of Siddharth Malhotra annd Varun Dhawan. At one point, my bestie who was watching it with me commented, 'Yaar, kabhi toh (shirt) button bandh kar lo.' For the record, we are both very normal, if you know what I mean. 

Oh, KJo! 

I do like Karan Johar movies and mindless comedies, and I LOVED K3G. But this one didn't hit me on any level. The humor didn't make me laugh (like K3G did), neither did it make me cry (like K3G did). The dialogues, the screenplay was just okay. Some things were very cliche, for instance, the way the Dean's (Rishi Kapoor) homosexual tendencies were shown. 

However, the newcomers have done a pretty decent job with their acting skills, especially Siddharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan. They were confident, stylish and sure as hell good-lookers!

Review abhi baaqi hai, mere dost... 

Not all was bad with the movie. I am going to give you three reasons why you should watch this movie. If they appeal to you, then go. The three reasons are:

1. Clothes

The clothes in this movie are fab! I wonder why none of the fashion bloggers have blogged about it. This fashion should be noticed. The clothes and shoes worn by the star cast is of course amazing, but what really caught my attention was Rishi Kapoor's style. It was brilliant! Kudos, to whoever designed the look for him. It paves way for classy style for the above 50 age group. 

Rishi Kapoor has worn great checkered shirts, unconventional ties and unusual (for a male) brooches. The brooches were really the best of them all. 

2. Music

The music is fun, and although there are EIGHT darn songs in the movie, which was too much to bear, would all find a ear to sound good to. 

3. Visually appealing 

The movie was a visual treat, but that's a given when the screen reads 'Karan Johar film' anywhere. It's grandiose, a world of its own. If you are looking for entertainment, well you will get some from SOTY. 

So well, there you go. Fashion, wee bit of entertainment and 'time pass' are definitely the things SOTY gives. I'd say, go watch it for the clothes, but ensure you leave your logic back at home. Oh, and catch a cheap show. My wallet's still tingling with such a loss of 300 bucks. With that much  money, I could have had the cheapest coffee at Starbucks. Ha. 

Au revoir,
Miss Bee.

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