On Bahubali 2 - The Conclusion

Congratulations Rajamouli for creating a cinematic experience so grand and full of chivalry . Congratulations on depicting a part of our culture with such grandeur and sentiment , whether it was the iconic moment of Bahubali the beginning when Prabhas lifted the Shivalinga with shiva tandav strotam powerfully resonating in the background or the opening moment of Bahubali the conclusion where he made an unleashed elephant bow in front of Lord Ganesha's idol . Congratulations for making people feel gratified by bowing to their culture  and deity for once and not by making fun of them . Congratulations for creating characters - all of them - stronger than one's conviction and larger than life . It was not all practical , it was not all logical and it was not all correct . But it was all visually gratifying . It was like a master story teller lost in his own creative world creating a extraordinary narrative out of actually an ordinary one . Yes it was an ordinary story . Half expected . But the key lies in the way the story is told hitting the right sentiments , hitting the right mind . It reminded me of my grandfather and the way he used to teach us Ramayan and Mahabharat , the way he used to explain  the Kaurav Pandhav yudha. The way how Abhimanyu took out the wheel of a large horse chariot to make it his weapon . Incredulous then and this is incredulous now . But I enjoyed it then and I enjoyed your story now just like a child would .Congratulations Rajamouli - for making our men fight like Gods on screen . Congratulations for carrying such high expectations from I would say a large mass of people ( not all for sure  ) and not disappointing .  At the end My compliments  to IMAX and Dolby . I would not have had it any other way .

The movie was all symbolic , the movie was all vision , it was all a man's imagination and it was all dialogues .and it was about the feel  And that is how I would cherish it .

Neha Chauhan

To Love and Peace

It's time now . I am back to the same room ,my room , my balcony overlooking the kids making a racket despite the odd hour ( there are pluses to be living in a closed society u see) overlooking the cars getting parked from my balcony one by one filling up all the empty spaces like completing a large jigsaw puzzle .I own the objects of this room ,everything is placed as per my order or disorder whatever one may like to call it . This is my space . But this time my mind and my heart are just not at peace. I try my tested ways . I concentrate on a single visual object to digress and tame my mind but all in vain . There is something amiss. But it's odd , after the marathon of my life that I had in the last month; I got married last month;  this is not what I had imagined i would be like once it will all be over ( the craziness of the preparations ; just like most families we are also a nuclear family with limited hands)  . So I had been expecting a supreme peace of mind once I would be back to myself but strangely my surroundings are calmer than my mind today.

I relook at the events of last month .I relook at the pace at which the things were moving forward . The feeling was like flowing in a river. The more You resist the more troublesome it is to survive and the moment You let go and surrender to the current the easier it is to flow and above all you enjoy the effortlessness of the situation . So after trying to micro manage things which were in and beyond my control I did let go . And then they came all at once the fun filled moments , happy smiles ,and the worried look on my father's face that somehow he always managed to convert into a big warm smile every time I approached him with a situation at hand . The practical nature of my brother trying to balance the oddities he generally considers useless but were important for me at that time . The sleepless nights my sister had , the meticulous planning my mother and Bhabhi did . A set of friends who kept everything at hold just to be with me . I feel grateful to them and I feel grateful to the new people who have accepted me so kindly. Everything seems sorted in this department of feelings , so what is this restlessness. I am clueless.

I try another tested way I resort to a lifeline ; phone of friend . We talk for hours . Useless , ungiving , unyielding stuff. And we laugh . It makes me feel how everything in me is still the same and how I am still the very person who used to sit here for hours with a book in a hand and an adrak Wali chai next to me . I hang up and to my utmost surprise it does not go away , the restlessness that is. I just do not understand .

And then it happens , Below at some distance I see a couple walking hand in hand and it makes me miss my man. And the moment I think about him all the uneasiness and the inexplicable restlessness goes away in seconds . I don't feel the urge to call him. I don't even need to hear his voice . The fact that he is there is more than enough and it calms me down.

Cheers To Having a Good Man in your life .

Signing off
Neha Chauhan