Love this :)

Please tell me you loved this as much as I did.
An alternate flash mob.

Also, my all time favorite one!

No Man's Land

# 39 on my List is to watch all of the Oscar winners for Best Foreign Film from 1980 till present.

Rohit and I saw No Man's Land (Ničija zemlja, Bosnia & Herzegovina, 2001) a couple of weeks ago.

I know there has been a whole tide of movies exposing the absurdity and utter futility of war regardless of how justifiable it may be and No Man's Land is part of that genre - but just when you think you know how the movie is about to develop the director, Tanovic, douses all your optimistic expectations with cold, harsh reality.

The film is about three men trapped in a trench in No Man's land between Serbian and Bosnian lines. The trench becomes a microcosm of the Serbia-Bosnian conflict and the exchanges and relationship between the three men is so compelling and honest that it is at times difficult to watch. The other part of the film highlights the impotence of the United Nations and the conceit of the omnipresent media which is in equal parts frustrating and sad.

Darkly satirical, the film is intelligent and ferocious and I think an important one for our generation and the ones ahead to watch. 



Eunice De Souza

The Road

As we came out of the church
into the sunlight
a row of small girls
in first communion dresses
I felt the occasion demanded
lofty thoughts

I remember
only my grandmother
smiling at me.

They said
now she wears lipstick
now she is a Bombay girl
they said, your mother is lonely.
Nobody said, even the young must live.

In school
I clutched Sister Flora’s skirt
and cried for my mother
who taught across the road.
Sister Flora is dead.
The school is still standing.
I am still learning
to cross the road.

Eunice De Souza

NOLA Part 2 of 2

Picking up, where I left off - Rohit and I managed to visit two plantations while we were in New Orleans.

One was a creole plantation (Laura Plantation) and the other was Oak Alley Plantation. I was a little apprehensive going out there but I am glad we made the trip.

I thought the Laura plantation was beautiful and the guide (the present owner) was very knowledgeable, straightforward and educated us on both the history of the plantation and touched upon the aspects of slavery with honesty and humility. The tour is based on The Memoirs of Laura, which recount a detailed account of 200 years of life on the farm written by the planters daughter Laura Locoul Gore. What interested me most was that the sugar plantation was run by four generations of Creole women until 1891, when Laura sold it to Aubert Waguespack.  

Oak Alley was stunning as well and beautifully maintained; our guides largely focused on the history of the plantation, its owners and the economics and trade of the crop.

It depends on what you want from the journey, but I would definitely recommend visiting the creole plantation.

Laura Plantation

Satsuma

The slave quarters, within which workers continued to live in until the 70s is the primary reason for its historical significance

The stunning Oak Alley Plantation - named for the double row of live oaks that line the path to its entrance

The Oaks were magnificent

I loved New Orleans and we hope to go back again some day soon. It has so much charm and a sense of history and is simply beautiful.

Trams!

Gratuous picture of us :)

NOLA Part 1 of 2

This post is long overdue and I apologize. 

For our second anniversary (why yes, it was in November of last year!), Rohit and I wanted to stay within the continental US for a variety of reasons and there had been one place that we had been hoping to visit since forever - New Orleans. It was everything I thought it would be and more. The food, the beignets (yes they are a whole separate attraction!), the music, the people - everything was exactly the way I had imagined it to be!   

For R and me, food is a big part of a holiday; I am not terribly versatile or particularly talented in the kitchen but for some reason having good food goes a long way in our travel experiences. One of our dinners and a place I would recommend is Chef Emeril's NOLA. We sampled the Veggie Pizza, Grilled seasonal fish (me) and the garlic crusted drum (Rohit). The service was great and the food delicious!

Ahhhh. Beignets. That's it - I have nothing more to add, my words could not do this justice.

We stayed adjacent to the French Quarter which I think was the ideal place to stay - because you're slightly distanced from the craziness that can be but just across the street from one of the most charming places I've been to in a long while - the quarter bursting with life, color, music and history.

Jazz on the street made the buildings and alleys all come alive.

St. Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop - It is today a bar and has been so for many years but legend has it that Jean Lafitte and his pirates posed as blacksmiths here while using it as headquarters for selling goods they'd plundered on the high seas. I love when a place (especially a bar!) has such a colorful back story :)

Cafe Du Monde. Be warned, the lines are long but totally worth it! I don't even drink coffee and I LOVED the coffee!

This adorable little boy tap dancing on the street with tin can caps attached to his shoes as toe taps. So creative and very talented.

This is the line to Preservation Hall (I don't even think we can see the entrance from here - its that far off!). We braved this hoping against hope, counting people and putting our MBA estimation skills to the test and were luckily the very last people to enter! So thrilling!

Below are some pics of the hall.

It was as though we had been transported to another time and place. The seats were wooden benches for the most part and I could imagine the place getting stuffy in the summers but oh the music - its worth every second of the 45 minute wait, the uncomfortable seating and the crowds. The whole experience was unforgettable.

We also managed to squeeze in a plantation tour and will post about that in a subsequent post soon. 

Ummmm - Hi?

I know I haven't written here for a while - nothing of great consequence happened other than life in general!
Happy New Year - I hope 2012 is everything you want it to be (Its not too late to wish people - is it?).

I have loads to update this space on and will hopefully get to it soon!
In the meantime, here is something that made me laugh!

via Wit and Delight and Tastefully Offensive

Date a girl who reads {Rosemarie Urquico}

Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

via here

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Gordena P. Jackson

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Sunny Reading by John Williams

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.

- Rosemarie Urquico

I loved this. Thank you Karin.