Slices of my daily life

In our world of theatre, I always experience the amazing complexity of the human brain. Today I was conducting rehearsals for a one-act play I'm directing. It is an intense play. The actress in it and I were chatting a little before we began rehearsals and laughing about something. Then I said, OK, Let's begin. I spoke to the actor and the actress about their characters' motivations and gave them some character history - small incidents that I made up to help them build their emotions on. Then I just told them to wholeheartedly put their belief in it as their characters. They began rehearsing and eventually at an appropriate point in the play she began sobbing for real, as is required. Just like that. In a matter of ten minutes. The girl who was joking with me a little while ago was, due to her belief in what I told her, was sobbing. I too have experienced this magic of make-believe as an actress. Should we 'choose' to believe in something, it becom...

I saw a movie on the 23rd in which somebody said this. For a long time now, I have believed this. Previously I too would ask questions like, ‘why me ?’ or make statements like ‘I don’t deserve this’. Gradually I began to understand that the equations aren’t always as simple or direct or straightforward as that. Things that happen to me are not always a direct reciprocation of something that I did or did not do. It is more complex. It may be a cumulative of several things. So I started digging much deeper beneath the surface to understand what were the things that have caused something to happen. Believe me, each time I have found that my actions or behaviour are definitely one of the many factors that usually cause an event to occur. I may not be totally responsible for something to happen or not. But I am, at least, partly responsible. I can try to change my contribution to the situation so that the outcome may change to that extent. Change ought to be from within. I shall try.

The other day I saw a movie called “The Prestige”. Nice movie. The dialogues were good. In fact, some situation concepts were very well utilized. I am remembering two scenes, far apart in the movie, but linked to each other. In one scene the magician says to his wife, “I love you” and she responds, “Not today, you don’t”. He asks her what she means and she replies, “I can tell when you mean it and when you don’t. Today you don’t. I like being able to tell. That makes the days you mean it more meaningful”. In course of time, the magician has an affair. The wife suspects it. One day, during this period, the magician says to his wife, “I love you”. She responds, a little surprised, “You mean it today, don’t you ?” He replies in the affirmative and she retorts, “That makes the days when you don’t, terribly difficult”. The same thing isn’t really the same thing any longer.

Lord, please help them see sense. Help them see the whirlpool in which they are being sucked again. Help them learn the lesson without getting hurt again. Lord, please help me be patient till they learn the lesson. Help me retain my warm feelings for them till they open their eyes. Since yesterday I have been distracted from my serenity by some inappropriateness that has come knocking on my door. My mind has been revolving around the inappropriateness since that time. Despite realising this, I was unable to return to my serenity. I decided to pray. The prayer is written above. Still I wasn’t feeling calm. I decided to write about my feelings. Then I realised that instead of feeling calmer, I was thinking about the inappropriateness even more ! While writing down my thoughts, I thought of Paulo Coelho’s book “Warriors of Light”. So I interrupted my writing by searching the book on the Internet. I clicked on a site that came up and on the home page I stumbled upon a story that suddenly b...

I received a mail from my cousin about a movie he saw and loved. The movie is called "The Bucket List" starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, the story is something like this: Two guys who discover that they are terminally ill decide to make the most of their remaining months. This they do by making a 'Bucket List' i.e. a list containing all their unfulfilled dreams, desires and ambitions. One by one and with the help of each other they end up fulfiling all of them, the last one tragically being fulfilled after their death. My brother was impressed with the movie. It inspired him to create his own bucket list. He thought, why wait till a 'situation' arises ! Why not create and begin fulfilling your own bucket list now ? Reading that mail, I too was inspired to create mine. I believe that once you state your intention by making your list, you will consciously and sub-conscioulsy start working towards it. You...

The other day I met a dear friend after a very long time. He was telling me of somebody who is behaving in a vengeful manner and some incidents of the vengefulness and it's ultimate futility. I remarked to him that it is very unfortunate that the person doesn't realise that this behaviour is harming themselves more than others. I remembered a story I read in Chicken Soup for the Soul (I think) and recounted it to him as best as I could. In a class of second standard students, there were a lot of quarrels going on for a couple of weeks. Many students had unpleasant feelings for other students. One Friday the class teacher announced that she had a two week assignment for the class, beginning Monday. On Monday each student was supposed to bring with them to school, one kilogram of potatoes in a plastic bag. She would tell the remainder of the assignment on Monday. So on Monday all students were carrying with them a plastic bag of one kilogram of potatoes. The class teacher then to...