Bollywood Movies !

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(A nice romantic mashup of all the different songs across many different Bollywood movies)

Bollywood movies are the best ! I started watching them just under 10 months ago (I think) after a trip to Bali with a friend of mine from work. My friends name is Parveen. Towards the end of the trip Parveen and I went to a DVD store to buy some DVD’s. I was looking for the latest hollywood releases whilst Parveen was checking out the movies in the Bollywood section whilst calling his wife to see what additional movies she wanted to purchase.

I knew that Bollywood movies were a big hit in Indonesia and are shown on free to air TV every sunday with Indonesian dubbing. I scanned through the different Bollywood movies and thought, why not ? If it shows on Indonesian TV every sunday and millions of Indonesians enjoy watching them there must be something about the movies that I could also relate to and enjoy.

So I decide to buy one DVD (Pyaar Impossible). I watched it and thought what an awesome movie ! It’s a bit of a chick flick but doesn’t matter, it was enjoyable to watch. I then watched “Ek Tha Tiger” with crappy subtitles but still really enjoyed it. I was hooked and decided when I get back to Australia I would find more Bollywood movies to watch.

Fast forward 10 months later and I think I have watched over 30 titles and even been the only non Indian to watch latest release Bollywood movies on the first day when they are shown in selected cinemas here in Australia ! 😛 So what is it about the movies that I enjoy the most ? I really like how the stories are about the people, there are special effects in some cases but it isn’t the dominating part of the movies. You really fall in love with the characters and their interactions.

Take for example Rancho in “3 idiots” and even his 2 side kick idiots or Rizwan Khan from  “My name is Khan”, Sanjay Singhania from “Ghanjini”, Shashi Godbole from “Enligsh Vinglish” or even “Jerry Patel” from Desi Boyz.  The characters are awesome and when you are watching the movies, as a result of how the characters have been built up you really want to see them succeed, find love, prove everyone wrong or get revenge !

Even though the story lines might have some similarities to western movies in many aspects the movies have a very “local” feel and I see many similarities with Indonesian movies and indonesian story lines (which I also am very fond of watching). It is hard to put a finger on what I mean exactly but to put it bluntly the movies deal with issues that are more relevant in many non westernised countries and its a nice change to see a different perspective on a myriad of different issues such as family relationships, marriage, religion, friendships, education & growing up and not just that portrayed by Hollywood.

And finally the music … how awesome is the music and dancing. I think i’ll stop writing about the music here as i’ll probably write much more about the music specifically in later posts 🙂

I guess thats my take on why I really love watching Bollywood movies. And just to finish off, below is a list of some of my favourites (so far …. :P) in no particular order.

It all started with the keycard…

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Today I had planned to start training for a jog that I been wanting to try from my house to Wollongong. For those that don’t know where my house is, its about a 65km run in one direction so its about 130kms both ways. I calculated that if I even can make this distance it might take me 8-10hrs non-stop. I have no idea if I can even make this distance (65kms one way, sleep a night then 65kms back) but I want to try it and see. I decided that today I will try to do the same kind of distance but within the main sydney region so if i dont make it i can catch the train back or ask someone to come and get me 😛

I started packing my small backpack that I use for jogging with some water, wallet, some food, salt and a few other things. As I was checking my wallet for money I noticed that my keycard was expired and thought “crap, no money in my wallet, only credit card, might get stuck somewhere where I need cash”. I cancelled my jog and decided to instead go to my bank and get my card. I called them up and they said they had it, they were trying to call me but could not get in contact with me.

Bank closes at 11:30am on a Saturday and the time I realised my card was expired was about 9:30am. I thought “fine, no worries, I can go for a swim then make it back in time to get my card”. I head over to shelly beach to go for a swim and arrive back at home at about 10:45. Perfect ! … enough time to have quick shower and get my card (which is about a 30min drive at its worst) then I can head over to darling harbour and stay the night before going to a dive site the next day.

As I am just about to leave, I realise that the Camry I usually drive has it’s registration expire tomorrow ! This means I will be OK for today but tomorrow the car will be officially unregistered and if god forbid something happens (I get into an accident or get pulled over for an RBT) I would be absolutely rooted. Crap ! Then I thought, “thats OK, I can use the other car !” So I start the other car only to realise it can’t start. So now from my original 45mins of time , because of all the crap that has happened I only have about 25 minutes left to drive to the bank and get my new keycard. After I try to fiddle around with the other car only to fail getting it to start, I get back in the Camry realising that above all, the main thing is to get my keycard otherwise I have no cash ! I drive as fast as I can to my bank (within speed limits :P) only to have the bank shut the door on my face because im a minute late !

Crap, so I drive back, no keycard, screwed up jogging plans, car with rego about to expire & another car which I have to check and open to see why it doesn’t start. Absolute fail of a day. All because my keycard expired !

Only thing good about today is … i found out Bon Jovi will be here this Dec ! Wooohoooo, will be first to buy the tickets 😛

The Water, Beach & Ocean

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(Note music starts after 10 seconds)

One of the advantages of living in Australia’s east coast is the fact there is beautiful beaches very close by. If you love being in the ocean as much as I do its very hard to imagine living anywhere else where this kind of access to the beautiful clean beaches is not readily available.

I have lived and worked in asia in the past and also really love the atmosphere there but for very different reasons so sometimes im torn between deciding to one day move overseas and live in asia (Indonesia specifically) or to continue living here in Australia.

I run my own technology business and work varying different hours. Sometimes its a normal 8 hour day and other times when the pressure is on to finish something we want to deliver it may be a straight 14hr marathon. It’s not as bad currently as much of the core development we needed to do has been completed however there are still the one off days when its required.

Regardless of the situation though, prior to any work I usually wake up in the morning at about 6:30 and pick up Damir (who is my swimming buddy) and drive to Cronulla where we head towards   shelly beach. Shelly beach is a nice beautiful little beach which has an ocean pool (where the pool is filled with ocean water) nice little sandy beach and really beautiful rocks to sit down and collect your thoughts or prepare for the day ahead. We usually spend about 1-2 hours at the beach swimming (about 1.6kms), spend some time with stretches, breathing exercises and then taking out the bags and gloves for some cardio workouts. It’s a great start to the day and the water, the beach and the ocean with all the ocean spray and the fresh air is something hard to imagine doing without once you are used to the feeling.

Picturing a morning where I can not do this is difficult as it has become so routine. Anyway it doesn’t matter,  things are going great so I am just enjoying what I currently have 🙂 When and if things change in the future, so be it …