Ramen girl

How many worlds we carry

How many worlds we carry - in our tiny heads. Worlds with flying monsters and frozen dragons, worlds with intricate labyrinths and elaborate space maps, worlds as infinite as a sky up there and as deep as the tunnels below our feet. And we carry them all, every day, every moment, room to room, people to people. In our heads, in our bags, in the corner of our eyes. 

And some morning when we quietly watch tiny drops of rains leaving a trace on our dusty window panes, we take a deep dive and soak in their magic. 

Sent from my iPhone

What is a rock bottom

Wen u want to buy a book but u cant afford it coz its 2500!!

Make these - your task for the day

Samitha’s south indian chutney

As per cook - best south indian chutney - coconut, half onion, 2-3 garlic, imli, red 🌶 powder, salt.

After this give rai, urad dal, curry leaves tadka.

wrote a scene of surveyor

and its so nice and i am crying at its beauty. Thought of writing it here for you - share this moment with yoo - while u (guess what ) are listening to 90s songs and sitting - enjoying the last month of your summer holiday before u join your nursery school.

I have 2 huge challenges:

waking u up at 6 am

getting u into school uniform

preventing u from undressing when u have to pee 

Ok- i am in good writing flow- let me dive right back into sea of struggles and undecidedness, diffidence and insecurities.

Umbrellas of Cherbourg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imCOi7pqKh0

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"'Whenever someone creates something with all of their heart, then that creation is given a soul.' "

Cargo mosaic poster

Outing with nani and mummy and kittens

Yooki houss

Alone At A Night Out

Dear Yooki,

I dont remember the last time I went out alone - and not felt the rope that tied me to my home - its not just you who I worry about during nights but before you there was juno and before juno there was saurabh and maybe before that my mother's worries of my safety and even before and also all along that sense of not working and wasting time and all that weighed on me and made my night escapades ridden with phone calls and worries.

I clicked this picture of mine last month. I was going for a movie invite, a movie I knew I won't be seeing till the end as by 11 I had to be back home else you won't sleep. The ideal time of being back home is 10 but that night we made it 11 to give me a breather as I was going far away.

And for a brief moment, it was drizzling and I was listening to music and I was stuck waiting in an intense traffic jam when I saw a red light flashing on my face.

I stole a brief moment and took this selfie and for a second, I was surprised at my own gaze shifting back at me, it was me with years of life showing on my face, for the first time I noticed the hardening of a face I once used to recognize as the face of a young fidgety girl. For a second I felt I was alone in that car on that rainy night - absolutely alone. The rope had vanished only so briefly as I tried to reclaim myself for myself completely.

And strangely so - it was a beautiful moment, I even felt tipsy or high or experienced extreme romanticism in this absolute solitude. I felt as if in that moment I was noting down a checkpoint of my life graph. Absorbing the long pending realization of my own age, maturity and responsibilities.

What more, for years these quiet moments have only evoked existential angsts or mundane worries but for once this moment alone filled me only with absolute love. And hence I preserve this here. I share it with you, in the hope that one day, while you would be fighting your battles (they never end do they?) and spent nights struggling with your own inner dragons apart from worldly ones, you might find a moment when you would come face to face with yourself - and find great peace with the life that you are carving out for yourself.
And maybe one day, when the maps on your face will be visible, even in absolute solitude, you will find a certain immeasurable warmth - of your own tender company.

Love,
Mom

Birthday lunch with nana

Yooki in long hair

Mom 1, mom 2, mom 3

Decided to take pic for about director section but just ended up goofing around

Who this ?

Respecting your elders

I was maybe 10, when I saw this kannada film Cheluvi where a poor girl, had secret magical powers that turned her into a tree filled with beautiful rare flowers. It made me believe in the power of magical stories and cinema. RIP #GirishKarnad Sir.

Dear Yooki, I hope you get exposed to not just big magical blockbusters but those tiny delicate fables that make this world not grand but certainly beautiful.

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"'Whenever someone creates something with all of their heart, then that creation is given a soul.' "

The young idealist in me

Found an old email I sent someone and got in touch with a very thorough version of myself. I don't know if I adviced him correctly though.7 years of struggle to make a great film maybe dilutes you somewhere and slowly - like a mildly acidic water around a stone- gradually corroding it - damage never happens in days but in years.

Maybe I should try to write things more thoroughly- apply myself with lots of intensity. Try to be more honest with my explanation and not say yes to everything a person asks me to review.

I want to rediscover this person - maybe it is not corrosion but layers of dishonesty accumulated over me. It is beneficial for me to think that what was in me is still in me - but if not, I am still ready to rebuild myself - I love this version of me more and maybe I am finally at a age where I am more comfortable being the person I love than others love.

I feel that at idea level it has limited reach and my reasons for these are the following :

1) The novelty of idea: In today's time the idea loses on both counts - the absolute novelty and the comfortable known story. The idea is good enough to recover its cost. So if you have a small low budget movie that will recover its cost then we can pursue it and have it a reasonable state but seeing your work and experience I think you should aim at "best movie ever". 

2) Mass appeal: Two things work for mass appeal - the emotional connect or the instinctual connect (horror etc). This can be developed at screenplay level but when I heard the story till interval- in my mind I was not keen to know "ab kya hogo"(not gripping). Additionally in my mind I am not too much of a loser (most people assume they are not - infact they feel they are SRK) so I see the protagonist as  a second person so my connect with the character is not direct. (note again the feedback is at narration level because this is fixable)

3) Sense of journey: This comes from my understanding of Indian cinema. For me one thing that separates Indian cinema from Hollywood is the sense of journey it has. We have all the 9 rasas (navras) and generally the story spans for atleast a year and by the end of it you have experienced an emotional catharsis. Infact you see all the hit movies of all times including Wanted - it makes you go through that emotional journey. The journey involves a piece of social fabric that we are set in - so you have father and family and all that. Movies like KCK where the character is a convenient orphan suspended in air doesn't work because that is not our context. We are swarming with people in our life. Our relationships with them is the essence  of our existence. This applies for a majority of films. If these two factors lack, I fear that the movie has a limited appeal - it is a more like easily forgotten weekend multiplex movie.

4) Life and death thing: I have that test for my stories. Is this a conflict of life and death importance? Ideally it should be more than that - getting the girl in the movie should be felt like an eternal achievement etc. Here the "people treating him badly" is something livable atleast at youth. It is not much affecting me much- I don't care.Generally what leaves a great sense of satisfaction is finding the essence of existence in that one thing - like how badly Raj wanted Simran. Also lots of Indian movies end with reassurance of our common belief that "life is fundamentally fair". That gives a great sense of satisfaction. KCK didn't give that satisfaction. 

5) Comic scope: A principle that Hirani swears by - sometimes he even overdoes it but it only helps him. In India movie watching is very much a community experience - case in point Om Shanti Om versus Saanwariya - Saanwariya is a very good personal experience but here people go with a group of friends and want to laugh etc. All hit movies have there share of good comic elements (the hasya ras). Now again this is fixable at screenplay level but in this movie the humor might affect the core story negatively and then it might have the risk of being neither here or there.

So that is my overanalysis.Now having said that I want to give some suggestions at treatment/story level that you might find interesting and you might want to then pursue it. I have to watch inception first however. Also I would need sometime to get back to you on this part of the mail. Some initial thoughts.

1) Novelty of dream world - it is a powerful tool to play in - how amazing is your dream world.

2) Does his dream affect his real life? OR are they interconnected. When I was a kid I had seen a serial in "Aahat". Its first episode is the best build up that has stayed with me till today. A housewife sleeps and becomes a top actress. But it is not a dream for her - it is real and she wonders. And then she sleeps in that world and becomes the housewife again. She doesn't know what her real identity is. We can work at that level.

3) Make it less unidimensional. That is pri 1 if we consider this seed of an idea. I have to think. 

Well I will also propose you a few ideas in some time. Help me know your choices more. What kind of movies/books you like? Any philosophies/philosophers you like. Something that you want to externalize.

Anyways I hope we can have a great feature-length film from you soon!

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"'Whenever someone creates something with all of their heart, then that creation is given a soul.' "

Shifting cities

Inventions of cargo

Beach outings with papa

And juno and mummy

We usually walk deep in the shore - wherethe water has receded - and people are playing music - and lovers are out. At carter road. We find sea shells, you find tiny rocks and tiny puddles and you throw those tiny rocks in those puddles.

You gave your father a big rock and he threw it really far into the water and it created a big splash and you burst out laughing and looked at me.

And u see a boat far away and wonder at its colors and u see a small rock little away from it and call it an "island" and you call yourself moana - the protector of our tribe.

I love yoo baby.

P.S - Juno accidentally took the scenic route and found herself in the middle of water puddle and mummy had to pat her and she became happy again.

Structure of stories: 3 act structure and 4 act structure

"Stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper, and that the shape of a given society's stories is at least as interesting as the shape of its pots or spearheads."

Our ability to communicate relies in part upon a shared emotional experience, with stories often following distinct emotional trajectories and forming patterns that are meaningful to us." These emotional trajectories are equivalent to Vonnegut's "story shapes."

As we know most of the stories in the west follow a 3 act structures with a clear central conflict:

The traditional three-act structure includes the following parts: 

Act I - Setup: Exposition, Inciting Incident, Plot Point One. 

Act II - Confrontation: Rising Action, Midpoint, Plot Point Two.

 Act III - Resolution: Pre Climax, Climax, Denouement

However in the East 4 act structure minus conflict is most often used:

Ki : Introduction
Shō : Development
Ten : Twist (complication)
Ketsu : Conclusion (reconciliation) 

On studying 10000 books some researchers found that there are 6 types of story shapes: (https://epjdatascience.springeropen.com/articles/10.1140/epjds/s13688-016-0093-1) :

• Rags to riches (rise): SV 1

  • A steady, ongoing rise in emotional valence, as in a rags-to-riches story, such as Alice's Adventures Undergroundby Lewis Carroll.

• Tragedy or Riches to rags (fall): SV 1

  • A steady ongoing fall in emotional valence, as in a tragedy such as Romeo and Juliet.

•  Man in a hole (fall-rise): SV 2

  • A fall, then a rise, such as the man-in-a-hole story, discussed by Vonnegut.

•  Icarus (rise-fall): SV 2

  • A rise, then a fall, such as the Greek myth of Icarus. 

• Cinderella (rise-fall-rise): SV 3

  • Rise-fall-rise, such as Cinderella.

•  Oedipus (fall-rise-fall): SV 3

• Fall-rise-fall, such as Oedipus.

They found that "Icarus," "Oedipus," and "Man-in-a-hole" were the three most successful emotional arcs.