A Day on the Pale Blue Dot - 13

Friday, 12th May 2023

Par Excellence!

“There is no love sincerer than the love of food.” ― George Bernard Shaw

Shhh! Don't tell that to my wife!

A Day on the Pale Blue Dot - 12

Thursday, 11th May 2023

Impact and Void!

Today's post is on a topic I like to write about - related to movies and television.

Like I mentioned in yesterday's post, my wife and I booked tickets for the 9:30 PM show in a nearby mall. It was for a Malayalam movie - 2018: Everyone is a Hero. Here is the IMDb link for it. If you haven't heard of it, the movie is based on the 2018 floods that devastated the Indian state of Kerala.

Some movies or TV shows leave us with an impact, while others leave us with a feeling of void. The intensity of the impact or the void varies from film to film. And that is something, I think, we could use to judge how good (or bad) a film is.

2018 movie - it had a huge impact and at the same time left a huge void within me.  The movie does an excellent job of recreating the floods. Certain scenes left a very deep impact - especially the scene in which a house totally collapses in the waters. Luckily, we weren't affected much by the flood, but the movie makes one truly feel how the people would have felt.

At the same time, the movie did create a void in me in the end. A feeling of "why?" We just sat there after the movie ended, the end credits running by, we were just staring at the screen, not really reading anything on the screen - just staring. There were many others who were in that state.

Hats off to the entire crew behind this movie - take a bow. I would highly recommend everyone to watch it in theatres. This is one of the movies that you should watch in a theatre.

Another series that left a void in me after I finished watching it was Schitt's Creek (IMDb link). Even though we started watching it casually, while cooking, by the time the series got over, I was left with a feeling of missing, a void. The characters felt a part of my life; and them not being a part of my life anymore - definitely a void. Superstore (IMDb link) was one such series for my wife.

What are those movies or series that left an impact or void in you?

A Day on the Pale Blue Dot - 11

Wednesday, 10th May 2023

Convenience and Laziness!

Disclaimer: Gibberish rant ahead.

It may feel that our world is moving towards a direction aimed to make us lazy. Many things that required manual effort years back, now can be done easily with help of machines and technology - some of them not even requiring you to step outside your room even.

Today, being a holiday - thanks to the State elections, we thought we'd go watch a movie. The screening was at 9:30 PM. So, at noon, my wife and I walk to the nearby mall and proceed to buy 3 tickets (1 for my brother). It cost ₹ 990/-, inclusive of all charges. I simply checked how much it would cost us if we chose to book via a mobile app. It showed ₹ 1132/-. A difference of close to ₹ 150/- for the same seat and same experience.

Banking is another good example. Remember those days where you had to physically go to a bank with a cheque leaf to get money? When was the last time you did that? That "act" got shifted to ATMs. Probably even a decade ago, we used to go to the ATMs quite often. And today? That frequency too reduced as banking went more and more digital. We do pay a small fee for that convenience.

Driving! More people are shifting to automatics; and one reason for many people is the laziness to drive a manual or even learn how to drive a manual. In many western countries, most new drivers have no clue how to drive a manual. And automatics do cost more than manuals. We are moving towards driverless vehicles now.

One may argue that it is more about convenience than about laziness. But it is this very convenience that drives laziness.

People complain that food delivery apps charge a bomb for the same food that one could eat or take-away directly from a restaurant. Hey people, that is the charge for your convenience/laziness.

Apart from the monetary angle, we are deprived of real social interaction and some physical effort. When we actually go out there, you meet people and have real interactions. We shifted that to social media with their infinite scrolls.

When we go out there, we do take some physical effort to do things. We shifted that to gyms (just to use a treadmill?). More payment!

What the future holds when the world offers more and more convenience, we have to wait and watch.

"Hey Kunjappa, feed me my dinner; I'm feeling too lazy to eat!"

A Day on the Pale Blue Dot - 10

Tuesday, 9th May 2023

Ice Cream!

If you are an adult and got excited reading the heading of this post, "ice cream," well this is mostly about that.

Adults are just big children. Ain't it?

My office provides free evening snacks every day at 5 PM. The snacks vary on a day-to-day basis - from dosa to momos; upma to idiyappam (string hopper); soup to Cola - the options are many.

Even though I do not take snacks on most days, when the rest of my team goes to take snacks, I help myself to a cup of tea from the cafeteria.

While they served aloo bonda yesterday, we found today they were giving vada paav. There were talks going on among employees that they used the left-over aloo bondas from yesterday for the vada paav today! 😛 Possible, but improbable, hopefully.

So, we moved towards the cafeteria - my team to get the snacks, and me to get my evening tea. And boy, there was a long queue filling the length of the cafeteria. While I was done preparing my cup of tea, my team was still in queue. I asked them why such an unusually long queue for vada paav? They replied that the snack vendor was giving ice creams too along with the vada paav and the long queue was for the ice cream.

It is then that the thought struck me again - adults are just big children. 😀

If you think about it, it is true on so many levels.

Children: He didn't give his toy; I don't like him. Beat him!

Adults: He likes that political party; I don't like him. Stab him!

Countries: He is making friends with another group of countries. I don't like him. Bomb him!

Just eat ice cream and chill people!

A Day on the Pale Blue Dot - 9

Monday, 8th May 2023

Lost Yesterday...

This is one of my favorite quotes:

“Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.” ― Horace Mann

 I first came across this in our school diary - which had a quote on every page. Ever since junior school, this quote has fascinated me. Yes, it has fascinated me, but it does not mean that I live by it strictly - I wish though, very much!

Why am I reminded of this today? Because of this sad tragedy that took place yesterday:

An overloaded boat capsized in Kerala’s Malappuram district, killing 22 people.

The people who passed away in the accident are people like you and me. They had some more plans for the night, for the next day, for the next week and month and years to come. But all that has come to an abrupt end.

Few dreams completed; some dreams, a work in progress; many dreams, yet to start. Their dreams could be in any of these stages.

The profound message that such tragedies and many other accidents teach us is that in life there is no guarantee. Today and tomorrow could be exact opposites!

What I want to shout out to you all (and me) is this:

IF THERE IS SOMETHING YOU HAVE BEEN KEEPING FOR LATER, DO NOT DELAY IT ANYMORE. START ON IT RIGHT AWAY!

Again,

“Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.” ― Horace Mann

A Day on the Pale Blue Dot - 8

Sunday, 7th May 2023

Second Chance?

The day started off with a beautiful breakfast prepared by my wife - Masala Dosa and Egg Dosas. Whenever Masala Doas is on the menu, I would get Egg Dosas instead. I am not a big fan of Masala Dosa.

Unlike the beautiful breakfast, the lunch experience was on the other extreme; so bad, that we have not had such a bad experience in recent times.

There was this one Kashmiri restaurant nearby that I had wanted to visit since a long time. Today, we thought we'd try that out. We reserved tables for 2:30 PM using benefits of Zomato's Carnival offer where we'd get 50% off on the final bill. Cool, right?

We reach this restaurant at 2:20 PM but we were told to wait on the ground floor since the tables were full. The restaurant service happens on the 1st floor. After waiting 15 minutes, there was no sign of they coming to us. So we went up to the 1st floor to enquire. We were told that the tables were not free yet.

We waited. And we got a table after 3 PM. The table was not cleaned after the previous customers had left. More waiting. We had already decided on our orders by looking at the restaurant menu through Zomato/Swiggy. We just wanted one of the waiters to come and take our order. A waiter comes to get our orders at 3:15 PM, and he told us that the menu has been revamped. We should order from the new menu available of their website. We proceeded to do as suggested. And waited more.

The waiter returned at 3:30 PM and took our orders. At this point, it has been an hour and 10 minutes since we reached the restaurant. Meanwhile, we ask another waiter to please clean our table. We were astonished to hear his reply, "Sir, we are very busy. We will do it shortly!"

I mean, "What??" Cleaning a dirty table when customers are made to sit is not a priority for them?

At 4 PM, our food arrives. Bad food too! After all this wait, if at all the food was good, we would have been okay-ishly content. From the consistency of the gravy, it looked like they ran out of curry and then added some water and corn-flour to quickly make some extra curry. The pulav was over-cooked and lightly squishy. Our hopes of having some good Kashmiri food - down the drain.

Disappointed with the entire experience (of almost 2 and half hours!), the bill finally arrived. Ah, the audacity of the restaurant to include service charges on the bill - laughable! We promptly asked them to remove the service charges from the bill, to which the obliged without any resistance.

I am normally a personal who would give 2nd chances to restaurants - hoping that they were just having a bad day. But I did read some similar comments on their Zomato reviews. This restaurant probably might not get a second chance from me - unless something drastic changes are made from their side. And we do have another Kashmiri restaurant nearby - that offers excellent service and food.

Today was a gamble - and we lost.

A Day on the Pale Blue Dot - 7

Saturday, 6th May 2023

Timing is Everything!

I am sure you have heard this proverb before - "Timing is everything."

Today, I was taught that lesson again. Maybe I'm being taught this for the umpteenth time in this life!

Will come back to that soon after a short mention of other things of the day.

One, this was breakfast - one of my favorite breakfasts! 😀

And two, this was for dinner!

Three, we watched The Menu while having our dinner.