Ah... those good old days...

I happened to see one of my all-time favorite movies - Groundhog Day. It is one of the funniest movies I have come across. The story-line is simple - A weatherman goes to a small local town, Punxatawney, in Pennysylvania on the eve of Groundhog day. For the first-timers, Groundhog day, observed on Febraury 2, is the day when a rat-like species comes out of its burrow and checks for its shadow. It is believed that the winter would last for 6 more weeks if the shadow appears... otherwise, an early spring. Well, the movie shows this event but that is not the main theme.

Our protagonist, being a weatherman, goes to cover this event along with his cameraman and producer. It is just another day for him and he sails through it. Little does he realise that he had to do it umpteen number of times, for he experiences the same day over and over and over.... An innovative plot, albeit implausible, but what makes the movie such a treat to watch is the script. The protagonist's reaction to the situation is crazy at the start, then hopelessly negative before he starts seeing the positive side of it. Bill Murray, as the lead actor, does an excellent job here displaying the transition.

He laments, in one of the scenes, why this repeating day could not be the day he really enjoyed in the past with his girlfriend. That brought me the thought: We too have had many moments in our past which we still feel nostalgic about. Like the school/college days, the days we roamed with friends, the days we felt the sense of achievement, the days of romance et al. The question is: Will we be ready to get into the time-warp to such an interesting moment. And after going through those moments twice or thrice, would we still find it interesting and wish to stay right there. I guess not. We may like reliving it another time but that is it. I think one of the reasons why we still find those moments interesting is because of the fact that they never recur.

June 08 '05

Blessings........

Today is the "reopening day" after summer vacation for a number of schools in Chennai. My husband's nephew came home early in the morning, to seek the blessings of his grandparents on the first day of school. how nostalgic did I feel?

Unlike others who seek the blessings of their parents and other elders at home on a daily basis, we do it only on important occasions like birthdays, school reopening days or when the real need comes. An appearance to an examination, expecting the results of it, attending an interview or a client call or a bug that remains unfixed in the code making the blood pressure overshoot 200 mm of mercury, promptly ring the bell to remind us that we need to get the blessing of our parents.

Also, there are sentiments associated when we get the blessings. The blessings from parents have never betrayed us. So even before we seek the blessings, we usually provide the list on what they should wish us ;-))

As per Murphy's laws, the chapter that was left unread, will pop its ugly head in the paper in 2 questions, forcing us to choose atleast one of them. Rather than blaming ourselves for not preparing well, the blame is conveniently moved to amma for not coming out of the house & waving a good bye when we turned at the street corner on the way to school for writing the exam.

Not even that, she usually has to listen to us, when we fail to wake up early in the morning before dad leaves for office. "Amma, Why did u not wake me up? C, I did not get the sacred ash from appa. I dont know what shall happen to me in the exam!!!"

After the exams, when we discuss the answers with parents, the way in which the logic struck at the last moment and the problem got solved easily - be it in the "bode plot of control system" or "interupt handling in the microprocessor" or "the fourier transform in the maths paper" , the success is always attributed to their prayers. The gleam of joy is radiant in their eyes!!

Is it b'cos they see history repeating itself except that their roles have changed?