Fire – Destroyer or Cleanser

November 4, 2012November 4, 2012 - Roshan

Fire – the destroyer or a cleanser? Everyone knows about the awesome destructive powers of fire. A small fire can burn & completely vanquish a vast, mighty forest as it’s flames grows in size and envelops everything that stands in it’s path. In a couple of days, it can burn up things that may have taken years to build. It is is unrelenting and unfeeling. It shows no remorse or guilt or compassion. It can be the ultimate destroyer without soul.

Or you can look upon it as cleansing, giving a fresh start to the person who uses the fire to be in that way. By burning things that reminded you of the bad times and things that stood in the way of achieving something good, it can free you. Which is why in myth & stories & movies, you always see fire as the weapon that finally defeats evil – a monster or a house or a building or an alien! Fire is that which we chose it to be.

Two more days before my folks and I vacated our house in Thrikkakara and moved to the apartment in the city, which was over 6 years ago, we were busy packing up stuff to be moved to the new place. What we couldn’t squeeze into the apartment (hey, we have been piling up junk from the early 1980’s; stuff which fits in a big house but will not fit into a 3 bedroom flat), we temporarily stored in an uncle’s house or in my maternal grandma’s place. A whole bunch of newspapers, papers, magazine stuff, cards, letters & wrappers were found and dumped in the backyard to burn. I saw the burning going on and soon added a whole pile of my shit into the fire and further fanned the flames. I saw some old cards & books from lost loves, even some porno :) and other sort of stuff that I dumped into the fire pit.

I remember feeling like my old life was being closed right before my eyes; chapters of my life being destroyed as the flames turned it into ashes. It felt like the end of an era & the beginning of a new. The old one had a lot of fun and a lot of tears & heartaches behind it. I remember hoping that the new era would be somewhat fun at all times. And as the fire died down, only black grey ashes remained. Is that symbolic? Is life as I knew it been changed to this….ashes? Or is it signaling the end of the problems and the beginning of new hope and a new purpose in a new life? Well, only time will tell.

A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010)

November 4, 2012November 4, 2012 - Roshan

Although I am aware of the movie franchise, from back when I was 13-14, I had only watched the original A Nightmare On Elm Street and the crossover with the Friday The 13th franchise, Freddy vs Jason. I hadn’t seen any of the sequels as of yet and although I like Robert Englund a lot (been a fan of his since his appearance as “Willy” in the scifi tv series V from 1983-84) it wasn’t something high up on my list to watch. However this afternoon I sat down to watch the reboot or remake from 2010 A Nightmare On Elm Street directed by Samuel Bayer, and written by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer. And yeah – produced by Michael Bay!!! Sheesh, anyway let’s take a look at the movie and what I thought of it.

The movie is ofcourse a combination of slasher with supernatural elements. The film stars Jackie Earle Haley (as Freddie), Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker and Kellan Lutz. The movie starts off with Dean, a high school student, falling asleep and in his dreams he is attacked by Freddie Kruger. In front of his girlfriend Kris & also watched by fellow student Nancy, he falls asleep and cuts his own throat with a knife, although in his dream his throat is cut by Freddie. Freddie is depicted as a burned & disfigured man in a fedora and a metal clawed right hand. After the funeral Kris begins to have dreams of the same man and can’t go back to sleep. She falls asleep in class and he torments her, making her scream. That night her ex-boyfriend Jesse comes to keep her company as she is alone but Kris is murdered in her sleep, being dragged to the ceiling in reality and slashed by an unseen force.

Jesse is confronted by the cops and arrested for her murder as he runs away from the scene and is killed by Krueger when he falls asleep in his jail cell. Nancy begins to suspect a connection as her friends keep getting murdered one by one. She & her friend Quentin dig into records and discover that all her friends and her had attended the same preschool as kids, although none of them can remember meeting each other before teenagehood. Nancy’s mother, Gwen (Connie Britton), reluctantly tells Nancy and Quentin that there was a gardener at the preschool, Fred Krueger, who abused Nancy and the rest of the kids. Gwen explains that Nancy was his favorite, and that she came home one day telling her mother about a hidden space in Krueger’s room and the things he did to her there. Gwen claims Krueger skipped town before he was arrested. Nancy & Quentin do not believe that he escaped and begins to track down the rest of the kids in the preschool only to find out that all of them are dead, and most died in their sleep.

Meanwhile, Quentin tries to accept that his nightmares are nothing more than repressed memories, but he falls asleep during swim practice and witnesses what really happened to Krueger. In his dream he sees Freddie running away, being chased by the parents of all the kids and then burned in a building he tried to hide away in. Nancy & Quentin confront the latter’s father Alan about killing Freddie without real evidence that he has molested the kids and that Freddie is killing the kids now as revenge. Nancy and Quentin eventually make it to the preschool uncovers Krueger’s hidden room and the evidence that proves Krueger was in fact abusing all of the children; they realize that Krueger actually wants revenge on them for telling the truth. Nancy falls asleep and is attacked by Freddie and Quentin uses adrenaline to wake Nancy up and pull Freddie into reality with her. With Krueger distracted by Quentin, Nancy uses a broken paper cutter blade to cut Krueger’s gloved hand off, and then slice his throat. Afterward, Nancy torches the secret room, with Krueger’s body left inside, while she and Quentin leave. Nancy and her mother return home from the hospital; Krueger suddenly appears in a mirror’s reflection and kills Nancy’s mother before pulling her body through the mirror while Nancy screams.

I’m not really sure why we needed the reboot when all fans love the original so much. I thought it was just Bay being Bay and creating a movie with several ideas from each of the original and it’s sequels. 7 out of 10!

End-of-Year Goal

November 4, 2012November 4, 2012 - Roshan

I achieved a major achievement, of finding new employment with a decent pay package, a financially secure process and a decent/helpful atmosphere. That was the main and I would say the only real goal I wanted to achieve when January 1st, 2012 rolled by. Unless ofcourse I got a whole lotta money (which I also got by doing some freelance work) and therefore lessened the burden on me. So since that was done by the middle of the year (I have completed 4 months of employment at my current office) I am ok with the last two months of the year in general and would want to focus on things that I want to achieve for 2013.

For the rest of the year – which is now less than 2 whole months but since it is still just the 4th of November and I still have 57 more days left I’m gonna count it as 2 months – I’m just gonna concentrate on what I currently have and improving my contribution to my current job and try and do better. I want to save some cash and have a quite, safe and enjoyable new year’s eve celebration – just like the last few years – with either friends or family and sit on the 1st of January to set some doable goals for 2013. I’m not gonna discuss them here ofcourse but I already have 3 to 4 set up. I want a quite, uneventful remaining 2 months (other than hoping that a big money making project, which has been in the pipeline, finally comes to fruition for the office) but other than that I just want more of the same or with some improvements.

So can I say that unless the end of the world event as predicted by Mayan conspiracy theorists actually come true and in 47 days the world as we know it comes to an end (what does that actually mean? The earth will be destroyed or the universe as well) then goals will be set post midnight January 1st, 2013.