Weekend in photos

The weekend has been long and fantastic so I'll try and let the photos do all the talking for the most part. And to get things started here are a few arty pics I took over the weekend time frame with the theme being 'RED'





FRIDAY NIGHT:
Lippizanears play Jazz Music @ Wine Cellar Backroom. Underground music scene with the musicians improvising the pieces in front of a live audience. Fantastic music and a very unique experience. Also got to catch up with Tahi {one of the actors from 'FIVE'} as well as Andrew {one of the composers on 'FIVE'}.

To the Wine Cellar

Improvised music gig

Symphony of sound captivating the audience

SATURDAY MORNING:
I had to cancel this weekend's shoot and the workshop because of continuity issues with the talent. It looks like the next window of opportunity to shoot that scene will be somewhere late in December and if not in February. Canceled shoot meant I could attend the Grey Lynn Festival. Awesome food stalls and I tried atleast 6 different kinds of cuisines. I wanted to try more but my tummy was full. Some awesome drum pieces from different bands and some unique stalls where you could pick up some cool stuff. It wasn't cheap though and I managed to pick up 2 very small items that I needed for my room for $2 each.

Kids gravitating towards the drums

An artist making a sculpture

Hungarian Candy

People just chilling

Food stalls

A drumming band captivate the audience

Knights and kids

Group drumming

People checking out the stalls

Walking

Hula Hoops

Craft stalls

The main stage and the people

SATURDAY EVENING:
Boxing class as usual which also turned out to be one of the toughest classes in a long time. After the boxing class - the core bunch of us who have been doing it for a while went out for some drinks on Sale St. Cool venue - expensive but a good vibe and the food was awesome. Ended up coming home around 12.00 at night.

Steven, Kit and Kelly

Dennis waiting for the food to come through

Kit obviously telling something exciting to Kelly

People on the dance floor

Kelly, Sara and their friend {I can't remember his name} enjoying the amped up music

Me sharing a laugh

Dark and mysterious

Walking towards the car

SUNDAY MORNING:
The first order of the day was a catch up meeting with Kathryn - who is one of the country's top script writers and was also my colleague when we were teaching at South Seas. We hadn't caught up properly in almost a year and a bit, so it was a breakfast at The Fridge in Kingsland. The Chicken n' mushroom pie at that place is amazing. Very divine and one of the best pies I've ever had. Also bumped into Richard - one of the producers on 'Nowhere to Love' - the project that I was doing that got shelved in 2006. It was brief since he was rushing off somewhere but we intend on catching up sometime soon.

Quite morning in Kingsland

The Fridge

Sunday afternoon went into grocery shopping and doing some cooking. And earlier this evening I went and had drinks at The Malt, as Dave de Lautour - one of my friends {who was in the same acting class for a while} had come visiting Auckland briefly and was returning to LA tomorrow. It was a good catch up as I got to catch up with other friends from the acting class as well as from the film school.

All in all a fantastic weekend.

Time to catch up my beauty sleep as a 6 day week beckons.
Later,
Amit

Transition

Transition is permanent and I am caught up in it's tides.
Nothing seems permanent,
except for each moment that ticks by.
A speck of dust in this cosmos,
so insignificant and so adrift
moving away from everything
like the stars in the crying sky.

Space

A very small and quick update. I am fine. The journey was long but uneventful. I love Hong Kong airport. Watched 'The Brothers Bloom' and '500 Days of Summer' on the flight from HK to Auckland and slept for the rest of it. The girl sitting next to me was fun to talk to. It took a day for me to get over the jet lag and just getting used to the space and the order in NZ. First day at work was cool - just slipping back into the thick of things. First day at the gym was hard work and could only manage 30 minutes of cardio and I definitely need to work harder to even get back to the fitness levels before this trip.

That's me for now.
Amit

Farewell India

'Khansama' was a no go since it was a very small restaurant and we ended up going to 'Terrace Bay' in Punjagutta and it was a fantastic experience as the food was by far the best I've had in Hyderabad - that's besides mum's home cooked food. The ambience was nice and the service was impeccable. The only negative point I can think of is that even though it is called the Terrace Bay - there aren't any views to boast of - if only it was a couple of floors higher. Recommended starters Goulauti Kebab and Patiala Tangdi.

The last 2 days have been pretty weird for me - on one hand I've been mentally preparing myself for the grind as soon as I get back and on the other hand there is this sense of sadness about leaving mum and dad. I guess it is a good decision on my part to visit them every year - that's the least I can do at this point. The last couple of days disappeared into packing up and also saying farewells to everone either in person or on the phone.

In those 2 days I also managed to sneak in one more telugu movie 'Pokiri' {after abandoning 2 movies after 30 minutes or so as they were boring and nothing happened in those 30 minutes} - it was a popcorn flick and was entertaining for what it was but the problem I have with movies like that is the unrealistic expression of violence. The hero can single handedly kill 100 odd goons without breaking a sweat or spoiling his perfect hair style after a massive 10 minute fight. The other thing that struck me was that most of the female roles in bollywood movies are pretty minimal. The heroine is required to dance in a couple of songs; be able to first hate the hero and then fall in love with him without any emotional reasoning; and then should fall into distress so that the hero can come and save her. There are variations to those simple combinations but most of the movies do tend to do that - atleast all the ones I saw followed that pattern, I am generalizing and there are movies which do actually give the females an emotional arc and a better tie into the story but in general it reflects on the gender equation within the Indian society. Maybe I should try my hand at making a 'masala movie' and see how much I can enhance that equation. :-)

Today dad came down with severe cold, so only mum came to drop me off at the airport. The drive to the airport is now much quicker because of a new expressway which cuts about 20 minutes off the journey time but it is still a pain driving 30KM odd from the city to get to the airport. It was a quick drop off and I had to ask mum not to cry as otherwise I'd have cried as well. Hyderabad Airport has free 45 minutes internet access for travelers but the only hiccup was that you needed a cellphone number for them to send you login details - if you are using it for the first time. Apparently it is for security purposes but in a way it is silly because what if the international traveler doesn't have a local cellphone on which to send the login details to?

On the domestic flight I got a pleasant surprise as sridevi akka's husband was there, going to Bombay a.k.a Mumbai as well. We caught up at Mumbai airport briefly before we parted ways and I caught the free transit bus from the domestic airport to the international airport.My onwards flight to Hong Kong is not till 4.00 AM, which means I am here writing this from the waiting lounge in Mumbai Airport {no free internet access, so will be posting this once I get to Hong Kong} after finishing all the security checks and immigration requirements. My initial impression of Mumbai airport when I first arrived in India was pretty bad because of the state of the arrival lounge and all the construction going on outside but the departure section of the airport is actually quite good. Pretty flash I must say and I wasn't expecting that. I don't think i'll be able to sleep till I get onto the flight, so I'll just be drinking lots of water and doing some work.

My India trip this time has been fantastic in a very different sort of way. This is the first time in ages that I've spent so much time with my family and it felt really good even though I remained at home most of the time {instead of travelling heaps}. There were times when I was exasperated at the things around me but it was still good being in the midst of all that was happening. I got to know more about my family and also learnt a few things about myself - like i've changed a lot in the past 6 years; i was a pampered child in many ways when I was studying {i guess because I am the only child} etc. Most of all it cleared up some things in my head about things I need to improve and change within myself to become a better person.

Farewell India, for now.
Amit

Food and more movies

Hyderabad is famous for various things but in terms of eating the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is Hyderabadi Biryani. Biryani from Paradise Restaurant is supposed to be really good but I tried it last year and I was pretty disappointed as it was nothing special and this time I decided to try some from Four Seasons Restaurant {they have a branch in Kondapur} and the biryani was amazing. I'd rate it 9/10 in terms of taste, texture and value for money and definitely a must try if you are in Hyderabad. The other restaurants I've tried are Blue Fox, Blue, Ginger Court & Angeethi - and of those I'd recommend Angeethi as the food tasted nice and the ambience was nice as well. Planning on trying out Khansama later this evening and will update this post to reflect on that experience. All in all the food the Hyderabadi food is amazing but the city needs to open up it's palate a bit more to give international cuisine like japanese, thai, vietnamese, indonesian etc a chance to titilate the taste buds.

Dad arranged for a driver to drive me around yesterday, as I am now completely useless at driving anything in India because of the chaotic traffic and lack of regard for any kind of road rules. The idea was to take a few snaps at Charminar and Hussain Sagar Lake before finishing off the rest of my shopping. I finally managed to take a few snaps that gives some inkling about life in Hyderabad. It was a saturday morning, so it's not crowded much which explains the empty space in the photos. Incidentally - this is the only city where I can use all the 3 languages I know while conversing with anyone and I do like that.

Sleeping under the tree

Fruit vendors setting up shop

A foreign documentary crew interviewing some cops

Street Vendors

Charminar

Lazy Saturday morning

Horses and Bikes

Traditional rural dress - Dhoti-Kurta

Fishing in the polluted stream

Afternoon nap

Traversing the streets

It's metal alright!!

Taking a break

Push cart in the midst of heavy traffic

Hussain Sagar Lake

Connecting the world

Waiting for nothing

Since mum and dad's old DVD player wouldn't play a bunch of DVDs i decided to shop around for a new one and at the electronics store I was switching between all the 3 languages without realizing it since the salesman was doing the same. After purchasing the DVD, I went ahead and purchased a bunch of DVDs so that the DVD player wasn't sitting there in the house just as a show piece. Once I got home I ripped into a bunch of movies. The best of the lot was a telugu movie called 'Gammyam'.

'Gammyam' flowed naturally and it was well acted {without overacting for most part}, well edited and well directed. It was a pleasant surprise as compared to 'Ajab Prem Ki Gajab Kahani' that I watched a couple of days back at IMAX. The other movies I finished watching were 'Sarkar' and 'Shootout at Lokhandwala' - I had started watching those movies when they were screening on TV but had given up on them because of the 15 minute commercial breaks. 'Sarkar' was well shot and well acted but the editing was off because the pace was dead slow because of excessive use of looks and glances. The movie was short as it is at 2 hour run length but if it was paced right it would've been 1.5 hours only. 'Shootout at Lokhandwala' was again well shot but it was an action flick and the shoot out does get pretty mind numbing after a while. Another movie I watched was 'Welcome' - it was a comedy and half the movie was funny and good while the other half just dragged on and on and on. It's almost like the script writers spent most of the time writing the first half of the movie and just mashed together the ending to complete the script.

A thing which throws me off in all Bollywood movies is the dubbed audio. The film makers don't use synch sound while making a movie for obvious reasons - India is too noisy and there is no way that they can get clean sound without a massive production budget. The only movie I know in most recent times that used synch sound is 'Lagaan' and they had budget over runs because of that decision. I am dreading doing ADR for just one of the scenes in 'The Moments In Between' because it is so tedious and hard to capture the same essence and inflictions and meaning to the words recorded in ADR, even though the words are the same as those on location. So I do admire the fact that all the movies here are dubbed over from start to end and for most part the performers and the directors and the sound editors pull off this impossible task with remarkable results. It does get distracting when the words don't match the lip movement and that's something that can't be avoided when dubbing over dialogue and that's the price that bollywood movies pay for having crisp audio.

Anyway, that's me for now.
Later,
Amit

Movie this and movie that

The past few days have been pretty chilled out. No shopping or outing or anything of that sort - just family time, which also means no photographs. Sridevi akka and me did go to a meeting with a producer from one of the top Telugu movie production houses and it was an interesting meeting.The crux of the meeting was that Telugu cinema is not ready for new stories and only big movies with big name stars sell - even if the story is the same old; and that there is no space for new directors. Hindi cinema has opened up a little and they are more open to new film directors and new stories as they can recoup the costs from screening at multiplexes. Either way forming contacts here would take ages - 6 months and upwards and if you add on the time for getting a movie off the ground it can be anywhere upwards of 2 years before you can even roll the cameras on set. So not an encouraging sign and will have to start thinking on how to raise money from the market here.

We went to see a bollywood movie yesterday evening and the first thing that came to mind was that IMAX was ripping us off in NZ. It costs about NZ$6 to buy an IMAX ticket here while it costs about 3 times that amount in Auckland. And the thing it is no different than the one in Auckland, right down to the seating. Unbelievable isn't it? The movie that we saw was a new release and it was pretty average - all style, not much substance - a masala 'fillum' to the core. I'm definitely not used to the song and dance sequences in movies anymore as they annoy me most of the time they come on as it breaks the flow of the story. If only they moved the story forward or kept the pace going it wouldn't be so big of an issue for me. After watching a couple of hindi movies my impression is that technically they are well made but it is the story and the pacing that they flounder on. In terms of cinematography - most of the movies tend to be shot simply with composed/locked off frames rather than moving image for the most part. It definitely speeds up the shooting rate and probably keeps the costs down. The only place where they go nuts with the camera movement is in the song and dance sequences - to add a dynamic to it obviously.

A noticeable difference in the way movies are now being marketed and sold in India is that the local market is now borrowing heavily from Hollywood style of opening a movie wide and recouping most of the costs within the first 2 weeks. And this is largely due to the fact that Hollywood studios are putting money into Bollywood since the market is huge and they are trying to get a toe hold in the world's largest film producing country. Even 10 years back you would see movie posters boasting that that the movie had completed 100 days or 150 days or 200 days at the cinemas - but not anymore. Now a movie that completes 100 days is a legend. Most of the movies come and go within 3-4 weeks and if it runs beyond that it means that it is super hit. Strange how foreign money has influenced and changed the way indian film industry markets and sells their movies - even though there is not much difference in the product itself.

Reading local newspapers is always interesting. In New Zealand I'd be annoyed that world news wouldn't get as much coverage in print or television and the focus would just be on NZ news but on this trip I realized that it holds true for all countries - the focus is always their own news with foreign news being touched on as an afterthought almost. The only true global TV Channels that I've seen are BBC and CNN as their range of news is worldwide. Reading some of the recent news articles here is worrying to say the least. There are articles like people committing suicide because they are unable to cope with the massive pressure exerted by the system for them to perform according to the system's expectation of them; or that of some farmers using Pepsi mixed with fertilizer to grow a bumper crop at a lower cost as the cost of pesticides is high; or the percieved threat India faces from China in several areas of trade as well as national security; or the increasing internal security threats in the form of naxalites and maoists. It's like the society is reaching a crucial point in time where a major change is bound to happen.

Your best laid plans disappear without a trace in India. I had planned on learning how to cook atleast 4-5 dishes and I had also planned on going to the gym to keep my fitness levels up and also to keep a regulated diet so as not to put on weight. Well the net result of those plans is zilch, nada, nothing. Maybe next time I'll bend the mystical forces at play in India to my will.

It's the last couple of days on this trip with my parents and I'm feeling sad as I feel helpless and useless in doing anything to help solve their worries and their pains. The only thing I can do is take that pain with me to keep reminding myself not to waste the sacrifices they've made ,despite my faults and shortcomings, to get me to the point where I am today.

Till later,
Amit

Hyderabad Again

Yellow

Team Work

A rose

Last couple of days in Vijayawada were uneventful and basically spent lazing around. There was some last minute shopping on Saturday evening for vegetables, snacks and a set of clothes. The highlight of saturday was the trip to the vegetable market. It was an experience - it was dusty, it was crowdy, it was noisy and it was stinky - a complete sensory overload. Probably not the best place to buy vegetables but they are very cheap there and I guess that's the reason everyone goes there. It has been one of my better Vijayawada trips as I didn't fall sick this time around and i'll miss the hospitality and the family time more than anything else.

A guy selling green chillies

Local Vegetable market

No one buying his vegies

Crowds doing their vegetable shopping

The train journey back was not enjoyable again even though the condition of the train was heaps better than the last one. This was because they didn't switch on the AC even though it was an AC compartment. It's very annoying and wish there was some kind of customer complaint service to address that problem. But knowing India - even if there was such a system the complaint book would either be ignored or lost or be tampered with and the problem would still remain.

I much prefer the weather in Hyderabad to Vijayawada as it isn't humid and it is actually easier to breath. Since this morning I've had a trip to a local eating joint to get some breakfast and a trip to the barbers to get my hair shortened. Breakfast is cheap - NZ$0.80 for a dosa {as compared to NZ$8 and upwards for a dosa in Auckland} and it just makes me wonder if I should get into food business back in NZ since there seems to be huge profit margins.

My hair seemed to grow faster this time around and I've had to go for a hair cut within a month as opposed to every 6-7 weeks when in NZ. The barber was again cheap with the trip costing me $2.50 for a hair cut and shave while a hair cut alone costs NZ$15 and upwards in NZ. The experience was interesting though- I've got a massive scar at the back of my head from an operation when I was a kid and my regular barber in Auckland usually takes care to cut the hair in such a way that most of the scar is covered up but here the barber just went all out and trimmed the whole lot so now my massive scar is on wholesome display. :-) And the shave - holy crap - it felt like he shaved my whole face. I am afraid I'll now turn into a werewolf or something when the hair regrows.

Most of my shopping is done and only very small things remain, so the rest of this week is going into socialzing and doing important house work.It's hard to believe that the holidays are coming to an end so soon. I'll try and take more photos in Hyderabad, where my photo tally stands at a grand total of 15.

That's me for now.
Amit