And Stanley is a leftie!

How can a story be THIS beautiful, and be heart-warming and

heart-breaking all at the same time?

Oh Stanley and your elusive dabba. You had me, my soul, my all, from the opening credits itself. (Yes adorable mini cartoon, I'm talkin' abt you!)

Stanley ka dabba is one of those rare, Rare, Very rare movies where you get to see the child being-well, a child. I'd grown tired of all those hundreds of movies out there where kids behave prissy, with aggravating know-it-all teen sass. *Points accusing finger especially at the kid in Cheeni Kam who wanted to watch porn {granted she was terminal, but what's with the double-entendre laced inappropriate crushing on your sixty-plus neighbour? Weeeeeeeeird and uncomfortable.} and her ilk.
 On the other hand, the nicer ones include the friends in Paa, Taare Zameen Par and company. But yeah, TZP is practically an Amole Gupte product, so the normal children characters are expected.So, Stanley and his friends are such good hearted darlings like kids normally are, that it's a pure delight just to watch them interact on-screen.

Ooh, and for once, we get to see a deep-rooted stereotype squished. About time too. The rich, fat boy is actually nice and the kind who shares his tiffin!

And coming to the titular tiffin.. There's actually a parallel to Stanley's absent tiffin. Stanley meanie Hindi teacher, of the voracious apetite, Verma sir (Amole Gupte) who doesn't seem to have a tiffin either and shamelessly digs into everyone else's tiffins- students and teachers alike. Thumbs up for such a believable performance Amole Gupte! More so for the utter lack of vanity with which he essays the role. You'll totally want to pull out his hair out cos that's how believable he makes the character.

  

Coming to one of my personal favorite moments in the movie. Every frame of it is a personal favorite for me, but this one's all the more dear cos:
 How not to love the fact that Stanley is a leftie, with all the mundane leftie problems lefties face every day of our lives. Your left elbow constantly hitting your right handed neighbour's elbow just one of the many problems you face in a right-dominated, right-biased world. I'm so familiar with that happening like ALL the time at school. But what's more personal is how effectively the director captures each teacher's reaction to this problem. Must, must, MUST gush about how much I love him for including this detail into the story. So trivial,
and yet so true!
 My sister and myself have this fetish for finding out lefties among celebs. So when we do find one eventually, it's always a thrill and squee when you note a compatriot. "omg, i didn't realize he/she's one of us!!"

To say more would be to kill the fun for ya. But I must say, the first time around I sniffed like a little girl by the end of the movie. The second time round? I bawled my eyes out. Apart from the explicit storyline, Stanely ka Dabba mainly is concerning a universal problem. But i'd be a spoilsport if I were to spill more beans. Considering how this is the core of this heavenly fare.

Alright, happy movie watching everyone. Love you Stanley and all Stanley-friends!

About The Gods of Headbangs

The DownTroddence/ The Adiyalans

The six piece metal band's current line-up boasts of some of the finest talent in metal hereabouts. No kidding.
They have won headbangs everytime they do a gig,without fail. Plus the accolades, cheers, critical praise- the popularity rising, and the prizes that keep pouring in, everytime. Every f***king time. See? I tolja, their rhythm make me use expletives in the best ways possible.
Last I know, they won 'Amplified' at the NIT-C(alicut) annual fest Raaga, beating every other competitor from across the country.
So if you find yourself screaming hoarse for their signed albums one day in the (hopefully) recent future, remember that you heard of them from me. *smug
Or you probably know them perfectly already.

(damn i'm slow. Was planning to do this post exactly one year back, can't believed it stayed a draft for so long)


Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to go to any gig of theirs. Wish as I might, it won’t happen. Gah, who heard of petite, headscarf wearing girls at metal concerts?? Not that I care, but I don’t have anyone close-by for company anyway.

So how would you like this post to actually start off? Intro on the kings or their music? I self-voted and decided to introduce their music first to the uninitiated:


THE METAL THEY CREATED
 
Death Vanity- the first single. I'll change my name, my ways, my whole life if you can NOT headbang to this one. Seriously, from the first strings itself the song takes a hold onto you with a death grip and makes sure you have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. It's so sophisticated, polished and perfect, you wouldn't guess it's Downtroddence's very first creation. Their perfect first child.

Then there's Vengeance, their cover of a band called Evergreen. Though I'm addicted to Death Vanity, can't say the same for Vengeance. But I'm not an authority on metal, so you should decide how amazing this song is for yourself.

 Who can forget Hell within hell?

And there is Shiva(!!!!!)- awesomely head-bang-y. And THE BIG NEWS IS THAT, IT'S OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO IS OUT ON YOUTUBE. Released this 14th of May, 2011. Hells yeah!

Another work of theirs that I really, truly, deeply love is known by the very attention-grabbing name Ortniavis which had me going all, what the...? But really the meaning in within the name itself. This song has quite the back story going for it, but that would be for the next post.
Anyways, talking about this track, Ortniavis is different from their other works in that, it is not hard core metal, and more of an experimental thingamagus. (Wot? That word's in the dictionary. Which one? My own.) Gorgeous and appealing to the senses. Period.

Guess I have your attention now! The next post is more of an interview-metamorphed into a blog post about the evil metal geniuses who are behind The Downtroddence. The concerts they have done, the stories behind their works and all that jazz.
Oops.
All that metal.
=D






Their Facebook official page
Their YouTube official channel 

Gettin high

The more the ecstatic people, the more the creeped-out factor

Reason # 1 why I'm blogging now
Lol. Looks like the blog's still being pissy about the forced starvation part. Well, it had piss anyone off if they were put off fodder too. So here I am trying to fend off dissertation deadlines and the impending exam season by blogging. Or trying to blog.

Reason # 2 why I'm blogging
But why am I actually blogging now? Things really nice and heart warmingly sweet have been happening to me. Mostly so since I don't usually feel like there's any reason people not in direct proximity of me would remember me with love. Not that I'm a nightmare to be around or anything remotely that kind. But still. Everytime someone mentions me with love, I go all; me? You're actually talking about me? You happen to like me a lot?- and that happy mentioning of me by a friend/ good friend/ girlfriend is enough to place me on cloud # 10 in a helium filled state for a looooong time. And recently, a couple of friends; friends whose opinions reaaaaalllly, reaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllyyyyyyyy matter to my happiness and overall peace even have been saying such good things about me [not in my face, mind you. I never take in-my-face compliments seriously even when they are sincerely made] and helping me even if it tires them, that I'm the happiest girl in the world for now,
Yay! Keep me this way please! And thank you dearest Lord for all the unexpected love showers I'm receiving.

Reason # 3 why I'm blogging
And on the other hand, I have recently noticed that I have become a sort of Addiction Initiator-SLASH-Addiction Catalyser-SLASH-Addiction Facilitator for quite a lot of classmates. Lol. It all began with this semester, which is our last, and so, fateful semester as regards our future. Yet, as we have become such experts in procrastination, everyone just slouches all over the place and day dreams until the tests and then do one-night-stands with notes. Thanks to lack of faculty, things have pretty much boiled down to self-teaching.

So as i was blathering, we slouched a lot for the last few months. Everyone has their own way of killing time. Mine was playing "QuadraPop" on buddy Gilsha's SonyEricsson. And boy was I addicted to that game. I had play it for hours on end, even killing all the phone battery at some instances. Then another friend asked for my Nokia and got hooked to "Bounce" for time killing purposes. And before I knew it, things came to the scenario where practically everyone was playing games on everyone else's phone. I had step in the classroom and get asked for my phone before even getting a Good Morning. Oh well!
Life moves on and everyone kind of was de-addicted to phone games. Not all though. I'm still stuck with QuadraPop.
Anyway, THAT was when i started playing Mahjjong on our Ubuntu system. And behold! Sue and Gi get addicted as well!

And here comes the mother of all addictions I spurred-that beats all the other addictions i ever brought:
Korean dramas.

For the last three semesters that we were in post graduation together, my classmates all just scoffed at this weird love i had. Then this semester, I gave the last drama I watched to Bhavya who wanted to know what the noise I made was all about, and,
BEHOLD!
Bhavya is the first one to fall And she fell so damned hard that even I'm surprised and the impact it has left on her. Now she even beats me in talking non-stop about the dramas, the actors, the celeb gossips even. I drew a lot of flak from friends for this. Lots of annoyed curses even. Heh. And funniest thing? I didn't even have to bother to deflect them. Bhavya did all that PR talk for me and even did story telling for the rest. Just.Plain.Awesome.
So I decided to take it a step further and when we girls were all together, Bhavya and yours truly kinda kidnapped and hijacked everyone for full measure, and did a speshul private screening of the first few awesome episodes of that awesome drama. Wadduyuknow? Quite a lot of people fell hard for the drama. And everyone wants a bit of the Korean magic now.

And the ones who didn't fall for the magic?
They are still iffy and giving me baleful stares straight from their closed hearts. I don't mind at all. I have completely converted Bhavya into a full-on faithful ally to the point where-
she and I re-enact our favorite parts with Korean dialogues to boot and
squeal in utter joy when our actor crush breaks up with his girlfriend,
and together we have gotten more addicted.

Life's gooooooooooooooooooood!

The constant push-and-pull I engage you in..

So things have come to a point where every heart-to-heart I try to have with Blog boils down to the Awkward category. This one was no different..

Blog [who's in an aggravated mood thanks to my frequent absence]: Oh lookie lookie, who's come along now after ignoring me blatantly all this month and more?
Me [feeling ashamed]: Yeah love, you have every right to feel that way. Punish me as much as you want, but please don't leave me!
Blog [not as yet in a forgiving mood]: Why the hell are you back though? Exam season approacheth i bet!
Me[feeling cornered and caught]: Riiiiiiiiight. What else but deadlines could bring me running back into your arms these horrid days?
Blog [depressed,yet happy to have me back]: Dayum. You could've at least tried to sound romantic about the running back into my arms/wings/side bars part.

*

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