Life in Feb 3 - Mar 30 2014

If January 2014 was the month when i was at Bangalore for one whole month, Feb and March decided to settle my travel accounts. Although every period brings in a different set of activities, this period saw something much more diverse than what is the norm. Here are big updates -


Travel:
~ Two day trip to Auroville and Pondicherry.  Travel report

~ Office trip to Bentonville for two weeks. Return via Atlanta and NY.

~ Two day trip to Little Rock.

~ Two day trip to Abu Dhabi.

Reports for last three travels to be written soon.

Books:
- 10 Judgements that changed India by Zia Mody. Review
- Cuckold by Kiran Nagarkar. Review

Movies:
A lot of movies were seen while in flight from India-US and back.
Frozen (3/5) - Decent animation.
Inside Llewyn Davis (3/5). Confession: I do not understand how this won the Grand Prix at Cannes. It is interesting, nice and decent to watch but not outstanding IMHO.
Thor 2 (2/5) - Avoid it.
All is Lost (4/5) -  Very nice. Loved the no dialogue, no monologue. Robert Redford is amazing.
12 years a slave(3.5/5) -  Good film.  Difficult subject yet still watchable.
Two Lives (Zwei Liben) (3/5) - Taut thriller with great performance.
Die Hard 2. (3.5/5). Fundoo masala film. Has all the elements of a good action movie. Still mindless but worth it.



TV Series:
The Wire. Cult
Agents of Shield: Watched 10 or so episodes. Pathetically bad.
Person Of Interest, Season 3. Excellent.



~ Attended Concert by Soweto Gospel Choir, a South African group, at Bentonville. Loved the band. So much energy. Must Listen. Must attend.  http://www.sowetogospelchoir.com/

~ Attended Cirque Ziva performance at Walton Arts Center.  Decent but not that great either.

~Finalized buying ND HSR apartment without paying a single Rupee in bribe. Very proud of this :)

~ Vaswani Tulip is in the pipeline.

~Moved to HSR. Got painting, plumber, carpenter, electrician and internet work done, all in a week's time.

~D2D campaign for Nina Nayak, AAP candidate for Bangalore South. Good experience. Met a diverse range of people.

~Went for my first protest (shall we say Dharna :) ) . Protested against the upcoming SEZ next to Agara lake. Slogans, banners, enthu people all for a cause that is shared by everyone. Again a good experience.

~ Tried Ebony Restaurant on MG Road with Parul and Nandini. Decent food, good ambience.

~ Went to NY Moma and spent 4 hrs there. Saw Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night in person. Surreal.  Also attended a tour which explained Picasso's cubism. Very enlightening.

~ Started RH summer season. Signed up for TCS 10K.