Coconut Cruncher

17th July 2018 What motivates us? To answer the first, it's easy to think of the generic statements: Art, culture, other artists, music, people, life experiences, nature etc. But honestly, it seems like a real task to stay motivated. To stay focused. To achieve 'flow' i.e: being in the zone. Today I felt a slight tingling warmth, a small burst of excitement. I couldn't point out to what it was, but I felt a vague sense of motivation.       I haven't done anything differently today. Why was I feeling motivated? Last night I watched Anurag Kashyap and Kalki's interview on TapeCast. He mentioned how he has stopped evaluating himself and comparing himself to other film makers. Whether he's great, or mediocre; instead he is focusing on just doing. Expressing, creating, failing and succeeding. It's not something I haven't heard before - me and Polo discussed the other day how it's the age of doers and not thinkers . Everyone has ideas today, bu...

21st July 2013   I had saved Steve Levitan’s writeup here as a word file on my desktop. I’m a seriously moody reader, but today I finally read it, and I felt that it was so awesome to read such fresh juicy stuff! Modern Family is one of my favourite sitcoms, and I had to give it a shot. At the bottom there was a link and t led to this page, so I ended up reading quite a few ‘Why we write’ and I decided ‘Hey, I can do this too. If anyone would give me a read!’  The earliest I remember (there must’ve been earlier instances) being was introduced to writing was in 7 th grade. We had to write comprehensions that we were graded on in English literature. I was decent with grammar, but I was terrible at writing. Atleast that’s what I thought and what my marks told me. They focused too much on spellings and length too, which turned me off from writing whole-heartedly. For obvious reasons, it never occurred to me that I could ever write professionally. Art, on the ot...

28th June 2013 So I've had a terrible 3 days here. I realised my Sc. 5 was accidentally missing from my Film Folder, and when it hit me that my last backup was a March backup that had 2 months of work done after that, I was feeling absolutely broken-hearted. I didn't know if it was worth continuing this film. I was drowning in sorrow at the thought of having to do all that work again. I googled it, got a few recovery softwares that mostly hung and some showed some files I wasn't looking for. I called a good friend who suggested two good data-recovery softwares. 'Wondershare', the best one I'd tried took 12 hours to scan my PC for all the files that were deleted from my Recycle bin. It didn't have it. At 3 am I decided to give up. It was gone. I tried to get over it and move on as quickly as possible. I could not afford to give up now. It would be like dropping out of college in your final year. I was on the verge of finishing the film, and would probabl...

12th June 2013 Sooo, I have been travelling a LOT. One gets pretty tired of sitting at home and procrastinating work once one graduates. Life is very uncertain after graduation, and there's avoid you have to fill or you get depressed quickly. I was dying to go to Leh Ladakh, Kashmir for a very long time. Finally my family and I decided to go north where it's a climate we're not familiar with (being Goans and living in the South with the heat and rain and humidity). It was an adventure. It was not what I expected, which made it an adventure all the more.  Besides having motion sickness and severe migrains thanks to the low Oxygen levels there, I got to enjoy the most gorgeous senery and be with nature. It was wonderful. After we got back to Delhi, I left my parents and went on a trip to Ramgarh, Uttarakhand where my friend Prachi recently built a house. That trip was just what I needed. After Leh these mountains were nothing. Ramgarh is a place in the...

12th April 2013 Left for Margao for some work. Had a hard time talking to an annoying relative. Debated over muslims in India causing riots and the Babri masjid case. Read GoT (Game of Thrones) Went to a clothing exhibition and bought some pretty Gujju fabrics. Had a meaty dinner and played cards with my younger bros. Reached home and tried to download GoT S03E02 for the 5th time. -_- Not as eventful as I'd hope, but its alright. Tomorrow - in desperate need of a speedpainting.

10th April 2013 Today was a little more productive than yesterday. I managed to get a few things off the list. I woke up at 10:50. Just before 11. Gotta push it earlier. Got a few chores done, breakfast, did some graphics for my friend Aakash's photography event, and went for an evening walk with my parents. Here's the stuff I did. >> So, overall it was better than yesterday, and I hope tomorrow will be better. I'm still feeling bad that I didn't do a speedpainting today, but maybe tomorrow if any time is left after returning from my cousin's place. This was a boring post. More tomorrow. tata!

9th April 2013 Major update!! I am now a GRADUATE!!! :D :D Since that day, my life's not been pretty. But I'm glad it's over. I'm already missing college terribly, and I thought that day would never come, but it did. Now I am home, relaxing, and trying to enjoy a much deserved break. Today I decided to turn my life around at home. I don't want these vacations to be useless and lazy, but they are proving more and more to be so. So, after reading my dear friend Krithika's wonderful letter about how she's turning things around in MIT, I decided to set some goals for myself too. Coming back home has not been easy. I feel lethargic and heavy and I have only been eating and sleeping and watching TV. I feel lonely because throughtout the week my only friend who's available (Aakash) has college on weekdays and my parents are practically never home. I miss college so much. I miss being busy already, even though I had asked nature to give me a huge br...

Posting a letter I wrote to Krithika about today. It was almost like a page out of my diary so I'd like to remember this.  Hey eggs, I was having a hard time these few days getting myself to work. But really, I need to stop giving excuses and just get my ass moving, because enough is enough. Today when I thought I was getting somewhere (I took time, but I made a nice painting for Atnovus), Alok gave me a huge talk because I was leaving early from college to sleep. I have been treating this like a vacation and I really need to stop it.  I really really needed that scolding Alok gave me. For the amount of bitching we do about this college, we need to make up for in character and will power and the drive to give time and effort to my film. Like we did gestures in Sem 4, 5. Even when we were full after dinner, we'd slog and push ourselves to do gestures EVERYDAY. I really feel terrible and guilty and very very disappointed with myself, but I won't let this day go with...

Today is a brand new day. I never usually feel like that, considering my erratic sleep timings these days and a sincere lack of motivation. However after a good night's rest and a little reading and writing, I am ready to put in my 100% today. I started with a fresh cup of sweet chai and filled my water bottles so I don't feel drained. I feel like it's a bright day with possibilities of some good shots. I just hope I can use it well. I'm glad I didn't decide to go out to buy my cycle today, I would've wasted a lot of time. The movie's bringing on a lot of pressure, and sometimes a lot of apathy towards the subject. I have 5 days to go for the end of the month and I promise to this blog that I will really really try my best to finish a trememdous amount of animation. Let's see how this goes. I will keep updating this post. Here's my dedication to this post. 2 lame pictures taken from my lame laptop camera. Something went wrong here. Hmm.

26th April 2012 It's interesting how a simple change in the color of the layout in TV can change your attitude towards animation. It started making my frames look better! Here is the old one VS the changed one. I know, right? Anyway, the animation's finally kicked off! Atleast I've done something I'm proud of today. We went together to speak to Shyamu (our HOD) about getting our deadlines extended. Somehow came to settlement to finish atleast one shot complete with the inking, color, bg and sound. Phew. Will also get a briefing on our colloquium paper on Monday. That's kinda a thesis paper. Besides that on the Animation side, we're all going for 'The Avengers' tomorrow! Can't wait. We were so eager we pre-booked the tickets online and got top row seats! It better be good. The last one I saw was Thor, and I was horribly dissappointed with that. That's all for tonight.

10th April 2012 Wow, I'm speechless. Another brilliant Hitchcock film and it stood up to all I'd heard about it. I love the good old classic cinema. Besides the absolutely brilliant staging, lighting, color or black and white, there is a ton more to learn from it. I feel like pausing it and soaking everything in. It's becoming harder to watch good films for the story now. Animation makes you so sensitive to framing, continuity, lighting, acting, and all the other 1000 technical aspects of a film. Coming back to Psycho - the story was absolutely gripping. I was at the edge of my chair at all times. There's this thing I noticed Hitchcock does in all his films - he fools you into believing that something is very important (in Psycho, let's say the money she steals in the beginning), and then he just makes you realise that that wasn't important at all! (the money gets drowned in the swamp with her body). He seems to do this a lot in all his movies - he ...

I see people and their photos of things and experiences of their life. They are living, they are happy. You know how you get a cold, and then fever, and it hurts, and you realize how wonderful it feels to be well? Like you just ignored it all this time, when you were just fine, physically and mentally. And when you recover you feel wholesome, you appreciate being.. 'well'. It's that phase in my life that's less than perfect. Perfect is never perfect. Perfect is when you're happy, even though things - didn't really turn out the way you wanted them to. Even though you don't have what you really wanted, but you're okay. You've nothing to worry about. Nothing to face. Someone to talk to. And things are ordinary, but you're goin' on. That's perfect, and if we realize that perfection, we are grateful, and hence - happy. We are happy with what we have, because we are not facing anything difficult. We haven't lost anything, or anyone, and lif...