Proust Questionnaire

Any way i was reading this interview of Kamal Hassan in the papers and i noticed that the heading said ‘Proust questionnaire’.A quick search on wiki revealed that Marcel Proust was a French writer who answered a series of questions that are intended to reveal your character and is used commonly as a form of interview. I looked it up and though some of the questions seemed absurd and bordered on the trivial it seemed worthwile to answer them myself.If you plan to take the questionnaire yourself I should warn you to not take a look at Proust's own elegant answers first as they tend to influence your own.I'll get to it then...

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

To not be able to live in the present,to worry too much about what you've done and what you must do.

Where would you like to live?

Wherever feels like home.Is that still a cliche?

What is your idea of earthly happiness?

Being around people who enjoy the same things you do, who are very similar to you but at the same time people from whom you stand to learn so much more.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

Amusing ones.

Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

Howard Roark for being the man i can possibly never be,for knowing exactly what he wants and standing by his ideals no matter what.

Who are your favorite characters in history?

Ashoka-for symbolizing everything my country should be about

Gandhi-for being an astute politician

Lincoln-for being the charismatic leader that he was,for being way ahead of his time in thought and action.

Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

All single mothers.

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

Not many names come to mind but Scout from 'To kill a mockingbird' was particularly endearing.

Your favorite painter?

Ravi varma

Your favorite musician?

It changes constantly but Hans Zimmer and Zeppelin are my all time favourites.

The quality you most admire in a man?

Loyalty, courage, zeal.

The quality you most admire in a woman?

Tenderness,someone with a sense of calm and soft beauty.Well read and intellectually stimulating would be a bonus.

Your favorite virtue?

Intelligence.

Your favorite occupation?

Watching a really good movie on a holiday with no one to bother me.

Who would you have liked to be?

No one but myself of course because lets face it,i'm awesome.

What do you most value in your friends?

Frankness,loyalty,their tolerance for silence when they’re with me.

What is your principle defect?

Procrastination

What is your favorite color?

Black

What is your favorite flower?

Jasmine

What is your favorite bird?

The Eagle.

Who are your favorite prose writers?

Ayn rand, J.K.Rowling,Harper Lee.

Who are your favorite poets?

I haven't read enought to make an informed decision but i always thought keats was pretty good.

What are your favorite names?

Logan,Albus

What is it you most dislike?

Arrogance,Pretentiousness,the false sense of superiority I see in some people.

What historical figures do you most despise?

General Dyer

What event in military history do you most admire?

India-Pak war of 1971.

What natural gift would you most like to possess?

To think of good retorts during an argument and not after i've lost it miserably.

How would you like to die?

Happy and content might be too much to ask for so,quickly would be fine.

What is your present state of mind?

Lazy and disorganized.

What is your motto?

Failure is acceptable but not regrets.

Avant garde art

When the oscar nominees were announced recently my eyes immediately and quite by reflex devoured the entire list and  stopped at the best director's list for a closer scrutiny.

Something seemed wrong.it was not a list any person in his right mind would make at all.

A best directors list with no place for nolan is like cricket in India without Tendulkar or ‘House’

without Hugh Laurie (or something like that).

Frodo seemed to think it was a good idea to write about it anyway,So i sat down in front of the pc,leaned back and set my music player to play the incredible soundtrack of inception on loop,(you know, just to set the mood).

Talking about inception-well, when i left the theater after watching the film,i knew i had seen something unreal,something truly pathbreaking.I’ve watched a lot of movies  and i can tell you,i haven't felt that way after a film my whole life.We have been making motion pictures now for like atleast a 100 years and it felt like all those years of film making,all the great films of its times right through Hitchcock, Fellini, Bergman,Coppola, Kubrick, Spielberg,The Wachowski brothers, all those years of triumphant filmmaking had culminated in one scintillating spectacle-Inception.

From the incredible mind of Christopher Nolan,the man who makes it a point to introduce novelty in every one of his movies ,the man who has reminded us to bring our brains along when watching a movie,for him this movie was no different yet somehow this one stands out from the rest.

Yet the panel chose to honour David Fincher for a film that has its claims to merit but is not even close to being in the same league as Inception.From Fincher’s point of view this is a recognition long overdue since he was denied the award twice for Se7en and Fightclub with the latter going on to garner cult status after its release and fetching Chuck Palahniuk from whose book the movie was adapted immediate world wide acclaim.

The fighter (which is a mediocre film at best) is a surprise entry too.The film is just another boxing movie and not a watchable one at that either with Christian Bale looking like an exhumed corpse in what is widely considered the highpoint of his career.And lets face it ,True Grit (the other movie chosen ahead of Inception) isn’t a movie for the ages and I can tell you that by just looking at the basic plotline..

Its almost as if Nolan was deliberately overlooked,Perhaps the oscar panel has a fetish for insulting great films and genuinely awesome movie makers. Maybe they just take themselves a little too seriously,maybe they see some sort of pretentious greatness in choosing crappy films over brilliant ones.Nolan has truly outdone himself in this insanely brilliant modern-day classic..To quote imdb

“In a decade ‘incepion’ may be a religion” and I couldn’t agree more.

For the record

When i finally decided to take the plunge and start a blog i was apprehensive as to how it would turn out.My primary concern was the kind of material i would put up on my blog.I sure as hell did not want to bore people with platitudes and everyday banalities.As an attempt at keeping that promise i'm going to get the cliches over with in my first post itself.First thing you should know about me is that  i am an avid reader and that i watch movies like a maniac (yes i do spend a lot of time on imdb looking for movies i haven’t seen)and fitness is a new found inspiration.

I can listen to someone for aeons before they realize i'm not paying attention and honestly quite a few people elicit the same reaction from me.I am bored and annoyed by the stuff that most people put up with .Let me clarify,

i really don't see any point in exchanging pleasantries just for the sake of not being thought of as socially retarded and if you see me exhibiting a sense of enlightened detachment when i'm supposed to be listening to you, that's your cue to quit talking.
The fact that i'm stuck studying a corpse of a syllabus in a not so reputed institution doesn't help either.There is hardly any room for stimulating bits of conversation.I'm not complaining though since i do have quite a few good mates that make the misery slightly less apparent.

Looking through this entry i know some of it sounds contradictory and i realise i havent thought this particular entry through at all.This is just something i quickly jotted down because i don't like to see my blog empty which would defeat the purpose of having one in the first place.I will write often but i probably won't post all of them.Infact chances are that i''ll average around a dozen a year,give or take.If the math is right there's going to be quite a hiatus between posts,quite unlike your average blogger.Adios for now then.