Wow, whatte, how do you do!

Even by the standards of my weeks, this one was a very sober, dull, un-happening, and ill week.

  • Watched three movies this week.

    • Luck By Chance - I think I watched it for the first time years back when it actually came out, but I had also forgotten a lot of it. Zoya’s best film to date (yes, I watched Gully Boy too). Somehow, the best thing about the film was it being able to let out truths from the mouths of people who ironically might have been the ones inflicting it. The performances aren’t anything great to speak of, but everyone is cast very well. All in all, a film that holds up well.

    • Gully Boy - Kya bolreli publicc! Mast picture banayelay re bantai, apun bahut maja kiya. Pan apun ko rapper pashalog ke life ka jyada malum nahi pada. Ae Joya, mashkari kaiko kiya re bantai! Dikhane ka na apun ka life rockstar mafiq. A more serious review can be found here.

    • The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) - Lovely framing of conversations, with complementing cinematography! Didn’t know Adam Sandler could act. The ending felt a bit drawn out and maybe puzzled up, but other than that a very well made example of what makes cinema different from so many other media. Kudos to Noah Baumbach - hope to see more of his movies soon.

  • Didn’t get a chance to read much this week either. Read a couple of Ankita’s stories. I think I should try changing gears to some non-fiction.

  • No workouts this week. I mean what the hell. Yeah, okay, I was sick some days, but ek din toh karna chahiye tha. Will surely go work out tomorrow (?).

  • At work, a lot of time was spent this week in discussing with different people about what they had worked on the past, so that I could ascertain what I want to do in the future. Also gave a journal club talk on the paper by Sennett (I had mentioned those in my previous posts), and I think it went okay. I kinda felt we got stuck on useless points during the discussion, but okay.

    A colleague introduced me to this GR1D code developed by Evan O’Connor and Christian Ott (when both of them were at Caltech), and how Davide Gerosa and others used it to study spherically symmetric collapse. Hope to read that paper in the coming week, seems interesting.

  • We rehearsed for only two weekdays for the play, but we had long rehearsal sessions on the weekend. I think we did cover some ground. Next week is gonna be hectic, with 2 hour rehearsals every weekday, and possibly 4-5 hours on the weekend. If you’re interested in a summary of the play, here’s a blurb!

What does it mean to do scientific research ? Is it just magical colour reactions and captivating moments of discovery, or is this a small part of a bigger truth ? StageCraft’s latest original production ‘Chapters’ tries to portray the journey of a young scientist in training, en route to achieve a PhD, the highest academic degree. Using dynamic sets, rhythm, music and movement, we depict the trials of a PhD student in science and life, and where both come together. Will it be an uphill climb of strife, or will it be a merry go round of smiles? ‘Chapters’ lays out these common yet rarely known truths beyond the walled confines where a scientist thrives.

  • Oh, yeah, I had a great Valentine’s Day too, in case you were wondering. In the morning that day, I stamped on shit. In the evening I got sick, and had a cold and cough. I think that sums up my life.

Hoping I’ll have better things to say next week! Appol pinne :)