The Da Vinci Code - It could be true...

Watched The Da Vinci Code again last night. Though people the world over lambasted the movie, I liked it.

Yeah, the movie has its pits - no character development & a virtually plastic Audrey Tautou. But the screenplay is very loyal to the book (perhaps a bit too loyal, choking the characters out) and is well-paced. Ron Howard has commendably brought the history of the Grail & the multiple associated, abutting legends to life. I could feel those goosebumps again as I watched the movie unfold.

Now, here is a thought which has nagged at me ever since I read that best-seller.
Could it be true? Could there be a descendant of Jesus Christ walking among us?

I have heard a million n one folks point out the poetic licenses the book has taken with some locations & historical facts in the story. However, I think they miss the larger picture.

Look at it this way - Arguably, there could exist a secret brotherhood, a la the Priori of Sion, protecting the bloodline over the centuries. They could ostensibly have a mission of revealing the truth at what they saw as the opportune time.

That time could be now. The Da Vinci Code could be a first in a series of plots towards achieving this mission. Dan Brown could be a member of this secret clique (one of the Senechaux, or perhaps, the Grandmaster himself!!). Or he could be a pawn in a larger scheme of things. Whichever way, the wheels of history could be in motion again.

Think about it. Think about what can be & not what is. How sensational it would be - it promises to throw every aspect of human belief into throes - history, religion, world politics. It'd be an event of true apocalyptic proportions!!

I'd love to be alive when such an event if & does ever happen. Conspiracy theories rock...

Requiem for a dream...

Somebody please sing me a lullaby. Or get a bathroom singer to sing तुम तो ठेहरे परदेसी to me.

If you get Indian channels, tie me to a chair and forcibly make me watch one of those many stupid 'K' soap operas. Or call back Daddu - professor of Materials Management at IIM Lucknow - and ask him to start his drone on whatever it was that he so solemnly professed all over again.

Or thrust a Nancy Drew in to my hands. Try Paulo Coelho if Ms. Drew fails.

Get the witch of Sleeping Beauty to cast a spell on me. Ask Dreamworks to make some soothing works for my dreams.

If everything fails, stick some chloroform into my face. But someone please do something.

I wanna sleep. Desperately...

Saturday "Day" Fever :)

From recent memory, today would easily count as the best Saturday I have had!!

The beauty of the day lay in the fact that it wasn't a planned, campaign day which I might have been looking forward to for a long time. Was just a regular weekend day which I spent in the company of people I like.

As weekends go, the day began early around 9am. Woke up to a nice, tranquil breezy morning - perfect day to be reading a book sitting by the window. Literally skimmed through Prey, my last Crichton novel, till around noon when Addie called unexpectedly.

He asked me whether I'd be eating lunch - to which I obviously said yes, and if I'd be game to hop over to his haunt - to which I again obviously n shamelessly said yes :). The best part about being a 25-year old bachelor is that you are old enough to be invited for luncheons and get-togethers, yet escape from it being viewed under the aegis of "social obligations".

Now, delightfully, the lunch (which was wondrous in its own "home-food" right) also had another tacit invitation piggy-backing it - a long awaited turn to try my skill at the Sony Playstation 2. And boy, did I have a blast!!
Played NFS and to my own surprise, drove pretty well for a stark amateur. The sheer thrill of that game is in its simplicity - accelerate all the time, keep the car straight, keep collisions to the minimum. Plus, there was the sadistic glee of seeing the game chide Ashim saying "you were last" - in a 2 player race ;-).

Then my teammate at work, Claire, came over to Addie's to see his house, as Addie is vacating it soon. The vacancy though is not just restricted to the house. Addie is quitting and going back to India. I am 99.9999% sure that office won't ever be the same again without him :(. The poignancy of the whole situation was inextricably woven into the mirth of the afternoon.

Addie deserves a full post dedicated to him. It'll be one I'll write with utmost care and a swell of emotion in my heart. Can promise him that much!!

Anyways, getting back to the main thread of the post - the afternoon flowed to a evening coffee with a friend, here for a conference, at Orchard. Was fun reminiscing about the old times, how she totally fell in love with everything Singaporean, how the bevy of petite, super-modelesque Singaporean beauties made her feel like Humpty Dumpty :). And for the first time ever, I found the Starbucks coffee palatable! And no, it wasn't the company, the coffee could actually pass on as "tasty" and "potable" :).

The library beckoned after this evening hour fleeted by. That turned out to be an adventure that shouldn't have been :). I was to show some juniors (who didn't have a mobile phone) to the library and we spent 20 mins on the footpath trying to trace each other, when we were all but half-a-football-field away at different ends of the mall. Amazing how obsequious we've become to mobile phones & how paralyzing absence of one can be!!

The crowning caper of the day was the surprise birthday party for Arthi. It was a coordinated, conspiratorial surprise treat at Modesta's. 15-16 of her IIM A batchmates and some other friends had conspired to not wish her the whole day, turn down any dinner/meeting calls from her and then surprise her when her roommate got a dejected looking Arthi to the restaurant for dinner.

Well, that was the plan!! As it turned out, we got there before she did ;). When she got there, there was already a huge table for 20 set out, with some of us conspirators seated at it. The icing on the cake, though, was that in spite of this she didn't suspect that somethin' might be cookin'. She still believed that it was coincidental that some of us were at the same restaurant at the same time. So, we kinda did pull the surprise off :).

As for the food - l'italiano era deliziosamente fantastico!! We downed copious amounts of food. Brace yourselves, here is what all we devoured :-

1. 3 12" pizzas
2. 4 pastas
3. 2 salads
4. 2 king prawns
5. and the star of the evening - 3 20" pizzas.

They had to get a separate barbecue-style stand to hold the 20" pizza trays. It took 2 people to serve - one to balance the tray, the other to serve ;). Was terribly amusing to just see them orchestrate that spectacle!!

All in all, I had a great day yesterday. The wait now begins for the next Horsie's Day Out :).
Hope the coming week passes by quickly!!