Painting Fundas for Parent-Kid Conversations

My son, Jyotiraditya loves to draw, color and paint. When I stumbled across an interesting write up in Resurgence March - April 2009, I jotted it down for my reference but forgot to write the name of the author. I regret that but I wish to share what I read with you all here.

So, the excerpt courtesy the British magazine, Resurgence is given below:

"Children doing their first paintings clearly relish the sensuousness of paint and delight in creating seas of chosen color. Their innocence is chipped away at when we ask what the paintings are of. A fear of not knowing what a painting represents is a mask of our safely tethered desire for reading a picture, and for some people, there is the fear of being tricked by that which is not immediately evident and rooted."

What I liked best about the passage is that it gives parents the right set of hints about how to propel a child's creativity in the right way. Before I read this, I used to ask my son when he drew or painted something, "What is this?" I think that it is important to let the painter paint as his imagination guides him. The reasoning can perhaps be dissected later. The actual pleasure lies in painting itself. Purposelessness to any activity is not a terrific idea but beauty cannot be measured, nor can creativity. So, when one asks a child to think in terms of logic, the flight of imagination becomes restricted and a child feels an artificial pressure of trying to measure up to address the question put forth by the parent. Now, after reading this passage, I try to enjoy the drawing or painting and ask, "How did you feel when you were painting this? What did you think about when you did this?"

I must confess the conversation that follows is so spontaneous and educative for me as a parent and for my kid, the little messy artist.

Curb your Sugar Intake, Save Health & Wealth

I've always had my tea without sugar. I don't know why but I have always believed that sugar intake leads to a lot of health related issues later in life. The earlier you learn to curb sugar intake, the better. It sounds boring but it helps to keep fit and spend less too. At least, think about curbing sugar at incremental levels in your life.

Here are some suggestions that will help your health and your pay packet too:

1. Check label and opt for food containing less than 5-7 g per 100 g.

2. Ditch Fizz

3. Cut down sugar in tea and coffee.

4. Limit soft drinks, sweets, biscuits, cakes, puddings.

5. Eat a small piece of cheese at the end of a meal or after a sugar snack. Cheese is alkali and it neutralizes the harmful effect of sugar. Don't make this a habit to eat lots of sugar and then cheese. This can be done once in a while, it is harmful if one uses it as an excuse to have more desserts and sugary food.

6. Use honey as a substitute as it contains fructose which is absorbed more slowly than ordinary sugar and gives more sustained energy.

7. Eats nuts, as they contain magnesium which helps combat fatigue, bloating and mood swings. Also, they enable energy release in every cell of the body.

8. Remember, a can of cola would have at least 7 teaspoons. A chocolate bar would have 8 teaspoons of sugar.

Try this. If you have other useful tips, please share, as that would help us all.

Daniel Craig in Layer Cake

When I saw the DVD of Layer Cake, it didn’t really entice me except for the fact that I like Daniel Craig’s movies. The movie is an adaptation of J.J. Connolly’s novel, Layer Cake. So, yes, I took it with very little interest or anticipation because drug industry related movies don’t really interest me.

The movie is all about the criminal underclass of Britain with interesting insights into how its underworld drug industry works. Daniel Craig is the main protagonist of Layer Cake, and quite convincing as a smooth drug runner who plans to retire early from the hazardous profession. However, his plans are thwarted from all corners. He has to find a way to get a cache of ecstasy pills (worth over 3 million dollars!!) stolen by a low-life gangster gangster called Duke (Foreman) whose nephew Sidney dates the femme fatale Tammy, (starring Sienna Miller) who in turn catches Craig’s attention and love interest. Duke had stolen the tablets from one of Serbia’s most dangerous drug dealers, Dragan, who wants to get those pills back at any cost and believes that Craig has the cache from Duke.

To make the plot more complicated, Craig’s boss Jimmy Price (starring Kenneth Cranham) has two final missions to complete. Price wants him to find the runaway junkie daughter of his old pal and kingpin Eddie Temple (starring Michael Gambon) and deliver the girl safely to him. Then, Price wants Craig to buy the pills from Duke at any cost, without creating a mess.

There are many characters and twists to the plot but this is an out-and-out Daniel Craig movie. In every sequence, Craig’s performance seems flawless, right down to the scene where he realizes that he’s been duped twice, first by Jimmy Price and second, by Eddie Temple.

I liked the movie, particularly the end, where Daniel Craig fights all odds to become the king of the kingpin and yet is shot to death at his moment of his glory, not by another mafia don or the powerful enemies he’s made, but Sidney, the guy whose girl friend he had taken for himself.

Darjeeling's Tea Gardens

Darjeeling's tea gardens take you back to colonial times. There's always a nip in the air and longing for freshly brewed hot tea that you feel tempted to have to keep warm. It's a place I know I'd like to visit again.

Not a Movie Review: Michael Clayton is a Bore

MICHAEL CLAYTON is a movie about a lawyer who has spent too much time 'negotiating and fixing deals' and the theme interested me. George Clooney plays the protagonist. The movie hints at the huge stakes that a law firm has in an environmental corporate sort of case and the way Clayton's personal problems of being broke and in debt come into conflict with his professional interests. One fine day, his car explodes before his eyes and that is when he realizes that some one is trying to get rid of him.

Too often, we find Clayton looking lost and staring without expression, at what's in front of him.

The actress in this movie is Tilda Swinton. She is the epitome of an ambitious corporate lawyer whose greed for fame and publicity fuels her need to prove herself infallible. She spends most of her time practicing lines before a mirror. Her character lacks substance in the way its been etched out and it is clear right from the start that she has to maintain a dour expression, without even the hint of a smile.

The theme was a good one but was badly executed. It just rips apart your patience and kills your interest in the movie. The end was brilliant and worth the wait, to some extent. If you can stay patient, this may be a movie that will try it further.

Not a Movie Review: Defiance is an Attitude

When I saw that "Defiance" is a movie directed by Edward Zwick, the maker of some brilliant flicks like "Glory," "The Last Samurai" and "Blood Diamond," I couldn't resist picking it up. Here's the story, not that I am the best person for story telling but I hope you'll be kind enough to still read on.

In 1941, in an area that we now know as Belarus, Jews are being persecuted mercilessly by the Hiter regime. Tuvia Bielski (starring Daniel Craig) is believed to have saved the lives of more than 1,000 Jews by keeping them safe in the woods, which came to be christened as "Jerusalem in the woods." Tuvia's brothers are Asael, (starring Jamie Bell), Aron (starring George Mackay) and Zus (Liev Schreiber).

First, the brothers avenge the death of their parents who are killed ruthlessly by the Nazis. Later, they help to save many Jews who were hiding in the forest, not knowing where to go or where their next meal would come from. Even a drop of water is not there for all of them to drink. The brothers think through the hopeless situation and become leaders who take charge to do what is required to stay alive. They create a system whereby every Jew is assigned a task to do and a role to fulfill. They lay down a hard rule - no babies on the settlement because it is no decent place for a baby to grow up.

The tensions between the brothers are played out very well by Craig and Schreiber because they are such opposites in attitude, passion and values.Their story is one of courage, not victimization. Typically, most real life stories on the Holocaust portrayed the horrors that the Jews went through and how they were victimized by it. This movie showed how a band of brothers became warriors, though they could have chosen to feel helpless and victimized by the turn of events around them. Somewhere, it seemed as though Zwick was getting lost in a melodrama of his own making, not necessarily that of the brothers.

Still, I 'd say that what the Bielski brothers did by saving and empowering so many Jews deserves to be remembered and documented. It tells us that even when we face the worst situations in life, we can deal with it by choosing a different route of action, one in which we don't prepare ourselves to be victims.

Life is Cruel but You've to Survive

Every day, I wait to hear about my son's day in school. It's the highlight of my day - to unwind with him and hear him talk about how well/badly his day is. Sometimes, he has good days. There are times when he has bad days because a child in class behaves nastily. I had read somewhere that kids are territorial in nature. Like lions or hunting animals, they can sense fear and act upon it to their advantage. I never believed it then but from the time I've started observing how children behave, I've noticed its true. Kids pick on kids who seem frightened or timid in their presence. In my son's class, the girls are more aggressive and dominating. I remember that it was the same in my school too. Perhaps these are scraps of memories and may have nothing to do with it being girls or boys. I am sure that today's little boys and girls are more influenced by the movies they see than we were. That too has something to do with the aggression in their behavior.

In an English movie that I saw, I recalled the words of a father to his son, "Life is cruel but you have to survive."

The words stay with me when I think of some children who say or do cruel things to other kids. They feel its their right to survive. The weaker kids give in or become dominated by it because they too want to find an easier way to survive. It's no different when we grow up and pass through high school, college and the battleground of life. We learn ways to tackle cruelty and we find the means to survive somehow.

Maybe we know deep within, that there is no choice but to survive.