Thousandapologies

I think it was almost two years ago that when visiting the namesake, we were discussing Indian movies and he told me most of the Bollywood movies he did not really like. At that time, he did show me some scenes of one of the movies he did appreciate: 1947 Earth. I remember being impressed by the beautiful scenes and music at that time and us planning to watch it together in one of the movies nights we used to plan when he was still living in NL. Unfortunately, we somehow never got around to watching it, maybe also because most of the movie was in Hindi and I needed some kind of subtitles to understand . But still I was really curious to see it one time, so a couple of weeks ago I decided to go ahead and order it from Amazon; last week it arrived.

The movie revolves around a group of friends of different religions that live in British India of 1947, just before India’s independence and breakup in what we now know as India and Pakistan. More specifically, it tells the story of Leny baby, a Parsi girl, and her nanny Shanta, who is a Hindu. Shanta falls in love with the muslim masseur Hassan, which arouses the jealousy of Dil Navaz, also muslim, who is better know as the Ice Candy wallah and is also madly in love with Shanta. During the violence that occured at the breakup of India and Pakistan, also the group of friends starts falling apart, and the classical love triangle between Shanta, Hassan, and Dil Navaz leads to growing tensions between the former friends with in the end devastating results…

Indeed the namesake was right, it was a beautiful, yet more specifically a really impressive movie. As I said, the scenes were brilliantly filmed and are supported by beautiful music, which in the good old Bollywood tradition also plays an important role in this film. More importantly, the movie gives a personal view, that of the little girl Lenny, on the atrocities that happened between different religions at the time of breakup of British India, and illustrates the madness of good friends becoming enemies solely because they don’t share the same religion. And although, I think the characters were not fully deepened out, 1947 Earth illustrates one thing very well, it starts out as a joyful movie but grows dimmer and dimmer as it goes on. It’s a movie that incites one to contemplate and think about the results that difference in religion, opinion, or just a normal chain of results can ultimately have in extraordinary circumstances. Moreover, it illustrates how an ordinary life can turn into complete madness… Thus, if you can get your hands on it, it’s a movie I would certainly recommend you to watch! Hint: you might find more where this came from (see below).

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For the first time in around a decade, we seem to have something that resembles a real winter in the NL. Temperatures are well below zero, and everything’s covered with snow, looking beautifully and more important a lot more cheerfully than the normal dreaded rainy winters we so often have. Yesterday, we went for a nice stroll through the Terworm area, with this nice snapshot as a result (taken with my phone’s camera, so please bear with me).

when browsing my old backup cds…I found some recordings of the illustrious wanna-be band named Shagwell (named after the Austin Powers character Felicity Shagwell)…recorded in a local pub De Nor in the spring of 2004. For me, memories of an amazing time, playing music, drinking beer, just relaxing… I’ve got a couple more of them left, but I think I’ll spare you the experience…at least I’m not in a mean mood right now, anyway, here we go….

Last Friday, Anke held here farewell party at the pub as she’s leaving for South Africa on Tuesday 28th of August. She will be doing a half year internship there and from what I’ve heard I think it’ll be a worthwhile experience. It’s a pity though we need to miss her charming presence for quite some months.

We first met Anke, I think some six or seven years ago, in the days the old pub Sally o’ Briens was still around in Heerlen and we just started visiting it. One time suddenly a shy waitress had shown up, that really did not know how to deal with our group at first, but later became part of it. I think it must have been Christian that first got her to laugh at that crazy ensemble that was having the most enjoyful time there almost every Friday and Saturday. While the rest of us was also a bit shy like Anke, or a bit aloof maybe, Christian was mostly the one getting us in touch with strangers with some weird joke, then bursting in to a very contagious laugh, which made our whole group burst in to laugher too. This would mostly result in one of two actions: (1) the person was scared away and ran to the other end of the pub, never speaking to us again, or (2) the person started to laugh and we had another friend joining the club.

Obviously, Anke was one person in the last category, and what had started from a first shy encounter now has grown into a lasting friendship. Already, we had many laughs together… For example, that time she started talking Frysian, when the lot of us, including her, had too much to drink, because the wodka cola had been very cheap that evening. Or that other night, that we were kicked out at around 4.30, when the pub already had been closed for more than one and a half hour, and we had been playing guitar and singing with our heroes, the old firm…

Then, unfortunately, after the old pub was closed, we lost contact for quite a while, but after a new pub appeared, of which we are now regular customers, she started to work there and again joined the club. It was/is great to see that familiar smile welcoming us every night we visit the pub; certainly something I’ll miss this coming half year. But, if you read this lass, I hope you have a great time in South Africa, and come back safely with a lot of beautiful memories… For those who are interested to keep updated about her adventures there, I added her blog to my blogroll, so go on and pay it a visit!

Stefan Apelt just posted a presentation to the MACE BSCW that contained a picture of a comic called Calvin and Hobbes. The comic reminded me of the old days in Sally o’ Briens, the first Irish Pub that was our “Stammkneipe”. Whenever, you would go the men’s toilet there you would see an entire wall of just that comic in front of you, so going for a “wee pee” was a great enjoyment and always you were hearing someone grinning next to you, about some joke in the comics. Also our local newspaper used to post a translation of these comics which have the most perfect sense of humour. I really regret them not anymore being published in the newspaper anymore and also, that no new ones are made anymore because the author regrettably retired some years ago. Especially, Calvin and Hobbes excelled in addressing some day to day issues and illustrating the sheer absurdness of them. The one I found in the presentation, for example, illustrates a lot of the scientific writing in such a truthful manner, I could not help but laugh, so here we go:

Just awesome! Some time ago, Chrissass, the Drachslaaaaaa and I subscribed for a dataming course at the University of Maastricht, that I knew already, would bring me back to my old faculty and some old teachers. This morning the first day started and it really felt so familiar: the train ride to Maastricht, the same I rode during about five years, and the classes of the teachers I already knew. Some of the teachers improved, some of them did not… It was nice to meet my old supervisor again and have a talk to Evgueni Schmirnov also one of my old lecturers. It really struck me that Open University is quite famous also at other Universities and also the tone of voice Evgueni talked to me about OUNL. Apparently, he was quite impressed I ended up there. And although I first planned to do a PhD in Maastricht University, which I unfortunately did not get, I’m happy I ended up in OUNL. I think till now I enjoy working at the OU a lot and today I realised, that while I was happy to be back at Maastricht University, this is a time that has passed and probably I ended up in the right place. Now I have amazing colleagues at OUNL, the apecage people I would not like to miss, and working in a European project like MACE gives you a lot of new experiences and opportunities. Also the sheer amount of nice people I met since I started working at OUNL, through winterschools, summerschools and projectmeetings is amazing and it happened a lot faster than I would have met people in all day life. Then again, I might have got this opportunities at Maastricht University but I’m not too sure about it. Well life is truly like a box of chocolates, you never know what you gonna get, you never know what comes along the way, but you have to make the best of it, and right now I feel satisfied about where the road has taken me upto this moment…

The general not-so-nice time at work now; the constant struggle with software for geeks only, random paper deadlines, boring videoconferences which everyone else seems to enjoy, and just general stress, makes me long to those old days of secondary school. As the week progresses I start feeling more nostalgic than ever, thinking of the times when we only used to complain about homework. Working people seemed to have it so easy back then, never to make any homework, just coming home, eating dinner and watching telly. How different is reality….

However, nostalgia mostly also brings back some nice memories. Coming home, needing a desperate burst of energy, I browsed through my cds and found one of SetaSurf; a band of some friends of mine which was quite popular in our school days. We almost never missed a gig and just plainly enjoyed every note. Playing their cd right now brings back so many memories; listening to their lyrics and their surf-punky music even more. I know for sure I’ll bring some of their music with me on my next work-related trip, this weekend, that will bring me to Ancona, Italy. Damn it would be nice to see these guys united, even if it was only once, to play some decent music in the “Nieuwe Nor”. I think lots of people agree with me and would come to their gig, reliving old times and enjoying new ones. Ah well, I know I start sounding like an old hippy…

Yesterday, I finally started watching the second season of the tv series Robin of Sherwood, which all of you might remember if you’re about the same age as I am (or older of course). Ever since the 1980s, when the series was broadcasted on Dutch Television, I’ve been longing to see it again. A sweet sense of nostalgia you might say, and yes it is. Although sometimes nostalgia is better left nostalgia; some series you should not watch again and just keep in memory.

That I really wanted to see this series again maybe also illustrates how I was hooked at it from the very first beginning when I was a little boy. The darkish, sometimes approaching the scary, atmosphere of the series backed by the mysterious music of Clannad, the thrilling story and just the amount of work spent to get every detail right for the atmosphere of the series, just left me breathless back then. So it was also my curiosity of finding out if the series really have been as good as I remember that made me check it out again. Some couple of months ago, probably sparked by the popularity of the new BBC series, Robin of Sherwood was brought out on dvd and of course I bought the first season immediately.

And yes, the series was as good as I remembered it. The first season was already nice to see, although looking and sounding ancient because of the old soft focus recordings and sometimes amateuristic sound effect. However, the first season I finished already too fast, and it left me wondering more and more about the rest of the series, increasing my impatience for the next dvd boxes to arrive. Luckily, about a month ago I stumbled across the second season and started to watch that yesterday. And from the first episod, I already dare to say that I think that this second season was the one that impressed me so much. The acting of all of the actors greatly improved and also it seems that more detail has been spend on the decors, probably because of a bigger budget than the first season that only was 5 episodes long. Writing this post, I think I will again watch an episode this evening, getting that old rush and starting to roll into that old addiction again…