Assignment 4 June 24, 2007

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9327772@N08/611472115/

I am three years old and the only daughter of my parents. Like other kids of my age, me too enjoy playing outdoor games, go out for a picnic, park, hills, and spend time with my best friends. Clothing is a passion for me and I wear all different types of clothes, however traditional Indian clothes are my favorite ones. Today is my birthday, and I want to wear traditional Indian clothes for all day long. I know my parents will let me wear my favorite clothes, but will I be able to play sports wearing these clothes? Will I be able to walk and dance for entire day? Will I be able traverse across the bushes, trees and at the bank of the Lake? Will I be able to enjoy my favorite sports of hide and seek?

Pass 2 June 17, 2007

Please click on the link Story Pass 2 to download the file

Assignment 3 June 10, 2007

ASSIGNMENT 3 

Name of the Movie: Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (HDDCS) 

Synopsis:

          Nandini, the only daughter of a classical singer Pandit Darbar loves his student, Sameer half Indian settled in Italy. However, following the tradition of arranged marriage, Vanraj family sends his marriage proposal to Nandini’s father. Sameer and Nandini are caught romancing with each other, and as a payment for teaching Sameer music, Darbar demands Sameer to forget Nandini. After the weeks of the wedding, Vanraj comes to know about Nandini’s love for Sameer. He decides to unite the lovers even in the face of ridicule by the society and takes Nandini to Italy to search for Sameer. They find Sameer, but Nandini is now in shabby situation of dilemma between Vanraj, with whom she has come to Italy, and Sameer whom she loves….. 

Bruner’s Narrative: “Particularity” 

          As I understand, this is whereby a story fall into particular, meticulous special details to emphasize connotation of storyline and classy events,  progressively moving  story  interestingly with the sequence of games, pranks, kite-flying festival, and light revelry along with marriage sequences. These particular events and scenes play an important part in moving the story forward at the same time entertaining the audience and bringing light to reality. Culture, Ethics, Family Tradition, and Complications leave the movie poised as father of Nandini decides wedding in favor of Vanraj, leaving Sameer in despair.

          In the opening scene of the movie, the actress is caught engaged in a rowdy, noisy game in an open wide muddy field, giving me an idea about her temperament. According to me, it emerges that she is playful, hot-tempered, outspoken as well as little spoilt, and mollycoddle by parents at times. Sameer, half Indian and half Italian, come to India from Italy to learn classical singing from the father of Nandini, and falls in love with the Nandini. He is picturized as a flamboyant, mischievous type, for whom dancing and singing is all that matters. That seems to exasperate Nandini at times.

          Majority of the Indian movies, length almost three hours; thrilled, engaged and entertained by hodgepodge with songs and dances. It is not uncommon, in an ordinary Indian movie the film hero is seen escaping battered and bloody from a pack of villains in one  scene, and singing a love duet against an exotic, preferably mountainous, riverside or rainy day, backdrop in the  next scene. It is not the same with HDDCS, the songs are well-researched, and evenly placed on festivals of kites, lights and colors. The dance song, Garba: played with pair of sticks, traditional outwear has relied heavily on Gujarati folk music. This song is named “Dholi taro”, which comes with bang of heavy drum beats in the middle of a serious scene, is a super hit. Unfortunately there is no bumbling comedian, still the movie is well paced with nice jokes to relieve and lighten things up. For a while I thought the fart scene appear to be immature and ikky, however, it was the most realistic and reasonable (eating chilly and pepper:)) thing about the film. It was unexpected, well played and just typical of life. 

         As per my opinion, what exasperate me a bit is the sound of thunder with lightening that accompanies Sameer’s queries to his dead father. A thunder sound passes for a “Yes” or “No”, and Sameer stretch his arms to hug his father. Reciting and repeating same scene across some serious events appears bit corny. Also, during the wedding scene, Sameer compliments Nandini’s beauty and she acts as if she is a Miss World. Nandini (Aishwarya Rai, actress of the movie), actually was Miss World in 1994. The rumors came true; movie also resulted in the real-life romance between Sameer (Salman Khan) and Aishwarya Rai. 

           In the second half of the movie; Vanraj - husband of Nandini as per arranged marriage, comes out with a brilliant cameo role who on realizing the love of his wedded wife, decides to take her to her true love who is now back in Italy. The adamancy of Nandini being unswerving with Sameer, and the commitment of Vanraj to reunite Nandini to her love make some classy sequence make the movie well balanced. The movie draws a smooth climax mixed with scintillating melodious soothing background music which is not quite unpredictable, nevertheless still quite effective. Finally, all the people involved in creating the hit movie; Director, Producer, Singer, Music director, choreographer, deserve the credit for not going overboard as it happens so often with bollywood movies. Overall, I think all the spectacular events in the movie are perfectly fitted with relevant details which make it more realistic, entertaining and create an impact for both the audience and the production team.  

Pass-1: Trip to India ~ Getting Familiar with Gujarati June 3, 2007

         Alistar, who loves traveling, is visiting India and his trip includes Mumbai (previously Bombay), Veraval, Udaipur, Jaipur, Delhi and Agra. The two week trip was well planned together with a friend from India, Diya, who will accompany Alistar as a tour guide, friend and interpreter. Diya and Alistar are net-friends, met each other in the online chat room few years ago. Diya, being Indian origin can speak national language “Hindi”, mother tongue “Gujarati”, and business language “English”. Alistar communicates with Diya in English; however, he has sound knowledge of French as well. Alistar is interested in various ethnic languages, and is keen to learn Gujarati from Diya.

            Alistar read about the country and its history, long before his arrival. He has seen plenty of pictures, relish Indian food, and also watched many Hindi (Bollywood) movies. On his arrival at Mumbai
International Airport, Diya and her brother greeted him with “Namaste” - gesture used when bowing by bringing of both hands together, palms touching, in front of the person. Alistar is glad, as he is in group of people who speak the own language and knows how to deal and bargain with the local people. He is also pleased to have been introduced with some of the Diya’s friends and family, and very happy to have made new friends in that part of the world. Raadha, Rajiv, Raj, Sharda are all very kind to him, and so far, he is having great time together.

        Alistar, avid learner of language shows interests in learning Gujarati. Every now and then, he repeats the short sentences or words spoken by Diya and her friends. However, he could not understand what it means! Also, he has no clue about Gujarati Parts-of-Speech and the accent makes him puzzled. Diya, well acquainted in Gujarati and English, mentions that Gujarati words can be divided into: Open Class and Closed Class. Open class consists of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, while closed class consists of pronouns and other noun adjuncts, verb adjuncts, conjunctions and others. After a while, Diya came with a strategy to help his bewildered friend. Since Alistar cannot stay longer then two weeks, Diya will teach certain words, sentences and brief knowledge about noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, etc. Within this short span of time, Alistar will try to learn as much as possible to get familiar with Gujarati.

  Diya: In Gujarati, gender markers are ‘O’ (masculine), ‘E’ (feminine) and ‘AO’ (neutral/ plural). During their conversation, Diya tells Alistar, “I have two kids, one boy and one girl”. In Gujarati it translates into “ Maare bey barak che, ek chokro ane ek chokri” ( Maare[I] Bey[two] barak[kids] che[is/have], ek[one] Chokro[son] ane[and] ek Chokre[daughter]) 

          Visiting Mumbai, Alistar was fascinated by “Gateway of India”, the remarkable Victorian buildings constructed on the edge of oval ground in the Fort Area, High Court, Bombay University and Rajabai Clock Tower. During the day, a nice walk along the Marine Drive to Chowpatty Beach, and a horse carriage, at night hours are interesting and exciting. The memorable, interesting visit was a day out to Elephanta Island where there are some rock-cut temples & caves. Leopold Cafe and Bar in Colaba, a lovely place to stop for a drink and dinner. So far, Alistar and Diya visited major places of Mumbai and now they are heading towards Veraval.   Diya: Gujarati Adjectives fall into two categories: (1) Variable and (2) Invariable.Variable adjectives vary in terms of the gender and number of the nouns they modify, whereas the invariable adjectives do not vary.

  Example (Variable Adjective):

           Saru chokru (Saru [Beautiful, Adj.] chokru [child])
           Sari Chokri (Sari [Beautiful, Adj.] chokri [Girl])
           Saro Chokro (Saro [Beautiful, Adj.] Chokro [Boy])          

  Example (Invariable Adjective)

                Sundar Chokru (Sundar [Beautiful, Adj.] chokru [child])

    Sundar Chokro (Sundar ([Beautiful, Adj.], Chokro [Boy])

    Sundar Chokri (Sundar [Beautiful, Adj.], Chokri [Girl])   

                English: This is a beautiful child.
                Gujarati: Aa [This] Sundar [beautiful] chokru [child] che [is] 

Upon visiting Veraval, Alistar discovers more about Hindu culture and temples. Veraval is famous for Somnath Temple; it has been destroyed six times by Islamic rulers during 1024 – 1706, and has been rebuilt every single time. During 1024, the raid of Mahmud Ghazni, the temple and citadel were ransacked, and more than 50,000 defenders were massacred. The stop of Veraval was less than 24 hours because of connecting trains from Veraval to Udaipur.      As Alistar got some familiarity with Noun and Adjective, Diya explains about Gujarati “Verb” on their way towards Udaipur. Diya: Gujarati Verbs (non-inflected) have the following structure: verb stem + infinitive.
 
Example:  
            Has-vuN [to laugh]
            (verb stem + infinitive) 

            raD-vuN [to cry]
            (verb stem + infinitive)  

            Kap-vuN [to cut]
            (verb stem + infinitive)

            Ap-vuN [to give]
            (verb stem + infinitive) 

Udaipur, Rajasthan’s most romantic city! The stay at the Udai Kothi Hotel with its lovely swimming pool on the rooftop was a memorable experience. The traditional hotel food, the chicken & fish tandoori was really yummy! At twilight, Diya and Alistar enjoyed Mango-Lassi and fruit cocktail. In Udaipur, major visits include the City Palace, a boat ride on Lake Pichola passing by Jagniwas Island, its Lake Palace Hotel and also a quick stop in  Jagmandir Island. Before final departure from Udaipur, Alistar had breathtaking views from Sajjan Garh at sunset!      Diya: Like adjective, adverbs are also variable and non-variable in Gujarati. Variable adverbs agree with the noun with which the verb agrees. There are various types of adverbs. Some of them are adverb of time, adverb of place, adverb of manner, adverb of order, adverb of doubt, adverb of frequency, adverb of negative and connecting verbs.

Adverb of:
Time: Aaje[today], Kale[tomorrow], savare[morning],Bapore[afternoon], Sanje[evening]
Place: Ahi[here], Tya[there], najik-thi[from-closer], door-thi[from-far]
Manner: fatafat [quickly], achanak[suddenly], Gem-Tem [some-how]
Order: Pehla[first], Pachi[next], chhele/aakhre[last],
Quantity: Ghanu[a lot], Thodu[Little], Barobar[appropriate]
Doubt: Kadatch[maybe], kya-rek[Sometimes], Motey-bhage[mostly]
Frequency: Roj [Daily], vaaranvaar[always]
Negative: Na/Nahi [No]
Connecting: Pun[but], vadhuma[additionally] 

         Few hours drive from Udaipur is Jaipur, - The Rajasthan’s pink city! The people in Jaipur were friendly. The food was delicious, and enjoyed vegetarian food as well. The major visit during the stay of Jaipur were, Hawa Mahal, Old City also known as Pink City, the City Palace, Jantar Mantar as well as Amber Fort, about 11km north of Jaipur. The Elephant ride was amazing and thrilling!           Only five days of the trip were remaining and Alistar arrived at the capital of India, Delhi. Once again, Alistar finds this place over crowded like Mumbai but less chaotic. The arrival at Delhi railway station was scary, two rickshaw drivers fighting for us, but all ended peacefully, thanks to Diya. Two days to visit entire Delhi is not enough, however, we  managed to see world famous tallest brick minaret “Qutb Minar”, “Bahai Temple”, “Red Fort” - palace for Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, “Raj Ghat” a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, “India Gate” monument built to commemorate the Indian soldiers who died in the World War I and the Afghan Wars.  

         The final destination of the trip was crown city of Uttar Pradesh, Agra. A one day tour from Delhi to Agra, fabulous place where all tourists and visitors get fascinated and speechless in front of the spectacular world heritage white marble mausoleum, the Taj Mahal, the most extravagant monument ever built for “LOVE”!  Taj Mahal is the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements of Persian, Turkish, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. That was the summit of the whole trip to India and a place which cannot be forgotten.