1408

Watched 1408 on Star Movies on Sunday. Though it was a Sunday night when I am supposed to fall back to my weekday work routine (by going early to sleep so that I wake up early on Monday and not be late for office) , this compelling movie forced me to wake up till 1 a.m in the night in what happened to be one of the best horror movie I have ever seen...

The plot unfolds with Mike Enslin (John Cusack) who is a writer writing in the genre of the ghost and paranormal... He has a panache for debunking supernatural occurrences after the untimely death of his daughter Katie.

After hearing from people the rumour of a hunted room numbered 1408 in the famous Dolphin Hotel in New York, he decides to visit the hotel armed with all legal know-how of securing the particular room as it was also heard that the hotel management never rents out that particular room to anybody. The manager of the hotel, is a man who has seen enough death and destruction in that room to allow anybody to even step in to it and tries out all trick in the book to ensure Enslin does not check in to that particular room. Adeptly portrayed by the seasoned Samuel L. Jackson the whole negotiation was brilliantly done with Jackson trying to dissuade Cussack in to checking in to that room but ultimately gives in to Cussack's adamant stand and also to the fear of a legal backlash on denying a guest a room when it is available...

After Enslin checks in the movie goes in to a total roller coaster ride as Cussack starts hearing noise, sees ghostly apparition, blood curdling imagery which sends chill down the spine.. My best moments are when he tries to rip off the radio from the plug (when it starts to play on its own) and even then the radio continues to play on...the other being when Enslin cries out to somebody on the front building to help him out and sees a person like him standing there and mimicking him in what happens to be a mirror image replication of his own activity..Among all such bizarre happening is the specter of him meeting with his father who is long dead and meeting his dead daughter who cries out "Daddy, Daddy" to him, he holds her in his arm and ultimately Katie dies in his arms yet again and suddenly turns in to dust..


After all the various forms of horror which seems to go on and on, Enslin decides to break this cycle by setting fire with the help of the Cognac he had with him and is rescued by the fire fighting team... He recovers and completes the novel on his recent experience.. Suddenly his wife Lilly finds and hands him a bag containing the remnants of his possession from the fire tragedy... A voice recorder he had with him...And he decides to play it..

In the entire movie every now and then Enslin would take a swig of the Cognac handed to him by the hotel manager and suddenly he remembers that the hotel manager may have mixed some chemical with some hallucinating substance.. I think that was the master piece as I am sure most of the audience (myself included) believed the same till the end...

Coming back to the voice recorder, on being played it plays out his various delirious conversation in to the recorder and his attempt to stay sane in that room in a time which seemed to be a distant past for him now.....

thats when we all hear the voice of his daughter Katie from the voice recorder which calls out "Daddy, Daddy"...

And the movie ends with deathly horror written all over the couple's face....

Best horror movie recommended over the week end and ensure that somebody is with you and you are not alone.... Not surely for the faint hearted...

The magic instant

	Another pearl of wisdom from Paulo Coelho whose update " The Warrior of Light" I get regularly. These are the types of inspiration that keeps one going in life. A must read article the excerpts of which are quoted below: "We have to take risks. We can only truly understand the miracle of life when we let the unexpected manifest itself. Every day – together with the sun – God gives us a moment in which it is possible to change everything that makes us unhappy. Every day we try to pretend that we don’t realize that moment, that it doesn’t exist, that today is just the same as yesterday and will be the same as tomorrow. But if you pay attention, you can discover the magic instant. It may be hiding at the moment when we put the key in the door in the morning, in the silence right after dinner, in the thousand and one things that all seem the same to us. This moment exists – a moment when all the strength of the stars passes through us and lets us work miracles. Happiness is at times a blessing – but usually it’s a conquest. The magic instant helps us to change, drives us forward to seek our dreams. We shall suffer and go through quite a few difficult moments and face many a disappointment – but this is all transitory and inevitable, and eventually we shall feel proud of the marks left behind by the obstacles. In the future we will be able to look back with pride and faith. Poor are those who are afraid of running risks. Because maybe they are never disappointed, never disillusioned, never suffer like those who have a dream to pursue. But when they look back – for we always look back – they will hear their heart saying: “What did you do with the miracles that God sowed for your days? What did you do with the talent that your Master entrusted to you? You buried it deep in a grave because you were afraid to lose it. So this is your inheritance: the certainty that you have wasted your life.” Poor are those who hear these words. For then they will believe in miracles, but the magic instants of life will have already passed. We must listen to the child that we once were, and who still lives within us. This child understands about magic instants. We can muffle his sobbing, but we can’t hush his voice. If we aren’t reborn, if we don’t see life again with the innocence and enthusiasm of childhood, then there is no more sense to living. There are many ways to commit suicide. Those who try to kill their body offend God’s law. Those who try to kill their soul also offend God’s law, although their crime is less visible to the eyes of man. Let us be heedful of what the child within us has to say. Let’s not feel ashamed of it. Let’s not allow it to feel afraid, because it’s lonely and is scarcely ever heard. Let’s allow the child within us to take the reins of our existence a little. This child says that one day is different from another. Let’s make the child feel loved again. Let’s please this child – even if it means acting in a way that we’re not used to, even if it seems foolish in the eyes of others. Remember that the wisdom of men is madness before God. If we listen to the child we bear in our soul, our eyes will shine once more. If we don’t lose contact with this child, we won’t lose contact with life..."

Nature creature

Day before yesterday when I was driving down the road towards my apartment, I was suddenly taken aback with the beauty, calm and serenity of the locality that I leave in...

To make matter more clear, I live almost at the outskirt of Hyderabad city near the Golconda Fort... (The Fort is visible from my balcony and terrace and is a joy to watch each evening with the sun going down)

The entire place is an army cantonment area with the Artillery Centre of the Indian Army situated in it... Though the place has seen a lot of ravages in the last 6 months (due to road widening work in what happened to be a thickly green area with old trees providing the road with their shadow on both sides of the road) however thanks to the cantonment area and the thick green cover in terms of tree planted by the army, the area has not lost all of its charm...

Apart from the historical siginficance, the area is also famous for the Gandipet lake (which is the main source of drinking water for the burgeoning city) water park, Children's fun world, lush green resorts etc etc which makes it a popular weekend destination for all and sundry....

So what I was saying was that it never stuck me how beautiful my surrounding ambience was until yesterday...

All my life I have longed to live in such a locality with calm, serenity and peace reigning all the while... Yet when I got to stay in a similar locality I could never really notice it even after staying here so long.. May be in the hustle and bustle of daily life I have somewhere forgotten to enjoy and appreciate the sheer beauty of the place that I live in... Each day I drive to and fro to my flat without realising the rich beauty which surrounds me..

Thinking of nature, beauty and serenity I am transported to another world when I was a kid and we used to live (and still do ) in an area called Tulasipur at Cuttack which was relatively less populated with most convent and missionary schools located there... I still remember with fondness the walk that we as a family used to take through this beautiful locality with the church bells chiming in the background, a stray cuckoo singing in its beautiful tone, or of the calmness in the park by the river Mahanadi which did not have a big crowd and where we could play the see- saw, the swing and run around to our heart's content... I still remember how I used to get afraid by the mighty banyan tree with its roots hanging down.. in the darkness it used to give the impression of an old man sitting by the side of the road with his beard down...

Coupled with this I also have fond memory of my school days of traveling by this roads in rickshaw in wintery evening (when the evenings would set in early) and how we would sit in the rickshaw all petrified till we reached home...

Thinking of all the past blissful time I had with nature and the sheer joy of being in such a surrounding, my mind goes back to a poem titled "Stopping by woods on a snowy evening" by Robert Frost which I read during my school days and I quote below:

"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. "