Corner with a Full View

To be scared thinking about scary situations, In the middle of night, after you wake up, feeling all scared and tight and immobile, When at night, you dream the most real dream. Crossing through a dark fearful bridge alone at midnight, which you have always feared crossing at midnight, although neither that bridge nor your dream are real.

I'm going to be a tech Guru today, and try to outline simple steps on how to edit your movies in Windows Movie Maker to get that vintage effect.  Its not even a tutorial, just a trick, for those who do not know already.  Of course working in Adobe Premiere would reduce all this work, but then windows movie maker is free while Premiere costs $$$ so many of us cannot simply afford.  Check my embedded youtube video here, if you want to feel what kind of "vintage" I'm talking about. This is a short cropped clip of another video-just to show you a demo within 24 seconds. You can check out the full video here -it is a Nepali classic song which my cousin did a cover of.

A Dolpopa has his bullet wound covered with layers of khata (sacred silk clothes) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Possession of prized aphrodisiac; conquering the Top of the world; Glory of hosting World Cup Football- all stained and littered with blood and sweat of my fellow country people. Plight of a poor country's marginalized citizens. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- June 3 to June 11 7 days That's more or less how many days it would take one to reach Dho Tarap of Dolpa, from capital Kathmandu. More or less I say because I have never been there. It took me two days to reach Phoksundo from Dunai the district headquarter, and people said that it would take another day or two by foot to reach Dho. June 3 when police personnel mercilessly beat locals of Dho Tarap - a small settlement in high pastures of Dolpa district. Very much a place shrouded in mystery and enchantment-mainly...

Everything!?! Like the scenario before half time of a typical Indian or Nepali movie where the hero is the ultimate crime fighter but who has not quite found his ground yet-and so the city where he resides is still infested with heinous crimes, and what not-I find myself squarely planted in that "before half time" scenario. All the crime dramas that I see unfolding in such movies-corrupt cops, even more corrupt justice system, atrocities right in front of people's eyes, power, paisa and the "bad" having a field day-everything is happening right before me. My life is not a movie, where I reside is not a movie set. Yet everything so eerily resembles the plot of such badly told, heavily exaggerated, and repugnant male dominant movie. In such movies, the heroine or the victims generally feel helpless until the hero comes along, fights all the bad guys, the corruption the system everything until everything is sorted. He makes everybody's life perfect. ...

And no, its not ncell I'm talking about. Enjoy the photos of this purple enchantress, which has veiled Kathmandu's ugliness for a while. Although its true identity as to whether this is Jacaranda or Sirish or Mimosa is being contested in "experts" circle, its aura and charm is nevertheless incontestable. Like Shakespeare said, "what's in a name"? Ha its impossible to see these "high"nesses really this upclose. This was a major crop on top of major zoom And a video too :) In instagram: http://instagram.com/p/oDHfppuATT/

Whether any body has noticed or not, but there's an interesting give and take going on for about a few weeks in The Kathmandu Post . First there was the op-ed by Shradha Ghale "Whose Discourse?"  - based primarily on academic work by Simon Robins - which put forth the view that fundamentally the truth and reconciliation discourse going on at that time in Nepal should be for/of the victims - from who the issue has been largely hijacked owing to, among other things, their socio-economic marginalization. Then came this piece  "Whose Reconciliation"?  by two writers who were hell bent on disproving/disagreeing everything the earlier op-ed stated/implied/suggested. It went a notch further than that and established the writer duos' own agendas too, in the name of highlighting the flaws within Ghale's piece. I might have my biases here about not particularly liking this piece, as the writers' too see to have against Ghale's arguments. Somethings y...

My "dui sabda" about the Nepali film " Kabaddi"  starring Rishma Gurung, Dayahang Rai, Nischal Basnet et. al I can tell you straight away that Kabaddi is going to be the "worst" Nepali film that I have watched this year. Why? Because it is the only film that I'll be watching. Kabaddi is also going to be the "best" Nepali film that I have watched this year, precisely because of the same reason. And a few more. Let me count how many years it has been since I last stepped onto a theater to watch a Nepali film. I cannot because its too many. Which in itself should describe the strange appeal that Kabaddi had on me. To start with its trailer, it had that pull factor which made me- a reluctant, cynic passive movie hater-drag myself into a hall. So for the promotion, I will give the team a 5 on 5. Its all relative of course, the only thing that might have pulled me into theaters could be the lead hero/heroine who were so offbeat  for mainstr...