Dunkirk - Movie Review

Watched the movie they say is Christopher Nolan's greatest ever and one of the greatest war movies ever made on Prasad's IMAX screen. Overall it left me feeling nothing much. My nephew Shrinjay warned me that the review were that grown men were crying like babies. I am a grown man and am prone to crying like a baby when things touch me, but Nolan and his master piece did not so it is not great in my book. Nor did Anjali cry (she got bored), nor did Pooja nor Shrinjay. Big scale, big screen, big story but left me feeling nothing.

It took a while for us to figure out what a mole was and why people were running on to the mole. The sea story of the boat owner who decides to take his boat to respond to the call made by the British Navy had some meat. The young soldier's who survive Dunkirk  somehow do not. perhaps because the main heroics come from the boat owners, the aircraft pilots and a perhaps the leaders who decide to stay back to evacuate the French soldiers. Very little from the soldiers themselves who are all into self preservation.

Dunkirk was the French beach where Allied soldiers got trapped by oncoming German forces and it was pretty hopeless for them because they were just sitting ducks for German aircraft. The hopelessness, comes across a bit but that's about it - there is no other emotion I felt. Save the moment when the small boats arrive in a group, or when Churchill's speech is read. For this scale and this story that is a huge disappointment. And for all the authenticity, the  behavior of the soldiers was almost contemporary. There was a way they moved, spoke, behaved and perhaps the boat owner was the one who got it right. All else could have been today's people.

For me, it did not work. It was a wasted two hours. I would now like to see the older version of Dunkirk. 

The Shop Around the Corner - Movie Review

Listed 28 in AFI's top 100. The 1940 movie based on a Hungarian play is as cute as a romantic comedy can be. Sharp dialogue, clearly developed characters, superb writing and a smooth ending. James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan are perfect as are the rest of the cast.

A handsome young man, manager in a Budapest shop, is secretly communicating with a girl through letters. They have not met yet but love the letters they get from their secret pen pals. A new girl joins the shop as a salesgirl but the young manager is not too fond of her, nor is she of him - they have opposite tastes and likes and dislikes. (It's clear that these two are the secret communicators to us.) On the day that the manager is to meet his secret friend, he loses his job and decides not to meet her. But he realises that his feisty young colleague is the same as the letter writer and he goes in to have some fun at her expense. She brushes him off and tells him that her friend is expected, far better than a shop manager can ever aspire to be. One thing leads to another and the shop owner realises that the manager is not at fault and makes him the chief manager of the shop. The two young lovers meet and its a happy ending.

Lovely. I love the classics.

Nice Link - Books for Every Leader to Read

Hmmm! One.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2014/12/12-books-every-leader-should-read

Nice Link - Books to read before 30

Books to read before 30!
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/these-are-the-books-you-should-read-before-you-turn-30

Anjali - Happy Friendship Day

Come Friendship Day and we have to shop in advance for friendship bands and rings for Anjali's friends. Now it's become a regular routine so I completely forgot about it until I realised Mansi was coming over to spend the evening here. The significance was to sink in later - they wanted to spend the evening together and usher in Friendship Day at midnight. So the two young ladies dragged their mattresses out into the living room, got their homework out (they had to kill time till 12 so they decided to do homework) and I could hear them giggle and talk away until late at night.

The cover page folds and says - "You are awful!"

Anjali's routine starts well in advance. The bands and rings were bought at the super market. She made a note of how much it cost and made it a point to pay me back 150 bucks from her savings. 'Please take it Nanna,'s she said. It obviously meant something to her that she buy her own friendship bands and rings so I took the money.

It opens and - 'You are awesomely wonderful"

More interestingly I found some creative cards she had made for her friends. I did not get to see all of them, the one for Mansi was especially intricate and dramatic, but she allowed me to take a look at the other two. There was surprise, drama and well, a nice ending. She has more story telling instinct than I have.

This goes like - "I would HATE living without YOU!"

Giving them to friends etc happened and well, she remember that she did not have bands for me and Shobhs so went and got us two. I got a note too - For Nanna, just like that. She got a couple of comics gift wrapped for herself - I wonder if it is a friendship day gift for herself. Whatever it is I love the fact that she puts in much care and thought and mischief and fun into these days and makes them much more fun and meaningful than they would have been otherwise.

Happy Friendship Day Anjali and thanks for the bands and gifts and notes and for all the creativity. You inspired me a lot on how to make life happier for myself and my friends.

A Lovely Gift - Thanks Nalini

I am not a grateful person normally. I am more worried about things I do not get than things I get. There is much to be grateful for in my life, the many gifts and miracles I already enjoy, but somehow my mind is trained to go and examine what I do not have. Consequently I spend a mere moment on what I have and focus entirely on what I do not.

So when I started doing some gratitude exercises as part of a group Shobha had started recently I was amazed at how many gifts I missed, am missing, and worse, making what I have into something not good enough. Anyway, the fact that it made me conscious is a huge bonus in itself and I hope to build on it and be a better person for it.

One gift stood out and showed me how much I take things for granted. My sister Nalini had called me a few days ago and asked if I would be home and could she drop in. I said I would and she could come. She came home and gifted me this beautiful Sheaffer pen. 'I thought I'd use it to write a text book on Pathology,' she said. 'But I don't seem to be making any headway. You write, so it will help you. Write many more books.' It was such a wonderful gift for someone like me who is does not indulge in more than 20 bucks on a pen (actually less to be honest).

The gift comes at a very interesting time too. I normally do not spend much time looking at pens etc and the only interest I get is when my good friend Vinod Ekbote shows me some of his rare pen collections or talks about them (he loves them). But recently when I was in Landmark with Anjali, I spent time looking at the pens on display. Parker, Cross etc. I showed Anjali the pens and the prices - some were 8000 etc. Mentally I told myself, maybe I should get a good looking pen, not 8k but some 2k.

And two days later it arrives.

I ask and the universe gives. I am once again made to wonder what I am asking for really and whether I am trusting the universe enough. It's now among the many pens gifted to me - Tharian gave me one two decades ago (with a lovely note that I still have), Monica gave me a sleek Cross pen, Naresh gave me one that belonged to his father (still have it), Sunil Shivsale bought me a lovely pen when he saw I did not have one at the Bangalore launch of 50 Not Out, Anjali gave me a glitter pen for friendship day last year, Shobha gave me so many, Nalini's latest...and so many more surely that I cannot remember. The world does pamper you. (But we are looking for the one thing that is not there.)

Thank you Nalini. Thank you world.

Nice Link - 5 Keys to Building a Successful Team - The Google Research

5 Keys to a successful Team - 200+ interviews, 250 attributes of 180 teams
Who is on the team matters less than how team members interact, structure their work and view their contributions.

• Impact - team thinks that work matters and will create change 
• Meaning - Work is personally important to members
• Structure and Clarity - Team members have clear, roles, plans and goals
• Dependability - Members get things done on time and reach Google's high bar of excellence
• Psychological Safety - Team members feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable in front of one another

https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/