Namesake -book and movie

Can a movie be made on a novel and if not better is equally good? The answer to that is Namesake. I loved the book and liked the movie as well. Its hard to appreciate a movie based on a book if everything is not right. Mira Nair has done an excellent job in the movie. Namesake is story about Indian immigrants in US- why they come to US and what they face when they make a home away from home. The story just touches your heart.

The movie is true to the mood of the book and has brought the characters to life. Great performances in the movie especially from Tabu and Irfan. They are truly believable as Ashoke and Ashima who are adjusting to US life but also longing for home and familiarity. Watch out for their expressions when Maxine comes to visit them. Great cinematography, movie is a visual treat.

The movie ends with Ashoke saying to Gogol at the end of the beach-"We came to a place where there was nowhere else to go". That sums up why immigrants like us are here. We want to do what we want to do in this life when we can and not wait for a donkey's life (thats a translation of a saying in Bihari per our Chachaji)!

Listening to an audiobook

I have always loved reading books. But of late I am missing doing that a lot due to a busy life...not finding time at all. Time goes by looking after the baby and home, working from home. So I thought I would just try an audiobook...that way I can be doing something and listening to a book. I got Man's search for meaning by Viktor Frankl from the public library.

About listening to audiobook....it didn't work for me. I would like to read at my own pace with my own voice in my head. Thats how reading is an enriching experience for me, it becomes a personal experience reading on my own. I would like to stop at some points, reread and ponder. I don't get that in an audiobook. I also tried an audiobook during my long drive to work earlier. That was a Harry Potter audiobook that I got. My advice.......too dangerous! It made me feel more sleepy. Better stick to listening to peppy songs while driving!

Needless to say I could never finish the audiobooks in my attempts in listening them. From what I did listen of Man's search for meaning-

Its the author's experience as a prisoner in concentration camps during the Holocaust and his contemplations on the meaning of life. I slept while listening to the book and the content shifted from the camp experience with insights to very esoteric clinical psychology. Frankl was also a psychologist. Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful. The book is really really deep. I may get the book to read another time, but here are some quotes from the book.....full of meaning!

Logotherapy...considers man as a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning and in actualizing values, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts.

The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by doing a deed; (2) by experiencing a value; and (3) by suffering.

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He who knows the "why" for his existence, will be able to bear almost any "how".

Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.