sitcomer

I have been watching a lot of sitcoms now a days. Since I have not got a TV in my apartment yet (yeah, I am not kidding!), I utilize the time to catch up on previous seasons of few of the on going sitcoms on the net and I have reached a stage now where, come this fall, I would have 4-6 sitcoms to watch every week other than the unlimited re-run of the laugh-my-ass-off-every -time-I-see-it F.R.I.E.N.D.S, which I can watch as many times as they show it on TV.

I wonder how my preferences (or rather patience) have changed over the years. Till I came to US, desi moves were my bread and butter. I could sit through a Mera Naam Joker or Lagaan (those 2 being one of the longest movies in the history of world cinema spanning over 4 hrs run time) without even moving a muscle.

It took 1½ years, after I set foot in US, for me to see an English movie in a theater; but since then I can proudly claim to have compensated for the lost time by having caught up with majority of the really good movies of my generation. At a point of time, during my UC days, I used to watch at least 7-10 movies a week. The result was that it got difficult to sit through Indian movies which stretch to over 2-2.5 hours easily. Off late, I have not been able to watch any Indian movies completely at a go. This is quite a change, given how much irritated I used to get if there was a break in my movie watching when in India.

Thanks to the small dosage of ½ to 1 hr capsules, I am finding it hard to watch a whole English movie in one sitting. In theaters, its fine, since I cannot pause the movie and go out; but at home, my English movies’ fate is fast becoming that of desi films.

AVS

divine intervention

Staying on the topic of my last post.......

Till last year, though I used to wear seat belt always while seated in the in the front seat of a vehicle; I hardly used to do the same while traveling in the back seat. It all changed thanks to a trip in a van in San Diego last July.

While seated in the back seat of that vehicle, I noticed a notice sticker on the side window. It said it was a state law to wear the seatbelt irrespective of wherever one is seated. I ignored the message since I was seeing it for the first time in a vehicle and I thought it was just unique to California. However, the very next day, I had to travel in another van in Cincinnati and was seated in the back seat again and I happened to notice the same law sticker in there too. This surprised me, since, having lived in Cincinnati for almost 3 years till then and having traveled in van on many occasions, I hadn't noticed such a notice before. Call it intuition or fate or judgement, I just felt like wearing the seat belt on that occasion. In about 10 mins, as my van was crossing a traffic signal; a car came cross us breaking the traffic signal and collided with the van in spite of the effort of the my driver to apply brakes. The impact of the collision was such that the book and my cell phone in my pocket were thrown to the wind shield.

Had I not worn it, I am certain that I would have accompanied that book to the windshield. The collision was so severe that the car had to be towed away. From that day on, in spite of being made fun of for being too scary and being called a paranoid by my friends, I make sure I wear the seat belt anytime I am seated in a vehicle. I am sure had I not done that, my friends would not have had me to make fun of!

On a philosophical perspective, is this what is known as divine intervention? I am not sure; but, being a strong believer of God, I can’t think else wise.

AVS