Life in a Suitcase

I can't blame US president elect Obama for wanting to see the "Slumdog Millionaire" after the movie made a lot of noise and took home 8 Oscar's!

On mid-january 2009, I have reported to our headoffice in Paris and had an opportunity to spend a weekend there with my colleagues from the middle east. We made a great plan for the weekend, this time to visit churches like Sacre Cour and Notre Dame. After a week of working long hours, I was too excited for the weekend to relax. I had to sleep early on Friday night just to make sure I have enough energy for the next long day of definitely loads of walking. Then came Saturday morning. At 9am, it was still dark, and raining, and at 2 degrees. I had a really slow and relaxing breakfast while sending messages to my colleagues suggesting that we instead meet at 12noon, wishing that some sun will show up, but it never did. We then had to cancel our church visits but had to do something else until somebody suggested that we meet in Chatelet Les Halles, a metro and a train station and a mall in one, quite a huge place but indoors so we were not worried that we will get sick and will not be able to work on the next working week (imagine the company's disappointment of spending money for your flight and hotel and you will be...what?...sick???).

So what do we do. Most of the shops are on sale, but because it's a weekend and it's the last day of the week for the Parisians to shop (Most shops are close on Sundays), it was too crowded for the very word of it. You will just get disappointed seeing the long queue on the cashier, epecially when you just want to pick up a t-shirt (like me)...While sitiing on Starbucks (after searching for this special coffee shop for like 30 minutes), somebody suggested to see a movie and I raised my hand in agreement.

The main objective is to see a movie in English so after browsing the lists, and mini-mini-mini-moe...we had chosen "Slumdog Millionaire". The synopsis is in French so even if I put together all the few words that I understood, it still didn't make sense to me. Anyway, there's nothing else to do so I shelled out 12 Euros (waaaah!) just to pass the time.

It was mostly in English, but sometimes especially when Jamal and Salim were still small kids, they speak Hindi..and I didn't understand, but because of the French subtitles, I didn't understand more..haha...

In the end it was a good movie. It is one good movie I can recommend president Obama and anyone to see. It's not only about the story but how it was made. I am not going to explain it in detail but what can I just say is go and try to see this movie. If it's not being shown yet in the cinemas (and for my friends in Saudi who don't have cinema at all) I'm sure there are already pirated copies around (ooopps, did I just promote movie piracy???), and make sure to get the one with an English subtitle.

At the back of my mind, I was happier thinking that our project in India is still delayed so I don't go there soon. When you see the movie, you'll know what I am talking about.

Reading the newspaper the other day, I just found out that it took home 8 Oscar's and many more from other award giving bodies. Well, the movie and the makers of it deserve all the recognitions. Even if it's not really an Indian movie, but rather a movie about an Indian kid, I am happy for my Indian friends here in the middle east for the success of this movie entirely shot in their country and starred by their people...Mabrook!!!

By the way, I managed to see Sacre Cour the next day. It was a little bit sunny at 4 degrees. And the next weekend, I was in Vienna...a WOW and a completely different story.