Day 103 : Speaking Engagement!

I had my first ever experience as a key note speaker at the Chief Innovation Officer Summit, held at the Grand Copthorne hotel. I accepted the invitation from Innovation Enterprise, the organizers, about a couple of months ago and then of course proceeded to completely forget about it until the reminders started to flow in.

Initially I was a bit nervous because I had never done this before. I am pretty used to presentations internally in the companies I have worked for but I had not given any such presentation externally, or at least not at this scale. So initially, I was a bit nervous and put in a fair amount of preparation into it.

I chose a personal passion point - that of "Commercial Innovation", so I can be genuinely excited about it. That worked. Once I prepped the slides and ran through them, I felt ready and I began to look forward to the event.

Finally, the D-day arrived and I must say, it went off a lot more smoothly than I had expected. I actually enjoyed giving the presentation and was pretty pleased with the reception it got too!

So there, today I am happy about a job well done!

397 more to go.

Day 102 : Reclined Supta Padangustasana!

Yup - that's the pose I realized that I can do now. Ok fine. Only on one side. Still, it is pretty cool.

So there - Reclined Supta Padangustasana - Check!

398 more to go. 

Day 101 : The Little Ballerina!

Since she enjoyed her trial ballet class, I got her kind permission to sign her up for the regular class. But first, we needed to get her the ballet uniform.

So after work, she and I took a little trip down to the ballet school and did her "fitting". She was thrilled! The leotard, the skirt, the shoes - there was plenty for her to get excited about and she couldn't stop checking herself out in the mirror in the fitting room.

Back at home, she looked at her own picture and sighed, "I look so beautiful in this dress."

Indeed!

399 more to go. 

Day 100 : The Joy of 100!

Phew! Finally completed 100 days! On one hand it felt like so much work, but on the other hand, the 100 days seemed to have passed oh so quickly, and am glad I chronicled the best moments down. Some day it might make an interesting read.

But for today, I am just happy that I stuck with it.

And thank you for reading and supporting me through this!

400 more to go. 

Day 99 : Yantra

Everyone in the family (and I mean my family in Singapore including in laws) seemed to have something or the other working out for them - work stuff, personal stuff, health stuff. So we thought today is as good a time as any for a family celebration! 

The celebration, in true Indian style, ended up being all about eating. 

We set off for the lunch buffet at Yantra at Tanglin Mall - and I must say it was pretty impressive. 

They had a wonderful array of chaats (pani puri, of course, being my all time favourite), the fluffiest, softest naans, a lot of different vegetarian and non vegetarian dishes (my favourite being the mutton rice and the fried fish), too many desserts (much to Madam's excitement) and to top it all off, the perfect masala chai. We hogged until we couldn't hog any more and groaned from all that effort and overeating - a sign of a true, good celebration. 

Here's to Yantra and celebrations! 

401 more to go. 

Day 98 : Ballet!

I started to learn Bharatanatyam when I was 3.5 years old. So I thought Madam, who is now past 3.5, is very much ready to start learning dance. Especially since she seemed to enjoy it so much.

So I took her to a trial dance class. Ballet, not Bharatanatyam. Because she seemed to be more into twirling and hopping plus the classes were right next door, so there were practical reasons too.

Since it was a trial class, the parents were allowed to sit in and we could watch the proceedings, which am happy to say went pretty well. She had a ball of a time! They had props and stories and even though Madam spent half the time admiring herself and doing her own thing in front of the studio mirror, she seemed to really get into the groove.

My ballet butterfly!

At the end of it all, when I asked her if she enjoyed it, her reply was a resounding YES! Which in turn made me feel pretty happy about my decision to take her to the class. 

402 more to go. 

Day 97 : The Last Piece of the Puzzle!

The first scene in my film is considered dramatic. And it has no background score. And it has a quiet, indoor sound design. And it is pretty long.

What that basically led to was a ton of discussion around it. Should there be music? Should it be so quiet? If there is music, what sort of music? How can any music fit when the moods shift so quickly within a short span of time? Is it too art-y? Is it too slow? Etc. etc.

As the director, I have the unique privilege of taking the call on the final outcomes of such discussions. So based on the first draft of sound design and the first draft of background score we had, I decided no music. It simply didn't go. Not with the sound we had. Nope.

But was I completely satisfied with the scene? Not really.

Today, the sound designer who lives in Dubai, took a folly (live sound recording) from a similar setting as that in the scene and sent me the revised sound design.

Suddenly the scene felt very different. And the scene demanded music.

So I went back to the first draft of background score. That in its entirety absolutely didn't work, but after playing around with it - copy and pasting a few sequences here and there, suddenly it all fell into place. That last piece of the puzzle fell in oh-so-beautifully!

And to me, now, the scene just right.

Totally made my day, that.

403 more to go.