I hope all of you have a great new year, where the mind and soul feels fresh like a child’s. Unburdened by past memories, but enriched by the wisdom of experiences of the year(s) gone by. Where each dawn is like a new birth, each touch unlike one before, each sunset a moment of deep contemplation and prayer. I wish you all the immense adventure of life. I wish you all everything the ‘leela’ and ‘maya’ of life can offer. I wish you all the the joys of humility and gifts of love. Shekhar
Dear Shekhar,
A very happy new year to you as well and I hope the coming year brings you all the adventures and joys that make life great. We are living in such wonderful times where advancements all over the world in various fields make each year so different and to look forward to. There was no “youtube” 3 yrs back and today online video is the norm. Hardly any social networking buzz and people are crazy about that now and so much more. Life is changing fast which means the opportunities are multiplying each year, and there is so much more to do.
I hope the coming year fulfills you in so many ways the you truly say, life is great.
Best wishes in this amazing time,
Himanshu
Happy new year Shekar.
and let the leela of life continue non stop, full of action for every one.
Thank You
‘O’ Humble Spirit….
May ye be in Peace!!
Love and Much Love
Sapna
A very happy new year to you too Shekhar,
Year comes and go,and with every years we love you even more.I wish a grand leela of all mighty for everyone on the blog and great creative year ahead.
After 14 years in New york.This is my first new years eve in London.
Best wishes to everyone on the blog. May the new year bring peace and happiness for everyone on this planet and beyond.
Sanjay
A very happy new year to you too…
Over the last 8-9 years I have made a collection of about a couple of thousand quotes. On the first day of this wonderful year I am sharing some great ones about LIFE and CINEMA for all of you and hope you like them:
1. I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing.
Umberto Eco (1932 – ) Source: Foucault’s Pendulum, Chapter 87
2. “It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. . . . This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our every man must take on a science fictional way of thinking.”
~ Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) American scientist & science-fiction writer
3. “It does not matter that only a few in each generation will grasp and achieve the full reality of man’s proper stature” and the rest will betray it. It is those few that move the world and give life its meaning” and it is those few that I have always sought to address. The rest are no concern of mine; it is not me or The Fountainhead that they will betray: it is their own souls.” ~ Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
4. The possibility of stepping into a higher plane is quite real for everyone. It requires no force or effort or sacrifice. It involves little more than changing our ideas about what is normal. – Deepak Chopra
5. There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever. Mahatma Gandhi
6. Buddhism holds that everything is in constant flux. Thus the question is whether we are to accept change passively and be swept away by it or whether we are to take the lead and create positive changes on our own initiative. While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning and birth. ~ Daisaku Ikeda ~
7. A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
8. “Of this much I’m certain: If you write a good script with a great premise, you’ll have a big hit. If you write a bad script with a great premise you’ll still make money. But if you write a great script with a bad premise, success is not likely.” Jeffery Katzenberg
9. “What is Cinema? We might as well ask “What is life?”, for film, like life, is made of moments; moments in time, held aloft for our perusal, imprinted on our soul, and then brought back to us from time to time as a memory — by an event, a vision, a sound, an emotion. The separation becomes trivial — cinema is life, and life cinema: around us, beside us, inside us. The cinema, then, is not to be consumed with haste; films are not to be digested simply as they unfold, like some plastic-wrapped fast-food. Created by light and celluloid, they live only in our minds and in our hearts, savored both during and after the fact. Projected onto the screen and into our consciousness, where they are replayed over and over — continually re-discovered artifacts which are constantly changing us. What, then, can we say is truly real? A memory? An event? A celluloid image? The answer lies in the cinema. All is real. Nothing is impossible.” – Glen Norton
10. “Until a character becomes a personality, it cannot be believed. Without personality, the character may do funny or interesting things, but unless people are able to identify themselves with the character, its actions will seem unreal. And without personality, a story cannot ring true to the audience.” – Steven Speilberg
11. “A good film is when the price of the admission, the dinner and the babysitter was well worth it.” – Alfred Hitchcock
12. ‘I’ve begun to believe more and more that movies are all about transitions, that the key to making good movies is to pay attention to the transition between scenes. And not just how you get from one scene to the next, but where you leave a scene and where you come into a new scene. Those are some of the most important decisions that you make. It can be the difference between a movie that works and a movie that doesn’t.’ — Steven Soderbergh
13. “Before I go off and direct a movie I always look at 4 films. They tend to be: Seven Samurai, Lawrence of Arabia, It’s A Wonderful Life, and The Searchers.” Steven Spielberg
14. ‘Although knowledge of structure is helpful, real creativity comes from leaps of faith in which you jump to something illogical. But those leaps form the memorable moments in movies and plays.’ — Francis Ford Coppola
15. “I made some mistakes in drama. I thought the drama was when the actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries.”
~ Frank Capra (1897-1991) American movie director
16. “If you make films, you’re changing rhythm the whole time. You go from a quiet life to an absolutely turbulent life which is typical of moviemaking. And then you get back to your normal life and you have to have nerves of steel.” Geraldine Chaplin
Happy New Year to everyone,
Himanshu
Dear Shekhar
May health and joy be yours in the new year, and those that follow. You have brought so much beauty and thoughtfulness to my life with your work, and your sharp yet poetic mind. Thank you, sir.
love, Heath
shekhar……wishing you a very happy newyear.. may all your dreams come true…. and all the love, peace and happiness be yours !
u talked about leela and mayaspace, what abt brahmaspace…?
let us evolve all – thru n thru, all through! whats your say??
Wish You and All @ Home A Very Happy And Prosperous New Year.
Peaceful New Year to all…
May the spirits of those who commit pain and suffering against others…be healed, that they may not commit such acts again…
om shanti shanti shanti hari om
A great new year to you too and everyone.
This year I’ll keep trying to let go and truly accept all that is, in which your blog continues to help me..
thank u, Neeta, and I will keep trying. The blog helps me too as so many people write back – that beyond the hype and wars and greed there are people like me that have faith in fundamental humanity of life.
Hi Shekhar,
I publish an Indian newspaper in Sydney and had interviewed you when you came here on promotional tour of Bandit Queen. I had felt that the movie was too violent…it was my first movie where the stark reality of how bad things can be in India had hit me…
I really liked Elizabeth as well…And its funny to read your blog and know you personally..that you have same insecurities like all of us…when you say things like ‘pray for me’ I feel you must be going through a great dilemma of how to express and deliver through the medium you have chosen…must be hard and lonely…thats why I can feel so much depth in your posts…do please contact me on indiandowunder@gmail.com….would like to do an interview again in The Indian Down Under tabloid newspaper we publish…your blog is quite inspiring…