Showing posts with label Serendipity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Serendipity. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

'S' For : Sleepless In Seattle and Serendipity

Last Saturday, I was bored and was just surfing through various TV channels, when I came upon some movie channel, and got to know that the movie "Sleepless in Seattle" was going to be aired in a few minutes, I was happy, that at last a movie which I always loved very much was going to be aired.
I must tell you that, I must have seen this movie at least 10 times, but still I never get tired of watching it. I literally know almost all the dialogues by heart.
Everybody from Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, the boy, Ross Malinger who acts as his son, all the actors have acted very well in this movie.
 I loved the way they connected the story of yet another romantic classic "An Affair to Remember" with this movie very much. I am a hopeless romantic, for I too believe in all the nonsense that is shown in such movies. Me and my daughter, we have watched "Sleepless in Seattle" together  on the TV many times together.
This is the houseboat/ floating house in Seattle in which the hero  Sam Baldwin ( Tom Hanks) and his son Jonah (Ross Malinger) live. I really fell in love with this house, and why wouldn't I?
Looking back: The house as it appeared in the 1993 hit movie Sleepless in Seattle

Anybody would love to live in a house like this. 
One couple who saw the movie fell in love with this house and they were lucky for they grabbed this house as soon as the house was put up on sale.
Present day: The iconic houseboat 20 years later

This what I read about them:






  • Loretta and Jim Healy bought the four-bedroom houseboat in 1993 for $550,000
  • Couple briefly put home on the market in 2008 for $2.5 million, but decided in the end that they could not part with it

  • They had their wedding there six months later, and claim that they have lived happily ever after since then. 
    'I love the place,' Loretta says. 'It's really magical.' 
    The unique property is one of the largest floating homes in Seattle, and features floating gardens and killer views. 
    Jim (her husband) even jokes that he doesn't mind being mistaken for Tom Hanks, who played widower Sam Baldwin in the film. 


    And finally they meet, everything is so magical, and so natural: the best scene, not many words, and they don't need words.

    (August 2013 | UPDATED: 14:56 GMT, 15 August in MailOnline)

    Another movie is : "Serendipity". This movie too, I have seen as many times as the previous one. The actors in this movie too have done a really lovable job. The title itself sounds so romantic, and the movie was awesome. Some of the best scenes from this movie:




     


    And finally they meet : destiny led them to each other



    I am sure many of you must have surely seen these movies, and those of you who have not seen should make it a  point to see these two lovely movies, where the people in the movie want to leave it to destiny but, they come to a point, where they can't wait till it happens, for their love is so powerful, and this quote is so true: 

    "when you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true". Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.


    Did you enjoy these movie clips?

    Do you also have some favourite scenes from these two movies?
     Please share them, it would be so good .

    Monday, January 16, 2012

    "All things are ready if our minds be so" - We found each other by pure serendipity! Part- 7 (the end)


                                                                                            In Spain
    The brahminic rituals of the engagement ceremony having finally got over, the all clear  was sounded for refreshments  to be brought out by  caterers specially called in for the  occasion.  My father, usually a frugal and tight fisted person, chose to go against the grain  this one last time,  and the menu card bore ample testimony to his sudden change of heart.
                                                                       
     In good spirits and wanting to make small talk, my mother casually enquired of the boy’s aunt if the boy was given to smoking, drinking,  non-vegetarian food, etc.   To this, the aunt proudly declared, of course, he does all that : she had seen him on several occasions  in various parties with a drink in hand and a cigarette in the other as if she was describing  Humphrey Bogart and not her nephew. Beef was his favorite meat – “You know, like the Americans”, adding fuel to the already raging fire.
                                                           
    Now as if these bombshells which she so casually threw at my mother were not enough,  even before my mother could recover from these shockers,  she threw a few more  at random for good measure.   She went on to add that all the men in their family smoked : and as for drinks she added,  even womenfolk in their family were not averse to taking a sip now and then, now and then,  now and then....   
    Their penchant to party at the slightest excuse was  widely known : in card games played for very high stakes, no man in the family was a match for the women,  past masters of the art.
                                                 
                                    "No one ever knows when a person you meet suddenly

                                       becomes a part of your life whom you remember

                                       each and every moment. It all happens and

                                      
    only then you realize how important that person is for you".
      
    Having thus breezily recounted the lifestyle and the family saga (of which I would soon be  part of),  she consoled my mother saying that she need have no worry – their family was very modern in their outlook and that, I would very quickly find my feet and be totally at home as had been the case with all the ladies who had married into the family – “ See how happy I am now”, biting into the melt in the mouth Mysore Pak.

    Words cannot describe what my mother felt at that time. This was irony in the real sense: history repeating itself once again, only it was little too late.

     Now with more than four score people having witnessed the engagement, the date of marriage fixed,  the neighborhood too was finally letting out their combined sigh of relief in seeing me finally engaged,  (for they too had waited for so long to see me getting married),  how could she have said or done anything at that stage ?  
    My mother revealed all these things to us  after all the invitees had left,  resigned to the fact that there was nothing much we could do now.
    I must admit however that all things considered, the truth of the matter was that he had conquered all our hearts  and came out as a  solid dependable  person, who would be true to his vows of “till death do us part”.  The boy’s family was known to us and came well recommended :  it was a collective opinion and consensus in our family that we ought not to unnecessarily worry and make a fuss over  a non- issue.  It was as if fate was mocking at us at some level:  not that we were expecting to have these things written on his face, yet it was a shocker, for wasn’t it for the very same reason that the Army boy suitor was unceremoniously and summarily cashiered ?

     As a wise man said, 'looks can be very deceptive'.  Here I was marrying a man with similar habits, which I was happy to reject and be rejected a few days back. Was it love at first sight or was it fate,  I really don't know what to believe. That’s life I suppose!
              
     Be that as it may, the fact of the matter was I liked the boy, and we got married in two months’ time and it has now been 31 years from that fateful day.  We have had our share of ups and downs which all marriages have to go through with adjustments on his part and minor realignments on my part: bringing up children together, doing almost everything together learning from each other. We do go off track once in a while, but as long as we can patch up after a few days of solitary confinement in our respective rooms,  I feel we can confidently say our marriage has remained rock solid for the most part. I must admit, there were times I had seriously considered leaving him, and maybe such thoughts have occurred to him too, I don't know, for this is my story, and I can only speak for myself. As we all know, women are more emotional and impulsive by nature, they hurt easily without any rhyme or reason, but in my case, good sense always prevailed,  and made me realize the truth behind this lovely quote: "I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life". ~Rita Rudner
    Yes, he smokes once in a while, he drinks at least thrice in a week and eats non veg whenever he gets an opportunity,  but only outside the home.  The point is he is not addicted to any of these things, for he can remain without them too for days and weeks.   I know it for a fact because he works from our home, and we are practically together all the time.

    He is man from whom I have learnt lots of things, and he has been and would always be source of inspiration for me.  He gives me enough space to be what I want to be, and likewise I too have learnt to give him the space he needs.  Fighting and making up is all part and parcel of life,  making life all the more  spicy and interesting.

    I have realized how paranoid one can become without knowing a person fully, and I still feel that my decision to marry him was right.  Somewhere a bell has to ring in your heart and in that instant you know that you have found the perfect match.
              
    And here I would like to share with you another irony that happened, it was really very funny.  You see my father was always upset that I did not like any of the boys he brought home for us to select.  My cussedness in this matter irritated him no end :  Oftentimes in a fit of temper,  he would curse that I was fit only to get married to someone from the gutter. ( All Madrasis are no doubt familiar with the gutter curse – sakkadai ).

    Truth to tell,  I did get married to a man who had specialized in Sewage and Wastewater Treatment which in layman’s term means a gutter engineer.  I suppose one should also think before cursing, because some curses may come true.   I am not complaining, for in this case obviously it came true in a positive way.

    "Chance favors the prepared mind": consciously or unconsciously I had prepared my mind.  On the one hand I had reservations marrying a man who came earlier with similar traits  because I felt something was not right :  On the other, my husband with identical qualities and traits  seemed perfect to me  and made me take the plunge, to marry him without a second thought, because something within me made me feel he was the one meant for me. 

    Shakespeare had said some 400 years ago in Act 4 of his play Henry V: "All things are ready if our minds be so".  We found each other by pure serendipity!