Portrait

yesterday was pretty much uneventful. culturally atleast. ammi, saurab and i went to the institute of social studies which is in the hague. its one of the biggest institutes of post grad studies in sociology in the world. its the place ammi was studying at when i was born, and also where she was finishing up later in 1994 when i was here over the summer. some people who were in her batch are still around, they’ve either come back to do their PhDs, or they now teach at the ISS. everyone has all these stories from when i was a baby and i was being carted around in a wicker basket while ammi went for her lectures, and also from when i was here in ‘94 and i tagged along with her in my ballet shoes. their pretty shocked to see me. ‘you’ve grown so much’. you don’t say. you think…?

anyway, after that saurab and i ditched my mother to her happy reunion and we went to see madagascar. sadly madagascar was sold out by the time we got there, so we had to settle for batman begins . it turned out to be not so bad a waste of time and money at the end of day. it’s actually quite cool. i especially enjoyed the fact that it really questions the borders of what justice is, more so than any other comics and movies of its genre. in my opinion, this really kind of ponders on the lines of ‘what is good and what is bad? can violence be fought any other way except by violence itself?’ etc. also, in this there is no crazy criminal in a crazy get up, along the lines of the riddler and joker. this is about batman fighting real criminals, and the real crimes. christian bale as bruce wayne/batman is nice, good looking and all. but i didn’t warm to him too much, maybe because i still remember him all too clearly playing the relentless psychopath in american psycho. katie holmes is good, perfect for the lady love. pretty, proper and religiously hell bent on being inspirtationally just. i even forgive her for having been able to kiss both joshua jackson AND chad michael murray on dawson’s creek. and as always, beloved alfred the butler was the sweetest. michael caine plays him with the warmth and wisdom of the good old englishman. anyway, it doesn’t have much dramatic or theatrical value, but its fast paced and upbeat. its entertaining.

today ammi and i went back to amsterdam for the day. we visited the vincent van gogh museum there. the art is just lovely. picked up a few things for the art lovers back home. then we when to haagen dasz (the ice cream there just has to be the best in the world), sat outside and ate ice cream while a group of young black and south american guys performed a combination of a native south american looking dance and some acrobatics in the square. they were really good, totally rhythmic and flexible. then we took a train back to the hague and went (for a short time) to madurodam, which is a really big tourist attraction here. its a kind of a miniature holland, a carefully built, mini replica of all the biggest landmarks from all over the country. there are the canals, and the buildings, and running trains, planes and boats/ships, the churches, the palaces. its all very pretty.

anyway, tomorrow morning we leave for heathrow. i wish we had more time here. i have to leave just as i was beginning to fall in love with the place. all in all, i’m glad i made it. and undoubtedly, a lot awaits me in london…