Subscribe to RSSOf Indian Ocean, Steve Jobs & Leaving Home
The weekend before the last, three of us friends drove down to Hampi for a quick weekend getaway. On the way back, we played Indian Ocean for almost 4 hours on the trot. The music gave us a high we’d never felt before. I was sitting in the backseat, in a deep musical trance while some key events of the last decade and a little more played on in my mind.
The year was 1998. I was working for an IT training company, handling franchise operations for the state of Gujarat. I used to travel often, on work, to different cities in the state where my company had a presence. One of these places was Surat – a place which has formed an indelible chapter, maybe even two, in the story of my life. The city was the first to expose me to living life independently. The experiences I had in the city, good or bad, have a huge contribution towards the person I am today. But this post is not about Surat. Its about a remarkable life-altering turn that happened on the banks of the Tapi.
I had met two people in Surat, both of them colleagues but from other functions in the same organization. I’ll refer to them as P & S here. The three of us were as different as chalk, cheese & concrete. P was a headstrong maverick, a spiritually inclined tech freak. S was the romantic dreamer, hardworking & the epitome of perseverance. I was the rebellious eccentric, creative but mercurial. We met and clicked instantly. And we’ve stayed friends through thick and thin till this moment. We understood, complemented and stood up for each other. Needless to say, we’ve had our share of disagreements, fights and all, but none of this was above the close bond we’ve formed between ourselves over time.
We’d always cherished a dream of working together, which had never happened once we quit from the organization where we’d met. We went our separate ways careerwise as well as geographically but we stayed in touch. Often, there were ideas that could have translated into successful ventures, but they fizzled out as we couldn’t give them the first big push that was required. This dream finally saw the light of the day around the end of 2009 and this site is a part of that dream come true. We gave the dream its first big push in December, 2009 by launching this website.
Although the entire canvas of our dream is large, I’ll restrict myself to just this site right now, to stay true to context. We started this with a vision to be a cinema portal in its true sense. A place where cine artistes, enthusiasts & the general movie-watcher class could be accommodated on a common platform. We knew we were complete greenhorns with respect to this site. Neither of us had a professional cinema background, neither had we run a website on our own before. But between the three of us we had enough of confidence, business intelligence & at least two of us could lay claim to being called a cinemaniac in the true sense.
December was a crackshot of a month. We all slogged day and night to get this site up and the last few days going into the launch, we used to share a joke between us…likening ourselves to pigs (there has been research to the end that pigs have the longest orgasm – one lasting upto 30 minutes…just that they don’t enjoy it). We felt orgasmic for days, seeing the sapling break out of the seed. But unlike pigs, we were enjoying every moment of it.
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Thanks for sharing the Steve jobs script …this was one of the fantastic write ups ever read…your comparison with the new born infants born in hospital…i got a vicarious feel of some of the things you mentioned in this post like the fighting with co-workers,school and college friends who are almost on the other side of globe and still being in touch….well i am feeling goosebumps………
all the best to cinemaaonline to Ratnakar,Tushar,Fatema and Jitaditya you people are doing a commendable job m/
Like the writer i also have had lots of debates with Ratnakar on facebook fan page about certain movies:)
Thank you Everyone for making this site.
*3 Bows*
Thanks Kushal. Its a pleasure to have you around.
Great one, and thanks for putting up Steve Jobs, my role model in my IT career.
The best thing i like about the site is that, it looks at movies from a movie view point, instead of being swayed by "Commercial" or "New Age" considerations. I believe that a movie needs to be seen as it is. If a "New Age" movie sucks, it sucks period, just coz it is "New Age" does not change anything.
Also i like the fact that we can Discuss the Movies period, instead of simply saying "Great Review" whatever that means.
Let's keep that going Ratnakar. Its awesome.
I feel very closely connected to Steve…he's a very spiritual person and our our personal philosophies match to quite an extent. For me, he's more of a personal role model than a professional one. That's why I love this speech of his so much. Shows us Steve Jobs the person and not the entrepreneur.
@Narcissist
Dude loved your post on ramu please write on Company…..(if you can)
Also cant forget having endless debates with Bollyfan…
i
sorry but i am not spamming guys i loved this post verry much i am just reading it over and over again….
speaking Cinematically it is like watching city of gods or Big lebowski ..you can watch it umpteen number of times and still can't get enough of it
narcissist
*Bows*
Wow Kushal!! That's big praise. I'm embarrassed more than anything else…but thank you.
I'll surely do a write-up on Company soon.
And before any producer jumps on to this for his next film, I'd better register it.
More power to cinemaaonline.As Ratnakar, said,hope we discuss cinema, not just new age or for that matter any age.Best of luck to you guys.
Steve Jobs rocks,infact when i was working i had taken printout of this post and keep it on my desktop as inspiration.
Cheers and great recounting of the journey till now(any many that are yet to come), well blended and timed/juxtaposed with what better but Leaving Home. I have a personal(mostly on creative levels) with the film as well. What is more wonderful than the film is all the human connections and real stories that it evokes.
Cinemaa Online has been a fun ride, when all of internet gets redundant and overloaded, I can always go back to CO and share a film I like, or discuss any of the existing threads, or even write something I am passionate about. I had always wanted to have a dedicated space to share my love for music in films, and with CO I got the respectable space I much needed. Looking forward to many new ventures and exploring many new dimensions of our common passion- dreaming on.
@Tushar : Sure…there will be many more journeys, detours & destinations ahead. Great to have you on the team.