Marriage Cetificate

If you are an NRI living in the US and are going to India for wedding, DO NOT forget to get your marriage certificate along with you when you are coming back. I do not know how it works out or is required in other countries, but in US, especially if you are in the GC process or will likely be, you will soon realize that it is one of the most critical documents required.
Neither me nor my husband had any idea that we need to take a marriage certificate after the wedding. My mother was the first person to tell it to us and she was very persistent..she reminded each day until we went to the local registrar's office and got it.
It took us about 4 hours to wait for the document, but it was all worth it.

I recently talked to a friend of mine whose GC went into inquiry because of missing marriage certificate. Of course she also did not have her birth certificate and submitted a non availability certificate for it. She struggled through quite a bit to submit subtitutes...and finally got through later.

Mango people

You know what this means if you watched 'Love Aaj Kal'. I have been watching quite a few movies off late...just thru and after dinner almost everyday. When we started to see this one, we wanted to stop watching right after 5 mins and switch on news or something else. It was so haphazard and had no relevance between this scene and the next one, dialogues and Saif did not make sense. But, slowly with time, the movie became interesting. It is a good movie, well taken with a good screenplay. Yea, it has its own share of flaws, but not to focus on them, the story flows and the genuine acting and dialogues bring in good laughs.

Plaster Vs Pottery Painting

By the look of it, at the first glance, you might not be able to tell the difference, but if you did any of the painting, you clearly know and can tell what is pottery and which is plaster. The plaster painting molds are made of plaster of paris and have an acrylic coat on them to give them the finish. Pottery painting molds on the other hand are made out of ceramic, and will need to be fired in a kiln to give them the finish. Plaster ones are cheaper and much more affordable than pottery. Also they are easier to paint because just one coat of color or one stroke is enough. When painting pottery it definitely needs to be done in multiple layers, there needs to be base coat and then rest of the art can go on top of it. The advantage of pottery painting comes in when 'edibility' factor comes in..you can actually use the mugs or plates or any other crockery, while the plaster ones are plainly for eyes delight and art's content :)

Hindi Movie: Sikander

My brother called me last week and told me particularily to watch this movie. He called me right after watching the movie and said he was moved watching it. He gave no further info, so I was very curious to watch the film. I finally saw it today - a powerful movie, though not impressively taken. It revolves around the life of kids in Kashmir, how they are effected by the terror that is going on during the fights in Kashmir. As soon as I realized the movie is around this theme, I was very tensed, because I was not prepared to see the children suffer or to see any kind of atrocities happen to the kids. I was tensed through out and had a terrible headache because of that. It was emotionally draining tho the movie did not involve any violent or abusive scenes. Overall, it is a good movie..should not be watched for purely entertainment for sure...thought provoking and brings realities to vision.

Hindi Movie: New York

I watched New York last night and was very impressed. I did not hear about the movie until last month. And once I heard that it was a Yash's movie, I postponed watching it thinking it is another comedy or musical. I was thoroughly amazed to see that the movie content it revolved around post-9/11 dealings with the suspects of the attack. Even though it is a very sensitive subject, that too for a foreigner(non-US) to handle it, the story, screenplay, direction were all meticulously crafted and very well handled. Also to my surprise, Katrina is not just another 'model' in the movie...she actually acted well and carried her character efficiently. Thanks to Kabir Khan, Sandeep Srivatsava and the Yash's..we do have a good movie to watch after a long time. Whats interesting is (to the best I know) there have been no other movies on post-9/11 related to Gitmo detention center made so far and I am glad the first one is indeed good, non-controversial and perfectly presented.