Of New Year Resolutions.

Last year, after having spent a horrendous amount of time (3 years!!!) away from reading, or reading a maximum of a book a year, or even half a book a year, I decided at the start of 2011 that I would read, read, read this year. I managed to achieve that, albeit because I was caught off guard and thrown into a situation that I didn't anticipate. Still, it took conscious effort with all the traveling and work and other crazy events of the year. The books I read this year after zero reading in three years:

- To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee
- Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach
- Lord of the Flies, William Goldberg
- White Fang, Jack London
- Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts
- Red, Irwin Allan Sealy
- Immortals of Meluha, Amish
- The secret of the Nagas, Amish
- DORK: The Incredible Adventures of Robin Einstein Verghese, Sidin Vadukut
- Cloud 9 Minus One, S.P. Kumar
- Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman
- A Passage to India, E. M. Forster
- Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: Twenty-four Stories, Haruki Murakami

Half read:

- Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

Currently reading:

- On the Road, Jack Kerouac

That's approximately a book a month! Yay! :) I now have a bunch of books lined up for some good alone-time and I like the feeling of being back to reading so much, that I'm going to make it a habit.

I want to keep this up along with making 2012 the year of being the "Exercise Addict" once again. I suppose new year resolutions can work. :)

*The Dirty Picture* and the message I see

Many people I spoke to didn't like this film because of the layers of fat displayed by Vidya Balan.

"If you're on screen, you better have a perfect body!"

...was the common contention.

Apart from the fact that Vidya Balan was playing the role of a "fat South Indian (stereotype) heroine" perfectly, it surely took a lot of courage to show that much flab when the world balks and gawks at flab as though all people around are size zero. I, personally, am glad that for whatever it's worth, this movie has broken away from the stereotype in many ways. Particularly when the market that the film is catering to is the regular (and may I add, massive!) adult Bollywood audience, I'd say she has shown more guts than flab.

After all, isn't beauty in the eyes of the beholder? And, this perception changes with time too (remember voluptuous meant beautiful in the Victorian era?). I'd have been outcast as the ugliest thing alive if I'd been born then. :D I hope that with this movie begins a new generation of film that allows people to develop the sense to accept themselves the way they are and be comfortable in their own skin.

At the end of the day, it shouldn't matter if you're fat or thin, dark or fair, short or tall, as long as you are comfortable with yourself and you dress right - that is, pick colours and cuts to suit your body type.

Be comfortable!