LOL: Life Of Leo

Image Source My last Action Replay was in July 2021, that is almost a year ago! It aches me that I haven't been regular here, but I'm slowly making a start now and that is something I want to stay consistent at. 2020, 2021 and the first five months of 2022 were a blur! It is a weird feeling, time is moving so fast and yet everything around feels slow. I don't know if I'm making sense, but that is how 2022 has been for me so far. The pandemic still looms, but our life has pretty much gone back to the old normal. We used to feel restricted and claustrophobic earlier but now we are free to do whatever we want. That's a tiny win! I have been through a lot from the start of the year, both good and bad and as usual it has left me with lessons that would last a lifetime. Work has been good and while we are asked to step into office once in a while, I'm still primarily working from home. My workplace is just 10 minutes away from where I stay and I don't feel like go

Image Source This incident happened more than a month ago and it still refuses to leave my mind. I'm neither a fan of Chris Rock or Will Smith, the sheer audacity of what happened is what stays with me. What Will Smith did was wrong, there is no doubt in that. But, what Chris Rock did wasn't right either. As a comedian, you have the liberty to make fun of a lot of things. Physical appearances and illness not included. The way we look is what people see first, anything a little out of the ordinary hurts our self-confidence. More so because people ensure to point it out. It hurts no doubt. Now imagine being mocked for it. I wasn't aware of Jada's alopecia areata until this happened. Maybe even Chris Rock wasn't, after all not everyone immerses themselves in social media all the time. Will Smith should have handled it off stage than talk about the dangerous things that love makes us do. I mean this was the man who won hearts by forgiving his cheating wife. The reason

Image Source Since the pandemic, if there is a Bollywood movie that was shoved into our faces promoted immensely, it has to be Atrangi re. From Sara Ali Khan dancing in every possible location, be it trees or on water, to people copying her Chakachak moves, this movie was everywhere on Social Media. Personally, I think that Sara Ali Khan is a decent actress, but picks the wrong movies. If you think she was annoying in Love Aaj Kal, she takes it up a notch with Atrangi Re. The movie does live up to its name in terms of ample color strewn around, but what makes the movie unintentionally funny is the colors of people. Before I talk about what I thought of this one, let me give you the gist of the movie. Vishu (Dhanush) is from Madurai and is studying to be a doctor in Delhi. Rinku (Sara Ali Khan) is an orphan from Bihar, hated and abused by her family members and happens to be a serial eloper. She's runaway ample times to be with her long-term boyfriend, Sajjad Ali Khan (Akshay Kumar

Image Source I started blogging in 2009, reasons behind it were important back then but not now. Writing was an outlet and the concept of blogging was quite new back then and people were thrilled to write, read, comment and give away a plethora of blogging awards. It used to be all personal and thought-sharing back then. With time, it became a business. Blogging contests were a challenge to the mind of a writing novice, but the eyes were always on the prize. Blogging communities came up with many money making ideas and honestly, all of them did work. Prizes and vouchers were given away at the drop of a hat and for an article written just for the sake of it. Personalization gave way to commercialization. Ample time was spent on research of topics we did not care about, but had to write about. Deadlines and version revisions took away the simplistic joy of writing, but not without giving you more moolah than you bargained for.

Image Source What do you call that feeling where you want to say so much but are not able to put it into words? Whatever it is called, that is exactly what I'm feeling as I sit down to write this. Honestly, I cannot believe a time has come where writing has become optional for me. It is definitely not out of choice, neither has it been a priority over the past few months. If I were to be more honest, I'd say that I did not even think of writing or miss it even. Writing has been a vital part of my life and it had/has been paused for a while and I'm totally fine with it. Yes, say hello to the new me. 2020 and 2021 have been weird years and we can all agree with it. Every one of us has gone through so much, lost so much, gained so much and what not. I'm sure at the end of the day none of us are what we were two years ago. The pandemic hasn't been easy but it sure did make each one of us look deep into ourselves. One of the biggest lessons that I've learned over the

Image Source My last post spoke about my renewed love for love stories, chick-lits or rom-coms or anything else you might want to call it. While I have warmed up to reading them, watching them is something I'm slowly inching my way through. One of the things that I did not mention in my last post is that my repulsion to romantic reads was triggered by Jane Austen. I've read almost all her books with the hope of finding something good in at least one of them. Sense and Sensibility was the only book of hers that I did not hate. I did not like it, but I did not hate it either. Don't even get me started on her other books. So, when a show called Bridgerton hit our screens and everyone immediately went gaga over it, I watched its trailer. It was as Austenesque as it could get and while everything inside me told me not to watch it, the curious Lioness in me wanted to watch it to see what the hype was all about. Based on Julia Quinn's novels, Bridgerton is the story of the Br

Image Source Everyone who knows me knows how important reading is to me. Right from when I was a child, books have been a close companion. Books are to be thanked to a large extent, for everything that I am or am not today. Like almost every reader, I started with Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew, Carolyn Keene, Agatha Christie etc. As a young adult, I moved on to Sidney Sheldon, Shakespeare, Mills & Boon and the likes. Since then I have read hundreds of books in diverse genres with mystery/thrillers and contemporary fiction topping my list of favorite genres. As much as I enjoyed reading romance when I was younger, as an adult I was not quite fond of the genre.

Image Source I'm alive! Yes, there is no other way I would want to start this post. No, I haven't been sick or infected, I just have been busy and stressed thanks to the uncertainty around. None of us in Bangalore expected the second wave to hit us this bad and while the Government has continued to let us down, we have been trying our best to stay afloat. This time, Covid hit close home and we lost some close friends and relatives. We also had a bunch of people who were infected and thankfully recovered. The second wave hasn't been easy for any of us I'm sure and this is the main reason I did not want to put up a post here as it would have been a rant. I was angry, upset, sad and what not looking at the situation around me. Survivor's guilt is a real thing and at times I genuinely have felt ashamed about my privilege. Anyway, long story short, we survived and now we have been fully vaccinated as well. Hopefully, the third wave won't hit us so hard. Even if it do

Title: Leave The World Behind Author: Rumaan Alam Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Format: Audiobook Genre: Dystopian/Science Fiction/Suspense Price: Rs. 569 on Audible Listening Time: 7 hours and 25 minutes Narrator: Marin Ireland It has been a while since I reviewed a book that I did not enjoy. I usually prefer to talk about a book that I loved, so that it becomes a recommendation for my readers. Occasionally, I also review books that I did not like at all with the hope of saving the time and effort of others by telling them to not pick it up. Funnily enough, this books doesn't fall on either end of the spectrum. In fact, this book doesn't belong on the spectrum at all. 'Weird' is a word that I do not like to use often, but if you ask me to describe this book in one word, it would be that.