Don't look back

...is the second episode of first season of the TV series called HEROES. It has only been two episodes and I have begun to think that its going to be a fun like LOST. Even though the first two seasons were sitting on my idle harddisk for very long time, I couldn't find myself watching this before.

So lets hope that it turns out to be as great as I have heard from friends.

To heroes.........

Bihar was never a case of bad governance;

.... it was a case of absence of governance. This was one of the lines spoken by Chief Minister of Bihar while accepting the Economic Times Business Reformer of the Year award. Without naming his predecessor, he so eloquently put his request for more funding, giving the business community a larger sense of assurance on safety and better investment opportunity.

Whether Bihar will get the attention of buisness leaders or not. Whether the 11% growth rate will be a one time wonder or it will be sustained. Whether Nalanda university will get its due reputation or not. Whether the land of Goddess Sita will shine or not. Answers to these questions will unfold only in future. My take on all this is  : "Last 2-3 years have brought hope for a better future, hope that things can change and its only the matter of time". Hope is biggest thing which, Nitish goverment has given to us.  

Remember what Rancho baba (or Ingdu :P) said in three idiots. He meant that hope is the only thing which gives that extra strength and belief to your heart to fight the odds in toughest of situations and  fools you to think that "AAL IZZ WELL".

Outsiders in Mumbai

Posted by AJ on September 14, 2008

Mumbai is awake. Atleast some of the people here think they are. That’s why few sons of soil have taken it upon themselves to protect “Marathi Asmita”. How will they do it?? By ensuring that every person staying in Mumbai should speak marathi, by beating the north Indian taxi drivers, by forcing McDonald to write its name in Marathi, by halting the movie releases of A Bachhan.

I won’t discard the whole idea as there is a good angle in it. Still it’s unreasonable from all the other angles. Let’s talk about some of the good aspects of this fight.

1. Going just by the fact that Mumbai is in Maharashtra, Marathi people should get bigger pie of its success. They have all the right to be respected here, same with their language too.

2. Marathi people should get the major chunk of the employment opportunities first.

2 books and 3 idiots

Watched "3 idiots" few days back and thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the best movies this year, I'd say. Considering that it is based on the book "Five point someone" and the media rounds about the ugly spat between the author and the lead actor from the movie; my verdict is that the movie has done full justice to the spirit of the book, not sure about the credit/compensation given to the author. This movie has few over-the-board moments ( will be appreciated only by the guys who have not been to a college like ICE) which have been over-shadowed by the numerous fantabulous scenes.

I have never considered it practical for a movie director to show all the things at the screen , which have been imagined/written by the story teller. Many movies  based on the bestseller books have done quite well in the past and 3 idiots is one more addition to them. However, you ask the one who has read the book before watching the movie. Chances of his replying in favour of the book are much more. The ready examples are "Jurrasic Park" and the "Da-vinci Code". Even though,   these movies were fantasic, but can never be compared to the book. Simply put, they were not able to depict the detailed imagination of author on the screen. Having said all that, I did enjoy the movies too.

I have also bought two books, "अँधेरे  बंद  कमरे" by Mohan Rakesh and "राग  दरबारी " by S.Lal, hoping that

ho0h0ohidshrp'hwrepegwljbsdk...

ho0h0ohidshrp'hwrepegwljbsdk... That was why there are no entries made on this blog for this long. I am back, like so many other times. 2010 is just on the brink and will come with lots of promises. The next week will be the one where many resolutions at personal front will be made. Some would like to loose 6 kg, some would like to stop procrastinating, some would like to learn swimming and some others will take a resolution to hit the gym regularly. There is no dearth of ideas, resolutions. The more you try to find out , the more amused you will get. Personally, I'll try to pursue some of them :P.

Now that, I am in the midst of a quarter-life-crisis and struggling with the increasing waistline and decreasing hairline, it appears a time for thinking, thinking and some more thinking. The mantra for new year will be not only to think, rather to bring some of the ideas to reality. Not that I am planning to make a nuke, but whatever you plan, needs some amount of action. So that's the resolution for new year. Nothing specific.

Now that the new year resolution is almost set, its time to say about other things. The last "the movie" which I saw, was AVATAR. Watching it in 3D was just great experience, that too in a heritage theater (Of course, it

Allergy advice

Allergy advise written on some buscuit wrap. "मुझे तो समझ में नहीं आया; आपको समझ आवे, तो हमें भी समझावें...". Please explain if you understand the advice.

Different takes

Just to show, how people on two opposite sides of war perceive the history of war. I clicked this picture at trafalgar square in London. This shows the british take on the 1857 sepoy mutiny. Remember the history lessons, you attended in school; they never suggested that somebody will ever commemorate the heroes/villains from other side. Found one intereting one line british description of the mutiny, which goes like..

" To live in India, now, was like standing on the verge of a volcanic crater, the sides of which were fast crumbling away from our feet, while the boiling lava was ready to erupt and consume us...The infanticide Rajput, the bigoted Brahmin, the fanatic Mussalman, had joined together in the cause; cow-killer and the cow-worshipper, the pig-hater and the pig-eater... had revolted together." - Thomas Lowe, British Chronicler, 1860

Some thoughts to ponder upon..

Sultry days

Trying to make an attempt to come out of the realm of inconsistency, here it goes. Things were happening over last few months and are still continued. There were distribution of pink slips, abundance of green masks all around you, dancing of sensex on some unfamiliar tune, people confronting the truths (sach ka samna) and then people trying to save themselves from some jungle in sony world and so many other things.

Amongst all this, as always, I read few books. Mentioning books here is the easiest of ways to fill some space in this phreaking thought's portal. So there was "Sultry day" by Sobha De. I felt that this book had an ok story, but was unnecessarily painted a sultry look. Also, I never had any penchant for this type of writing. Nevertheless some people may like it.

Another was “If God was a banker” by Ravi Subramaniam. The best way to describe is like you are reading another Sobha De piece with some MBA jargon thrown in between” – comment made by anonymous. Personally I liked it. It will be a good read for anybody interested in an MBA roadmap.

Next in the line are:

“I bought the Monk’s Ferrari”

“Those small lil things”

“How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life”

Indian memsaab

Sorry for the long abscence. Now, there can be plethora of views why I am so irregular about things. Some things in particular, this blog being one of them.

It's not that I didn't have anything to write. Infact, so many things happened inbetween that I cant keep track of them. But come on, its only me...

Will try to be a bit more regular.

Today I read a fantastic Novel "Indian Memshab" by Suchita malik. It narrates the whole world of a beaurocrat's life through his wife's eyes, a fascinating world.

Will leave on that note..

Cheers

Books

This week, it will be books. My last read was "Hotel" by Arthur Halley. It was unique in terms of it's fantastic  detailed description of a  Hotel.

Schedule for next week is,

"You are here" by Meenakshi Reddy

"The Google Story" by David Vise

"Sign of the Cross" by Chris Kuzneski

If possible I'll also try to understand some of the theories behind the demography of the world by reading "Human Geaography" by Majjid Hussain.

Definitely Maybe -N- Yuvraj

Movies seen over last six days,

Yuvraj :  Went all the way to Inorbit to watch this gem. Six other people in the group expressed their dislike, in and out of theatre, in low to medium voices. Don't know why, but I did not dislike it. I wont say that it was a great movie, but it was okay to watch. I liked it's esthetics. Though somebody suggested that its a movie for people who like the art of filmmaking, not the film necessarily :P

What happened in Vegas : So-so types.

Roadside Romeo

Just returned after watching “Roadside Romeo”. It was an OKAY experience, if not great. Earlier, we reached Oberoi with no hopes of getting the tickets for this movie, today being Saturday evening. To our surprise, we got the tickets and soon realized that you can count the number of people on your fingertip, again not expected for a Yashraj movie. The animation was excellent and there is no denial this movie will initiate high quality animation import to Bollywood and very soon we can expect “Finding Nemo” and “Ratatouille” in Hindi, made in India though. Considering that it was first of its kind, I tried to overlook the overdone Clichés and its straight line plot.

It has the best animation seen in Indian cinema so far. If the plot had been as good, the film would have been world class. I liked the repeated telecast of Big Boss on Colors though.

A few * SENTI * dialogues... and A google trap

GTalk... Everybody knows about it. I mean everybody who is using internet. Its very hard for anyone to use internet and not fall in the google trap. It happened with me too.

Back in college when GMail account was available only on invitation, it used to be a good thing to have one. Quite reasonable given that it was offering 1GB mail-space compared to meagre 15MB hotmail that time.  I don't remember which came next Orkut or Gtalk or this blogger. But somehow it happened that I used the same id to open orkut account, then to talk on Gtalk and then to write blogs too.

Sometimes it comes to my mind how vulnerable we are becoming on internet giving so much data to one particular company. (Food for thoughts ??) Anyways thats not why I am writing this blog.

Yesterday I was chatting with one of my old schoolmate on GTalk and got surprised by seeing his status message on the same. It was..

When They Asked Me What I Love Most About My Life, I Smiled And Said YOU!

Knowing that he cant write this kind of heavy stuff by his own and also after ending my curiosity about his being Mr. Lovelace, I did some  google and in process read some of the most amazing one liners, which I thought to share with you on this blog space. I call them SENTI stuff and am pretty sure even you feel the same whenever you witness something similar in any movie or any romantic novel.

Some of them are....

One day u will ask me: Wat is more important to u, me or ur life? I will say: My life… u will walk away from me without knowing that U R MY LIFE!

NBA : First time

Accidently deleted the post, so just pasting the cached image of the same.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30

NBA : First time

My first time watching any kind of live game in a big stadium and this was a great game to start with.




Before the game, I didn't know any of the rules of basketball. But in 5 minutes, my friend explained the basic rules and all was set for a good match (viewing). Houston Rocket was playing Utah Jazz at their own ground. Result was not that important for me. But I was amazed by the overall package (including all the other non-game activities). What followed next was two hours of packed entertainment.

Rashomon

........ is a nice Japanese movie made in 1950. I watched this movie today (Holiday here, Ganesh Chaturthi). I was surfing through my movie collection and then I saw this movie "Rashomon" there.  The next logical step was to check the ranking on IMDB and I think it is safe to assume that everybody here knows about this. If not, then you should better check this. It has loads of information on every movie.

So it was a Japanese movie rated very highly at IMDB (8.5/10 and all-time rank of 69th), therefore decided to watch it. You all agree that its painful to watch a foreign language movie with subtitles. But this movie was not that bad on this front as there were very few dialogues, which is quite understandable considering the transition of movies from silent to present era during that period.

Everything happens for a reason

The last 3-4 books which I have read in July were so different from each other. First was "Three mistakes of my life" from Mr. Chetan Bhagat. I don't know whether he is doing it purposely (to keep 5 point something as his best) or  else; but the quality and and his famouus punches are slowly drying up in his  novels. The second book of his was "One night at call centre" was pretty good except the last 5-6 pages. And the last one- its kind of horrible, given his standards(I shouldn't say this, but 5 point something has raised the bar). It was a good timepass book, but certainly my expectations were much more.

Of course I read one from Jeffery Archer and, as always, it touched the right cords. Then came this refreshing book from Ms Kavita Daswani. This was not a super-duper book, but I really liked the way she has written it. Storyline is pretty simple and being a cinema freak, the end didn't surprize me. But I liked the INDIANNESS..yes thats the word (Is this a correct word !!). The books name was "Everything happens for a reason".

Quite a day …. Kris Dayanti, Marcella and the Idols

I have had an ordinary day till 3 PM when I decided to go to swimming pool. I don’t know how to swim and also I don’t know why but many of my friends just can’t believe it. Anyways I came to the swimming pool just to find out that hotel staffs were preparing for a press conference. Upon further enquiry, we were told that American Idols will be coming here for the interviews. What option I had, just waited there poolside with my friend checking the features of his new semi professional Panasonic camera. Also we just had a brief history of how Chinese traditional weddings are, from one of our Chinese friend.

After I finished sipping the cola, around 4:40 ish, five smart men (American idols, I have to say that for the sheer number of girls present there) arrived in the arena. After a quick photo session, they started answering the questions to the media persons. As I was not at all interested in what these idols have to say, so I swiftly make my way to have a good photograph with them and quickly move to join the Chinese wedding discussion going on one of the poolside table. I often wonder , if there wouldn’t have been Indian Idol on Sony Television, how uninformed I was about another sets of idols, in this case American.

So after this little rendezvous, I headed to the pool. After one and half hours of learning the basics of swimming (which I have to admit was very relaxing) swimming, I gave up. In the evening, we went to the new FX mall in Jakarta and had a full three course dinner in one of the Italian restaurant. Later one guy revealed that he was hungry even after the gluttonous dinner –which was quite a revelation to us.

After returning to the hotel and before heading to the CJ bar in the same Muliya hotel, we were standing in the hotel lobby chatting about nonsense stuff. One of our Indonesian friend also returned after dinner and spotted us and I can say that his face was beaming with the excitement. Very soon after the little conversation, I realized that the most famous diva of Indonesia was present in the hotel lobby,

Loo, Monas and Rupiyah in Jakarta

Monas is a national monument, built to celebrate the freedom of Indonesia (Ofcourse in Indonesia, Jakarta). I don't know much history behind it, except one thing from my history books  that it stands for the people's determination to achieve freedom and the crowning of their efforts in the Proclamation of Independence in August 1945. Anyways, we happened to go there on a sunny sunday afternoon. After taking the tickets and waiting in the queue for 2 hours, our turn came and the lift took us to the top of the MONAS, which was 130 odd meters tall. Seeing the world from those heights has always fascinated me. Last week only, I got the chance to see the KL skyline from a height of 430 meters. And yes, one thing; this is much different than looking down from the plane (As I think it lacks sense of control, however I even enjoy that too.)

One interesting thing happened there. I had to to take a loo break; so I found one toilet. Their system (bole to paisa dene ka system, bakin sab to default hi rahta hai) was similar to the sulabh sauchalayas in India. So I asked How much for the smaller loo break. And his answer was "1000 rupiyah"  - SHOCKER. Now this is the problem if you are not aware of the currency conversion factor and you visit a new place. It used to be