American beauty

If you are in the habit of watching every movie which comes in the the nearby theatre (or you have the access to some very rich library like ours in the university) , then you must be finding it very difficult to remember that you have watched a particular movie or not. Same thing also happens with me. This time it was about American beauty.

Nevertheless I decided to watch the movie and after the end of movie it was not very hard to figure out why it was awarded the Oscar. Even if you are not an American, you will be more than happy to see the true beauty of American lives. This movie shows all the grey aspect of the life.

And the one good line among so many goes like....

It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play

HANABI

HANABI - Its just in the next corner to our famous Coffee bean. This small Japanese
restaurant makes it's presence felt strongly to everybody.

So it will not be hard to guess that last night we decided to have some sushi there.
After my first encounter with a authentic Japanese cuisine in Dubai, I was very
skeptic about the idea. But finally we went. Rather strangely, it turned out to be a
beautiful evening with a very good ambiance around and the "cool" company of my
colleagues. The staff were good and alive (more importantly, after the last dinner in
NAWAB ) in their service.

Though I tried four different types of Sushi, but they all failed in their ultimate tryst to make me
happy. On the top of that the two sticks (Wallah, started thinking that some Chinese,
japanese and all are really blessed) made it more difficult to give 100% attention to
the sushi. Though some of my colleagues including me dont want to go there again, but I am still willing to give this japanese cuisine another chance, but definitely not in KL.

Rather I will sure try the indianized version of Japanese cuisine when I will be back to Mumbai (and the reason behind this is obvious. I like even Chinese food made in India. Hehehhe)

Nara jeng

Though I am very fond of watching the tv serials (any kind, just any thing on the idiot box - my friends say), but lately here in KL I hardly watch any. The foremost reason is the lack of any familiar channel (Remember, we are not talking about movies here), and also the lack of time.

Yesterday my friend called me and then told (infact instructed) me to tune in some channel (he was also not sure about it's name, just the serial no. ). I changed the TV channel to the right one, only to get surprised. It

The most beautiful Island,

The island where I spent my last weekend. It was just the most beautiful beach I have ever seen (Though I have seen very few and thats also only in India). Now for more info..

"Pangkor Island, the paradise island, is one of the famous and well known islands in Malaysia. It is located approxiamely 90 km southwest of Ipoh. Pangkor Island is an idyllic and beautiful island resort

Is there anything better than that

Is there anything better than that,





Hhehehe

Sleep is the state of natural rest observed in all mammals, birds, and fish.

Sleep, sleep and sleep. Sleeping is very important part of our life. People spend their one third time in sleeping. My friend was trying to explain the importance of sleep to me. According to him, the number of sleeping hours and the wealth will make a hyperbola when plotted on a cartesian plot.

errrr.....

But I am planning to watch a movie now and then I will go to sleep. May be tomorrow I will think about the old saying - "Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."

Just to keep this page active.......never mind.. here is the complete story of sleep....

Sleep is one of those funny things about being a human being -- you just have to do it. Have you ever

Butterflies are free

I haven't set any butterflies free. Rather I haven't catched any to make them free. Its just a movie which I saw yesterday on PIX. For a movie made in 1972, it has not lost any touch in 2006 also. Even though the appearance of the character may seem little old, but the content and the flow of the movie is fresh enough to make you watch this for almost two hours on a channel like PIX (I am saying so because this channel seems to have a license for all the old movies). Its a very touchy movie, which sometimes feel like our own Indian masala movie.

The story is revolving around a blind guy Don. All Don Baker wants is a place of his own away from his over-protective mother. Don has been blind since birth, but that

All ni(gh)ters

The very thought of sleeping late at nights makes some people uncomfortable. But we, some of the distinguished citizens of this strange world somehow used to sleep very late in the night. But this seems to be a distant past, when we were in college and where life used to be be very simple. Returning from the class, then some BC(Codeword, though not very hard to crack), after that some sport (again the type was not fixed, as it was wont to include the game of cricket, both on the field and off the field, i.e EA sport on my 2.6 GHz personal computer and then 6 over matches in the physical world in front of the hostels.) and there are so many things...I don't remember them all.

After all this, spending some time(15 minutes to one full hour, depending upon any plan of watching some late night cinema) in the mess hall and then some limited shows of english, hindi or hinglish ...... on our own personal computer and then some personalized BC with some friends was the usual way to push the coveted

Mom, I'll wear miniskirt today.

I read this joke on some website, which I thought to share with you people. It's a simple two line conversation between mother and daughter, but in different times. It goes like..

1980's
Daughter: Mom, can I wear jeans today?
Mother: No darling, what will people think.

2006
Daughter: Mom, I'll wear miniskirt today.
Mother: Pahan le beti, kuch to pahan le.


This is a perfect example of changing values in the society. I am not saying that it's bad, but it really amazes me how quick these changes are.

Times are changing, people are changing, their values are changing..

The most beautiful woman on the earth

I heard somebody saying "You show me the most beautiful woman on the earth and I'll show you atleast one person who doesn't want to sleep with her." The very first impression of this sentence may make you think about the cynicism of that particular person; but after reading the following lines, you may feel little different.

“The grass is always greener on other side.”

“And those grapes are sour.”

Still you are not thinking differently. I can’t help. Just enjoy the good humor.

What a pity?

Jamhuriyat tarje wah huqumat hai ki jismain;
Bandon ko gina karte hain, taula nahi karte. 

Till the time I was in class nine, this used to be a frequently used couplet in the essays written by me during exams (Never thought why elections are such a frequent entry there, both in Hindi as well as English literature). If you are not a Hindi speaking junta, don’t expect me to translate it in English (hehehehe). Again coming to the reservation issue, I am having one point, which is very simple to understand; but I don’t understand the reason why many people don’t want to understand this. The logic goes like.. 

If a person from a reserved category (regardless of any particular one like SC, ST or OBS) avails the reservation and get in to financial condition so that he can support his children, educate them and prepare them for the real life; then in my opinion his next generation should not avail the reservation. But the real life situation is quite different. Even if a person becomes an IAS officer, his children are getting the benefit of

The question asked was like "can a handful of us change the scenario?".

My answer to a question...

"Atleast you can try and initiate the things. It seems like a funda but remember, "A journey of thousand miles begin with a single step". Somebody has to take that first step. Also remember if you change, if you do your little bit, if you think little about it, if you try to initiate the reforms at only your level; the whole society is going to change, even if the results will not be visible very shortly.

Also regarding the few good men present in the modern india; I think there are some ordinary people

Hai re Reservation

I found this somewhere on the internet.

Manmohan Singh to Bush - We are sending Indians to the moon next year.

Bush - Wow! How Many?

Manmohan Singh - 100
25 - OBC
25 - SC
20 - ST
5 - Handicapped
5 - Sports Persons
5 - Terrorist Affected
5 - Kashmiri Migrants
9 - Politicians
and if possible
1 - Astronnaut

Marriage interpretation

Yesterday I saw Da Vinci Code. Its a blurred depiction of the original novel, which I understand is very difficult to portray on a two hour reel. Nonetheless I liked Audre Tautou [So paise wasool]. After that I returned home and chatted with a friend for sometime. Then I watched "Shall we dance" in night. Now this was a good movie, better than the Da Vinci atleast. Its not like, its the best of this genre, but atleast one can enjoy during the one and half hour movie. There was a dialogue, which I thought was the best in the film. Just go through it and please let me know if it matches with the correct definition of marriage. Here it goes...

"We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad

Rendezvous

You are invited to a special evening! An intimate evening of warm smiles and shared confidences... of rekindled memories and recounted experiences... of unashamed tears and infectious laughter. You are invited to a rendezvous. A Rendezvous with Simi Garewal.

Last night while watching King Arthur on star movies, probably fourth time; I got to see some parts of this spectacular program on Star world. Simi was doing the ‘rondi^voo with Mr. L N Mittal at his residence in UK. I was always uncomfortable with this word, but now I can pronounce it correctly (thanks Simi). 

Now coming to Mr. Mittal, he lives in a house which is estimated to be valued at 500 Crores. Glimpse of that house coupled with the name of his was a very good reason for me to postpone my night voyage for one hour. Mr. Mittal seemed to be a very confident man, whose thoughts are very clear and who always keeps an eye on his ultimate goal. I was very impressed with the way he answered most of the questions. And Simi was fantastic as always.

Inquiring minds

What do people want from newspapers?

I was reading an old article, where I found that the percent of the adult reading newspapers fall to 55 from 70 in last three decades. Various agencies have been continuously trying to figure out the reason. Most of the times it appears that people want better services, more local news, reader-friendly presentations involving graphics and narrative-style articles and advertising.

“Intensely local, people-centered news ranks at the top of the list of content items with the greatest potential to increase overall readership, ” says an American university, which is conducting the research. Better coverage of national and international events and more investigative journalism are not necessarily what readers want. And newspapers feel pressured to give people more of what they want.

Now the question is what I want from these newspapers. Seriously, I have never given a thought to this. After quickly reading the headlines on the first page, my habit is to start reading the news from last page, which generally covers M S Dhoni and Sania Mirza, sometimes Schumacher also. After going through the sport pages, I quickly flip through the pages and stop at the second page where all the movie timings are listed for television or for the theaters. The whole process also involves some reading about the proposed f**king reservation policy.

Yesterday I spent seven minutes on the newspaper. I admired the beauty with brains, which was there on the first page (She looked like a doctor protesting against the proposed reservation policy). I read why Zidane is considered to be such a high value sportsman for his country, what are the implications of Dhoni being at the top of ODI ranking, what are the future plans of Sania Mirza and Sikha Oberoi, what Sachin thinks about the number of ODI’s played annually and also what is the future of Schumacer with Ferari. 

But its not like I am totally dumb about all the issues. I listen to the discussions regarding the business issues, social issues, and current socio-political issues also. I want to read other news in the paper, but somehow I can’t. Therefore I am asking you all, what are the points you think which should be taken care by newspapers.

There is no doubt that a democracy like us need the newspapers to make the people aware of every activity going all around them and also to give them a platform to express their views regarding all those issues/ activities. It’s also the collective responsibility of all the educated citizens to learn about all the happenings, and then to contribute, criticize and I think that the newspaper is a very ideal platform for that.

What do you think?

Long time. Almost forgot that

Long time. Almost forgot that I am having some place at the internet called anandz.blogspot.com. But now onward I will try to be little bit more consistent. 

In-between, I am now out of the tale of two cities. It’s a third city called Mumbai.Will post some more updates afterwards.

Girl with fair cheeks

To a very different note, here is the story of a man which can be symbolized as the final goal of a MAN. Note that this man holds a great repute in the Greek mythology. It's none other than Achilles. To be very honest, I had never heard the story of troy and Trojan horse, before I saw the movie TROY two years back. But what a fantastic movie. This movie portrays the life of Achilles in a very exhaustive manner.

If you have seen that movie or you are aware of his story; can you guess what the two important things in his life were. By the way, there will be no prizes for guessing that. Do have a look on a brief summary of Achille's life.

"The ancient beach smoked with campfires, hecatombs,
and funeral pyres. And there sat Achilles
weeping like a girl, gesturing to his mother,
who slipped her arms around Zeus's knees

A tale of two cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

This is not the blog of Charles Dicken, so don't expect the summary of his book here. I have just borrowed the name of his book and opening lines as well (Though I must tell you these are among the very best, you will ever read). The name of this book just clicked, as I thought to write about my workplaces. After joining the present company, it so happened that I am continuously moving between two places Baroda and Surat. Now often or then I found myself comparing the two cities. Whenever anybody asks me about my place then the answer comes without a second thought, I am living in Baroda. But to be honest, I have spent more time in Surat.

But the reason behind my proclaimed affiliation with Baroda seems to be the apartment, which I have been

Confused thoughts about public reaction

Overreactions of the public have been often identified as the major reason behind any of the controversial issues ( sometimes doing good, some other times doing no good to the society), which can be regularly found in the newspapers and 24 x 7 news channels. Weather it be the case of Ganguly's exclusion from the Indian cricket team, khooshboo's idea on premarital sex or the discussion on the length of skirt worn by Sania, everytime some self-proclaimed contractors of social justice and euphemism try to use these as the tool to make themselves alive in the memory of general masses. If you are putting various politicians in this category, then you are pretty close to whom I am actually referring to.

An incident, which can be irrelevant to everybody except those who are directly involved; is being blown out of proportion. You must have witnessed the various interpretations made by some media geeks regarding the mute discussion between Dravid and Ganguly just before the start of the first test match in Lahore. Everybody is having their own opinions about everything which they see, observe or feel. If people are expressing it, sometimes this is categorized in the overreaction category as in the case of Ganguly's exclusion and Swami

Vegetarian Engineer

"I am working in energy sector and it's my moral responsibility to save energy. Now onwards I will not eat chicken; so that it can have a natural death and in future, will generate some hydrocarbon." - reply of a young engineer, when being asked about the reason behind his vegetarianism.

Hats off to the fantastic thought.

But even if you eat it my dear friend, I guess it will ultimately convert in hydrocarbon only, subject to many other favorable conditions.

Swami Ramdev

These types of things make me laugh. I am referring to the current Swami Ramdev episode. Let me tell you that I am not an ardent fan of him, but yes respect comes naturally for the people who are serving the people selflessly. Now the CPI leader has alleged him of selling drugs, which contains animal residue. I don’t know weather there is any truth in the allegations made by Ms Brinda Karat, but I do know that there are many more important works, which should take precedence over this whole issue.

Most of the followers of Swami are attached with him due to his wonderful knowledge of Yoga, which cured many of them, and not because of any religious reason. He is giving the Hindutva some weightage, but only after the full course of Pranayam coupled with many more yogas. So he is developing himself as a secular practitioner of Yoga and Ayurved, who is trying to restore the lost pride to this age old form of medicines.

Significant drop has been observed in the soft drink consumption, majority of which is being seen as the

To serve, not to be served

Education and literacy are two totally different things, albeit many people don't know the difference between them. Literacy refers to the ability to read and write, while education is the whole process of imparting or acquiring knowledge and skills. Though it's a very limiting definition of the word education, but you must have understood the basic difference.

Now , for understanding the situation in context of our country, lets go through the census results. The total population of India as at 0:00 hours on 1st March 2001 stood at 1,027,015,247 persons. With this, India became only the second country in the world after China to cross the one billion mark. The population of the country rose by 21.34 % between 1991 - 2001. The sex ratio (i.e., number of females per thousand males) of population was 933, rising from 927 as at the 1991 Census. Total literacy rate was returned as 65.38%.

One night @ call centre.

After reading the last few blogs of mine, you might be thinking that, this blog will condemn the harrasment of the woman working at call centres, which the country has witnessed recently in Banglore. But no, that's not my intention here. As nobody can write about all the bad things happening in society all the time, so its altogether a different blog. "One night @ the call centre" is the name of the latest book read by me. It was written by the same author, who had written "Five Point Someone". Both the books are great, but I particularly liked the later one.

There was only one confusion about this five point thing. In IIT Kanpur the grading is based on a ten point scale, which nearly characterizes the students having five point something (Though many people believe that grades are not the true reflection of the intelligence). In my college, grading was based on a five point scale. So I guess that if the author had been a student of my college, the name of the book had been "Two Point Something". Though I should tell you very frankly that it's tougher to get two point something grade as compared to five out of five, because you have to pass in all the subjects while maintaining a perfect D in all the subjects (I know that many four pointers will not agree to that, but I am).

Sorry man, here I was supposed to write some thing about his other book. I'll not write any comment on this book, rather I'll try to give the brief introduction to that book, which may help you to make your mind for

Concept of NON - MALE

Hey, you shouldn't worry, as I am not going to write anything about the 50:50 public or stuff anywhere related to that world. In this article I'll write about the empowerment of woman in highly technical fields especially in engineering side.

When I search my database for the name of the women who established themselves as the leaders in this field, I found that there are very few entries. You can blame it to the traditionally male dominated society or to my poor general knowledge. I have left this decision to you only. The very first name which strike my mind is Kalpana Chawala. Some others are ......... no, there is no other name in my database. Even if I will try to do this recalling exercise for rest of the world, Marie Curie is the only name. Even she is a chemist by profession, whereas we will limit ourselves to the core engineering only.

Nevertheless, hats off to these ladies. Also I don't think, if the similar question will be asked to any normal citizen of this world (a.k.a. normal IQ, normal EQ and normal SQ), he will be able to tell about more ladies.

We, the people of India

Before saying anything, I just want to say that I do not consider myself to be an acute critic of whatever is happening in society. But the sole reason of writing here is to express my view in front of others.

You people must have seen the major news covered on the news channels during last few days. Previous year ended with a rape involving a South African model in Mumbai and new year started with the flurry of sexual harassment cases against the women in New Delhi. It is shameful for our society. Rather I should say that it is shame on we, PEOPLE OF INDIA, being the part of this society.

If you are a regular listener of prime time news on any of the national news channel, you must have heard about the series of murders of elderly couples in New Delhi. Two days back, a family was burnt alive in Raghopur, just because they were suspect in a case of missing buffalo. Two person were shot dead in a

I believe I can fly

Writing down my new year's resolutions on a paper has never been there in my scheme of doing things. I tried to write it here, but again it seems that this will not be possible to pen down so many things. So again I will take the help of a beautiful song written by Mr. xyz, to define what and how I want to do in 2006..

I believe I can fly

I believe I can touch the sky

I think about it every night and day

Spread my wings and fly away

I believe I can soar

I see me running through that open door

I believe I can fly

There are miracles in life I must achieve

But first I know it starts inside of me, oh

If I can see it, then I can do it

If I just believe it, there's nothing to it

Hey, cuz I believe in me, oh

Hey, if I just spread my wings

I can fly

I can fly

I can fly,

Fly-I-I

After reading all this, don't say that I cannot fly. I can do whatever I want to do. Rather anybody can do whatever he wants.