Zehreelay - Venom unleashed

बनाने को ज़िन्दगी

2011-08-20T01:56:00.000-07:00

बेतरतीब, कई टुकड़े, साँसों के,

जैसे पिरो दिए हों धागे से,

बनाने को एक कठपुतली सी ज़िन्दगी..

चाट के अनगिनत मसालों जैसे,

एक दूजे पे पड़े, ऊपर नीचे,

बनाने को एक चटपटी सी ज़िन्दगी,

किसी नन्हे ने एक कागज़ पर,

कल के सीखे कुछ हर्फ़ उतारे हों,

कुछ पढ़ें ऊपर से तो कुछ नीचे से,
कुछ परे हम बड़ों की समझों से,
बनाने को एक खिलखिली सी ज़िन्दगी..

एक लम्हे की हंसी तू हंस ले,
एक आंसू कहीं पे मैं रो दूं,
जीने को एक ज़िन्दगी सी ज़िन्दगी..

नाचती, चटपटी सी, खिलखिली सी ज़िन्दगी..

We need Education, not just Literacy

2011-03-31T00:38:00.000-07:00

Just now I was reading the report on 2011 census on The Hindu website. I wanted to know a specific statistic, something which has bothered me for different reasons at different times. When I was a child, I was just curious to know how many girls per 1000 boys are there in India. But today, I look for the child sex ratio, to know how we are faring at being humans. Because the number now gives, more or less, an idea of how many girls are being aborted in the country.

Yes, very sadly, the static I wanted to know about read: 'Child sex ratio in 2011 is 914 female against 1,000 male — the lowest since Independence.'

And right after that, was another statistic. 'According to the data, literates constitute 74 per cent of the total population aged seven and above and illiterates form 26 per cent. The literacy rate has gone up from 64.83 per cent in 2001 to 74.04 per cent in 2011 showing an increase of 9.21 per cent.'

So, we have the highest literacy and the lowest child sex ratio by the new census. A little Googling gave me this data: 'At the Census 2001, sex ratio of the population in the age group 0-6 years has been registered as 927, in India, declining from 945 in 1991 and 962 in 1981.' (Source: censusindia.gov.in)

Now we are more literate, more well-to-do, have more means, and kill more girls, even before they are born. It's sad that we still are not able to believe as a nation that girls can be equal to boys, that girls ARE equal to boys. As a result of literacy, we are able to do whatever we want, but we still are not educated enough to know what is right and should be wanted. The end result is the same again, to move ahead, we need to change a lot, but above all else, we need to change our mentality. I can only hope that by the next census there is more education and not 'Just' literacy, so that we are able to make progress. Equally.

कमरे काटते हैं

2011-03-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

फर्क है,
घरों में और कमरों में;
कमरे,
कई बार,
घर बन जाते हैं,
घर बन कर
पालते हैं,
बन जाते हैं,
आशियाना,
आसरा,
सहारा,
और न जाने कितना कुछ,
पर कभी कभी,
वापस बदलने लगते हैं,
घर कमरों में;
कमरे,
जो ज़्यादा समझते हैं,
ज़्यादा जानते हैं,
अक्सर ज़्यादा खतरनाक हो जाते हैं,
साधारण कमरों से,
जो कभी घर बने ही नहीं,
कमरे काटते हैं..

Time to Blog

2011-03-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

Today I reached a completely new phase of my life. I haven't yet got married, have a job for some two and half years now, and almost everything was running fine with me until when I ran into the nearby barber's shop to get my then horrible hair cut today AND realized that suddenly the number of grey hair in those falling was so much that I could probably not count.

And then, almost the whole of my life came up in front of my eyes as a flickering stream, at a slightly slower speed than they show in movies. Like, I have lived only a few years out of home, I don't yet earn a fortune and haven't bought even an iPod for myself; as for hobbies, I have barely crossed a hundred mark in books read and the number of movies I have seen won't be beyond 500, which is probably a lenient estimate.

And then, I could see my future, quiet, normal, full of tensions of daily life, and my hair getting greyer with them, and one day reaching a stage where I will not be able to do much of the things I wanted to do.

No, I haven't yet decided on what to do with myself so that things can be better, but somehow, one thing was clear, that dyeing my hair black was certainly NOT going to help. I don't even know how permanent or temporary these thoughts are, but I know that the thoughts have hit my mind and even if they don't do much, they WILL make my hair greyer.

Now all I can wish is that while my hair will keep on growing grey, and more visibly so in future, the next time I hit a realization, I have more on my plate, and that not in terms of money or any other numbers, but in terms of satisfaction for the grey hair.

Wish me luck.

बादलों का डर कहाँ है

2010-12-22T01:12:00.001-08:00

बादलों का डर कहाँ है,

डर तो केवल धूप का है,

धूप में ही तो ये डर पैदा हुआ है

स्वप्न जो मैंने बुने हैं

बारिशों में धुल न जाएँ

इस चमकती धूप में

बादल कहीं आ घुल न जाएँ

जब हुई बरसात डर तो पल में ही हवा हुआ है

फकीरों को डर कहाँ है

डर तो केवल भूप का है

डर तो केवल धूप का है

बादलों का डर कहाँ है...

New Rupee Symbol Picture

2010-07-15T01:36:00.000-07:00

Here is my own try on the picture of new rupee Symbol, I guess just that it needs to be a bit more curved at the middle.

Twitter HACKED!!

2009-12-17T22:14:00.000-08:00

Oops! This was big. Suddenly Twitter shows that the website was hacked by some Iranian Cyber Army and showed Iranian flag with an email ID iranian.cyber.army@gmail. Though the page showing the flag was loaded only once at around 11.30 Indian Standard Time and seconds after that Twitter was shown as unable to load, link broken, and taking too long to respond in different browser. Unavailable in short.

Even the Desktop client tweetdeck was not working and said 'Problem with all Tweets' which changed to 'There's a problem - don't panic'.

HappySing

2009-11-04T12:09:00.001-08:00

Hi.

I have started my new blog HappySing at my own domain name: happysing [dot] com

So please see, http://happysing.com for further posts.

Love you all.

Thanks,
Harshit.

10 Uses of Google

2009-10-23T06:20:00.000-07:00

Google is not just a search engine. It's much more. Here I have listed some more uses of Google. See if there's some match.

1. To search stuff u have no idea about and don't know where to find.
2. To search stuff that u know no other site (like Wikipedia, Howstuffworks, etc) will have.
3. To pass time.
4. To check if your internet connection is working or not.
5. To pass time in situations where u have Limited internet access.
6. To search your own name.
7. To show off how slow your internet is working.
8. To open Adsense.
9. To open ANY site. I've seen people typing not just Orkut but www.orkut.com and similarly all other URLs in Google Search Bar. And the number of people is not One.
10. As Homepage.

How to use Twitter with Airtel

2009-10-14T20:34:00.000-07:00

Finally Bharti Airtel is the first Cellular network that is giving you a chance to send your tweets from anywhere to Twitter. The cost of one tweet is 1 rupee. And I've tested it, it works. So here is how to send tweets to Twitter via sms with your Bharti Airtel mobile phone.

1. If you have a Twitter account, log in to your account and go to the Settings tab in the top-right.

2. Select Devices tab and Register your phone number there.

3. Now you can see a code there, message the code to 53000 from your Airtel phone via sms.

4. Twitter will send you a message saying your account has been enabled. Now you can send your tweets to 53000. They'll be published and 'from txt' will be written below your tweets instead of 'from web' (or whatever device you use).

5. Now u can follow anybody on u r already following by clicking the circular phone sign next to 'Following' on their page or in ur Following list too. This is free after registration.

6. You can go to the same Devices tab again to change further settings.

So happy sms-tweeting. :)

Made in India

2009-10-07T23:26:00.000-07:00

Finally, my dear Venky won Nobel Prize in Chemistry. You know how wonderful he was when he used to study in IISc. My sister was telling me he was such a studious fellow when he was there. My sister, who lives just next to IISc for some 15 years now. She met Mrs Ranga in the Malleswaram market yesterday who told her that her husband, a professor in IISc had once saw a guy in library who looked juuust like Venky. So studious, indeed.

I even read Venky was born in Chidambaram... apna Tamilnadu, the place I used to think of as Madras when I was little, but that was when I was really very little, in school. Though Sharma uncle still thinks the same. Because his daughter did her engineering in Noida only, and now she's working in Gurgaon. But I studied in Vellore, same, Tamilnadu. And I am proud of my college and Tamilnadu. And so, of Venky.

Well, that's my direct connection with Venky. But then, there is a bigger, broader connection. Of India. I know Venky is proud of India, his country, our country. I read in the newspaper today only. My mother told me he will come back to India one day, just like Shahrukh Khan did in Swades. But I said I didn't think he would, because that happened in movies. People rarely came back to India in real life. And then mom thought and said I was probably right. But she was happy to read that Venky was proud of being an Indian, even while staying in America. He told the newspaper people he was making his country proud there.

Indeed he was. He is. The best part is that his name is Indian. And wherever he goes, whatever he does, he will remain Indian. He cannot be an American. Because he loves India. Because he is proud of India, of being Indian. Because we won't let him become American. Not after he has won that Nobel. For us. For India. Our land. His land.

Anything you tweet, Sir!

2009-09-23T03:51:00.000-07:00

Tweet: "Have a ridiculously full schedule tomorrow with 17 meetings/engagements. You always pay a price when u come back from a trip."

Headline: After 'cattle class' remark, Tharoor complains about workload.

Well, this was one example of headlines newspapers are designing from Shashi Tharoor's tweets after the 'cattle class' incident was not so over. Incidentally, the DNA headline reached me through Twitter only.

I also came to know that Tharoor had tweeted "Long day catching up with a week's absence from Delhi. Mountains of pending files. Two journalists actually interviewed me on Africa!" through the newspaper. (I do follow Shashi Tharoor for a long time now but do not so regularly watch his tweets as the newspapers do)

Basically it seems that newspapers have found an easy way of creating headlines as Shashi Tharoor and Twitter, especially when combined, are 'hot' in India right now. I admit that such type of 'quick' journalism has been quite popular on TV for quite some time, but Tharoor episode seems to have given the print and web based media a way to 'QJ' too.

Seeing the condition, even I'm thinking of opening a new blog on Shashi Tharoor's tweets. After all, however big a fan of Tharoor I happen to be, I can always get some more clicks criticizing the big T. Isn't it?

Review: Aliva (Fritolay)

2009-08-30T13:53:00.000-07:00

Well, I just wrote a music review for Himesh Reshammiya's new movie Radio, and now after reading some pages of Cecelia Ahern's Thanks For the Memories, I was having some new biscuits that I got for the first time. And while eating, I suddenly felt like telling people about the biscuit, and so here I am, writing a review for the biscuit.

Well, This thing called Aliva from Fritolay (read Pepsi people) was seen today in an ad when I was setting up TV on my laptop. The ad was an utterly old concept but it did catch my eye. And today when I was on biscuit hunting in a supermarket, I happened to see the biscuits. I remembered the ad and when I saw it was from Fritolay, I decided to give it a try.

It might sound like an ad but it's not. I'm getting no money to say that Aliva biscuits are good and you should eat them. But genuinely, I loved the Pindi Masala flavor that I had selected for my first trial. Guess I'm gonna have some Mint flavor next. The biscuit is OK and the masala is good which is going to make it demanded. My guess is like Kurkure, this biscuit may also become a travel accessory.

Right now the biscuit is priced at rupees 12/packet of 60g which is not very expensive. Fritolay probably has an idea about the future of the biscuit and has already written rupees 12 as a special price while original price is supposed to be Rs 14/packet.

Another interesting claim about the biscuit is that it has no artificial flavors or colors. Even the box below the ingredients says CONTAINS ADDED FLAVOUR (NATURAL AND NATURE IDENTICAL FLAVOURING SUBSTANCES).

Overall, the biscuit is tasty and if you're one with taste buds for spices, go for it.

Class X board exams: To be or Not to be?

2009-06-25T08:52:00.000-07:00

Union Minister for HRD Kapil Sibal says that Class X board exams are a trauma and should be scrapped. Newton's first law soon follows up and almost everybody rises against the change. A minister trying to Change the system, and public against him. All so natural. But in between, the question is, WHY should the exams stay or go?

Newton's First Law:

No doubt, it's the simplest and the best (latter under scrutiny) it go the way it is going, whatever, wherever, however it is. Class X board exam take place like an annual event where millions participate, some win, some lose, and some get lost somewhere. Something that is happening for the years I have seen, and my parents too.

Trauma:

I do not know whether Class X boards are a trauma or not, but I remember that Class X board exams was the time in my life when I had problem sleeping properly. Throughout the exams. And no doubt, people make a 'Hauva' out of the boards. Neighbors and relatives get an extra thing to gossip about, and parents, to brag about. So do students. But the biggest blow comes from school, mostly public schools where conducting two to three PRE-BOARDS has become a trend. Schools create unnecessary pressure on students to Perform well in boards and maintain the "School's results".

Useless:

It hardly is of any use. We need a class XII marksheet everywhere and class X is required for just age certification. Is that all the importance of such hype? Actually class X board exams were made to serve a purpose that no more exists. When most of the schools were till class tenth and mostly students had to go out after tenth to continue their studies, board exams worked as a scale on which every student could be scaled. Never mind different boards as every board thought it was the only existing entity, or at least worked on this assumption.

But now that every school provides education till class XII, there is little use of class X boards. We can simply conduct boards after class XII which ARE (not can be) used for the admissions already.

Still there are arguments in favor of class X boards. Like a student gets to learn, or a student find his/her first public exposure which is important for further life. Or, boards make students more serious. But about all these arguments, my belief is that a student who is serious will be serious and one who doesn't have to, cannot be made serious by board exams. While a turn around can come at any point, I do not think board exams can be used as substitute for the schooling system as it's the entire schooling which is expected to make a child responsible, not the board exams.

So, for now, I think we do not need class X board exams. But then, if they have to be replaced, the replacement should be proper and not in a haphazard manner. We are in no hurry to remove a system that is there for ages just because our HRD minister got the idea now. I think he should take his time and do the needful firmly and after proper planning.

Editorials, What?

2009-06-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

The level of responsibility of the electronic media in India has been a subject of debate for a long time, but fortunately, irresponsibility in the print media is something that is comparatively less visible.

Still, at times, there are incidents when one is bound to think whether our media has some sense of responsibility or they are just interested in earning their bread by any means. One such incident is the Counter View printed in The Times of India, one of the most prestigious English language newspapers of India, on the Twitter feeds of Minister of State for External Affairs, Shashi Tharoor.

The article written by Narayani Ganesh, which appears in the Editorial section of The Times of India, not only claims that a Minister taking his responsibility seriously cannot have time for social networking sites, but also goes further telling that he is 'answering questions from other members, [which] is a reflection of how lightly he takes his official responsibilities.'

After all this, the author gives the case of Aishwarya Rai where she was not there on Twitter and impostors had been writing tweets in her name. With the 'risk' of such a thing happening with Tharoor, and ordering/advising people to think about the consequences of such a thing, Ms Ganesh ends her article with the words 'stop twittering, Tharoor. Just do the work you've been entrusted with.'

Now my first question to the editor/author Ms Ganesh is that HOW a minister who replies to the queries of PUBLIC, in a DEMOCRACY, be a reflector of IRRESPONSIBILITY? I do not think that the practice we follow, of seeing our politicians only twice in a decade, is a part of our constitution.

Secondly, even if I agree with her argument that a RESPONSIBLE minister cannot find time to come on a social networking site (which actually Tharoor himself agrees with when he says he doesn't have a Facebook page, and I guess that IS the reason most of the politicians/actors are coming to Twitter as it takes just 140 characters and can be easily run on their phones, something our Editorial page author doesn't seem to understand), I do not know on what basis she found that these tweets can be risky. This very statement of the author shows that neither she has any idea what Tharoor writes in his tweets nor she knows about the past and the diplomatic knowledge of the minister in question.

Very interestingly for me, this article happens to have appeared on a day when I had just completed the chapter of Nehru's biography written by Tharoor where the latter has thoroughly discussed about the Foreign Policy of the former. Tharoor, in the biography, very critically explains each aspect of Nehru's personality which affected the foreign policy of India after reading which I was sure of the quality of judgment of Tharoor in the diplomatic matters.

I request all the media-persons to be more thoughtful at least about what they write, if not about what they speak. And in case they think something is wrong, they should present their matter clearly enough so that their concerns are thought upon by the readers and not dismissed instantly. At last, I would say that before writing something, an author should make sure that he/she has conducted a minimum amount of research before writing. That would probably make our press a little more useful.

Bing versus Google: Queries and results

2009-06-01T21:49:00.000-07:00

There are many differences in Microsoft Bing and Google when it comes to results and as far as I can see right now, it's Google having a upper hand on Bing. Here are some of the examples I found.

First came the ego search, that is, when I searched my own name, I found first result as someone else's page on Bing while it has been my blog on top on Google. Well, that cannot be actually counted as a failure though it disappoints me, and many other bloggers have had the experiences.

So I decided to do some filtering. I added the name of my hometown with my name which is a proper way to filter as my hometown is quite small and there is fortunately no other known figure of my name in my hometown yet.

This time Bing treated me better and gave me top three results related to me. But then, from the fourth result onwards, it was stuff that had some Harshit somewhere and Najibabad (my hometown) somewhere else, with no connections between the two. Google's algorithms win on this one. They show entire first page for me only. And even after that, I'm there in many results.

Enough of me, I decided to go on something more popular. This time I typed 'colors' in the query boxes of Google.com and Bing (which I had had set on US). Colors is a new, and very popular TV channel in India. Both Google and Bing gave no results. I knew the reason and so I came to Google.co.in and changed Bing's country to India. This time round Google gave its third result as Colors, the TV Channel, while Bing was not aware of its existence until I reached fifth page.

Next on my search was Whitefield, the area of Bangalore I live in, which is, with electronic city, actually the centre of the activities for which Bangalore is known in the world. While searching on Bing US and Google.com, the results were almost similar with Bing giving Whitefield a fifth place and Google adding a suggestion for 'Whitefield Bangalore' after 3 results and giving 3 results on the same. In fact here, Bing looked better than the Google page as it adjusted the results for Whitefield India normally.

But again when I came to Bing India and Google India, I was surprised to see that Whitefield, India was still in the fourth poisition on Bing while Google India not only had its first 3 results on Whitefield, but also showed 'Whitefield Bangalore' again after first 3 results. (personally, I think suggesting Whitefield Bangalore is a good idea as Whitefield is a suburb and generally people query whitefield Bangalore rather than Whitefield alone) So this time Google again emerged victorious.

So right now, Bing might be equally good as Google with individual entries, that is single word/phrase queries, but when it comes to filtering results, be it by country or otherwise, Google is proving better.

Another Example of Text Books Politics

2009-05-30T05:09:00.001-07:00

Of course, like most Indians, I love to hate Arjun Singh for what he has done to the higher education in India. But thinking that he is the worst would probably be a huge mistake. Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi had of course had his time with the text books during the NDA regime, but it doesn't end there. I was surprised, and somewhat shocked (still) when I happened to read a Rajya Sabha question and answer session while searching the net for my favorite one act play Reedh Ki Haddi by Jagdish Chandra Mathur. The play actually is one of the finest pieces of Hindi literature I read during my school and explains the condition of women in India in the most practical manner.

Here is the complete answer given by Arjun Singh to the 'Honorable' members who had questioned not only the play but the language of Munshi Premchand himself.

CLARIFICATION BY MINISTER

Alleged objectionable materials in certain books approved by NCERT - Contd.

THE MINISTER OF HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT (SHRI ARJUN SINGH), replying to points raised by hon'ble Members on 18th August 2006, said: NCERT has taken utmost care in drafting the books. Noted Academicians, Scientists and Educationalists have been included to examine the textbooks from the earlier times . Every book is examined by a National monitoring committee constituted by Human Resources Development . This committee comprises representative from various states and expert from field of education. There is set of guide line for examining the text books

I have tried my best to understand the objections raised by some hon. Members . I found that sentence or part of the books have been read without considering the context . I would like to clear that no change has been made in Hindi textbooks for class 2nd ,4th ,5th ,7th ,8th and 10th. Books which was studied during the NDA regime are still in the syllabus.

There was a objection regarding "Mochiram" a poem by Shri Dhoomil. It was included the syllabus in the year 1977 and it is regarding expressing the concerns of deprived people. Another objection was regarding a part of autobiography of Shri Bechan Sharma Ugra. Ugra jee considered himself among one from the lower section of society despite belonging to the Upper castes of society .

An objection was regarding Shri Om prakash Balmiki , who himself is dalit and is a importing representative of contemporary Hindi. He tried to depicted that caste reference words used in his story called KHANABADOSH was bear by the labours to maintain their existence . It has mentioned in the Footnote that these caste reference words are unconstitutional and these words should not used in day-today life.

Some other member has raised his objection regarding a story, Doodh ka Daam, of Munshi Prem Chand . I would like to say that these type of words were used in the society in that time. Further I would like to say that hon. Member has reached to conclusion on the basis of one line without considering the whole context of the story. And I don't consider myself to be fit to criticise the literature of great Munshi Prem Chand.

Hon. Member has raised some objection on poem of Shri Avtar Singh Pash. His poem reflects the social inequality. And it belongs to naxalite movement of Bihar in 1967. I want to say that Pash want to support ambitions of youth and it belong to model country so it should be seen in this context.

Hon. Member has objection against an one act play, Reedh Ki Haddi. It is about the status of women in the in the Indian society. So , it is clear that this play is all about the inequality among men-women of the society.

Some objection has been raised on some portion of autobiography of Maqbool Fida Hussain, the famous Painter. This text book has no mention of his controversial paintings. Hon. Member has asked about the reasons for not including the autobiographies of Amrita Shergil and Nandlal Bose. And I would like to clear that these people have not written their autobiographies

New text books of history for the classes of 6th, 9th and 11th have already introduced for the academic session of 2007. Hon. Member has mentioned that in the text book of Prof. Vipin Chandra, the leaders like Shri Aurbindo Ghosh & Lokmanya Tilak and Shri Vipin Chandra Pal have been termed as terrorists. Prof. Vipin Chandra has termed these leaders not as terrorists but as extreme nationalists. In the later chapter he had termed the extremism as a means to gain national freedom. With regard to the case filed in High Court related to this portion a committee of three Historians was constituted. The committee has held, "The words extremism and extremist have not been used in derogatory manner.

The committee about the description of Jats has held that the description of the Jat farmers revolt is also not derogatory.

With regard to the third objection raised about Guru Gobind Singh, the committee said that the sentence used in the text book requires to be amended.

Now, I would like to reply to the objections raised by Hon. Member Shrimati Sushma Swaraj. This is painful and unfortunate that she has termed the poem under the caption "MochiRam" as stigma whereas for the literary critics, this poem is milestone in the contemporary Hindi poetry. She has raised objections to the language used in the stories written by Munshi Premchand and Omprakash Valmiki. Probably the Hon. Member wants to negate this fact that Munshi Premchand represents higher values i.e. social justice, equality and fraternity enshrined in our Constitution. I wish to inform Shrimati Sushma Swaraj that Shri Valmiki has reflected the nature of emerging Dalit literature and he was himself a Dalit.

The Hon. Member has raised her objection about the one Act play "Reedh ki Haddi" written by late Jagdish Chandra Mathur. As I have mentioned earlier that this one Act is one of the most important objectives of our Constitution and our education policy i.e. this play touches the equality and dignity of women.

Hon. Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi has alleged that we are creating hatred in the minds of our children. I would like to assure that the goal of National curriculum 2005 is to make glorious and positive illustration of all communities and regions of India and thereby to strengthen national unity.

I respect the views expressed by the honourable members. They have expressed their viewpoint very impressively. I talked about the context because the words change their meaning as per the context. When we were studying, at that time also, in our history, it was said that Tilak ji, Arvind ji, Vipin Pal ji, they represent the extremist ideology. Freedom struggle is the definition of nationalism itself. That is why I talked about the context.

I only want to request that still a lot of text books are being prepared. Therefore, all the views expressed by you will definitely be kept in mind. I am thankful to the honourable members for their views.

Original text from:

http://rajyasabha.gov.in/rsdebate/synopsis/208/s24082006.htm

Tweet Tweet

2009-05-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

Tweet Tweet. Tweet Tweet.

Sounds like the Nokia standard message tone, but today this is the speed of twitterers. Or maybe more. In four words, it seems like 'the world is twittering'.

I had joined twitter not so long ago, maybe a month or so ago. But I came to know about the power of Twitter on the day when Election results came out. Once I had got a fair idea of seats led by each party, I was on Twitter, and to my surprise, it was running faster than any news channel.

As the time passed, I kept on finding new twitterers, which included Politicians like Shashi Tharoor and Rahul Gandhi, (and a now dormant SM Krishna too, MEA is really hi-tech) and entertainers like Gul Panag, Purab Kohli and Mallika Sherawat, besides number of journals and journalists.

Just now I have finished with reading an article on How Twitter will change American Business and right now reading another article on Time discussing ten famous twitterers who can be followed.

Among bad things, Twitter has affected my already drowning blog severely as I write all my heartfelts in those 140 characters. That's probably a reason I've written this blog, to make up for the loss.

If you want to see my tweets, here it is: twitter.com/hg6789

To see this, you do not need a twitter account. But I guess very soon you'll be there too. That is, if you are not yet there.

Happy Twittering.

कुछ कुछ ज़िन्दगी..

2009-05-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

ज़िन्दगी,
कुछ पन्ने,
कुछ बिखरे,
कुछ सिमटे,
कुछ संजोये..

कुछ रंग,
चमकीले,
कुछ गहरे,
कुछ बेरंग..

कुछ सपने,
कुछ झूठे,
कुछ सच्चे,
कुछ टूटे.

कुछ लोग,
कुछ अपने,
कुछ पराये,
कुछ, सब कुछ..

कुछ यादें,
कुछ मीठी,
कुछ खट्टी,
कुछ, चुभती..

कुछ आँखें,
कुछ मुस्काती,
कुछ भीगी,
कुछ, सूखी..

और
कुछ लम्हे,
कुछ पल,
और कुछ पलों की ज़िन्दगी...

On Election Results

2009-05-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

Oops! I have started writing but I do not know what I wanted to wrote in the first place. It's just that I was happy, am happy with the way Congress has won. Yup. It's not that Congress has won. It's the WAY Congress has won. Winning almost a majority, and with people like Mulayam and Lalu licking their feet to get into the government. Yes. I think I can write on what I liked and disliked in these results. But before, I'll go on my day. The day that was D-Day for many.

What a day it was. I got up at seven, and went straight to the TV, while all others were sleeping at my home. (I had gone to my sister from my rented flat so that I can watch PROPER TV there, and not my TV tuner card on the Dell laptop.) After waiting till 8.15, finally the first leads started dropping in. The leads had hardly crossed total seats when the power went off.

!!!

Okay. I was cool. Reading The Bridge Across Forever, and hoping that the power will be back soon and I won't miss much fun. It was. After fifteen minutes or maybe some more time, the tally had crossed around hundred and in a way that was enough to change the colors of those around me. Apparently, most of my family is slightly to not-so-slightly pro-Hindu - the English speaking, or English understanding middle class Yogendra Yadav yesterday talked about. Though, I guess the class is getting converted at its own speed, which may increase with Rahul Baba coming in. I'm probably the first member in my family.

Back to the results. Congress had started gaining a difference in the number of seats which almost never reduced. I was expecting it to be something around 30-35 but the difference went on and on and reached almost Hundred. Anyways, what happened after that is known to everybody. Finally Congress had a small margin to cover to get the majority and Manmohan Singh was given a mandate to retain the Prime Minister's post.

So let me come back to what I liked, or disliked in the poll results.

There were a lot of things to be liked. First of them, of course was that Left was left out. After all those years of wondering why public keeps on voting to the left, I was witness to a big fall in left's votes and seats. I believe that people always knew that left did not work, but probably they voted the Left for its ideology. And this ideology suffered a major setback when Somnath Chatterjee was thrown out by his party. Probably people took that very seriously, besides other reasons.

Equally important was the fact that in Bihar, probably for the first time, it became difficult for Lalu to get a seat (though he managed to defeat Rudy by 5k votes) and Paswan couldn't save his seat either. At the same time Mayawati and Jayalalitha, whom I call two big fat stubborn ladies (both have a competition when it comes to being either), were not given much bhaav by the public. I think public has very clearly said that either the politicians have to work, or they can sit at home. The same can be confirmed by the votes Nitish got for himself in Bihar or Sheila Dikshit got in Delhi.

But the most unexpected thing for me was the rise of Congress in Uttar Pradesh. I was not expecting a number of more than 12-13 for the party in the largest state. But Rahul Gandhi magic really worked and helped Congress reach places nobody expected.

And yes, one good thing was Shashi Tharoor coming to the parliament. Such people are needed there. In fact such people should be given a place in the cabinet and Shashi Tharoor can be a brilliant person for a start.

For dislikes, there are a few things that I didn't understand. First was the number of seats Mulayam Singh Yadav got. Probably that is the result of his voters coming back to him after trying Mayawati who seems to have failed in giving the great administration she had promised.

Another thing that I could not understand was the BJP's sweep in Karnataka after the widely criticized incidents of Mangalore when the CM completely supported Ram Sene. I am unable to understand whether its public's support or their short term memory.

But worse of all is the results of Maharashtra. Raj Thackeray's MNS getting more than one lakh votes in all constituencies in Mumbai and affecting the votes of BJP Shiv Sena is not a very good news. Unfortunately, this is not at all surprising as we know it HAD to happen.

Overall, the public has done a lot of good, and BIG things this time. But I think there is still scope for them to learn some things, which includes getting above people like Raj Thackeray and Varun Gandhi. I hope we'll see even better results in the next elections. In 2014.

Pol-Fi: Maya's Maya

2009-05-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

As everyone has seen, the power of Mayawati in UP has continuously risen for the past few years. And now that she is trying hard to make herself visible throughout India, there is a possibility that she actually gets a significant number in the coming elections.

So, the question here is, if Mayawati gets a significant number of seats, and there is a hung parliament again, which is highly likely, what will happen?

First I'd like to see the chances of happening this what if. In the last general elections, that is 2004, BSP got 19 seats, most of them from the eastern region of Uttar Pradesh. But now that the power of BSP has increased in the largest state, something that is visible from the majority she holds in the state assembly, BSP can get seats in other regions of the state as well, especially western regions like the district of Bijnor where Mayawati started her political career and BSP won all the seats in the last assembly elections.

At the same time, BSP can also surprise with a seat or two in Madhya Pradesh as the party won 7 seats in the 2008 assembly elections whereas it had only 2 people in the last assembly.

All this makes clear that there exists a not very remote possibility that BSP gets some 30-35 seats in the parliament this time, which, if happened, will put Mayawati in a position better than Lalu Prasad Yadav, who currently has 24 seats in the parliament, but will be contesting lesser number of seats this time as a UPA ally.

So, the question is, WHAT IF BSP wins a significant number of seats and is in position to negotiate for positions in government? Let's see the options and possibilities.

1. Mayawati wants to be the Prime Minister. Says that if Deve Gowda with 46 seats could be the PM, why can't a 'Dalit ki Beti' be the PM? But nobody is willing to give her the seat. Plan fails.

2. Mayawati wants the Foreign Ministry, but argument comes that even with her LLM degree, she won't understand the language of Foreigners. Moreover, they probably won't understand a word spoken by her. At least until the day she becomes the PM.

3. Mayawati wants the Finance Ministry for herself. But with two successful Finance Ministers already there in the UPA, a novice Mayawati fails again. This is in case UPA is the alliance making government.

4. Home Ministry, this could probably be her best bet. With Shivraj Patil almost out of question and Chidambaram probably willing to join Finance once again after the shoe-ing, Most probably Mayawati will have all new candidates as contenders. Though Lalu and some more may want this seat, if Mayawati comes strong, she MAY get it.

5. Railways. If Mayawati doesn't get all those big things, she may have to remain satisfied with Mamta's old department. It'll probably not be very difficult for the UPA to arrange this one, but Maya may not want to leave the Chief Ministry of UP for a Railways in the center.

6. Opposition. Last but not the least. Because in her words, as many times there are elections, her position gets stronger. And till now it has happened.

Well, that all happens IF BSP wins a significant number of seats and the alliance going to make the government needs them. Now let's see what happens.

Waiting for the Big Day

2009-05-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

It's been a long exercise. The polls. Started almost a month ago, finally the drama is about to end, within a week. The 13th of this month will present us with the end of the polls and 16th will bring us the results of the polls and end of the drama. Only to start a new one.

Today was an interesting day. Somehow, after a long time, NDA looked like it was really some alliance. For the first time, felt like other than UPA, there were more options. Probably a bit too late, but at least before the end of elections, people got to see that there was something called NDA which was more than just Advani who showed up on every ad the party has released.

But more interestingly, the drama, which was named NDA's shakti-pradarshan by the TV channels, seemed more Modi centric than Advani centric today. Not for once did I feel that the Prime Ministerial candidate of the NDA was L K Advani. Nor did I feel the power that is NDA supposedly going to have according to its campaign. In short, the NDA's slogan of Mazboot Neta, Nirnayak Sarkar (Powerful leader, Decisive government) looked fake. It seemed that if the NDA comes in power, Advani will be as powerless as Vajpayee was with his 13 parties (that's the number I remember, no guarantee on that)

And while Narendra Modi shook hands with Nitish Kumar, without technically breaking the latter's promise of not calling him in Bihar, Modi also indirectly expressed his wish to join everyone and hence come on to the national stage in future. Something that is feared by many.

For now, the only thing is the results that will come out on 16th May. I remember how eagerly I used to wait for my annual results when I was in school as they were also announced on 16th May. But this is something that is making me even more curious. And I don't think this curiosity will end soon, because the question is not just whether Manmohan or Advani will be the PM, but the question is who will control the future of India. Will it be people like Modi? Or Rahul Gandhi?? Or Varun Gandhi???

IPL Season II - Ye "Naya" Hai

2009-04-20T05:53:00.000-07:00

Finally the DLF IPL Seacond season is here. And slowly it is gaining momentum that was nowhere in the start, unlike the first season. There are lots of expectations from the old winners. And somehow, many people are expecting the old tallies to continue. For such people, I have only three words. This is New. Ye Naya Hai.

IPL Season one gave us winners like Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings. While teams which stood high grounds on paper, like Deccan chargers, played some schoolboy cricket, especially in terms of team spirit. Royal Challengers of Bangalore looked challenged on many grounds and Mumbai Indians could not make it even with the biggest biggies around.

But if you concluded that Mahendra Singh Dhoni is the ultimate King (or Super King) whose team cannot be beaten by that of an aging Sachin or that Gilchrist, Gibbs and RP Singh cannot make a good team, it's time you think again as everything seems to be new in this season.

IPL season II proved from the very first match that one should not go by the tallies of last season when Mumbai beat the Finalist of last season, Chennai Super Kings. If this was not enough of a surprise (for me it really was not) in the second match Royal Challengers Bangalore not only won the match but Rajasthan Royals, last year's champions, were reduced to a mere fifty eight, the lowest yet in the IPL. And it was purely because of the all charged up performance of the Challengers, and their changed attitude which was clear when they were fielding.

The third match was unfortunate as the rain made things not so impartial, but the fourth match once again brought in Deccan Chargers as victors against Kolkata Knight Riders, after an extremely poor show by the former during the last season. Also, the fielding and bowling of the team looked wonderful and the attitude of Chargers on field was hardly anything less than that of the Challengers.

In short, the first two days have made it clear that the new season of the IPL has to be written in new, blank sheets and one need not think that the impressions of the last season will be found on this season too. And now even if a few matches again give the results like the past, it will not be because of who won in the last season, but purely because who is in command this time.

On that note, there is something I would say about Dhoni's comment that I read in today's newspaper. Dhoni had written that they'd make a comeback (after their loss to Mumbai in first match), but my say is that there is nothing to make a comeback to in this season. To win this one, he'll have to start anew with his team, something that Pieterson and Gilchrist are doing.

My Bangalore: Tickets, anyone?

2009-04-03T01:31:00.000-07:00

Right now it's election time, and so, everybody is busy talking about politics and politicians, and hence, about corruption. But traveling in Bangalore I came to know how deeply we are into corruption. Here are a few examples of what has happened with me in the past six months of BMTC travel.

The first, and a highly common practice is the minimum fair minus one rupee system. When u get into a bus for the smallest ticket journey, (3 rupee or 4 rupee, depending on bus) u give exact change to the conductor and he returns you one rupee, like a substitute for the ticket.

More fearless conductors happen to tend to similar practice on higher scale and leave two-three rupees on tickets for longer journeys.

Now the interesting part is what happens when you protest and demand for a ticket. Mostly conductors don't want problems and give you a ticket if you demand for one. Some do nagging and you may need to raise your voice a bit to get the ticket. But then, there are more interesting incidents taking place too.

Once on my way to Marathahalli bridge from whitefield, I met a conductor of high corruption index. It was a Pushpak bus but when I entered the bus I didn't realize and took exact change of rupees eight in my hand, the normal fare for the distance while the actual fare was rupees ten. Now when the conductor came, I asked him for a ticket to marathahalli and he said it was ten rupees. Now he happened to see the change in my hand and asked how much it was. Before I said it was only eight, he asked me to give that itself and moved ahead without giving the ticket. When I asked for the ticket he first tried to ignore me, and when I raised my voice to call him up, he finally said that it was rupees ten and gave me a ticket after I gave him two more.

And then there was the show time. When I was getting down, the conductor asked me if I had the ticket. And as I showed it to him, he almost snatched it from my hand. now that I was on the steps, I didn't want to argue, and so I came out. And the conductor earned a full ten rupees as I'm sure he'd have reused the ticket.

Another, more interesting case was when I was traveling with three friends by a new BIG 10 bus. This time it was from Marathahalli to whitefield. I asked the conductor for two tickets as two of us had passes and he gave me one ticket and one pass. He also told me in Kannada to give the pass back to him when I get down. Though I don't understand a lot of Kannada, I got what he meant. As I was getting down, the conductor asked me for the pass, and while I gave it back, I commented that he had earned a full eight rupees. At that time he was a bit apologetic in tone and reiterated that there was someone who had not given the money for pass while he had took it out of booklet, and so he was trying to get the money back.

Though in the last incident I felt that the conductor might be true, it is also a fact that conductors sometimes do use passes to make money. Once coming to whitefield again, I was given a used day pass by a conductor when I protested for not being given the ticket. This was after ten at night and so the conductor didn't ask for the pass when I got out of the bus.

Most of these incidents look very small but they are a matter of concern for two reasons. First, these incidents anyway give rise to corruption and bring corruption to our daily lives possibly more than anything else. Secondly, these incidents, when seen from a larger frame, must be costing lacs of rupees everyday to BMTC as BMTC buses make more than 70,000 trips everyday.

I think there should be some effort to stop this practice. My suggestion would be that BMTC customers be given badges carrying their names and a unique ID and one should be able to lodge a complaint against such incidents through Internet, phone, and at BMTC offices and if there is a certain number of complaints against a conductor, there should be action taken against him. I hope the overhead of maintaining such a system would be less than the money lost by BMTC due to the bad practices going on currently. And we shall be making a better society anyway.

Mean-while

2009-02-07T06:55:00.000-08:00

Moserbaer Joke:

What is the Moserbaer six CD collection of Shahrukh Khan hits called?

Six Pack SRK.

(Based on real incident)

Airtel Launches IMRS (Interactive Message Response System)

2009-02-05T05:37:00.001-08:00

Years after changing the system for balance enquiry by shifting to *123# from calling 123, Airtel finally launched it's Interactive Message Response System, IMRS where you can know balance and validity (that too without an advertisement around, till date), check the offer of the day (finally no need to wait for a message), ask for Hello Tunes (how could they leave this one) and start or stop a DND registry (Important one there).

For Airtel IMRS, you need to dial *121#, which the company has chosen as the text alternative for 121, its national customer care number. On dialing *121#, the system sends you a main menu which shows the above four options. You need to press the 'answer' key on the phone (generally the OK button) and then key in the option number and send. All the process is of course toll free.

When I tried the service, I found that the balance enquiry, offer of the day, and DND work fine for me and I've got a DND registration number too (which I could not store in phone, there was no option to save the message). The Hello Tunes option, which I had tried at the end, and that too quite reluctantly (though I tried it twice), didn't seem to work for me. Returning to main menu was slightly confusing but finally pressing *1 (you can read that star one) in place of option number worked.

While the service has come here quite late, I think this is here to stay. Ineractive Voice Response System (IVRS) used at the customer care is rarely liked by customers and most of the people find it a tough task to call up the customer care because they have to go through long paths of sweet, irritating recorded audio messages. In such a scenario, the new message response system, or IMRS, should be welcomed by people just the way they welcomed *123#, the balance enquiry number which is common to many operators today. And since the service is expected to last long, I expect Airtel to add more options to the service and make it better in all the ways possible.

From Zero to Non-Zero

2009-02-03T04:38:00.000-08:00

After Mumbai, Mangalore is the new victim of a new 'sena'. It's not been long since Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Navnirmana Sena (or whatever it is) went a bit silent after the 26/11 attack on Mumbai, and a new savior of society is born who is saving the public by beating girls.

Right now the newborn or at least newly identified Ram Sena (or whatever is, again, I don't really want to care) is busy giving out mediophile statements as a follow up to their act of bravery, or at least society-cleaning (I'm just guessing their words as I'm not really giving their words a read).

It's interesting how all of a sudden a person or an organization who was nowhere comes up and almost challenges the government as they say they won't take law into their hands now, but if the government fails to act, they'll decide what to do next.

And now, my experience tells me (hail Indian politics, I feel I've seen so much at 23) that the guys involved will be able to find some tickets for the next or post-next elections and maybe even get a seat or two.

So here comes the conclusion of this sweet little exercise of getting inside a pub and beating girls, 'not molesting them but maybe giving a slap or two', in their leaders' own words. The guys who did it of course get arrested and all, their pictures (and even interviews) are published, they become popular (rather anti-popular) and hence known faces, and finally they get a place in Indian politics.

Whatever happens, one thing is sure, that the guys become zero to something non-zero. And that pays. Always. Can we stop this?

Aw c'mon

2009-01-14T07:21:00.000-08:00

Half an hour earlier I was sitting in mess-cum-restaurant for my dinner, watching trailers of new Hindi movies when some guy sitting behind me asked the teenage waiter to put on some news channel. The waiter followed and I was watching NDTV instead of my favorite 9XM (though today it was SET MAX before changing to NDTV).

Anyway, I thought I'd see it till the guy is there and didn't protest. Now as I was watching the news, the first interesting thing was Priya Dutt being disappointed with brother Sanjay for going to Samajwadi Party instead of Congress. Dear Priya, it suits the image. Munna Bhai fits well in a Bhai Log ki Party. Also, maybe he idolizes Amitabh Bachchan and so following him.

Now came the news that was selected as the news of the day by NDTV people. NDTV was hurt (or trying to show it was hurt) by some corporates showing their support for Narendra Modi as the Prime Minister of India, and they fired a burning question (that's what I'm taught, all questions burn, and I know they did during school): Is it correct for India Inc to project Narendra Modi as PM?

At the time I was watching the show, the public response was divided 60-40. In favor of the question. Or against the channel, as far as I could see. At that point of time I could only find comments that were against the sin the business community had committed. And my guess would be that comments have to be filtered by the channel, though I expect that the numbers aren't.

Now an hour or so later, when I casted the 786th vote (O, what a number!), I could see the numbers changing to 50.5/48.1, still more people being magnanimous enough to ignore the crime of the India Inc. which, my guess is, comes after opinions being affected by the channel.

Now this relates to the third news where Sonia Gandhi had said that the Freedom of Expression of the news channels will be maintained and they should not worry about the same.

My question is: Is the freedom of expression only for news channels? What is wrong if certain business people support and project a person for the Prime Minister's post? Because according to me, in a democracy like India, anybody can speak up and speak out (just like an old Airtel ad) so why shouldn't the business community who have done our country proud and continue to do so?

Anyway, as far as my personal opinion goes, there is nothing wrong with projecting Modi as the Prime Minister, not because I think he's a great person or something but simply because there is hardly a better choice with us. In fact Mr Advani, who is currently thinking of himself as the Prime Minister elect of India, is hardly better and can be as bad as Modi on a given day as is clear from history.

So I guess we can make Modi or even Lalu the Prime Minister. In fact, thinking of Lalu, I feel they all get better when they come to the centre (compare the situation of Bihar and Indian Railways).

Hmmm. It's fixed then. I support Lalu for the Prime Minister in the coming elections. Anybody hurt with that? ;)

Happy New Year @ Immadihalli, Whitefield, Bangalore

2008-12-31T12:10:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. Well, I was kind of confused or rather confused without kind of while thinking how to celebrate my new year, that is, the much hyped 00:00:00 of 1st January 2009. I was quite in a fix when I started out around 8.15 and reached the whitefield main road around 8.30. The first thing I saw there was a Red Vajra bus No 333P which goes to MG road and Majestic too, which is on the way to my sister's home. I felt like it was an invitation as I've to wait for this bus whenever I plan to go somewhere. But.. I didn't go.

After moving hundred meters of the cross/bus stop in one direction and a hundred in the other, I settled for 'food first, rest later' strategy and had my dinner at Mayuri Sagar. The food was fine but I felt the thirst I used to at Dhaba, the drink thirst. I don't yet take hard drinks, but can't classify it as soft drink thirst because the effect of soft drinks during this thirst isn't exactly as soft drinks are supposed to leave.

Well, in that mode of mine, I bought an Appy Fizz (cause Mirinda can wasn't there) and started moving in the two hundred meters range I was previously walking, with the deceptive Fizz bottle in my hand, even moving in a way that was deceptive.

While coming back from the Dhaba, I always needed people when I was in such a mode and always got some victims. But this time, there were none present there, so I had to take up the phone. After finishing my Fizz, I called up a friend who tried her best to find some way out for me to celebrate, but since there were actually none, she couldn't find out. Finally I decided to pass some time in the nearby Reliance Fresh and do some shopping, that is biscuits, and more biscuits.

While at Reliance Fresh, I called up my mother and talked to her, and while on the way back, my local guardian, my Jijaji called up. As I reached my room, I and my flatmate Ambuj were thinking how to celebrate our time of the year. Finally, after some usual time pass, I decided to make a list of books I would want to read this year. Ambuj did the same too.

As my list of some twenty-five books was over, sounds of crackers being burst started coming in and we decided to move out of our home to see what was happening outside. I was a bit shocked and a lot surprised to see that people were bursting crackers like anything and everyone looked very enthusiastic, even in the dim lights of street at midnight. And then came the real surprise, when a girl from the party saw us and offered wishes and cake. It was heartening to see people offering cake to us, as we are totally unknown to all in the neighborhood yet.

Later, we both had our time receiving calls from friends and eating biscuits. And then, listening to the Samrat's story of party at UB City when he came at 2.

It was a different type of celebration but it was one. Better than the non-celebration I was afraid of. I wish the year goes well like this too.

Kill piracy.. Shall we ever?

2008-12-21T02:46:00.001-08:00

It's a question to which i've no answer. Really. India has changed a lot in the past few years. So has the entertainment industry, especially in its try to curb piracy. The rates of movies' cd's have come down to an affordable and reasonable rupees 150, Moserbaer has brought a number of movies at prices down to earth, Cinema halls have changed to multiplexes, at least in big cities, and we've movies on tv in just a few months.

But still, with all these things changed, one thing that hasn't changed is piracy. The number of movie goers has increased, number of cd buyers has increased, but i don't think the number of pirated cd's sold has decreased. I can still see pirated cd's being sold in shops, roadsides, and buses and trains.

The fact is that at the time of writing i'm sitting in front of tv where my sister's dvd player is showing me a blurred rab ne bana di jodi with a blurred voice.

We see pirated movies in hostels, no doubt, lots of them, coming from internet, traveling on USB drives and even wirelessly. But it's not that just students watch pirated movies. Even people who earn lots of money do watch these pirated movies, my sister just being a representative of them here.

In fact i couldn't resist the temptation to watch the movie myself. And i'm watching the movie too. It's hardly a great experience and nothing compared to watching a movie in the cinema hall. But when I can save money and time wasted not just in the cinema hall but more than that transportation, I think a little blur can be borne with.

Actually, for now, i don't think piracy is going to end. And so, I guess it's better I watch the movie now and we'll discuss the piracy problem later. But the fact is that this question will remain there. Will piracy come to an end?

Write priorities

2008-12-19T00:59:00.001-08:00

Today I read news that says Bangalore shopkeepers will be fined if they do not write their signboards in Kannada. Even if it's not something Raj Tackeray like, I do not think it's the right path that we are taking.

I think we are setting our priorities wrong. I'm not saying that police is not doing it's work, not enforcing law where it should and not catching thieves, robbers and terrorists, but I still think we're in the wrong lane.

I don't really think it matters to those who are shopping whether the signboards are in Kannada or not. Whether they understand English or not. But I think it does matter if somebody hits you and runs and you are not able to read the number of the vehicle.

Yes, I'm talking about the law that deals with the number plates on vehicles in India. As far as law is concerned, every vehicle in India should have a number plate in Roman numerals which is ethically correct too as everyone cannot read numbers in local languages, especially in a city like Bangalore where lot of outsiders are there, while Roman numerals are known to everybody who knows how to read.

But still, I find vehicles on the road, public and private, which do not have number plates in Roman numerals at all. And I don't think anybody tries to fine them.

I don't disagree with the people who feel a shop in Karnataka should have signboards in Kannada. (In fact that way I get more practice of reading Kannada) But I think first we need to set our priorities right.

Can they leave at least THEM?

2008-12-13T02:46:00.001-08:00

While the country salutes the heroes who fought the terrorists, our politicians don't forget to encash whatever they can. When I saw this banner, I really didn't understand what the local politicians showing on the left of the banner have done to get their pics smiling beside the Mumbai martyrs. Isn't it possible to leave some people without finding your personal benefits from them?

And yes, this is not about some party or someone specific. It's a shame to use the name of these martyrs for their own benefit for all the politicians, wherever they are and whichever party they belong to.

What's up, Bangalore!

2008-11-15T02:49:00.000-08:00

It's been long since I wrote something light on this blog. In fact it's been long since I actually wrote anything on this blog except a Raj Thackeray piece, that is, the one below. So, here we go, on my training in Bangalore.

The fact is that I do not want to write anything about the training or the office. They are too boring to be talked about. Right now I'm in a class of 37 and I hardly remember names of half of them, that is, when there are 5 from my previous batch and a few others from my college also.

So, if the training is boring, what is good at Bangalore. Traffic is certainly not. I start early, at 7-7.15 in the morning so that I reach my center in time. And then, I reach home when the clock is almost in the same position, making it a 12 hour workday for me.

Well, the only good thing at Bangalore is FM. (counting only things, not people, who've been really good, they'll be taken up later sometime) Especially 94.3, the Radio One has been simply great. This channel gives 99.9% Hindi songs (maybe 100, not sure) with Hindi-English-Kannada mixed chattering all the time. They get the credit for my listening to Haule Haule and Guzarish before they reached me through net.

Actually I have a parallel FM too, and that does even have these chatterers in between. It's pure and simple music, songs one after the other. Back to back in the RJs' language. And this is courtesy my cellphone which right now has some 336 songs, that is in a 470 MB memory card. (generally known as a 512 MB card) The only disadvantage with the 'parallel' FM is that it doesn't have ONE song. Here ONE means the latest one.

For example, it didn't have Haule Haule when FM played it for the first time. Then after two days I had all the songs of Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, and then after one day I didn't have Guzarish that was being played on FM. So it's just that my FM is one song behind, which is covered up by Radio One.

Other than that, there is 'The Afghan' by Fredrick Forsyth that I'm trying to read in buses and office breaks. But the not-that-interesting book has to fight a lot for my time, with FM and sleep always on the cards. The most surprising thing is that I haven't yet seen Fashion, or any other movie for that matter since I've come here.

Hope things are better when I'm out of training. Till then, it's Java, J2EE, Oracle, RDBMS, tests, projects, JBoss, Eclipse, Head First, Complete Reference....

God Bless Me.

Is it Only Raj?

2008-11-08T05:44:00.000-08:00

It's been really long since I want to write something about Raj Thackeray. I was hating him from the core of my heart. But for the past few days I'm not hating Raj that much. Actually it's not that I'm not hating Raj that much, but the thing is that I'm feeling more hatred for others now.

First of all, I should clarify that in what I write ahead, I do not support Raj Thackeray in any of the activities he has done or any of his statements or policies.

Actually this is something that was running in my mind for quite long. It was made more clear when I read an article by Mrunal Pande in 'Hindustan' and the spark for writing this came from the huge hoardings of LK Advani that I've been looking at for past one week while travelling in Bangalore buses.

Raj Thackeray is a selfish person. No doubt about that. He has done all things he could to get himself in the news and has put his hand on a pulse of many Marathis. At the same time, he has fallen to levels not generally found in today's India, that is, with a few exceptions from UP or maybe Bihar, mainly in the less educated areas of these two states.

But the way Raj has done it, he has found some support from even educated people, something that is not easily found in the 'less educated' UP or Bihar.

All this is certainly very unfortunate. More unfortunate is that people will still cast their votes in favor of Raj and he will get what he has done all this for.

But the most unfortunate thing according to me, is the silence of the so-called leaders of our country. Be it Sonia Gandhi, the lady above the PM and President of our country, or LK Advani, who probably finds himself the most suitable person for the next Prime Minister, or even Manmohan Singh, our Prime Minister himself, all are afraid of commenting against The Great Raj Thackeray. Of course, their party spokespersons have issued the press statements from the respective parties condemning the 'unfortunate incidents'. But our national leaders who are not hesitant to disturb entire rescue operations in floods, fires, earthquakes and bomb blasts just to show their faces, are hiding behind the curtains when they need to speak up. Actually I do not know what they fear, but I guess it must be fear of losing votes by some calculations because that is the only thing they are afraid of.

That's the reason I'm hating these leaders more than Raj Thackeray nowadays. What Raj has done is surely beyond all limits, but there is one thing I felt good about him when I compared him to these leaders -- that he has a stand of his own, however bad, wrong, dividing, disturbing or destroying it is. Our leaders are of no use if they cannot take a stand of their own in such conditions. When I compare the two, i feel there is no better to go to, while one is all set to divide the country, others are quietly watching the drama unfolding itself, waiting for the next move of the artist.

Overall, I feel it's not just Raj Thackeray who is trying to divide our country. All those who are sitting and enjoying this drama instead of trying to end it, are playing their roles in the drama too. And when this drama ends, I do not know where will me and my country be.

Run maadi Run

2008-10-04T23:50:00.000-07:00

Catching the bus back from TCS Trivandrum is always a tough job for me. I mean, I avail the bus service provided by the company, and I am talking about the bus provided by the company only. But it always comes so late and when it comes, there is always maara-maari for a place. Especially when we get the good one. Because it's one or two short of our strength and one or two guys always go standing. That day it was my turn.

And I'll have to say, it was one of my best bus journeys, at least of those between Hotel Mas and Technopark. I generally sing all the songs into the window when I'm in the bus, so that others aren't troubled. But this day I wasn't concerned about others troubles, probably because I was the one standing while others were sitting. The other guy standing was Naveen. Also a few others were there till the gate of Technopark. And there it was our CR who boarded the bus for a ride to the executive hostel which is some half kilometer from the Technopark.

I remember we were shouting out Khalbali with AR Rehman and Naresh Iyer, me and Naveen at least. The girl was silently bearing the pain of all the voices. Soon she got out and we were shouting more loudly. At least I was, as Naveen hardly had left any scope remaining already. Also, with his voice, I was always the humbler one.

That was probably the first day Naveen got into the back rows of the bus and made almost everybody sing. Thanks to our bus driver's wonderful collection, the songs playing were Khalbali, Meri Neend, Mast Kalandar, and same sort. All the way it was I wasted my energy as much as I could and when I reached hostel, I was soooo... energetic. So much so that I moved out of the hostel within a few minutes of coming. Just as soon as I was out of my tie and shoes and back into my VIT UNIVERSITY T-shirt, I took my phone, purse, headphones, and put them on, to start on an unknown track.

I started on the road in front of my hotel. The side I knew had the market. I walked past the market, the one I knew, to some new roads, keeping it straight. Guess some 2-2.5 kms later, I took a little turn and saw a bookshop. It was quite big and even a few foreigners were strolling inside. I got into the shop and started looking up the books there. Quite a few books caught my interest too, but I didn't want to spend much money, as I had not yet received my first salary.

Then there was another book called 'You Are Here' that caught my attention. Probably because of the name of the author, it's bright colorful cover, and an introduction that completely mismatched the name of the author. Actually the book's author is called Meenakshi Reddy Madhvan, a South Indian name that brings me the smell of Sambar-Rice and when talking in books, some serious subjects. But here it was, a book with a few lines on it's cover, looking like a map, and showing points as: The job that sucks, Smoke first postcoital cigarette, do-not-disturb: perfect make out session in progress, attend dad's second wedding as bridesmaid, and so on.

At the same time, I saw another book called 'reluctant fundamentalist' that looked quite readable. Also, I saw later that it was nominated for the man booker prize. Both these books costed Rs 200 each. And I thought I'd buy the fundamentalist book. But for some reason quite unknown to myself, I bought the other one.

On the way back, I was quite exhausted as I had already been standing in the bus and now it was a complete 5 kms way up and down for me. Finally when I reached the Hotel, it took all my will to get up for the dinner. Yet another run to the Ramji Bhojnalaya.

Time to Act

2008-10-04T23:13:00.000-07:00

It was a class of personal grooming by Ms.Jaysree. A first again. She came, talked some things about first impressions, dress sense, etiquette and professional and unprofessional behavior, and after some time, suddenly divided us into four 'random' groups and said that we'll have to come up with a skit that would differentiate between professional and unprofessional behavior. She allotted us ten minutes for that though later it was extended.

I was in a group of eleven, with three girls, two Naveens, and five more guys. We decided to go with two groups shown as two companies, the professional company and the unprofessional company, and one common client, Sugam.

I myself was a manager in the professional company. Quite boring. And I guess I played my role strictly OK. May be worse than that. But on the whole our skit went well. Even though we were group number 3 and called on first.

Later on, there was one more group that I loved, because of Dhruv's acting. Dhruv Mandal (dhroo-bo-mon-dol), actually a Bengali, played a Punjabi customer of a telephone company, and kept all the class and the facilitator laughing for almost 5 minutes. One thing I had to accept that I had never seen a Bengali speaking such wonderful Punjabi, without a trace of Bengali accent.

Later when the skits were over, Jaysree said all the plays were good but story wise, group three did the best. Hurrah! She also said, pointing to Dhruv, that she didn't know we had such good actors in our batch. It was one class I liked a lot. In fact I remember Dhruv's great acting and I think it'll stay in my memory for long.

Yet another lesson learnt was once again about our abilities and our potential. Once again I came to know we were capable of performing quite well on such a short notice while previously I used to be afraid of acting even after long sessions of rehearsals. Hope it makes me less fearing for the future.

Sesame

2008-09-27T11:40:00.000-07:00

Probably it was my third day in ILP. We were called in Sesame, a small auditorium of almost 120, 3 batches. It was supposed to be a lecture on life skills by Sakina Hussain.

Yet another boring lecture, yet another bunch of slides on Microsoft PowerPoint, probably the most used software at the ILP, I had thought. But it turned out to be better than that. First of all, when Sakina came in, she was quite good at speaking, or talking, to be more precise. In a hall where people later communicated through microphones, she was audible to everyone without it. A genuine positive point if you have a good voice.

And after some talking, she gave us an exercise. She started numbering students 1-2-3-4-...15 and then repeated the same till the end. Then, all the 1s, 2s, 3s and so on were asked to come together. Thus, all of us were divided into 15 random groups of 8-9 each and each of us had to know the entire group as much as we could in 15-20 minutes. And when it was finished, she asked questions on group members. And once the introduction was done, she asked names of students across groups.

It was a great exercise and we got to know more people than we generally do in the same amount of time. But the exercise didn't give as good results as it was a combination of three batches while there is need of communication inside batches themselves.

Another thing I got confirmed about is that I can remember details of 8 people in such a short time. Yet another underestimation of one's own abilities.

Clove

2008-09-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

It was my second day at TCS Trivandrum. The day assigned for ILP Pretest. I had hardly done any preparation except a few things which I had seen on the previous day evening. And I guess most of my 'colleagues' were equally well prepared.

The test was supposed to start at 9.30 and we had instructions to be present in the 'Clove' by 9 sharp. Clove is the lab where the test was held. We reached clove in time but what happened inside was not the least we had expected from the Tata Consultancy Services.

After we entered the lab, we found that some of the systems were not working for us for various reasons. And so, almost 20 students were standing without systems. Interestingly my college had a majority with 11 of them being from the same.

The problem didn't end there. When the invigilators came and told us how to log in and take the test, the database server started showing connection failure. Once, twice, thrice.. We soon became used to a new thing. We had to reload almost every page again and again to reach the servers. Yes, those twenty-something number of students were.. Sorry, colleagues, were sent to some other lab where they could find systems and finally, we were able to start the test at around 10.15 AM.

It was a test of 30 minutes duration with 19 questions. The interesting thing was that it wasn't questions that really troubled us. It was the test that did. The procedures, the systems, the hardware and the software were the troubles. Supposedly we had to finish the test before the half an hour was over once the test started. That was to be performed by clicking a button that said Submit and Finish Test, or something like that, followed by a confirmation, but when we started doing the same almost 5 minutes before the end of time, it was failures of connection that came our way once again.

I pressed the finish button with more than 3 minutes remaining and thankfully, I was able to get it done after reloading the page just once. Yay! And I got a score of 45 out of 100. A failure by TCS standards (they ask for 55% in tests after this. This one is just a pretest.) but I was pretty good by my standards and was happy that I was able to see my score. Those who lost their submissions to failed database connections were later consoled as they were told their marks could be found from the back end of the system. Though I don't know if that has really been done as most probably the students who didn't get the score that time didn't get it later also.

Now, the question on my mind is, why so? I know how good and credible are the TCS products for clients. Then why do database connections fail while employees are taking test?

I guess I can't answer that. Probably it's part of the ILP. Part of our Learning. And the answer is a TCS Top Secret which mortals like me will not be knowing easily!

Sage, Saffron

2008-09-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

Peepul Park TCS looks quite impressive from outside, but since I had seen quite big buildings in VIT, I didn't feel something odd. Before I got inside I came to know we couldn't bring in any cameras, laptops, or even pen drives. Thankfully nothing was written about a camera phone so I took it in. Though, later I came to know that camera phones, once banned, were allowed in the campus but photography was strictly prohibited.

Inside was a normal experience for the first time as there was quite a crowd of us and I am now used to crowd. But later I realized that the campus is really big as far as the structure was concerned.

But what was interesting about TCS was that they had called us there before 8 when we had our first class at 9. And this one hour was given for breakfast. Intelligent people - they know I always used to skip breakfast during all my engineering. Now I can't as the same schedule takes place everyday. The canteen @ TCS TVM gave milk (Horlicks/Bournvita/Boost/corn flakes) at Rs 10 and Dosa/Idly at Rs 12. It still does. Almost the same can be said about the prices of Lunch but it's not that good, especially salt is always, ALWAYS too less. Probably absent.

And then, we entered Sage. Sage was a lecture hall with a seating capacity of around 200 and 2 large screen. After enjoying Sage for some 20 minutes, we were told we had to be in Saffron, a mirror image of Sage, and not there in Sage itself. So, the few of us were shown the way to the nearby hall where a presentation had just started and we were quickly given a Reynolds 045 pen and a notepad carrying the TCS name.

Our first belongings from the TCS.

I don't really remember who it was who gave the presentation, as I wasn't there from the very start, but the most interesting lines I remember from that presentation were: "Worry about your cellphone, your purse, your valuables. Don't worry for your original certificates. These are of no use for others. You can leave them wherever you want."

By the way, one thing I forgot to tell is that there were a number of students from my college in this batch of TCS ILP too. As I later counted, I could identify 24 VITians of them in the auditorium of 202.

The day went in a few inductions followed by long HR verifications of original certificates. The verifications were over the first day itself but the inductions went on for almost a week except for that of Programming Concepts of which we have 3 sessions a day now. That is almost 6 hours. Thankfully it was not shown on our first day.

Well, in case you don't know, TCS expects you to do some reading in advance before you come for the ILP. And for that they have a test on the second day of the training, which is known as Pretest. Our pretest schedule was out up and we had to take our first test in TCS on the next day morning at 9.

The first day ended at around 6 and we left by our bus with a new series of songs. This time songs were almost a year or so old. Superb again. I had found something matching my tastes in Trivandrum. My bus.

First Experience (ILP @ TCS Trivandrum)

2008-09-25T10:44:00.000-07:00

In the sky

Fortunately I have been on a lot of flights by now. But most of the times it used to be Deccan or Jetlite, or a few Spicejet ones recently. But this time things changed as I boarded on an Indigo and a Jet airways plane on the same day.

I was coming to Trivandrum from New Delhi and I had to change flights for that in Chennai. And the Chennai Trivandrum flight of Jet turned out to be a great experience. It was a small ATR plane I boarded and I got a window seat there. I don't know why I could see below all the time - was it the small size of the plane or the height it was flying at, or simply my first flight where I didn't sleep at all, but I could see below - on the ground, the cities, forests, roads, rivers, and clouds, lots of lots of them. Another thing I loved on Jet flight was food. Later I got to know it was Taj's food they served.

God's Own Country

As soon as the plane reached Trivandrum, I could see trees and trees on the ground. I could see the city and at the same time, lots of trees, a long sea shore, and a lot of trees again.

When I landed, I felt Kerala deserved to be called God's own country. It was trees all around, and people living in an environment covered by those coconut trees looked different from those living in any other capital in India I have been to.

Also, on my way to Hotel from airport, I could see lots of women, mostly girls in their teens. And there was a difference I could instantly see: They All looked educated. It showed on their faces. There were only a few uneducated looking faces of those selling fishes beside the road. Even the main city is quite good with trees wherever they got place.

And then there are the beaches. Well, by now I have seen only the not-that-popular beach of Trivandrum, called Sangamagam or something like that only and liked it a lot, more than any other I have seen in the past. Quite understandably, I want to see what will Kovalam be like, considering it is known as the best beach in Asia.

Pehli Nazar Mein...

I slept around 12 and got up at 6 for my first day of job, training to be more precise. 6 for me was quite early and I was feeling very sleepy when I got on to the bus at 7.30. But as the bus started, I couldn't believe my ears for a second. It was Atif's 'Pehli Nazar Mein' playing in high volume. I was no more sleepy. And by the time we reached Technopark, it was 3 songs of Rock On!!

Now I'm standing in front of my office at Technopark, Trivandrum.

Tata Consultancy Services. Peepul Park.

In God's own country

2008-09-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

Right now i'm at trivandrum. In case u don't know, for my ilp, the initial learning program by the tata consultancy services. And for now, though i'm busy at the company all the day and badly in need for sound sleep all the time, i'm loving it. The city is great. I've already been to the kovalam and sangamagam beaches. The fact is that i've a lot to write but due to lack of time i'm unable to write and unable to post the written. Though now i hope to do the same soon as my net seems to be working today. After seven days, thanks to airtel, my internet is back.

Dhoni Savvy Media

2008-09-07T00:33:00.000-07:00

A few years earlier we used to have media savvy people. But now, we are having the opposite, people savvy media. Actually, it's not a people savvy media, but a celebrity savvy media. They make celebrities, they run programs on them, increase their TRPs, and then dump them with a few more programs and polls deciding should he/she do this/that in this way/at all etc.

I guess nowadays it's our one day Cricket captain Dhoni who is the apple of camera lenses for these TV channels, even newspapers. There are articles proving and reproving, assuring us all, that Dhoni has done something which was never done by anyone in India from Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar to Sachin or Sehwag. By now I have no idea what exactly this something is but if the media continues this way I guess in some I shall be sure that this something has a real existence.

The interesting thing is that this media thing is affecting even bigger things now. Or so I feel. I really have no Idea why Dhoni is the only other player than Sachin Tendulkar to get a Khel Ratna award. I do agree that he is the poster boy of Indian cricket, but if Dhoni deserves a Khel Ratna, what about the players with 950+ wickets or with 10k runs in ODIs as well as in tests?

I think we just need a hero, and now that some are saying it's Dhoni, we are happy to have him. Otherwise, there was never a need to clarify that a winner 'deserves' the Khel Ratna award. Isn't it?

व्हाट एन आइडिया सरजी!

2008-09-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

आपने अभिषेक बच्चन का व्हाट एन आइडिया सर जी वाला विज्ञापन तो देखा ही होगा जिस में अभिषेक मोबाइल फ़ोन की सहायता से गाँव के बच्चों को पढ़ाने का काम कर दिखाते हैं। वैसे वास्तविक ज़िन्दगी में तो बच्चों को ऐसे पढ़ाना आसान नही है पर यदि हम यू जी सी की हालिया बातों पर ध्यान देन तो हम शायद समझ पाएंगे कि अभिषेक के इस आइडिये को कहाँ अमल में लाने की ज़रूरत है।

हाल ही में यू जी सी ने कहा था कि भारत में विश्वविद्यालयों की संख्या बहुत कम है। अंकों में कहें तो भारत में आज लगभग 400 विश्वविद्यालय हैं लेकिन हमें आने वाले 4 साल में लगभग 800 और विश्वविद्यालयों की आवश्यकता है।

निश्चय ही हम इतने विश्वविद्यालय इतने समय में नहीं बना सकते। लेकिन हम कुछ और कर सकते हैं। आज भारत दूरसंचार के क्षेत्र में निरंतर प्रगति कर रहा है। आज देश में इन्टरनेट की पकड़ भी दिन प्रतिदिन बढ़ रही है। ऐसे में हम इन्टरनेट के ज़रिये उच्च शिक्षा को विद्यार्थियों तक पंहुचा सकते हैं। हम भारत के सर्वश्रेष्ठ अध्यापकों, कहिये professors और researchers के lecture रिकॉर्ड कर के उन्हें इन्टरनेट के ज़रिये उन्हें विद्यार्थियों तक पंहुचा सकते हैं और बाद में परीक्षाएं करा सकते हैं। सच कहूँ तो मेरे विचार से इन्टरनेट पर वास्तविक जैसी, या फिर उस से भी बेहतर कक्षाएं करायी जा सकती हैं।

कुल मिला कर इन्टरनेट से हम घर बैठे शिक्षा को सफल बना सकते हैं, लेकिन इसके लिए सरकार को एक पहल करने की आवश्यकता है। आज जब इन्टरनेट हर गीत और फ़िल्म को जनता तक पहुँचाने में सक्षम है, तो फिर शिक्षा के क्षेत्र में हम पीछे क्यों हैं?

ज़रूरत है सिर्फ़ उस विचार की, उस आइडिये की। यदि हम इस आइडिये को सफल बना पाये, तो भारत में शिक्षा का स्तर उठाने में और सहायता मिल सकेगी, और हम गर्व से कह सकेंगे -- व्हाट एन आइडिया सर जी!

पानी पानी रे

2008-09-03T22:00:00.000-07:00

बिहार में पानी ने क्या कहर ढाया हुआ है ये तो हम सभी जानते हैं। लेकिन विडम्बना यह है कि इतने पानी के बाद भी हम कई लोगों के लिए पीने लायक पानी नहीं जुटा पाते। एक ओर सूखा तो दूसरी ओर बाढ़, ऐसा कितनी ही बार हमारे साथ होता है।

आज भी भारत की जनसँख्या का एक बड़ा हिस्से, यानि लगभग 10 प्रतिशत लोगों को पीने का साफ़ पानी नहीं मिल पाता। भूगर्भ से निकले पानी के कारण लगभग 7 करोड़ भारतीय अधिक फ्लोराइड्स मिला तथा 1 करोड़ आर्सेनिक मिला पानी पी रहे हैं, जो उनके स्वास्थ्य के लिए खतरनाक हो सकता है।

समुद्री तटीय इलाकों में एक और समस्या का सामना करना पड़ रहा है। भूगर्भी जल के अधिक उपभोग के कारण ज़मीन के नीचे समुद्री जल बढ़ रहा है जिससे ज़मीन के नीचे का पानी पीने योग्य नहीं रहता।

मुझे लगता है कि अब समय आ गया है कि हम इस समस्या को गंभीरता से लें और ख़ुद कुछ पहल करें। इस के लिए हम अपने घर बरसात से आने वाले पानी को बचा कर शुरुआत कर सकते हैं।

वर्षा से आए जल को कैसे बचाएं, इस के लिए यहाँ दिए गए लिंक को देखें।

http://www.kscst.iisc.ernet.in/rwh.html

यहाँ दिए गए चित्र, या कहिये चलचित्र की सहायता से आप आसानी से वर्षा के जल को बचाना सीख सकते हैं। और हमारी-अपनी प्रगति की दिशा में एक महत्त्वपूर्ण कदम उठा सकते हैं।

Microsoft??? Who are they?

2008-09-03T12:32:00.000-07:00

Google recently launched its new browser Chrome. And tech savvies of the world are downloading it. But if you stop at the chrome download site, you may notice something interesting.

Google seems to be simply ignoring the existence of Microsoft and their browser Internet Explorer.

Take a look for yourself.

You can see the site mentioning download and install procedure for Firefox but Microsoft Internet Explorer, still the world's most used browser, finds no mention of its name on the page.

I guess Google makes a new thing, but even in competition they differentiate between friends and enemies. And of course, they know who their customers are. :)

नए नाम, नए रंग

2008-08-29T11:21:00.000-07:00

यूँ तो मैं Bangalore हवाई अड्डे पर कई बार उतरा हूँ। वही पुराना HAL हवाई अड्डा। पर इस बार कहानी कुछ और ही थी। Bangalore हवाई अड्डा Bangalore की जगह Bengalooru हवाई अड्डा हो चुका था। शहर का नाम तो बदल ही गया था, साथ ही हवाई अड्डा भी बदला था।

अगर आप इस शहर की थोडी बहुत ख़बर रखते हैं तो आपको पक्का ही यह पता होगा कि यहाँ नया हवाई अड्डा बनने को लेकर कितने विवाद हुए हैं। जिनमें हवाई अड्डे कि शहर से दूरी प्रमुख कारण रहा है। परन्तु इस बार जब मैंने हवाई अड्डे को देखा तो पाया कि अड्डा शहर से दूर बनाना काफ़ी हद तक एक सूझ बूझ भरा काम है। क्योंकि नया हवाई अड्डा जहाँ सुंदर और उच्च कोटि का बनाया गया है, उसे बनाने के लिए जितनी जगह की ज़रूरत थी उतनी जगह शहर में ढूंढ़ना एक मूर्खता ही होता। खासकर तब जब पूरा शहर ट्रैफिक की कठिन समस्या से गुज़र रहा है।

बंगलोर हवाई अड्डे का... माफ़ कीजिए, बेंगलुरु हवाई अड्डे का वर्णन यहाँ करना थोड़ा कठिन काम है। बस इतना ही कहा जा सकता है की जो हवाई अड्डे आपने यश चोपडा जी की फिल्मों में देखे होंगे उनके यह काफ़ी करीब है।

साथ ही साथ हवाई अड्डे ने शहर के विस्तार को एक नई दिशा दी है। मतलब, बेंगलुरु जो अभी सभी दिशाओं में बेतरतीब बढ़ रहा था, उसे बढ़ने के लिए एक दिशा विशेष मिल गई है जहाँ अभी बहुत सी सुविधाएँ आसानी से मिल सकेंगी।

आशा करता हूँ कि बेंगलुरु का नया नाम लोगों को पसंद आए या न आए, शहर का यह नया रूप सबको ज़रूर पसंद आएगा।

रॉक कर गई रॉक ऑन

2008-08-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

रॉक ऑन, दिल चाहता है और लक्ष्य जैसी फिल्में बनने वाले निर्देशक फरहान अख्तर द्वारा अभिनीत पहली फ़िल्म है और इसीलिए अधिकांश युवा वर्ग के दर्शकों को इसका बेसब्री से इंतज़ार था।

और आखिरकार यह इंतज़ार काफ़ी सार्थक सिद्ध हुआ।

रॉक ऑन हालांकि कोई एकदम नई कहानी नहीं है मगर अच्छे निर्देशन और कलाकारों के दम पर यह साधारण कहानी भी लोगों के ह्रदय को छूने की क्षमता रखती है। फिल्म दोस्ती और रिश्तों के अर्थ को काफी अच्छे तरीके से दिखाने में सक्षम रही है और इसलिए यह आशा की जा सकती है की फिल्म दर्शकों द्वारा पसंद की जायेगी।

फ़िल्म में फरहान का अभिनय अभिनेता के रूप में अपनी पहली फ़िल्म कर रहे अभिनेता के लिए निश्चय ही अच्छा है।

फिल्म में अर्जुन रामपाल का अभिनय भी काबिले तारीफ है। कहा जा सकता है की यह आज तक उनकी सर्वश्रेष्ठ फिल्मों में से एक है।

अंत में, फ़िल्म में जान डालने का श्रेय मिलता है शंकर एहसान और लॉय को जिन का संगीत प्रारम्भ से ही लोगों को पसंद आ रहा है। जावेद अख्तर के लिखे गीत भी अच्छे और काफ़ी अलग हैं।

कुल मिला कर रॉक ऑन लोगों को काफ़ी पसंद आ सकती है, लेकिन फरहान अख्तर लोगों की ऊँची उम्मीदों पर कितने खरे उतर पाएंगे यह पक्का नहीं कहा जा सकता।

Olympics: More than Sports

2008-08-26T01:35:00.000-07:00

I am often asked if the Olympic village - the vast restaurant and housing conglomeration that hosts the world's top athletes for the duration of the Games - is the sex-fest it is cracked up to be. My answer is always the same: too right it is. I played my first Games in Barcelona in 1992 and got laid more often in those two and a half weeks than in the rest of my life up to that point. That is to say twice, which may not sound a lot, but for a 21-year-old undergraduate with crooked teeth, it was a minor miracle...

A revealing article. Read HERE.

Maybe you want to participate in the next Olympics. :P

Big TV. Too BIG?

2008-08-25T03:39:00.000-07:00

Seems the new Big TV is too big for my computer. First, I was unable to open the Big TV site on my laptop even after trying again and again. Later I got a view of the site in the basic HTML, of which you must be familiar if you work with gmail, that too could hardly be called working. Better have a look for yourself.

Probably it's because of high traffic on the site as they have hardly given any information on their advertisements that is covering full pages of all leading newspapers today.

I am feeling like Big TV is too Big for itself, and Mr Anil Dhirubhai Ambani will have to work bigger proportions to make problems small for him.

Proud of you, Vijender!

2008-08-22T02:03:00.001-07:00

He could not win us another gold. But Vijender Kumar is India's hero. He's a person who has made us proud.

Vijender not only won us a bronze, he kept the hopes of a medal alive while fighting another champion. We all wish him luck for future.

Ekta's view

2008-08-21T23:55:00.000-07:00

Arundhati roy thinks India should free Kashmir, but Ekta kapoor is against that.

Guess why?

Because Kashmir starts with a 'K'.

Music on the go? Sorry!

2008-08-21T21:40:00.001-07:00

Come on! Now i have to accept i was wrong. When i bought a new phone, i thought it was music on the go that was my top priority. As i consider myself a big music freak. And it's true, until internet comes in.

Yes, the thing i was keeping on a second priority, internet access has turned out to be my first love. I'm blogging on the go, and i'm reading newspapers online. Today when i bought the times of india in the bus to home from meerut, the first question on my mind was why i bought it in the first place, as i had already read two articles on my cell.

On the other hand, music is turning out to be something i'm not at all prefering to internet access. Though i've all new songs on my cell, and many of the old ones i love, it's not something i much like while on the run. Music also goes lower on priorities because it makes me look like i'm doing something different. Whereas accessing internet on the phone is a silent thing, like any other work on the phone.

Now, all i've understood is that i can go wrong on my likes and dislikes. Seems like part of evolution. Because me sticking to net is not a revolution at least.

Bad mind

2008-08-21T01:37:00.001-07:00

It may be called a bad mind. Or a less working one. Whatever it was, i never understood the meaning of a line that went as 'tu hai ki mujhme sota nahi hai' of 'haan tu hai' song from jannat.

It was today when i realized the actual meaning of the song. Just in case u too are confused about the meaning, it's just that You never sleep inside me, that is, i always find you awake, present in my heart. It's a feeling that never dies.

I hope there r others too who didn't get the meaning. Cause i don't wanna think that its just me who has a bad mind. :)

Mis(s)-in-formed

2008-08-21T01:19:00.001-07:00

Oops! This time i missed something. And it wasn't SOMETHING actually. It was the common entrance test form for admission to the indian institutes of management.

Well, it was my mistake completely. I didn't see that the last date of getting forms for the CAT from banks was 8th august. I just saw the last date of submission and reached bank to find later that the guard there was better informed than i was.

Well, the result will be that now i won't be able to take the exam and will have to stay with tcs. Now i'm waiting more eagerly for my joining date.

Once again

2008-08-21T00:08:00.000-07:00

I've been bugged by drivers using cellphones many times. But this time it was a bit different. I'd seen owners of private vehicles using cells while driving. But this time it was a driver from a state owned roadways bus, when i was in a bus to meerut. I realized there was something wrong when the speed of bus was irregularly increasing and decreasing. And then i found what the reason was. The driver on a cellphone. Again and again.

I think we need to do something about it. Because safety is much more important. But what can be done, i don't know.

Vijender Kumar Semifinal Schedule

2008-08-20T09:18:00.001-07:00

Vijender Kumar, the Indian boxer who has confirmed yet another medal for the country, will be playing his Semifinal on 22nd August.

The Schedule is as follows:

Men's Middle (75kg) Semifinal 2
Friday, August 22, 1245 IST
CORREA BAYEAUX Emilio (Cuba) vs KUMAR Vijender (India)

PS: The schedule has been calculated very carefully, but you may confirm the schedule from the official Olympics site.

All the Best to Vijender.

U pick Ur STD plan: Latest from TRAI

2008-08-19T21:58:00.000-07:00

Right from ET, 20th Aug '08

You’ll soon get to choose the cheapest STD and ISD tariffs, irrespective of your service provider. After recommending that internet telephony be opened up, telecom regulator TRAI this week will mandate that telcos offer their subscribers the freedom to choose a carrier of their choice for making long-distance calls, whether domestic (STD) or international (ISD).

This will start a new era of competition in long-distance calls, provided the government acts promptly to amend licence conditions to enable telcos comply with the TRAI directive.

What TRAI has in mind is not quite implementation of the carrier access code (CAC) project mooted several years ago. In the face of resistance by telcos to CAC and the willingness of the Department of Telecom (DoT) to play along with them, TRAI has come up with a variation. This is how it will work. Suppose, you are a Bharti subscriber and you find out BSNL is offering the cheapest long-distance tariffs.

You then buy a pre-paid long-distance package from BSNL for a specific duration. You punch in a set of numbers specified in the package to get on to the BSNL network, and then proceed to make the long-distance call you wanted to, and talk for as long as your pre-paid package permits.

Top Dug Pic!

2008-08-19T15:27:00.000-07:00

The picture that was Dug most number of times in past sometime, getting hundreds of Diggs every hour.

Here is the link.

Sorry for not putting the pic here. ;)

Just in case SRK's 6 packs impressed you

2008-08-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

The only question after seeing Phelps here is: Will Aamir Khan be perfect this time while flaunting his 6 pack abs in Ghajini?

Steve Jobs' Stories - 1

2008-08-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

This is a part of Steve Jobs' speech at Pixar Studios in June 2005. I read this one in 'The World is Flat.'

Connecting the dots

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combination's, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

Keep TRAIing

2008-08-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

India has certainly seen a revolution in the communication. Not just mobile phones have grown like anything but even call rates have gone down and down, in fact even when we have the lowest rates in the world, we are happily waiting for the next reduction in call rates which is almost sure to be there soon.

One major reason for these developments is the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. TRAI has always helped Indian telecom customers by regulating the operators in many ways and simultaneously coaxing the department of telecommunication for various exercises.

The recent permissions to internet telephony and mobile virtual network operators are some such points which are examples of pragmatism and futuristic approach of TRAI.

The latest step taken by TRAI is something important as it is related to mobile number portability (MNP). Where the DoT wants to divide the country into two zones, TRAI is demanding one single zone for the purpose. Having two zones means customers of North India cannot avail the service in the Southern region and vice versa. Whereas if there is a single zone, we can use a single number anywhere in the country and shift it to any operator working there. Interestingly in the start, DoT was talking about four or five zones, that would hardly be of any use.

So I hope TRAI wins and we get a single MNP zone for the country.

Keep TRAIing TRAI.

Hurrah! College calls

2008-08-19T02:59:00.000-07:00

Here is the email I received from VIT today. The best in the past few days.

From: Alumni
Subject: You are invited to attend the 23rd Annual CONVOCATION at VIT
To: vecpat@yahoo. co.in
Cc: "VIT Placement"
Date: Tuesday, 19 August, 2008, 2:32 PM

Dear Alumni,

Greetings from VITAA !

Please attend the 23rd ANNUAL CONVOCATION on 31st August 2008 in VIT campus. Please visit our VIT website(www.vit.ac.in) for further details.

All the graduands of 2008 batch of VIT University are requested to visit the following link and provide the details requested:

http://www.vit. ac.in/convocatio n/twentythird/ frmreg.asp

Please forward this email to your friends/batchmates and pass-on this information.

VITAA-We Share:We Care

Thanks & Regards,

VIT Alumni Association ( VITAA )
Ph.:0416-2202248.

Jade Goody has cancer: Out of Bigg Boss 2

2008-08-19T02:22:00.000-07:00

Jade Goody is out of Bigg Boss. Jade wasn't voted out, but the sudden decision was taken when it was found out that Goody has cervical cancer.

'Jade's stay at the Bigg Boss house has been cut short with an unfortunate development. Only yesterday, the results of Jade's test were out [conducted in UK before her departure to India], and the tests indicate the possibility of cancer,' said a statement from Colors.

Jade, who might look considerably older to some, is only 27 years of age and was tested for cancer twice earlier, in 2004 and 2006.

She will be flown back to UK on Tuesday night. Sources reveal that the footage of the incident may not be aired.

Media reports suggest that she is the highest paid participant on the show, drawing about Rs 80 lakh.

Shivratri @ Haridwar

2008-08-19T01:20:00.000-07:00

On 30th July, I was in Haridwar for some work. Actually I had to go somewhere I could not bring a camera with me. That day was Shivratri and in Haridwar, people take kaanwar to the Ganga and take it back home.

That morning in Haridwar was something not to be missed. There were people all around on the roads, running with various types of Kaanwars, even moto-kaanwars. For those having no idea, kaanwar is a bow like structure that has to be taken to Haridwar from home and way back without letting it touch the ground. And there are tens of thousands of people taking kaanwars. Originally kaanwars were taken by people onfoot only but later there have been cycle kaanwars and now even motorcycles too. But still, the largest number is that of those travelling all the way on foot.

So, not having my camera with me, I could only take a few pics with my cellphone. Here they are.

Oops!

2008-08-18T04:03:00.000-07:00

When I am home, electricity might be a commodity, but continuous supply is surely nothing less than luxury. A luxury that is available from midnight to 5 in the morning.

At other times during the day, the power supply is continuously on and off, sometimes taking gaps in hours, sometimes in minutes, and sometimes even in seconds.

What happens due to these power cuts is a bit interesting and a lot frustrating. For example, I was watching Naam today and it was my favorite song Chithhi aayi hai that Pankaj Udhas was singing. In the song there is a line that goes as Des paraya chhod ke aaja, Panchhi pinjra tod ke aaja, Aaja umr bahut hai chhoti, apne ghar mein bhi hai roti. This is probably the best line of the song and that's the reason Pankaj has stressed the line and sang it twice. But as he started into the high pitch and the first word des was out of his mouth, the screen went blank.

Actually it's not something new for me. It's something as old for me as I am. Because it happens everyday, almost twice or thrice daily with things I am watching so intently. Similarly it so happens that when I click on something while online, the power goes and so does the broadband connection. And sometimes I have to do the whole exercise again.

The fact is that it is fine if there is a proper power cut of an hour or more, but when these cuts happen to be for 2 minutes, 5 minutes and 10 minutes, it's something that adds to only frustration.

Anyways, it's the small town life, and has it's own benefits too. After all, it's my home.

Bigg Boss Season 2: WTF!!

2008-08-17T15:35:00.001-07:00

Bigg Boss Season 2 has started on Colors. And believe me, things were getting harder and harder to digest as I was seeing the inmates of the Bigg Boss house. One thing that is sure is that controversies are bound to be there with so many controversial people out there. And the second thing sure is that Bigg Boss 2 will be attracting a lot of audience, solely on the basis of its inmates' profiles.

As Bigg Boss 2 started, I saw Ketki Dave entering as the first candidate. And though I was a bit surprised to see her there, she seemed too trivial a person as more followed. The second entrant, Zulfi Syed was again nothing surprising. And then it all started.

The first surprise came as I saw Rahul Mahajan. Seeing him I could only think WTF. My second thought was that he would never have been here had Pramod Mahajan been alive today, and third, what the father was, and what the son is.

Later, although, I felt he was a real dumb person. Or may be a genius otherwise.

Whatever, the next surprise came in as Raja Chaudhry, though not as much as it was with Rahul. Rakhi, Sweety of Hum Paaanch, Payal Rohatgi and Sambhavna Seth were not much surprising either, even though I felt Rakhi was no more sweety as age reflected on her face now.

Another little surprise was Ehsaan Kureshi, the well known stand up comedian and even Elina who was a non-celebrity yet. And so was Debojit Saha, the singer.

But a big blow came when I saw Ashutosh Kaushik, the winner of MTV Roadies 5.0, as an inmate of Bigg Boss Season 2.

And what followed Ashutosh made it clear that this Bigg Boss was going to be something. It was a person who could not be imagined in such a place. It was Maharashtra's Congress leader, former Saamna editor, Sanjay Nirupam. Even Shilpa Shetty said that the country must be thinking at this time why and how he was there.

The end of the show there was one female who did not surprise me ONLY because I knew in advance that she had to be there - Jade Goody, the lady who was there in Celebrity Big Brother with Shilpa Shetty and had helped her win the show, as she was at the center of allegations of bullying, racist and elitist comments against fellow housemate Shilpa.

Later I saw I had missed an entrant as I wasn't seeing the dance performances that took place there. It was Monica Bedi who had been with Abu Salem and had been in the jail for sometime.

In short, Bigg Boss Season 2 on colors is going to be something worth watching. With a number of controversial people from various fields in India, and one from abroad, Bigg Boss will surely be attracting audiences and TRPs. Let's see what happens in the house now.

True or Hopeless? Read it

2008-08-17T07:23:00.001-07:00

In her Sunday Times column today, Shobhaa De writes something that moves you. Read it and decide for yourself how much you agree.

Little things make us happy. We are a bit too easy to please! One gold medal at the Olympic Games, and we are over the moon. As India enters the 61st year of its independence, it's important to get a few key perspectives in place. I heard about Abhinav Bindra's thrilling win from a bedraggled little girl selling tabloids at the traffic lights. It was raining rather heavily, and she was dressed in rags. Her tiny body and saucer eyes made her resemble the archetypal, romanticised waif — the poster girl for poverty, like the iconic image of the popular musical, Les Miserables. She tapped on the window of my car and lisped, "Madam, madam.... India ko gold medal mil gaya." She was shivering as she sold the damp paper to motorists, most of whom shooed her away.

The irony of the moment was hard to miss. While nobody can take away from crorepati Abhinav Bindra's individual achievement, the image of this emaciated street kid announcing his victory in distant Beijing, was a study in horrifying contrasts. Just a few metres away, i could see the rest of her family huddled under bright blue plastic sheets. The father was sorting out a heap of pirated books, while her mother was stringing jasmine blossoms into gajras... perhaps to adorn the chignons of our Mumbai memsaabs stepping out later for a night on the town. The kid was dancing with impatience, watchful of the traffic light turning green. Her unshod feet were immersed in puddles of filthy rain water. She could not possibly have known what that medal meant... but she did know it would sell more papers that day. And that made her happy! Amazing, how a complete stranger's win touches lives on different levels.

For the little girl, those few extra rupees may have translated into an extra vada pav at dinner. But for our canny politicians, Bindra's medal was an opportunity worth milking for their own glory. Take Maharashtra's chief minister, who magnanimously offered Rs 10 lakh to the gold medalist. Does this rich boy need it? Where does Maharashtra come into it? If the CM had Rs 10 lakh to spare and wished to acknowledge Bindra's victory, why didn't he put that money into a sports scholarship to benefit promising youngsters? Why offer monetary awards to someone who is a millionaire to begin with? Bindra is a particularly privileged sportsman who was born with a silver rifle... er ... spoon, in his mouth. He got to his present position, thanks to the happy fact that his father had the financial clout to support his son's passion. Lucky Bindra. He had what it takes to create a champion — the grit, determination and dough! India merely happens to be the country of his birth and can claim no credit for his impressive win. Bindra rose above and beyond what his country can provide... not only to him, but millions of others. He won despite being an Indian. Isn't that a really sad acknowledgement of this tattered state of ours?

But the waif at the traffic light proclaiming his victory to motorists does not realise this. She will never get to see the inside of a pucca home. For her, the blue plastic sheets will have to suffice. When she is a little older, her life will change. From selling newspapers, she may end up selling her body. Like so many others who survive on Mumbai's mean streets, turning tricks, hustling, peddling drugs. Her bright eyes and cheerful smile will be replaced by a hard, stony expression, a twisted mouth...but chances are she will still be working the same street, ducking into the back seat of an autorickshaw to satisfy customers looking for a monsoon quickie. If her father and mother haven't succumbed to some disease by then, they, too, will be languishing under the plastic sheets, living off her meagre earnings. Her line, "India ko gold mil gaya..." in such a depressing context, makes me ask, "Aur aapko — koila? Ya... woh bhi nahi?" Try telling her our Bharat is mahan. She may just punch you!

Original Text from The Sunday Times of India, August 17th 'o8.

Indian boxers at Beijing Olympics: Schedule

2008-08-16T13:24:00.000-07:00

Three boxers from India, Akhil Kumar, Jitender Kumar, and Vijender Kumar, are now in Beijing Olympics quarterfinals, and all the eyes are on these three now.

So here is the schedule of the three boxers:

Monday, Aug 18, 5 PM (IST)
Men's Bantam (54kg) Quarterfinal 3
GOJAN Veaceslav (Rep. of Moldova) vs KUMAR Akhil

Wednesday, Aug 20, 4.45 PM (IST)
Men's Fly (51kg) Quarterfinal 2
BALAKSHIN Georgy (Russia) vs KUMAR Jitender

Wednesday, Aug 20, 6 PM (IST)
Vijender Kumar (75kg) Quarterfinal 4
GONGORA Carlos (Ecuador) vs KUMAR Vijender

For confirmation you can check the schedule on the official website of Beijing 2008.

Hope I get to write more schedule after this.

Two Steps Behind

2008-08-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

Akhil Kumar is the only person in Beijing now who is keeping the hopes of 'one more medal' alive for Indians.

Akhil reached quarter finals after beating world champion Sergey Vodopyanov in the pre-quarters which, they say, was something unthinkable and unimaginable.

Pray for him. :)

Because Everyone Needs Independence

2008-08-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

Everyone has a right to Independence. And it's time we understand that.

Happy Independence day.

Jaago: Small Movies by Big Directors

2008-08-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

A few months back I saw a short film called Positive, made by Farhan Akhtar, starring Boman Irani and Shabana Aazmi. I loved the film. Later I found there was another movie called Blood Brothers, that was around the same topic, AIDS. And today I found a blog entry on PFC that reviews both these movies along with two more. Here it is:

Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, for one of their project on helping humanity, have united with 4 directors Mira Nair, Farhan Akhtar, Santosh Sivan and Vishal Bharadwaj to co-produce 4 short films on issues regarding AIDS education and awareness. These short films are taking the AIDS awareness on more personal level with some beautiful and some incredible journeys involving blood relations, lovers and strangers with urges either sexual or just plain human.

1. Migration (2007).
Directed by: Mira Nair.
Written by: Zoya Akhtar.
Starring: Shiney Ahuja, Sameera Reddy, Irfan Khan and Raima Sen.
URL: MIGRATION

Migration is a set of parallel stories between a husband and his lover, husband’s wife, a mason worker his wife and infants. This short is very well directed, right from the drought death visuals to marine drive tides. The cinematography is eye catching. Thanks to Shiney Ahuja’s speaking eyes and Irfan Khan’s emotions for his lover, one way maybe. The core message of the story is delivered by sex education street actor Vijay Raaz with Beedi song in the background. Its the unconventional migration that is thought and written by Zoya Akhtar gives a different but convincing journey. It was exciting to see marathi stage and screen actress Sulabha Deshpande as Sameera’s mother-in-law, little has she changed from Choukat Raja’s (1991) mother.

2. Positive (2007).
Directed by: Farhan Akhtar.
Written by: Rajesh Devraj.
Starring: Boman Irani, Shabana Azmi and Arjun Mathur.
URL: POSITIVE

Positive is the story of AIDS awareness for a family as one of the members becomes HIV positive. The effects of it in a broad picture and a very tiny extremely personal point of view is very well written by Rajesh Devraj, whose future writings are Farhan Akhtar starrer Fakir of Venice and Shashanka Ghosh project Quick Gun Murugun. Boman Irani is fantastic with his lowering speaking abilities and at the same time with the desires of a young photographer to capture something. But it needed Farhan Akhtar’s trick to bring out the moment absolutely necessary for this story. The moment when Arjun’s character is positioning the rose in the window. This is perhaps the same transformation moment that occured in Dil Chahta Hai (2001) when Akash (Aamir Khan) calls up Sameer (Saif Ali Khan) only to realise subconsciously he dialed Sid’s (Akshaye Khanna) number. Incredible. Shabana Azmi is short but plays the character who has already past previously mentioned transformation.

3. Prarambha (2007).
Directed by: Santosh Sivan.
Starring: Prabhu Deva and Skandhas.
URL: PRARAMBHA

A truck driver (Prabhu Deva) finds an unknown boy Kittu (Skandhas) hiding in the back of his truck. Truck driver finds it unsolvable to get rid of an unknown boy riding with him. Kittu hands him a letter written by his mother with an address. Truck driver agrees to take him there. But then out of humanity he finds himself on a quest to make the people around Kittu realise what he feels for kittu. This movie is a cry out towards those strangers who might have some humanity left in them. Prabhu Deva does a great job. His apological and optimistic smiles are the driving force for the audience and kittu as well. Skandhas as Kittu is nothing short of a applauding performance. He represents the understanding son, rejected school friend and a happy boy. Though there aren’t many opportunities for Mr Sivan to use his lens he still captures the moments that do not need words.

4. Blood Brothers (2007).
Directed by: Vishal Bharadwaj.
Story idea by: Matthew Robbins and Ajit Ahuja.
Starring: Siddharth, Pavan Malhotra and Ayesha Takia.
URL: Blood Brothers

This story brings in the most courageous factor in the AIDS awareness. The point of view of the main victim, the one with the disease. This is the best short among the four. An ordinary man hears his doctor say that he is HIV positive. Devastated by the news he gives up on his life to find something that out smarts him. This is an absolutely astonishing story. This movie proves the fact that you do not need 1000 cuts in a 5 min movie to make it interesting. Though non-linearity exists in the narration it never seems a cliche by the creation of scars on Siddharth’s faces. This short challenges the viewer by putting in the shoes of the protagonist and ask them what if? Kudos to Mr Bharadwaj. This one is a must see.

Overall rating: 8/10.

Original text here.

PS: If the links given in the post are not good or working, you can also search for these movies on Youtube yourself. They are there too. In case there is any problem, you may contact me.

Foul Sport

2008-08-14T01:52:00.000-07:00

Today I found a mail in my mailbox which I found worth sharing, even though it was a chain mail, as it was a revelation to me, and can be for many others. Here are the contents of the mail:

This is me.... a Baby Seal..

Norway and Canada have a new kind of tourism. Killing baby seals!!!! They call it 'hunting' and it's a sport

You want to call this sport ??

Is he a sportsman???

Why?

You're our only hope !!!

Please let it stop. This barbarism shouldn't be possible in our society

Don't turn your back on us, we are so defenseless, we have no guns, please help us..!!!

I know these images seem painful for you, but we feel the pain...!! We are being slaughtered by ruthless people and it's going on RIGHT NOW...!!!

What gives him the right to kill us. Who is he to decide about life and death

What kind of sport is this..?? I didn't harm anyone..!! I was just swimming around doing nothing, now I'm dead...!!

Please help me and my friends...!!!

You can't just ignore these images..?? Keep silent and doing nothing makes you guilty...!!

Please help us...!!

Please don't leave us alone...!!

STOP THE KILLING OF SEALS
You can make a statement by
forwarding this mail
to as many people as you can.
Bring these murderers to the attention
of world leaders.
Thank you.... !!!!!

THIS IS THEIR HOME TOO

Aren't we a bit too much?

2008-08-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

India's performance at Beijing Olympics has been much better compared to previous ones. And Abhinav Bindra is getting a lot of encouragement from various people and organisations, not to mention the coverage given by the media and the respect from the countrymen, which is expected and desired. But isn't it that in some ways some of us go too far sometimes?

Consider these:

The government of Bihar will be building an Abhinav Bindra stadium.
National Rifles Association of India and Milkha Singh suggest that Abhinav Bindra should get the Highest Indian Civilian Award, Bharat Ratna.
We read articles titled 'Is India's Mohammad Ali finally here?' as boxer Akhil Kumar enters the second round of Olympics.

I feel we sometimes do it too much and this may even affect those people negatively from whom we expect this much.

The interesting thing is that we find all the talent of the country only during Olympics, otherwise the media of our cricket-crazy country is happy running behind the so-called 'men-in-blue' even when they are in birthday parties.

As far as the Bharat Ratna for Abhinav is considered, I personally feel it will be an extremely exaggerated reaction if not exactly idiotic as I feel Bharat Ratna is too high an award at this stage. It can be understood simply by asking if we shall be giving out 10 Bharat Ratnas a year if India wins 10 Gold medals sometime? And leave that stage, what if more athletes win medals this time itself, say Paes-Bhupati and Akhil Kumar? Shall we be awarding 3 Bharat Ratnas or shall we be awarding it to the first one because his was an event that was scheduled to finish earlier?

I think we, that is the media of this country, as well as the countrymen, should behave in a bit more matured manner and governments should encourage sports by doing proper work on it, not by announcing yet-another-stadium that we know the end of.

Abhinav Bindra's Blog

2008-08-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

So it is now over and the time for me to return home has arrived. I know my life is not goign to be even close to the same upon return but it is something i am going to have to embrace and actually enjoy which i am at this moment finding way more daunting than shooting...

Here it is: Link to Abhinav Bindra's own Blog: http://abhinavbindra.blogspot.com

Read about the Indian Olympic Hero's journey to Beijing, in his own words. I hope you too leave a commennt there.

News?? It's Prime Time!

2008-08-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

Most of the times I feel there is no use talking about news channels. They seem to be a bunch of utterly useless people now. But then, it's not actually possible not to talk about them.

So here is more. What I recently found, and it's something I think I should have found much earlier, is the news channels' love for prime time.

It used to be a prime time when there was news on television during the Doordarshan era. But then times changed and with news channels pouring in, Prime Time news became a bit different, more of specialization than news. And now, it seems that news channels only want to show Prime Time programs, more than any news.

It was around 7.25 this evening when I found part of a story about a building that collapsed in Mumbai. I couldn't find the full details and so I started surfing channels.

But to my surprise, national news channels, all three of them which I get through my cable operator, were busy showing advertisements of their programs to be shown at prime time. I kept switching among the channels hoping I would find something as the clock strikes 7.30, but to my surprise, all channels started showing their 'programs' prepared for 7.30 and I had to log onto the net for the news report.

The question that comes to my mind is that what is the point in having 24 hour news channels if we cannot find news there, not even on their tickers.

In fact I feel MTV is the best news channel nowadays as I can find most of the news I need on the MTV Ticker.

PS: My cable operator claims he shows four national news channels. He had counted India TV too.

Unlucky??

2008-08-12T11:18:00.001-07:00

News channels might have tried their best to prove that 08.08.08 was an unlucky date, and the same was declared by most of astrologers and priests shown on these channels, but Indian film Industry, actually one of the most superstitious bunch of people, have found 08.08.08 extremely lucky for them as the movie released on the date, Singh is Kinng, seems to be the biggest hit of the year till date.

I think Akshay proves yet again that he is not one to fear these superstitions. That's the real Khatron ka Khiladi.

Reading Difficulties

2008-08-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

Here is an article that I liked, even though I feel books should cost less. From Hindustan Times, 12th August '08.

In a 1946 essay, ‘Books v Cigarettes’, George Orwell explored, with penetrating and amusing insight, the reading and book-buying habits of his fellow Englishmen. He took the assumption — as prevalent in the England of 1946 as the India of 2008 — that “the buying, or even the reading, of books is an expensive hobby and beyond the reach of the average person”, and showed how much of a myth it was.

Taking the national average of smoking and drinking, Orwell demonstrated how “the [annual] cost of reading, even if you buy books instead of borrowing them and take in a fairly large number of periodicals, does not amount to more than the combined cost of smoking and drinking”.

I returned to Orwell’s essay after noticing over and over again just how few of us in public places have a book with us. How many people have you seen reading in an airport/on a plane/on the beach/having a solitary meal/on a park bench/at a salon/on a train or bus/in a doctor’s waiting room? Perhaps the only pleasure of travelling in an aeroplane nowadays — in what Jonathan Raban called its “sealed pod” — is to be able to read undistracted, free of the clutter and the white noise of our own lives. Phones can’t ring. Strangers don’t usually try and make conversation. Emails don’t ping in. Is there a better time?

Yet we don’t, really, do we?

The whole sub-genre of literary journalism alive in the West, that of ‘Summer Books’ or ‘Holiday Books’, doesn’t quite exist for us. What do we do on our holidays? Oh, we talk a lot on our mobile phones. (The roaming rates have been slashed again, let’s chatter some more.) But away from home and its attendant daily annoyances, we seldom commune with a dead master (or a living author).

We read, the 16th century English poet John Dryden told us, “for instruction and delight”. We read, as the Victorian novelist George Eliot said, because “art is the nearest thing to life”. What that means, the critic Louis Bayard explains, is that “to approach the mystery of our own condition, we have to grasp the mystery by which words make worlds”.

But we don’t seem to be doing enough reading or buying. An author’s sales figures in India (unless you happen to be Chetan Bhagat — not an aspiration anyone who fancies himself as a writer will share) are dismal. Sea of Poppies, Amitav Ghosh’s latest, intricately plotted, page turner of a maritime adventure, is expected to sell 30,000 copies across the country. (And while we’re at it, this, his publishers say, will be one of the biggest sellers of the year for them.) It is Ghosh’s big breakthrough book, his most accessible, almost crossover novel. The equivalent in England would perhaps be Ian McEwan and Atonement. That sold millions, and is still selling.

The old argument about English being the language of the metropolitan elite won’t wash here. There are in Delhi or Mumbai alone more than a million buyers of daily English newspapers. And there are 30,000 buyers across India for probably the most-hyped, most riveting English book of the year from an Indian writer. Also, even allowing for the thing about English being the preserve of the elite, is Bengali literature flying off the shelves? Is Hindi? Not when I last noticed.

So why are we so loathe to buy books? Too expensive, we say. How can young people afford them? Well, let’s use an Orwellian parameter to calculate things.

It costs Rs 200 to watch a movie on a weekend evening at a multiplex. (And that’s without the popcorn and the soft drinks.) Now my edition of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road — for my money the finest novel of 2007 and a New York Times bestseller, which means that a lot of people, including those who make their reading choices based on what Oprah recommends in her book club, have bought it — costs Rs 195. A Penguin Modern Classic — the storehouse of the finest literature in the history of literature — usually costs Rs 250.

It costs Rs 900-1,200 for a meal for two at a restaurant in Mumbai. You could get the new Ghosh and the new book of stories by Jhumpa Lahiri (award-winning, finely calibrated, exquisite tales of belonging and loss) for Rs 1,049. It costs Rs 125-150 for a coffee and a sandwich at one of the coffee chains. A Penguin Popular Classic — the cheaper version of the Penguin Modern Classic — is available for Rs 95. Oh, and my Orwell Centenary Edition of Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays costs Rs 367. That’s less than what I would spend for a few drinks at a Mumbai bar. So it’s not the money. And it’s certainly not that we don’t have the time. (If I could lay my hands on a study that totted up the amount of time we spend sending text messages or watching puerile rubbish on TV or travelling, vacant-minded, and not reading…)

It’s just that we’d rather not buy books. Most of us choose not to.

How many times have you dined out/watched a movie/gone for a drink in, say, the past three months? And exactly how many books have you bought in that period? How many things have you actively sought out and read? (Text messages, credit card bills and restaurant menus don’t count.)

What is it in our culture — especially our aggressively consumerist, burgeoning middle-class and affluent, urban, elite culture — that makes us shy away from reading and buying? It suggests that we don’t have the patience for it, don’t quite appreciate what it can give us, don’t derive enough pleasure for it.

“We used to build civilisations,” Bill Bryson once wrote. “Now we build shopping malls.” And we love them. We can’t love shopping enough. But we don’t love shopping for books. It is an affront to the notion of being civilised.

Soumya Bhattacharya

Original text here.

Post-Gold

2008-08-11T12:51:00.000-07:00

Prices of Gold have been falling for last one week. And there is a number of ladies in my home and family who are planning to buy some Gold and wishing it falls down more.

I think it will. As Abhinav Bindra will be bringing some extra Gold home while coming back from Beijing. Though I wish and hope there will be more Golden moments in Beijing for India, history doesn't allow me to expect a lot, and considering we have not fell down in terms of overall performance in Olympics for past 12 years, ever since Paes won us a Bronze in 1996 olympics, fighting Andre Agassi in the semis, one gold is where we should have landed after Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore's silver last Olympics.

Fast forward to 2008. Abhinav Bindra wins a gold in 10 meter air rifle. Of course 95% of Indians will be learning the name of shooting events for the first time, it being a conservative estimate.

First of all, my hearty congratulations to Bindra. Anything said here is not meant to dishonor the national hero by any means.

Now, let us see what happens when Abhinav Bindra wins the Gold. As soon as we know Abhinav wins, there is a usual race among news channels to capture the nearest. Some reach his home to find his parents dealing with neighbors living at the other end of town whereas some try to reach him on phone before the national anthem in the Beijing's Olympic stadium could finish, rest trying to make up their stories with relations and coaches.

But the interesting part starts when it seems that entire contry except Srinagar where a curfew was imposed, was celebrating Abhinav's victory on roads with Dhols and fireworks. Not just in Chandigarh and Dehradun, people were found celebrating even in Meerut which had no specific relation to the national hero dancing with the national flag of India, though it was held upside down. Surely the men in front of camera cannot be framed guilty as they are too happy being on television but the channel showing the national flag upside down could have given it a thought while showing the clip repeatedly.

Television was also showing news of lacs of rupees being announced for the shooter by state governements that are trying to swim out of their debts of crores, as it was a great chance to prove our commitment to sports and sportsmen. But of these, the second most interesting was BCCI giving Rs 25 lac to Bindra, as if it were ADC, and number one was Bihar government's announcement to build a Bindra stadium. I wish that's not a cricket ground.

And among all this, there was a bunch that enjoyed the moment of Abhinav's victory as their own. It was the Indian cricket team, who lost another test and the series to Sri Lanka but as Abhinav won, there was almost no coverage on the match loss, whereas it would have been an experts' day on news channels who would lament the loss of our cricket team.

In the end, I also feel that some leading towns of India may see the rise of small shooting ranges where you could 'Learn shooting in 15 days' or something like that. And in my views which might be considered pessimistic, there will hardly be anything positive for Indian sports resulting from this because we will still be seeing the rates of gold day after tomorrow and mom will be sending me to my study so that I become a computer engineer and then I will be able to buy lot of gold.

But whatever the result, Abhinav has proved that we CAN do it. So if there are a few moms who try, we can WIN some more gold in future.

PS: ADC stands for access deficit charge that was paid to (a losing) BSNL till some time ago by leading companies like Airtel and Hutch as only BSNL operated in remote areas.

World's Luckiest Cricket Team

2008-08-11T07:19:00.000-07:00

Indian Cricket team might not be the world's best Cricket team. In fact it is not. But surely they're the luckiest ones. I hope you have no doubts about it.

India lost a test series as Sri Lanka won 2-1. But both the times it so happened that nobody seemed to care.

The first match India lost was on the evening when Ahmedabad was going through serial blasts and no channel was interested in covering match as people wanted to see exactly what was happening in Ahmedabad. The score of 138 could not be heard among the blasts that rocked the country.

And then it turned out to be the third test, an almost similar show with not as bad scores. This time it was the good news that helped people forget the loss of Indian cricket team. Or rather, once again didn't give them a chance to think about cricket as shooter Abhinav Bindra gave India it's first Gold Medal since 1980.

It's not possible for any team to win all matches on pure luck, but this team has proved something different, that you need not always win. Sometimes you can perform pathetic, drastic, lose matches and still, luck favoring, you can escape the fury of the media and hence people.

Computers

2008-08-10T21:08:00.000-07:00

Which car can be run easily on a computer? n how??

Alto.

Simple, by pressing Alt + O.

Be positive

2008-08-03T08:24:00.001-07:00

To be positive in life, u need to lose something.

It's electrons.

About Computers

2008-08-03T06:19:00.000-07:00

Building a computer with parts takes at least two days. Because of which part?

ROM.

Because ROM was not built in a day.

***

If RAM is avatar of Ram, which part is avatar of Sita?

Hard Disk. We call it SATA.

Loyalty

2008-08-03T04:55:00.000-07:00

Loyalty: a concept used in 20th century where a person was devoted and faithful to a sovereign, government, leader, cause etc.

Loyalty came under a cloud when people first started leaving MNCs every second year. Political loyalty came to an end the day Left, after it left the government, left its old leader Somnath Chatterjee.