Me Versus Self

George Strait - Check Yes Or No

2011-04-06T14:07:00.000+05:30

Artist: George Strait
Song: Check Yes Or No

It started way back in third grade
I used to sit beside Emmy Lou Hayes
A pink dress, a matching bow in her ponytail
She kissed me on the school bus, but told me not to tell
Next day I chased her around the playground
Across the monkey bars to the merry-go-round
And Emmy Lou got caught passing me a note, before the teacher took it, I read what she wrote:

Do you love me, do you wanna be my friend?
And if you do, well then don't be afraid to take me by the hand, if you want to.
I think this is how love goes, check yes or no

Now we're grown up and she's my wife
Still like two kids with stars in our eyes
Ain't much changed I still chase Emmy Lou
Up and down the hall, around the bed in our room
Last night I took her out in a white limousine
Twenty years together she still gets to me
Can't believe it's been that long ago
When we got started with just a little note

Do you love me, do you wanna be my friend?
And if you do, well then don't be afraid to take me by the hand, if you want to.
I think this is how love goes, check yes or no.

Do you love me, do you wanna be my friend?
And if you do, well then don't be afraid to take me by the hand, if you want to.
I think this is how love goes, check yes or no.

Check yes or no
Check yes or no
Check yes or no

We are the Champions

2011-04-03T01:57:00.002+05:30

Yes, the dream that every Indian who has not experienced 1983-win and was shattered in 2003 and 2007 has become reality. These are surreal times, nobody wants to go to sleep, people are dancing in roads, more fire-crackers are being set of than Diwali or Eid, the roads are jam packed with vehicles, strangers without any kind of discremination are sharing joys all because India has beaten Srilanka in world cup final.
All credit to Men in Blue, the run up has not been easy with a tied match with England, lose to South Africa, close win over West Indies and couple of high pressured against Australia and Pakistan, it has been one hell of a ride. Though Sachin deserved all the accolades in the world for his services not only to India but also to cricket would remain un-paralleled for times to come, but it has been a team India win in complete sense. Yuvraj and Zahir Khan have fired in all the games, Gambhir and MSD both of them came out real good in final, Sachin played couple fine knocks and also people like Virat, Ashwin, Munaf, Bhajji and Nehra delivered when team needed them.
When Sachin had fallen of early in today's match, I thought our team would choke but Indian team played like champions. All credit to Gambhir, young Virat and MSD to take India to home safely. Thanks team India for making us proud....all hail Team India

Construct binary tree using Post-order and Pre-order Traversals

2011-02-18T14:26:00.003+05:30

Is it possible to build a binary tree given only Post-order and Pre-order traversals of that tree?

Silver lining from Bihar Elections

2010-11-25T00:30:00.004+05:30

Politics has always interested me and I closely follow political developments. Many incidents stun me like how Vajpayee led NDA lost power or even how Congress managed to gain so much ground in last elections. Today's development has been equally surprising to me, Nitish Kumar reigning in with a land-slide win.
Most election results are quite understandable with elections being won by money, muscle power or cast/religion equation. This is a sad situation but this has been the way all along since educated people would hardly vote and the class of people who would vote, would easily fall for any of above. But, I guess with the advent of news channels slowly people are waking up to realty. They now at least can figure out the lesser evil. I think that is how you can explain even with adversaries of likes Lalu Prasad who in muscle power can fight naxals or Ram Vilas Paswan whose paper on cast/religion calculations can be considered a worthy study in advance mathematics or prince charming Rahul biting the dust against Nitish Kumar.
I believe media in general has played a huge role in making people aware of faces behind the masks. For me there definitely is a silver-lining in Bihar's election results that voter today isn't as blind as it used to be 15-20yrs back and although slowly it is making the right choices but still a long way to go.

Top 10 activities people do at onsite

2010-09-11T11:53:00.005+05:30

I have been onsite for short duration on couple of occasions to US and currently in Sweden. When I was travelling for the first time a colleague asked me what would be the first thing you would do after reaching there, I immidiately replied change location on Orkut. :-) But, Dhruv who was also supposed to accompany me and had more wild plans as in absconding to avoid deportation, running around on beaches etc. none of which materialised though.
In past few years, I have seen many people who have traveled for work and things they do. All things are basically dictated by the Golden rule, 1$ is equivalent to 40odd INR. With this thing mind as solid as anything, many people do stupid things like skipping meals, gorging on free food available in office, spending time in lousy rooms rather than exploring places and culture around or even not making the effort to lead a normal life with basic necessities covered. So what is it that people actually do, let's take a sneak-peek,

10. Work. Well that is the reason people are onsite, so got to be on the list.
9. Eat out. Food in restaurant is generally expensive plus tip is mandatory, converting the sum into INR would fetch ten extra dinners back home, so such luxuries are rare.
8. Travel around. For most, it's the fear that if you went back without visiting few places, bragging would get difficult or you might just be pulled up, so with cheapest possible deals, such journeys take place.
7. Cook and clean. With less probability of eating out and Mom not around, cooking and cleaning is something that one has to be burdened with. Effect of which is, if you are cooking once, make sure you cover at least 2-3 meals.
6. Watch English movies and serials, once the popular stock is exhausted take up classy Bollywood ones, when that's done with go for Marathi, Mallu, Tamil, Korean, Irani and Japanese ones. Piracy Iindabad, long live torrent. Aha, finally something that's free or almost free.
5. Keep pushing updates on FB by way of changing status messages, comments and Likes, watching videos on FB and YouTube. With so much time to pass and very few things to do for free of cost, this is probably one of the best ROI activity.
4. If phone is available for free, call up each and every fellow back home including those whom you have not talked in years. If phone isn't free, still call but keep the talk short.
3. Start practicing the foreign accent in your speech.
2. Check the currency conversion rate and calculate how much money would be saved. Something that brings a instant smile :-)
1. Click photos of all possible places, from all angles, in different camera-modes, in all clothes, of-course with and without sunglasses, finally just to make sure photo is perfect, click a back-up too. Gather all the photos and upload them to internet. I just wonder the amount of hard-disk space, internet bandwidth and server-space would have been eaten up by in all this.

India-mania

2010-09-11T03:04:00.008+05:30

Okay so bunch of foreigners visit your town for their official purpose, how big a deal is it? Well not much, heck who gives a damn. But, if you are twelve Indians and you are in north Sweden's city, you might have caused stir.

Yeah, couple of journalists took our photos at work and one of them actually publishing our article on internet too. I guess, what called for immediate attention towards us was our very strange for them food requests in restaurants (pure Vegetarian). Whatever, I am not thinking about it, I am on cloud nine with this publicity, my photo is weired but I do not care for that too, what matters is I AM THERE :-). The link to original post is here and I am pasting snippet below

Explizit lägger ut jobb till Indien

Magnus Andersson, Explizit, och Mikael Peiper, Tieto, instruerar de indiska programmerarna i deras arbete.

Explizit från Skellefteå knyter tolv utvecklare från Indien till ett treårigt projekt. En vågad satsning kan tyckas, men Arne Viktorsson, vd, menar att man nu blir starkare konkurrensmässigt samtidigt som man pressar kostnaderna.

I ett samarbete med Tieto har it-företaget Explizit ett mycket stort projekt på gång. Affären innebär att man knyter kontakt med tolv indiska utvecklare som kommer att jobba med utveckling av produkten i tre år.

The Skellefteå days

2010-08-31T01:23:00.003+05:30

I have been Skellefteå for over two weeks now and in the short duration I have already witnessed the good and bad of its weather. Good being 20C, sunny, cool breeze coming from Skellefteå river and bad being overcast, rainy and damp. It is a small city with city-center, picturesque landscapes and woods all in close vicinity. When you come from India, a place buzzing with gazillions of people, lot of garbage dumped everywhere and to click a photo with beautiful surrounding most of the times one would need to travel few miles at least but the western world with its cleanliness, neatness and planned roads overwhelms you, at times so much so that you open the door and it makes you wanna click photos.
We have been put up in a place called Stiftsgården in a shared accommodation, can't be called a lavish arrangement but we have adjusted well. The place has some history associated with it, one of its buildings is the oldest construction in city and it is in middle of complex belonging to city's biggest church and graveyard. It is not far from my work-place and city center, makes it easy to cycle to both places every day. The conditions have been suiting well to me with cycling adding the zing to daily routine. We are in all a group of eleven people here and all of same age-group so helped in connecting well. In the two weeks, we have been to a beach, a lake and hiked to a rocky mountain top apart from daily explorations on the bike.
This is end of summer here in North Sweden, so people are in general celebration mood, they have had their vacations, been to beaches and charged themselves enough under the Sun. Pretty soon they have to prepare themselves for the ugly side of weather, the harsh winter. All summer there have been various events held in and around city making it a worthwhile tourist destination this time around the year. For past four days there was a food festival on. It is mainly showcasing the food from this part of world specialty being Reindeer meat and Solomon fish. A special note should be made for couple of Thai food vendors; sadly they were too selling non-veg food. Though I am a big foodie, being vegetarian my options had been really limited, out of fifty odd shops I could try only couple of things. Still the whole experience has been quite good also as it helped me check out Swedish girls. In the nights there was a band performing which used to get the whole neighborhood alive. Young hearts of all ages thronged the place in dead nights and danced under the tents and at times sing with the band.
Five more weeks to go and many things around Skellefteå, I hope to have more enriching experiences.
Few tips if you are travelling to Skellefteå:
* If travelling in Aug-Oct, carry an umbrella and a rain-coat.
* It would be handy to carry a cap to cover your ears and hand-gloves.
* For vegetarians, Max burgers offers veggie-burger, also you could get Falafels and veg burgers at other local vendors and of course there is subway with couple of pure veg products.
* Bikes are probably the best ways to move around in Skellefteå, you should be able to rent it for around 50SEK/day.

Different Worlds

2010-08-26T02:03:00.004+05:30

Vow, a lot of big events have happened in my life in last couple of months than last two years, I got possession of my house in Pune, I switched job, left Coriolis to work with Tieto and now I am visiting Sweden for seven weeks on official assignment. Though I had booked the flat for quite some time now, but getting the possession has changed lot of parameters, full EMI payments are being deducted from my account, a lot of money just vanishes in fixing little things in house and yeah this flat has made me a land-lord as well :-).
Tieto has been a quite a different experience, I spent four and half years at Coriolis, a twelve people strong company, but Tieto has offices possibly in each continent with more than seventeen thousand employees all over the world. The challenges for both the companies are quite different creating very different cultures and processes. Both of these things have caused subtle changes in my life but being in Sweden has had a direct impact on my lifestyle although for a short while only.
I am currently in Skellefteå, a small city even compared to Swedish standards with a population around 32k, and it is a very quiet place. But, like the whole of western world, it is well equipped with most luxuries of life. I have stayed in USA for few months and though back home when we might feel whole of western world is same, within a week I could spot lot of distinctions between the two places. US is more multi-cultured, it is very easy to spot Indians, Chinese, Koreans, Mexicans, Africans and of course Whites and natives. You can find Indian grocery shop and Indian restaurants on each corner and if you are (un)lucky you can catch Himesh Reshammiya performing live in concert. On the other hand, I did not find as many different races or colored people here in Sweden. Also, Indian food is kind of alien here. There are some products available in super-market offering Indian taste but they are all made in Britain and I am quite sure they must be lowered a lot in spices to comfort the western-stomachs so the purist that I am, I don't buy them instead preferring to settle for the native falafel :-)
Other big difference is language, it is not guaranteed here that everybody here would be fluent in English actually it is easy to bump in to people who know hardly any English. All the signboards are in Swedish though the script is Roman but the words are very different; their length and heavy usage of umlauts make them difficult to read and remember. In general I found people very friendly, relaxed and at leisure. In US, I used to see more cars and hardly any people. Definitely cars were shinier in US and you needed to get on freeways more often. Here bike-lanes are very well developed and highways are not as big. I must admit, I found US more political there is some charge, stress about US that is missing here. Of course being Europe and that too countryside, this place is more picturesque. I am not sure if this phenomenon is all over Sweden or it is limited to Skelleftea but lot of people here move around on cycles and even I am given one.
Alright folks this is it for now, I am hoping to check out more of Skellefteå and Sweden and possible other parts of Europe during next six weeks if things fall in place. bfn.

LSD: Life, Success and Desires

2010-07-11T02:37:00.004+05:30

You want tons of things in life, probably everything that you see around or ever dreamed off. But, what you want and what you get is rarely in sync, the happy case would be to get what you want or get more than that; sadly for most of us this does not happen often and even in the happy case we eventually get over it and in a while something else catches attention. Thus, life keeps on moving and we are almost always running after something. Also, all things come in packaged deals, you see benefit in something but overlooked the side-effects of it. So, first you struggle to achieve something and at times after getting what you want, you struggle with the unwanted features you got.

But, do people really attain Nirvana and move out from this rat-race (is it a rat-race??), ofcourse I have heard such people exist but not really met anyone in person, a person who has grown over all his desires, all the beautiful things life has to offer. I have seen many people who have been defeated by the pressures of pursuits and stopped going after what they want or some be afraid of failures, don't strive to achieve their wishes.

This brings me to think how to be happy? Does happiness has a relationship with success? In that case, how do you define success?

Clearly, by abjecting your desires, you leave less complicated life but that is not happy life. The path to happiness goes through fulfilling your desires. But, of-course when I say desires, I find it foolish to include desires that could be anti-social or for that matter which could be harmful to you in the long run, like the habit of excessive alcohol consumption or smoking. Most of us have heard success is a journey and not a destination but few mis-interpret it and think success is all about the fun along the ride without caring for the destination. Those people would be surprised by the destination they reach. But, it also does not mean that you just keep on running from one achievment to other. I intentionally changed the word to achievement in last sentence because success for me is not one journey to some destination, it is the amalgamation of all the desires and journeys along them. So, success for me would be, you dream for something and you put efforts to achieve it, did you enjoy pushing yourself and finally did you end up where you wanted to be? After which, the cycle completes and you move on to the next level in life.

Pelican Brief

2010-06-29T21:45:00.006+05:30

Long time back, I had read John Grisham's The Firm and was really impressed by his story telling, then I got to know his books are always centered around law. Mukul recommended me Pelican Brief which is also a thriller on the similar lines but fairly different story. The start might appear a bit slow but it quickly grips a fair pace. There are enough twists and turns to keep one engaged with couple of incidents that stun you in disbelief.
The protoganist is a a twenty four year old female law student who prepares a report charging a powerful individual with the murder of two Supreme Court judges and this report sends jitters in White House and all across America which causes the girl to run for her life while seeing dead bodies falling all around her. Author has also given interesting inside accounts of how things work in power-houses and in press-rooms. The climax is a bit elaborate and though in final 15 odd pages there are no more surprises in this suspense thriller but each paragraph is thoroughly enjoyed and relieves the mind of all the tension built up all along. Certainly, a highly recommended read.
The book has been adapted in a movie with the same name starring Julia Roberts and Danzel Washington but I am not very optimistic with the movie because movies seldom do justice to the original story.

Godfather

2010-06-16T23:18:00.002+05:30

Last weekend, I licked up the novel whose story has been one of the most famous stories in our times, re-told over and over again in several languages and via different mediums, well I am talking about The Godfather. Over the years, many of us might have seen its movies adaptations as in The Godfather, Velu Nayankan, Dharmatma, Sarkar or even Rajniti. I haven't yet seen Godfather the film but of all the other's I reckon only Sarkar could exhibit a higher level of terror. But, one should read the original novel to believe me when I say that nobody could match the ferociousness of novel. Mario Puzo has put in few sequences quite explicitly which could be disturbing at times. But, one should not mistake it for some psycho details, the whole of book is high class writing.
The central character of the book is Don Corolene who is king of New York underworld, more respected than feared. His journey from a simple, smart family man to a shrewed, cold-blooded gangster. Equally important is his son, Michale, a college professor who although being miles away from mafia world gets involved with it under extra-ordinary circumstances. There few other characters and their transformation in behaviour and values have been beautifully worded. All in all a must read novel very engaging and a classic.

Dead Poets Society

2010-05-25T18:17:00.002+05:30

Starring Robin Williams Dead Poets Society is a story of an un-orthodox teacher trying to revive the consiousness of students which is long crushed under the age old schooling methodology. When the movie started it gave me impressions if it is going to be on the lines of Mohabbatein but with Robin Williams' entry I thought it's going to be like Taare Zameen Par, well that's me trying to look beyond the picture. I immidieatly gathered myself back and continued with the movie, somwhere it felt like Three Idiots and ending in Munnabhai style.
All said and done, the story does not have drastically new to offer but having seen enough movies and world in general somewhere emphasis is less on story than the way it is told and on that account DPS scores full marks.
The crux of the story is about a new teacher on the block trying to challange the established norms, creating a reformed group of followers, consequences of young, restless mind and prejudice of society. The interesting aspect of movie is its theme revolves around poetry. The teacher helps students to come out of own imagined fears and think beyond which is how poetry should be treated. It has to be fantacy, it should make you fly and not be prisoned by the practicality or the physics laws. On the whole a very good movie, a must watch.

Jaane bhi do yaaro

2010-04-25T22:37:00.004+05:30

As the curtains are drawn on the year's biggest entertainment extravaganza, the action does not seem to stop any time soon. IPL's growth has been phenomenal not only it has attracted the best talent from all quarters but also conjured the best possible resources. But, a rise which could be any organization's envy has been coupled with some or the other controversy right from the start. In the first year it was dressing up of cheer-leaders, the second IPL being played in foreign country to guard against any untoward incident but could not escape the wrath of a certain self-claimed impersonator. But, third edition of tournament has beaten all the previous records, started with upsetting our beloved neighbour but towards the end brought large chunks of Indian high-flyer to ground.
If there is one person who is to be credited with IPL's success it can only be Lalit Modi, IPL has been in totality is his baby with him making more appearance than even Sachin Tendulkar. In my view, what Steve Jobs is to Apple likewise Modi is to IPL.
It is now amply clear that IPL's behind the scenes deals are as murkier as it could get. The latest controversy which has been on for over three weeks now has engulfed Shashi Tharoor, a decent but naive politician, Lalit Modi, N Shreenivasan, owner of CSK, Prafulla Patel and scores of other businessmen and politicians where each one swearing in the name truth to be on the right side of law but all of us have fair idea about everyone's position.
Seeing all this drama, what immediately comes to my mind is Jaane bhi do Yaaro, a dark comedy about the Indian political scenario. What we are witnessing now must be climax of film where a suitable deal is being worked out that takes care of all the deal-makers interest abjuring to any type of ethics. I wonder among all this falling off how difficult it is to build large organizations without any serious allegations around it. I think it is a herculean of a task of creating something like Tatas anyways that would be a completely separate topic.

To Kill A Mockingbird

2010-03-10T23:33:00.003+05:30

"To Kill A Mockingbird" is the best literary work I have read in recent years, not only the writing is of highest quality but also it tells a very moving story of a single father parenting his two young children and standing up to a cause he believes in amongst a very hostile environment.
The story is set in times of Great Depression and told from the perspective of a six year old girl Jean Louise "Scout" Finch who along with her elder brother Jem and Father Atticus Finch are staying in Maycomb, Albama. Jean Louise's mother had passed away early enough for the girl not to have any remembrance of hers. The family is supported by a black governess, Calpurina. Atticus who is a lawyer by profession, is entrusted with responsibility to defend a black man accused of raping a white girl. In the times when racial discrimination is very much prevalent in the society, the family puts up one a very brave and sincere efforts to walk the chosen path. The story very beautifully traces childhood's frank, unabashed and careless attitude through Jean Louise, end of innocence in maturity through Jem while Atticus serves as the righteous hero.
After writing such a master piece, I wonder how could Harper Lee, the author, stayed away from publishing any other novel ever. I was a little dis-appointed with the way story finished because I just could not have enough of Jean Louise and I too have that expectation which wants an all happy ending but real life is not like that nor the novel.

Lose your weight

2010-03-01T23:38:00.004+05:30

I don't know how many people are interested in losing weight but I have been longing for it since forever it seems. I recently picked up the book "Don't lose your mind, lose your weight" by Rutuja Diwekar (Kareena's "size zero" is lot to do with her). In this book, she shatters many myths related to weight loss and I found the content quite crisp with adequate information to back it up.

She has very effectively communicated why things like extreme diets, detox diets or any other form of fad things don't work. She advises to eat a balanced meal and couple it with regular exercise.

The crux of her advice comes down to following four principle that one should incorporate it in lifestyle:
1. Eat something in first ten minutes of waking up but strictly avoid tea or coffee as the first thing in the day.
2. Eat every two to three hours in the day in smaller portions.
3. Eating habits should be in proportion to levels of activity.
4. Maintain a gap of at least two hours in your last meal and bed time.

The book has no literary value but it is high on knowledge which is expected from a fitness expert. I must add that the book startled me with some forthright expressions, also time and again she presents some analogies from completely unrelated domains that again surprisingly keep you intrigued. She has written down many of her client interactions which you definitely can relate to people around you and her sharp remarks, leave a chuckle on your face.

There is loads of more information available in the book on different kinds of food, nutrients needed by body. All in all it is a very educative yet fun to read, now I must follow it to see how effective it is :-).

Strategy Pattern

2010-02-27T16:32:00.004+05:30

Few weeks back I started reading about Design Patterns and Madhur kept on nagging (he reads it as encouraging) me to blog about it. So, I am kicking off a series of blogs on design patterns, starting with the Strategy Pattern.

As the name suggests, the pattern deals with how to organize different strategies in your application. Before starting with the pattern, following are the basic principles that one needs to grasp:
1. Encapsulate what varies.
2. Favor composition over inheritance.
3. Program to interface than implementation.

So, let me formally introduce you the Strategy Pattern, it is a design solution wherein you combine a family of algorithms, organize it separately in interfaces, prepare it concrete implementation and in your client-code work exclusively with the interface.

Let me give you an example, suppose there is a base class animal with concrete implementation as in dogs, leopard, fish etc. All these animals exhibit moving behavior, but differently as in walking or leaping or swimming. Thus, we can write a interface MovingBehavior with move as its method. It should have WalkingBehavior, LeapingBehavior and SwimmingBehavior as concrete implementations. The base class Animal would maintain a MovingBehavior reference with getter and setter method. Thus, for each animal, we need to specify its corresponding MovingBehavior. It has one more advantage, if our dog decides to swim, we can appropriately set its behavior.

I hope this served as a good introduction to Strategy Pattern. If this blog let you down, you know where to send your hate messages (he thinks good wishes) :-)

PS: I am reading Head First DP, thus the content might appear strikingly similar, its a great book to read, in fact the whole HeadFirst series is awesome.

The Sachin Tendulkar

2010-02-25T00:55:00.004+05:30

What more we need to say about this dude, every other month he is breaking some or the other record. In my opinion he is the greatest cricketer to have graced the game as far as I have seen in last 20 odd years. I rank Rahul Dravid very highly but Sachin beats him with sheer genius and attitude. Playing for over two decades now and attributed with success that hardly could have ever managed in history, this guy has never been known for any star-tantrums. The humility and character he brings to game truly makes him the biggest gentleman of the game.
Sachin has graced the game for two decades now and his strive for excellence still continues for me which is more evident by the dive he attempted in last game to save valuable boundary than today's effort.
Even if you are naive and you do not hear from experts of game but if you see get to see Sachin batting, his caliber is evident with the perfection, poise and follow through of his shots. For quite some time now, there has been expert advice that Sachin should retire but if we look at the way he has played for last year or so, boss I don't think so this run-machine is going to stop anytime soon and pretty soon we will see a century of centuries. Apart from this, there are always comparison made between Sachin, Pointing, Lara etc. Statistically speaking we might be tempted to make such a comparison but if you take a look at some factors as in the kind of atmosphere a person has played, the team combination and the character one has built, un-arguably Sachin beats everyone hands down with carrying expectations of over billion, rubbing shoulders with players half his capabilities.
For all the talent he possessed, things I admire more of this person is his always ready to take on attitude, humility and efforts to keep on going. Truly he is not only a great cricketer but a great person. Wishing him all the successes for his last un-fulfilled cricketing achievement which is to win ODI World Cup for India.

Favorite movie dialog

2010-02-04T10:51:00.007+05:30

There is a contest run by my favorite blogger (GreatBong), the winner of the contest would get a book authored by GB himself. The contest requires you to write your favorite movie dialogs. The rules and other entries are listed here.
I could probably write tons of quotes from Hindi movies but to maintain equality with number of favorite English movie quotes, I am going to restrict to three. So, below is the list of my most loved, used and abused movie quotes of all time, yenjaay :-)

Fultoo Bollywood:
[Sholey]
3. Ab tera kya hoga Kaliya?

[Waqt]
2. Yeh bachon ke khelne ki cheez nahin! Haath kat jaaye toh khoon nikal aata hai.

[Kaalicharan]
1. Ise liquid oxygen me fek do, liquid ise jeene nahi dega aur oxygen ise marne nahi dega, ha ha ha.

------------------------------------------
From Hollywood:

[Blood Diamond]
3. Sometimes I wonder will God ever forgive us for what we've done to each other? Then I look around and I realize... God left this place a long time ago.

[Gladiator]
2. My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

[Matrix Reloaded]
1. Choice, the problem is choice.

Now, I need five of you people to qualify for the contest, that way you could probably enter the contest too, so guys get on your keyboard and punch in your favorite dialogs and possible win a book :-)

Natarang

2010-01-31T23:31:00.007+05:30

Natarang is recently released Marathi movie and in my opinion a serious contender of next year's National awards. With Marathi movie what comes to mind is laugh riot by the likes of Laxmikant Berde or Ashok Saraf. But, this movie is quite different from the current genre of movies. Setup completely in a rural backdrop and a subject that young generation might not be able to directly connect to but believe me in the end of the movie, you will be completely soaked into it. Mind you, language spoken is not polished too; though two of us who grew up in Maharashtra found it hard to decipher each and every word.
Natarang is a story of a village labourer with a strong likening towards Tamasha. He has a family to support who does not quite approve of his Tamasha indulgence and is finding it very difficult to meet ends. The story tries to do justice to each character involved and manages to do quite well in it. In my view, movie could have been longer and could be higher on sentiment-count, but creator have kept it a fast paced especially in the later half. There are no super-heroes in movie, every character is shown constrained and close to reality (with grey shades in Mayur's words). Tamasha being the central theme of the movie, there are many song and dance sequences, both of which being convincingly handled by the people involved. Finally, it is a story of triumph of one man's passion and perseverance. All the actors have performed very well and efforts put in by Atul Kulkarni are quite exceptional and evident. Finally bonus of this movie is new actress "Sonalee", that girl just blew our minds off...enjoy some of her photos here. ;-)
Guys, if you know Marathi, you simply should not avoid this movie, the songs would be quite enjoyed in a theater only, don't miss it for sure.

Not a penny more, not a penny less

2010-01-26T23:45:00.004+05:30

This weekend I had a déjà vu moment, I was cleaning up the house and bumped into a dusty old book, 'Not a penny more, not a penny less.' I hoped the book to be good going by the reputation of the author, Jeffery Archer. Reading the teasers of the book, I was even more drawn to the book as it involved a favorite subject of mine the stock market.
The story revolves around a stock market wizard who is pretty much a living rags to riches story himself and earned a dubious reputation for his not so ethical trade practices. In one such operation of his, four un-connected people fail pray to his trap and losing a healthy sum of money. The misery unites them to take revenge and thus the plot of 'Not a penny more, not a penny less' unfolds. The book sketches few characters really well the shrewdness of a stock market mogul, organization qualities of a professor, the practicality of medical profession and the winnings of a charmer :-)
The story has enough twists and turns. I would not say it tops the best novel list for me but it is a very light hearted story and a good time-pass. And yeah that is how I spent the Republic Day holiday.

Life

2010-01-14T15:53:00.003+05:30

World gifts you what it wants to give away and not what you want to have.

That time of year again

2010-01-11T14:02:00.003+05:30

It is that time of year again, when I do new resolutions for the coming year, not that all the vows see 31st night's celebration as most of them do not survive long. But, being the ever-optimist I am, I would not hold back. So, before starting with the resolutions, it would be better to take stock of last year's resolutions. I am a modest person, there were only three commitments:
1. Loose 5Kg of weight.
2. Write 2 blogs each month.
3. Read 1 book each month.

And how did I fare at the end of year:
1. Gained 4Kg....very very bad.
2. Wrote 20 write-ups (excluding quotes)...not bad
3. Read around 4 books...umm..very bad.

This year, the list is going to be about getting bugs fixed from last year with one being dropped. I would not set a goal on number of books, it just takes away the fun of reading books. I hope this year the fate won't be similar to earlier ones. So, this year's list is:
1. Loose 9Kg. (tough)
2. Write 2 blogs each month. (achievable...just completing one ;-) )
3. Do a better financial planning (I am going to get possession of my house this year, really looking forward it :-) )

Future Of Cricket

2009-12-24T23:04:00.003+05:30

Another high scoring game comes to an end, another game where side batting second comfortably scored 300+ runs. In the earlier days, score of 250 was considered a reasonable total and if scored 300, would only be reduced to mere formality before end of match ceremony. But, over the years with slow, dead pitches are giving rise to entertainers more than cricketers. I don't understand how far this is going to last. I mean with these pitches only a low self esteem person would be fast bowler because they hardly leave scope for him to not get hit for less than six a over. In this scenario, I think going forward, we should replace bowlers with ball throwing machines that are used in net-practices and we can actually decide the winner with the team who hits more sixes.
With T20 and IPL game is all about hard hitting and no technique, with this I think we will keep churning out Sehwags and no more Dravid or Sachin. God bless Cricket.

Rules

2009-12-22T19:52:00.001+05:30

Rules make choices easy.

Five Point Someone

2009-09-21T22:12:00.000+05:30

This weekend while cleaning up the house, I accidentally got hold of the book Five Point Someone. I thought to myself, great now between the time I would finish some office work, I would have good TP. But, life rarely turns out what you expect it to be. :-)
Coming back to the book, as the cover suggests it is based on life at IIT. But, I would say the incidents could have occurred across any engineering college and if you have lived in a hostel in your education days, you could easily relate to the whole system sucks thoughts, all bad food, no money days, the splitting (money and friends both) and of-course occasional indulgence.
The book is very well written, it has all the elements to make a good story be it relationships, fall-outs, action, drama and steamy affair. When I started reading the book, I just could not put it down, pages turned one after the other and I completed the book sitting at one place with a kind of permanent chuckle and an occasional laugh. Go for it guys, I think it is worth spending few hours for it.

Balanced people

2009-09-08T18:17:00.001+05:30

Balanced people are never exorbitantly successful....because they are "balanced". :-)

Slim-look secret

2009-09-02T23:46:00.000+05:30

After months of rigorous gym sessions and disciplined diet, I realized the secret to slim looks is...wearing right fitting clothes.

Cricket Next Generation

2009-08-28T10:39:00.000+05:30

Since the time I embraced Cricket as religion, it has come a long way. Fifteen odd years have passed, at that time one day cricket was well followed in all the cricketing nations. Bouncer around the nose height was always no balled, no field restrictions. It had its own start specialists in K Srikant, Ajay Jadeja, Robin Singh, Micheal Beven and many more. One day Cricket started in nineteen seventies and it served a great relief from boring Test Cricket which for around next couple of decades continuously lost popularity only to resurrect in nineties when Aussies introduced aggressive cricket.
One dayers have offered some of great competitions, players and always been entertaining fans around the world. A generation of fans has passed, people's taste have changed and cricket was again fighting the battle for survival. Around the same time, T20 came into existence and brought with itself lot of glamor, money and viewership to cricket. In absence of which cricket was indeed a dying sport. Many argued T20 is not the cricket blah blah. But, like it or not, the rise in popularity of cricket and the viewership it added, T20 is here to stay for a long time.
Now, its again time to move on for cricket, clearly test cricket is for people who enjoy traditional cricket though their number might be limited but it has its own cult following and also the cricketing fraternity definitely feels too attached to stop playing it. The biggest causality of T20 became the one day internationals. T20 is simply more exciting and glamorous than one dayers that too in only half the time. This trend just sets the ground for end of road to one dayers. Many of the past greats are advocating this and now ECB along with its affiliated counties decided to take out one dayers from their playing calenders. Well I think this is natural progression for cricket and betterment for players to play more positive cricket.

Calvin's Quote on Life

2009-08-23T17:22:00.001+05:30

That's one of the remarkable things about Life. It's never so bad that it can't get worse.

Confused ideology

2009-08-22T00:32:00.004+05:30

BJP used to be a party with a difference. A party of leaders with clean image, strong national views and learned. Leaders like Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L. K. Advani, M. M. Joshi talked sense that could strike chord with the educated and frustrated lot. Eventually they could get their hand on top job. Their performance was marginally better in comparison to their predecessors. They had all bright next rung leaders as in Arun Jaitly, Sushma Swaraj, Pramod Mahajan and at times it felt this party is going to stay on top for quite some time.
But, somewhere along the line they seem to have lost their focus. It became evident with their defeat in 2004 elections. Since then they never seemed to be on the recovery path. Apart from their forte Gujarat and couple of other places, BJP has lost a lot of ground. Now they seem complete directionless. Every now and then they would make sensational comment about radical Hinduism and end up clarifying it rest of the time. At some point, they were people with ideology but now they seem to be confused. The latest example being all turmoil occurred with Jaswant Singh's book. The book claims to be a work of research. It does not hypothesize or postulate anything, it claims to be based on facts. I am not vouching for his book nor do I share same views on him but I definitely do not consider it anti-national or for that matter proponent of any ideology. BJP seems to have different thinking. They claim their heroes and ideology is betrayed by this. I fail to understand when the book does not propose any ideology how come it betrays other and the heroes it downs are the ones who banned BJP's mother organization (RSS). After spending decades in party, shaping its policies and thinking; the treatment mooted out to Jaswant Singh does not seem to be right. In a way it seems stupid of party to do such a thing. The top leaders are shying away from taking responsibility of ousting Singh, it just does not seem to be a wise decision.
Party has continuously lost ground among masses, there is hardly any star leader to take guard at top after L K Advani. This is a time when they should unite themselves and resurrect the party because country not only needs a stable government but also a united and firm opposition which can only lead their way back to top.

The Swine Flu Effect

2009-08-17T23:22:00.002+05:30

These days wherever I go, I see most people in grip of fear. Hotels, multiplexes, malls have been shut down. Everyone is afraid of swine flu, lot of misconceptions have prevailed and people have become paranoid with the idea that they might be contracted with it. With all this you see lot of funny things around like few wear surgical masks even inside a car.
One benefit I see is people have become conscious of hygiene and importance of clean environment. But, it has taken its own toll, there is shortage of Dettol, mommies have become extra conscious and experimenting everything from Camphor Goli to Influenza 200. Another effect is the roads are not much occupied people have become more home bound basically avoiding crowds. Last Sunday I walked through Hongkong lane without my body being rubbed against anyone.
I find it weird, some of the precautions were always necessary but just that there was no fear of dying, it did not matter to anyone. It is just amazing to see the difference in the same people who have been so inert earlier and now so much more aware and active. No matter how screwed up could be one's daily life, everyone wants to live, I would say to suffer more. :P

PS: Government has asked people to avoid public places, employee turnout at Infosys has gone low.
[ Just an attempt to crack a PJ ;-) ]

Celebrating Identity

2009-08-15T22:39:00.003+05:30

Happy Independence Day folks, celebrate the identity you share with one billion others and a history of 9000 years. I wish I should have done something today to make it count.

Growing Up

2009-08-06T09:21:00.004+05:30

When I was seven, I used to think what a wonderful place this earth is; every time I pass by all these new people appear and big buses come around filling this space up. It further used to get me into thinking what happens to all those people, buses and bridges when I am not in that frame, how do they survive? I somehow had the notion that I am the center of the world and everything else just moves around me. I just did not fathom the fact that life equal to me, other than me and in parallel to me can exist. Well, am glad all that was really long time back.
Time passed by I was eleven, I had grown out of earlier kiddish thoughts and started to believe that I am the last hope this world has. I am omnipotent, a re-incarnation of noble soul, I am the one (so to speak Neo). I even had a belief that if I concentrate enough I can lit up and turn off a candle. I even tried that but that candle was not smart enough to understand my prowess and I had more important things to do than proving it to stupid candles.
At sixteen, I looked around and thought well so sad for the world, it lost its last chance recognizing me as the One. But, still there is hope, with all the wisdom in me I could probably bring all the conflicts in the world to end and give a fair deal even to the last person on the planet. I just need to go to UN, become its president and that's it I will save the world, pretty neat huh. ;-)
Afterwords, engineering happened to me and at twenty one it occurred to me that "Thoda locha ho gaya mere sochne me" There are sets of problems, I won't be able to solve. Not all things are as easily achievable as I used to thought. But, I still found the comfort in the fact that I am more knowledgeable and wise than most blokes around me.
More time passed by, I spent some time in professional life, getting all round view of world in general, I realized I am too insignificant a person. I have achieved too little compared to people from my time or history. Forget about the world problems, if I could fix my problems and get things in order, it would be a significant achievement.
Now, I wonder if all along I was growing up in age or growing low in my expectations or may be I was getting matured, who knows how long I have to go. :-)

Chasing the rains

2009-07-30T19:12:00.004+05:30

Past Sunday we roomies again decided to visit Lavasa. This time Mayur had done the recce for Lavasa route and found out that to enter on a bike Helmet and License are mandatory. To reach Lavasa, you need to leave the road towards Tamhini after Pirangut and take a left turn. Once on that route, the drive gets better and better as you reach the modern day India's largest hill city. I had earlier thought not to write about this trip and only post photos but it has been such an eventful trip that I am compelled to convey them in my lousy words.
You need to cross a hill to reach Lavasa, as you climb up the road gets foggier, there are few small waterfalls along the road and whole drive is a superb experience. There is lot of construction going on currently in the city and not much to enjoy on a rainy day. Our plan wasn't limited to reach Lavasa and come back but follow the Mutha river on its path towards Panshet through Warasgaon. On this route we met with only couple of other wanderer groups. I feel if you go to really crowded place as in Sinhagad, the whole time you keep on honking and finding a place to park a vehicle the whole essence of monsoon biking is lost in it.
Somewhere in middle of Lavasa and Panshet, we saw a waterfall and went to check it out. I was the first one to reach the waterfall. After being drenched completely in rains, I was shivering in water. I removed my wallet and kept it inside pocket of my jacket which does not have a zipper. I posed for couple of photos and immediately realized that I have lost my wallet; sometime between the two clicks, my wallet had fallen from pocket and got flown in water. Now, I am screwed for next few weeks having lost my two wheeler and four wheeler licenses, thousand bucks and who knows what other till the time I find out. Apart from this, Mayur's bike fall off while it was parked, leaving him with a dent on petrol tank and broken right side rear view mirror. After Panshet, Mayur's bike got punctured, fortunately we did not have much trouble get it fixed. If all that was not enough, once our road was blocked by couple of cows, somehow we managed to get past them as well. I hope next time around there won't be any un-fateful events and just to make it certain, my list of precautions have just increased. :-)

Moment of Truth

2009-07-23T20:58:00.003+05:30

As anyone who has seen "American" game show moment of truth would have guessed if ever there will be an Indian version, pretty soon the guardian of "Indian" culture would feel threatened. Star Plus is airing Indian version as "Sach Ka Samana" for less than a week now and Parliament has discussed it, I&B ministry has issued a notice to the producers' of show and honorable Delhi High Court is going to decide whether the is is "obscene and against Indian culture and ethos."
As a matter of fact, the same Indian audience is all watching it and talking about it; isn't the population wise enough to choose what it wants to see? Do the people who watch inherit different culture? I wonder why and how this show about virtually nobodies gets so much of popularity? You can find enough people who have had weak moments and have failed somewhere. The show in a way sensationalizes those specific events. It surely makes or breaks relationships. But, people who are willing to come out open about it, take risk and make money out of it, go there. Also, nobody forces anyone to watch it, if TRPs for the show are down, surely the show would be wrapped up even if King of Bollywood sells it.
I really don't know how to define Indian culture whose population is amalgamation of all the major religions in the world with widely different practices and languages. But, I surely can say, even hundred shows like "Sach ka samana" are not going to make any crack in the Indian culture(whatever it means).

Pune to Lonavala

2009-07-17T11:02:00.008+05:30

This is one route to Lonavala from Pune not many know and the ones who are aware of it rather avoid it. It passes along Mulshi dam through Pirungut Ghat. This route is longer but also it is quite narrow and dangerous for a normal drive to Lonavala easy choice to give it a miss. We happened to bump onto this road was pure matter of chance. Past weekend we roomies decided to check out Lavasa city. Knowing that it lies on the road to Paud gaon, five of us road on our 150cc bikes down the Chandani Chowk. Well we missed out on locating Lavasa but we continued wandering in Tamhini Ghat :). The drive is superb as roads are well maintained passing through green hills, perfect Pune mansoon with a little drizzle and a lot of fog around.
After the Neve goan (50 odd kms from Chandani Chowk) the road split, we had two options either continue through Tamhini Ghat towards Murud a hundred odd kms from there with a fairly decent road or take narrow one to Lonavala through a dense forest. It was 6.30PM, all we had was bikes and plastic money, after some thoughts we went for Lonavala and thankfully it turned out to be a worthwhile decision. A wonderful ride for someone in Pune looking out for a decent biking experience. Mind you it is a bit risky, we were lucky not to get into any accident but next time if I am gonna go that route it would be in day time and with some more preparation. There were several passes on that road where water through hill spilled over the road and after the heavy rains it would be very difficult to cross it on two-wheelers.
This 50Km drive is the best I ever had on a two wheeler. The road was foggy with hardly any visibility. The beam thrown by headlights was dispersed in fog and the one who was driving in front could actually see his shadow on the wall of fog. There were few settlements along the road but hardly any city necessities all along. I doubt if we had got a punctured tire whether we could have managed to get it fixed before Lonavala. But, one surprising aspect was we did encounter our ST Mahamandal buses which was a bit assuring. There is a Arhatic Ashram on that road, must say a very great setting to unwind.
The whole experience was amazing and much needed break from polluted city environment. Lot of greenery with a very soothing eloquence of nature, it was a refreshing couple of hours.

India's Own Convertible

2009-06-22T12:31:00.004+05:30

Well well well this is some news that brought a big smile on my face. I have always longed for convertibles and complained that we don't have convertibles manufactured here in India, a factor that makes them out of reach for most of us. But, I just got to know that a little known San Motors produce convertibles right here in Goa and it is quite affordable too.
Now, I am not sure about the quality of product but I am quite elated with this prospect.

Stupid Ladies' Hour

2009-06-19T11:16:00.005+05:30

We have a swimming pool in our society, pretty neat considering we are still a third world country. Well the pool is OK but the thing that takes the neat-count down is weird rules. First we can access the pool only for five hours a day, two in morning and three in evening. To make the matter worse in those five hours, two hours are reserved as ladies timings means only women can use the pool. So for no valid reason my options get severely limited. Why have such stupid restrictions? It just does not make any sense if you think it helps in protecting your women from cheapos. Frankly speaking these are the places you can get hold of such miscreants very easily and beat the hell of out them. This way you make place safer for women rather than making everyone suffer.

Root for India in T20 Semis

2009-06-18T11:30:00.003+05:30

Well I am not out of my mind or day-dreaming but the fact is there is ICC Women's T20 World Cup being organized alongside the one we all know and the good news is India-Women's team has got into semis. They are set to play today in Nottingham. The live broadcast of match will happen on Star Cricket in India at 5 PM. Well I am no fan of Woman's cricket but I wish they win. Way to go eves, make us proud. :-)

MTV Roadies

2009-04-15T19:25:00.008+05:30

Ever since MTV Roadies has debuted, I liked its concept very youthful, goal oriented and supposed to be total no non-sense business. For me, this show represents the idea of reality show otherwise I have been hugely disappointed by MTV Splitsvilla and other talent-hunt plus reality shows. Coming back to Roadies, another nice thing is, it puts out clearly that it is a tough world out there and at times may not be not so nice.

This show has made quite a few faces very popular not only the creators but also the participants. Biggest beneficiary being Raghu who has terrorized and caught imagination of whole of burger eating population. Many a times I found him showing lot more than required amount of attitude. But, with his interviews it is aptly clear that we have enough dhakkan young population.

Currently in its 5th season, these guys have taken a giant leap going all the way to Australia and man this time it has actually been bigger than ever. I don't know of any other show that could possibly compete with Roadies in terms of production quality. I think fear factor hosted by Akshay Kumar was on par with this but still Roadies has definitely raised the bar for Indian television programming. Though there are accusations that things are scripted in it but there is no proof of it and the fact remains it is one of the most popular TV shows. In my view they are doing a commendable job. The admirable part for me has been every episode they have come up with innovative competitions. Crocodile stunt and open air walk between the air-balloons have been really daring stuff. Of-course vote outs have been very dramatic and interesting. One of the best episodes this season for me was when the gang of Bobby, Pradeep and Sandeep were shown door in a single episode. That was really the turning moment of this leg.

In my view either of Sufi and Natasha deserved to win this season but unfortunately both of them are out and all we have is Nauman and Palak. Nauman has come out really good in last few episodes may be he is the best amongst girls. :P

Anyways I am looking forward to the two part grand finale, hoping it to live the "Hell Down Under" brag.

First Steps

2009-04-03T11:46:00.011+05:30

I know nothing of swimming and though I am six feet tall, I will probably drown in four feet water too. I am not aquaphobic as such but somehow I always kept away from swimming may be it was because of overtly protective mom who fears after learning swimming my arrogance could get me in danger. So away from mom's nest, I have gone ahead with swimming, got enrolled in an expensive club, got required gears ready and all filled with enthusiasm.

After alienating the inhibitions, I started day one with my coach Kushal, he better be really "Kushal" in teaching swimming and saving people in pool otherwise India could risk an Olympics Medal. Anyways with all the burden of my heavy body and expectations I entered the pool and straight away Kushal stopped me to tell me, "This is not the way you enter the pool, you should enter like this." I looked at him and told myself, "Ooh, here it starts."

Learning new things is fun, I feel like going back to school. When you say school, it's about making new friends, learning new tricks and the victory dance. :P

My first assignment was to get at ease with pool. That was easy just having the walk in chest-dip water, I am no dumb-ass to screw that up. After that Kushal told me its time to learn a trick. He said we are very much used to breath in through nose and breath out via mouth, but swimming is different. You have to breath in through mouth in the open air and under water breath out via the nose. I told myself, "What crap, how is that possible under water?"

For first few attempts I could not get any air out from anywhere. I told him, "नहीं हो रहा है." He said, "अबे जोर लगा." जोर लगा?? What the F? I thought "कहा से जोर लगा और कहा पे जोर लागाना है." Still reluctantly I thought of giving another shot and I thought it would be like blowing your nose. So I took a deep breath and holding the bar, went beneath the water surface and tried blowing nose, surprisingly it worked. I could hear and see the bubbles around. I immediately came out of water and raised my hand up exclaiming, "Me..Me..Me, I got that." For those of all who have not done this, have you done blowing air in a drink using the straw? How much fun was that? Well breathing out in water through nose felt like that only; difference being now you are at the other end of the straw. :)

After passing out lot of air inside water, next lesson was to learn peddling, I did it for few minutes and it was time, class over for day one. It was good fun for first day. I hope I would continue it over a month and learn basic swimming at least.

Couple of realizations

2009-03-25T20:16:00.007+05:30

A friend once told me, "You have very little control over what is going to happen." Well for many things this is true but I refuse to accept it as a blanket rule. I believe one has sufficient control over own actions to decide how one intends to spend his time and these decisions largely affect the outcome if not entirely.

I plan a lot in life; I dream a lot. Many of my plans go bust because I have always missed out on some or the other parameter even misjudged my abilities. I have realized that you have to take life as it comes. You are probably too in-experienced or in-competent to determine in advance with total accuracy how things are going to unfold. You invest in most promising stock and six months down the line you find out there is hardly any value left in it.

Life is about problems in opportunities and opportunities in problems. It depends on one's abilities to spot the opportunities or make the mess of it. Early in his career Amitabh Bachchan was rejected at All India Radio for his rather deep voice and later that voice contributed to the making of superstar of millennium.

Though uncertainty is a fact of life, certain amount of planning is necessary because plans give you directions. Moving without directions, you would be surprised with the destinations you reach. And yes not all surprises are pleasant.

Delving further on this line of thought there is another important realization of life that is to keep looking ahead. What one can pick from the time gone by is the experience and not repent about the lost time or resources. Life is indeed too short to crib on things left behind.

What makes life enriching and fulfilling is dreams, efforts pursuing them, company of loved ones, assurance of being accepted, transformation of self in that journey and the rewards that come along. There is so much to achieve in life, so much to take from it, I feel one life is too short for living it fully. So why waste time in repenting instead make the most of things at hand.

Success and failure are part of game. Till date it has not happened to anyone who has never tasted failure. Fear of failure should not stop one from dreaming or taking the next step. It is essential to have a goal and to keep walking towards it, other things will surely fall in place.

And an ad that left me speechless

2009-03-14T17:27:00.005+05:30

[Source: GreatBong]
Couple of days back I came across an ad by Israeli defense firm Rafael to woo the Indian Army with their missile technology. The ad left me speechless. Do whatever but do not miss this ad. I just can't think how one can imagine to sell missiles with such marketing. I hope it is a spoof, it better be a spoof.

Top three ads this season

2009-03-06T18:16:00.015+05:30

I watch lot of TV thus end up watching lot of repeatable stuff that happens to be advertisements. Most of the ads are useless, they definitely don't serve their purpose and waste our time.
But, few ads are cut above the rest, they make me watch them again and again. At times I even wait for them to show up. :-)
Here I am listing three such ads that have aired in past six months, all three of them have wonderful tune to support them, excellently shot and very creative.
Third on my most favorite ads is Visa travel happy campaign. Nice tune, intelligently shot, core theme of product is maintained in tact and soothing in the wild world of loud ads. Here is the you tube link and you can download it from here.
Second ad is from Vodafone campaign of 10p sms, "sabko pata chalega" theme. Vodafone folks always come out with suit of ads and they are always decent. Remember the "Happy to Help" campaign. One issue with these guys is, they just don't know when to shut up. They keep playing the ad again and again so however good the ad may be, after a while you want to turn it off. My favorite ad from their suit is of a middle aged (bald) man buying a ring, passing through all the looks he never got and approaching his girlfriend in a restaurant. Nicely shot, very good tune in background and again sticking to the idea. Here it is on you tube and download link is here.
My most favorite ad this season and many more seasons to come is of Limca "Fresh Ho Jao" featuring Sushma Reddy, the ad is wonderfully shot with a very good song playing in the background. If you have not watched it, you can get it here. The young couple trapped in traffic jam get refreshed with Limca and playing pranks on each other. Very nicely created ad with the focus right on their product.

They Just Don't Get It

2009-02-06T11:24:00.006+05:30

I have often noticed people, including myself, using the expression, "Ooh, why they just don't get it!!!" It so happens that something is evident and so obvious that conveying that information seems redundant, far leaving the need for convincing it. With this line of thought, if encountered with disagreeing party, it gives rise to conflicts. I recently read a book dealing with the same issue, not surprisingly named 'They Just Don't Get it.' The book puts forward an idea about 'how to change resistance into understanding.'
Some of the ideas presented in this book are similar to the ones presented in '7 Habits of Highly Effective People.' But still I recommend reading this book for simplicity of its presentation. It is a pretty small book, does not include boring lectures on philosophy, human psycology or behavioral patterns. It has constructed a very happy scenario, the conflict that occured because of different lines of thoughts and finally the solution. It gives out five simple tacts called as "Get It Keys" which if applied properly can get you out of the syndrom, "I just don't get it, when they don't get it."
One of my favorite lines from the book is "The older we get, the more fallible we become. We know less compared to how much there is to know but more about what's important and what we need to know."
So folks, if you ever wondered the person sitting next to you is probably from different planet, take couple of hours out and read this book. You would either understand his point of view or change yours :-)

It wasn't me

2009-01-26T10:46:00.001+05:30

As India celebrates 60th Republic day today, it is also two months since terror unleashed itself in worst possible way in Mumbai. As the official word goes, ten people received intense commando training somewhere in Pakistan, sailed from Karachi towards Mumbai. Once here fired at random, hold the symbolic places under siege for over 60 hrs, taking innocent lives, killing police officers and preachers of faith too. According to me this is not a terrorist act, it is a war. It is a well thought out, planned, prepared and executed war. Sadly, we have lost this battle.
Today looking back at two months, we need to ask ourselves where are we? Grand processions for martyrs, glued to breaking news TV presentations, venting out anger through peace marches and in tea time discussions is all behind us now. Though our government has been successful in defaming Pakistan and its establishment, but how much of it is going to be effective considering the fact, two months have passed and the masterminds are still at large. We have identified their faces, we know about their whereabouts but we can't do anything.
We have setup National Investigative Agency, that will help out on achieving better co-ordination of intelligence input within different states and center. But, all of it hardly seems promising. I do not think if we are ever going to get our hands on these Pakistan based elements. But, what seems more probable is similar such attacks of same or greater magnitude. Make no mistake worse has no limits and if we don't act now, things are just going to get worse. We have seen pictures from Gaza and one day it can come to us too.
We, the normal citizens put blame on leaders. Leaders in turn blame foreign hand or rouge elements. But, we need to introspect, is it that politicians have been airdropped or they came from within us. Our system has produced them, chose them to lead us. If they are inefficient or lack abilities or themselves of darker shades, what are we going to do?
The root cause is nobody is doing own job sincerely. Everyone is interested in jumping over the light or similar such law escapades. If each and everyone of us works sincerely, pays taxes honestly and follows rules, we can demand accountability from the officials or politicians. Rather than doing this, we point out faults in others. Some consider paying tax is actually a charge of service that one should recieve. Is it correct? I think paying taxes is a National Duty and demanding effective governance is a Right. It can not be, I don't get good roads, I won't pay taxes.
To move towards a brighter future, we need to take responsibility of our actions, stop giving excuses and be honest. I believe these things can only build our nation without which every progress is going to fall like a structure of cards. Now the choice is ours, either we make humble beginnings or live under the fear of terrorism.

Mumbai attacked again

2008-11-27T10:07:00.000+05:30

Mumbai is a city of dreams, financial capital of India, city that truly never sleeps. This city has given countless number of people opportunities to realize their dreams. People even from the most remote places of India, wish to visit Mumbai once in lifetime.

As I write today, this part of the world is under attack, but is it the city under attack or state of Maharashtra or India. No, it's the humanity under attack, few terrorists who barged into the Taj hotel asked for British and US national to take them as hostage. When they killed people they were looking for Indians not the Hindus not the "Marathi maanus" not wealthy nor poor.

We have seen lot of terror attacks over past couple of years. But, I fail to see any concrete step taken to prevent these. Every now and then attack happens and some xxx Mujahidin crops up, claims responsibility and mocks us. Our efficient government takes the tooth away from the security agencies by removing tough terror laws as in TADA, POTA or MOCOCA. Otherwise misuses them for the purpose of settling political scores. Clearly we lack political leadership to tackle these issues.

But, when I think what I, as a citizen of this country, been doing in these troubled times, I don't see any actions. Mostly these events have turned into another topic of discussion for me. As of today, attacks have never affected me directly or indirectly. So, is it that I am going to wait till my ass is not caught in the firing lane. I think it is time for us to stand up to terrorism and support the police. I am looking for what all I can do but at least I can start with:
1. Be alert and vigil about the surrounding.
2. Not supporting anything that promotes discrimination based on religion, race or ethnicity.
3. Not being stupid, something like Rahul Raj, getting a gun and thinking of solving problems in a matter of one day.
4. Not following "Eye for an eye" rule. Less than 24 hrs ago, ATS chief who was still alive then had reported in media that 90% of their energy was eaten by Malegaon bomb blast. When we are fighting enemies from all sides of India, if our resources are wasted with our own people, how are we supposed to stop this?

The gun-battle is still on in Mumbai. But, it is the spirit of Mumbai not to stop, CST (VT station) where first reported incident of firing and blast had occurred is already operational. Should the message to terrorists be more loud and clear?

1000 Rs/Kg

2008-10-23T13:25:00.000+05:30

This is an account of last six months, wherein along with shedding pounds of fat, I learned few life lessons too. These days everyone who meets me after a long gap is wondering how have I managed to lose weight. Well, it has come after a lot of perspiration, determination, failures and frustrating times. But in the end if I could do it, you can do it better :-).

I have always been a "heavy person," and a soft target. After years of half-hearted attempts, this March I fired on all cylinders for one more attack on fat. Started with the "GM diet"; got more attention than actually reducing any weight. There lies the first lesson "Extreme diets and without any workout don't work."

I am 25 and in last quarter century I have heard / overheard as many weight-loss "tontkas" as in
1. Drinking warm water all day.
2. Taking Triphala Guggule (Aurvadic medicine) with warm water, thrice a day.
3. In morning, take honey with warm water.
4. Instead of honey use lemon juice.
But, not even grams were lost because of these. (Lesson 2: Make peace with yourself. Doesn't mean compromise with what you are but accept if this is not working for you something else will. Find it and do it.)

After all these failed experiments, I researched and got to know that weight loss is a game of calories in versus calories out. Thus, I started one more fling with gym. In the initial days my regularity was again in question. I promised myself if I go to gym for seven days without break, I will get new gym shoes. (Lesson 3: Appreciate, reward yourself and be wicked, gift gym shoes which would further compel to the cause). Later on I went on to workout for 30 days without break. :-)

After first three months passed, I became pretty regular and my diet was in line. But, my weight lost was mere 3Kg, so I got few tests done (Sugar, BP, Cholesterol and Thyroid) everything was just fine but 3 Kgs in 3 months wasn't enough. So I grew frustrated, on one such Sunday morning while working out a girl came upto me and told me, "Hey, you've slimmed down a lot since I first saw you around, you look a lot thinner now." After completing the conversation with her, I could not stop smiling. That was my first compliment and truly uplifting moment.

But, still the fact remained that I got to lose a lot more. So I got a personal trainer. He would be there monitoring me all time, scheduling my workout and giving diet tips.

My daily schedule is: In morning have a bowl of skimmed milk with Muesli before gym. After gym, one bread, one cup tea with very less sugar and couple of Marie biscuits. In lunch, 3 chapathis, one bowl each of sabji and daal but no rice. At 5 PM, some light snacks. For dinner very light mostly South Indian. But, it would be a good idea to mix-match the dinner with Soup, fruits and salads.

These six months have changed me a lot not only in physical appearance but my lifestyle as well whether it being incorporation of workout in daily schedule, eating food before bath and many other things. (Lesson 4: If situation demands, change yourself.)

It takes time to lose weight, one needs to be very patient, very regular and follow strict regim. 1 pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 Calories. So one needs to take at least 1000 calories per day and utilize them to burn in excess to lose weight. In the initial phase, as I wasn't losing any weight people around me hardly noticed any changes in me, some even told me that this is my body-type and I won't be able to lose weight, don't fight the one you can not defeat. But, I still didn't budge, I had decided if this wont work, I would take help from the slimming clinics. Apart from this, there was a brief period that required me to break my workout in two and make me visit gym twice a day. Other than this too, I had to battle out many other issues, but I overcame most of them. (Lesson 5: There are more solutions in this world than problems.)

Finally whats with the name of this post? Well I am Baniya, all I can do is calculations and think about profits. I have lost 12Kg in last six months and the rate applicable was 1000 Rs/Kg :-)