Batman - DC Comics

Batman has been my favorite supehero, The Supermans and the Spidermans all possess Superpowers that help them fight evil.
Batman on the contrary is a normal human being, who has decided to fight crime.
Everything is dark about these comics, the atmosphere, the character, the Villans, Gotham City itself.

Batman's Character is one of the most complex characters one can come across in Comic Books. Like Batman says in 'Hush'
"Deep down I know Superman is a good guy, I also know that deep down I am a Bad guy! "

Haunted by nightmares and a feeling of guilt about his parents' murder by a criminal, Bruce wayne decides to become something that he fears the most, a "Bat".

When one reads Batman, one can sense, how close Batman is to becoming the same thing that he is fighting against.

I have been reading the Batman Collection.
So far have read
Dark victory
Year one
Hush

"Year one" by Frank Miller and Joseph Loeb is the best, and the Movie "Batman Begins" is loosely based on this.

The only shortcoming, I see in the Batman Comics is the use of Superfriends - like Robin, DarkWing, Oracle, Batgirl, Huntress etc etc

This dilutes the powerful characterisation of batman.

However the Batman remains and will remain my Superhero !!

Who is your favorite Superhero?

I am an MBA !!

I got a very boring 65.84% in my final sem MBA. Boring because, I have been getting 65 - 67 % in my first 3 sems. Not complaining but yaaaaawn !!

Anyway as with everything that happens, there are positives

I am an MBA now :)
I have given all the exams, do not see myself studying for another set of exams

O Captain! My Captain

- Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass


O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.


More...

A wonderful radio station

I came across PANDORA, on Dharampal's blog, before you say "well its another music cast", just check it out, all you need to do is give an artist or a song title and your station will play you songs that are similar to your selection, works wonders as you get to discover new songs. Try it.

The year(?) that was...

In a matter of a week we will be in 2006 !! The Cliche goes that "Time Flies" but one must agree it is so very true. I feel like it was very recently that I got into MBA, but now I realize that not only have I completed my MBA, but also am a couple of months away from completing a year at ThoughtWorks.

The Year has gone by in a blur. Its been a joy ride full of fun, lots of ups and few downs.

Another Cliche goes on to extend the previous one and goes " Time flies fastest when you are having most fun"

Looking forward to more years that will go past in a blurrrrrrrrrrrrr :)

Cannot resist....Another song of the week :)

Well this one would be the song of t he month for me :)

Smash Mouth- Shrek OST- 'Im a Believer"

This one rocks....

In the Jungle.....

Was listening to the Lion King soundtrack, and came across "In the Jungle....."

:D This brought back so many old memories, we had sung this for a party where Jungle was the theme, and boy did we have fun !!

This makes it my Song of the Week!!

Cricket....sweet pain !!

Last Saturday, Played cricket for 4 hours flat !! spent the week feeling like I had been run over by a truck :) Muscles that i did not know existed, announced their annoyance at not being used, so much so that even laughing out aloud caused pain (and laughin is somethin i do regularly....)

Ah the sweet pain :)

Played 3 hours of cricket again this saturday, and the pain i was expecting never came :) looks like I am fit again (ya right !!)

Weekend Movie: Bluff Master

Well, I went and watched BluffMaster, did not expect much. Was pleasantly surprised :)

Its been inspired by, "Ocean's Eleven" and "The Game", but a good hindi Adaptation. Good songs, great one liners, Nana Patekar has all the good lines.

A good movie to watch :)

The Silence...

Why, have I not been blogging ?? Well the reason is that am going through one of the most difficult periods of my life. I wonder if I shall ever overcome it. But I know that I shall not change and life will go on :D

"Whatever happens, happens for the best!" remember?

Gaming Unlimited!!

The time is 6 pm. The day any normal weekday, and one can sense excitement around the office. The excitement is because Unreal Tournament is about to begin.
Hours and hours of Gaming on the LAN has me addicted. Be it the aggressiveness of a Team 'DeathMatch' or the Strategy involved in a game of 'Capture The Flag ', the action is relentless, the Screaming at team members, the cheering at a crucial frag makes for an amazing atmosphere in office. Good Fun :D

Power of ONE

I have been tagged by Seemantini to write about "What I am doing or going to do, to protect the Earth in my own little way"

OneEarth Communications have wonderful ads indeed, Most of them are featured on Animal Planet.

What have I been doing? I avoid using polythene bags, I never throw waste of any kind on the roadside, be it chocolate wrappers or chewing gum. Using a Dustbin is a better option. I do not smoke, thus doing my bit to reduce Air Pollution.
The important thing that I feel all of us can do(and which I do) is, to walk short distances rather than using a two wheeler. Keeps one fit, Reduces Traffic and in turn reduces Air Pollution.

What are you doing?

The Tom and Jerry Game

If you like Tom and Jerry then this is the game for you !! Childish you may say, but entertaining nevertheless :)
PLAY THE GAME

The Tank

On the Stretch of road just after Victoria road and before one gets to Airport road, to your left, just by the road, lies a Tank. A battle tank, captured by the indian Army from Pakistan during the Bangladesh War.

As a child as I passed through that road, on my way to the airport, I would wait for the tank to appear in my sights and look at it with a sense of pride, afterall it was part of the 'spoils of war'.
It still remains in the same place, well maintained. Painted a shade of dark olive green
It still has the same effect on me as it had years ago :D
If you happen to pass by that way do take a look and you shall understand what I am talking about.

Google tells me that "These T-59s were captured at the epic battle of Longewala, where an entire Pakistani T-59 tank regiment was decimated by the Indian Air Force...." more...

Interesting??

Ganguly is back...

I have been cursing Mr. Ganguly, since a long time. But I must confess as I watched him stride into the ground to Bat today morning, I was wishing he would do well !! I thought to myself, well the man has guts to come down and play in a match under Dravid, it needs a lot of humility.

Then I watched him refuse a single, a beautiful shot that Laxman hit deserved a run and Ganguly turned down the single. And back I am to square one, I think my previous attitude towards him is right. He does not deserve a place in the team.

Song of the Day

'Ruby tuesday' by Rolling Stones
is amazing, its my favorite Rolling stones song. Awesome.

Vertigo Comics: Fables

I enjoyed reading Frank Miller's graphic novels the 'Sin City' series, this was not surprising as Frank Miller is quite famous and I had expected to enjoy it.
however when I got my hands on 'Fables' by Vertigo comics, I did not expect much ,as their previous series was not too good (atleast I did not like it), but 'Fables'is awesome.
As usual it is a comic for "for Mature readers only'. the Theme rocks. The artwork is nice. and the plots are pretty decent.

All the Fable town's characters such as Snow White, Goldilocks, Big Bad Wolf, Beauty and the Beast and hundreds of others have been thrown out of their kingdoms, and make home in New York.
SnowWhite has divorced the cheating Prince Charming and is the deputy mayor of Fable Town, Goldilocks is a Psycho Killer, Jack (the one who climbed the bean Stalk) is a rouge. Mr Big Bad Wolf (taken a human form to hide himself from the prying eyes of humans) is a detective straight out of an 80's Film Noir movie.

Snow White(look at the image) and Bigby(Big B Wolf) form an unlikely team to keep fabletown going against all difficulties.

Sheer Brilliance.

Yahaan

Brilliant movie, it was great to see Minissha Lamba as "Ada" a Kashmiri Muslim in Love with Jimmy Shergill a soldier in the Indian army, with the backdrop of terrorism.Great music, realistic story. A nice Hindi movie after a long time. very fresh.

song to watch out for is "naam ada likhna". beautiful.

Wonderful...

A.E Housman writes in his poem "Trees" :

"Poems are made by fools like me
But only God can make a tree."

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

- Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

My Inner Hero - Paladin!


I strive to help others, and to bring truth and harmony to the world however I can. Whether times are good or bad, you can always count on me. I'm a shoulder to cry on, a champion for the helpless, and an all around nice person. :D

How about you? Click here to find your own inner hero.

The Show must go on...

Mad-ads, to many it looks like a silly skit. To me it is a forum to put forth what one feels about the present state of affairs.
And it is here, on the Mad-ads stage that I have learnt a lot of important lessons in life. Be it the time, when as a part of an upcoming mad-ads team, facing a competition that would decide our future, We fought through adversity (Threats of phsical harm to team, Hospitalzation, injuries...) we won a place in the cultural team. Hey if any of the 'Cul-nan-Magas' are reading this I wanna say that I feel immense pride in having been a part of our team.

I know this is starting to sound like an award winning or a farewell speech, it is the latter.I along With the other core team members of the 'Usual Suspects' (Jive and Dijo),decided that the saturdays performance was our last.

After close to 7 years on stage, it is hard to ignore the feeling of nostalgia. I shall surely miss the Jam packed auditoriums, the roar of the crowd when our team name was announced, and the resounding laughter.

However I am happy that we have gone out with a blast !! Saturday was one of our most memorable performances, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. And if the cheers were anything to judge by, the audience enjoyed it too.

So long and thanks for all the fish... :D

DON'T PANIC

Well a Colleague recommended that I read Douglas Adams, and so I did, I borrowed a book from her and started reading, the book was "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", and to put it mildly, I found the book pathetic.

So when I came across, "HitchHiker's guide to the galaxy" (a set of five volumes in one book), I was in two minds, whether to pick it up and read it, or to let it pass. To cut a long story short, I picked the book up and have started to read it. I have to admit, so far(I am about 5 chapters into the book), the book is amazing, it is a brilliant piece of literature. Do not miss it.
Rating **** out of *****

Amazing Blog

A friend sent me this link, this blog is about advertising and it is wonderful. Do check it out.

GO

Back to the stage…

On Saturday, I will be back on stage performing mad-ads. This Saturday, Jive and I, spent about 3 hrs on the script, it looks good. Some practice and we should be ready to rock the party, this could well be one of my last performances on stage after 5 years of mad-ads.
My present team is called “The Usual Suspects”; my original team was called “Cul-nan-magas” (A pun you would understand only if you understand kannada).
Performed competitively at many a place with Cul-nan-magas, as we were in the college cultural team.
However, “The Usual suspects” have performed only twice competitively, both at IIM-B, and we won the first place twice in as many years.
“Bas yaadein yaadein yaadein reh jaati hai…. kuch meethi meethi baatein reh jaati hai…”

Song(s) running thru my head

Coming Back to life- Pink Floyd:
“I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life”

Winds of Change – Scorpions:
“The wind of change blows straight into the face of time
Like a storm wind that will ring the freedom bell for peace of mind
Let you balalaika sing
What my guitar wants to say”

Knocking on Heaven’s Door – GNR:
“Momma put my guns on the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore
That cold black cloud is coming down
Feels like I am knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door”(The Avril version is also good)

Team Outing to PVR Gold Class

Yeah, Finally watched a movie in Gold class. The movie: Garam Masala. A pathetic movie, but a great theatre experience. What with the Lazy Boy type of chairs and being server food at your seat. Maybe a better choice of movie would have increased the enjoyment factor. Well cannot have everything. :)

Techno Savvy

I had never surfed the web until I was in 1st year degree, that is in the year 2000. Hard to believe, I did not know how to send an email. I am not exaggerating.
Now my typical day consists of atleast 12 hours on the PC or Laptop, 8 of which I spend online!! I have been in DELL helping system admins of major companies repair their PC’s and right now am working as a business analyst in a S/W consulting MNC, helping build software!!
As I look back I realize how simple it is to grasp a new technology if you are surrounded by it in all walks of life.

Lucky generation

I am 23 years old but I realize that in modern age the generation gap is lesser. The kids of this generation are quite lucky. When we were in school, we had not heard of the internet, today’s kids can use (or misuse) the net to do projects and what not.

I remember I paid around 350 rupees in 1999 to purchase “Catch-22” from Premier bookstore on Church Street, last month while shopping in Jayanagar, I asked a roadside book vendor the price of “Catch-22” and he said 75 rupees (negotiable)!! Knowledge is virtually free today.

On Television all that we could watch was “Street Hawk”, “Giant Robot” etc etc today we have Discovery, Animal Planet, National Geographic, The History Channel!!
Talk about a lucky generation of kids.

So True…

“Well, time cures hearts of tenderness, and now, I can let her go…”
-Thomas Hardy, Wessex Heights

Song that is playing in my mind….

"Soona soona Mann ka aangan…"
from Parineeta, what a beautiful song, have been singing it for the entire week.

Nice foreword

Elizabeth Massie, introduces “The Hunchback of Notre Dam” with a nice foreword, that ends “ That his (Quasimodo’s) love will never be returned is not only his tragedy, but the tragedy of all mankind”

What I did on Saturday…

Its 8pm…and I

Designed a calendar for the New Year and got just 10 copies of it made, so this one is going to be a collector’s item.

Watched “Confidence” an average movie about a group of con-men

Watched India rout Sri-lanka in the Final ODI

Surfed the net for around 2 hrs.

Started reading “The Hunchback of Notre Dam”

Sang along with songs for about an Hour (I love doing this :) )

Who says there is nothing to do on a Saturday??

Weekends are boring??

A couple of colleagues of mine surprised me by saying that they find weekends boring!! Since they have nothing to do!! (They seem to miss the point that weekends are the days for doing nothing). When I told them I enjoy weekends, one of them tells me “but you have soooo many friends” (!) I have no response to this, I did not go explaining that usually on Saturdays, I prefer being alone, with my thoughts, I do not get bored being alone, I enjoy my company :)

Blog I came across

I came across a wonderful blog, that does spoof reviews. hilarious. visit Rewhews. and do not forget to check out the review of 'D'. ROTFL.

Word of the day

I have just added a "word of the day" in the side bar, this displays a word everyday, and I have noticed that the word usually is related to what is happening to me that day. For example today afternoon I have a very important meeting and surprise surprise the Word of the day is Caucus:A meeting. intresting isn't it??

Little Miss Muffet- Uncut version

This is Hilarious, I found this in a wonderful comic strip called 'Pearls Before Swine' by Stephan Pastis.

Little miss muffet
Sat on a tuffet;
eating her curds and whey
along came a spider
who sat down beside her
and frightened miss muffet away

Then Muffet went back
and checked her gun rack;
grabbing a .357 finding the spider
she sat down beside her
and blew that poor sucker away

Mysore trip

My cousin's are down from Bombay and we went to Mysore, during the weekend. It was a good trip, Some of the inner circle joined in too.... Here are some images.

Home they brought her warrior dead...

I first read this poem in school, and even at that time it had an effect on me, this is a good one

Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

More....

Memorable lines...

Footfalls echo in the memory,

down the passage

which we did not take,

towards the door

we never opened

- T. S. Eliot

Reading now…

I have three books lined up:

The Anderson Tapes - Lawrence Sanders: Some real crime narrated by means of taped conversations, interesting concept, but, not too great.

The Hunchback of Notre-dam – Victor Hugo: We all know what this one is about, looking forward to read this unabridged edition.

The Dead of Jericho - Colin Dexter: Another inspector Morse mystery I cannot wait to get my hands on :)

All in all will make for pretty interesting reading I suppose.

Magic of Movies

You have got to admit it. Movies are magical. Here are a few magical moments that I remember best from movies

- When I saw the first ‘Real’ dinosaurs in Jurassic Park

- The magic that Johnny Depp weaved in and as “Edward Scissorhands”

- When Rajesh Khanna sang “Kahin door jab din dhal jaye…” in “Anand”

- Nicole Kidman’s sheer brilliance in “The Others”

- Tim Robbins’ character in “The Shawshank Redemption”

- Tom Hanks’ performance in “Forrest Gump”

- The Scene from “City lights” where the girl realizes that Charlie Chaplin is the man who helped her regain eyesight

- Or Charlie Chaplin as Hitler, playing with an Earth like ball in “The Great Dictator”.

- On Watching “Animals are beautiful people” in the Theater at a time when Animal Planet and Discovery channel were unheard of.

- The scene from Swades where SRK buys water to drink from a small boy on the train
station.

Well, these were just a few of them and I am sure to have missed out on quite a few. How about your magical moments??

Festival Season

I feel it in my fingers; I feel it in my toes, that Diwali is all around me and that’s how the feeling goes!!
There is something about festivals. Especially the festival of lights, It’s a wonderful feeling, be it the delicious Diwali food that mom makes, the smell of crackers in the air, the festive spirit all around, the fun of get-togethers, the greeting cards that we send and receive…just about everything is special.
Three Cheers for Diwali and for all festivals in general.

Holidays...

I had around 9 days off!! Couple of days taken off and the rest a mixture of Optional and Public holidays :) and I was not complaining.Well the holiday started extremely badly, as I seemed to have symptoms of Gastro Enteritis, was violently ill for the first 16 odd hrs of my vacation. Fortunately it was a false alarm, being just mild food poisoning. Well anyway I enjoyed my holidays, and so all’s well that end’s well.

Check-Mate

Well I confess i am not good at Chess, but then I was beaten twice back to back by my 14 year old cousin !!

I was impressed by the moves and taken aback at how easy it really is to beat me. So people if you have a dream of winning at Chess then I would be the one to play against. (Word Games are a different ball game all together though)

A message board !!

I have added a message board onto my Blog, please feel free to start threads on any subject(Keeping sensitivity issues in mind). Its open to all, just put in your concerns, ideas, issues, thoughts, arguments and whatever else you can think of :)

Thanks to Camphor's Blog for the inspiration.

PlayBack Theatre at Ravindra Kalakshetra

Had been to watch a play called “Utsav” performed by “Yours Truly Theatre”. It is a very innovative concept, basically the play is impromptu, The audience is involved, and the actors on stage perform the stories narrated by the audience, thus you tell out an incident or a story in your life and the performance happens on stage based on your narration. Was wonderful to watch. Planning to attend a workshop on this style of spontaneous theatre.

A Mad Saturday

Well you can take me out of mad-ads but you cannot take mad-ads out of me :)
Rajiv Mathew and I were the judges at BioSken a biotech fest in RV College of Engineering. The crowd was good and the teams on stage were excellent. Brilliant quality of Mad-ads makes judging them a joy.Enjoyed myself thoroughly. Awesome.

“Brando, The King and I and The Catcher in the Rye”

Yeah, I read “The Catcher in the Rye”, I must say I liked it. At some parts, it had me laughing uncontrollably, it was good to read a book that genuinely makes one laugh, (unlike the crappy stuff that “Douglas Adams” writes), anyway, Salinger’s style of writing reminds me so much of Joseph Heller’s masterpiece “Catch-22”. Both these guys were one hit wonders. I mean, writing a book like “The Catcher in the Rye” or “Catch-22” is like digging a hole for yourself, people will begin to expect a lot from you and obviously you fail to deliver.

Other similarities are, both the titles have the word “Catch” in them; the leading characters Yossarian and Holden Caulfield are rebels, who contradict themselves a lot.

Anyone who has read both the books care to point out any more similarities??

What Classic Movie am I?

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Thanks to Amit for the Link

Name Like an Egyptian !!

My name using Egyptian Hieroglyphs!




Get yours !!

Sar utha ke piyo....The new Coke Ad

Well, we thought we had seen it all, people using humor, subtle use of brand colors, associating a brand with a feeling-like victory, Joy and what not- but coke has come up with a new ad that plays on the "pride" Factor. Associates the manner in which a person would drink coke (with their heads up), with pride. Its a wonderful and innovative ad, creativity to move away from cliches.

Book I "read"

Attempted to read "Franny and Zooey" by J.D Salinger, one would have expected an author of Salinger's capability to do better, I ended up, throwing the book away in disgust.

regarding the book I would only like to quote W.S Gilbert from The Mikado

"Merely corroborative detail, to add artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative"

My Favorite Fictional characters

Well the Colin dexter post got me thinking of who my fav. fictional characters were and I have come up with a top of the mind list.

-Sherlock Holmes
-Hercule Poirot
-Father Brown
-Characters from the DiscWorld series of novels eg. Death, Cut-me own throat Dibbler etc.
-Inspector Morse
-Roark, Fountain Head

I have limited myself to books, movies may follow later. Do let me know your favs.


Note: A friend pointed out that the word "fictional" does not exist and "fictitious" is the word I was looking for in the title, Dear friend I point out to you, that "fictional" is a word in the English Language, Please refer to FICTIONAL.
Also the word "fictitious" is used in the context of fabricating a name. Like in "he took up a ficticious name and conned the old lady"

Just Brilliant

________________________

Thoughts Of Phena

- Thomas Hardy

________________________

Not a line of her writing have I

Not a thread of her hair,

No mark of her late time as dame in her dwelling, whereby

I may picture her there;

And in vain do I urge my unsight

To conceive my lost prize At her close,

whom I knew when her dreams were upbrimming with light

More....

Books by Colin Dexter

Colin Dexter is the creator of 'Inspector Morse' and his sidekick 'Sarge Lewis', Morse is a beer guzzling middle aged detective, who loves solving crossword puzzles in the Times'.

The brilliance of Colin Dexter is, that reading his novel makes one feel like actually solving a crossword puzzle, I am a big fan of his style of writing and recently purchased a 'Inspector morse Omnibus', reading which i spent a wonderful weekend.

Nothing better than reading Colin Dexter and sipping unlimited cups of coffee :)

Do read if you get the opportunity.

Do you hate Ganguly??

Are you one among the millions who hate ganguly and are frustrated at not being able to find the right forum to vent your feelings :)

Join me and lots of others at I HATE GANGULY

Songs I recommend

Akon - Lonely (totally cool)

Enya- May it Be

Naam Ada Likhna - Yahaan (Listening to this one right now)

Chandan Sa Badan - Anupam Amod Remix

Punctuality

Well I seem to have become punctual, and now something I cannot tolerate is people coming in late. Especially if I have to meet someone on a weekend (and I consider weekend time really precious) I really get irritated when they turn up late, its been the case from the past few weekends.

So the resolution is I give 10 mins lee-way and then LEAVE.

Simple solution, no respect for people who do not respect my time.

Weekend Get-together

Finally got together with some MBA classmates, it was good fun, must do more of this. Went shopping with a couple of chicks and that was a BIIIIG mistake, I dont know how I got talked into that, whew!! managed to save the day by spending the evening with the Boyz. All in all got to meet lots of people, Which is good :)

Movies I watched

ROBOTS: Well a movie that was recommended by a lot of people, I watched it, but cannot say I loved it, It was Ok parts of it were really funny, like the climatic Robotic dance and all that. But though this one had more plot than say Madagascar, It is one Animation movie that is forgettable. 5/10

TREMORS: I watched this with the apprehension that I may be watchin one more creature feature that is rotten, like Godzilla V/S King Kong and all that crap. But I was plesantly surprised, this one about huge worm like burrowing creatures that grab people and are called "Graboids" was a good movie. unbelieveable? Believe it !!. 7/10

Sites of the week

Some good places to get latest news views and funny stuff:

1) BESTWEEKEVER

2) THE SALON

3) FARK

Writers Block??

Well lots of things that i would like to write, but somehow nothing coming to my mind right now, Why the lethargy?? I have no idea. Its ironic That one has to write about writers block !!

Its a boring thursday, I rarely get bored but this seems one of those weekdays. yawn yawn yawn

Do you wanna do a contract killing?

Just visit this partly hilarious, partly creepy site and give a contract to kill!! Talk to the HITMAN

Dont miss this one

Google Earth

This is a super cool application, visit Google Earth, download the application and you can see the latest sattelite pictures of your city !! I you can even zoom in to a particular street, I was able to identify my house, Try finding out yours. Reall Awesome. I am awe-struck

Play at the Ranga Shankara

On Saturday evening I had been to the Ranga Shankara with a couple of friends to watch a play called “The Dreams of Tipu” written by Girish Karnad and directed by Arundathi Raja, I enjoy going to Ranga Shankara simple because the stage is wonderful.The play was well made and I quite enjoyed it. Must make it a point to watch good plays.

Book I last read: THE ALCHEMIST

Ok, so I think it is a decent book, but not a book worthy to be called one of the best books and all that.
I really hate, what is called “The Emperor clothes” effect, I see it everywhere. One person says a book, play or movie is good and the entire dumb populace nods their head in unison and talk about what a masterpiece it is. CRAP!! I am not scared to say that the Emperor is waltzing around town naked. Why don’t people have their own likes and dislikes??

Is Bangalore Committing Suicide??

Well it sure looks like it. I have been in Bangalore for over 20 yrs now and can call myself a Bangalorean. Hence it gives me great pain in saying that the city seems to be committing suicide.
Lets accept it Bangalore has an infrastructure problem. The roads are in pathetic condition and traffic snarls are a norm.

Well to be fair, I feel that the growth that the city has experienced over the past 5 years has been too rapid and this means that the government has been caught unawares and the infrastructure growth has not been able to match up to the economic growth.
There is no question that this economic growth has been mainly due to IT. Today when the same IT companies are rightfully demanding better roads and infrastructure facilities, they are just voicing the demands of the citizens.

But what does the government do? Instead of accepting that there is a problem, they make plans to build metro rails and flyovers. Now given past experience, flyovers have done nothing to improve the traffic congestion.
The so-called Patriots are demanding that IT companies must give a quota of jobs to Kannadigas, I am sorry but this demand is sheer NONSENSE. Demand jobs on basis of merit not on basis of place of birth!! Instead of progressing we are Regressing.

The Solution: DO NOT LOOK A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH, today Bangalore is a prosperous city, tomorrow if the IT companies decide not invest in Bangalore anymore, the city will wither and die.
Accept there is a traffic problem, work on short term plans to improve the traffic issues, cutting trees is not acceptable.

We can just hope that this sorry state of affairs does not continue. I hope someone can stop this beautiful city from committing suicide.

All the old TV series

Well I was just thinking about all those TV series of the late 80's and early 90's that I used to so love watching.....I wonder if any of you watched these. Now that I look back at them, I find some classics and some average ones. Here is the list of my favorite ones(click on the links to refresh your memory)

Remington Steele: This one was about a reluctant detective played by none other than Pierce Brosnan. It was awesome

Street Hawk: Who does'nt remember "The man, The Machine".

The Wonder Years: Sheer brilliance

Doogie Howser MD: A genius teenager who is already a doctor. Nice one

The Fall Guy: About a movie stuntman, who takes up side jobs as a bounty hunter.

Byomkesh Bakshi: A Hindi version of Sherlock Holmes. Set in Calcutta, this one was a brilliant detective series.

Boy Meets World: About a kid growing up. Average to good.

Discovery of India(Bharat Ek Khoj): History of India based on a book by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru

Fauji: Sharukh Khan as a Wannabe soldier. Nice.

Turning Point: A series on science, anchored by Mahesh Bhat.

Surabhi: No intro needed for this brilliant program.

Ramayan: the Mythological series that made a breakthrough in the way Serials were made in India.

Whew !! this is some of what I used to watch on the idiot box, Do you remember some others that I may have missed out?? Do let me know.

Other Movies

Watched

Arahaan:The ultimate power - A Kung-fu movie,What a bad movie. It really sucked :( Plus it did not help that it was dubbed into English in a nIndian accent.

Red Eye: A pretty good movie I enjoyed this one. A well made thriller by Wes Craven

Salaam Namaste

Well this movie deserves a separate posting....and why?? because it is the most pathetic Hindi movie made in recent times. I had vowed never to watch this one, cos i had a bad feeling about it. But I was forced to go and watch it.

The only and the operative word is ONLY good thing about the movie was Javed Jaffery and his dialogues like "when in Rome, do Romans" delivered in a bihari turned crocodile dundee ishstyle.

Bad idea to watch this one.

Back from my trip

Well I am back after a week at my native place, it was fun going there for the festival :) the weather was awesome initially but later the rains came, however this did not dampen the spirit of the festival.Staying up at nights singing bhajans, and those inspiring aartis was real fun.

The one thing that really hit me though was lack of English reading material, not having a book by my side really makes me uncomfortable and here I was with Marathi newspapers (I can read marathi but reading a newspaper in Marathi is not the same like an English daily)

There was Tv but no mood to watch it. So have made a mental note to myself to take lots of reading material next time.Overall an good break from work and the city,i am back refreshed and raring to go.

Cricket team

Yippee I am in the company cricket team !! Looking forward to play cricket after a long time again. Am sure its going to be as much fun as before.

Sin City: Graphic Novels

Just got the Sin City Graphic novel collection. Its brilliant, a cult classic and the best part is that the movie is so loyal to the comic, none of the dialogues are changed and most of the scenes are straight out of the comic book. The comics are in balck and white and this makes it look really great.
This collection is a must have and a must read. Check it out.

WANNA SEE SOMETHING INTERESTING??

Obviously you do...... so go ahead and click on APOORV

WE DID'NT START THE FIRE

Recently in his Blog Jive, mentioned Billy Joel's "We did'nt start the fire"..........So we planned to make an Indian version of the song. I found this site that has the original song with pictures!!

Its awesome....check it out now. Click on BILLY JOEL to go.....

Off to my native place

Hurray!! I have taken a week off from work and am visiting my native place, for Ganesh Chathurthi. This is exciting to me because the last time I visited my native place for t he festival was way back in 4th grade. Though everyone is now settled in Bombay, its an occasion to visit our roots, and gather back at our nativeplace.

My native is a place called SawantWadi. Its a beautiful town in Maharastra, and very close to Goa (2hrs away).

Looking forward to this trip :)

MADAGASCAR

I watched this movie on saturday, and am plannin to watch it again today!! It is the first time that I am watching a movie twice in the theatres.Watched in PVR the first time and gonna watch it in INOX now!!



Its an awesome movie.....do not miss this one people. i wonder why the ratings are low, but the movie has done well and the soundtrack rocks.......its brilliant.
GO WATCH IT NOW!!

Movies I recently watched

100 Girls: I thought this movie was average.....Humor was forced into it in places where it should have come naturally. Dissapointing movie given the fact that it starts off in an interesting manner.

Girl next door: Again in the genre of American Pie movies......but this one i liked. It has a sucker punch twist. Definitely watchable.Above Average

The Untouchables: Brilliant!! given that this is inspired by a true incident, this movie rocks.It is one of the best Mob movies made.It has a solid cast that includes Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia and Robert De niro as the dreaded Al Capone.This is a story of 4 guys who want to end the mob menace and form a group that is untouchable, no fear, no bribery...just a mission. 4 ppl against a formidable Al Capone gang. Kevin Costner has all the good lines and he carries the movie on his shouler with Elan.

Songs in my Head....

Bhaware ki Gunjan Hai mera dil.....
Ajeeb Dastaan hai yeh....
Chandan sa badan....
Dooba Dooba (this one has forever been in my head, as my friends will tell you)

Some Kodak Moments

DA TRIP

On August 12th I was looking at a 3 day long weekend without any well defined plans as to how I was gonna spend it......

A few phone calls later, I was looking at a 2 day Mangalore trip :) Few More hurried phone calls to a couple of contacts got us Volvo Tickets for sat night(a miracle considering virtually everyone was heading out of town !!)

So there were five of us Dilip, Raj, Santosh Naveen and I out on a trip that was decided on at the last minute.

Boy was it fun.....We stayed at Taccode, hired a car to take us around, Went to a newly constructed Water Park called "Manasa" at PiliKula, Got to Mangalore, Moodbidri, The Krishna Temple at Udipi, watched the sunset at Malpe Beach, visited a nearby river and had long walks in the greenery;We were worried that the rains may play spoil sport, but it complemented the trip by ensuring a cool atmosphere and varied hues and shades of green all around us !!

The Journey back to Blore was exciting as well, as a tree fell on the highway and we were stranded for over an hour, chatting with co-passengers, shouting at vehicles that were compunding the Jam,Sipping hot cups of tea from a nearby tea stall (Lucky for us) and enjoying every moment of it !!

Photos of the trip to be posted soon....Watch this spot.

Connecting People

There are so many things that we take for granted.8-10 years ago, Phones were not the norm.....if friends had to meet up, say for a movie, it had to be decided long in advance, where they would meet etc etc.The phone came and exchanging notes and important questions on the eve of exams became easier. One could call a friend and speak to him/her or leave a message or get information: "Aunty has he left already...well we have been waiting since the past one hour and yet no sign of him".I got my first cell phone a couple of years ago, I had never felt the need for it until then. Today, there are no plans made in advance....."lets meet this weekend" is all that neds to be said, nobody amongst us bothers to ask where when how what ????Suffice to know that all of us are connected with mobile communication devices and can accomodate last minute changes. I wonder whether we will survive if all of a sudden one day these small things taken for granted by us, are taken away from us.

Currently reading....

1421: The year China Discovered the World. - Gavin Menzies

Its a history lesson of types. It gives evidence on how Chinese were the first to chart the oceans of the Earth and discover countries long before Christopher Colombus even set sail.Its an exhaustively researched book and has its own website as well. A really interesting read. visit the link to find out more.
I am enjoyin the book immensely.

Graduation Day

Well I am an MBA now :) Mixed feeling about my Grad day. The event in itself was good. Performed Mad-Ads and a crazy dance that was fun. The Bad part was that I freaking lost my Cell Phone in college :( that really sucks and is a bad end to 7 yrs of Christ college. So ppl hang on for a few days till I get a duplicate SIM and a handset. Till then using my old number.

Awesome Movies

This weekend I was lucky enough to have time to grab two movies that I have wanted to watch all along....
The Shawshank Redemption and Italian Job.
All I can say is that Shawshank Redemption is one of the most powerful movie I have ever watched. Its absolutely brilliant, no wonder IMDB rates it the 2nd best movie ever made !!
Italian Job is awesome too, but compared to Shawshank Redemption not much.
Both movies are must watch.

No Payne, No Gain.

Some of my Favorite Max Payne Dialogues are....

B.B.: You can't win this one, Max.
Max Payne: Maybe, but I can make damn sure none of you do either

Max Payne: You'd find lady luck was a hooker and you were all out of money.

Max Payne: [narrating] The cardinal rule in going after someone with an intention to kill was no to make it personal... Which it almost always ended up being anyway. It did with me.

Max Payne: When darkness fell, New York City became something else. Bad things happen in the night, on the streets of that other city. Noir York City.

Max Payne: They were all dead. The final gunshot was an exclamation mark on everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the trigger, and it was over.

The Best drink !!

H₂O Rocks

Somethin that made me go hmmmm.....

"Human beings have intrinsic value, not just instrumental value", so though symbiotic relationships go a long way, I figure that just calling a person your friend bcos he/she will help you in acheiving an end sucks big time.

unfortunately see many people around who seem to be in 'use and throw' relationships, Losers!!

And I wonder...

I wonder How,
I wonder Why,
Yesterday you told me 'bout the Blue blue Sky,
But all that I can see
Is just another Lemon Tree !!

Something new...

I am attempting to create my own Blog template.... started by changing(temporarily) the Black Background to Dark Grey....do give me feedback on whether the present Grey is good or the original black was better, I am in two minds.

THE ROAD TRIP !!

Well, the gang went on a crazy road trip on Sunday......It was tiring but there were moments of fun as well (as you can see from the snap). Ended the day with a game of cricket and some fun filled carrom, Now thats wat I call the perfect way to spend a sunday !!

To Sir, With Love

Oh.....I recommend this book, definite must read. The different emotions this book takes you through is amazin. I had a lesson of about 4 pages back in school about this book, however it was in a condensed form(obviously).

I have a copy of it, so you can borrow it from me.

Now that i have read the book, I so do wanna watch the Movie starring Sidney Poitier.

Shakespeare in Love

This is a real nice movie...the humor is simply amazing but the best part was this dialogue....something that Ihave been following as one of my life's philosophy's, I was surprised to see it in this movie and that too put in an amazing way....Here it is

Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?
Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Hugh Fennyman: How?
Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.

Software Usability

Basically this means developing software that is user friendly. Now using this need not be limited to High end or huge Software projects. We can use them in our blog pages etc

Check out this wonderful link for stuff on making web pages userfriendly

I Recommend

This week I recommend

Watch movie = "Bad Santa"
Song = "Ruby Tuesday" by the Rolling Stones

Read 200 newspapers from over 55 countries

Yeah....visit this place and you can read lots of newspapers from 55 countries....its really awesome. For news and views click HERE

Blossoms

"Blossoms" is a wonderful bookshop on church street opposite "Amoeba". Its a great place to spend hours amongst books....all kinds of books. The best part is they are second hand, this means that one can buy more books for a given budget. Give it a try.

I just Finished reading
"Fevre Dream" by George Martin and
"Wheels" by Arthur Hailey

Presently reading
"Detective"By Arthur Hailey

To read next...
"To Sir, With Love" By E.R. Braithewaite

Clarke's Law of Revolutionary Ideas

Every revolutionary idea -- in Science, Politics, Art or Whatever -- evokes three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the three phrases:
"It is completely impossible -- don't waste my time."
"It is possible, but it is not worth doing."
"I said it was a good idea all along."

I just found a place where all of Murphy's laws reside...Click on LAWS to go and Enjoy maadi

Golden Palms

A weekend spent at the Golden Palms has ironically left me exhausted for the remaining week.....were'nt weekends away supposed to rejuvenate one?? The place is wonderful....just breathtaking. The best part being the pool....easily the largest pool I have been in. And what is it that got me so exhausted.....3 hours on the dance floor, lots of snooker, a very tiring game of cricket(played after a long time), lots of table tennis and last but not the least the best part of all an awesome game of waterpolo that lasted 2 full hours....whew !!

The Rain God's smile

Sitting by the huge windows of my office on the 6th floor of Diamond District overlooking a busy Airport road has been a fond pastime of mine, the vehicles that line up at the signal actually look like the bricks falling into slots like in those hand held videogames that were the rage when I was back in the tenth standard.

Today is special as its been raining heavily!! With a steaming cup of coffee in my hand I spent 15-20mins just looking at the rain drenched city below, wonderful, the only thing missing was soft Kishore Kumar songs playing in the background.

Thoughroughly enjoyable...It does'nt rain here, it comes pouring down !!

QUOTE

TO DREAM ABOUT THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE IS WASTING OF THE PERSON YOU ARE !!

Talk the YODA way !!

There are two reasons why i am attracted to the StarWars series of movies.....

REASON ONE

The Light Saber: Awesome piece of weaponary...the sound it makes "Voom Voom",psychedellic

REASON TWO

YODA TALK: The manner in Which Master Yoda speaks is amazin, the use of predicate before the subject is my favorite. Been trying to speak like that, I am. Much to the irritation of my friends.

I believe that in a 2001 census in NewZealand.......5% of the population put down their religion as "Jedi"....Now that is what i call a cult.

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!!

BELIEVE IT OR NOT: This happened to me, promise.

The occurence of this event yesterday, that is on thursday the 19th left me flabbergasted......never have I witnessed such an event before....nor did i think that i was blessed enuf to witness an event of this magnitude !!

There were 5 of us....3 Indians and 2 Firangs, We were waitin for a rick to take us to some Godforsaken place on the outskirts of Whitefield(which in itself is an outskirt).

Most of the Autos that we approached, demanded double fare, however One auto dude (Auto raja in local lingo) agreed to take us to the place, he said he would take all 5 of us for 1.5 times the fare!! so we stuffed ourselves in the confines of the auto and reached our destination after a very bumpy 30 minute ride.

The meter showed 45 rupees, however we guyz were feeling very generous and decided to pay the guy 90 rupees: double the fare.

And here comes the bombshell....the guy REFUSED!! he said that he would not take a rupee over the initially decided amount of 1.5 X 45 = 68 rupees!!

We tried our best to convince him to take 90 rupees and he just refused. finally anti-bargained and reached a amount of 70rupees which he accepted.

NOW HAVE YOU BEEN IN OR HEARD OF SUCH A SITUATION BEFORE??

Kannada Class

Guess what?........(your response: What?)

I am teaching Kannada at office and its fun !!........We are such a diverse group. We have Australians, Canadians, ppl from UK (english), Americans, Mumbaites, ppl from Pune (also called Punekars), ppl from Tamilnadu etc.

MISSION: To learn kannada.

I found some material and gladly took the opportunity to give whatever little gyan I have regarding the language to the gang!!

Its fun to teach such an enthusiastic and bright set of people. And no I am not taking this as an opportunity to teach them any slang ;)

BEST OF DILBERT

I DON'T HAVE AN ATTITUDE PROBLEM, YOU HAVE A PERCEPTION PROBLEM.

Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky, and I thought to
myself, "where the heck is the ceiling?"

On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.

I don't suffer from stress. I am a carrier.

A pat on the back is only a few inches from a kick in the butt.

If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

When everything is coming your way......you're in the wrong lane.

And my favorite one is.......

Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.

STICK FIGHTER GAME !!

This one is a super awesome game!! just amazing fun. I spent hours playin this one.

Enjoy maadi

PLAY GAME

AWESOME ANIMATED GAME

THIS is awesome....take some time to look at the sketches as well. Click on GAME to play !!

A BALL GAME YOU ALL WILL ENJOY

If you are wondering where i get these sites that I have been recently uploading, Stop wondering and just enjoy this game!!

GO TO THE GAME

TRY TO GET OUT OF THIS ROOM !!

You are in a ROOM. Try and Find a way out. Its nice.
ENTER THE ROOM

Last book I read:"WIT'CH FIRE"- John Clemens

Genre: Fantasy

I liked this one....this book is the first book in the series of the "The Banned and the Banished". Like the tradition....the first book normally starts with a legion being formed. (Remember "Lord of the rings:Fellowship of the rings"? where a group/fellowship is formed to protect the ring).....so too in this novel. A legion/group is formed to protect "Elena" the little girl who wields "Magick". The Legion consists of "TolChuk" an Ogre. "Meric" an Elvin. "Neelahn" a Tree nymph. "Kral" an axe wielding mountain man. "Mogweed" and "Fardale" both Silura or ShapeShifters. "Erril" a mighty one armed warrior destined to protect "Elena" from the Dark Lord of GulGotha. And so the journey of magick begins in "Wit'chFire".

World of books

Its a beautiful place....no matter how tensed or sad I am. When I immerse myself in a book its like being transported to a whole new world. I momentarily forget the real world and just enjoy travelling through the story with the characters. I am sure my fellow travellers in the world of books experience the same. Its much better than watchin a movie !!Reading a book is the most beautiful addiction.

My favorite characters in movies

1. Rajesh Khanna in "Anand"(Joy)
2. Johnny Depp in "Edward Scissorhands"
3. Sean Penn in "I am Sam"
4. The Kid in "Bad Santa"
5. Maria Tomsei in "My cousin Vinny"
6. Tom Hanks "Forrest Gump"
7. Anant Nag in "Beladingala Baley" (Moonlight Maiden)
8. Nicole Kidman in "The Others"
9. Mel Gibson in "Payback"
10. Anthony Hopkins in "Silence of the Lambs"

These were my favorite......do post in your favorite characters.

I am Sam V/S Main Aisa Kyon Hoon

Pathetic actor Ajay Devgan is attempting Sean Penn's role as a mentally retarted father trying to win back the custody of his daughter after his wife deserts him in " Main Aisa Kyon Hoon" all I can say is "yeh hindi movies Aise kyon Hain?"....I dont understand why these Film makers have to get "inspired" by hollywood movies. Sean Penn's Character in "I am Sam" was easily one of the best performances by an actor. Ajay Devgan will make a fool of himself on the silver screen.

TITANIC in 30 Seconds

Now isnt this interesting?
The Bunnies look very funny

SOMETHING TO KEEP YOU AMUSED FOR AGES.

This is fun. Click on the stone man,The penguin drops. Click on the dude again to hit the penguin and watch it fly....hehehe

Click PENGUIN to go

http://n.ethz.ch/student/mkos/pinguin.swf

Lateral Thinking

Saw this one in the now common Lateral thinking Mails


ababaaabbbbaaaabbbbababaabbaaabbbb....


It means:

long time no 'C' (see)

Me thinks this is nice.

The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe

I SAW SAW, DID YOU SEE SAW?

I watched a couple of movies a friend recommended...
* Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle
* SAW

The first one is a nice little comedy, quite enjoyable...however it was the second one I had been looking forward to watching, Having heard rave reviews about it...and here is my review.
If you like the Psycho thriller Genre, then this movie is definitely worth watching. However dont expect a classic like say "Silence of the Lambs"....but I can bet you will get more than you bargained for, this is a movie that will impress you, bcos it is "Different"...go rent a video and watch it.

Check the link for review

Latest novel read: Douglas Adams- "Dirk Gently's holistic Detective Agency"

BAD....Douglas Adams (HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy) is a highly overrated writer.... I cannot believe people actually find his books funny....This one did not even get a smirk out of me.....Terry Pratchett is the guy for me.....Learn from How to write funny, humorous stuff from Terry Pratchett, Mr. Douglas Adams.

DONT EVER WATCH THESE MOVIES !!

Well this is so that you people can learn from my mistakes !!I made the mistake of watching the following movies....do not repeat this mistake.

• Zoolander - Pathetic movie featuring Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson. Actually all Ben Stiller movies are pathetic but this one really takes the cake.

• Crazy Joe aka. Dead Center - just dont think about it.

• Ghosts of Mars - the lesser said the better.

• The Thing - Dont ask me why i watched this movie....it was on cable, its about this statue that comes to life and starts killing people. Its an Old movie so obviously no Special FX and thus a dude takes up the role of "THING". Its as weird as it sounds.

• Out for a Kill - Steven Segal. This is by far the worst movie ever.There is no story and nothing, if you dont believe me go watch it.

LaZY sATuRdAy

Its been a very lazy saturday for me, did absolutely nothing.....other than watch a couple of movies on the TV and sleep.....But then thats what weekends are for RIGHT???

Destiny???

"I met destiny on the road I took in a way to avoid it".....this has been one of my all time fav. quotes.

I never thought it would be applicable to me atleast not in a manner that I would notice it.

2 years of MBA I used all the tricks in the book and all the permutatoins & combinations available to avoid Finance subjects like the plague, and I ws extremely successful....today as I sit in my office as a Business Analyst for a financial software.....I can only wryly think of the quote.

I ran from finance only to land up in a finace kind of job(not core finance). However I am enjoying it so far( and I am not saying this to reduce Cognitive Dissonance !!, I am really enjoying it).

Auto-Rickshaws

Man....the subject about experiences in autos of Bangalore(self proclaimed "kings" of the roads) is one that has been squeezed dry.
However I too have been scarred and scared by several auto experiences, the one that remains fresh in my mind is when this auto guy decided to go against the system and ripped at 50kmph against the one way traffic on an apology for a road, which did not have street lights!!
whew lucky to have escaped unscathed from that one.
There are other enthusiastic Auto drivers who seem more intent on interrogating me on the "Bombat"(colloquial lingo for superb) perfume I am wearing or on the cost of cellphones rather than concentrating on driving....however I prefer the latter to the former drivers with murderous intent who seem to be on a mission to "KillBill"
(In this case me donning the role of the unfortunate Bill)

Heavy Team Lunch !!

Had been to a team lunch to BOMBAY POST. The food is great....but the variety of dishes are never ending. Good place to go, but be sure you dont eat anything three days prior to going there, else you wont do justice to the food. Very heavy on the pockets as well...so beware before you enter. Its a lovely place though with old Hindi songs playing in the background.
check out the link for more details.
Right now am drowzy with so much food in me......gotta fight this....gotta get back to work !!

Of Hairpin Bends and Jalebi Turns

On a recent trip, We had to pass through a ghat section. and a friend of mine referred to the Hairpin curves there as "Jalebi" turns....An amusing way to describe the turns,since they so resemble the "Jalebi" (an Indian sweet)

INDIAN SIMPSONS?: SINGHSONS

I am a huge fan of the Simpsons....and here is something more close to home....Our very own version of the Simpsons......Presenting the SINGHSONS
Enjoy Maadi

THE TRIP TO SANGAM

JUNGLE SONG

Wow, this Jungle Song brings back memories of a freshers party that we had thrown to our juniors in Final Year Degree....the theme of the party was "Jungle" and we sang this very song, acoustics and all.

Man the fun we had was awesome.

well, Bas Yaadein Reh jaati hain.

Click on : http://www.pasa.ch/ASA/Pages/PoPo/fun.htm for the song

The second trip

I spent the weekend at a place called "Sangam"...which, like the name suggests is the confluence of two rivers (Cauvery and Arkavathy). It is about 100 kms away from Bangalore...Also visited a place called "Chunchi Falls". These falls are just amazing...it is not yet a popular tourist spot and they are like wild falls that you come upon all of a sudden. Shall post the photos soon...Awesome way to spend the weekend...was swimming in the river for almost 5 hours !!, the result?? a very bad sunburn that has left my face raw.
I seem to be making the bad habit of getting sunburnt every weekend, at this rate thre will be no skin left on my face to get sunburnt...hmmmmm.

May try some other getaways in the following weekends...you are wecome to join.

Snapshot at Hogenekal

other photos

Give me some FREE MINDS !!

For all ye people who have too much on their minds and are unable to grasp the big picture, due to the muddle in your minds. Here comes a software solution thats "free".

This is a mind mapping software ( dont worry its not gonna hypnotise you, niether is it an alien conspiracy to control your minds) , that would help you to just put down everything that is in your mind, onto a software...that will logically arrange your thoughts, It is not as difficult as it sounds.......interested???

Check it out

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

aWEsoME SeaRcH enGiNe

Well for all you fans of Yahoo and Google....who want to be faithful to both the searches, this is the perfect Search Engine.
ClIcK MaAdI

http://yagoohoogle.com/

THE TRIP: HOGENEKAL FALLS

Hogenekal literally means "Smoking Rocks" in the local dialect.......its a 4 hr drive from B'lore to this awesome place...the 190 km journey is just worth it. It was a gang of 9 that went there and every moment of the trip was a sheer joy. Gonna post snaps as soon as I get them.

Photobucket

This is a test post from Photobucket.com

What I am doing on 1st April, 2005 @2:30 PM

Hmmmm....right now am sittin at office, feeling sleepy after a heavy lunch, Office has been fun so far. However today being a friday I am more in a weekend mood....especially since some friends and I are planning to go off tomorrow on a trip !! looking forward to that.

THE MAN THE MACHINE

In the Indo-Pak Test series. This dude scored
21 runs in the first innings of the first test match
12 runs in the first innings and 12 runs in the second innings of the second test match
having flirted so far with the digits 1 and 2 he decided to follow a new combination !!
1 run in the first innings and 2 runs in the second innings of the third test match

Thats Ganguly for you.

Like the Arab proverb goes.....
" A group of lions led by a sheep will always be defeated by a group of sheep led by a lion"

Right now am listening to "Trying to love two women" by Oak Ridge Boys a Country Classic on LAUNCHcast an internet radio station.

CCIMies....

hehehehe, at the farewell party our juniors came up with this unique award ceremony.....the awards were sarcastically named......you may get a idea of how sarcastic the juniors can get when I say I got the award for the "MOST SERIOUS PERSON"....hehehehehe, me and serious.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win....(Sometimes you find people who help you win)

After the Party

I was just hanging out with friends the entire night after the farewell party and it was so much fun....we never slept and were laughing crazy 80% of the time, just reinforces the fact that I am gonna miss these crazy times and jokes soooooo much.

THE FAREWELL SONG: PURANI JEANS

Hey due to popular request I am putting up the lyrics of the song we sang on Saturday at the farewell party...waiting for boquets or brickbats

PURANI JEANS

Purani tie aur Blazer
Wo apna laptop
Aur mere yaar
Vo raaton ko case likhna
subah phir jakey submit karna
Vo egg puff khanaKiosk mein jaake
Wo so jaana in marketing class.

Pahunchna college hamesha late
Vo kehna sir ka "keep standin in the class!"
Vo bahar jaake hamsha kehna
Yahan ka trimester hi hai kharaab
Vo shiv sagar meincoffee peena
lunchtime mein jaake
Yaaron ke saath

Bas yaadein Yaadein
Yaadein reh jaati hain
Kuchh chhoti Chhoti
Baatein reh jaati hain
Bas yaadein..

Vo CKT Sir ka daantna
Vo Jolly mam ka
fine collect karna
Mad ads mein bas
mazza aata hain
FM class mein apna
time hai kharaab
Vo dil mein sochna
Kar ke kuchh dikha dein
Vo karna project
Roz nayi yaar

Saturday ka vo pehla class
Vo likhna ET Test mein
Answers Jhakas
Vo Reddy Bhai se printout lena
Vo binding karke phir
mentor ko dena
Vo karna current affairs
mein presentation
vo apni fighting
lab attendant ke saath

Bas yaadein Yaadein
Yaadein reh jaati hain
Kuchh chhoti Chhoti
Baatein reh jaati hain
Bas yaadein..

Aisa placements ka
mausam chala
mujhe yakin hai
hum honge kamyab
Kahan meri tie aur Blazer
Wo apna laptopAur mere yaar
Vo raaton ko case likhna
subah phir jakey submit karna

Purani jeans Aur guitar..

How farewell went

The party was pretty good.......we did some Mad-Ads and even sang a song (Purani Jeans), My Mad-Ads team is called "The Usual Suspects"....and on saturday night The usual suspects were in floral shirts and Dhotis !! a sight to watch...hehehehe.
Am gonna miss those people.

TWEETY BIRD?

Has anybody seen a TWEETY "BIRD" ?? I wonder what kind of creature it is? A friend recently referred to it. hehehehe

My first Cricket match in Office

well well i am right out of my first match in office, Am surrounded by laptops and desktops and yet we are managing to play "cricket' in the closed confines of the "floor"

How it went

My first day in office was good,Met my Project manager and my Iteration manager I got a nice machine with a flat screen monitor !! loaded software necessary to use the application and went out to Royal Orchid for lunch with my team. Everyone is helpful, gotta see how it goes.

A BEND IN THE ROAD IS NOT THE END IN THE ROAD UNLESS YOU FAIL TO MAKE THE TURN

First day on the job

I have been in training (BootCamp remember?) for the past 4 weeks and now its time to face the music. Tomorrow March 15th will be my first day on a project. Wish me luck people.

My last Mad Ads

Well its been 4 years since I have been performing on stage, acting totally crazy !! I guess theres a limit to how crazy a guy can be (not for me, but for a normal person). So I guess next saturday at the farewell party, I might be doing my last mad-ads.......Feels sad. I have enjoyed it so much that it has been a way of life for me. Alas now I gotta say Hasta La Vista to it.

Random Lyrics

I am lying alone
with my head on the phone
thinking of you till it hurts........
I know you hurt too
but what else could we do
tormented and torn apart.

Nah its nothing serious just a random lyric that came to my mind

Mark Knopfler Rocks !!

I had been to the Mark Knopfler concert on the 7th of March(ThoughtWorks sponsored tickets worth 2500Rs. each !!).....The music was superb, the dude is a magician with the guitar and he changed like 36 guitars during the 2 hour perfomance!! Other than the expected "sultans..." and "Romeo and Juliet", Mark came up with "Train to Moscow", "Philedelphia" and "So far away from me"....the music sent me in a trance I have yet to wake up from.

BUSH BUILDER ???

hehehehe...this is certainly funny, saw it at a friends blog and decided to blog it too. click on the title and enjoy !!

Narain Karthikeyan

An average F1 driver looses about 4kgs of weight after just one race due to the prolonged exposure to high G forces and temperatures for little over an hour (Yeah thats right!!!)............I wonder how many races it would take for Narain to dissapear, hehehehehe. I am being mean.Wish that the man makes a big name and reputation for himself and our country. Way to Go.

AMAZING PIECE OF ART

Check out the link for an amazing but wierd poece of artwork....wonder how it was done

I know its been quite sometime since I have blogged......in a way this blog is good, friends know that when I am not blogging I am busy...so they dont feel like i am ignoring them.

LOVE/HATE PENDULUM

Harish Bijoor told us about this concept......it does make sense, He says that a person moves from love to hate and vice versa and this happens not only towards products but also towards other people.....Even the love for the person you love most will eventually turn into hate...gradually and this does not happen overnight...rather happens over years...when it comes to love towards people it happens over decades and thus sometimes we live out our lives not being able to complete the entire pendulum.....difficult to explain the concept through words

Hmmmm

So many people running about doing so many important things.....but then how would one define important?? important for whom? if seen one from one direction everything is important....from another view nothing looks important. WHAT ARE WE HERE FOR???
looks like Im just blabbering but then I am not. Think about it.

MY GUIDING PRINCIPLE

Kisi Ki muskurahaton pe ho nissar
Kisi Ka dard mil sakey to ley utha
Kisi vaastey ho tere dil me pyar....
Jeena isi ka naam hai !!

Translate??
Sacrifice yourself for someones smile
lift away someones pain
love someone from deep within your heart
this is whats called LIFE.

Under Suspicion

A Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman movie with a sprinkling of Monica Belluci. What would have been a boring and bad movie is converted into a pretty decent one thanks to the treatment of the ending...The ending did not come as a surprise to me but nevertheless it was well thought out.

Dance Practice at the Leela Palace

If somebody would have told me a week ago that I would be practicing dance moves Bhangra Style at the leela palace....I would have laughed it off...But thats what I did !! Practiced dance with guys and gals from 5 different countries...It was fun, especially looking at the enthusiasm all these people had to do an Indian dance.

XP GAME

XP stands for Xtreme Programming.....this again is a method used at ThoughtWorks, to teach us the concepts behind the game...the presenter made it into a game where we were divided into teams of 6 members each, and given various tasks such as blowing balloons, sorting a pack of cards, throwing dice, making boats etc. These represented small parts of the project.We first had to act like the developers and give an time estimate for doing each task...then we had to play the role of a customer and prioritize the tasks, back to developer and do the tasks and see how well our estimated and actual times were.......We learnt a lot of concepts doing this, and we also started appreciating how the customer thinks. SO FAR THE BEST SESSION IN THE BOOTCAMP.

Waterfall to Agile

Agile is a Software development methodology that ThoughtWorks uses. We had a session on the shift from Waterfall method to Agile by a guy called Fred George...he has years and years of programming experience, can program in 60 different computer languages !! and was one of the guys that helped develop the Waterfall Model...now thats MindBlowing

RSP-ROCK SCISSORS PAPER

Hehehehe this is one of the methods thats used at the boot camp when a decison has to be made as to who will have to be at a disadvantage....something like the "Claps" that we guys used while playing hide and seek or other such games....We even have a standard on throwing R, S or P. Cool

FISH BOWL

This is a technique I learnt at the boot camp....its an amazing brainstorming method where four people sit at a table surrounded by the other members, each gives their view to the problem at hand...once they are done speaking they get up and somebody else replaces them...and so it goes on until all people have put across their views. Good One

THE BOOT CAMP

Impressive.........Truly impressive. The training is held at the Leela Palace, and the course content is superb. Some of the techniques used to teach stuff to us are totally cool...Now I have run out of adjectives to describe it further.

Anne Hathaway...

Me thinks that she is damn cute...wat sez you?
I watched her in "Ella Enchanted" and "Princess Diaries" the other day.

CHALLENGING

The "Boot Camp" is what the Thought Workers call training...as the name suggests its gonna be rigorous. But thats alright I have gone thru 12hrs/6days a week of rigor back in college, The real challenge is that the intellectual level at the camp is gonna be pretty high.But like I always say...............

BRING IT ON !!

BOOTCAMP ??

Whats a "boot"camp ? Why is training called bootcamp.This one could have two answers.

• The whole process is as tough as a military bootcamp

OR

• The word "Boot" has been used in the computer sense....."Booting a computer"...so it just means initiation.
  Anyways its gonna be fun !!

First Day, First Show !!

My first official day at TWI was on Sunday the 13th of February......I met people from 5 different countries including India. All I can say is that they are a polite and bright lot. Atleast thats the first impression.....I hope to improve it and make a better attempt at classifying the personalities as I go on...ahem Caution!! Freud at Work.

Hey does anybody know the artist of the song that Hutch is using for its latest "Hey We've shrunk your TV !!" ads ?I know its an old song Coz it was in a movie called "Beetlejuice".Somebody....anybody....tell me.

The BIG Book

1074 pages in a small font size !! Man "Atlas Shrugged" is a giant book.Feels good to have read a giant book. But I still find Fountain Head a much better book.

Two More Exams to go.....Have done pretty well so far....lets see. Especially the last one coz I will not have time to study for it.

TRULY CRUEL

I watched a movie called "Intolerable Cruelty", Starring Catherine Zeta jones and George Clooney. Well it really was intolerable cruelty on part of the makers, to make such a movie.Pathetic.Dont Watch It.

THE BEST MARKETING DEFINITION

CUSTOMER KO GARLAND KARO
COMPETITOR KO GOLI MAARO
- Mohan Kuruvilla

Yunh to haseeno kay
Mahajabeeno kay
Hotey hain roz nazaare
Par unhe dekh Kay
Dekha Hai Jab tumhe
Tum Lagey aur bhi Pyaare.....

Bahon me ley loon
aisi tamanna ek nahi
kayi baar hui......

THATS WHATS PLAYING ON WINAMP

RIGHT NOW I AM .........

* Reading "CATCH 22" (for the fifth time)
* Reading "Business Marketing Management" by Hutt and Speh for exams
* Listening to old Hindi Classics
* Blogging
* Playing QuakeIII
* Doing all of the above simultaneously (well almost)
.......BELIEVE IT !!

A WALK TO REMEMBER

I know I must be studying, but some irresistible movies on TV are pulling me away from my books......One of them is the really really beautiful movie called "A walk to remember" when it first started I thought "oh no, its gonna be another American College movie" but what unfolded was a beautiful story. This one gets Four stars out of Five in my book. SUPERB.
I wonder why nowadays I have started to enjoy romantic movies as well......hmmmm must investigate the cause.

ALEX AND EMMA

I never knew Kate Hudson was such a nice actor, having always confused her for Ashley Judd and so it went until I watched "Alex and Emma" its a funny romantic movie, I would say a must watch....but only on video at home.
Cool one for the weekend.

Beautiful Movie

Few weeks ago I had watched Musafir, couple of days ago I watched a movie called "U-turn" which was Musafirs original hollywood version, with Sean Penn Playing the lead role.
Couple of hours later it was time for "I am Sam", its beautiful, just watch Sean Penn act......amazingly touching movie...very well made. Go get it.

Are you calling me a MALL RAT??

Apparently thats the new jargon for people who do window shopping in malls, without buying a thing.
Hmmmmmmm been there and done that lotsa times, so when you window shop in a mall next time, beware, someone might be calling you a rat behind your back.
thought i smelt a rat !!

MY MBA GURUS

My MBA would have been just an ordinary Degree if it were not for these three guys who took time out of their busy work schedules to teach us.

# Mr. Mohan Kuruvilla - Industrial marketing
He made a dry subject such as Industial Marketing into a class we used to look forward to, full of real life anecdotes and totally cooool sense of humor is what this Guru is made up of.

# Mr. Harish Bijoor - Brand Management
I dont need to say anything much about him, the whole world knows him, just go to google and type in his name and you shall get thousands of hits. A world class Brand Guru.

# Dr. Ganesh Raja - Services Marketing
A subject taught to us in the most scheduled and organised fashion, divided into teams and given cases every week to solve and present to the class....the class room used to be converted into a virtual battle field where the team presenting the case used to be bombarded with questions ranging from weird to awe-inspiring. Amazing sessions.

Whats "Friendship" day??

I just had my birthday......I sure see the logic in celebrating birthdays, but could anyone explain to me the logic of celebrating valentines day or even worse "friendship" day???? Huh?
We dont need a day in August to show our friends we care about them, every day has to be one.
Hats off to the companies who devised these marketing gimmicks to make a fast buck out of gullible consumers.

Obituary

A person who introduced me to reading.....someone who showed me the beautiful world of Arthur Conan Doyle and Arthur Hailey.
My Uncle, passed away in January this year.
I still have lots of books that he used to send me all the way from Bombay. I shall truly miss him.

Today I truly realised that Physical distances dont matter between friends.......One of my closest friends is thousands of miles away from me....out in the U.S. and yet we still converse via letters (emails are too impersonal).
I guess its important that the few true friends we make in life should be cherished.

Hmmmmm

I wonder why the evenings are sooooo beautiful when I have exams, is this just a coincidence or is there an intergalactic conspiracy going on.
Oh the world still is a beautiful place to live in. If you dont trust me, spend an hour watching the sunset from your terrace, its an uplifting experience.
If you can have some Kishore Kumar songs playing softly in the background, its closest one can get to Self Actualisation.

Sania Mirza

Ya ya ya....she went where no Indian has gone before and all that, but in an interview later, she went on cribbing about how bad the facilities in India are and all that.
Come on. Here we guys argue all the time in class and debates that how India as a Brand does not have much equity....and these guys like Mirza who could be our brand ambassadors are doing this on International television....what a shame.

I am sooo happy Marat Safin won the Australian Open......Hewitt was behaving pretty arrogantly thru out the tournament.

FRAGS !!
IMPRESSIVE !!
EXCELLENT !!
PERFECT !!
ACCURACY !!

YUP, RIGHT NOW I AM INTO "QUAKE III"

She told me dragons did not exist and then led me to their lair !!

EXAMS......

I am right in the middle of exams....with a couple down and 5 more to go(or like one would say in QUAKE "5 frags left") . Ever since my degree years I have found a way of making exams interesting (well to a certain extent atleast), wat i do is...I look at each paper like a cricket match and a seven paper exam like this one will be a seven match series......Then after the exam I amuse myself by looking at how the pitch played(exam hall), How the bowling attack was (Each section of the paper) etc etc.
BUWUHAHAHAHA....if you are wondering wat kind of weirdo I am, Join the club !!

ThoughtWorks

A recent visit to my future employer, gave me more reasons to look forward to working in that organisation.
At every visit I have noticed that the employees from the security personnel to the topmost guys in the hierarchy are very very polite and courteous, They make you feel comfortable. Great, I thought this was something that happened only in management textbooks under the definition of "Courtesy", great to see this in real life.

What Happens to Customer Feedback Forms??

I recently had to fill in a feedback form for Manipal Hospital during a general health checkup. I just mentioned in the suggestions box that the employees should avoid arguing amongst themselves in front of patients (i
experienced this)....having done so I forgot about it.
However the very next day, The dept. incharge called me up !! and asked me the employees responsible......Thus in that ways, the hospital seems to be actually working on customer feedback.
However they would need to do more than just screaming at the employees.
After all the SERVQUAL dimension of Assurance plays a very important role in the HealthCare Service.

Me and serious...??

Two years of MBA has led me to meet so many people who have aged beyond their years........I wonder why?? I wonder why Guys/Gals in their twenties need to behave like they are 60 yrs old.
I was shocked to see so many people being so serious about their lives........no wonder stress creeps in so quick.
But one curious thing I have noticed is that people who take life too seriously, do not get the same share of luck, that the not so serious get.....Maybe theres a learning there.

The Get-together

Had a small get together at a friends place....around 15 of us were there and I realised that though our MBA class is not as closely knit as it should have been.......get-togethers are fun, simply because they are such rare occurances.

Exams

Well my exams are round the corner and I have even started off on my study holidays....unfortunately so far they are more of holidays and less of studies.

The Best Days of My life......

Oh when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Ya - I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life ........

or so Bryan Adams Croons (magically i must add), but since my life is still in progress I cannot really say if college were the best days of my life or whether I will have the best in the future.......But one thing for certain, I'm planning to LIVE LIFE, KING SIZE.

LAST DAY IN COLLEGE

Well well.....Business Ethics, 10 AM to 12Noon on Jan 20th 2005 was technically my last class in college life !! Christ College......has been my Alma Mater for 7 yrs now.
I have truly enjoyed life to the fullest here and I am now in a transition period between College and Corporate life. And to add more zing to the whole thing are the 2nd SEM exams !!
Wat can I say.....This too will pass??

CIDER HOUSE RULES

This one is a superb movie......I am impressed by Tobey Maguire's histronic abilities

DISCWORLD PICTURES

HAVE YOU BEEN TO DISCWORLD ??

Terry Prachett weaves magic with his discworld series of novels.....Guys if you love readind and have'nt read Discworld novels then you sure are missing out on something....the whole stuff is about an imaginary universe that has a discworld on the back of a huuuuge tortoise.....
click on the link to know more.
Harry Potter fades into insignificance in front of these works of fantasy !!

Tsunami can’t wash this away: hatred for Dalits

In Ground Zero, Dalits thrown out of relief camps, cut out of food, water supplies, toilets, NGOs say they will start separate facilities............I cant beleive this

Read it for urself....

Link

Me in Dreamland ??

I seem to be floating in some sort of a dream world.......right now I have been doing nothing.....wanting to do nothing........It feels good to be able to suddenly stop and step out of the crowd.
It feels good to be able to stand away and just watch the crowd and their hectic lives whizzing past you......Soon I will have to rejoin them. but for the time being it feels good to be in pause mode while the world is in fast forward.

ADS>>>>>

I was just thinking about some ad jingles that I have heard and two that have top of the mind recall are...The close up ad "KYA AAP CLOSE UP KARTEY HAI..." and the other one is the Amaron Battery ad "bolo lasts long really long....ding dong" (The one with the rabbit and the tortoise.
Hats off to the creativity invovled...I yearn for more such ads.

Ahem.....resolutions !!

A little late in thinking about new year resolutions? but then anything goes.....
Resolutions for 2005
1. Get more punctual or dont turn up ( I have been followin the second)
2. Do a good deed a day (hehehehehe I define wats good)
3. Get into serious mode during conversations (this one I have been resolving to do since I learned to speak, bettr luck this time)
4. Dont change
5. Get the humor from below poverty level to atleast poverty level. (This will take some doing)
6. Enjoy life
7. Blog more regularly.
8. Clean my Lear Jet everyday.
9. Polish my Porsche.
10. Now this is too much....lets stop !!

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