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.