sane IDIOsyncrasies

Fiction that Breathes History

2011-05-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

In my, self proclaimed, insatiable thirst for historical fiction or fiction in historical settings, i might have committed a sin today by picking up Ashwin Sanghi's 'Chanakya's Chant'. I was almost dying to read more about ancient Indian history. Somehow i have come to believe that although reading history through the lens of fiction might not be the purist’s way of doing it, it is certainly more enjoyable and sustainable( mba speak :P). So after reading a bit about the book i picked up today, which a lot many have called, just another 'dan brownish' fast paced mystery, i am trying to perform some penance by talking about some of the bests works i have read in this genre.

But before that, let me clarify that i have nothing against Dan Brown or his genre of fiction. It's just that as a history lover, i would want such works of fiction to maintain a fine balance between the truth and author's imagination. Ideally never distort truth, but only fill gaps and in the end clarify and dissect these parts in the work. Somehow all the 'Dan Browns' just do the opposite.

So let's started with the list, the names appear in my order of preference but i must tell you, all of these are great works in this genre.

1. Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children : I had a very tough time selecting between the first two novels in this list and in the end, i chose the one which delighted me more. Some people would argue that a book like Midnight's Children should not even figure on this list, with protagonists having super natural powers and author's own political views trickling down in some parts. But believe me, this novel never distorts history and somehow because the fictional parts being so fantastical, they not only delight the reader but make the demarcation from truth very obvious and clear. Midnight's children is set around events in Indian subcontinent during the 20th century. It starts in second decade of the century and ends just around the Indian emergency. Easily one of the best works of fiction by an author of Indian origin, Midnight's Children will tell you a lot many small things which you would have never read in your school History books. I can go on writing about this book, but i guess you'd find much better reviews of this book at other places on net. In this list i just hope to tell you about books which you must pick up if you love history and fiction!

2. Amitav Gosh's Sea of Poppies : Sea of poppies is easily the most extensively researched work of fiction i have ever come across. The book has its own chrestomathy , a diction type guide on what Gosh calls the 'Hindoostani Sailors dialect'. Set in 19th century Bengal, this book tells you a lot about Calcutta, the British rule in Bengal, Bengali tradition, the last of Bengali Aristocracy, the Bhojpuri proletariat and their traditions. Calling this book very rich in historical content is like calling Satyajit Ray or Akira Kurosawa just good directors. Bottom line, this book is the gateway to non-revolting 18th century India, essentially Eastern India.

3. Magaret Mitchel's Gone with the Wind : Again a choice which is highly debatable. Many would call this book the best fictional romantic and i can't dare to disagree with them. Even i have always felt it to be one of the most intriguing books with a woman protagonist. Nevertheless, this epic drama set in 19th century USA, tells you a lot about America of those years and of course a lot about the civil war. If you are one those 'MCPs' who shy away from reading anything remotely romantic or feminist, probably this might be your reason to pick this wonderful piece of fiction. I must clarify here though, that wasn't my reason to pick this book :).

4. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of Yellow Sun : I still find it extremely difficult to pronounce the author's name correctly in one breath, but that handicap set aside, the book spells out the best of way to tell the young generation about the tough and gory times in their country's past. Something that Adichie does mention, she set out to do. In so many ways i think this book is the literary heir of Gone with the wind :)

Set in Nigeria of late 1960s, Half of yellow sun, tells you a lot of about Nigeria, a country almost as diverse as ours and the Nigerian civil war, which was almost as gory as our partition. I am not sure if somebody has written a fictionalized account of our partition which matches Half of yellow sun in its fine balance of detail and delight! I have been searching so much for a book like this. May be Cracking India ,the book on which the movie Earth was based upon or Pinjar could come close. Although i have just seen these two movies, haven't read the novels.

5. Indu Sundaresan’s Shadow Princess: Shadow Princess is a novel which i finished very recently, although i liked it a lot, but i could only give it the last place on this list. That doesn't a take away anything from this wonderful piece of art. The novel is very well researched and lush in its description of Mughal India. Apart from that, Indu does, exactly what i mentioned an author of this genre should do,. She lists down her research sources, clarifies which items are specifically fiction in the book and even gives logic trail of her imagination of these fictional parts. I just felt that the fictional part of this book could have been stronger and little richer. Still i would put it down as one of the best reads in Mughal fiction, a great alternative to Darlymple which requires a lot of patience and never delights at all.

I am sure there are many more in this list and i haven't added many which i didn't find worthy. All these five books are wonderful works of fiction in their own right, it's just that being set in poignant times in the World history is the icing here.

I am tagging some people i know enjoy reading history or fiction. Feel free to add any worthwhile works in the comments. So next time we are searching for an interesting work of fiction that breathes history, we don't accidentally pick up a Dan Brown

P.S I just noticed that three books in this list, have very strong woman characters or have woman protagonists. Probably Jahanara in the Shadown Princess would have been most powerful politically, but all of them - Scarlet in Gone with the wind, Olaana and Kanine in Half of yellow sun and Jahanara were very intriguing and emotionally very strong characters. I guess it is easy to accept and interesting to read intriguing woman characters! ;)

Cross posted on facebook

Poetry and else

2010-04-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

I was never good at languages, neither cared much about literature while at school and it was only in college when i started reading fiction actively. My mother tongue is Hindi, my mother still teaches Hindi and writes amazing poems,but Hindi poetry eluded me most of my school life. However, if there was ever a curve to represent my love for poetry it must be at its peak around this time and within the past year, a time, which i dreadfully admit has been quite difficult for me. Dreadfully, because of i fear still, if it will end. I had read somewhere that if there would have been no pain and no misery,we would have missed the best things in art. I can't find that essay now, but i remember it ended by saying that if Kafka and Mozart would have always been happy,Gregor Samsa would have never woken up to find himself transformed into an insect and most of world's music wouldn't have existed. I tend to agree to that.

Anyways coming back to the post; i don't know if this is the reason for my new found love for hindi poetry but i truly seem to enjoy it these days. It's not that i didn't understand poetry earlier, its just that the admiration for the words and their depth has been a new phenomenon.Although i still enjoy the poetry most when it is sung, with good music and voice taking the experience of listening to some beautifully written words almost out of this world. More so, i have been really enjoying the resurgence of good hindi poetry in Bollywood songs. Below are some mentions of some of my favorite works in different genres. I am not quoting them here or providing interpretations and translations here. There already many of them on web, i am just linking to the ones i found most appropiate.

As far as Hindi mainstream songs with poetic touch are concerned, Piyush Mishra's 'Duniya' from 'Gulaal', Gulzar's 'Dil toh Bachcha hai' from Ishqiya, 'Tu Raja ki Raj Dulari' from 'Oye Lucky Lucky oye', 'Dhan Tan' and 'Kaminey' from the movie 'Kaminey' and finally 'Aaoge Jab tum' from 'Jab we Met' are some of my recent favorites. I am sure there would be many more and i am in no hurry to find them.Serendipity, i feel, is best in cases like these.

Besides these, Harivansh Rai Bachhchan's 'Madhushala' and Kabir's Dohas have been my all time favorites. Kabir's Dohas in particular, are hallmarks of simplicity and profundity. In just two lines, Kabir touches society,philosophy,spirituality and other realities of our existence. A weaver by profession, he literally weaves magic, if you'd ask me. At this point, let me also give you a link to a wonderful site to explore and understand Kabir's Poetry. Rajender Krishnan through Boloji has not only compiled and translated some of Kabir's best known Dohas, he has also delved deep into subtle meanings of the words Kabir employs and also cared to explore the historical background in which these works were created. Some of my favorite Kabir's Dohas are 'Chalti Chakki' and 'Guru Gun'. This blog has some of Kabir's songs and links to there modern renditions. Indian Ocean's Jhini Re Jhini is one such beautiful rendition of a song by Kabir with an amazing Fusion music.

Madhushala can be found at various sources, but most famous is of course is Amitabh's short rendition as a tribute to his father. I especially love the verse that says, "Pathik Pyaar se peena isko Phir na milegi madhushaala."

Another great site to explore poetry is Audio Poetry. I found that one back in college while looking for a audio rendition of 'Hazaron Kwahishyein'. It has one of most exhaustive collections i have ever seen. One final mention about a poem that i across through a friend's status message on Facebook.It's titled Jeevan nahi mara Karta by GD Neeraj. Here is the complete text.

There are ofcourse many poems which i read as part of my course studies in school but not many have stayed, although i would have found them interesting then. As i said above, serendipity is best when it comes discovering new art works, may be i'll discover one them some day. Also, don't immediately click on all the stuff mentioned above. Read , take your time, explore some stuff and then forget. And then one day when you suddenly remember about it, try to search for it and find something new. You'll love it more.

P.S. I recently got a random compliment that it is amazing that i have managed to keep this blog alive for such a long time now.Although i accept it has had many long and short comatose periods,but not counting 2009, during which i never blogged, this is the fifth year of this blog. :)

Most of my friends, advertise their blogs at different places in efforts to draw more crowd and seek more recognition for their works, or probably involve more people in the discussion. Whatever be the intention, there is ofcourse absolutely nothing wrong with it. I remember when i started this blog drawing inspiration from Nikhil, even i loved to have lot of comments on my blog. But after all these years - i don't know if you can call that growing up or being purely lackadaisical - i am just content enough to put my thoughts here and forget the rest. May be when i am 50, i'd revisit this page to find out what i was thinking during my early quarter life crisis :D

How Do i Know?

2010-04-07T11:16:00.000-07:00

Last two years or so have been a terror. I don't how much of me has been lost in the process, besides that,so many weeds have grown, that i have almost forgotten myself and my worth. It is almost impossible to know now. Comparisons have become inevitable and have gone out of hand. Temporary distractions make it up sometimes but then at the end of day there's something that is always wrong. I am not philosophical, i can't practice that mind art or that 'art of living', but yes there are weeds and there are too many.

As i wade through this agnozing wait, i wonder, was all of it ever worth it or if i was ever worth it.

Biopics

2010-02-12T09:55:00.000-08:00

Biopic or a Biographical drama is a significant genre of film making. Some of the most popular and best known movies of our time fall into this category. A Beautiful mind,Cinderella Man, Gandhi,Schindler's List and many more. Most of them have been DVD/video hits or very high grossing movies. There can be several reasons behind their success, simplest that comes to my mind is that these movies are essentially stories of triumph - they inspire us, they give us hope, they make us think and dream beyond the petty struggles of our mundane lives.

I'll discuss here three biopics which i found really interesting. Not from a cinematic point of view ,but a feature of the character that stood out for me. I normally detest writing philosophical stuff only because i know i am very bad at it,which is almost an understatement because i also know i am a bad writer too, and it precisely makes no sense to attempt a combination of two. So as i try to discuss these characters/personalities below, i will try to be as pragmatic as possible and stay away from any kind of sermonizing.

Let's start with Natarang. Natarang is essentially not a biopic,by that i mean, it is not based on a true story as per known facts. It is the story of a village farmer, Gunavantrao Kagalkar or "Guna", who aspires to be a Tamasha or a theatre artist in his life. He has always wanted to play the role of king and often behaves like one in his normal life; he has a good built and a kind of swashbuckling demeanor. Apart from that he is shown as a versatile artist - who writes, sings,can direct and act really well. Circumstances, lack of resources and an unusual turn of events land him in a precarious situation. He has an opportunity to start his own theatre company.However there's a catch, he has to take up the challenge of playing a Nachya or a 'Pansy'[1] artist,basically a man who performs a woman's role. Imagine,for a man who aspires to play a king, to take up the role of a pansy artist. He has to learn the demeanor of woman,lose a lot of weight and built, and face several other difficulties. I'll let you explore all that in the movie; but the point that stands out here is often our destiny lands us in a situation where we are forced to make choices which are diagonally opposite or much below our aspirations/expectations. Implications of all that,as i said before,fall in a domain which is beyond me.

Next is Patton,based on the life of General George S Patton.What stands out for me in Patton, is portrayal of man who has always believed in his destiny. Patton had several problems most of which can be crudely classified as behavioral. Although one of the best generals of armored warfare,Patton's career was marred by several controversies,mostly due to his outspokenness. At one point he served under people who were once his juniors in army(Omar Bradley and Eisenhower). But i guess Patton, as he is portrayed, more or less accepted his weaknesses, although never really succeeded in overcoming them. However, he believed he was destined to achieve something great as a general and he did that. Initially when the allies landed at Normandy he was not part of the battle but when he got his chance, he proved his mettle. Third army,which he commanded, engaged far more divisions of the enemy in far less time as compared to any other division of US army.At one point during the Battle of bulge ,he removed some corps of the third army from an already fighting position and turned them abruptly north to relieve another division of US army stranded at Bastogne. You can read more about it here,watch the movie,or better still read parts of his diary here.

Finally I'd like to discuss Ed Wood based on the life of Edward Wood, Jr; a very different case.Ed wood loved to make movies.Period.Nothing more to it; he neither had great movie-making skills to boast of nor did he always have sufficient means to them.Most success stories one comes across, are of people who became champions of their field by virtue of their skills or sometimes by chance.Wood was different,i'd like to say he was a classic case of, "I'd-like-to-live-my-life-the-way-i-want,do-hell-with-the-world". Big deal,you'd say,but isn't that a classic case of "Stay hungry,stay foolish".To quote from his page on Wikipedia.

[..]Wood made a run of cheap and poorly produced genre films, now humorously celebrated for their technical errors, unsophisticated, large amounts of ill-fitting stock footage, idiosyncratic dialogue,eccentric casts and outlandish plot elements[..]

In an essay paying homage to Wood in Incredibly Strange Films, Jim Morton writes: "Eccentric and individualistic, Edward D Wood Jr was a man born to film. Lesser men, if forced to make movies under the conditions Wood faced, would have thrown up their hands in defeat."

Back home Kanti Shah would probably come close.

That's it,a very long post,i'd say. I composed it over few days,writing for few minutes everyday. And that's all ,that's one for the season, no more philosophical or even semi-philosophical posts from me for some time.

[1]I have used this word because i couldn't find a proper translation for the Marathi word Nachaya. This word was used in movie subtitles,although, i guess it doesn't exactly mean the same.

Civil Wars

2010-02-09T02:18:00.000-08:00

Civil wars can also be cataclysmic in the extent of damage they cause,particularly the ones which involve secession of a small part of a country which claims its independence. The damage caused, albeit isolated to the small secessionist state, is total, wiping out almost everything. I just finished reading Half of yellow sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, centered around the events of Nigerian civil war of late 1960s. This was first novel i read that was set in Africa and the first one after i resolved to pick up of novels from different countries and continents which i haven't touched till now.

I saw Nigeria of 1960s as a country with lot of diversity,grappling with post imperialistic problems which combined with ethnic tensions actually led to the civil war. I feel had India not been partitioned after independence, we might have gone through a similar civil war which would have been even more devastating considering the size of the nations involved and it would have also ended with two separate nations. Also with this context,one might realize,how important were steps taken against Khalistan and how severe can be the Naxalist problems of our country.

Adichie's work is very humane and involving in its approach, to say the least. It is not just a compilation of events, but a thickly woven story,told from three different view points. This combined with the fact that this was an hitherto unknown part of history to me, made the novel an interesting read for me.

There are a lot of countries today that are grappling with with political instability or conflicts with neighboring countries; the world death toll due to human conflicts it seems, was never higher. An argument against this can simply be that in today's information age we are more informed about other parts of the world and hence perceive that death toll today is high. May be the 19th and 18th century were as tumultuous,but because of the communication gaps,the extent of damage at any moment was never perceived to be that big.

P.S I decided to carry on with the blog and will try to post alteast more than once a week. However, i don't expect myself to spend a lot of time posting,hence most of the posts would be short,on-moment-types and as you can read above,hardly structured.

Cocoon

2010-02-05T00:42:00.000-08:00

And then suddenly it dawned upon me, that all this while when i thought i was sailing on the sea,failing storms that seemed violent and merciless,i was only trapped in a cocoon that i built when i thought i was awake.The parallax was rather severe.

This blog has been inactive for a very long time now and i hardly see that changing for some months to come. Every time i think about deleting it,the thought that it often serves as a repository of sorts for me,prevents me from doing so.The seahaven should have a door.

Sacred Games

2008-04-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

Below is a post of mine in one of the orkut communities in a thread related to Sacred games. I had initially of thought of writing this directly on my blog but thought it will be better to put it in discussion.

I have just started reading "Sacred Games" and it has been amazing till now. The central characters of the book, Ganesh Gaitonde (an underworld don) and Sartaj Singh(a police inspector) are very interesting. A distinctive point about the style is the use of Indian languages, especially local slangs, without hindrances like italics, footnotes etc. This adds an extra punch to the narrative.You can read more about the book including reviews here[http://sacredgames.typepad.com].
There's another point I’d like to raise in concern with the book, which I would like to generalize to any work of function.There is a context in the book, where a police officer(Sartaj Singh) is searching a woman's house, trying to seek out some clues as well as her black money. Here author writes and I quote,"...Hema Malini and Meena Kumari and a half-dozen other heroines had been caught with cash in their loos."
I am not in any way concerned about Meena Kumari or for that matter any heroine's image albeit I did try to verify this, at which I was unsuccessful.
The point I'd like to make is does fiction writing give the author a free hand to disparage any celebrated figure, living or dead. Also has writing something sensational or something outrightly deriding become an easy way to publicize your work. This second part doesn't concern "Sacred Games" because it was published way back in 2006,and I don't think Vikram Chandra had any such intentions.
I personally take a lot of pride in calling myself a libertarian but I do feel use of such techniques like unnecessarily maligning somebody,a little repulsive.Any thoughts on this?

The reality across the street

2008-04-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

One of the major things I miss from my college is a group of art(read bakar) enthusiasts with whom I could discuss those sudden bolts of lightening which came while reading a good work of fiction or say a wonderful movie which I had just seen or may be plain politics. You could always reason out saying that with web 2.0 I could always use my blog or the orkut communities to discuss with like minded people,still nothing can substitute could those wonderful discussions over a single suttah.Besides I can't see myself churning out posts over every single flashes that come up with the fad of the writing skills that I possess.

So while I was reading,Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games it occurred to me with the kind of cocoon I am ensconced in, my only sources of information being the incestuous media and works of fiction /non-fiction which are spurned out of some years of ground research;I may never the know the current reality on the other side of the street,unless I accidentally happen to cross it.

Of Books and Shores

2008-03-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

There is a wonderful feeling of happiness and satisfaction alike that arises once you start loving the book you're reading,although it has never once happened with me in succession.Mostly after reading a 'good' book I end up reading one which I label as 'bad'. But liking a book or for that matter any piece of art for me depends largely on my mood. It is like the weather on the shore that always determines whether I love the sea or not and take the plunge.

In any case Kafka on the shore is good book,go take the plunge.

5th Asian Film Festival

2007-11-01T23:10:00.001-07:00

The 5th Asian Film festival kicked off yesterday in pune with the screening of 'Poet Of Waste s' by Mohamad Ahmadi.

The festival is supposed to cover the best of Asian cinema in recent years along with tributes to directors like Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman.

Poet Of Wastes:

Poet Of wastes is a story of an optimistic young man in Iran who dreams of becoming a poet,but due to lack of opportunities and rampant unemployment ends being a street cleaner. In course he gets involved with an old poet,whose life is in danger and a lonely woman who is desperately trying to get visa to leave the country after the death of her fiance.

The film scores well on cinematography with some great shots like the one below.The scene shows the girl,disappointed,returning from the embassy, while saber(the protagonist) waits for her on a street that is covered with leaves. As she enters,saber cleans the path by sweeping the leaves right and left,and all the while looking down with his face filled with joy.

The film also highlights the major problems of the country like unemployment,Brain Drain and lawlessness.

There's a conversation between the poet and Saber which goes like this:

Saber: I know you are a poet.Are you famous?
Poet: Don't you see my photo on milk bottles,I am a cow. I am a cow which eats grass and gives milk,and has stayed here while all others have left.

Overall the movie is pretty decent and much better than what bollywood is offering these days.

P.S: The Festival poster at top is of the movie Baran by Majid Majidi,hope to see that movie during the festival.

Of Widows and Puppets

2007-07-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

Long time ago there was a widow, with a very famous black and white centre parting, a widow who was once called a witch and a mother of a country, a mother who was probably controlled by her son, and a son who didn't want other men to have their sons. The widow installed a Cambridge educated puppet on the nation’s highest post.

The widow, who was mother of a country, with the help of the puppet, gave birth to a child. The child saved her seat and gave her lot of power over her other child, the country.

Today there’s another widow, a widow who was once called a goddess and a freedom fighter, a widow who before becoming a widow was married to a widow’s son and a widow,who unlike her mother widow,once gave her seat to get power. The widow today, is in process of creating and repeating history. She is installing another puppet on the country's highest post.

But this widow, also Cambridge educated, with a black and almost white centre parting, is cleverer. She doesn’t have a seat but she has strings and puppets, so although she has gained everything, she’ll never lose anything.

Perhaps a lot of the older widow has leaked into the present widow and a lot of Salman Rushdie's midnight's children has leaked into me.

The Long Tail effect!

2007-07-05T14:32:00.000-07:00

This is something very interesting.The Long tail effect has some mind boggling applications,a theory which proves the amazing potential of Web 2.0 and how fast it is growing.

This page provides a better explanation in the context of web 2.0 than wiki. Come to think of it, sometimes when it comes to providing explanations of tech terms wiki isn't that great probably.

Also check out Netflix.Seems quite an amazing business strategy.Why isn't this in news :(

Currently reading: Kafka on the shore.Got to read something by Samuel Beckett,probably this.

Good things that have happened to me recently

2007-06-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

1. I finally managed to see Children of Heaven by Majid Majidi.I am yet to come across such phenomenal display of acting by ten year olds. Simple script, absolutely wonderful direction.

2. I finally found Salman Rushdie.

3. Rushdie is getting better as I read.

4. I am probably losing weight :D.

5. Trying to kick the butt

Whose 'about me' is that anyways

2007-06-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

Found during one of many random profile hopping on orkut.

about me: check out my testi's....i think thats enough...:)

Can you guess the sex?.

Fine, I am being a pervert and you cannot read Rushdie without breaks,but I almost damaged my spleens laughing on that one!

Why short forms please?

Movies that I am dying to see.

2007-03-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

I think this post will be edited and re-edited for many days to come. For some days I have been thinking of making a list of movies which are rated high on imdb(greater than or equal to 8) or which are criticall acclaimed with a great plot and are not in imdb top 250. Most of these films are foreign.

Another subset of this list would really be the movies I am dying to see,dying because I am not downloading and can't do that for atleast 2 months now. Also there is no sweet bastard in this world who would do that for me. Third and may be the foremost reason is that I have ample of time courtesy Daler Mehndi,who is going to sing in my college;my lack of ambition and bad career prospects( I am surely joining IT now).

ok,Lets start with the list,as I said this post might remain at the top for some days to come as I don't think its feasible for me to finish the list in one go. Secondly I am not giving any links and some foreign titles have been translated into English. Films which are there in top 250 have a star against them and lastly the list random and not sorted. The serial numbers do not signify any kind of rating.

1. La Dolce vita
2. La Strada
3. Nights Of Cabiria *
4. Hidden Fortress *
5. Dersu Uzala
6. Yojimbo *
7. The Deer hunter *
8. Raging Bull *
9. Chungking Express
10. Fanny and Alexander
11. Through a glass darkly
12. The sea Inside
13. A man for all seasons
14. Ulysses' Gaze
15. Band of Outsiders
16. Breathless
17. Farewell My Concubine
18. Wild Strawberries *
19. Barry Lydon
20. Singing in the Rain *
21. The Bicycle Thief
22. The virgin Spring
23. Meghe Dhaka Tara
24. Children Of Heaven
25. Day for Night( God French new wave)
26.The Exterminating Angel( Surrealistic cinema,when?)
27.Aguirre: The Wrath of God
28.Phantom of Liberty
29. Katha( I have seen parts of this movie,want to see it again)

Thats it I am tired as of now,more later.

Sophie Scholl- The Final Days

2007-03-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

I just saw Sophie Scholl- The Final Days. Throughout the movie I just found myself saying two things; What grit and what clarity of thought.She was of my age(21) when she was executed;I wish I could have that clarity of thought.

Two things come to my mind,one related to something I read in a review at Imdb. I can't site the source but the comment goes as follows.

True heroism, like martyrdom, must be imposed by fate, not sought.

I don't know about heroism but true martyrdom should be imposed and not sought for personal glory.

The last rebel movie I saw was 'The motorcycle Diaries". Although it was a good movie,but I didn't like it much because I can't convince myself to follow the cult of Che` Guevera. True revolution,I believe, always seeks peace and never violence. Sophie Scholl I guess would now stand as the best rebel movie for me till I come across a better one.

This quote truly sums up the reason why I revere her. Source [wikipedia]

Playwright Lillian Garrett-Groag stated in Newsday on February 22nd, 1993 that "It is possibly the most spectacular moment of resistance that I can think of in the 20th Century... The fact that five little kids, in the mouth of the wolf, where it really counted, had the tremendous courage to do what they did, is spectacular to me. I know that the world is better for them having been there, but I don't know why."

I also wanted to draw a comparison between a scene at the end of the movie and a scene at the end of an Indian movie called 'The legend of Bhagat Singh',based on life of Bhagat Singh,but I after I had written most of the post,my gem of a pc restarted and I had to write from the last auto draft position.

Anyways to sum up Sophie Scholl is much more humane and less melodramatic. It focuses more on Sophie's believe in her ideas and her conscience.

2007-02-24T23:15:00.000-08:00

Boy doesn't he look like a film maker,thats Jean Luc Goddard,one of the greatest in the French New Wave cinema.

And I am stuck here with mid-sems now,haven't seen any of his work :(

Thought of applying to FTII yesterday :P.

Patton!

2007-02-19T13:10:00.000-08:00

I finally managed to see Patton and I knew I won't be able to write a review for the movie even before the first half was completed. I don't know why but I haven't been able to review movies which touched me;movies like Ran,Pather Panchali,Nuovo Cinema Paradiso and now Patton. Yesterday during my NMIMS gd,quoted Ingmar Bergman.Here's the quote

Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul.

Variant translation: Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.

I think in some way I am experiencing,what he thought.

About Patton only thing I would say is, that George C Scott is brilliant,I loved him in Dr.Strangelove and he has exceeded my expectations in this one.

Although George S Patton might kick me for this or might smile in acknowledgment but I guess its good to keep your mouth shut,when you are not good at it.

Eklavya

2007-02-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

I was never through with giving stars to movies,never understood them and those reviews in times.Anyways I just saw Eklavya,here's a small review.Eklavya by the way is a character in the Mahabharata.

Shot in all splendor and awe of Udaipurit is a treat to eyes,with modern film making techniques and some graphics adding the final touch .Good editing and some great cinematography make movie the technically very sound,but the catch in movie making is that scripts and plots are its basic foundation and eklavya's script is pretty trite for that matter.

But Vidhu Vinod Chopra is not a man you could just write off so easily, he definitely is a brave filmmaker I would say. There are two brilliant scenes in the movie which I'd would like to talk about, although as I had already mentioned the movie itself is quite a treat to the eyes. There's a scene where Eklavya shows his magic with accuracy,when throws his dagger to cut a tinkle bell tied to pigeon's legs without hurting the pigeon and catches it when it falls back,doing all this while he is blind-folded.Pigeons have long been in Chopra's movies,may be from parinda.

The second one is the dark scene where Eklavya avenges the death of his Rana and there's absolute darkness in the hall for three minutes,experimentation like that is definitely commendable.Of course finally just one song is a great relief,a transition I hope to see in more hindi movies.

I am not too gung-ho about Amitabh's performance,I was watching Toshiro Mifune's acting in Rashomon again today before I went for the movie,though it would be incongruous to compare the two performances, I would say I don't find anybody in our industry who can come up with a performance like that. Amitabh surely sets high standards in Indian film industry but after watching so much of world cinema,I don't rate this one as something out of this world.

As for eklavya I would say go see it once,the shots look good on big screen,but dont expect too much out of the script.

By the way just for sake of mentioning, now that I have started devoting pretty less time to blogging and as writing is not something that comes to me naturally I know my posts wont make any great pieces of literary work. If blogging is to serve purpose , it would be to help me refine and collect my thoughts and probably serve a future reference to me,of what I have done in my life.

Just came across this weird but brilliant photograph by Philippe Halsman based on painting by Salvador Dali.This photograph was in someway an inspiration for the poster of silence of the lambs.The butterfly in the posters for the movie appears to have a human skull at its center. However, upon close inspection, this "skull" turns out to be at least three naked women (clearly seven in some versions of the poster),much similar the photograph by Halsman.Another great photograph by him is portrait of Einstein looking very sad and this one of Monroe jumping, from his famous series on celebrities.

Movies that I saw recently

2007-02-06T13:02:00.001-08:00

Here are the some of the movies that I saw recently

1. Sunset Blvd: Gloria Swanson is amazing,this will surely barge in my all time favorites list soon,the opening shot is amazing and ofcourse Gloria,just can't help talking about her,pity she missed an oscar.
2. Nuovo Cinema Paradiso: Young toto is wonderful,touchy and emotional storyline.Great movie and an awesome soundtrack
3. Water: Some real heart wrenching scenes
4. Pan's Labyrinth: Good movie,but fantasy is surely not my cup of tea,but reality and fantasy are nicely inter wined in the movie
5.Hero: I like japanese action more,those jaw dropping,newton defying stunts just don't impress me much.Movie scores very well on color theme effects, direction and the scale and aura of the some shots.

I will surely write more about Sunset Blvd one of these days,just not in the mood to write much.

Currently reading "What should I do with my life",by Po Bronson.

Amores Perros

2007-01-28T11:12:00.000-08:00

Amores Perros which roughly translates as Love's a bitch,is an example of a portmanteau film.It has three sub-plots that are connected by a car accident,a theme that is borrowed and adapted in Indian scenario in Mani Ratnam's Yuva. To Mani Ratnam credit the subplots in yuva are completely different and well suited to the Indian scenario.Anyways lets talk about Amores Perros.

Amores Perros is the mainstream debut of Alejandro González Iñárritu the director of famous films like 21 grams and Babel, which has been nominated for this year's Oscars in the best film category.

Reality they say is stranger than fiction,it bites. You are stung by Amores Perros, a feeling which I also got while watching Cidade de Deus and Hazaron Khawishyein Aisi .All three movies are based on poignant realities in the third world countries in which they are set.The armed robberies and broad day light murders in Mexico city as shown in Amores Perros or the teens in Rio de Janero with Uzis and .22's in their hands controlling a drug racket as shown in cidade de deus or the backwardness of Bihar and naxalite movement of the 70's as shown in Hazaron Khwasihein Aisi,form harsh realities of these countries. But at the same time,the plots in Amores Perros entertain and keep you glued

The subplots of Amores Perros are not as strongly inter wined as in Yuva,the accident connects all three plots, otherwise baring a few exceptions the three stories have their own directions. But to directors' credit the plots are very subtly connected by the underlying themes of love,violence and dogs. The characters in the subplots commit adultery,live by vanity and resolve to violence and in end undone by it,something that gives the movie its moral dimension. One character of each story is betrayed in love or in some way loses love.

Dogs also link the three stories,Ocatvio(Gael García Bernal) uses his dog to earn money through dog fights,Valeria's(Goya Toledo) pet dog in the second story forms a very important of her life,may be as a companion and is later in some way a cause of her doom and El chivo(Emilio Echevarría) in the third story cares for stray dogs which are his companions in exile.

To elaborate these themes more specifically I would have to reveal the plot,which I don't want to may be because of my laziness or may be because I don't want to write stereotype reviews.

Amores Perros stands out for its great direction, beautiful underlying themes and a fierce and poignant portrayal of realities. The accident sequence is quite amazingly shot,but the same seqeunce albeit not particularly well shot, looks more grandiose in Yuva, probably because of the Howrah bridge.

In drawbacks, though it might be rather viewer specific,in the end you can't help but wonder what was the ultimate fate of the characters that were built in front of you.Though I would I say it is very viewer specific,an emotional viewer like an Indian might feel this more than a European viewer. But I felt that director implicitly but clearly draws the fate of characters,its just the matter of perception.

Viewer perception is important ploy in movie making,brilliantly used by Akira Kurosawa in Rashomon. In fact the power of viewer perception was proved in this brilliant experiment known as the Kuleshov Experiment.

I also saw Ran and Pather Panchali and was deeply moved by both of them. Ran would now stand out as of one best movies of all time in my list. I would write a review for Ran when I see it again.

Pather Panchali should be regarded as one of best debuts in the world, one of the best examples of Neo-realistic cinema. Ray's debut film I think puts him among the greats like Kurosawa and Hitchcock. I would comment more on Pather Panchali and Satyajit Ray's cinema,after I finish watching the Apu trilogy.

In other news I feel its quite a blot on country's rich claims of a sustained democracy and freedom of speech,when great films like, Water by Deepa Mehta, are nominated for Oscars in the foreign film category as Canada's entry. Fims like Parazania and Black Friday based on controversial subjects have problems on their release.Parazania has a grim future in the Gujarat, with bajrang dal already issuing a warning,it might be banned in a few days.

All men are equal but some men will always be more equal.

Guru

2007-01-15T12:42:00.000-08:00

The best time to write a movie review and especially of a Hindi movie is just after you have seen it,so here am writing it for guru after the night show.Finally I managed to see a Hindi movie after a gap of two months,of course during the gap I saw more than 30 non-Hindi movies(non hindi counts English,German,Japanese,and italian),anyways lets talk about guru.

Guru:Guru is a drama quite faithfully inspired from the life of Dhirubhai Ambani and the fact that the movie has reached the mainstream makes it obvious that it is eulogising from the start but then Dhirubhai was a man who deserves it.

Good things first,its great to have a script that smells Indian and is not a foreign lift,not many tweaks, quite faithfully follows Dhirubhai's life right from his days of struggle back in Yemen(ofcourse dancing with Mallika Sherwat hardly shows struggle) to his tussle with Wadias and the media campaign against him led by Ramnath Goenka and his Indian Express.

Abhishek Bachchan is good, his wide grin comes very close to Dhirubhai's,he tries to imitate his dad's accent at times and is wonderfully successful at it,on the whole the elan of Gurukant Desai does give that feel of Dhirubhai Ambani.Mithun Chakraborty also gives a good performance. A.R Rahaman does churn out a few good numbers like the song that introduces Aishwarya Rai and the title number.

The final reference made to Gandhi has an important point that the laws made by the government are not always correct.It is widely known that our economic system had serious flaws pre liberalisation,license Raj was seriously detrimental.The fact that Dhirubhai Ambani was genius at tweaking it and many other numerous legislations doesn't entirely make him a hardcore sinner.Through his promotion of the equity cult he brought wealth to shareholders and that is a glaring truth.

Now the bad things,with a huge chunk of revenue coming from music sales and the fact that songs in films is a trademark of bollywood cinema and a necessity for its million viewers makes sure they can't ever be left out.But there placement,spacing and number can always be taken care of,two songs in less 10 minutes into film is not appealing at least to me.

Cinematography surely lacks,shots aren't that great,something that is a hallmark of great directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Akira Kurosawa.Goofs and anachronisms can be easily found, like disappearance of Guru's white hair during songs and its consequent reappearance.

But on whole some good performances and a fascinating storyline does favor Guru a watch.

Here some other articles related to Dhirubhai Ambani that find reference with the events depicted in the movie.

1.His famous Battles.
2.Another article by rediff on his life.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

2007-01-08T06:43:00.000-08:00

Considering the extreme time constraints(?) and my inevitable laziness,I have decided to write small reviews rather than writing long posts and then never continuing the trend,so mostly from now on I'll just be writing the things I liked(or disliked) about the movie,instead of following a general reviewing pattern.

Lets start with some of my present favorites.

1.Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb: People say this is Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece,although I am not sure of that, may be because this stands out as the only comic offering by the director but this is definitely one of the best political satires I have ever come across even better than the Great dictator which was my previous best in the genre.Anyways its not fair to compare movies even if they are of the same genre.

The plot of the movie is very simple,it is the brilliant direction and some great performances that infuse life in the movie.Kubrick is brilliant with the character profiles,from the president, his generals and the ambassador are so very close to the reality. I think it is the character profiles which make the simple plot so interesting and give the film that eternal feeling so that you enjoy it even after more than 40 years of its making .

I especially like the character profiles of Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper(sterling hayden) and Gen. 'Buck' Turgidson(George Scott) which are quintessentially found in military. Ripper a paranoid,high-esteemed brigadier who thinks warfare and national security are far too important and complex matters to be left to the politicians. Turgidson on the other hand is an over confident sycophantic sceptic,easily capable of misleading the leader.

There are some shots like the ones in the President's in his war room discussing with his generals,Hayden in his office delivering with a cigar in his mouth,which are absolutely brilliant. Peter Sellers' has a triple role in the movie as the president,captain Mandrake who is Ripper's executive and as Dr. strangelove.His performance as Dr. strangelove is definitely commendable.Another great thing about the movie is the background score, the instrumental of "When johnny comes marching home" played whenever during the plane shots just tops as the cream.

For the cast,plot and other details click the movie title link.

Here's something interesting, while watching movie I felt that I have heard the background music of the movie before in a hindi movie,so when I was searching for the same I came across two wonderful sites which catalog plagiarism in hindi movies.

1.Bollycat catalogues plagiarisms in hindi movies.
2.itwofs catlogues plagiarism in hindi music.

So as I suspected the music has been lifted by Rajesh Roshan. Here's the link on the same site

The Phoenix

2007-01-08T06:19:00.000-08:00

It's only the phoenix that can rise from its ashes,there must be something unique about it,isn't it,for not everyone can be a phoenix.

So,what's cooking?
Last sem of my dubious engineering carreer, with the end of a rather tumoultous year in my life.This sem would solely devoted to my passions:movies,quizzing and books.To say that I have watched loads of movies in last few days would be an understatement,it would be more appropiate to say that I have been living movies for past few days and have been pretty fortunate to have come across the best.Here's a small list,lets hope I do manage to come out with some reviews.

1.Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
2. Faboulous Destiny of Amelie Poulain
3. Rear window
4. Rashomon
5. Seven Samurai
6. Der Untergang
7. The Pianist
8. City Of God
9. 12 Angry men
10. Kabuliwala
11. Being John Malkovich

Let's see if I can complete the imdb 250 this sem.

2006-11-06T16:35:00.000-08:00

I absolutely, with all my heart and all my senses detest/loathe the word MIDDLE.Its implications and all its effects and designs on my life.

Phew!..that was officially rant number 2.Seems to be season of some.

She Killed me!

2006-10-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

Sometimes anxiety kills you and it really does, and in the end you are not sad,not happy,not gloomy,but confused,for why did it happen and why were you so anxious. Wonder what they are going to do on 19th.So does curiousty kill the cat,find out later.

I just shifted to beta blogger, and the template design and font settings supposed to have gone haphazard,so excuse me for that.

2006-10-14T10:16:00.000-07:00

Muhammad Yunus gets a Nobel!

Do check the post below this one.I am pretty happy today.

Great People,great work

2006-09-24T12:45:00.000-07:00

These are the only words that can be used describe the work done by Muhammad Yunus and off late Vikram Akula.Great stories like should be face of newspapers more often than be buried in editorials. Here are some more interesting stories

1) SKS

2)Unitus

3)Men behind Lalu

And,as I listen a bunch hooligans (no offence intended but sadly it seems to be the most appropriate word) dancing on ear-deafening music on the Mess rooftop,I wonder if I am making most of my life.

On a personal note Indore trip for PT quiz semifinals was great.Everything from journey to 4-star accommadation was great, but sadly everything except the quiz; even hate to call it a quiz.Haven't come across a format that undermines quizzing and intellectuality more than this one.I hope I refrain from participating in such quizzes in future.

Wary Neighbours

2006-09-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

China,Pakistan,Myamnar,Srilanka and till most recently Nepal.Whats common to them?There are our neighbouring countries but at the same can be major sources of worry for us in future.No it isnt the Yossarian effect a but reality.Any country with an abysmal state of internal affairs or totalarian regimes is an obivious threat to its neighbours.

Military rule in pakistan can't lost forever,General Musharaf cannot live as long as Fidel Castro and after his death the its State affairs are bound run amok.

It's been more than a decade since LTTE has been fighting with the lankan government future I dont think is any peaceful.

China most interesting of them all will sooner later break down,this claim would surel need a post though.

Burma also has military regime , the government is also known as military junta.

Read this wonderful speech by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and this article about current state of affairs in Burma.Here are some parts of the speech I relished..

"It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it."

Glass splinters, the smallest with its sharp, glinting power to defend itself against hands that try to crush, could be seen as a vivid symbol of the spark of courage that is an essential attribute of those who would free themselves from the grip of oppression.

Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavour, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be described as 'grace under pressure' - grace which is renewed repeatedly in the face of harsh, unremitting pressure.

The world that is..

2006-08-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

The whims and caprices of few men, are largely responsible for the difference between the world that is and the world that could have been or the world that should have been or the world that might have been, for many others.

So,there was Howard Huges,the aviator,who built Hercules the largest flying boat with the largest wingspan marrying a soon-to-be outdated technology — flying boats — to a massive airframe using some truly ingenious engineering innovations.

After lots requests to N number of friends to download the movie for me and after missing it N-1 times on the TV, I was finally able to catch the last part of the movie yesterday and I truly loved it.

Coming back to the theme of the post imagine what would have been of the most of the world if the Soviet had not invaded Afghanistan,Osama Bin Laden and much of the terrorism would not be there.There are ofcourse and will always be several other examples to support this theory. These days I prefer to call all of my vacuous thoughts as theories.

I am thrown back into a deluge of unrestrained thoughts everytime I think of the book Animal Farm and Geroge Orwell's profound words

"All animals(men) are equal,but some animals(men) are more equal"

Found the english translation of my favorite poem by Mirza ghalib "Hazaaron khwahishen aisi" on this wonderful website which is an anthology of some of the most beautiful poems ever written.

These words truly encircle and might for a long time to come define my state of mind.

HazaaroN KHwahishaiN ‘eisee ke har KHwahish pe dam nikle
bohot nikle mere armaaN lekin fir bhee kam nikle

Here's the translation..

A thousand desires such as these,that each takes a lifetime (an eternity)
I found many desires and yet they aren’t enough

Violence

2006-08-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

I am a firmly believe in the ideology that "Violence always begets violence". Anybody who has gone through the history of middle east clubed with jewish history will agree.

Here is an interesting article related current scenario of Israel -Lebanon conflict.

Still...

2006-08-16T00:04:00.000-07:00

" At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life ..."

Well they say people like me are still sleeping.

But here's the good news there's a new bookstore in Vadodara,huge,almost three times as big as crossword which was the only one till date.Real feast I must say,got myself "War and Peace " by leo Tolstoy and "Made in America" by Sam Walton.

In case I forgot to mention I didn't die in floods.Because we make a tryst with destiny every new day.

If only I knew

2006-08-05T03:09:00.000-07:00

If you would be in my shoes you would understand that most exasperating and hillarious thing in the world is to have sudden sporadic mild strokes of alzheimer's disease.Imagine staring the computer screen,rather flat computer screen after opening blogger window because you have forgotten what you wanted to write.

I wanted to tell you about ghettos,my experience with them,of why I believe ghettoism is most detrimental thing to happen to versimilary united India.

I wanted to tell you about, "The arguementative Indian" and the veritable ingenuity in Amartya Sen's approach to focus on the argumentative tradition in India in his writings on Indian culture and history, away from the banal and trite religious approach.Infact I was really suprised to read about Caravaka,the atheist school of thought in ancient India.I was absolutely ecstatic after reading this line in the book,a quote by Raja Ram Mohan Roy.

"Imagine how terrible the day of your death would be,when people would go on speaking and you wouldn't be able to argue back"

And atlast about the magic Gregory David Roberts aka Shantaram can create with his literary prowess.
But I am in no mood right now,I have come to realise that just as success after hardwork can be the most beautiful thing in the world to happen to you,failure after the same can be the most bewildering thing in the world.

CNN-IBN

2006-07-12T12:25:00.000-07:00

Rajdeep Sardesai's CNN-IBN has come of age, just a year after its launch and it has not only created space for itself in this multitudinous 24 hr news broadcasting but also seized some from others biggies like NDTV and Headlines Today much to their chagrin,while Aaj Tak still reigns supreme among Hindi News portals when it comes English News I think CNN-IBN is name worth reckoning. A clear story of how entrepreneurial leadership can do wonders.

It has very well designed website may be something that it has inherited from its parent CNN.More recently I came across CNN-IBN blogs.

Rajdeep Sardesai's Blog:Width of article is really commendable.Width as in area of discussion

Here are some which I found worth reading

1.No goal for India

2.My Friend, Mr Mahajan

3.Sonia's "Sacrifice

Sagarika Ghosh's Blog: The Cosmic Ceiling is surely worth a read.

Here's another interesting story.

Why Rajdeep Sardesai quit NDTV

Another channel India TV which was launched way back in 2004 is still struggling to find terms I guess.Sting'y' Journalism, chintzy and spicy stories can never be a long term strategy.

Holocaust Heros

2006-07-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

The Holocaust saw many heros scripting great stories of courage, comradery and altruism.Here are some of them.

Oskar Schindler:Easily the most famous of them all courtesy Speilberg's brilliant movie 'Schindler's List'.He saved around 1200 jews by having them work in his enamelware and munitions factories.

Nicholas Winton:Often called the Schindler Of Britain,he rescued 669 czech children from Nazi death camps.

Raoul Wallenberg: A swedish diplomat who saved many Hungarian jews from the holocaust.Often called the 'Hero without the grave' because he went missing after WW -II

Ruth Gruber: An American journalist who secretly escorted a group of 1000 jewish refugees from Italy to USA.

Alexander Pechersky:Hero of the sobibor rebellion

They are many more ofcourse but these are the stories I found interesting.

Here are some other interesting links:

1.WW-II Resistance movements.

2.The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority.

Women,the extinct species

2006-06-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

[Again one my posts on a orkut community]

For the past few weeks TOI has been carrying a news feature on dropping sex ratio in Gujarat and other states of our country. The problem is not as grave as title suggests. (Though if you would ask me skewed ratios are considered a problem of national importance in engineering colleges)

On a more serious note as they say the litmus test of a utopian society is the status of women in it.
The dropping ratios, a result of female foeticide, a pestiferous act, have led to several other crimes against women.

India is often called the land of "sanskars”, of values and of rectitude, an ostensible insignia if you would ask me, has had a social structure which is harsh on women. Why do we in this modern age still continue commit atrocious crimes like female infanticide?

Finally do you believe banning ultrasound procedures can be a solution? Personally I believe banning anything is never a solution. Defaulters always find a way. The number things that can be done illegally in our country are a stark example.

The problem is far deep-rooted than this.

Cindrella Man

2006-06-28T13:11:00.000-07:00

I had downloaded this movie last year.Just saw it.I guess i saved it for the right time.Truly inspired

[sounds like a telegram message..]

Cindrella Man at imdb.

James J Braddock at wikipedia.

Gandhi

2006-06-25T13:35:00.000-07:00

This post is a copy of one my posts on an orkut community.

Here are some interesting articles I came across

This article is Nathu Ram Godse's defence speech in court. I know its almost blasphemous to discuss this here but as democracy demands let us lend an ear to all.

This article will also show you how fanaticism using communication can seem so convincing.Bending words to justify irrationality. After all hitler also had supporters.

Below are two articles part of a special series of "What If" carried by Outlook.These are articles are essays basically exploring past the if gandhi had lived on.The articles require online registration which is free.

1
2

I hope you find them interesting.

More on this later.

Superman

2006-06-24T07:50:00.000-07:00

Now here's deeply confounding a question that just struck me..

Why does superman need that red robe?

a) You miserable physics student, thats there to help in the aerodynamics.

b) It comes in great help when needs to blow his nose.

c)It matches with his underwear.

d)All of above.

Now I almost 1.5 hrs surfing through askmen.com today ,one of those very few sites which are informative , interesting and a pleasure to eyes.:)

Happy Birthday!

2006-06-02T20:31:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Mr. M Karunanidhi!.Please I want a Television too, for my hostel room,its great fun to watch history channel these days. Sadly I was born some 20 years ago else a nice gold ring would have been a wonderful birthday present.Not to forget the Rs. 2/kg rice, wow such revelry all we need is some wine now.

It seems Tamilnadu is headed back to the age of kings,the 83 year old magnanimous monarch is distributing presents in his kingdom. Please do tell me if there would be some belly dancing too!.Such Fun

Some days back Mr Omprakash Chautala,tainted CM of Madhya Pradesh was in news for having undisclosed property assets worth 1400 crore. Rich Kings with poor citizens.

Destiny

2006-05-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

"Stones in destiny's wall are mortared with small and heedless complicities."

--Gregory David Roberts in Shantaram.

This was compelling enough for me to post again,so officially this is my last post from CF-8.

My last post from CF-8

2006-05-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

Actually I could not find a better title, for this post is supposed to cover a gamut of things and as I am writing I am not sure of what they would be; but one thing that I am sure of is that this might well be my last post from CF-8.

Placements: Officially the zero phase of placements in our college is over now. The only word I can find to describe the placement process is ‘tragicomic Drama’, with more of comedy and less of tragedy.

I finished gone with the wind after a long time as I had to leave it in between due to exams. It is I believe one of the best books I have ever read. I don’t promise myself of writing a review because I have been more guilty or lazy in fulfilling them. But I hope.

I have not read the print paper for last 15 days, and I now realize the perils of it. The ennui is taking its toll on me and unusual as it seems but life starts getting a bit dreadful when people around you start leaving along with the money in your pocket and bank accounts.

Piracy: This was the issue I was discussing with one of my friends before an exam. He believes in buying original books and novels irrespective of their cost. It was all a matter of ethics according to him,I was obviously on the wrong side.

I believe piracy is here to stay and today it is almost in us, talking about any normal college student like me.

Piracy in simple terms is unauthorized copying. In dictionary terms it means; the unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted or patented material.

Piracy mainly affects software, music, movies and books the mainstays of my life at least. I am not going in to the issues of ideas or Intellectual rights as of now. In short anything that relates to creativity is normally copied.

99 % of percent of computers owned by students in this college, except for a few branded laptops here and there, are running on pirated versions of windows and I have no qualms in accepting that same is the case with mine.

Our college LAN I believe right now has around 118 movies; most of these movies have been either downloaded from net or copied from pirated CD’s. Same is the case with music. Though music piracy is the case more addressed by society. Now if you think downloading stuff was legal, I am sorry to say you are wrong. Copying content and selling or spreading it is illegal.

I am sure in one or other way we use pirated goods in our daily life.

There are two basic reasons why I believe piracy is here to stay. In long run if you analyze piracy affects the distributor or brand creator much more than the content creator. In simple terms if I like Kishore Kumar I like his music irrespective of means by which I avail it. The content creator is always assured of his royalty and in fact is more pleased and benefited if his work reaches the masses even though through piracy.

Main and most obvious reason is cost, I am not stating all the exorbitant price differences but just to give an example Windows XP original version can cost more than Rs. 3000 and pirated CD may cost less Rs. 100.

By all this I don’t condone piracy anyway, it sure is execrable, but the fact of the matter is that market rules and distributors have made it more difficult for us to abstain from buying pirated goods. Unless they find a way to fill the lacuna in cost prices or we find some technological innovation to stop copying, piracy I believe is here to stay. Technological innovation is not the easier way according to me, because most locks in this world have keys or should I say product keys.

On a slightly different note here's something funny,odious and frightening. Arjun Singh's interview on CNN-IBN.

P.S: Tone of above the post I believe must hint you abt the hurry in which I wrote it.

I am an

2006-05-14T04:56:00.000-07:00

International Barking Machine. Thank you IBM for taking me.

While They were studying

2006-04-22T07:07:00.000-07:00

...I was minesweeping.I think any score under 60 would be excellent,while 69 was tough if would ask me.Let's see if I can manage it before the exams finish.

Btw click on the pic to enlarge ,its intermediate in 69 seconds.

Money

2006-04-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

"There's just as much money to be made in the wreck of a civilization as in upbuilding of one"

-Rhett Butler, Gone with the wind.

Absolute brilliance I must say. It all depends on your buccaneering prowess. Philosophically speaking,however grim the circumstances be,there's always a way to take advantage of the situation.

As the Gita says," All that happens ,happens for good."

Update:Rhett Butler seems to be the master of nuggets and aphorisms,here's another one

"Marry for convenience and love for pleasure."

Well quite true, because if you think logically,marriage as an institution originated mainly to set inheritance boundaries and social structure. But that does not mean that marriage is just a societal obligation. More views on subject later.

I expect more aphorisms from Rhett,as I read on.

K.K Soap

2006-04-10T13:22:00.000-07:00

Imagine you were introduce a soap against the mighty FMCG companies like P&G and HLL.How would you invade the consumer mindspace.

Lifebouy:Germ Killer
Lux: Beauty Soap
K.K: ?

We had this discussion in one of our G.K lectures at PT,some of the taglines that I remember from cornucopia of ideas that came out are...

K.K: A Soap which serves as mosquito repellant
K.K: A Soap which gives you confidence
K.K: A Soap that strengthen your muscles.

It's all about obtaining that precious little consumer mindspace, and do it without much advertising while competing with giants like HLL is not an easy task.Here's a story of someone who has done it.

C.K Ranganathan the CEO of CavinKare has scripted a very inspiring success story.He was awarded the ET entrepreneur of year award in 2004.Another morsel of story is of Karsan Bhai of Nirma who made life tougher for HLL.

Congenital Indian Inefficiency

2006-04-10T13:16:00.000-07:00

Indian governments have a congenital inefficiency; they are extremely inefficient when it comes to implementing laws. I say congenital because this has been going for more than 50 years. We are often besmirched with calumnious statements like we are laggards when it comes to taking decisions. We are like cows that we worship, capable but slow. Indian government to Indian judiciary anything that is state owned suffers from this malaise.

Reservations is one those policies which has had a mildewed effect for if Mr. B.R. Ambedkar was to be believed we should have done with our reservation policies before 1960's. Increase in quotas now only caveats the fact they have not had been successful.

In Times debate today, taking a counter view, Mr. Amrith Lal says

Quotas aren't anti-merit. Merit is a category that is influenced by social and economic hierarchies.

I think he still clings to old shibboleths of education and societal status, today the people who benefit the most from reservations are the ones who least need it, people who albeit being SC/ST/OBC are economically sufficient. Most of these families have a generation which has already reaped on the quota benefits. I think the reservation benefits should be limited to only one generation. But again we are known to make most perfect laws and implement them with resplendent imperfections; hence the repercussions are always unknown.

Although a 125% increase in reservations is exorbitant I think it was inevitable, the fact that this bill was passed 379-2 in the Lok Sabha speaks profoundly of decadent attitude and ethos of our leaders.

Often such cases are followed by page-3 aspirants sallying into action,calling for protests or giving 'I-know-english' type of comments to the local reporter.Last couple of years since my college has gained quite a bit of media importance I have been able understand media quite a bit by being close to such page-3 aspirants.I think I will post about it someday.

At same time protests like Hunger-strike,and other revolutionary measures are not only futile but also a blantant display of temerity.

The best way to deal with situations like these is first to create awareness and then garner some resources , file a PIL and fight it in the court of law. The strong alumni of the ivy -league institutions and the student community can financially support the court proceedings

On a more personal note the increase in reservations filled me with consternation initially but my tenacious optimism as always rescued me and I could laugh it out with this...

As the Old donkey says in Animal Farm

"Donkeys live a long time,none of you has ever seen a dead donkey"
well so do humans and dogs.

Sorry a bit of PJ(personal Joke) but i found the above quote very apt to the situation.

War

2006-04-05T11:04:00.000-07:00

Just realized this while reading "Gone with the wind"

"War with all the foolishness that it surmounts to,invites most astute wisdom."

-Anubhav Agarwal,5/4/06

The Independence Hangover

2006-04-02T14:46:00.000-07:00

“At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom”

"The world was not sleeping; it was for example 2.30 in USA"

- Hazaron Khwaishyein Aisi.

Yes, the world was not sleeping galloping rather. I somehow had come to believe that Nehru, his commanding heights theory and his “temples of modern India” were all to blame for India’s poor economic growth post independence. Also, I hail from a faction that has always believed that Sardar Patel would have been a better prime minister and Nehru with his ostentatious lifestyle and his deep rooted socialist believes was a mistake. Although I always believed that Nehru was a wonderful leader and a heartthrob of millions, I always doubted his capabilities as an administrator and a decision maker. A lot reading recently has changed my views slightly, though I still reckon he was not the best decision maker around.

One of the many things that we normally level against Nehru is that we had a shunted economic growth courtesy the PSU’s and his central planning concepts that finally bogged down to license raj and hindered the economic growth, in all his socialist views.

As MJ Akbar very profoundly puts it

“I think that's very very unfair. Every 'ism' is basically a reflection of the moment. There's no permanent ism. The only permanent ism can be faith -- like Hinduism or Islamism.”

Very true, Nehru did almost what most of his contemporaries did, at that time to lay out a proper an infrastructure the only way out was state intervention. As Manmohan Singh once said in an interview,

“Let me say that I think the economic history of the last 150 years clearly shows that if you want to industrialize a country in a short period, let us say 20 years, and you don't have a well-developed private sector, entrepreneurial class, [then central planning is important].”

But as somebody once remarked, “Business of the state is to stay out business”, I think after laying initial infrastructure government should have backed out. As Judith brown puts it,

“…the problems lay in the late 1960s and 1970s when the groundwork had been laid for development and the State could have stood back.”
“..Yes, I think he should have given up some time in the late 1950s.”

Actually most of the problems due to socialism that we attribute to him came during Indira Gandhi’s reign. As MJ Akbar says,

“Much of the Socialism that we attribute to him actually came during Indira Gandhi's time, when under the advice of certain people whose names are best forgotten, she went to the point of once even proposing that the wheat trade in the country should be taken over by the government. This is all post '69-70, when politics took over economics.”

Yes, that is when the draconian FERA and MRTP came, when we build walls around us. We prevented ourselves from the Coca-Colaism and Pepsism, although that execrable feat is normally attributed to George Fernandes, the foundations were actually laid with FERA. This was the same time, when Deng Xiao-ping, revered as the greatest Asian administrator, opened the floodgates for FDI in China.

Lets consider socialism as an experiment that failed, but an experiment that was perforce at the initial stage of developement after independence.

As Upamanyu Chatterjee puts it in his usual acerbic candor,

“Has socialism been good for anybody but the socialists?”

On a lighter note I just realized, while typing the above paragraph in MS Word that Deng Xiao-ping is actually a word in its dictionary and Indira Gandhi is not. Looks like Bill Gates, has same feelings for Mrs. Gandhi as Henry Kissinger.

Coming back, another issue surrounding Nehru’s leadership is that he committed an epochal blunder by referring the Kashmir issue to the UN. I am more inclined to believe that Pandit Nehru was culpable in this regard. Claude Arpi gives very strong arguements to this in his article,along with an anecdote redolent of Nehru' s incapabilty of taking decisions in imperious situations ,by Sam Manekshaw.

On the final front of Indo-China war, which finally became his Nadir, one of Nehru's personal weakness was to blame.According to Judith Brown,

[..]problem lay in the fact that he a. was his own foreign minister and b. there was no powerful counterweight of an external affairs establishment or minister to challenge his views.

[..]His inability to delegate -- gathering so much power to his own person as prime minister that he stifled opposition and failed to nurture those who might have challenged him

So, who do you think was a better choice, Nehru or Patel. Nehru was surely more suitable for the international arena albeit it is difficult to explain his grievous foreign policy blunders.

Supporters of Patel say that if he would have been PM , he certainly would have driven the tribesmen right out of India by never agreeing to ceasefire and there would'nt have been an entity like POK.

Alam Srinivas once wrote in the outlook, arguing that such a step would have created an international furore and embroiled Indian realtions with UN.

Although I find it hard to swallow this arguement after all that has happened in Kashmir,I must say that even if we employ inumerable casuistries in our essays we will remain as much vunerable in predicting the past in differnt frame of events as we are in predicting in future.

Bad

2006-04-02T14:41:00.000-07:00

I have seen good times. I have seen bad times. I wrote ‘scraps’, people called them ‘craps’. Bad. They derided my jokes saying that they were even below Uganda’s poverty line. Bad. Snide remarks from presumptuous kids became quite frequent. Bad. I stopped visiting blogs of my friends. Bad. They stopped visiting me. Bad. I became extremely irregular with blogging.Worst

22 days after 1^st anniversary of my blog I announce that in future I will try to squeeze a post every 1.5 weeks. Apparently I forgot the anniversary. Thank god blogs do not have a sex.

On 13^th march 2005,in my first post I wrote about one of the Indians I admire the most, M.K. Gandhi, today, I will write about his successors.

One of my teachers once asked me who do you think represents brand India or is the most popular Indian?

What would be your answer?

Aishwarya Rai

Amitabh Bachchan

My answer is Mahatma Gandhi, what’s yours?

Hope

2006-03-26T01:03:00.000-08:00

"Hope is a good thing,may be the best of things and no good
thing ever dies"

Andy Dufresne , Shawshank Redemption.

Gone With The Wind

2006-03-25T13:30:00.000-08:00

Please don't be apprehensive, this post is not about the methods I use during flatulency. I just want to announce that I have started reading "Gone With the wind" by Margaret Mitchell.

The reason behind all that braggadocio is that the book spans over 770 pages and is a classic love story and to add it I have to finish within 15 days flat as I have issued it from a library. The very fact that an indolent like took up the gauntlet (well it’s no less than that), deserves no less than an encomium. May be the fact that the story spins around the American civil war attracted me.

While reading the initial part experienced the vicarious pleasure of living in a county, owning plantation and living life at random, with all the books and movies you ever wanted, all the women you ever wanted to court, like Stuart says

"Give me a horse to ride and some good licker to drink and a good girl to court and a bad girl to have fun with and anybody can have their Europe"

I just added books and movies. Guess I have already made my plans for life after retirement.

Anyways books and movies are all I have been up to recently. Finished The Mammaries of welfare state by Upamanyu chatterjee and Animal Farm by George Orwell. Movies that fell in love with recently were Shawshank redemption,Hazaron Khawishyein Aisi and Schindler's list and am still exasperated with the fact I could not write about any of the above books or movies. I just hope may be in future I will.

Interviews

2006-02-25T11:24:00.001-08:00

Interviews they say are all about selling yourself, well if they don't buy offer some discount.

DOJ

2006-02-22T11:15:00.000-08:00

In USA they call it Department Of Justice and in India I think we should normally call it Death Of Justice.

Manu Sharma, eight others acquitted in Jessica murder case .

Shocked,devastated and finally after some time sad and helpless.

There is another important person in the whole episode Shayan Munshi.

[..]May 3, 2001: Prosecution suffers a setback when key eyewitness Shayan Munshi,
turns hostile and fails to identify Manu Sharma as the man who had fired the
shot.

"Come on, you can't blame the poor actor , the guy has to look after his budding acting career why should he jeopardize it when he knows that the accused have political connections and we are talking of Indian judiciary boss."

Long Live Popcorn Patriotism.

Long Live Popcorn Patriotism

2006-01-27T07:19:00.000-08:00

A thought that popped into my mind after I saw Rangde Basanti. A nice movie, does enamor a bit, good solid screenplay and amazing performances by Aamir khan, Atul Kulkarni and Soha Ali Khan. By the way the site rocks too, do check it out.

Anyways I didn't notice this one on the graffiti wall during the film completely, but found it on the site.Here it goes...

" Go slow, someone is wetting for you"

Nice, I would say,hope you get the pun.

With republic day just past i wanted to write two conflicting posts, spurting from two conflicting theories in my mind. Inspiration for the first one came from the book i am reading by Alvin Tofler called the Third wave and second about Popcorn patriotism and reviewing Rangde combined with lack of freedom in china and something more that i recently learned about China.

Unfortunately as the case i find myself invariably short of time, may be I will write something in future.

Till then go and watch Rangde if you get a chance.

The great firewall of China

2006-01-25T22:18:00.000-08:00

Please read this.

It is often averred that young Indians don't value their independence,to say the least the present generation faces rife opprobrium for the same.

Well anyone who undervalues his freedom will stop doing so after reading the above article. More views on this subject later.

What about them?

2006-01-23T10:04:00.000-08:00

"Winners never quit,quitters never win but WHAT ABOUT SOME WHO NEVER START"
- Anubhav Agarwal

Times Of Mind

2006-01-20T08:54:00.000-08:00

Even after all the virulent and insinuating criticism that TOI manages to emanate from the junta it remains albeit with some usual rampus the most read/ogled newspaper in the college.

My allegiance with TOI although a frivolous matter to me personally, is partially inherited, some wise and truly marwari ancestor of mine articulated that at same cost TOI had more recycle value than IE simply because of a better paper quality and more number of pages. Marwari for those of you don't know is the sub-caste or probably sub-sub-caste I belong to, I might have to write another post on how much I actually don't know about my roots except for the fact that I am an Indian who was born in some obscure part of Jaipur. Anyways the profound piece of advice came to me when I was about eight years old and even with the risk of being labeled as unctuously modest I say that I was not a fair judge of content then.

Even though as of now I do not draw any monetary benefits by giving a huge stack of newspapers to the hostel boy monthly , I continue to subscribe TOI. There are three basic reasons behind it...

a) Firstly Hindu, a newspaper truly admire comes two days late in this part of country, please the hindutva branded state courtesy Mr. Narendra Modi, really needs a difference in opinions, print media as anyways always accused of being insular and incestuous.

b) Secondly I just love reading its TOI columnists right from truly Indian Mrs. Shobhaa De to always exegetic SWAMINATHAN A AIYAR.

C) I don't mind looking at Maria Sharapova and Martina Hingis as long as they are young.

But during recent few weeks the column I have enjoyed reading most is the “Times of Mind” by Subroto Bagachi. Subroto Bagachi is the co- founder of MindTree Consulting. He is truly a veritable raconteur; his anecdotes manifest the right ideals in the most succinct manner. His sagaciousness has been the corner stone of his success.

He writes in today's edition

[..] What is the role of each stranger in our lives? It is a matter worthy of reflection. As is this one thought: how good a stranger am I?

[...] Is there a lesson delivered to us right at the birth that we all forget? Just as a
stranger helps me take my first breath, is the next great thing in my life, being held upside down by a stranger? And by the same token, how good a stranger I am to the world around?

Sadly his articles aren't available in the online edition, but do the read the full piece if you get hold of the print edition, it’s really thought provoking.

Here's a link another article he wrote for Business world.

Here's a copy of an inspiring speech given by him.

Five IITians have started a political party called Paritrana. Best wishes for the same.

Finally I really had to get this out of my system

"Procrastinate Whilst there's a tomorrow"

-Anubhav Agarwal
19/1/06

Fundamental Laws Of Electronics-I and II

2006-01-12T06:56:00.000-08:00

Law I: The odds for completion of your syllabus before exam are inversely proportional to your perseverance in short your SQ(scholastic quotient).

Inference:Most studious people are never able to complete their syllabus whereas delinquent people like me are always complete their syllabus irrespective of circumstances and time on hand.

Law II: Anything articulated by the teacher or written in the course book used by the teacher is a fact.

to be continued...

Mumbai!

2005-12-22T14:14:00.000-08:00

Off to bombay in few days, so no blogging for some time now.

Lets's get Personal!

2005-12-22T13:12:00.000-08:00

I got this idea after watching a movie. I thought I have written more than 50 posts on my blog, but none of my posts have been about me, or just about me. Almost all of them have been written or shall I say composed. Anyways I thought its time I'll post something about myself which directly comes from my heart or my brain or whatever onto to the keyboard. So I am going write anything that comes to mind this time.(See I wrote that too!).

Ok yes, so where was I about me. Ah! you have read my profile for sure so I ain't going to write anything stereotypic here. One reason I have never written much about myself is that when i started blogging i read somewhere an arguement against blogs, that blogs would never get far than kinky diaries or sweet little confessions which nothing-to-do-types would read or pretend to do so. As for diaries i seriously believe in the fact(believe me its a fact) that 98% of people who write diaries want them to be read secretly, probably because they were never had the courage to talk about it. But i am writing as a future reference, something I'll would like to read in future and i dont mind anybody else reading it coz aint going to write anything i dont want anybody else to know. Just know how I was when at the age of 20, sounds stupid but then you got to do some stupid things in life too. So lets call a character photograph..wierd name too!

Most people who know me would agree that I the most laziest in my entire family including relatives counting all generations. I can kill time like anything sleeping,eating,watching movies and dreaming. I am sure I would have dreamt more than 3/4 of my future life by now in numerous circumstances both good and bad. Day dreaming or dreaming at night any time of the day its not hard for me. whenever i get time. I was quite a studious guy when i was at school, may be i had to be/was expected to be or may didnt have anymore options. I sucked royally at almost outdoor sports coz I never took them seriously but tried them and failed them all. All the ball games.

i love travelling in trains alone and passing time standing at door.Looking at the life around you may be the just the way they show in the hindi movies of the 80's and early 90's-Swaying out arms ofcourse tightly clutched to the safety handles or bars. Probably started doing this may be as early teenage stunts to impress somebody interesting but still love to do that everytime i am travelling alone from baroda to surat or back.

I never have been able figure out if I am an introvert or extrovert I behave very differently in different cricumstances. Was nominated for the title of most talkative person at my school farewell function. Missed that award but pledged that day that from here on..will try to control my tongue just a little bit. My college life started pretty horribly , had really weird roomates in my first year, life almost seemed like hell then. But later i felt that i needed that sort of an experience probably just to know the world. I have always believed in god but never in idol worship.

One thing i really miss in my life is probably doing crazy stuff..something which i can call crazy....Even though sem to have broken all rules,done many weird things, but never really felt they were crazy after doing them. So probably would love to do something crazy like scuba diving or travelling half the country on a bike in future.

I think can continue writing but i am very sleepy i will continue this may be sometime in future.

Well,its the Idea Wave

2005-12-20T11:20:00.000-08:00

futureme...Go check it out.Have not used it but its kinda fun reading public entries.What Sh!t people write.

Well I have been doing this for some time now, I am used to writing reminders in my mobile for future dates.(Not exactly the same eh??).Last reminder I wrote is supposed to remind me of yesterday when I am 30 yrs old.This also prevents me of buying a new mobile, because I am really in love with my first mobile.See how big a miser I am.

Shut Up!

2005-12-18T11:16:00.000-08:00

“One of the major problems I have faced in my class is to get my Japanese students to speak up and my Indian students to shut up." As told to Mr. Narayan Murthy by a Harvard professor,his friend.

Mr. Murthy adds," We Indians should stop debating and start executing"

As said in "Changing India" a special event hosted by NDTV with Bill Gates and Narayan Murthy as guests in converstaion with Prannoy Roy.

Makes sense doesn't it? We Indians debate and discuss too much, whether it’s the parliament or the TV talk shows. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean that we should debate just for the sake of doing it. Debates must lead to a conclusion.

Start Doing things, rather than just speaking.

"This country has no future.."

2005-12-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

This thought flashed my mind, when I was reading R.K. Laxman's interview by Sonia Faleiro.Do read it very interesting.

“Moving on to the Common Man. How has he evolved in recent times?
I’ve written about it and spoken about it. You’re asking the same
question. Why don’t you read my autobiography? (The Tunnel of Time.)

I have. It describes the creation of the Common Man. I’m asking
how he evolved.
There’s no change. He is as permanent as the moon,
stars. They don’t change, nor does he.”

R.K Laxman can be considered as of the few Indians who have seen it all, all of what this country has seen for past four decades or so. The dour determination with which he answers the question just confirms the stature of this man. Being a cartoonist I am sure he was always more aware of political, social and economic condition of our country presumably at any time in the history of his career.

Perhaps that’s what makes him despair, bereft of all hopes, for the common man.

Another thing that bemuses a bit is a touch of melancholy in his words, something unexpected from a man so successful, or perhaps that’s just his style.

“Frustu” as we call them in our lexicon.

But I believe hope is what makes wheel’s turn, and keeps life ticking. I hope I a won’t be see a day when say to my grandchildren( I am not sure I will be interviewed at the age of 75.)… “This country has no future.”

Life goes on….and will keep going on. To end this, I defiantly announce that this my 50th post, quite a slow start, I guess, for somebody who be started blogging 9 months ago. Perhaps I am playing a test match and I hope to reach the four figures one day. After all nobody’s going to drop me from the test team..(bad joke..eh..!!)

Sleeping

2005-12-17T14:06:00.000-08:00

"...is an art which is best practiced during the day and executed during the night"

by my friend Potu.Master of the art, I am just an amateur at.

We Pay them

2005-12-15T13:46:00.000-08:00

Cricket is a Funny game, but this time around the selectors made it more grotesque. On 14th December 2005 India recorded an emphatic 188 run victory over Srilanka. Soon after the selection committee announced the team for the third test against Srilanka dropping Saurav Ganguly, the most successful Indian captain till date. This decision whetted quite many emotions, sparked off indignation among many of the million.

There are people on both sides of the ring as expected. Some support his exclusion as a brave step with the future in mind while others say there is no reason but politics behind his exclusion.
To each his own view, I am more inclined towards his inclusion simply because I feel that tests require more experience than ODI’s and Saurav certainly strengthens the Indian middle order. I feel it important to mention at this juncture, something which might be considered as a veritable display of modesty being an Indian that I don’t consider myself as a cricket expert.

I am more unnerved by the timing of the decision, lack of accountability by the selectors and finally lack of respect to a great Indian captain. In fact I find some of the reasons given by bloggers more justifiable for his exclusion than the selectors. More importantly I want you to answer a simple question.

What makes BCCI the richest board in world cricket?
Ans. A million Indians.

Why do I keep saying a million Indians is another matter of deep concern, for I believe there’s hardly anyone in our country who knows how many of us are here.

Anyways, we’ll think about that sometime later. I feel that BCCI and the selection board should be more accountable to Indians. Here’s a brief description of our selection committee.

“North’s Bhupinder Singh (Sr) featured in a couple of ODIs, never quite coming
into contention for a Test berth.

The other two, Sanjay Jagdale (Central) and East’s Ranjib Biswal, never got beyond the domestic first-class
level.

Indeed, even among the old-timers — West’s Kiran More and
V.B.Chandrasekhar (South) — the former alone has played both Tests and ODIs.
Chandrasekhar had seven ordinary appearances in the sport’s chota version.”

Source This artcile from the Telegraph.

I feel the best should only be the part of the selection committee. BCCI’s esteemed constitution should be amended so that it is more accountable to the people of this country. I don’t hesitate even a bit to say that indirectly we pay them. They are rich because cricket is worshipped in our country.

Nayan Mongia I remember was gifted a similar kind treatment. And then again, Have they forgotten about Zaheer khan and Balaji.

Our selectors have to be more accountable and respectable.

In the midst of all

2005-12-15T13:25:00.000-08:00

Below are links to some posts which I found interesting to the present controversy.

Gaurav Sabnis paints a grotesquery of comparison between the classic Brutus vs Caesar and the present Dravid vs Ganguly.

"Have a frank chat with Ganguly, and leave him alone with a gun and a single bullet,metaphorically speaking. Tell him that things have reached a point of no return, but that he still deserves to go out like a General. Give him a leeway of a few tests and suggest to him that he announce his retirement. Surely, they could afford to give him that much
leeway."

Nothing can be more agreeable, they not only can afford to give him a leeway, but they and Indian cricket owes that much to Ganguly. Much like what Australian cricket did to Steve Waugh.

An interesting article in the telegraph vehemently protesting against his exclusion.

Here’s another by a popular blogger talking about all the obfuscation that presently surrounds the Indian cricket.

And finally a theory that justifies Ganguly’s exclusion.

If you wanted know more about Wasim Jaffer, who is in the team in place of Saurav.

Too much to say....

2005-12-10T10:18:00.000-08:00

I am writing after a very long time, much more than a month I guess. But believe me when I say that I had no intentions of obliterating my blog this way. I think it’s quite difficult to restart blogging if you have been away for a long time. Call it hiatuses due to indolence.

I have a proclivity for writing reviews (though haven’t written many of them) especially of movies I have seen and keep seeing and… ∞ because I watch a lot. I am sure many of you might claim to do so but I am sure there aren’t many who can compete with me. Some movies are really progenies of creativity, they really exhort you to think and express your views. So I had thought that as soon as my exams finish I would start writing reviews of movies I adore.

Well 15 long somnolent days of my vacation have passed since that impetuous resolution of mine and I haven’t started yet. I thought of starting today but would spare my readers from my soporific reviews first up.

Miss Iceland, Unnur Birna new Miss world was crowned the new miss world today. Though I missed the final live telecast I had seen some of the initial stages. I liked the way they conducted the initial stages. But I find this system of user sms voting a bit incongruous at least to this scenario. I know it’s a real gold mine for the telecom service providers for the obscene amount of money they charge per sms and it has become quite a de rigueur in the flurry of reality shows we have seen in the recent past in our country. Quite suits to scenario of this world’s biggest democracy.

Anyways back to that Miss world situation, even though the votes were only for the initial rounds, but think of those voluptuous beauties from small nations of Americas (Venezuela, Costa Rica…) whom I ‘look ‘ forward to every year. I am sure they didn’t get the advantage like the Indian beauty got from the hugely unsuccessful family planning policy of our country. I crave for justice “Me laard”…

Even more ludicrous is system of sending “get well soon” and “congratulations” messages for your stars to various news channels. Nothing is more preposterous than this; for whom is this presumptuous display affection? For the star, who I am sure doesn’t even read one of those messages? Or the T.V channel and Mobile service provider who make cool bucks from this just by displaying the message on a marquee display in a small strip at the bottom. If it got do with auctioning your EQ or literary prowess I am sure there are better ways.

Every day we see news channels doing this, Amitabh’s ill send in your messages, Sachin created world record in test cricket congratulate him…

I just have two words for people who fall for this… “Get Real”...

Sue Me, I am a Blogger

2005-10-15T00:58:00.000-07:00

A sort of war has spurted between IIPM and Indian Bloggers. It all started with Jam, a popular youth Magazine publishing a report about IIPM. Many Indian Bloggers, including me (they have even spammed my post, sorry a bit of narcissist at heart) linked to web version of that report. Gaurav Sabnis, a popular Indian blogger, was issued a legal notice some days back by IIPM because of the same.

Desipundit, is covering the controversy remarkably well. You can access all the links from their blog. Apart from more pretentious facts unearthed, there are some lampoons also in store.

I just want to point a couple of things here, first its high time that the so called dubious “IT ACT” of Indian constitution is amended to clearly point the rights of speech an Indian citizen through various information mediums.

Second if IIPM can sue people of defaming it as an educational institution wonder what it has to say their own perverse tag line “ Think beyond IIMs”…

Now there are about zillion other things I want to write about but with exams and submissions around the corner I don’t have much time on hand. Anyways, almost all these issues in one way or the other have been covered by other Indian Bloggers.

A word of advice, all Bloggers can stop spam comments from automatic online bots by activating the word verification comment policy. It can be found in the comments tab of Bloggers settings.

Now I have submissions next week, then exams so might not be blogging unless I am sued myself.

Btw that title is Kiruba Shankar’s idea , he apparently has thought of this as a wonderful tee for all Bloggers.

I came across a quote from the movie "The silence of the lambs", found it quite interesting. Here it goes...

"First principles, Clarice. Read Marcus Aurelius of each particular thing ask:
what is it in itself? What is its nature"

Feel like a ….Man

2005-10-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

Yes that could be a tagline for the next undergarment ad or is it already. Read this if you have absolutely nothing else to do. Just some incoherent lines to tell me what’s going on?..

I turned 20 yesterday. They say life is journey of continuous retrospection, I wonder if mine has been, sometimes the days just keep slipping of your hand while you to try catch them. Two weeks have past since I last wrote. While I was really ebullient during the first week, the second one was really enervating.

First came the elections, although politics has always interested me, I have never been good at it. I connived to help my friend win, this might sound pompous, but I am sure my vote was important in the end. Guess every one has his day, settled a long standing duel this time. Nevertheless I was happy after the results. Strategic politics is what interests me, not dirty the one. Politics in my college could be defined as the power politics. Politics is a time when the most frivolous people are suddenly lionized. Not sure if I am a victim, but then who cares, I got what I wanted.

Then came VOX POPULI, it was an intercollegiate fest, by PT in which I took organizational responsibilities. I wanted to write a report after it, but just didn’t have the time. I have been often told that I am really hyperactive; I realized it during the event. Anyways the event was successful, at least my part was. I coordinated Role Play and looked after marketing in my college was happy by the outcome of both. The event also had debate competition which was also good. It was coordinated by winners of last year’s competition from my college. Organizing role play was nice in two ways, first it was sort of an event which was I organizing for the first time and I had no previous experience of it so learned lot. Second I came across some really interesting people apart from the hot gujju maal. The chief coordinator was more of a behind the scenes man he really coordinated very efficiently. I still one remember his statements. He said “I am just trying to pull strings”… The PT centre head was also interesting to work with. I was amazed with the ease with which he solved problems. All in all a good experience for me, but I have promised myself, to abstain from all organizing responsibilities in future, they really are time consuming.

I have been really working petulantly since then, just in the forlorn hope that I will get some time.

I am presently reading “English, August”, quite delightful as it is touted, plan to come out with a review later. I have never read “The Gita” , but I came across a few lines from it in the book.

Arjuna says “The mind is restless Krishna”

Krishna replies, “The mind is indeed restless, Arjuna; it is indeed hard to train, but by constant practice and by freedom from passions the mind can be trained.”

I found it really relevant to my present life. May be what Gita and Marcus are to Agastya (protagonist of the novel), English, August is to me.

Watched “The green Mile” yesterday after I narrowly escaped a GPL from my clique( speaking in more formal terms, their rendezvous with my ass) , was supposed to be late night treat for myself, didn’t turn out to be. I set out to write a review for it, but what started as a glimpse of past few weeks ended as personal rhetoric. The movie wasn’t as good as I expected it to be, the name Tom Hanks creates expectations. Guess the script wasn't that good.

Next in queue is the “ Italian Job” haven’t heard much of it, no such expectations from it. Got a four hr lecture on EBM in the morning by DB Don, as he is fondly called, they say you got to attend his lecture after all he is the training and placement coordinator, might screw your placements . Plan to catch some sleep in the hall tomorrow.

I think I can be blogging regularly only during my vacations, lets see when the next comes out.

2005-09-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless mind: Movie review( 4/5)

This movie deserves more than 4 stars, just for the amount of cerebration put behind this movie, but I’ll hold more than 4 as to be perfect and perfection is not a limit that can be easily reached at.

Eternal Sunshine comes from Charlie Kaufman, the doyen of the ‘mind’ movies, a subject that has been the leitmotif of his career. He is revered for the great creations like “Confessions of Dangerous mind” and “Being John Malkovich”.

This movie is about mind and its power. It shows memories as bits and things which may be or can be erased or retrieved and retained.

It is a story of two young minds, Joe Barish (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet) , imbrangled in the cobwebs of life, “fucked up people looking for their own peace of mind” as the movie puts it. They fall in love with each other, but as with most
contemporary relationships, there’s also goes through a bit of tumult.

Clementine shown as an impulsive girl decides to erase Joe from her mind to assuage her pain. Joe is shocked when he discovers this and decides to go through the same process. However, during the erasing process when Joe goes down then memory lane, he finds himself still in love with her. He fights his mind and the erasing procedure to save Clementine, hide her in the maze of his brain.

When they finally discover what they went through, it helps them understand their relationship better. Understanding each other, which is probably the key to any relationship?

And How Does he succeed if he ever does? How do they meet again and remember each other? See and find out.

The title of comes from a poem by Alexander Pope. The lines are….

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;

I can’t come out with an exegesis, but I am particularly impressed by the second line….What would happen to world if it forgets the bad ….or the good…

The movie scores copiously for its brilliant screenplay and dialogues. Dialogues and situations are very carefully planned. On the acting front Jim Carrey is good, segues quite well in to the schmaltzy, different from his usual roles which are full of guffaws. Incidentally Jim was also shooting for Bruce Almighty during this time. Kate Winslet , the sexiest Mom in UK( Hmm...could not resist to say that) is equally good. Kirsten Dunst impresses in a small but a good performance.

In all a great movie which you would love to watch on a Sunday evening when you are quite relaxed.

One last mention for the background score , the movie has an old hindi movie song playing in background during a scene.

Cast Details Here

The Return of the Jedi

2005-09-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

I am back, to rejuvenate my decrepit blog, which is crying for an update they say. When I set out writing blogs, didn’t have any hopes and expectations from them, didn’t tout them in any particular category. But probably this time around I think I will be writing more for myself than for anybody else.

“I Think, therefore I am and therefore I will be”….

So I am here to lent credence to my beliefs, corroborate my views and ideas and thus find myself.

I recently watched a lot of movies so I will be writing reviews for them.

2005-08-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

Here is something you surely don't want to miss, Aamir Khan , the perfectionist as they call him,
has a 'BLOG' at msn spaces.Here is the link

Mangal Pandey is film for which almost th whole India has been waiting and that surely includes yours truly
an ardent fan of him.

As of 'Blog' a smart idea, I would say, a win-win situation for both the producers and msn. Few years ago trend
of creating official websites for movies was new and probably "Mangal Pandey" is the first celebrity movie
in India to have a blog. Ofcourse who wouldn't fancy the idea of reading Aamir.

Planing to go home this weekend and watch Mangal Pandey...Till then as 'he' says "Mangal Ho!"..

Still in Hibernation

2005-07-26T23:55:00.000-07:00

Engineers are biggest procrastinators, but believe me I had no role in my small break turining into a big vacation.(Hindi FIlm cue: Your honor " main bekasoor hoon, not guilty").

You can start by blaming it on the hostel warden, the college director, and then the MHRD. Anyways the crux of the matter is your's truly still does not have net in his hostel room.Actually the new college year has started it will take some time till the things get settled.

I have always have theme for a new college year , not resolutions , which probably are things you never want to do. A theme would be an idea and direction for the new academic year. ( Non Academic activities incluided ;) ).

So the theme for this year is...

" Don't lose the grip on dreams of your past you must fight to keep them alive".

This line is part of the song, "Eye Of Tiger" from the Rocky IV.

P.S: If you visit my blog and dont see any updates you can always quench your strong desire of clicking by clicking the google ads..(see on them left side). Contribution to an engineer's relief fund will be seen as a humanatarian gesture. In addition One Paisa will be given to salman khan for buying a new mobile ..( He has to make so many phone calls these days :) )

P.P.S: Spell Check was Left to the reader, I wrote this post in record time of 6 mins and that too in my college Computer Centre and on a Linux computer with fonts in range of nano metres..( Guess I am in the engineering groove).

I am taking a small break

2005-07-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Parnab Mania

2005-07-12T11:23:00.000-07:00

There has been a flurry of posts on Paranab Mukherjee recently in the blog world. Here’s another one by Gaurav Sabnis highlighting much the same point.

Now in spite of my habituate indolence I tried to do a bit of searching on Parnab myself. One interesting fact I came across was that almost all search results point to his introductions at the various college websites where he has conducted quizzes. Even more astonishing is the fact that almost all these introductions are same; they have been just copied and pasted from one website to another.

So evidently, there is nothing much on web that supports Parnab’s Claims.

Now I mentioned in previous blog how he left the audience enthralled on each occasion he came in my college. A person who seemed to have more RAM than the Deep Blue’s, read more than 15 newspapers a day captivated every one. The newspaper round had the audience awestruck. His porno jokes, his tongue-in-cheek style where he would bully anyone who tried to be smart appealed to the larger audience and provided entertainment values.

May be our poor retention power, lack of knowledge and ignorance did the trick. Of course, who would have thought of checking a Princeton Graduate’s, a reputed speaker and a famous theatre personality’s claims?

I happened to recall something I read on Amit Vermas’ Blog. He said that Blogs might be the lost teeth of journalism; all I can say reading blogs has become a daily affair for me and I have learned a lot from them. Some of them have been real revelations. May be that’s why they call them the next ‘in’ thing.

Interesting...

2005-07-11T03:51:00.000-07:00

In a democracy as big us, the party in opposition plays a very significant role by expressing its opinions, supporting or criticizing the government accordingly and ensuring its proper functioning.

BJP’s attempt to politicize the Ayodhya issue again brought out its racist approach. Mr. Ramachandra Guha in his article in telegraph expresses that it might well be impossible of BJP to get rid of RSS, VHP and to wash out the non-secular stains on its image.
(Link via India Uncut).

Politics often termed as boring, is quite funny and unpredictable at times. As of now BJP might be considered as having a very gloomy future, struggling to gain grounds due to frequent internal feuds and its tiffs with its parent RSS. However, if it ever resurrects itself and builds a secular and independent identity of itself, politics in our country might have a bright future with leaders in our country thinking more about core economic and social problems.

After all who could have predicted the way single handedly Sonia Gandhi resurrected Congress.

Switching to the fast lane, Silverstone turned out to be a sheer disaster for Narain Karthikeyan when he had to retire from the race on the 11th lap due to electronic problems in his car.

I think all he needs is a bit of luck and support from his country.After all, all the great Formula 1 drivers have gone through tough times early in their career.

Indians have a tendency to worship somebody today and throw stones on him tomorrow. At moment the media seems to be gung-ho about Sania Mirza and little is said about the fastest Indian , Narain Karthikeyan.

Memory Keeper has some pics of the recent flood disaster in Vadodara. See them and you could easily visualize my lonely island post.

While going through Aniruddha Dutta’s blog, Jaldi Quizzing, I came across some interesting links about Pranab Mukherjee.

Pranab Mukherjee is a celebrity quizmaster, and conducts quizzes in Tech- Fests of various colleges, almost all NIT’s and IIT’s.

He has been conducting Mind Bend (NIT Surat Tech-Fest) Mega quiz since last three years and has left the audience enthralling on each occasion.

These posts on him have come in as quite a surprise for me. Check out the links to read more.

Read this and this to know more.

Taggin Blue's

2005-07-11T03:36:00.000-07:00

I got a book tag from Krishna.

Total number of books I own :
I am not counting

The last book bought?:
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin S. Sharma

The last book you read?
“Who moved My Cheese” by Dr. Spencer Johnson

Books I am currently reading:
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin S. Sharma.

Books that mean a lot to me:
“Who moved My Cheese” by Dr. Spencer Johnson
“Da Vinci Code”, by Dan Brown.

Now honestly speaking I have got a bit bored with this tag phenomena.

Vaccination Against Boredom:Dose II

2005-07-07T13:40:00.000-07:00

The In's and Out's

You would often hear somebody saying in our group, “Man she is ... (ok STOP Anubhav this not the place)”, so when we are not discussing about the ‘s’he who must not be named (Potter mania eh!), we discuss what’s in and what’s out.

If you ask a girl, what’s in, she might show you her wardrobe but do not, I repeat do not ask your wife the same question, because she might show you the mall.

So, there were G-strings, then came the Noodle straps, and then Spaghetti tops. (And if you thought all this was about food, you are surely are out). *My sincere apologies to all of you who think that there was something rather anachronistic about that list but that was the order in which they started coming on MTV,STAR TV, and ZEE TV( You Thought men don’t watch soaps) and then Mrs. Malhotra started wearing them in exactly opposite order however baring the first one. Yes baby, Mrs. Malhotra, the belle of the ball, the queen of yester years, not that I am incapable of describing her voluptuous body but eying my readers I think I should stop digressing*

ya..So where was I ..the in's.

Then there are books, I mean today, if you are Jobless or you are an IIM-A pass out you can, and believe me when I say , You can ( Shiv Khera ishtyle),a write a book.*Read this report about Shiv khera (The author of You can Win) being charged with plagiarism*

First there was “Seven Habits of Highly Effective people”* which of course was the real bestseller* by Stephen Covey and then somebody wrote
“Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens”, which Miss. Malhotra is reading, *Now you know why I Happen to visit the Malhotras so often.;) * and yesterday Mrs. Malhotra told me she is writing “Seven Habits FOR Highly ‘Effective’ Husbands” based on her experience while giving rigorous training to her husband.

Let us analyze the matter with profundity of an analyst, first there were babas , who with smoke, fire, bands, broomsticks and fruits solved your problems, all of them, be it Shantanu’s business problems or Ganga’s Infertility .(Unbelievable, haven’t you heard, “ Beti, yeh Kela Kha Le and you will Doodo Naho and Puto Phulo * Actually I am very bad at translations, but here it goes “ Child, Eat This Banana, and You will Bath with Milk and Have Kids”* and now there are books for all that.

Today you can find books on relationships, on speaking, on dating, eating, on dreaming, in addition the endless rhetoric’s on communication skills.

Then there are biographies, some people with presumptuous gumption start believing that world is waiting to hear their corny life stories. Such people should be relegated to unknown islands made to read their books.

If Osama , Raju Pan wala and Shamu Doodhwala( Milk Man) write their memoirs, what would be the names?

Osama: Hide and Bomb

Raju: s “pan” of life , this one is by Namita

Shamu: The Art of Mixing

Conclusion: Anubhav is writing a book on HOW TO WRITE A BOOK and you got to pre-book your copy now!!!

Eight Queens Aboard

2005-07-05T14:58:00.000-07:00

“I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be a darling at it”, said Dorothy Parker.

I think it more or less applies to me too, I don’t know much about it now but I am sure one day………

One of many (so many) things I am going to do after I get the moolah is to own a Yatch , some thing like The Rising Sun, owned by Lawrence J. Ellison Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Oracle Corporation and go on a cruise with my queens(Err…queen).

Until then, let us get the queens on a smaller board…the Chess Board. :D

Solving puzzles I think is one of most efficient ways to spend time. One of greatest puzzle is the “Eight Queens on a Board Puzzle”.

The Aim is to place the eight queens on the chessboard such that none of them intercepts other’s path in any way. Now for those of you do not play chess, queen is the strongest piece in chess and the only piece that can move diagonally, horizontally and vertically as well.

Something like this….

You can find all the 12 unique solutions here.

Now I spent around 2 hours yesterday to find an algorithm for this.

The best way to solve the problem is to place the queens moving in a Knight’s way (2 and 1/2 steps) or L shaped ways.

Now I am still working on the algorithm to solve it. There are many algorithms on net, which solve the problem-using math (Permutations) and backtracking. I want develop a program that works on pattern of movement as I mentioned above.

So try the problem, and tell me if you reach any breakthroughs.

Now ,today when I was watching the news/debate on the recent terrorist attack on ayodhya, my mother asked me to change the channel, she felt that there is no point wasting time on politicians who are never going to change. I do not blame her at all, after the whole days’ work, who has time and energy to spend on listening to hypocritical demagogues.

This more or less is the story of many in our country; most of us are so engrossed in our problems that we do not actively follow politics. I strongly believe that our apathy towards politics is major factor behind it's sorry state. However, I think the youth of our country, which is more energetic, should criticize and voice opinions on core Indian issues. Now that we have Blogs as efficient medium to express our views, we can make the politicians more accountable.

I strongly feel that spreading awareness matters, VHP, RSS and Shiv Sena have not survived for anything; they have been able to do so because there is support for them.

So if any of you think I am right, please tell me, I am thinking of a group blog that deals with core Indian issues.

By now you must have read about the Terrorist attack on Ayodhya and VHP‘s plan to organize a week long country wide protest against it.

I do not understand the need of a countrywide protest and instead of showing solidarity BJP is politicizing the issue by asking for Home minister’s resignation.

Ask them who resigned when there was an attack on Indian parliament and in any case this attack was successfully stopped and all terrorists were killed.

A nation wide protest would not just cause more economic problems but might reignite communal tensions.

P.S( This is seriously Post script no make shift..:D): If you are an Indian Blogger living anywhere in the world, you can get yourself listed at the Indian Bloggers Index.

Three Days on a Lonely Island

2005-07-04T12:08:00.000-07:00

Pre-Srcipt(P.S): This post is going to be boring, read at your own risk.

The last two words aptly describe Vadodara in the past week. When it rained for the first time even somebody as non-poetic as me felt like writing something, almost ten dozen Hindi poems have been written around this magical moment and some of them are really wonderful, but there are so many of them. However, things after that first shower have not been so magical, it has been raining, raining and raining since then. The water levels in both Vishwamitri (river) and Ajwa dam rose above the danger mark, sounding the flood bells. Incessant rains resulted in water logging in most streets and on Thursday, 30 June, power was cut and it almost cut us from the world and life almost came to stand still. As all transportation links were broken most people were restricted to their homes and some to roof tops.

Then started the three-day stay on the lonely island: my home. The phone started ringing with relatives asking about the situation and we could tell them only about our locality(As unbelievable as it might sound, while most mobile networks failed BSNL was working in some parts). No electricity No paper, no news, no network and back to primitive world for three days. Deprived of essential means of entertainment (the boxes), we resorted to chess, cards and Dumb Charades. Luckily, things were not as bad for us; water did not enter our homes and just managed reach the entrance of our society.

Come Saturday and rains took a break, I went to visit the nearby bridge over the Vishwamitri, which by now had become a tourist place. This is something unique to Indians, however grim and alarming the situation may be we do find means of entertainment. The nearby schools and societies were already flooded, with cars submerged and people restricted to the rooftops or higher floors. At a point on the slope of bridge, water was flowing over the bridge although only with a very mild current.

On a sad note, things are not as good in other parts of the city and the state, many people have died and thousands have been forced to leave their homes. I cannot provide an accurate picture of the situation in other parts because life has just swung back to normal for me. Probably I can provide a more detailed account when I am able move out of the society and roads become approachable. Luckily, as I said before, it did not affect me much, but I still remember the Friday night when we checked the water level near the entrance of society more than four times during the night to be more aware of the situation. That night was crucial.

On 26 January 2001, I still remember I was studying for my 10th board exams on my bed when it started shaking, which was Gujarat Earthquake 2001, almost 19000 people died. In 2002, Gujarat riots thousands died and it still haunts the city. Now the floods, while was Vadodara was spared during the earthquake, it has been severely affected this time.

Vaccination against Boredom: Dose I

2005-06-29T07:18:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: The author does not own any responsibility of the consequences if the readers condone the warning given below.

Warning: The author wants to warn his esteemed readers that reading this post further might lead to AIBS (Anubhav’s Injected Boredom Syndrome) of which there is no cure. So please read and play safely. (And I am not winking)

Boredom: A dreaded and common disease found in most homes.

Symptoms: When your mother starts swearing you, Like…
“You eat and Sleep and then eat again, these are only activities you do, what is your contribution to the house.”(If it sounds quite innocuous, wait until you hear the Hindi version of it.)

Causes: Your training has finished and you have nothing do and you cant go out coz its raining cats, dogs, bats and all the animals of the world.(You can include men too.)

Now if you don't have a clue of what I said above, give me space to bow, because that was exactly what was intended.

Obtained by most surreptitious means, here are world’s ten best ways of killing boredom.

10. Surf through B school sites except the IIM’s and IIPM’s, because former you know are the best and latter you know are the worst. Read more about JAM’s revelation of IIPM’s tall claims.

9. Read TOI and wonder, if there is more to SEE in the paper than to read.

8. Shift to the other box and end up watching a Hindi movie with its core theme being the Love vs Money debate. (The readers are requested not to indulge in the debate in the comment box. The debate is never ending just like Sharapova Vs Hilton.)

7. In case you forgot to take a bath( quite understandable) , hit the most water logged areas of the city with your friends and play a semi-tsunami fight with the four wheelers( Sorry no explanations for the uninitiated.)

6. After the above activity, you might want to take your vehicle a mechanic, because our vehicle’s carburetor might have more water than your clothes.

5. Visit the city’s largest bookstore; browse the best authors and famous names. Realizing the temporary unavailability of funds, return with an issue of JAM magazine.

4. Realizing the pathetic condition of the state due to excessive rains, surf on net to find ways of rainwater harvesting, crib and curse the state government for overlooking the main issues.

I mean how you can explain the fact that a state that has heavy torrential rains every year also has parts, which face drought during summer. Every year rains disturb lives and all they do is evacuate people and give a flood warning. Then next year you read in papers in summer that women walk more 20km to fetch water to due water table depletion.( Sorry could not stop myself)

3. Bloghop, publish weird comments here and there and realize your blog needs a post to evade extinction.

2. Compile the list of things you did the previous day, add some crap at the beginning Whoa!!! ….and you have a post ready.

1. Read the above post and comment if you haven't already.

P.S: I have stopped writing post scriptures which dominate my comment box , more than the post.

Simple...

2005-06-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

I have always felt that most important learning’s of life are conveyed in the most simplest of manners.

I experienced this twice within the past day.

First, while reading the book, “Who moved my cheese” by Spencer Johnson. The book talks about change and ways to deal with it. The book albeit written in very simple manner is very thought provoking, perhaps you might have already read what the book tries to convey a thousand times before ,but it still leaves a big impression. It is pretty small (even smaller than my class notes book :D) and you can easily finish it in an hour or two.

I felt the same when I read Steve Jobs’ commencement address at the Stanford University. Again, as simple, short and sweet it could be; in three stories of his life he teaches some of most important lessons of life.

You can read it here.

Now there is another small change occurring in my life. I am getting a new bike …
With so many brands out there, I am a bit confused now, so I need your help.

If you are a man, tell me a bike you would like to take your girlfriend on…

And if you are a woman tell me bike you would want your man to have…

What’s more, you could win some real good prizes, if your suggestion matches with my final choice.

If you are a woman, you get a free ride on my bike if you ever land in Baroda.

And if you are a man…err...Psst….Do you have a sister...?

So use the comment box at your will, as participation is free of cost…:D

Nothing much to say...

2005-06-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

Ok… (So now, I even start my posts with ok.)
However, seriously speaking ‘OK’ is most comfortable word in the English language, when you have nothing to say, just say “Ok”...on the contrary when you have so much to shout out at somebody and you do not know where to start…say “F**k.”.I mean it is probably the word with most number of uses, you can use it anywhere and it just fits. We will talk more about its uses some other day.

Now do not smirk that was not a joke and don’t worry, the next time I crack a joke, I will tell you beforehand when to smile just like the Maharashtra State Highways. Just Beside the speed Breakers (Silencer Breakers would be more prudent) they put a board which says..

“Ikde Gati Avrodhak Ahe”. (Meaning There is a speed breaker here)….so when u hear a loud sound you look around to see the board.

Or may be something like Mallika Sherwat movies which tell you before hand that all the money the producer had was used for shooting in exotic locations and to pay Mallika so none was left for her clothes. I wonder, if designers they hire know the ‘D’ of designing, they always get the wrong measurements for her bikini.( Now if you can find a pun in that, boy you must get your imagination levels above Gutter kind.)
Another important thing is that they don’t even get a script writer, the stories are always borrowed from Hollywood movies.

I promise I will not talk a bit more about Mallika, just because she makes a joke of herself, every time she appears on the screen, doesn’t mean that all jokes have to be centered around her.

Let us talk about Maria Sharapova; I heard that she has got herself a pair of golden shoes and sweatshirt with golden zipper for Wimbledon. Now all she needs is golden balls and a racquet to play golden tennis, something never seen before.( Please don’t think much to get the real meaning out of words, they just mean what they are supposed to mean.)

She also has five bodyguards, and I want to catch hold of the person who told that in this competitive world there is a lack of job opportunities for men like me.

Ok, now let your imaginations run a bit jungle (not wild, that will be more superlative...)
What will happen if every woman in this world has a male bodyguard? Pause and think…

Ans. We would abolish two of the most dreaded evils of modern society rape and lesbianism. ;)

In addition, what would happen if every man in this world has a female bodyguard?

Ans. Doesn’t that already exist, I mean then what is marriage.

I read in magazine a few days ago that Indian men fall for fair skin. I seriously don’t agree with that, it’s really unfair, I mean how could somebody say that, I don’t know why women and sometimes men fail to understand men in general. The truth of the matter is …

That Indian men just fall for skin, be it any type, I mean we have to be fair to all. Now tell me who the ‘fairer’ sex…is

Finally the tag by Krishna( Actually that's come to my rescue,I don't have any more crap left for this post).But the questions are a bit too tough so probably I’ll just a make few finer adjustments.

1) Three words with which u can Define Everything around you
Beautiful sexy women.

2) Three words that define U
Ans: Tall , smart and handsome..
(ok I see my brother grin in background)
so on second thoughts

smart, averagely handsome.

3) Three screen Names u have
Ans.
Bond( You said screen names..)
Anubhav
Anu

4) Three people who changed the way u look at the world

Sorry Question too hard..subsituted with,..( I mean would’nt it be great if you could subsitute all the hard questions in the examination with some whose answers you know..:D)

Q. Three essentials you would take on vacation trip to a lonely island.

Ans.
Miss Universe
Miss World
And not Miss earth but Maggi noodles..damm don’t you need food.

Skipping questions 5 and 6, actually we engineers don’t need to answer all questions to pass, we can always pass GRACEfully

7)Three words ur mouth cant do without
Ans:

Women
Vanguardan Leveossa
Ya..

8)Three words ur mouth cant utter

Ans: I can utter anything and everything , take me for that.

9)Three careers u have dreamt urself in:

Ans:

Doubles partner Maria Sharapova/ Sania Mirza
Costume Designer Salma Hayek/Mallika Sherwat
Still Dreaming of above two.

10)Three reasons why i qualify to be the Anubhav

Ans: Sorry that’s what I have to planned to write in my book.Can’t tell you the secrets of the future best seller I am writing.

Tagged to any lazy soul like me, who needs matter for his/her blogposts.

Moral Of Post:
1)Whenever I don't have much to say , I end up with long posts
2)Before reading my posts it's safer to read the last few lines to get prepared for the agony.

Some Answers ...

2005-06-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

I thank everybody who tried to answer the questions posted by me in my last blog. Before I present my views on those matters, let me draw your attention to a very serious matter related to proletarian weavers of silk, based in Varnasi, aired on NDTV today.

As tried to point out in my previous post that along with some benefits the open door policy has brought it has also delivered a deathblow to some of the local small-scale industries which were not competent enough or well protected. That is what has happened to silk weavers of Varanasi responsible for developing the famous “Benarsi Sarees” brand. The power loom industry and import of cheap yarn from china has virtually ended their business and has put a question on their survival. They have resorted to selling blood to feed their families. Now the story surfaced back in 2004 but government has failed to take any action to save these workers, who are masters of this rare traditional art.

You can catch the full story here. Please do read it.

To each his own view,as I try to answer the comments posted on my previous post, I am just trying to present my views and don't intend to offend anybody. Here are the comments posted on my previous post for your reference.

I do believe that our country has strong and one of largest forex reserves in form of NRI’s,still I think more than the money we also need the brains for our country to progress.

Vikas, I agree everybody is entitled for their own happiness but they are also responsible for their country’s progress, and it is from graduates of IIT’s and IIM’s like you, the best brains of our country, our country’s expects the most. A mother expects the more from her best child. However, I agree most responsible people do contribute in one way or the other.

Kroopa , how do you define the level comfort.

Krishna I will do the tag thing in one or two days, give me some time.

Deepa , Consumers are made to feel that they are the king of markets; but most often ministers (read advertisements) mislead these kings.

Niki , Japan’s policy has made Japanese industries strong in the world, by promoting and strong domestic competition and protection policies. Look at Toyoto in fifty years it has risen at par or may be stronger than GM and ford which are older and bigger than it is.

Srivastan , Probably above story will tell about my view towards open door policiy.

I strongly believe in the Buddhist philosophy that often THE MIDDLE WAY is the best way. I think this ideology is the solution most of the problems our country faces today.

Time the need of the Hour

2005-06-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

Some years ago, I used bunk school, then I started bunking college and today the story continues as I bunk my office too: D and they say I do not grow up. Don’t the above events show the remarkable progress made by me.

Now as it might occur to you I do not have time blog these days, so before I get time write a comprehensive post on some topics, which I thought to write on, I, want you to ponder upon some questions.

1. I know “brain drain” is an outdated debate topic but do you think with opportunities growing in our country, is it justified on the part graduates to earn for other countries( I mean to move abroad), when the nation needs them most in its journey from a developing country to a developed one.

2. Do you think that kind of advertising going on these days aims to create needs where there are not any? Do you think consumers have become dustbins ?

3. Do you think the open door policy has benefited our country? Countries like USA and Britain having practiced protectionism for 100 years now propagate free markets after their own domestic industry has become very strong.

4. Why do you think a country, which had some greatest revolutionaries in the world some fifty years ago today, lacks people with nationalist spirit if it does?

Think Beyond...

2005-06-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

The ethos of a breed, though rare in the world but found abundantly in our country always piques me. I am talking about those old men, wearing Kurta- Pajamas, who think that wearing traditional dresses and having orthodox beliefs makes them more Indian, whom we vote to lead our country.

Most politicians of our country whether they belong to BJP or Congress have similar tactics/activities though they claim to have views oceans apart. All are big opportunists. Every time either of these parties is in opposition, the main issue on which they cry about or criticize the ruling party is secularism/communalism. Whenever there is a lull or there are out of issues to yield fire on the other they open this debate.

The recent stint by Mr. L.K Advani is on similar lines. On his recent trip to Pakistan, he made a controversial statement about M.A Jinnah. (Now I am not interested in going details of what he said or debating on the same.).The statement invited an array of reactions. Fundamentalists RSS and VHP are always waiting for such issues. Then Mr. Advani resigns from the post of party president. This is followed a day or two of cribbing, crying and requests made to him to return by party members and finally as loved by most Indians and shown in Indian movies we have happy ending, Mr. Advani is back as the party president and that completes a week of emotional and ‘controversial’ drama in Indian Politics.

Does this evoke a sense of déjà vu? These things have become a pastime for BJP, every time there is a lull in politics. You may recall Ms. Uma Bharti’s episode on similar lines some months back.

All I want to say is that there are several issues regarding the core social and economic development of our country that need to be raised; thought at and solved. Why cant these politicians actually grow up...?

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I recently came to know that these days they have a section reserved for Bloggers in white house Press conferences. Do u think we can have one too or its long time before Indian Bloggers reach that level of maturity and capability?

Finally while surfing I came across some great dialogues/quotes from one of my hot favorite movies A Beautiful mind…Here are some

1. There has to be a mathematical explanation for how bad that tie is.

2. Despite my privileged upbringing, I'm actually quite well-balanced. I have a chip on both shoulders.

3. We need results! Publishable, applicable results!

4. Classes will dull your mind, destroy the potential for authentic creativity.

5. Terrified, Petrified, Mortified, Stupified... by you.

6. Adam Smith... was wrong.

7. I don't exactly know what I am required to say in order for you to have intercourse with me. But could we assume that I said all that. I mean essentially we are talking about fluid exchange right? So could we go just straight to the sex.

8. I find you very attractive. Your assertiveness tells me that you feel the same way about me. But ritual remains that we must do a series of platonic actions before we can have intercourse. But all I really want to do is have sex with you as soon as possible.

9. Give me a moment to redefine my girlish notions of romance.

10. I need to believe, that something extraordinary is possible.

11. I've made the most important discovery of my life. It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found. I'm only here tonight because of you. You're the only reason I am... you're all my reasons.

12. Perhaps it is good to have a beautiful mind, but an even greater gift is to discover a beautiful heart.

13. It's the same with your dreams and nightmares. You have to feed them to keep them alive

My favorites are the 11th and 12th one. And I can’t even imagine myself having the guts for saying 7th or 8th one to a girl: terrified , petrified by the reaction which might leave me mortified and stupifiied…

You can find quotes from your favorite movie at wikiquote a sister concern project of wikepedia.See the link to wikepedia in my side bar.( Ya's...thats returning a favor..)

An ordinary day....

2005-06-06T12:50:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post is supposed to be completed in 10 minutes. The speech is bad, grammar does not exist, and spell check is left to the reader.

6:00 am: Yes dad, I am awake…just thinking…five minutes more….And bus comes late these days…

8:00: Just in time for the company Bus… (Yes, I was not talking about the school bus)…

As I enter I hear,“ Jo Wada kiya who Nibana padeka….tumko aana padega.”.( Sorry peeps cant even try its English translation….)

And the dreams continue….Yes Sania I am coming

Yes sweetheart you will win the Wimbledon don’t worry….Maria will coach you….won’t you darling and Maria the next French is yours ,I’ll buy all the referees…

9:15: Bhai sahab….What the hell are you talking Sania..

Bhai Sahab company Aa gaya..(We have the reached the company….wake up..)

Shit I was just going to make my move…

9.30: Snakes….??( Ya that’s what the Training guy told me…We will give you Bus facilities, lunch and Snakes(Oh actually snacks…)

9:45 am: Ignited Minds, by APJ Abdul Kalam. A nice book, quite good initially becomes more like his autobiography later. Nevertheless, the man must be admired for his great vision and his contributions. His aim of meeting 1000000 school students says it all about his great personality.

11:45 am: Visit to EGP (Electron Gun Plant…well that summarizes and ends all the tech stuff I remember from the visit). A rather non-technical and more interesting aspect is that unlike other engineering industries Electronic gives equal chances (actually more than equal…) to women on the plant side. Sometimes I feel electronics is not so bad anyway and the Future’s quite ‘fair’ here ( Ya …that was intended)

1:00 pm: Lunch

1:30pm: Plant visit continues...

2:45 pm: A trip around the plant in search for VP’s daughter/ GM’s daughter, DGM‘s will also do, Please anybody’s will do…But no more ATM’s (Aunties Trying to be Models)

3:00 pm: The Mckinsey way by Ethan M. Rasiel. Another great book for anybody who is in interested Business Strategies and Consultancy in particular. (Yes, the company has a great library with the best books for general reading)

4:30: Tea

4:30: Manger's Salary & daughter/ Rachel Hunter/ LK Advani/ Ogilvy & Mather…

5:30: Enter the bus again
“ Chadti jawani Meri chal mastani…”
No dreams this time…Just looking at tired faces, listening to never ending gossips of women and seeing them dreaming for themselves or probably their children.

Now I am embarrassed after reading such great books and coming out with posts like this. I promise a better post in future…just that training and activities that continue after that leave me exhausted.

Kaun Banega Million Dollar Pati...

2005-06-03T04:09:00.000-07:00

Didn’t I tell you that stupidity is the only thing that can spread faster than light ? Here is another example…

There is an email which is going on rounds these days and there are good 90% chances that you have already received it .( Ok if you are one of those 10% souls stuck in their solitary confinement ,ping me , I’ll see to it that stupidity reaches you.)

Anyways the mail Talks about a bug that was discovered by a Brazilian. (Now I’ll forward it and say that the bug was discovered by an Indian what’s the heck* Mera Bharat Mahan*…) It claims that Microsoft professionals have no clue to it and they have announced a prize of $1, 00,000 to the person who solves the mystery. (Now do you get the title...)

So waiting to try your programming skills….here, it goes

The mail asks you to open Microsoft Word and do the following ( I am reproducing the exact message…)

“Open a Microsoft Word File and type =rand (200,99)
and then HIT ENTER and wait ...”

Ok no need to wait if you have a supercomputer but if you have one of those used in Indian government offices …you might have to ..wait,wait…and wait..

The result of the operation is that the document is filled with one of the most famous pangram or holalphabetic sentence in the English language

"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

Well before pulling your debugging socks, understand that it is NOT A BUG but a HIDDEN UTILITY.

Try typing “=rand(1,1)” and you will see only one such sentence. This works for any rand(x,y).As far as my knowledge goes “rand” is a function in “C” to generate random numbers and this feature is given in word to fill your document with random text , may be to check fonts as the sentence contains all the letters of the english alphabet.

If you think, I was the one who initiated the mail, click here and let Microsoft explain you the feature.

There is another bug, a bit more realistic and related to his one, mentioned on the net (I tried it but the outcome was not what was expected or claimed, but anyways if you find the explanation behind it, do tell me.)

Here’s the link…

Today I got my hands on this wonderful book at the company where I am doing my training. The book is called “Count Your Chickens before They Hatch” by Arindham Chaudhari. I have just started reading it and I found it truly amazing and I really recommend it.

A Training Adventure

2005-06-01T06:26:00.000-07:00

Date: June 1, 2005
Time: 6.30 am
Place: Vadodara

The sun rises from west specially to wake me up. As incredulous as it might seem, but I woke up at 6.30 am sharp. I had challenged my Mom that I could do it!
Any ways the reason behind this unprecedented event (at least during my vacations...) was my summer training. Still feeling groggy, I managed to get ready by 8.00. Now most of my friends who are doing training approached the companies through their relatives who were working over there but I managed my training on my own by sending resume and my college letter (ahem!), so I was expecting an interview today.

The company I was supposed to visit was on NH-8, I took a ST bus (a bad choice I must say considering that dad offered me a ride). Now you can judge the condition of these ST buses when I say that every time it passed over mud hole, the strange noises that followed made me believe at the next one all screws might come out and its body would fell apart.( No this not a nut speaking…)

At 9.30 am, I reached my destination. A Huge board read JCT ELECTRONICS LIMITED, MANUFACTURERS OF CTVs, A THAPPAR GROUP VENTURE (sounds boring isn’t it but then I always wanted a manufacturing plant.) After reaching the reception, I was told that there was some meeting going on and I would have to wait. Well out popped my BW (Business World) the only magazine I like to read as I took a seat in the visitor room. Now as I have been subscribing this magazine for more than a year and I Can proudly say that my awesome brain has developed business strategies for a Pani-Puriwallah to Google Inc( Warning might post them one day)..

After some time a HR Guy told me that the head of training department will come in the second shift, so I could leave if I wanted to and report tomorrow at 9.30. Well that was all I wanted to hear and was out in a flash. I felt my old school days, when there would be no teaching on the first day.( Sometimes we didn’t allow any….:))
Next up, I enquired about the company bus to Baroda and was told that I would have to wait for two hrs to catch the next bus. Well I had finished reading my BW copy so waiting was out of question, so the next minute I was on NH-8 all alone, waiting for an adventure ride ahead.

Now I can’t compare myself to Shaan albeit they say, given a chance I could make the clouds cover the sun if not make them rain. But the scene was set for an awesome performance.( National Highway, a college guy needing a lift and to add he had bag too..:) ) So I started walking, singing …“ Tanha Dil..Tanha Safar”…and just when I was getting in the mood, the sun god reminded me that I have to report tomorrow at 9.30 with a hard glare. Therefore, I took a lift and another after some time (well I was 25km away from Baroda) and then an awesome Jeep ride with at least 17 people sitting in it. Finally, a comfortable ride in my own car saw me reach home at 2.30 pm.

Well those rides on my way back, would be high points of the day for me. I just love traveling and frankly speaking, some times I enjoy GC (general compartment) from Surat to Baroda more than Rajdhani from Baroda to New Delhi. For long distance the comfortable, the better but for short distances I prefer more adventurous and lively means.

P.S: Regarding my last post, Krishna inspired me to come out with answers of my own…..I did write in a few but I had to post about today. Expect the answers sometime in future ;)
Waiting for two amazing movies : Parineeta( hope its good) and Finding Neverland .

2005-05-29T14:50:00.000-07:00

Do I need to talk?

Bunty and Babli vs Frank W. Abagnale?

Can India achieve 100% literacy?

What kind of a person I am?

Are You scrolling very fast?

Bungee Jumping?

Do I need to write?

Why didn't I put '?' as the title?

Why is it so easy to play with Windows registry?

Why are women poor communicators when it comes to matters regarding love?

‘e’motional- Somebody who moves on net…?

Why can’t I tell them?

Why do Indian police stations have guns used by dacoits of 1970’s and big tummies?

Did those three letters change my life?

Why do men fight?

Is Fame name of the Game?

Underwater diving?

Will Tata’s One lakh Car storm the Indian markets?

Why does Tom Hanks star in all great movies?

Do you think this is funny?

Why don't I read fiction?

What is more important in a F1 race the technology of the car or skills of the driver?

Why does every one chase money if it can't buy happiness?

Do you believe Michel de Notredame?

Do I believe in God and rebirth?

How can they blog so easily about their life?

Is Mary the historical person whose time has come?

Why is it so hard to make somebody smile, cry, believe, laugh?

Why Mountain View, California ?

Who and what am I searching for and when will my search end?

Brain Drain?

Does it matter to them? Do they know me? Do I need their help? Can they influence my life?

How were Spartans so brave?

Why did I start Blogging?

Why don't they have IVRS( Involuntary Retirement Scheme ) in Politics?

Is God man's greatest creation?

When will I stop?

Who has the Ark of the Covenant?

Will the BPO bubble burst like the IT bubble?

Will Leaders of this country ever think beyond secularism and communalism?

Do I need the book of the dead?

Why is Gujarat a dry state?

If matrix is an infinite loop then from where did the main computer get so much RAM?

How did Vyasa have such great vision and imagination?

Why did I write this post?

Will I delete this post?

Can You answer them?

Are there are more questions than answers?

Why were the questions so random?

Is that all I can think of? Or Was I getting bored?

Are you bored?

How did you manage to read this line without missing even a single question?

Or did you just scroll down to read the BOTTOM LINE?

Is this too much?

Will you stop me?

Can somebody who has read every question suggest a title?

What was this?

Did I have Vodka before writing this?

Confusions Of Dangerous Mind?

'In'sane Idiosyncrasies

2005-05-27T06:32:00.000-07:00

There are three letters in the English alphabet that can make your day.

They are ‘L’ ‘O’ ‘L’.

I believe laughing or sometimes being proud of silly things you do in your day-to-day life is one most of the divine things to do. We all are a bit jocose in our lives and it takes only a bit of thought and realization of the same to bring a smile on our face. I am not the Charlie kind but laughing on myself really makes me happy and of course as no one has said before “An idle mind and a lazy body can be a clown’s workshop” especially during this auspicious time of year.

Before moving on, to all those “I am so smart” kind of people who have stumbled upon this blog by mistake, I advice clicking a sign on the upper rightmost corner of your screen.

Here are some silly things I keep doing…

1. The art of sleeping 12 hrs a day: Now this art is very difficult to practice especially in this hot weather and when your Mom allows you to use the A.C only for 7 of those 12 hrs. It might seem you as an utter waste of time; however, it has many intangible assets.

a. It can make your Mom happy because when you wake up at an hour before lunch, you save your from trouble of making a breakfast for you. Moreover, it helps me maintain my ‘averagely handsome’ body by quitting a meal.

b.For all those who believe that “history is made at night” a siesta is must. I prefer blogging at night and it keeps me in my engineering groove of night outs.

You can also have a bit of ‘mute TV’. An example of that would be any fashion channel or any channel where the ‘visuals’ are much important than the audio. So why wake your family members from their sleep.

2. I hate it, I loath to confess it, but it always brings a smile to my face at the end of the day. The phenomenon is automatic, instantaneous in its nature and albeit quite frequent, natural, and conspicuous for others, it is very difficult to realize for the one doing it.

As I have frequently pointed out, I am an unbashful appraiser of pulchritude. One of most frequent expression portrayed by me after I see a beauty is a gape. My female friends often grin evilly at the sight (not the male friends ...they are busy gapesing like me). It does bring about a bit embarrassment when asked by someone (usually a female) to stop gazing but at the end of the day, it brings one big smile on my face.

3. I am not a bathroom singer, but as uncanny as it might sound, I am a road singer I usually sing while driving (I hope that is not against law), a quality that I have inherited. However, there is no bathing without music, so once every day I forget my moral citizenship values and around 11.30 am my Woofers ( computer speakers) shout it loud “ It’s my life, its now or never….” as I enjoy my shower with a verbal cacophony of my own.

4. Apart from all this, I love watching movies, which I have already seen, especially the ones I love. Movies have taught me many things and I strongly believe some movies should be part of school curriculum. In future, I hope blog to about my favorite movies and things they have taught me.

5. I sometimes boast of having an ‘expensive’ taste when it comes to humor. I discard some of ‘sardar’ jokes cracked by my friends as cheap but normally end up laughing aloud at them when I am alone. Here’s one of them

A sardar says “ Why do these Americans keep boasting about wars they wage. We in India have a war everyday. As in SOM “WAR”( Monday), Mangal ‘WAR’( Tuesday)…

*Ok I know what you just said(cheap really cheap….)*

------------------------------------------------------------------
To end the post, here is another idiosyncrasy. I believe stupidity is best spread. So I continue the tag chain. I got a tag from deeps.

1. Total number of films I own on dvd/video : Not a single one..I am totally against ANTI PIRACY campaign I either rent pirated vcds or watch movies in halls.But I do have some movies stored on my hard disk if they count.

2. The last film I bought : How many times will I answer almost the same question? OK I don’t buy movies , my friends share movies on LAN or I watch them in halls.

3. The last film I watched: On TV: “Laws of attraction” great comedy .Jullian moore is the latest addition to my long hollywood crush list.
In theater: Bewafaa …. A horrible movie….Guess something comes original to our directors … “the art of putting 10 out of the place songs of 5 mins each in a 3 hr movie”

4. Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:- This one’s tough…the list is too long….I’ll continue in my future post

-->‘Forrest Gump’:- It has taught me one of the most beautiful lessons of my life “ self –lessness"

-->“ Castaway” : For me this is true definition of cinema, perfect direction,screenplay and acting.

-->“ A beautiful mind” : This movie always inspires, any time I am feeling a bit down, I watch this movie

-->Munna Bhai MBBS/ Hera Pheri/Jaane Bhi Do yaaron : Best comedies Indian cinema has to offer.

-->Gladiator/ The street car named desire : Great acting by rusell crowe and marlon brando.

5. Tag five people and have them put this in their journal: As I said before “ stupidity is best spread” ….so lets see I’ll tag niki, thespark, Namita, a_beautiful mind and Kroopa. Keep it going…

P.S : This is my longest post till date. I think i need to take a break .....

ecNOmic giANTS

2005-05-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

India and China are the future economic giants; that’s what they say these days. The high riding economy, increase in FDI, and the setup of manufacturing/assembling units of major M.N.C.’s are just the indicators of this progress. The country produces a million graduates every year and major companies of U.S outsource their works to us. Looks like a fairy tale come true.

A look on the social side and you would find the cake is not sweet below the icing. On social grounds, or rather I should say moral grounds we are not there yet. We have look into many issues before we can call our country a developed one.

Crime against women: I do not support the statement that women are the weaker sex but still a country where crime against women is on high-rise cannot be called developed. The number of rapes has risen from last year. A more important fact is that majority were committed in the rural areas. The educational, moral and social rift between the urban and the rural class is getting wider. Presence of fundamentalists like Shiv Sena, VHP
and RSS is another big problem. Shiv-sena’s statement that revealing dresses invite rapes is quite bias and ridiculous. The psyche of people has to change and education has to play a major role in it.

There are many other poignant problems and we all know about them.

All I want say even if India is progressing a lot economically but social crimes are on rise. We might feel that economic progress can drive the social stability but that won’t be the case, money sometimes invites more crimes.

'Inspirations':There is yet another issue, which piques me a lot. The entertainment industry of our country claims to be the second largest in the world with a worldwide reach but its high time it learnt some ethics. Somehow, I cannot digest so-called ‘inspiration’ it draws from Hollywood. Leave alone movie-themes or songs these days even TV serials are exactly copied. Copying an idea can be tolerated sometimes, but copying scenes and patterns is just too much. Inspired creativity is not creativity. If at all a hindi remake of a successful foreign flick is made the fact should be acknowledged.

Finally Mallika Sherwat’s recent stint at the Cannes film just confirms the fact that beauty seldom comes with brain. I don’t understand how do people even find her sexy or beautiful. That dress she wore was worse than what daily wage poor workers manage. It’s good to look sexy but there ways to do it, probably she should have taken some tips from Salma Hayek ;) . The statement that she made was worse (wait I will just quote her).

She said, “I am here to kick some serious ass”. Wow not only revealing attire but also a blabbering mouth. There should be a sense of responsibility when you are representing your country at an international festival.

Lastly can anyone tell me why every thing works so slowly in our country. It has been week since I applied for an internet connection and I still have go to the cyber cafes.

P.S: Please excuse me for such an absurd title selection.

Rock Your Life

2005-05-20T07:35:00.000-07:00

The other day I was watching the biography of Elvis Presley, the undisputed king of rock and roll. One of the most depressing facts about his and the life of many other famous stars is that they went through a lot of stress and trauma. Most of Rock artists have been drug addicts. Contrary to their stage lives and their immense popularity, their personal lives have either been lonesome or been a story of unsuccessful relationships. Their death at young ages just adds icing to cake of belief that their lives have been stressful. The dubious deaths of Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe, Nafisa Joseph, Parveen Babi always puzzles my mind. What was it that they did not have in their life: money, fame, love or happiness? What caused them to take such drastic steps?

The answer probably lies in our own life. Every human being, at the end of day wants to be respected, appreciated, and most importantly loved by people around him. You feel good when people comment on your blog, when friends remember you, when your parents care about you, or when that somebody special loves you. Fame and money are mostly considered secondary to all this but I believe they are also important in person’s life. Love, money and fame in their order of preference are keys to happiness in life.
Satisfaction is another important factor when it comes to money, fame or success in short.

Now consider the lives of the stars albeit they had a huge fan following their lives lacked love and satisfaction. Thousands of unknown fans loved them, love that was superficial. Their life lacked a friend who could understand them. In some cases, their expectations from life and from themselves were just too much. Drugs probably just gave momentary respite from their worries and tensions but dependence on them just catalyzed their sickness.

We all have various aspirations, desires and expectations from life. We all have a side that we hide from every body. As Mark Twain says, “Every man, like the moon, has a side which he hides from the world”. However, a common thing we all want is love, so spread it as much as you can and believe me, more of that will always come your way.

Philosophy aside there is yet another important matter. Girls in India especially in Vadodara don’t seem to feel the heat. Ironically, they seem to wear more clothes in summer than winter. Forget mini’s they even cover their faces with clothes to resemble terrorists and frighten the men around them. I am not a brand ambassador of a sunscreen lotion but I strongly recommend them instead of such terrorizing means ;)

What ‘We’men want……

2005-05-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

This is not the title of Mel Gibson’s next film and if he makes one with this name, remember you saw it here first.

I don’t know if it was a distaff’s work, but it shows their saturnine nature when they say “Men just want one thing”, Or when they say “Men are from mars, and women are just down to earth” (Tell them no man has ever been to mars).

Men want many things. Some men want this, some want that, and some of them want both this and that. Jokes apart,(PJ’s in) there are many more this and that’s we want. Here are some expectations/desires/(Things we want you to understand)

1. Flirting is not impious, god made you dainty, he made us so that we could appreciate your pulchritude. I hate it when they say “Tumhari maa behen nahin hai kya”( Don’t you have a mother and sisters), my answer would be “ Hai par girlfriend ki jarorat hai”( I have but I need a girlfriend J ).So let us ogle, it is genetic.

2. We love cars/computers just as you love lipsticks, nail polish…and what not and that doesn’t make us geeky.

3. Don’t categorize us when we fall for bimbettes , didn’t you know light travels faster than sound.

4. If your dad is smart and your brother is handsome, we aren’t Charlie.(Talking of Charlie Chaplin, another womaniser I would say, last married a woman less than One-third his age at 54,* Gosh how do these guys manage*, *Just cant stop the quizzer in me sometimes..*). Please stop juxtaposing us. So if we can’t ‘cut’ like Beckham, Blame the barber.

5. When your hubby/beau talks another woman, it doesn’t mean he is discussing sex, so please give us that modicum of tolerance.

6. Please respect (read love) genius and give us the credit, we have made life comfortable; save this specie from extinction.

7. If there are six days for days for soap operas, let there be a Sunday for cricket.

8. Men don’t cry doesn’t mean that men are not emotional.

9.Men do have orgasms, so what if yours is flavor of supplements and magazines these days.( Ok no more of this else they will categorize mine as an adult blog, but ain’t I an adult, so it is after all an adult’s blog )

10. Tenth is the ‘one’ thing you always say we wanted.

I believe men will always be Men, so even after saying all that, I would say,

“If there’s a way to man’s heart through his stomach, believe me there’s a shortcut through his ears and eyes”

So a bit of Cajolery and a nice smile and you would have us drooling all over you.

Ok, Please don’t call me a chauvinist after reading this, I am a feminist at heart and my next post will prove that to you.

P.S: Please see the quiz section in my sidebar.
And as I see it, I find no takers for the ‘Shout it section’, probably people just want to keep their views to their blogs , so I am closing that section. Any suggestions regarding a new section are invited.

P.P.S: A new addition to the biography section.” Oracle of Omaha” as they call him, Warren Buffett.

Six Days and Five Nights…….. And Now Bliss^∞+1

2005-05-07T19:17:00.000-07:00

The last week was really stressful for me, I gave six exams in six days, like a marathon race, with each subject having an elephantine course.
Finally my exams have ended and now I have a two month long vacation ahead of me. I just have a month’s industrial training in between, else I am blissfully jobless for next two months. So,
Auspices of me becoming omnipresent on the blogsphere and spamming on your blog seem favorable.

Now when you have all the time in the world to watch movies, they aren’t any good ones around. I don’t understand why producers don’t see this period as a business opportunity, this is the time when most of the students are free and still they are not many movies around.

There is another small bit of news I want to share, I found this last week but didn’t have time to blog about it. According to Google (at present) I am the second most famous Anubhav Agarwal in this world. Search engine listing has really gained a lot of importance in the past few years. There are thousand of websites offering Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it is popularly known. I have not used any of those services and probably the reason behind inclusion of my site is primarily Google's new policy of listing its blogspot site and like me, my name is also pretty unique in this world. Click the link below to see it.

Search for
Anubhav Agarwal.

It’s not a big deal but I am still happy about it.

For more information about working of google see my Google Bombing Blog.

Yahoo!!!!!!

2005-04-21T12:05:00.000-07:00

“Abe Waqt ka advance booking kara”

“Yahoo!! Mein Pass Ho gaya”

Well if you hear any of these shouts, be assured that you are in NIT Surat.You might also come across people, earnestly trying to show you that they have used close-up today.

If you are thinking we are rejoicing because our exams have finished, then you are wrong. These celebrations mark a week’s extension. There was some problem in my college, about which I pledge complete ignorance, which resulted in postponing of my exams by a week. ( So much for just this….Yeah!! we celebrate big time).

And I am back, doing what I am best at: Bugging people with ephemeral but eternal (sounds like an oxymoron) pleasures of my life…

Here are two interesting bits of facts, I found on a quizzing site.

Try answering these questions using your logic and check your answers at end,else you would spoil the fun.

Question 1: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who already had 8 kids, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis; would you recommend that she have an abortion? ( Yes Or NO)

Question 2: It is time to elect the world leader and your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three leading candidates.

Candidate A: Associates with crooked politicians and consults with astrologers. He’s had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks eight to ten martinis a day.

Candidate B: He has been kicked out of office twice. He sleeps until noon. He used opium in college. He drinks a quarter of whisky every evening.

Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He’s also a vegetarian. He doesn’t smoke. He drinks only an occasional beer. He hasn’t had any extramarital affairs.

Which of these candidates would be your first choice?

ANSWERS

1). If you answered yes to the abortion question, you just killed Beethoven.

2) Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt, Candidate B is Winston Churchill, Candidate C is Adolf Hitler

So what else? …As you might have guessed by now that I have nothing much to write so I am leaving you with few interesting links.

I didn’t know that people in the Border Roads Organization were so witty. See and smile.

Asgeir S. Nilsen a technology architect from Norway came up with this brilliant idea of searching both yahoo and google at the same time.
Visit YaGoohoo!gle.

He was followed by many others like YaGoo! Search which also allows you to do an image search and Search The 4 which searches four search engines at once.

And if you have not left already, you might be wondering how I managed to come up with such a boring post, well guys blame it on exams and because you have already achieved so much by managing to read all that (man that was….), please cross a final hurdle by commenting.

P.S : Saw "Zeher" (yeah the movie and not poison) today.... horrible...( And That was By far the shortest review ever given
by anybody).

And that's anubhav signing off..

but wait where's the sign( I wouldn't give you a chance to do forgery, by showing you my sign :D)

Again please blame it on exams.

Those Three Words...

2005-04-12T15:55:00.000-07:00

The three words which can express an ocean of thoughts and a sea of emotions.…

The words which represent Quintessence of a vocabulary....

The three words he used everyday but never understood..

Those three words reverberate in his mind..…

....
.......
..........

Zzzzzz…..feeling sleepy eh??...wake up??

This might be worst kind of verse you ever stumbled upon, but these are not a king’s musings and I still haven’t traveled back in time to become one.

And most importantly the words aren’t what you are thinking…

Anubhav you #@$%^&&...what the **** is this

Chillax yaar the words are “FUNDOO” and “MAAL”

Maal( adj): No this is not Gujarati derivative of a mall; it is by far the most often used word in my college. It is only used, by the supposedly ‘unfairer’ sex when he extols the opposite sex.

Our college boasts of a huge campus with area running into a figures I can’t count on my fingers (bear my ignorance coz I don’t know the exact area) .

The denizens of the city have unabashedly made it into a jogger’s park. Every morning the middle aged men/women flock the campus with their cool gizmos; I have even thought of a penalizing them for this.(Consider this, many of them don't even know name of the college and don't give a damm to it).

The fairer side (pun unintended) of this unholy act is that some of them are accompanied by their daughters and that is when we sometimes spring into action. As soon as somebody in the first hostel notices something good, he initiates a communication processes faster than CDMA technology. His voice reaches and reverberates in the other hostels making sure that maximum students enjoy the sight. (Do I see an engineer smile?)

You might be tempted to classify the engineers as mopes, but this is ,as we call it a direct result of “ratio error” or the “ratio problem” (all engineers might have understood me).

The quality factor probably is other part of the same issue. And didn’t somebody say “Jeweler is precious than the diamond itself”.. .and man worships beauty. Have you ever wondered why portraits of gods and goddesses are always beautiful? Has anybody ever seen them??…ok too much of philosophical justifications …

FUNDOO ( adj): This word also used very frequently and always giving a tough fight to “maal” for the top spot.

Meaning: It can have several at meanings, judging its widespread use but in its most basic form the word is used to represent a person whose fundamentals are clear and can easily sail through examinations with bare minimum study.

Usage : "I am not a fundoo"

Regional Derivative: "fundoo ché ": Meaning something that is fundoo. Ché in gujarati means something “that is”…

At this point I must also mention about the college quiz club called Suché :Which in gujarati means “ What is it?” and this name is our tribute to the state we study in.

Where’s the third word you #$$@@## ..oh well that’s was just to give an edge to the title .… I am yet to find a third one which can possibly match the popularity of the above two.

Moral Of All that Crap: Not every post having serious title and some serious stuff written in italics needs to make sense….so next time you read on, be prepared.

P.S: Btw after all that crap I wish to give you guys a small break; as don’t intend be in the blogsphere for at least a fortnight due to my exams…till then please write better posts than this one for me to read and pray for me ,coz your prayers might come in handy for me.

Last but not the least it's happy birthday to Mr. Hugh Hefner a.k.a luky bast**d.Read more about this amazing businessman in my own biography section in the side bar.

P.P.S :Please be free to rant me on this so that i don't come up with such posts in
future..

Time Travel: Back In the times Of Kamasutra

2005-04-08T17:56:00.000-07:00

No this not a porno blog explaining you about various positions, ( what’s on your mind ;) ) , And if you didn’t know, I must tell you that only 20 % of Kama Sutra, an ancient Indian text, is on positions and the remainder gives guidance on how to be a good citizen and insights into men and women in relationships.( Please excuse such digressions they mark sudden rebirth of the quizzer in me) .

Ok, So where was I… ah time travel? As much I hate the concept of polygamy, I loath to confess that one of my ephemeral teenage fantasies was to be a promiscuous king cavorting with nubile women. (It’s just a fantasy, I want to mark this in bold and nothing more than that). So even in dreams, what were the possible options I had ?

a. Bump into hefner’s Beverly hills mansion and strike a 60-40 deal.
Considering that we share the same passion and same crush( Marilyn Monroe : Hefner even bought empty space to the left of Monroe's crypt for the pleasure of spending eternity next to his first "Sweetheart." Actually playmates were formerly called sweethearts and Marilyn was the first one….get back Anubhav)

Well this one seems impossible …so only option left is travel back in time to the age of kings .

So here comes the perennial question, "Is Time Travel possible?"
Albert Einstein, with his theory of special relativity, theoretically established possibility of time travel. No one has demonstrated it but no one has ruled it out either.As the genius said “Time slows as an object approaches the speed of light” , so if there was a way to travel faster than the speed of light then you could travel back in time.

For those who have already started exploring wild possibilities of this, here comes the bomb, as of now traveling faster than speed seems impossible so traveling back in time is almost ruled out.

But to travel in future is not as difficult ( Are you nuts???)

No I am quite serious.. Let me introduce the concept of Time Dilation

“Time dilation is the slowing-down of the passage of time as experienced by people or objects moving in relation to an observer”

A famous explanation of concept is twin’s paradox.

Suppose Ram and Shyam ( could not find two more obvious names for the twins) each have a accurate clock ( something like a cesium clock). Now Ram sits in a space ship and travels away from earth at a speed close 80% that of light and comes back after some time, then Ram would as ‘return younger’ to shyam, because according to special relativity time passed faster for Shyam than for Ram.
Confused between Ram and Shyam??

In accurate terms time for person traveling close to speed of light will slow down, so he would be younger than the person who stayed on earth, when he returns.
When astronauts return back from they return into their future , probably just by nano seconds.

People who want to dig more into this, can read about it here.

For a java applet explaining the concept please visit this site.

As for me I would have to wait till science devises a way traveling faster than speed of light. :)

P.S
I had read about this concept of time travel long ago and had almost forgotten it , but moving around in blogsphere I came across this Blog, it had a musing about time and time travel. This inspired me to blog on this topic.

The common man ..

2005-04-04T17:13:00.000-07:00

The common man :Unretentive;Apathetic;Fastidious.

This one’s for the common man. You and me….

He forgets – the good ones, the bad ones, and the ugly ones. The common man has most unretentive memory, surrounded by cobwebs of his own worries and tensions he hardly thinks about national issues or about other people. He demands perfection from his cricketing heroes, he gives them godly status. He is easily mislead by the equivocating statements of politicians.

23rd march 2002: Two movies based on Bhagat Singh's life are released on the Indian box office. Bhagat Singh is all over the media. News channels show glimpses of his life and journalists write half page articles on his struggle and his sacrifices.

23rd March 2005: None Of The Newspapers even mention him on his death anniversary.

47% of Indians in today's TOI poll wanted him to step down (even the majority on my site poll say that). He is facing poignant criticism from all over the country. Have we forgotten that Saurav Ganguly is most successful Indian captain ever? Just because he is going through a rough patch , we demand him to step down?. Please recall that poor personal form of captains is nothing new to cricket, especially to Indian cricket, greats like Brian Lara & Sachin Tendulkar have been through the same phase and they weren’t even successful as captains.

Satyatendra Dubey: A common man with uncommon amount of courage. Do you remember this guy who waged a one man battle against corrupt Indian bureaucracy? His soul still awaits justice , Is this the tribute the man deserved.

Ok, Everybody has his own view on denial of visa to Narendra Modi on basis of his alleged involvement in the riots of 2002. But even congress is alleged to have steered the 1984 sikh riots , then why isn’t anyone demanding the Nanavati Commission report to be made public.

Here’s another example : Does anyone remember about the Jessica Lall murder case, Natasha singh murder case, and BMW case. The cases have many things in common.

Jessica Lall murder case: A female bartender and an aspiring model shot dead by Manu Sharma, son of former Union minister Vinod Sharma after she refused to serve him drinks.

BMW Case: Sanjeev Nanda, grandson of former chief of naval staff Admiral S.M. Nanda, allegedly killed six people including two policemen when he rammed his BMW into them on a cold January night.

Natasha Singh, daughter-in-law of senior Congress leader K Natwar Singh, found murdered in a five star hotel in New Delhi

a. They were all based in capital city of our country.
b. All of them are high profile cases involving sons of former or present ministers.
c. Witnesses have turned hostile in all of them.
d. Judgment is still pending in all of them.

I know judicial system in our country is really suffering because of politics and many other factors.
But just blaming the politicians for any everything and anything under the sun is not a solution. It’s because of our apathy towards politics and various other fields such problems have arisen. Let us, as youth of this country be more retentive and cognizant.

There are many things we can do… I’ll reserve that for my future posts…actually feeling too sleepy now, 5.30 am another night out … just can’t stop them.