Tanu weds Manu

Warning: This is all gibberish from an insane person, read only if you have spare time, otherwise you are yourself to blame.

Recently I watched “Tanu weds Manu”, presumably an ordinary movie but I found it an offbeat, connecting, and based on some burning social issues. Here is why:

1. Our movies always portrayed the guy working abroad as sophistically foolish (even villainous) character who enjoyed meddling between the love birds. Not to mention, in the climax, the looser soul had to return empty handed to face the evil world. This movie tries to break the trend, and gives a confidence to them to clap in the theatre.

2. What an honest way of showing loneliness? I felt like crying (went against because of fear of embarrassment in the crowd), when protagonist Madhvan speaks with wet eyes “लन्दन में १२ साल से मैं अकेला ही हूँ , रोज सुबह उठ के नाश्ता अकेले ही बनता हूँ और अकेले ही खाके ऑफिस चला जाता हूँ”(Imagine the plight of a person doing the same for lunch and dinner as well).” कोई ऐसा दोस्त नहीं है है मेरा जो की जो खाश हो” (Very true, on top of it, there might be few souls, who have already sunk, possibly even with wrong boat and because of guileless they greet you with same stupid questions at 8AM in the morning).

3. Preparation and persistency is the key whether you attend any technical interview or approach a girl. Madhvan failed miserably at first instance but later he showed an exemplary level of persistency. (Honestly I also performed badly in one of such lone “interviews” where I went without reading FAQs and like any technical interview, started muttering the words like “Actually & basically...!” with low confidence).

4. The film somehow depicts the globalization effect on our small cities in true sense; so it’s time to be prepared for any eventuality, time to stop feeling guilty about beer and worth putting efforts on trying whisky and rum. Apparently globalization effect is visible on our families even (for good) as my mom keeps on saying me about Sharmaji’s daughter being married to someone from other caste/religion, expecting any such confession from me, completely unaware of my unfavourable factors like Microsoft (Stupid guys, bring on new technology every six months for a coder’s despair), service sector (same reasons), Aloo, Pyaj and Tamater (Most of the time I spent time on thinking about whether these are available at my room).

To conclude this and on a serious note I have to stop enjoying aloofness, keep aside my moronic interests (like blogging, photography & cycling) and start finding someone before the threshold time comes “Ki Sote hue ladki ko hi pasand karni pade”.

A letter to God of Cricket

Dear Sachin,

I would dare to address you by this name, had I been not aware of your saturated humility and simplicity, I would have used some heavy and expressible words. But as an ardent fan, I know it very well, you don’t like all these.

Sachin, it has been now 20 years now, whenever the team was dangerously poised, I expected a miracle from you. As a child, I prayed every time you reached in 90s and jubilated thinking my prayers got answered. But as I grew up I understood my moronity, it was not my prayers, it was sheer your ability and class. And why me only, there were 1 billion people actually doing the same. As an ordinary person, I feel sometime dejected by monotonicity of my life & work and the burden of expectations from small set of my closed ones. But in these 20 years, I never heard any sort of complain from you, about the cricket and your people. Not only this, you were bold enough to shoulder your national responsibility against those mighty & parochial politicians whenever required.

Come Wednesday, although an irony, but we would be again pining our hopes on you. As you might have seen already, people started giving the obnoxious statements like; they won’t allow you to complete your 100th ton. I know that on this stature you would be unperturbed, but as the poet Dinkar says “क्षमा हो रिपु समक्ष, तुम विनीत जितना ही, दुष्ट कोरोवों ने तुमको ,कायर समझा उतना ही “, we want you to feel furious this time.

People also say, it’s just a cricket, but these guests are same set of people who possibly rejoiced when we suffered, now our defeat shall not provide them another reason to celebrate. Let it be a cricket only.

We already have got a chance to rejoice on your all possible possible/impossible milestones, watching world cup in your hands will further bolster our belief on the theory : “The God particle does exist.”

Sir, I am from India

Hey Gentleman... Let me make a wild guess to test my intellectual ability. “You are from Sierra Leone”.
“Sir what are you saying? “... No sir. I won’t dare to even question your ability but let me convey before our conversation begin... “I am from India!!!”
Don’t be bewildered by my skin, my eyes or even by my face sir, these all are of no importance and doesn’t represent my personality or nationality. Infact skin is not only the parameter to define a human personality in my country .There is so many like cast, creed and region. It would be a bit of jingoism but I must say we use more parameters and hence much ahead from rest of the world on this.
Yes true like the country which you mentioned, we were also one of your colonies but let me be honest, we have progressed and now our only 40% population lies below poverty line.
And much bigger sir, we are much bigger country than the country you mentioned. You can imagine the area of my country when I was able to find a young person having same nationality as of me saying he had never visited the other part of the country and would never want to.
But in the end to conclude this sir I must say to you , unlike any other countries India is an ancient idea that is relevant even 9000 years has passed and hopefully would be afterward. Yes sir I would agree with you here, the onus lies on we young generation to keep this idea alive..

The IIT Dhanbad

With the numerous interminable discussions for the name change going in the ISM Dhanbad online communities, now apparently some sanguine thing has came out where everybody (students, teachers, alumnus) understand the urgency of ISM to IIT conversion. (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/4907738.cms ).

Definitely the consensus has came out late , at a time when the government has already setup 6 new IITs and has granted the IIT status to IT-BHU, but again I will take the help of the aphorisms “It’s better to be late than never.” & “In the middle of difficulty lies the opportunity” to inspire myself and other concerned parties.

With around 90 years history of providing the quality technical education, the infrastructure it possesses and the level of entrants,I believe the ISM is lone in the race of becoming an IIT. Hence it shouldn’t be an act of nepotism if the readers please spent some time in filling out this petition.

http://www.petitiononline.com/ismu/

Dear friends ,let’s strive, fight and pray hard to see a dawn when we find out written “Indian Institute of Technology Dhanbad” at the fringes of ISM campus.
- Amen

Engrossing personalities whom I met in last one year

It has been more than a month since I used this recycle bin. Honestly saying was definitely running out of some “sensible” thought. Country’s foreign policy is too headless to be commented, the political bosses are silent post election, busy in making and demolishing their own statues. Then it was also obligatory for me to show some yearning for Rakhi’s show (boring, will wait for season-2, 3..), “Sach Ka Samna” (stupid guys, probably wanted to make something called *** ka Samna and then changed the name at last moment), Harry Potter (really wonder why people are so crazy for it) and a technical event (every body was doing some thing, I also thought of washing my hands in Arabian Sea). Around one year back I had decided to change the gear to reach a new place of bread and butter. And as the poet says “Kabira is sansar main bhanti- bhanti ke log”, the new place meant the opportunity to meet some of the new riveting personalities.

**Restrained myself from taking the names as I strongly believe that they can’t be bound in a name but they are traits which every human being must possess.

• The most happy-go-lucky person : He‘s quite amiable and talented but so careless that will hardly take a pain even if tsunami reaches to his door. He always advocated for emancipating of delivery and schedules like a yogi talks about the “Moksha”.One small example of his greatness was that he made me fill his time sheet (the sheet to maintain daily activities) for one year.
• The VK magic : His getup reminded of the character “Tiger” from the old Hindi movies which was mostly played by Vinod Khanna, but amazing to see that he has got the most contemporary demeanor. One more specific thing about this person’s that he is very honest and believes in doing the daily activity differently rather than waiting some miracles to happen (I follow the later part, have to walk a lot) .
• The Pentium-1 Processor : Managing time is the most difficult art on this planet but seems she has really mastered in that. Invite her at your marriage and I bet she will definitely come to bless your second child. But as a thinker has truly said “Every body can’t possess each quality”, this character has got less vanity which I could rarely found amongst the “other” gender (albeit being a small town introvert guy, got to see very few of them closely).

When the days are long

Nothing seems to be working in favor. One of my favorite actor is accused of a heinous crime, India’s thrown out from T20 champion’s race in a humiliating way and one immature and cowardice decision taken by me is going to entail me four tedious months. But that’s how the life goes on.
The interesting thing in that is these are happening when I have got too much spare time to think. These days are similar to the days of ISM Dhanbad when the semester exams ended and the gang use to have a gibberish sitting on Ramdhani’s shop sipping tea at least 20 times a day. Anyways here is the list of activities which I am religiously doing now a days to kill my time.

• Online Chatting with friends and even distant foes if the friends are running out of time.
• Discussion with room mates about politics, cricket (albeit, have lost interest in them) and “marriage” (interest & fear both exist simultaneously).Most of the time the discussion on the last topic remains amiable where every body agrees to the fact that finding out “Pehli Nazar” type of girl is next to impossible. But some time the frustration seems to soar high in the air when some body brings out the concept of “Soul Mate”.
• Reading and acting to read (also nonsense thinking simultaneously) at home, in a bus or in a book shop (Cross word is in the vicinity of my home).
• Cooking, this looks me interesting among all, but strongly believe in the theory: “Cooking is just like love, it shall be done without interference.”
• Gym, have started this habit recently, but unable to concentrate much on the trainer's instructions because of some pretty faces out there.
• Blogging and Sleeping(Without a dream).

Has human civilization really evolved ?

The civilization of the one of the “wisest” species of the universe is around 16000 years old and has been continuously in the process of evolution. But has it really evolved ? Let’s try to analyze (Only if you have got some spare time, I have got plenty).

During the initial stages of the civilization, there were fights between the tribal groups probably because of food and territory. Then the age came of the theory that “God has created Whites to rule Blacks”. Those were the days when extermination of the Jews was done by the Nazis. But the emergence of the leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela raised substantial hope. The election of Barack Obama as US president gave the opportunity to declare that the racism is the theory of past. But is it really true and can we claim the human civilization has really triumphed over this menace ? Some events in the recent past have different story to tell.

• Tamil Genocide in Sri Lanka : The genocide of 20,000(according to some sources) Tamils happened in the name of fighting LTTE (although I don't support them but death of so many civilians is equally condemnable), but the world watched this with closed eyes.
• Attacks on the Indian students in Australia and US : Around 500BC we welcomed foreign students with open arms at the Nalanda University .The proof is Hiuen Tsiang’s description of Indian hospitality. But in 21st century, our own students are attacked outside the country so brutally that even a Satan will blush. The respective local government is also not doing enough to protect them.

We also proudly claim to follow the “Vasudhaiv Kutumbkam” policy, but in some of the parts like Kashmir we were not able to protect our own people. Though I strongly believe that there’s very less a government can do unless the people don’t change their views.

In the end, I hope the God’s not racist and he only gives all of us courage and wisdom to fight against this menace.

Flop Shows So Far

The year started with a scar leaving behind as there were reminiscences of a series or terror attacks and fear of recession in the global economy. But a “thinker” had said, “Forget about the past and accept the challenges of the future”. I have always tried to follow him, at least the first part his aphorism. Forget it; let’s focus on some of flop shows of this year.

• Elections : The largest democracy was supposed to elect its government this year. But without any major national issues and the clear signs of hung assembly, it looked too much banal. Also the politicians’ diabolical behavior during by the campaign and with the low turnout so far even in the rural areas has added salt to the wounds the Indian democracy. The elections were even troubled by the naxalites in some parts including the some rural areas of my state .The only sanguine thing I can envision is that some of separatists in Kashmir have decided to participate in election.
• War against Taliban in Pakistan : In standard IX, I had read about the Karl Marx and his famous aphorism: - “Religion is the opium of masses”. It took me more than 10 years and the example of Taliban to understand it actually. These fanatics are mercilessly flogging and executing women and children on the charges of heresy, but the civilized world is vacillating between peace and war to deal with them. This dillydallying is actually providing opportunity to engender them and create an intrusive threat to human civilization.
• Indian Premier League : The IPL was forced to move out of India because of the security concerns but probably that affected the popularity of it badly. The South African pitches and climate has also been spoilsport. There are already rumors in some quarters that the matches are deliberately being made closed encounters. What is the fact, may be God or a sponsor knows.
• Bollywood Movies : Till now, the Bollywood movies have disappointed the audiences, at least me, except some exceptions like Gulal and DevD.
• My Personal and Professional Life : The recession has given me one more excuse to not to do something remarkable in my career. At the personal front also no improvements have been made except have quit the occasional smoking, thanks a ton to VG, SA and CM.It seems life will continue to go on like this only. One of my friend says, “Subah se Saam, aur Sam se Raat Hoti Hai, Aise hi Jindgi Tamam hoti hai. “

It’s enough lecture for today, now going for sleep.

Are Love and Affection Transient?

Thinking about all these nonsense at the time of recession may be the symptoms of insanity, but let it be; after all we are human first.
The last few weeks were quite wearisome for me because of million of stupid reasons, but managed to have an interesting discussion on this topic with a friend. Are love and affection transient? Science claims that emotions are triggered by a molecule in the body which starts vanishing with a certain period of time. So what is the fact?

• The love and affection towards the parents, especially in the urban Indian culture starts receding once the person establishes his / her own family. May be because I am staying 3000 Kms away from them, I might be biased in the observation, but baring some exceptions, this relation is assumed to be most vital in human’s life. So what's the reason of weakening of this relationship, is it a kind of transiency effect or just an overshadowing of the old relationship with the newer one?
• The Plato theory talks about the initial structure human body as union of man and woman. The body was later cut into two pieces; hence both of them are always in pursuit of finding out the other part. Now even if they are able to find it at least in case of love marriages (let’s forget the arranged marriages for the time being as I strongly feel that it is nothing but one more bigger compromise in the human’s life) the differences start cropping up in their lives after a certain span of time.

So to conclude this, definitely the transiency effect exists in the humans and according to me, to mitigate this, it is important to preserve the basic human values like innocency and honesty and shed the individuality. The Bollywood says this in its own style -“Avoid using brain where you can handle the situation with heart.”

Once upon a time it happened in a IT Company

Yes!! Ladies and gentlemen please join hands in welcoming my living and non- fictitious characters.

SI-Soft Pvt Ltd : A product development IT Company.
PDG : “Product” Development Group in SI-Soft Pvt Ltd.
Amit : Leading the team PDG and having 9+ years of experience in “programming”.
Nilesh : A team member in PD (Product Development) group having 2+ years of exp.

One more thing... wait a moment, after reading the story, if you are from non IT field you might have a sarcastic and satisfying smile at your face but, unfortunately if you are an IT engineer then your heart might sink in the pool of tears . I beg your pardon in advance for that.

The story goes like this….

The SI-Soft Pvt Ltd has got a contract for developing a web application and hence they are in the process of preparing the requirement documents. The team leader Amit with PDG has got the responsibility of completing the documents.
Everything goes as usual till one day...!

Amit calls Nilesh in the early morning and assigns the task of completing the documents for “Finance” module of the application. Since Nilesh was quite novice to the documentation, he like a typical S/W engineer, tries to find any sample from the “Google”. After searching for 2-3 hours he was finally able to find a sample document but it was not related to his module at all. Infact it described the HR management of any company.
“Not a problem … I will take this as a reference and definitely be able to complete the document for my module”, thinks Nilesh.

He works hard all the day and finally in the evening he’s able to come up a document for his module. He decides sending the document to his TL Amit for review.
But now good twist in the tale. The luck was playing a double game with him today. Mistakenly he sends the template downloaded from Google to Amit and leaves for home.

Amit comes office in the morning and is really elated to the see the document on his mail box. ” The young generation is quite intelligent. I haven’t ever thought of completing this document on my own. Ohh!!! This guy really deserves the appraisal…but forget it for the time being, let me review this document”, he says to himself.
The whole day he spends in reviewing the document unaware of the document is merely being a template and not related to his module at all. He comes up with review comments and sends it back to the Nilesh.

Nilesh is elated, ruminates “There are no major comments. I will able to complete it early and will go to movie today, but wait, Alas !!!! I had sent the wrong document…….. Wait again... But still he’s not able to find it… How much moron he is. Ha ha ha … Not a problem this time I will send the correct one."

And this time he sends the original document..

Can you readers believe what Amit had to say? ”Oh.. Nilesh.. You have done really a great job. You need really appreciation for it.”

I sitting on a corner somewhere in the story started wailing at the plight of Software Industry.

* Names has been changed to hide the identities.

* Copy right has been taken from one of the characters of the story.

Book Review :- IF GOD WAS A BANKER

This weekend was quite boring for me as I was alone at my room and had very few choices left to explore. I vacillated whether to watch a movie but again watching movie alone was not a good deal. Hence I decided to read the novel “IF GOD WAS BANKER” which is written by Ravi Subramanyam an alumnus from IIM Bangalore. The novel is based on life style of bankers and narrates the story of three ambitious youths from IIM who decide to join one of the largest banks of the world. But as they come from different family backgrounds, they have different levels of ethics and benevolence. The two of them Swami and Kalpana are hardworking and honest but the other guy Sundeep is a firm believer of shortcuts in success. All three of them achieve incredible success in their careers but as it always happens, especially in typical Indian imagination, the person who had taken wrong way to achieve success lands in a predicament.
The book looked quite engrossing at the beginning where in it reminded the famous book “Five Point Someone” by Chetan Bhagat, but gradually the story becomes too banal and predictable. In the end it happened to be a copy of Madhur Bhandkar’s previous movies on different professions (modeling, begging, and prostitution). May be next time we can expect a movie from him where in the bankers will be shaking legs to the tune “Jalwa, ye Jalwa …”

DEVD scores well with Emotional Atayachar!!!!

This week had been quite wearisome for me as I had to face non-emotional kind of "Atayachar" by waking up at 6:30 AM. But let’s leave a common man’s story and discuss about the film. I and my roomies democratically decided to take subtle enjoyment by watching the movie "DEVD" which is termed as the modern version of the novel “Devdas”.
Unlike the earlier Devdas this DEVD is conceited, selfish and confused person who is smitten with a bold village girl PARO.Abhay Deol looks quite instinctive in this role. The character PARO is played by a new actor and looks awesome clad in typical Punjabi dress. The first half of the movie is riveting even though the directory has the same story to tell where in PARO is married to another person. The song “Tauba Tera Jalwa, Tauba Tera Pyaar” is filmed brilliantly and reminds of the typical North Indian marriage.
In the second half of the movie, the protagonist DEVD lives in reclusion, addicted to drugs until he finds a prostitute “CHANDA” who has some different story to tell. The director has got the inspiration probably from the DPS and BMW incidents of Delhi. The movie ends with the DEVD happily settling with CHANDA.
The movie contains some bold dialogues and it’s difficult to believe that the censor board has not given the “A” certificate to it. If you are a bachelor and have interest in different kind of cinema this movie is worth to watch.

Where's the Cost ?

It has been more than 75 days since we were butchered mercilessly in our own backyard, the place where we were born, grew up and have dreamt our children playing intrepidly. What happened after that? The whole nation stood against it, clamored “Enough is enough” and all other slogans. The prime minister made address to the nation promising to entail “cost” if any “country” will be involved in this dastardly act. But after 3 months the whole world knows a “country” is involved but there is no semblance of any “cost”.
The “country” promised us to register an FIR against the conspirators as if they have stolen some mobile or credit card. Let’s be very positive and think they are going to hang out those conspirators, will we be able to dwell safely in our homes, obviously not as there’s a bigger mess in that country which involves government, intelligence and army than those six conspirators. But we were very eager to expound this as a “positive” development and calling it a diplomatic victory. Definitely after so much suffering and humiliation we initiated a “diplomatic” way to deal our neighbor but we must believe that they have outwitted us.

So what went wrong for us?
They attacked us with weapons but we started war of words forgetting the basic fact that a suffering country can never win war of words. The winner obviously in these cases is the country who is able to cause the maximum damage.

….. To be continued……

Slumdog Millionaire - Jai ho!!!

Last Friday I got a chance to watch the movie "Slumdog Millionaire", the movie which has already won Golden Globe Awards and nominated for atleast 10 Osacar awards.Movie is undoubtely good and worth to watch.A.R Rahman scores well with the songs like "Jai ho" and "Ringa - Ringa" .Vikas Sharoop's storing telling is splendid and the protoganist Jamal easily connects to the audiences.I really regret not reading "Q&A" earlier but will try to read "The Six Suspects" this time.It was also one of the finest performances of Anil Kapoor after Tehzaab.

Even if assume that it was just a film and it has nothing to with the reality, being an Indian it hurts that the film, like the last booker prize winner book "The White Tiger", tries to depict the negative image of the country.Apart from showing the Indian poverty the it expounds the unfair social milieu in the country.What I believe that the poverty does exist in the country but in terms of social milieu India is far better than most of the countries.

The six hours when death danced to its tune.

I am a person who had never ruminated about the death or its ramifications. May be was always busy in living like a typical Indian middle class in which you are so busy to live that you become oblivious of trepidation of death. But the event which haunted me on 26/11/2008 has changed really my perceptions towards the life and the country, not full-fledged "Rang de Basanti" type but at least up to some extent.

I reached CST Station exactly when firing was going on
I had booked ticket of RJ Nagar Express on that fateful day as I had attend the funeral of my Grandfather. I left office early and caught a local train for CST around 9.I reached the CST station at 10 and was waiting to get a seat in the waiting room. The biggest worry of Indian state which is its rising population worked in my favor and I couldn't get a seat in the waiting room. I decided to move towards the platform no 18 where my train was suppose to come. Suddenly I saw commotion of people running for the exits, in the same direction of me, clamoring "Bhago"-"Bhago".Some of them were talking about the gunshots being fired. But these days since we are accustomed of listening hoax calls(now blasts) almost every week, I decided to confirm the news by calling my room mate Sajjad, but probably at that time television channels were showing the news of gun firing between two rival groups at Colaba.

I saw two persons who had got bullet injuries.
I decided to sit on one of the benches on the platform, but saw again another batch of persons running. There were women, children among them. Two of them among them had got bullet injuries as well. Without making any delay I also ran, ran like a hell. One white woman probably pregnant was limping, getting helped by her husband who was already carrying a heavy weight bag. Once the idea "Athithi Devo Bhavah" influenced my heart to offer a help to them, but the brain felt otherwise , i.e. to save own life more important.

Mumbai Spirit
When some intellectuals claim about the "Mumbai Spirit" which talks about getting normal as soon as possible (Although I feel that most of the persons are forced to do so for their bread and butter), I really wonder what they have to say about these foreigners who travel India for "fun" despite being one of the top 20 dangerous places on the earth. So all of us were running to save our lives suddenly we found a betel tree and tried to take shelter there. But the population factor acted here negatively, creating a fodder for the terrorists. I thought not to take any chance and vaulted over the platform boundary to reach in a flat which was owned by a family having some political back ground. Now a good twist in the tale escaped from clutches of one of the terrorists but...Landed in another predicament. In this dreadful scenario, I was contrived to listen the discussion which was going among them. The theme of the discussion was: "The attack is managed by parties in opposition to defame the government."

There was lots of blood all around in the waiting room.
The next 3 hours were ominous and full of rumours.At around 2 AM I along with one of my friend (he has come along with me) decided to go to the waiting room to enquire the status of the train. But again a horrendous scene was waiting for us. The entire floor of the waiting room was filled with human blood and semblance of the dragging of the bodies, looking like a painter had awfully dragged his brush on a colored canvas. There were some labors probably from North India desperately looking for their relatives. They were even scared of asking the whereabouts of the injured ones, from the police.I had never seen this face of Indian democracy so closely before.
I boarded in the train, tried to sleep, but those frail faces were haunting me. I tried to find the meaning of J.N.Nehru's speech which we were contrived to remember in our schools.
"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially."
"We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell."