Mahatma vs Gandhi

Mahatma vs Gandhi released this week. Read the reviews (DNA, HT, TOI) and I am sure, for many of the Indians, it will provide a great insight the utter turmoil and sadness that prevailed in Gandhi's domestic life.

I saw the Marathi play - Gandhi Virudh Gandhi and got to see the real father of a dysfunctional family for the first time. Just like Gandhi's humor and eccentric traits, this one also seems to have been sweeped below the PC carpet.

Anyway, my main grouse is really that none of these high-brow reviews mention this Marathi play as the source for the dramatization. Feroz Khan just trasported the material onto the Hindi stage and now the film and thus made it available to a wider audience.

If there is any credit due, it should be first to Ajit Dalvi and Chandrakant Kulkarni.

Mace - She would have said

On the highway of my life, there is a big pile-up. The traffic is on a standstill. There is a mountain of metal. People are hurt.
Sometimes you just want to reach the destination fast. Hell, you even know journey-is-important blah blah, but sometimes, things just get stuck, like constipation or something.
Its a time when my employer is trying to build another Channel Tunnel through my ass. And my bank has not debited my salary almost 4 days after month end. And I have just enough money to book the sidewalk spot to beg for the weekend. Its been a literally ass to mouth existence. Fuck the bloody what!
And my wife. Well, she ran away to Bombay, because I had no money. Here, I am.. All alone, sleeping on the floor, drowning in self-pity, typing away on a borrowed laptop.
Fuck the bloody what!

P.S. Correction - Wife didn't run away, though you are sure to think otherwise.

...as Gults

Khi khi khi khi

La Teral, very simple

A mother tells her son to fetch a pail of water. Jack says ok, catches the next flight to Tokyo and comes back with a true bred Japanese. The mother sees who is at the door and faints.

What could have been the reason for this tragedy?

The mother had told his son,"Beta, Japaani le aa!" <---Answer here

Killing the reading habit

After lugging around Lord of the Rings on luggage heavy trips, pleasure sojourns and short day travels, and not getting past the first 200 pages (readux), I conveniently left the Middle Earth back in India and came to Middle England. Not that it helped with my baggage problems - I was carrying 45 kgs instead of the stipulated 25 kgs, on the innocent hope that a contact behind the checkin counter will allow the assorted items like 5 kgs of rice, 2.5 kgs of wheat, 1 kg of rava, 1 kg of ghee, 500 gms of pickle, among other things to be passed unchallenged. In stead I encountered friendly fire.

"Are you freaking kidding me!! Did Mr Ocean not warn you not to carry Manisha Koirala's diet lunch with you? You will freaking make me lose my job."

Apart from the grub, lots of clothes and fancy dresses were discarded. It's extremely dull here in the UK.

Anyway, we were talking about LOTR. So, after insulting JRR Tolkien and his motley bunch of looney characters, I thought I should mend my ways and get into the reading habit. Instead I took 2 months to get through the 'Heart of Darkness'. It must be like a blunt Maasai spear through Joseph Conrad's skeleton buried somewhere in Canterbury.

Thus achieving unprecedented elephantine success in killing the reading habit, I am in a position to share my wisdom about to go about committing bibliocide.

1. Check mails (official and gmail) every 30 minutes - Only mails I get on official mail id when I am home is from System Administrator admonishing me about my huge size - of the mail box, I mean. In a way, I am comforted by the daily dose of identical automated messages from such a highly placed authority. I deliberately send myself spam, so my mailbox explodes and system administrator manifests himself

2. Buy TV - Waste money on TV license, Freeview (set top box) and develop slender toned thumbs through remote punching. Watch reruns of ranking programs like the Top 100 books of the last century.

3. Web Surf - read trashy and terrible blogs, similar to yours. Reread the good ones at home (the first 7 hours in office are spent sleep clicking on RSS feeds of these blogs).

4. Borrow more books from the library - You scan through the adopted books - a comic, an autobiography, a travelogue. Flipping through is interesting, so you read some more. And after two days, you are overcome with shame at ignoring your own books. You stop reading the borrowed books. And forgot why.

5. Download movies torrentially - With the immense back log of last year's acclaimed movies to be seen, its a race against time and bandwidth. Unlimited download on my ISP means that I have to pump it dry with download queues circling the globe 365 times over. BTW, Azureus is much better than ABC

6. Video chat - Discover the many pleasures of having a webcam and mic at your end and none at the other (folks). You do a video tour of the home for every guest visiting your folks and show where the washing machine and the clothes drying line is. Make silly jokes, the responses for which are a muted :-)

7. Marry

Bloody Hell!

I wished things were slightly better. I am it is ok, that it's still fucking cold most of the time. And it's June. Those women out there should be roasting. Themselves at this time of the year. The forecast is gloomy, so you don't plan for a proper outing. And voila the sun is out for about as long as you can see right up Britney's skirt while she gets off the car. And they're gone - the view of the sun and the moon. It will rain mostly this weekend. The wind that bringeth this weather should be shot or atleast covered in a largish towel, the towel sent for dry-cleaning, and lost forever in the dark hole of the laundromat.

I sometimes envy the guys - you know the types who topped whose camaraderie with their school pals is still intact, who won all the competitions on the way to topping in their classes, who got into IITs and then into IIMs and then quit a cushy ludricrously paying job to start a new venture and made even more moolah there. Meanwhile, ran through a thousand girl-friends, all just giggling and eye fluttering at these handsome hunks (yes, they found the time to body scuplt as well), and then got married to the most gorgeous babe in town. I don't just envy such guys, I hate them from the bottom of my gall bladder. You would think, that such guys form a miniscule portion of the populace like those who do the shirshana at 5.45 am every morning and simultaneously read 'Gravity Is Going To My Head' by Chutpati Vedamuttu, over and over again, and then under and above. Endlessly. No, these guys exist in ample. They prowl the streets of Goldville, and own the most popular blogs and have the most number of friends on Orkut. Oh, how I hate them.

Self doubt is a place where you had been earlier and demolished all the street signs. And you are there now. You don't know where to go or what to do.

Kya hua jo laari chooti

Travelling in Mumbai is as much a pain as watching the Indian team play cricket. In both cases you don't have a choice - if you were able to afford a place close to your work place, then most probably, you would be owner of that company. And watching cricket is in the Indian DNA.

To make the travel hassles a bit lighter, here is a Mumbai Nagivator - I had used its earlier version, which was good too. This one looks like an improvement. There is also Mumbai local train timetable - Especially useful during the late night early morning hours.

Link through Anand

Old post about Mumbai and Pune maps.

My current state is antsyous

The key to excelling in professional life is always to surround yourself with exceptionally smart people. Where can you find the exceptionally smart people? Not in the lower rungs of the organization (unless it is a small startup or consulting firm or a flat organization like Google). Smart folks will only be at the top. To become a great head honcho, you need to be in close vicinity of the head honcho. Not only do you imbibe a lot from the smart folks around, but it is precisely at this level that you can showcase any positive attributes that you have within you - positive qualities that can make a positive difference to 'many' others.

Let me try to explain. If you are in a menial, subordinate job, or lower rungs of the organization, sure you can display your skillful, honest, hardworking and helpful nature. But it makes a difference to a lowly few. Also, there are far less challenges at that level, for you to truly test your mettle; qualities like leadership, patience, decision making never come into play.

Only at a management level, will you have the opportunity to develop these aspect
s of your personality and put them to good use. Able leaders and bright colleagues will demonstrate ways of doing things well. Mediocrity at that level stands out and mediocre people are dumped (unlike at subordinate level where they just continue to thrive). It is trial by fire.

Only to differentiate yourself from that bunch, will set you on the path to professional nirvana.

All out Animal Brawl In Kruger National Park

One of the most amazing nature videos I have seen. The buffaloes seemed to be next generation bovine species; I thought their behavior to retrieve the calf was highly evolved.
Tip from MitraUK (www.mitrauk.org)

Jaw jaw war war

Huge huge fan of the Guardian cartoonist, Steve Bell. Now Martin Rowson joins the list. This cartoon is amazing in detail, and hard-hitting in its message. Tony Blair, as usual, caricatured in the ugliest possible way.

Lake District

The vacation at Lake District was good. It rained heavily on Saturday, but Sunday and Monday was excellent. A woman we met near John Ruskin's home, went so wild with happiness, that she stopped random strangers on the street (us) and went "Isn't this just gorgeous. I stay at Bristol and it is so dirty. But this place... Oh..Just look at this. And the way they have maintained the gardens. Just wonderful!!"


Saturday went to the Bowness Lake. Then came back home to watch the FA cup final. What a disappointment! Didn't watch the final goal in the dying minutes of extra time. We set out by bus to Ambelside and then walked to Grasmere. We started our walk around 5.45 pm, but this being summer, dusk doesn't settle in till about 9 pm. We stopped at a number of places - Rydal Caves, along the Grasmere Lake, Wordsworth's grave, and finally reached Grasmere at around 8.30 pm. Were fortunate to catch the last bus back to Windermere immediately.

Sunday, we decided to cycle to Crook and back. It was a great ride, though in the end, missed a turn and reached Kendal. Kendal Castle is ruins, but the view of the town and nearby hills is spectacular. The ride was a slightly difficult and so decided to take the train back. But repair works were on, and again were fortunate to have a replacement bus with plenty of storage, so we could put our cycles in.

Still the day was not over, so walked around Windermere town - Adelaide Hill, then to the lake and back to Orrest View Point. Unfortunately, we tried to take the shortcut to the hill top and missed the road completely. Reached some private hill-top (where we saw a deer), which has quite a amazing views. Made our way back from a different route.

On Monday, we decided to take it easy. Took a explorer day ticket. First stop - Brockhole Visitor Information Center. Then to Coniston. Walked to Coniston Pier and took a ferry to Brantwood. Saw John Ruskin's home, learnt a bit about his contribution (social, arts, philosohy), and had a great cup of coffee. Back to Coniston. Came to Ambelside, saw the Waterwheel (not working), the Bridge House. Collected the luggage from the B&B and then back to York by train.

Spideman 3

Unfortunately, I got the impression from the few reviews that I read that, Spiderman 3 was an excellent movie - the best in the series. How wrong.
Its bloated, disjointed, and plain boring. Sandman part was interesting in bits, but other guys - black widowed spiderman and Green Goblin Junior were a big let down. The attempt to add depth to the plot by going back to Uncle Ben's murder doesn't work out. It is a clean copy from Batman, where the murder of Batman's parents is not longer just a petty mugging. I wish Sam Raimi, would leave behind Aunt May and Uncle Ben behind, and just concentrate on the story of the now.
Disappointing, overall.

Hoarding menace

I thought all hoardings in Mumbai were obscene. The way the trees were pruned, poisoned, pillaged to make way for big, bold, blaring advertisements blasting full force on Mumbaikars.

Ban them all, I say

Ayaz Bush

Writting all the complex essays for almost a year now, has made me into a nitpicking English Grammar custodian. I feel as if the whole existence of English is dependent on me.
But even if you excuse that fact, I think Ayaz Memon's last paragraph here is just plain wrong.

Had he flopped in the final, Gilchrist would have seriously thought about retiring, as indeed would have the selectors. Now he wants to play for some more time; and so do the selectors and fans.

Find no mistakes? Read it again. I will fill in how the sentence should obviously complete itself.

Had he flopped in the final, Gilchrist would have seriously thought about retiring, as indeed would have the selectors (thought about retiring). Now he wants to play for some more time; and so do the selectors and fans (want to play).

Now, sure, Ayaz Miyan didn't mean it that way. What he meant was

Had he flopped in the final, Gilchrist would have seriously thought about retiring, as indeed would have the selectors (thought about retiring him). Now he wants to play for some more time; and so do the selectors and fans (want him to play).

But, the para just contorts the meaning altogther. Wenyhay.

Don't look for grammatical errors here. I ain't proof-reading. It reminded me of that famous Bushism

Our enemies are looking for ways to harm us. And so do we.

We do the London

Was again back in London showing my wife around. This time, I was armed with the Lonely Planet, so I think, we were able to get much more out of the sight-seeing. Just relying on the signs and the tube map can be mis-leading. For example, the tube map doesn't show that Charing Cross, Leicester Square and Westminister are in walking distances of each other. The time it takes to walk underground to the tube stations is much more than if you just walk to these stations above ground. And then there is the advantage of actually experiencing the sights and sounds of the city.

Since, I was tour-guiding for the wife, had to stick to the same routine - Tower of London, Tower Bridge, Cruise, Greenwich, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace. Wished I had done at least a museum probably, didn't happen. Also, wanted to go around, some out of way spots - probabaly only thing we managed was Neasden's Swami Narayan Mandir (awesome- probably, the best temple I have seen). Next time, (provided I am around), will time my journey around some event (Noting Hill carnival etc) and make sure I check out the museums - Tate Modern, Nat History, or British Museum (atleast). Also go to Brick Lane and do the Wapping Dockyards walk.

York diary

Its been a long long time, since I wrote anything on this wall. Well, lots of water has flown down the Ouse. Yes, I am in York now. The historic city of York.
Just a few highlights of the last month.
1. Bought a cycle on a Saturday. Boom! Stolen on Sunday. So, that's a downward trend, over Norwich theft. Lots more cycle tracks and far more cycle friendly in York, than Norwich, but then, will I be able to enjoy it.
2. York is more expensive than Norwich. Don't know the reason really. It's not much better than Norwich or anything. Just dearer.
3. The way this project is going, not sure, how long my work will last here. Already have put in a word with my managers, to find other available work.
4. Council tax is cheaper here, but then, expenditure on public facilities is less. Not so good swimming pool, really really sparse library.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Indian cricket is no more. Why won't I be happy?

Crooked world crap

I have written about my dislike for cricket earlier. Performance of Indian cricket team, helps slowly solidify that feeling of aversion. India has yesterday lost to Bangladesh. Bangladesh of course deserves the micro-credit, but India is really playing like a bunch of losers. The sooner the Indian junta is weaned off this silly game played by even sillier bunch of jokers, the better.

Guys there are far more better games worth your while, whether you are playing or watching. Go chase them.

Udayan Mukherjee cements his position as the best.

I saw this interview - Udayan Mukherjee, just royally screwed Kamal Nath. I don't know if it is the twin influence of Raghav Bahl and Karan Thapar, both of whom work for CNBC TV 18. But Udayan's arguments were precise and probing. Kamal Nath was left an irritated man - trying rhetoric and deviation from the topic. None worked. I think, he actually disconnected the call in a huff. Udayan was left with a victorious grin of the last man standing.

I have written about Udayan earlier. In the guise of the man next door, there lies a sharp, intelligent and commanding media-man. Hats off to the guy.

Absolute personal freedom - Not possible

Yes, I like personal freedom too. But, humans are too human to be given absolute freedom.

Of course, doing drugs is against the law - and not just in India. Rightly so. It doesn't harm just one person. These drugs provide mind-altering experiences - some permanent. They hamper judgement and rational thinking. That is a fact. Now, if such an individual starts behaving erratically, ignoring his well-being, his social obligations (as a child to his parents or as a parent to his children, just to keep it to the family), setting out on a slow but steady path of destruction, how is not government's business to intervene. Can individual families go about checking drug distribution? Or will market forces and profit motive come together to stop it?

Another case in point is this. Lets say, it is decided that government shouldn't intervene on issues of incest. And the inbreeding causes kids to be mentally and physically retarded. Who is to blame? These bro-sis couple doesn't even have an iota of guilt. Probably, did a lot of drugs as kids.

Profitability is a innocous word which masks the underlying greed. People are greedy. They keep wanting more. Even by defrauding others - the interests may not be harmed in an obvious way (global warming for example).

What if, a hundred people have to die as a consequence of personal freedom (oh, lets say, young rebels out on a rave party - with drugs coming from a Nigerian who provided spurious heroin some time back).

This personal freedom for unadulterated greed, and manic recklessness has to be checked. Don't get me wrong. I am all for dirt-biking with helmet on.

Look Ma, I am on TV.... No, You're not.

"When baseball season comes around, everyone wants to know 'Did you make the bus?'" said Rustin Pickett, a senior and former player".

"It's one huge family," said player Matt Ferguson, who didn't make the trip. "We spend
all day together. We go to classes together. We do everything together."

Sophomore Courtney Minnich said that at a college as small as Bluffton, "even if you didn't know everybody, it will hurt, because you've seen them on campus."

Everyone in US talks as if he is TV. Sample.

Don't want to demean the tragedy, but just an observation

Raju Shrivastav goes berserk at Star Screen Awards

I underestimated this guy.

Vir Das

I have seen Vir Das on "News on the Loose". The guy is hilarious. Today, he was on budget byte and again rocked with his one-liners. In fact, the female host of Power Breakfast (next up) was giggling un controllably, even as the other host introduced the next segment.

Vir Das, it seems, is already a well-known stand-up and looking for a break in Bollywood. He certainly has the goods. Watch out for him.

Amillia Taylor shouldn't be alive. She was born at less than 22 weeks - in the US, where babies aren't considered 'viable' until 23 weeks. But her desperate mother lied to doctors about how far gone she was, and Amillia is now the most premature baby to have ever survived. Aida Edemariam reports on her extraordinary story and asks: should we be saving such tiny babies? ...

I don't think we need to put medical science to the test, in such extreme cases. The baby wasn't meant to live and if it does, it faces insurmountable health problems - mental and physical. And that pain - the baby bears alone. Not even your parents can understand it.


Sometime back I wrote about the world's largest baby and world's smallest baby here

Funeral of a poem

Don't know why I wrote this, but anyway...
**************************************************************************
I fill it in my fingers
I fill it in my toes
Mud is all all around me
And so the filling grows
My stink is on the wind
It's everywhere I go
So if you 're really dirty
Come on and let it show
You know I love goo, I always will
My mind's made up by the way, with filth
You'll be so cringing, you'll be so stained
'Cause if I am pool, you'll be deep end


You've been defaced before me
As I lay on my turd
I cannot get to thinking
Why do they call me nerd?
You gave your disease to me and I gave mine to you
I need someone beside me in everything I do

You know I love goo, I always will
My mind's made up by the way, with filth
You'll be so cringing, you'll be so stained
'Cause if I am pool, you'll be deep end
I got to keep it moving
My stink is on the wind
Oh everywhere its goo
So if you really love me
Come on and dab some goo
Come on and dab it,
Come on and dab it,
Come on and dab it,
Come on and dab some goo

Hype or hype?

These days, I am working on a POC (Proof of concept to the uninITiated) on Informatica 8, studying its features, performance and doing a comparitive analysis. I have worked on Informatica 7, so I can only do comparison between the two versions and not between different tools.

Anyway, SOA is a big buzzword, doing the rounds of tech-forums these days. Informatica 8 also claims to have adopted SOA. Tell you what! After looking at the tool, it's just a superficial makeover. Infa Powercenter has Workflow Manager, Workflow Monitor, Repository Manager etc. All these are hosted as servers. They have just renamed it as a service. Does it make the mappings faster? Does it require lesser resources? Does it make these tools more accessible? No. Everything remains the same.

In fact, on promotional material, it looks like a breakthrough. However, actually, its useless. Infa is not an exception. Data warehouse is stocked with buzz words like SOA, CDI, ELT, DSS, ODS etc. It is odious.

All these consultant types are operating at a level, where they don't deal with the intricacies of actual development. And so, are never exposed to the tools at a basic level. Only when you really work on tools, do you realise that the hype machine is just basically pumping out hot air.

The "friendly-fire" death of a British soldier in Iraq

Just check this stunning video about the killing of a British soldier in friendly fire from US air-crafts. Not much details in the visuals, but the audio is chilling.

You can read the transcript here.

Random notes on Guru

1. I thought the attempt at humour failed a bit. Aishwarya Rai saying in the train "Hai re! Chain se ro bhi nahi sakte hum". Abhishek telling Motabhai "Tu itna badsoorat hai, is liye ro rahe hai", and so on, just don't work.

2. A better actor than Baby AB would have done justice to the role. Baby AB is unconvincing.

3. Aishwarya is zillion times more tolerable than in Dhoom-2.

4. Lot and lot has been written about the cinematography. Apart from the initial flourishes, it was pretty average. I especially dislike it when slow-motion is used and frames transition isn't smooth (less number of frames per second, which are unable to support them slow-motion). I don't know the tech jargon for this, but RDB also used it and it gets on my nerves.

5. The movie just talks in punch-lines. There aren't too many details about what Guru actually does to become that successful (Its literally a montage of 4 shots where his company grows from 10 people to 10000). I would have liked lesser time for side-plots, so that the main story was more elaborate.

Why?

I am literally stumped at this piece of news. Two days gone, and still no clues as to who murdered these 6, no now 7 people of Chinese origin.

Sumo ride

Had one of really great Sumo rides this Friday, while coming from Pune to Mumbai.
The Sumo was chartered by a group of political workers, who had gone to support their friend in Pune. Since most of the Sumo was empty, they took in 3 more as extra income for the driver.

The workers kept discussing the results and favor deals. At a break, started talking with another guy. He was a Sales Officer for Diageo, the owners of brands like Johnny Walker, Smirnoff, Guiness, Black/Red/Blue Label and so on. Told me a lot of stuff about distillation process, quality of liquor, taste, BII (Bottled in India), BIO (Bottled in origin) concept, the marketing. His info about licensing and excise regulations was pretty instructive. I told him how absurd I felt the permit law is (you have to own a permit to drink in India). I tried to defend the law, but I think I made him see some sense.

Later got talking with a software guy from Geometric. Turned out we had a common friend. He needed info on DB2. I said I had a book and can lend it to him, as I don't need it anymore. We talked work a bit.

Overall, was a pretty useful ride. Thought, I was implementing some aspects of the Future Manager's program (soft skills training) I am almost about to complete.

Salaam-e-Ishq

Salaam-e-Ishq can be spelt simply as A-V-O-I-D.
Absolute torture. Especially, when you are forced to watch it, due to the goof-up of the ticket dispenser. We asked for Guru, he gave So-lame it reeks.

HDFC Service is the horriblest

Of all the banks that I have transacted with (ICICI, Lloyds TSB, HSBC , HDFC), HDFC's service is the most pathetic.

Some major grouses
1. Disallows free money transfer from one account to another - even if the other account is HDFC.

2. No temporary disablement of debit card, in case it's lost. I mean, when the wallet is lost, you may find it somewhere within a couple of days. You don't need to order for a new debit card - just have the old one unblocked. But HDFC doesn't have that facility. You have to permanently kill the debit card and then order a new one - it costs you Rs. 100.

3. Since the last 6 months or so, there is HDFC ATM sign at Kandivli (East), Thakur House, Ashok Nagar. But guess what! No ATM. There is always some work going on and have gone searching for the ATM there. In vain.
Complained twice to HDFC Customer Service. Absolute zero response.

4. Least number of ATMs amongst the leading banks. It was funny. In Accenture, we had a salary account with HDFC and the ATM within the main campus was ... ICICI.

Pledges raised - Mumbai Marathon

Have made a serious effort this time to raise money through pledges for my run. Was able to raise Rs 2650 from guys at Pune office. The email offensive was very strong and then I backed it up with one-o-one with local guys (explaining the concept) and with chat sessions, personal mails, threats of bodily harm etc to onsite folks. Of course, all that would have not worked if my friends were not as generous as they were. Most of the onsite folks donated very promptly, some very liberally. PM donated in 4 figures, sending me in a tizzy.

Onsite guys donated around Rs. 3140, With about Rs. 1000 more promised. That is a total donation about of Rs. 6800, which is just spectacular.

I am truly moved by the generosity and hope good things come out of the donation. I have pledged the money to Apnalaya. I ran in Usha Handicrafts T-shirt (committed to Fair Trade), coz Nainesh gave it to me the marathon morning.

For random acts of kindness, log on to http://www.giveworld.org/pledge.htm

Mumbai Marathon - 2007

Was hoping to complete the half marathon in sub 2 hours. In 2004, I completed the Half Marathon in 2 hrs 22 min, 32 sec. But the conditions were tough, my preparation was hardly flawless, even though far more rigorous than for 2004 run.

My start was very good - smooth and evenly paced. At about 4 km mark, I hardly broke into a sweat. But it was slower than my expectations. I was hoping to be at the end of Chowpatty in 30 min. I was there in 40. Still, legs were going strong and I was confident of not losing any more speed. Dad and wife were supposed to catch me there, but they got there a bit late.

But then the Babulnath stretch started. It's mostly uphill, with a gentle slope towards Haji Ali junction. The upward gradient saw the first of my 4 walking breaks. I had taken Glucon-D powder in small sachets, in case electrol was hard to come by along the way. And it was. There were stations where I am sure it was available, but the volunteers were tepid in handing it to the runners. At a medical station, I had to shout and then stop to get my first energy drink. It breaks your momentum and also sets some pain-alarms on. Also, taking 5-star as an enery bar was a bad-idea. It tried one bar, but the caramel is so chewy, that you are out of breath and want to spit out the chocolate. But overall, water stations were aplenty. I saw adequate toilet signs as well, though not sure about the state of the loos.

On my way back, I was struggling along Chowpatty stretch. It was probably because I was trying to increase my speed to make it within 2 hours. As soon as you exceed your normal speed, you struggle with your breathing pattern and are quickly breathless. Then your pace drops. At one time, I had a stiffening in the neck and then another, I was feeling so light-headed, that I thought, I would either collapse or just float past the finish line. I was looking at the tall Ambassador Hotel, for an indication of the distance remaining along the Queen's Necklace, but you know how it is with tall buildings. They are actually farther than they seem.

Finally, after some dragging along and last mile burst, I made it past the finish line.

The queue for timing certificate was huge. Waited for about 1.5 hours to get it. My colleague who finished later, had to wait 3 hours. That's ridiculous amount of time just to collect a document. The printer is on the critical path and then can certainly arrange for more printers. I hope the organizers look into it. Not only did I miss the action of dream run (costumes, celebrities, crowds), but was also not able to stretch properly after the run. My knees hurt badly.

Still, in spite of not meeting my expectations, I am glad I participated. I completed the run in 2 hours 5 min, 32 sec - exact 17 minutes off.

A sign on the road said "Make mole-hills out of mountains"

Big Brother

Just would like to link to the Daily Mail and Sun, which are the wealthy UK cousins of Navakal. Just goes to show, how big the racism issue has become.


Most of the women really represent only one section of Britian - uncouth and uneducated. It shows - in their squabbles, their ignorance and disdain for things and people alien. Not all of Britian is like that - but yes you would find a lot of people like Jane Goody and Danielle.


I just wish Shilpa would do a full on "Dilwalo ke dil ka karaar lootne" and leave all house mates and whole of Britian jaw dropped.

Firefox problems

I am sure the badwill for Microsoft translates into tremendous goodwill for Firefox. You become so accustomed to diatribe against Microsoft and eternal praise for Firefox/Google etc, that you become one of those causing it.


Here, I am having a major issue with Firefox. The click on the toolbar doesn't work. Say when you click on Bookmarks, you expect a drop down to be activated. It doesn't. It works with keyboard shortcut alright. But the click on the mouse doesn't work.


I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox, still the problem is not solved.
Another issue I have is the add-ons. I have dictionary, flashgot and BrowserSync (very useful) and some others. I don't know why many of these applications have constant updates. It increases Firefox load time greatly. Already Firefox loads slower than most applications (and there are ways overcome that)


If not anything else, I need to cancel these updates when Firefox loads. But as most are aware, it gives a feeling that you are outdated.


I am sure Amish will prove that I am an idiot to have these problems.


Firefox posts 1,2,3,4 and 5

Gandhi ki kisne vaat lagayi?

When I first heard about the spoof on Gandhi, I was glad. I said, yes, our icons are meant to be lampooned. We can't be putting them on the pedestal all the time, and only accept complete and utter worship of these great people.


So, I downloaded the youtube video. Its cumbersome task - download on remote machine, and then copy from remote machine to local one. But then I saw the video, and trust me, it isn't funny. I mean, the guy just uses a national figure to provoke a few pitiful laughs. The whole act was degrading (far more for Gautham Prasad) and cringe-inducing.


Good to know that Sahara and IBN 7 have apologized. They are perpetrators of the crime and need to be booked themselves. They are far more culpable than Gautham Prasad. His act was not for broadcast and his audience for that act was only to blame if they were offended and sat through the show. I didn't watch the whole thing, coz it was plain disgusting.

Gateway of India - girl molestation

I am sure that the cops have rounded up some random rowdies - whom you would probably expect to get into such situations - but were nowhere near the girl when the incident happened.


When any such episode catches media fancy - especially when you have visual proof of the ugly nature of the incident - there is intense pressure on the police to bring the culprits to book. In this case, the couple have not even registered a police complaint. The pictures are grainy, so it's going to be difficult to find the actual perpetrators.


So, I think the police have just rounded off some street side goondas. Once the media abandons the story, the guys will be out.



This reminds me, I had been the Gateway of India some time on new year's eve 2001 (or was it 2002), with family and friends (all girls) and it is extremely rowdy out there. We decided to scoot just a short while before midnight and fortunately didn't get into trouble.

Nutan Varshabhinandan

Wissing everibhone a bhery heyappy and jhoyus noi yaar.

Avoid PDA - Here's to a hug free year. :-)

Detailed street level maps for India

Detailed street level maps for India are here. Google maps has gone micro with a vengeance. Check out this google map of Pune. The road details are outstanding. I had put up a Pune map earlier. I think I can easily file that one away



Here is a Mumbai map of Five Gardens - to extreme left is Dadar Central Station and extreme right is Sanghvi Heights (the square and circle)




Hot tip from Labnol

Kelva trip

Just back from Kelva trip. We were supposed to stay at Manor at a guest house. But it was being refurbished and we were forced to look around for a place near Kelva Beach. I think it worked out well. Managed to find one by afternoon. Just drove around lazily, ate a lot, went to the beach, watched a pics (PKSE) and natak (Anandache Dohi).


The beach is very very untidy. It looks like there is no garbage cleaning being done at all and the gram-panchayat should be hauled up for this. Hoardes of picknickers and tourists (the Sheetaladevi temple is also famous) ensure that moolah flows in easy. Why can't some be spent on the upkeep of the beach? The rest of the town is quaint and nice, but the filth of the beach just ruins the experience.


At the far end of the beach (not accessed by the tourists), one can see remains of the morning. Seems like the locals really make good use of the scenery and nature for their ablutions.


And then you claim environmentalism is the mainstay of Hinduism!

Subhash K Jha has taken sycophancy to cringe inducing levels. It is as if he has made a pact with the devil, made a bon-fire of all jornalistic duties and started sucking upto the stars in the most disgusting ways possible.


Read this 'review' of Aryan. He calls it a 'sweet little film'. A film that made most puke and the rest atleast thook, is a 'reasonably well-crafted domestic drama'. Did you get a mad-critic disease, Mr Jhava.

Google Earth-Poorna

Earlier, I wouldn't know how well I was running, because I had no idea of the distance I was running or the speed. I run on urban roads and there are no measurements as such.


Google Earth has proved to be a wonderful tool in informing the exact distance (in meters) I was covering.



Here is a snapshot of one of the roads I run on. Its military area, part of which is accessible to the public. Junta from my locality go around for walks and many kids play cricket on the roads. I had no clue how long it was, until I had a look through Google Earth.




I was also able to look at the actual marathon route, and figure out how fast I should be running to get to certain milestones along the way.

What a comment!

I have the biggest comment ever on my blog. I will not put it as a separate post, coz it will require me to do lot of formatting. But here is the link.


Please go through.

Quiz Se Pyaar karu

As a part of Sparks celebrations here at Pune office, we had a general quiz. The elims were 20 written questions followed by 5 rounds of quiz questions to the selected teams.


Unfortunately didn't qualify for the main round. I screwed on a simple question (who was the donkey in Shrek - I wrote Mike Myers, of course its Eddie Murphy) and ended with 8. The rules for selection were also biased towards indovidual participants and moreover, lot more from my team (Challengers) had turned up. So, I think, we just missed the qualification. Anyway, here are some of the questions (answers in #79b font)- they were generally very guessable. It was a fabulous quiz. Kicking myself for not making it through.


1. What is the name of estate in Jamaica where Ian Fleming wrote the first Bond?

Golden Eye


2. Who put up a reward to invent a new alphabet in English?

G B Shaw


3. Why is Oct 19th holiday in Albania? CLue - The person is born in Albania, but not citizen of Albania.

Mother Teresa Day


4. What do u get when you cut mistletoe with a golden sickle? Related to comics.

Magic Potion- Asterix


5. Who are largest ship makers?

Hyundai


6. What are 3 stars called in Japanese?

Mitsubishi


7. Who was the Governor of Bengal Madras whose name is given to a US univ?

Yale


8. Who has won both the Oscars and the Nobel prize?

G B Shaw - Screenplay - My fair lady

Why run!

Till recently - about 5 years ago, I thought running was such a boring activity. Just a monotonous, dreary activity that one can hardly enjoy. Working out in a gym with all the gleaming equipments and sweaty beautiful people would be so much better. Of course, nothing can beat my love for actual court/ground games- cricket, football, volleyball, tennis. I loved playing these as a kid - especially cricket and football. Would love to even now.
But the rules of the game have changed. I have become older. There is no time to play them anymore. For a proper sport, you need a ground/court. Playgrounds are hard to come by in India, and whatever are left, are being dumped with debris, rubble and garbage. For proper grounds/courts, you need a club membership and even then, most of them, are hosting birthday parties, weddings, sagais, mendhi, shendi (thread ceremony among Brahmins, in which, they tonsure the newly Brahmin kid, just keeping a small shendi:-).


You also need sports-gear - racquets, sportswear, balls. But most importantly, you need partners and players. You can't find them amongst your ilk - the most lethargic and unfit of all professionals - IT guys. So what can you pursue, to have some semblance of sport in your life? Running it is.


For a start, you can run anywhere. I run along a cul-de-sac, about 300 meters long. The road wasn't smooth earlier, but now, is just beautiful. Of course, it is not recommended to run on roads, as it is high impact and might damage your bones. But with proper footwear and running posture, you can eliminate/lower the danger.


You can run at anytime of the day. I tend to get late from work, so it is around 7-8.30 pm that I go sprinting. Of course, I can't go in mornings, because its painful to wake up so early.


Running doesn't require any skill. So anyone, can 'enjoy' running. You just need to know, how not to hurt your leg-muscles or over-do your work-out and you are fine.
There is the monotony, yes, but after about 20-30 minutes, you are in the zone, you sort of achieve a zen like feeling, which is very rewarding. Once you do it everyday, after-a-while, you can go indefatigably for any length of time.


Running is an activity that has immediate benefits in real-life. During your daily travel, you are hurrying along all the time, to or from work. Sometimes, you need to walk quickly and just plain run to catch that bus or the last seat in the bus and running gives you a real advantage. I adds a spring in your stride.


Sprinting (running fast) and long-distance running are totally different ball(of the foot)-games. However good your stamina is, if you are training for long-distance, you will be out of breath if you running quickly. So, you need to find your body-rhythm and run consistently and smoothly. The advice that the experts give is that when you run long-distance, you should be able to speak coherently (bit of gasping allowed) and smoothly to your (imaginary) partner.


Unfortunately, my training has ground to a halt since Friday. I am coughing like a train-engine. It seems to get better now and I hope to be on the road tomorrow.

Steve Bells the cow

I am a big fan of Steve Bell. Here is another fine cartoon. George Bush and Tony Blair are almost there in his cartoons - very grotesquely drawn.
In case you didn't recognize the kid, its George W Bush (normally, he is drawn with cow features).



Another one, very graphic and will have you recoiled in horror.

All in a day's work

"Oh I split some coffee"

"Yucckeee"

"Well, not my fault. There was a jerk in earth's rotation"

"Yeah! It was when the day was changing to night"

"Change of gears"





"Ravi, don't take any CDs. No CDs with mp3s. They will be confiscated at the airports. MP3s are not legally allowed. And also the training material you got during induction. That's not allowed either."

"Why?"

"Well, it's stolen from various sources. The guys at the airport take any random sentence from the training manual and initiate a search on google. If they find that the source is a copyrighted book, you are screwed."

"Really"

Normally its chaos

Does the sign mean that, traffic is normally not regulated at Shivaji Park.

Dhoom 2 - Re-Tick, Ro-shun

Have finally seen Dhoom 2. Like with other movies, I went with lot of research- reading reviews, taking opinions. But the movie still majorly disappointed me. The average review rating has been "good" (3 stars). I think it deserves 2 stars. One for Hritik and another for Roshan.
He is a Greek God who doesn't rest on his laurels. He will go to any lengths to be the best bloody dancer, the best action-hero, the best romantic hero, a complete actor in business. And he is the best.


Everybody and everything else, just drags the movie down. Abhishek Bachchan, Bipasha Basu are trapped in thankless roles. Uday Chopra comes with the baggage of being hated as the most repulsive guy around (Tusshar Kapoor has managed to haul himself to the next grade). You don't even want to laugh at his jokes, even though sometimes, they are genuinely funny. He looks like a monkey and if monkeys like him should get mass viewership, then I might as well be there 'acting'.


Bipasha, Abhishek can't dance and it shows in Don't Touch Me song. It's embarassing when the dance movements are vigorous, like they are in this movie. Abhishek is also very awkward in the action sequences (watch him ride the water-scooter, with legs close, as if about to pee)


Aishwarya Rai hams and haws, pains and paws through her role. She is so fake (probably as a person, which is why it's magnified in her acting), that she should be staying in Ulhasnagar and sitting in for a clay model for duplicate Barbie dolls. She sucks with her 'like' and 'funny guy'. Due to her extensive background in modeling, she is now just too over-prepared for acting. Thank God, she is at logger-heads with two big Khans - SRK and Salman, so that's half the Bollywood movies in which she won't appear. Yippee!!


Back to the movie. Hritik apart, another positive aspect is the special effects. Truly world-class. But then important things like story and screen-play are non-existent. Most of the songs have been similarly shot (in mundane mediocre sets). No variety and new-ness, at all. The music sucks. And how!. Crazy Kiya Re, just about sums up all the hopeless things that the movie does to us.

2nd Stab at the Half Marathon

Have started my Half Marathon Training, probably a week late. The Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon is on 21st Jan 2006, that's about 7 weeks for preparation. But I think I am doing fairly ok. The runs have been steady and vigorous and should have no problem completing the race. My main aim is to complete the race in 2 hours. Last time, I took 2 hrs, 22 minutes. Hope to set a new PR.


I think best way to achieve is by increasing my strides. I have not too keen on taking walking breaks, but after reading this and other stuff on the net, I realise it may not be a bad idea. Will go tomorrow on a long run (normally just run about 3 kms), so will try out the strategy.


My fingers crossed, I am leg-strong.

Guru Kashyap

Have read two fabulous pieces on music and film. First is music review of Guru. Have downloaded the songs from rapidshare (It was up the next day of release along with lyrics and album cover scan!!). I have not been able to have a listen. But Bharadwaj Ranjan review surely has me very eager.


Second article is about making of Satya by the man, Anurag Kashyap. I wonder if all his creative energies will ever find a release - I mean a Friday release. I know he is directing No Smoking, thanks to Vishal Bharadwaj and Kumar Mangat offering to be benevolent producers. But all of Kashyap's work as a director has been jinxed (Paanch, Black Friday, Alwyn Kaalicharan), so it makes me wonder if he operates in a self-destruct mode.


All said, he is something to watch out for, purely for the the manic edge he brings to his offerings.


Both links indirectly through George Thomas

Less Do It

Holy Cow! Dirty how!

When it bathed in the polluted Ganges.

The sins of others will permeate you now

As the water turns murky, down Himalayan Ranges



Hole in the Ozone, Hole in the World

I love to sing the Buy-Buy Coda

Consumption is making us dizzy and whirl

I want to show the neighbour my new Skoda



A rain-forest a day, wiped clean,

Houses to build, more trash to read

All we want is money, our only green

The more you hunger, when more you feed



Tsunamis and hurricanes, earthquakes and floods

Nature messed with, back with a vengeance

So many flowers nipped in their buds

Can we act sane, just for once?



The last I was in the woods was in my dreams

The sense of awe, so profound.

More I rush, the farther it seems,

The less I want, more spoils abound



Take it slow, is what I learnt

Money shouldn't make us pawn.

What if all we have gets buried or burnt

In a flash, all that we have... gone.


My submission to this year's poetry contest at work. Results will be out next week.

I won last year


Update -Dec 21 - I lost this year

Where's the party tonight?

On Monday, we had a party at Rajwada, Pune. The party contributors were many and reasons different - awards, offshore return, wedding and so on.


Since everyone thought we needed to have a different party (not repeat the DJ-food routine), we decided to have games and food. I was given the responsibility of putting together the games. Already we were 40+ and it was my first shot at hosting an event.


We started with modified spoons and marbles in which, we need to involve all the members of a team. But, with so many people involved, it was just getting difficult to control. Somehow, we managed to get this game started. But half the people did not understand the rules and ran only half the race. Anyway, it was imperative to move to the next one quickly to keep the crowd under control. However, a few of them went away to get their kicks.


The game was to hit a guy in a helmet with table tennis balls. Team with most hits wins. This game turned out quite well. But meanwhile the drunks were back. The commotion started again and it became difficult to get the hooligans under control.
Still we managed to have a quiz round, burst-the-balloon with your backside, and dumb charades round.


Finally, it was some dance music on a laptop, that was the saving grace. Though there was no DJ, I managed to dance the night away.


Did some juggling with boiled eggs. My first performance on a public platform. Would like to do it properly with lots of practice. Before my limbs give up on me.

Casino Royale - Review

Saw Casino Royale at Inox, Nariman Point. What's the point of charging of 180 Rs. per ticket, if you can't install mobile-phone jammers in the movie-hall. Moreover, outside food items are not allowed in. Not that it's much, but the theater authorities aren't concerned about the patrons getting back their stuff. The exit is a different route and most of us, obviously, forgot about our food-items.


Anyway, the spin machine has ensured that the James Bond gets the most favorable plug in the media. I remember reading one of the reviews which claimed that Tomorrow Never Dies was the best Bond film over. I didn't think so after I saw the movie. Just before a Bond movie release, you have flush of articles, claiming the latest one is the best.


Again, the reviews for Casino Royale have been glowing, but, I am afraid, the movie was a let down. Especially in the later part. Daniel Craig is certainly awesome as Bond. But the story after interval, just didn't make sense. Even the poker game sequence stretched for a tad too long.


Eva Green as Bond heroine was a big disappointment. No sex-appeal whatsoever. Fortunately, two movies I caught on video, Sin City and Pyaar Ke Side Effects, more than raised my spirits.

When will the bubble burst?

No, I am not talking about the Indian economy, which I believe will continue on its growth run for at least 4-5 years. I am talking about the Stock Market and Real Estate.


The Sensex today has reached 13500 and is hovering around that mark. It just seems it has now maxed now and might take a dive anytime soon. But , with loads of new money floating in (Mutual Funds and FIIs), the downward spiral isn't coming and somehow just manages to hold on for a bit. But for how long?


In the midst of this incredible rally, market analysts have all but forgotten the fundamental pricing of stocks and seem to re-evaluate the prices based on the effervescent market conditions. The Sensex index is up about 50.35 per cent from its year lows in June and has been hitting new record highs almost daily in recent weeks. My wife's colleague, Ramdeo Agarwal, managing director at Motilal Oswal, sums it up so aptly.

"Whenever there is over-valuation, it's like that last drink at the party; the lights are going off, yet you like the party so much you don't want to leave,"

There is no doubt there is over-valuation, but in the middle of the meteoric rise, no one takes the risk of raising the alarm for the fear of being branded a party-pooper. After all, everyone benefits in the booming market. People who have bought stocks at ridiculous prices also seem to profit, but the prices keep climbing, where more fools will buy the stocks. It like something like the pyramid scheme.


Mr. Agarwal (my wife's colleague) goes on to say that valuations are still fair, but I don't agree. Something, that inflates so quickly, is bound to be structurally weak.


So, I am not saying that the crash will come soon, but when it comes, the effects will be felt far and wide.


With respect to property prices, I am all the more sure. Lending has become more difficult and there is hardly any logic to the way property rates have risen in a year's time. In Pune, a few flats at Aundh are in the market for 5000 Rs per sq feet. Why would I buy 5k psf property in Pune, when I can get a better one for the same rate in a good Mumbai locality?

Many analysts are still rooting for prices to keep going north, but from what I see - my high DINK colleagues have given up on their dreams of a property purchase - the prices have to correct big time.

An Idea can screw your life

A number of us are not aware that the promotional messages the mobile companies send us daily, are an invasion of privacy. The expectation from consumer to opt out rather than opting for the service smacks of high-handedness and bullying on the part of the mobile operators. I own the mobile number and pay the rental and other charges, so why should I suffer unsolicited telephone marketing calls or smses. Promotional smses are still not illegal in most of the US (it is in Arizona), but its an intrusion and a disturbance and should be strictly regulated. Most people think that unsolicited text messages should be made illegal


I registered to the Do Not Disturb facility of Idea a few months ago. But the promotional smses (restaurant deals, jewellery promotions, tone downloads) continued to come. I called up Idea Cellular last month to stop the service. They said, it will be discontinued from 7th of this month. Nothing. Apparently, none of the systems work properly.


Finally, I made a complaint to Consumer Redressal, Idea Maharashtra. Having a lawyer in the house helps add weight to your complaint.


I have got an apology from the guys, but I am still thinking, of sending a legal notice.

Humko Maloom Hai

Jaan-e-mann























Arindam


















Uncanny resemblance?.

Har Marz ki Dawaa

Sholay of Hype

RGV has taken hype-generation to ridiculous levels, especially with the remake of Sholay. I don't see any reason, why his spin factory should plug the smallest of news (about New Basanti, Sholay Diary and now news about Abhishek Bachchan straining his vocal chords)? .


It would be very embarrasing if it were to flop miserably. So, many of his movies from the Factory, though very high on innovation and buzz factor, sink without a trace (Darwaza Band Rakho, Naach, Shiva, Darna Zaroori Hai) and there could be another major ignominion on his way.



With the new story go get around the copyright suit (RGV stories get made-remade on the sets, so much so that he might be remaking RGV's Sholay right now), there is as much relevance to the old one, as Once upon a time in the West or Seven Sumarai had to the original Sholay.


So, Ramu, stop the comparisons and get on with telling a fresh story.

Don - Review

Probably, I might be the last person on earth to have caught Don (sacrilege - Don ko padakana mushkil..), but Diwali vacation, coupled with wife's exams, meant I had to stay away from theatre for about a month. Have missed Pyaar ke side-effects, Dor and Jaan-e-mann.


I loved Don. I loved Shahrukh Khan. It was note-worthy to see how quickly he established the menace in Don 's character. I am not a big fan of SRK, but the performance was very consistent and commendable.


Critics have complained that Farhan Akhtar has tried to be over-smart by not sticking to the script. Goes to show how you can't please them all. When you want to criticize something, you can turn even a positive attribute to a negative one. People have even praised the campiness of the old-one. Cmon, the new Don has hardly any chinks in the armor. If Farhan had stuck to the old Don, then there would hardly be any surprises and thrills in store for us.


Farhan finishes off the story as in the first Don, almost half-way through the film and then throws his own twists and turns in the next. The film flagged only for a few moments, but otherwise, it was tight and captivating.


I am still not able to find any loop-holes in the complex plot. People have complained that there was less of Vijay. Well, given the new story-line, Vijay didn't have much scope, did he ;-)?


The sfx weren't tacky unlike other Hindi films (the ski-dive was the highlight).


There is not one scene that stands out, but to be a taut thriller is an achievement in itself. The new Don cheekily adds a twist to the famous line "Don ko pakadanA mushkil hI nahI, nAmumkIn hai"
and makes it even more substantive.

I think, Farhan Akhtar has redeemed himself.

Kherlanji - fence sitter

War has broken out over blogosphere over the Kherlanji massacre. The story is really really disturbing (read it here) and I wonder why most of the media has blacked it out for almost a month.


It's a shame on all these political parties who claim to fight for Dailt rights and empowerment, have not even spoken up about the episode.


Anyway, the sparring on the web is about photos about the rape and massacre should have been published or not. Frankly, for me, the story itself was so shocking, that I found it hard to breathe. I read Gaurav's scathing attack on photo-publication, before I actually saw the photos. I agreed with him.


But, now I read Shivam's response and I am not so sure. Would so many of us have known about the sickening act, were it not for the photos? True, there is bit a voyeurism, but it makes you aware what a heinous crime it was.


I would have liked it more if people understood the horror, without someone having to use such devices.

In my dad's family potrait

This is a family potrait of my father (around 1968). The frame was locked in a trunk in the family house in the village.


Everyone commented how handsome my dad looks in the pic. Well, he's taken before me. He still looks handsome now, inspite of his age. He is there at top right.


Also, impressed by how beautiful and regal my grandmom looked. Both grandparents are no more.


Anyway, glad to have found a piece of our past.

YevA, Konkan AplAch asA

Back from whirlwind tour down South Maharashtra. First stop was Kolhapur to offer prayers to Mahalaxmi, Jyotiba and at Narsobachi Wadi. Did some quick but informative tour of Pahnala. It is a sprawling fort, fairly intact (could be maintained in a far better manner). Probably will post some pics later.


Was off to Sawantwadi for a brief halt and then to Goa. We almost retraced the route the last time - Fort Aguada, Calangute, Mayem Lake, Dona Paola, Miramar, Mangeshi, Bon Jesus church. It was certainly more fun this time, thanks to the wife. Since, I am not a Goa-frequenter, I don't reminisce about the good old days when Goa was less crowded and much better. Yes, I have been to Goa as a kid, but it was so much time ago, I don't remember a thing (except I caught some Tinkle for the first time in a raddi).


The roads are awesome, sign-boards everywhere are a great help, and there are loads of picture-perfect spots. Wish they would keep Calangute cleaner though. Heaps of garbage!


Back to Sawantwadi to have another round of (soft) Cocktails, Faloodas and Soda Lemon at Balakrishna Cold-drinks. If you don't know BC, then you don't know a small part of Konkan

Do Saal

I will complete two years as a blogger in just about 4 days time. Its a long time to be writing consistently - the frequency has dropped from two blog-posts per week to one. But can't help it you see. I am married now and also busy at work.


I am not too concerned now with the site-hits as compared to earlier. It's just too much pressure trying to cater to reader's request and I believe, I have found a balance - me sprawled across it entirely.


Fewer things really move me to make an effort to write on the blog. But there still are.


BTW, I got "sehr gut" grade in Deutsch class. It was certainly not a very good effort in the exam - kept making silly and obvious mistakes - but still I am very happy to have learnt a language. It is like a peeping through a window into a whole new world for the first time. Hope not to forgot the language soon, which would be so easy, considering the circumstances. I don't think it would be possible to attend higher levels (company doesn't sponsor them), but there is ample material on the web and elsewhere.


I just need to make the effort

Wann kommst dieser Freitag?

I am just exhausted from having too much on my plate right now. My Deustchkurs just got over today. 4 months - 1,5 hours everyday, can take its toll. Many people have said that they are done with the sprechen and lesen and Die Artikels. I won't want to give up. I really had fun learning. There certainly are some tricky bits - the Artikels for one. The Germans give sex to all the things - e.g. That is a table. He is elegant.
That soup tastes good. Can I have more of her?


And then there were the stored procs which I am grappling with in the testing phase for performance. Not that they have given me much pain now. But everytime issues around those come, my heart skips a beat and I lose all my social skills. I start frowning and being all brusque and curt.


There is my soft skills training program. Though it's once every week, it is a full day course and again bherry bherry taxing.


There were other initiatives and trainings as well. But more than this, I wonder, if it is the shadow of Diwali and the week long holiday that has dampened my mood at work. People are just dying for this week to get over and so am I. Most of them are off tomorrow for their vacation.


Hope this week flies

Stephen Colbert

Great link from Digg to a YouTube video. Have been reading a lot about Stephen Colbert, and how he has taken the Daily Show franchise forward in exposing the Bush administration completely.


I love the video for the way, it covers the entire journey of Bush-spin, ridiculing Bush's eloquent oratory and rhetoric at the same time. Just brilliant.

Gandhigiri - Live

On Friday, while returning from Pune,I take a Sumo to Dadar instead of, to Kandivli. The highway is cloc-a-block with traffic and I waste atleast 1.5 hours from Sion to Kandivli. It's quicker and less excruciating to take the train (less excruciating, you said!)


Last Friday, quickly made my way to Dadar station to get the ticket and then relieve myself (badly needed to pee). Saw on the indicator that there was a fast train for Borivli. Immediately, started climbing the stairs, but by the time I was on the platform, the train had arrived, disembowelled and filled in. Skipped the compartment next to the bridge (coz it is the most crammed) and tried to get in the next. The compartment wasn't crowded at all and only 4 people were standing on the door-ledge. The gangway was also fairly empty. The train started and I jumped in.


The guy at the door started abusing me.
"Kya soyela tha kya ab tab". I couldn't keep quiet

"Boss, ab ko takleef hai kyaa kuch"

"Doosra train pakadnekaa. Khaali pili takleef deta hai"

"Aapko chadneko milaa na aaramse"



I don't remember the further conversation, but the guy wouldn't just let up. So I let out 2 kind effs and moved on. He got angry (don't know if he knew what I had said- its just upsetting not to know what the adversary is saying) and hit me. My specs came off. I turned around and unleashed a kick (actually just a push with my legs, as there wasn't space to manoeuver and also, the guy was standing on the door - couldn't risk him falling). We continued with fisticuffs for some time, before loud voices took over from all sides."


Three of them, standing in differet corners of the compartment, started attacking the darbaan with such ferocity, that I was totally startled. For some reason, they saw that he was being stubborn and sickening.

"Saale, jyaada jor dikhata hai kyaa?"

The guy didn't see the answer blowing in the humid Mumbai wind.

"Tumko kyaa karna hai?"

"Usko andar lo! andar lo!, Dikhate hai usko"

"Sab ek saath kyon. Ek karke ladh naa!"

"Sab Saath mein phodenge tereko. Darwaza pe khada rehkhe, hawaa khata hai kyaa?"

"Ab Bandra utar jaa chupchap".



The guy realized that he was losing the battle and piped down. He continued starting at me for a while and I returned the stare. There wasn't much he could do now.



I was just overwhelmed by the way, these three guys in particular and other junta came to my help. Even after the episode, there were whispers about how the guy was abusing his position of strength (that of being standing on the door). Also, how such guys victimise poor defenceless folks. The accent was also on my frame and look - they all thought that I was a college kid (my specs, small frame and rucksack must have given them the impression). So much the better for me.



I thanked all of them profusely for supporting me. Generally, people just make angry noises asking the quibblers to just shut the fu. But, something dramatically different was at play here. And I suspect, it was Gandhigiri at work. To stand up for what's right.



On Sunday, it was my chance to lend some change to a train ticket-seeker, unasked. This time, I was surprised to find the guy coming up to me later to thank. That's not a done thing with us Indians (I do it coz my social conduct has been altered post my stay in the UK).



I am just very happy with the change.

The Ramadossquito

The bugger Ramadoss has time to poke his nose into what must or must not be shown in films and TV. He has the time to interfere with the functioning of the AIIMS institute, trying to lodge his favorites into important posts.


And now a dengue epidemic breaks out all over India and the mosquito says its a sanitation issue. Rather than getting stirred into action, Madaross is busy accusing the media.


I beseech all the mosquitos to stop infecting us poor citizens and go ambush Madaross.

Mumbai Idol - all broken

A warning - you may find the pics offending.

Got this link via forward (one of the few worthwhile ones). There is something extremely surreal about the day-after-visarjan-pics. And sad. It is unfortunate that people are not shown these grotesque pics. One would easily be forced into action - buying greener idols (made of clay and natural colors) or atleast ensuring a more environment friendly visarjan.

Robbery

Our bacherlor pad in Pune was robbed yesterday. Clinical job in terms of breaking in, tearing open the suitcases, breaking the cupboard lock etc.


Everything was ruffled through and searced hurriedly. Fortunately, nothing of import was stolen mainly because we don't keep anything expensive at home. Friend lost his credit card and few watches. But the clothes, certificates, small appliances were not taken. Just that everything was in a mess.


Downstairs two other flats were broken into. Apparently, they lost some cash and credit cards too. I think they registered a police complaint too. Not sure. Slept early.


Wanted to share the pics with the collegues, but my roomie asked not to.

Makadyachya haati Champagne

Saw the play, Makadyachya haati Champagne, last Sunday. It deals with the serious issues that couples face after marriage. However, since there is lot of exposition and heavy talk, it has to set off by farcical treatment. There is lots of pungent satire and biting humor in the play. Older couples immediately realise how true to life the situations built in the play are to their lives. Hell, even I agreed with the psychoanalysis of Makad (the characters don't have real names, just hypocorisms).
The friendship of the three roomies is also unique and real. When Chaaku wants to propose to Pencil, Pustak immediately jumps in the fray, saying he also wants to do the same. No tyaag, balidan between friends!


There is a scene where Makad is trying to instruct Chaaku (not the cleverest person) about how one can conceptually inhabit a couple's life. If one looks at sad woman colleague/friend long enough and tries to figure what's going on in her mind, one can arrive at reasons for her distress. Same if her husband was your close friend or colleague. So, if just by looking at a couple, if you can surmise their thoughts about each other, then the relationship believed to be the most private - that between a couple - is actually devoid of any privacy at all.

Won Won Won!!

Hi,
Today attended a Technology quiz at the neighbouring Infosys campus. They are celebrating people strength reaching 10000 at Pune DC. And had invited two other Hinjewadi companies. Geometric dropped out at the last moment. One more Infosys team came on board. So a total of 4 teams.


It was great meeting a number of people from my projects at Infy.

We were already aware of the the topics -

Round 1 and 2 - C, C++, JAVA, Data Structures, Design Patterns, Algorithms, Data Structures, OOPs concepts.

Round 3 - Quality, Standards, Reviews

Round 4 - Emerging Technologies

Round 5 - New Trends

Round 6 - Rapid Fire.



Since, the scope was vast, we distributed the topic amongst us 3 people. I was to prepare for Round 4 and 5. Wikipedia especially, was great help.



At the end of Round 3, our company location head had also arrived and we were the only team to have a 0 on the score board.


Fortunately, all the preparation turned extremely fruitful. Was able to crack questions on Myspace, AJAX and take really good guesses at some.


And we won!! It was a great turnaround and my best quiz win (others have been too piddling to talk).
I am very pleased. :-)

Sweets and diabetes at my desk

It was festive time at my home, just recently and there are still mithai-boxes piled in our fridge. At least 5-10kg of sweets were exchanged. And all that was eaten - modaks, pedhas, barfis - was saccharine sweet.


In my office, it is ritual (as has been mentioned in the article) to dump sweets at any modestly happy occasion (with a group mail - Sweets at my desk). At one time it got so bad, that we had to request people to get some namkins to go with the sweets. Just couldn't eat the high-calorie, high sugar sweets. This was of course even worse a solution, coz now you have deep fried stuff along with high sugar content stuff.


This article will certainly make people realise, that we can't continue gorging on sweets unchecked.





In its hushed but unrelenting manner, Type 2 diabetes is engulfing India, swallowing up the legs and jewels of those comfortable enough to put on weight in a country better known for famine. Here, juxtaposed alongside the stick-thin poverty, the malaria and the AIDS, the number of diabetics now totals around 35 million, and counting.



The future looks only more ominous as India hurtles into the present, modernizing and urbanizing at blinding speed. Even more of its 1.1 billion people seem destined to become heavier and more vulnerable to Type 2 diabetes, a disease of high blood sugar brought on by obesity, inactivity and genes, often culminating in blindness, amputations and heart failure. In 20 years, projections are that there may be a staggering 75 million Indian diabetics.



“Diabetes unfortunately is the price you pay for progress,” said Dr. A. Ramachandran, the managing director of the M.V. Hospital for Diabetes, in Chennai (formerly Madras).


Read all in NYT

Captain Chapter Closed

I am still getting comments on the Captain Chapter post. But unfortunately, I am not accepting any comments on that post. As is the wont, some of the recent comments, have come praising the post, and I want so much to publish them and let everyone know that "Look, I am not the lone skeptic". One of the guys has seen Tulip Joshi closely and gives certain insights about her personality. Helps understand the modus operandi of the duo better. But frankly, there are lot of gullible people out there waiting to be duped by even the most amateur conman. I would blame the impostees rather than the imposter


Anyway, thanks for all your comments. :-))

F*ckWorthless Louis Rule

I was following the cricket score on the web and suddenly I see, the West Indies have won. So what if they scored 140 runs in 20 overs. You just can't gift them a match for that.


I don't know why we keep following the ridiculous law even after such a long time.
Either play the match full the next day or start fresh. Or even share the points. But the current logic is just absurd.

Reject

I have received a reject for interview from IIMA. I had apped for the post grad program for executives. So, am disappointed today. Moreover, have been saddled with really painful system testing support work. It's not an issue if I was just doing that, except that I have to keep tab of other modules and also looks at new CRs and do impact analysis.


It is really difficult to do managing and something like investigating a root cause of a defect simulatenously. One cannot be a do coding well at the same time you are a good manager. A good developer requires complete concentration and that this difficult if you have other tasks on your plate as well.


So la la!

Touching the void

As I read Kiruba's blog (September 6th) about a failed Mount Everest attempt, my eyes kept getting wider and wider in disbelief. What courage could drive Gautam Patil to keep going inspite of such odds - cracked ribs, partial blindness and low oxygen carrying capability of the blood!! Hats off!

Unhinged Punekars (some)

Yesterday, chaos reigned at Hinjewadi during evening rush hour. Most of the Sarvajanik Ganapatis here were taken out for Visarjan. Yes, it was the 9th day, but still. Probably, the logic here is to be done with all the rituals on the previous day and go to town to see the Big Show.


Now, I have gone to the heart of the city (Pune-gaon as it is deceivingly called) and seen the miravanuk. Yes, it is worth a dekko, but then if the same logic applies to Mumbai Ganapatis, then the processions should begin on the 8th day. So, the folks of chindi Ganapati mandals can go visit the medium sized Ganapati mandals on the 9th day and then guys from both can join the revelry on the 10th. But it doesn't happen that way in Mumbai, does it. Everyone leaves on the same day. (or least do the visarjan on stipulated 5th and 7th day at least). That way, aam junta is not harassed for days on end.


Anyway, Hinjewadi, the small village on the outskirts of Pune, really doesn't need have so many Sarvajanik Ganapatis in the first place. Probably, these guys are ignorant enough even to know "Ek Gaon, ek Ganapati" initiative. Many Sarvajanik Ganapatis have been installed in such a way as to be a traffic bottleneck. Just because it is related to religion, people ignore the pain and keep quiet. The panchayat should sit together and try to sort out the mess created by these Ganapati.


The presence of the God of Intelligence, should atleast bestow some common-sense into these folks

Abhijeet cries hoarse

Reportedly, Abhijeet is very angry, because all the good songs are being sung by Pakistani singers. He wants the film-makers to give gaan-jobs to sons of the soil. Here is what appears in DNA

"Abhijeet who recently launched his album ‘Lamhe’, also has the album ‘Dil Deke Dekho’ coming up. Quiz him about his playback career going in a slow drive and Abhijeet’s angst comes to the fore. He says agitatedly,
“Filmmakers like Mahesh Bhatt and Karan Johar are promoting Paksitani talents like Rahat Ali Khan, Adnan Sami and the Strings band. Those who do not get recognition in Pakistan are being promoted here at our cost. Very soon we will have a quota reserved for them. Even bhagwan will not forgive them. They should not invite the curse of Indian singers.” He adds, “Talent discovered through reality shows like ‘Fame Gurukul’ and ‘Indian Idol’ is also not being promoted. Music is art. To play politics at the cost of Indian talent is not fair.”



I can understand his consternation. There is this putrefying omnipresence of Himmesh Reshammiya on the Bollywood music scene. Whatever filters out of Himmesh boundlessly talented nose, falls into the throats of the Pakistani singers. If I was an Indian singer, I would be depressed.



But inspite of that, to blame the Pakistani singers for the misery is incorrect. These guys are getting the job, because they are making great music. People like Atif, Rahat Ali Khan, Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan and others are immensely talented guys. Not only are they good singers, they bring the fabulous lyrics and music on board. That's just too good a deal for the linguistically challenged Hindi film guys. Strings, Junoon or Jal have written simple yet meaningful lyrics (or atleast have used talented lyricist), which have resonated with the youth. In so many cases, they have broken new ground. Songs like Aadat, Woh Lamhe, Jiya Dhadak... stand repeated listening and are small mercies in the time of some atrocious sonic output from Indian music directors.



I had earlier lamented the lack of good lyricist in Bollywood sphere and it's coming to be our biggest handicap. I was aghast when the versatile and prodigious Anand Bakshi died and then Majrooh Sultanpuri passed away. Where are the song-writers, poets to fill the gap? Just the already over-worked Prasoon Joshi (not in terms of working on many films, just working in many fields). Gulzar is already aging and so is Javed Akhtar. So, just 3 guys. And where is the varierty of imagery and emotional expression, if just 3 guys provide lyrics for all the top films of Bollywood.



Anyway, I am all for these Pakistani guys. Most of them have a rock background, which is radical enough background to try to thrive in - whether in India or Pakistan. And then to make souful music in that genre - I can only doff my hat to these guys.



Abhijeet, shut up!

Car ke vaat lag gayi mamu

I have been travelling to Mumbai and back in my car. It was just thinking the confort and convenience - getting to office and home early, avoiding the wait for public transport. But it's not easy to drive long distances. Friday night, after a long day's work and then Monday morn to begin early in the morning. You generally tend to drive fast to get to your destination quickly and the expressway allows you that luxury. But, proportionally, you need to be a more alert driver. Even a little lack of concentration can ruin you for life.


Anyway, fortunately, nothing major so far. But this Monday in Sion, an idiot cab driver couldn't control his taxi (bad breaks, poor reflexes, bad driving skills, whatever) and let it nicely roll into the car's right door. So there is a dent and some scratches. The door still opens but the car needs a makeover now.


Was trying to check out Indica repair shops in Pune, but the Tata Motors site is a dud. With so much of money flowing their way, what's stopping from making the site more informative and useful.

Lage Raho Munnabhai

This Saturday, saw Lage Raho Munnabhai. Did the mistake of booking for 9.30 pm show, even though it would be difficult for wife and sis to make it for the show, courtesy evening classes and clinic respectively. Fortunately, everyone made it in time (the movie started late :-). Coz Lage Raho Munnabhai is not a movie to be missed (even if the epilectic multiplectic owners have hiked the ticket prices)


I already had read some reviews from the private screening audiences and was aware that the movie will be good. But this good, I won't have guessed.


The first 30 minutes are an absolute laugh riot. The gags keep coming two every second and after some time, your jaws start hurting. Fortunately Mahatma tempers the proceeding with some much need quiet and sanity. The film tackles similar social issues as in Rang De Basanti, but with a humourous touch. I am filled with a sense of awe for Rakyesh Mehra and Raju Hirani who draw attention such serious issues - which promptly need to be addressed - but our biggest and most effective public forum - Bollywood - doesn't lend itself well to discuss about. Munnabhai, suggests a radically different yet effective (Gandhian) way to deal with the terrible public manners, that Indians so brazenly display. He takes on other pain-areas as well - builder mafiagiri, neglect of the aged, all-round corrupion etc.


Most of the side-characters of Munnabhai MBBS make an appearance (in other roles) - except Gracy Singh, notably.


There are many note-worthy moments in the film, which I can go on and on about. The scene where Munna has to say sorry for Circuit is the most touching.


Music is so so. Prediction - Shantanu Moitra is not amongst the greats (he continues to adapt tunes- though less shamelessly and more creatively ) and will soon fade.
If this reads like a review, it is not. Just want junta to know that this is a movie not to be missed.