Movies

I never used to watch so many English movies back home. The source was not sufficient and the usual Bollywood hindi movies were entertainment. But here at IIT and thanks to the insti LAN I have watched so many good movies. Its not just entertainment. After watching the movies and knowing about the characters, its just changed the perspective of what movies are, how they are made and their class. I hope I get more opportunities to see these kind of movies in future. More on these sometime later and my reviews and views on movies old and new, both bollywood and Hollywood ;-)

A Nice Weekend

This weekend was great. Bhaskar and Jagatjit came from Mysore to write CAT here. But that was just an xcuse I guess to spend some time together. Even I was feeling a lil bored staying in the hostel and not going out. We went to the beach after a long time. Somehow it felt the same when I had first visited the beach. Then we went for a great pizza treat by Koyla and then some nice ice cream. Today spent a lot of time roaming around in Spencer, gen time pass and bandi taping and my friends bought a few stuff. Had lunch there thanks to Baba Ji's treat. In the evening had a mast dinner in a gumbal. It was two days spent really well. I had fever, cold and headache just before two days, and after such a wonderful weekend I am feeling really great. Hope I meet my friends regularly wherever I go.

My FirstEver Accident

First of all these Chennai Autowalas are bastards of first order. Half an hour back I was going peacefully with my friend to drop him at his home. The road was a little busy. There was a Qualis on the left hand side which was a bit slow and I was on around 3o to 35 kmph. Suddenly from the left hand side this auto comes to the middle of the road and I applied brakes and tried to avoid it also. But there was this Qualis on the left side. I banged at an angle with the auto and the headlight broke. I don't know where did I bang myself and my neck hit somewhere with the auto's rod I guess. My friend got some injury on his leg. I got a few on my right leg and right hand, its still paining. Now this motherfucker starts shouting in tamil as if its my fault. The aunty ji in the auto was saying why the hell were you crossing the road when its not free. But these bastards don't care. Fortunately the lights were working and I came back safely. My neck is still paining a little bit. Sale ek number ke chutiye hote hain ye autowale. My friend was getting late, as he had to get his cloths from the laundry wala, tomorrow morning he has a flight and we had to just leave. Otherwise I might have beaten that bastard there itself. The other reason being this is a UP bike and the Police in Chennai are no better. They can do anything with you.

Dream Catcher

I hardly remember the place where we were standing. She was wearing a Jeans and a top.
Suddenly I saw two policeman running towards us. We started running. One of the policeman fires and it hits her leg.I don't know whether it was aimed at me or her. She is injured.She is not able to run. I had to lift her and somehow escape. All these while I was not able to figure out , why the hell are the policemen running after us. I found a few more people who helped me out and took us to this musical stage where some kind of music show was going on. I took her backstage and called my brother to give the doctor's number. Then I just went to the stage and along with the dance troupe I stared dancing, trying to disguise from the police and check if they are there. I hardly know dancing and was just jumping here and there. Someone gave me a firecracker and asked me to brust it holding it in my hand when there was some loud music going on.It was a lighter kind of firecracker and it looked great on stage and ppl started clapping. When I didn't see the policemen anymore I ran backstage and found a bandage on her leg and the doctor had attended her. Then we were on a flight. I called my brother from the flight if we can stay in the airport for sometime without exiting, so that the police don't catch us and if he could call the doctor so that he will take care after we come out of the airport as she was still not well.I was still wondering why the police was after us.But somehow I didn't want to get caught and get into trouble and she was injured also. We found some room in the airport itself and she is taking rest.

I wake up and see the cell its 7:30 in the morning.

In all this I know only two persons properly ie me and my brother whom I called.
I just know her a little bit.
I don't know the policemen.
I don't know the place.
I don't know the music stage and who were the people.
I don't know the doctor.
I have never boarded a flight.
I have never seen someone firing towards me.

Somehow I remember my dreams for the day if I want to. Here is another one.

The Rabbit & The Tortoise

It was a bright sunny afternoon. The Rabbit was munching on a carrot. The Tortoise was just enjoying the cool breeze and lazing around on the sand.
Rabbit,"You run so slowly"
Tortoise,"Well, Yes I am not as fast as you. That's how nature has made me"
Rabbit,"Such a pity.I wonder how you manage.If you run a race it will take ages for you to reach, he he he."
The Tortoise remains silent and just enjoys the cool breeze and the pleasant weather.
Now the Rabbit thinks of making fun of the Tortoise and says lets race.
The Tortoise agrees and gives a murky smile.
The Tortoise says, "we will run along the beach, Ok".
The Rabbit agrees. The Tortoise points to a lighthouse and says that will be our finish line.
1, 2, 3 go.
The Rabbit runs and runs. He is faster then the tortoise. After sometime he almost disappears.
The Tortoise gets inside the sea and starts swimming. Just enjoying the water, meets a few other tortoises on the way, chits chats with them, meets a few fishes. Nnjoys the view of the colorful corrals and the underwater sea. Finally after a long time when he reaches the lighthouse he comes out of water. There he finds the rabbit gasping for breath. The rabbit is thirsty. The rabbit says, if he doesn't drink water he will die. He tried the salty water but could not drink it.

Moral of the story
Enjoy life and don't just get into the rat,,, err rabbit race ;-)

GoogleWhack

I don't have much fundae on GoogleWhack, I just know that it returns just a few results or a single result.......and just now I found one. I don't know if this is GoogleWhack or not but this one gives you just two results....... its Scouva
Surprisingly I was not searching a word for GoogleWhacking, but this one striked my mind while thinking of a name for a company and I searched for it if it xists. Sounds wired but that's how it is ;-)

Relativity

In our lifetime we come across so many times when we compare and get compared. Nothing strange in it,, its just normal human behavior. Be it small or big, but we do compare. Be it at the starting as a kid compared with the kids next door, in school, with other students, academically, in sports, in arts, when in college with other studs.Be it the IQ factor, the cool factor , the looks factor, the cash factor and so many infinite things, the list is endless I guess.And not surprisingly ppl get affected by this comparison in someway or the other,, be it big or small. To put all these I would just say, everything is relative. Nothing absolute about it. In all these comparisons ppl often forget that,its not absolute.Everyone is unique, everyone has got some qualities and the combination of all these qualities makes him unique.Picking up a few from these,and saying he is not good or bad is mere comparison and nothing else.

"Ash, the world's most beautiful woman", for me Sush is more beautiful then ash.

"I want to come first". Xcellent, that's a lot of effort and hardwork,, and you deserve it. But if you say I want to come first and can't do with a 2nd or 3rd,, then I would say w.r.t whom?.In a class, there are just a bunch of kids, that's not the end, in a school, again that's a group of students and the more you come out of these subsets,you are still being compared w.r.t a group.You can't be the absolute first. In this whole process of coming first, does anyone ever realize that he is relatively better then the 2nd or 3rd.This obsession with parents to see their kids always come first begins at the start of their life and haunts throughout their life.Do they ever realize that,beyond coming first there are other things in life, which are more important.

Yeah, coming first feels good,but what's the use if you can't share the happiness with the guy who came 2nd or 3rd, or I would say the guy who came last.Whats the use if you don't help the guy who is 3rd or 4th just thinking that he may take the lead or even don't help the guy for whom your coming first doesn't even matter in the list. Upto some point this "first" tag will take you somewhere, but beyond that,its you, the inner you which matters.The guys who came 4th, 5th,30th and 40th are great friends,who cares if the guys who came 1st , 2nd and 3rd were fighting for the 1st slot and that was their only aim.

I am more intelligent, I know more, I - - - - more,,, do ppl ever think that they are using a relative term like "more" and come up with these kind of statements.

Am I looking good? Am I pretty? Am I intelligent? Yes, ask me these and I will give you my view, my opinion and how I perceive you and the uniqueness that you have.

But , come with statements like Am I looking better then someone? Am I more intelligent? and I would say, why the hell do you care, why the hell are you asking me? If you want a more appropriate answer, then collect information from as big a sample as you can and find out yourself, or take the average, that will be the closest to what you are asking for.Why don't ppl understand that each individual is as unique as you. Compare when its due, when its required. No one buys stuff for a price which is available on the next shop with a lesser price.Thats fair.

Whether you buy my thoughts or not, I don't care. Call,whatever the whole world wants to call me, I don't care.May be someday you will come up with something which is absolute, and may be for that you will have to think beyond the speed of light......................till then keep searching

3351/3352

Chennai Central,,,, busy people,,,,there is a section where iron chairs are there for passengers to wait for trains and large electroic boards display arrival and departure of trains, train numbers, platform numbers. And the TVs hanging from the ceiling, displaying the same stuff in a more colorfull screen. And the advertisements that flash so many times, most of which I find really annoying, Chennai Silks,, some ice cream,, milk,,Jewellery,, and stuff and all these in tamil. I doubt if any of the passengers will get affected positively by this marketing strategy. And the special one where they show to be carefull while travelling, not to take any food stuff from strangers and how he loots you from head to toe.A line of shops selling books, magazines newspapers, juice, coffee, tea,a few STD booths, food, arts and crafts and ofcourse the idli , vada , dosa , upma selling shop.

Ok, no preity gals around, not even the cute chinky gals are visible.Most of the ppl here seem to come here either to visit the Appolo hospital or to have a southindia darshan. All uncles and aunties. Somehow I have to kill time, grab a Businessworld and a coffee and wait for the train to arrive. Thanks a ton to the guy who invented the walkman.Atleast it keeps the annoying announcements out of your mind. I have this strange habbit of signing the front and back page and the pages numbered 10 and 100 of magazines. I borrow a pen from the uncle sitting next to me and after signing the magazine give it back. Uncle gives a wired smile. Inbetween turning pages my eyes keep looking if I could by chance see a preity gal.. after sometime I see a preity gal in jeans and a tee with a trolley ;) waoo cool,,,, err who is this guy with a kid who is calling her.Hmm so she is married,, so what, she is preity and thats enough. After some time it gets a lil boring, I wish there were smoke rooms in public places like this, I give a blank stare at the pack of Kings.By this time I have spoted a few preity gals ;-), somehow they seem so excited about ,well I don't know, may be the journey, giigling, chit chating,, holding a coke or a pepsi.

"Passengers,Your kind attention please. Train No 3,3,5,2 running from Allepy to Dhanbad wili arive shortly at platform No 9". "Yatrigan kripaya dhayn dein, Allepy se Dhanbad jane wali gadi no 3,3,5,2 thode hi der main platform no 9 par aayegi".I don't remember a single word of what it says in tamil.

The train arrives, suddenly I see ppl rushing towards the train,,, must be for the general compartment. But why the hell ppl having reserved tickets rush. I wait for another 10 minutes and then start walking towards platform no 9. Its easier going to your compartment after 10 minutes ,, there is no rush. I reach my comparment and as usual check the list, F 17 to F 22 , cool there are three of them just next to my berth. This is one of the things which all the IITians do but very few get lucky,, because it hardly happens that preity gals travelling in sleeper will be near the same berth as yours.Oh peace,, there they are, sitting and giigling as usual. I just give a strange look,chain my trolley and walk out to check out other preity faces.The three are neway going to be there :D. The train starts moving and I get in. By this time they have already setteled down. Ok don't start the conversation first. I just sit near the window and look outside, though nothing much is there to look at.I just seem to enjoy the cool breeze.I grab my old businessworld and after reading a few pages keep it aside, suddenly one of them asks, "Xcuse me, can I have the magazine" , "ya, sure" . After two or three minutes, she flips a few pages and returns it back. So , where are you going? Sambalpur, Ok, it comes sometime around 2 in the night, right??,, Ya,, phir to kafi thand hota hoga tab,, tum ghar kaise jate ho? Mera bhai aajata hai lene,,aur tum sab? Ranchi,, tum chennai main padhte ho kya? Haan, engineering kar raha hoon, aur tumsab? /Another one speaks/,,we are students of NIFT, Ok, kaun sa branch hai tumhara? Naval Architecture, /"suddenly I find a smile of xcitement on their faces"/ kaun sa college , iit, /"the next moment I find a wired smile on their faces and I bulb"/./ No more questions, and they start chit chating among themselves. I get back to my magazine and put the earphones.After sometime I crash./

Next morning I wake up with the sound of chai ,, garam chai,, coffee. I take my brush , paste , gave a blank stare at the Kings pack, and walk out to the platform to brush. After a cup of hot tea it was nice reading the newspaper under the sun. Suddenly the train starts moving and I run. Two of the gals are awake now..I just gave a nice goodmorning type look and started reading the newspaper. What crap, this is full of gult news and stuff, thankfully its sunday and I switch to the magazine section. I finished the magazine in abt 15 minutes and by this time they were back after brushing. ye kaun sa station tha, pata nahi, maine naam dekha tha par yaad nahi hai" /its just 15 mins and I forgot the name =)), FK/", ok, to tum itni jaldi uth jate ho,haan, train main jada neend nahi aata muje,,,par maine to suna hai iit main ladke der tak sote rahete hain, haan, par main jaldi uth jata hoon./ "Now she was feeling a lil comfortable I guess"/ accha ek baat puchon , don't mind, kya?? , IITians bahut flirty aur despo hote hain,, hai na? haan par sab nahi, but ya most of them are, IIT main ladkiyan hi itne kam hote hain na islye. /we three laugh/ /One of them opens a bag and a few packets of biscuit and cakes pop out. She offers me biscuits/ Thanks, main biscuit nahi khata.(trust me I really don't eat) kyun,? aaise hi, accha cake to khate ho na, kya ye chocolate flavour ka hai, haan,, sorry main chocolate flavor ka kuch bhi nahi khata,, actually muje chocolate flavour accha nahi lagta, /she gives a wired smile/ After that we started chitchating for sometime, which included subjects we study, usual movie stuff, food in chennai, how it sucks ,, places they have visited, how IITians cash on NIFT gals and vice versa and why are IITians so despos. The day just passed smoothly,, in the evening it was great,, the cold breeze and I was listening to some hindi number sitting by the window. At about 11 in the night she grabbed a novel and went to sleep, and said,, tumhara statoin to 2 baje aayega kaise uthoge abhi tak nahi soye ??? Aree,, kuch nahi,, abhi neend nahi aayegi muje,, I will just listen to a few songs aur agar main soo bhi gaya to koi problem nahi, age ja ke aunty ke yahan ruk jaonga ya phir friend ke yahan, main har bar ghar main bol ke rakhta hoon ke so gaya to ghabrayen nahi. / Finally it was a nice journey. I still don't understand whats the image of IITians outside.

The Division Bell

Let me confess that after staying in a SouthIndian City like Chennai and in an institute where I came across the southindian languages, I hardly know a bit of them. And I am like the many other nonsouthindians(NorthIndian) who don't know the southindian languages. I had to use the word "nonsouthindians", because, here it doesn't matter whether you are from the eastern, northern,central or western part of India. If you are from any of these,you are a Northie. So I call it NorthIndia and Rest of India.

Though, I myself don't have anything against SouthIndia , what makes me write this piece of blog is the frequent news articles and discussions going on around, about this socalled culture or language invasion. And I don't deny that I am not a part of these discussions. Today I read this article where natives of Karnataka (or is it the political parties only) who think that the so called urban lifestyle and cyber jobs come with a baggage of English and ppl are no more using Kanada. So what do they want? Use Kannada as the medium of language in all these jobs, which are dealing with more and more global companies. With all due respect, these are the same ppl who send their kids to English medium schools, where hardly Kannada might be taught, and its not the case with this language only its the case with anywhere in India. These are the same ppl who want their sons and daughters to go for higher studies to foreign Univs.

There is and always be cultural differences, as no two cultures are same. I have myself come across so many cases. Once my friend from lucknow was going by train when an elderly tamil uncle started chatting with my friend. So he came to know that he is studying in IIT M and asked if he learnt tamil, my friend said no. The reaction the uncle gave was something ,,,errr expected, he started arguing, you have been in Chennai for three years and how come you don't know tamil, or you didn't learn tamil. Well the truth is we hardly interact with ppl outside the insti and we talk either in english or hindi with eachother. But uncle didn't buy this. My friend asked uncle if he knows hindi. He said no. With all due respect he had to say him that hindi is the national language and how come he doesn't know . The train was heading to northindia.

Another is the case of autowallas. Most of the ppl who have dealt with autowalas in Chennai will agree with me that,, they are the most rudest ones. Even if they know hindi, they won't speak. And the worst part is, they won't talk, they will just keep saying something which you will never understand,, even if you remind them that you are not getting a single word they will continue blabbering, as if you will give a few bucks for this effort. And yes, most of them don't use meters and will say a price which varies from 30 to 60 % more then what it would cost actually. I have not been to many cities but have been to bangalore and lets take the autowalas of bangalore. Generally I didn't find them rude, use a meter, and many of them listen to the hindi songs on FM radio. And they know hindi and english well. When they are dealing with so many english and hindi speaking ppl daily, naturally they will get used to it. Now is this culture or language invasion?

In an institute where ppl from all parts of India are there, I have friends from many cultural and language backgrounds and the medium of language has always been either hindi or english. There is a difference in preserving and respecting culture and languge , rather then forcing it on some other culture. In a day to day life where most of the time we deal with ppl from different backgrounds, a common language is the easiest and best mode of communication.

Diwali 2005

Wish you all a Subh Diwali and lots of luv.