Yahaan

Brilliant movie, it was great to see Minissha Lamba as "Ada" a Kashmiri Muslim in Love with Jimmy Shergill a soldier in the Indian army, with the backdrop of terrorism.Great music, realistic story. A nice Hindi movie after a long time. very fresh.

song to watch out for is "naam ada likhna". beautiful.

Wonderful...

A.E Housman writes in his poem "Trees" :

"Poems are made by fools like me
But only God can make a tree."

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

- Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

My Inner Hero - Paladin!


I strive to help others, and to bring truth and harmony to the world however I can. Whether times are good or bad, you can always count on me. I'm a shoulder to cry on, a champion for the helpless, and an all around nice person. :D

How about you? Click here to find your own inner hero.

The Show must go on...

Mad-ads, to many it looks like a silly skit. To me it is a forum to put forth what one feels about the present state of affairs.
And it is here, on the Mad-ads stage that I have learnt a lot of important lessons in life. Be it the time, when as a part of an upcoming mad-ads team, facing a competition that would decide our future, We fought through adversity (Threats of phsical harm to team, Hospitalzation, injuries...) we won a place in the cultural team. Hey if any of the 'Cul-nan-Magas' are reading this I wanna say that I feel immense pride in having been a part of our team.

I know this is starting to sound like an award winning or a farewell speech, it is the latter.I along With the other core team members of the 'Usual Suspects' (Jive and Dijo),decided that the saturdays performance was our last.

After close to 7 years on stage, it is hard to ignore the feeling of nostalgia. I shall surely miss the Jam packed auditoriums, the roar of the crowd when our team name was announced, and the resounding laughter.

However I am happy that we have gone out with a blast !! Saturday was one of our most memorable performances, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. And if the cheers were anything to judge by, the audience enjoyed it too.

So long and thanks for all the fish... :D

DON'T PANIC

Well a Colleague recommended that I read Douglas Adams, and so I did, I borrowed a book from her and started reading, the book was "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency", and to put it mildly, I found the book pathetic.

So when I came across, "HitchHiker's guide to the galaxy" (a set of five volumes in one book), I was in two minds, whether to pick it up and read it, or to let it pass. To cut a long story short, I picked the book up and have started to read it. I have to admit, so far(I am about 5 chapters into the book), the book is amazing, it is a brilliant piece of literature. Do not miss it.
Rating **** out of *****

Amazing Blog

A friend sent me this link, this blog is about advertising and it is wonderful. Do check it out.

GO

Back to the stage…

On Saturday, I will be back on stage performing mad-ads. This Saturday, Jive and I, spent about 3 hrs on the script, it looks good. Some practice and we should be ready to rock the party, this could well be one of my last performances on stage after 5 years of mad-ads.
My present team is called “The Usual Suspects”; my original team was called “Cul-nan-magas” (A pun you would understand only if you understand kannada).
Performed competitively at many a place with Cul-nan-magas, as we were in the college cultural team.
However, “The Usual suspects” have performed only twice competitively, both at IIM-B, and we won the first place twice in as many years.
“Bas yaadein yaadein yaadein reh jaati hai…. kuch meethi meethi baatein reh jaati hai…”

Song(s) running thru my head

Coming Back to life- Pink Floyd:
“I took a heavenly ride through our silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life”

Winds of Change – Scorpions:
“The wind of change blows straight into the face of time
Like a storm wind that will ring the freedom bell for peace of mind
Let you balalaika sing
What my guitar wants to say”

Knocking on Heaven’s Door – GNR:
“Momma put my guns on the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore
That cold black cloud is coming down
Feels like I am knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door”(The Avril version is also good)

Team Outing to PVR Gold Class

Yeah, Finally watched a movie in Gold class. The movie: Garam Masala. A pathetic movie, but a great theatre experience. What with the Lazy Boy type of chairs and being server food at your seat. Maybe a better choice of movie would have increased the enjoyment factor. Well cannot have everything. :)

Techno Savvy

I had never surfed the web until I was in 1st year degree, that is in the year 2000. Hard to believe, I did not know how to send an email. I am not exaggerating.
Now my typical day consists of atleast 12 hours on the PC or Laptop, 8 of which I spend online!! I have been in DELL helping system admins of major companies repair their PC’s and right now am working as a business analyst in a S/W consulting MNC, helping build software!!
As I look back I realize how simple it is to grasp a new technology if you are surrounded by it in all walks of life.

Lucky generation

I am 23 years old but I realize that in modern age the generation gap is lesser. The kids of this generation are quite lucky. When we were in school, we had not heard of the internet, today’s kids can use (or misuse) the net to do projects and what not.

I remember I paid around 350 rupees in 1999 to purchase “Catch-22” from Premier bookstore on Church Street, last month while shopping in Jayanagar, I asked a roadside book vendor the price of “Catch-22” and he said 75 rupees (negotiable)!! Knowledge is virtually free today.

On Television all that we could watch was “Street Hawk”, “Giant Robot” etc etc today we have Discovery, Animal Planet, National Geographic, The History Channel!!
Talk about a lucky generation of kids.

So True…

“Well, time cures hearts of tenderness, and now, I can let her go…”
-Thomas Hardy, Wessex Heights

Song that is playing in my mind….

"Soona soona Mann ka aangan…"
from Parineeta, what a beautiful song, have been singing it for the entire week.

Nice foreword

Elizabeth Massie, introduces “The Hunchback of Notre Dam” with a nice foreword, that ends “ That his (Quasimodo’s) love will never be returned is not only his tragedy, but the tragedy of all mankind”

What I did on Saturday…

Its 8pm…and I

Designed a calendar for the New Year and got just 10 copies of it made, so this one is going to be a collector’s item.

Watched “Confidence” an average movie about a group of con-men

Watched India rout Sri-lanka in the Final ODI

Surfed the net for around 2 hrs.

Started reading “The Hunchback of Notre Dam”

Sang along with songs for about an Hour (I love doing this :) )

Who says there is nothing to do on a Saturday??

Weekends are boring??

A couple of colleagues of mine surprised me by saying that they find weekends boring!! Since they have nothing to do!! (They seem to miss the point that weekends are the days for doing nothing). When I told them I enjoy weekends, one of them tells me “but you have soooo many friends” (!) I have no response to this, I did not go explaining that usually on Saturdays, I prefer being alone, with my thoughts, I do not get bored being alone, I enjoy my company :)

Blog I came across

I came across a wonderful blog, that does spoof reviews. hilarious. visit Rewhews. and do not forget to check out the review of 'D'. ROTFL.

Word of the day

I have just added a "word of the day" in the side bar, this displays a word everyday, and I have noticed that the word usually is related to what is happening to me that day. For example today afternoon I have a very important meeting and surprise surprise the Word of the day is Caucus:A meeting. intresting isn't it??

Little Miss Muffet- Uncut version

This is Hilarious, I found this in a wonderful comic strip called 'Pearls Before Swine' by Stephan Pastis.

Little miss muffet
Sat on a tuffet;
eating her curds and whey
along came a spider
who sat down beside her
and frightened miss muffet away

Then Muffet went back
and checked her gun rack;
grabbing a .357 finding the spider
she sat down beside her
and blew that poor sucker away

Mysore trip

My cousin's are down from Bombay and we went to Mysore, during the weekend. It was a good trip, Some of the inner circle joined in too.... Here are some images.

Home they brought her warrior dead...

I first read this poem in school, and even at that time it had an effect on me, this is a good one

Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

More....

Memorable lines...

Footfalls echo in the memory,

down the passage

which we did not take,

towards the door

we never opened

- T. S. Eliot

Reading now…

I have three books lined up:

The Anderson Tapes - Lawrence Sanders: Some real crime narrated by means of taped conversations, interesting concept, but, not too great.

The Hunchback of Notre-dam – Victor Hugo: We all know what this one is about, looking forward to read this unabridged edition.

The Dead of Jericho - Colin Dexter: Another inspector Morse mystery I cannot wait to get my hands on :)

All in all will make for pretty interesting reading I suppose.

Magic of Movies

You have got to admit it. Movies are magical. Here are a few magical moments that I remember best from movies

- When I saw the first ‘Real’ dinosaurs in Jurassic Park

- The magic that Johnny Depp weaved in and as “Edward Scissorhands”

- When Rajesh Khanna sang “Kahin door jab din dhal jaye…” in “Anand”

- Nicole Kidman’s sheer brilliance in “The Others”

- Tim Robbins’ character in “The Shawshank Redemption”

- Tom Hanks’ performance in “Forrest Gump”

- The Scene from “City lights” where the girl realizes that Charlie Chaplin is the man who helped her regain eyesight

- Or Charlie Chaplin as Hitler, playing with an Earth like ball in “The Great Dictator”.

- On Watching “Animals are beautiful people” in the Theater at a time when Animal Planet and Discovery channel were unheard of.

- The scene from Swades where SRK buys water to drink from a small boy on the train
station.

Well, these were just a few of them and I am sure to have missed out on quite a few. How about your magical moments??

Festival Season

I feel it in my fingers; I feel it in my toes, that Diwali is all around me and that’s how the feeling goes!!
There is something about festivals. Especially the festival of lights, It’s a wonderful feeling, be it the delicious Diwali food that mom makes, the smell of crackers in the air, the festive spirit all around, the fun of get-togethers, the greeting cards that we send and receive…just about everything is special.
Three Cheers for Diwali and for all festivals in general.

Holidays...

I had around 9 days off!! Couple of days taken off and the rest a mixture of Optional and Public holidays :) and I was not complaining.Well the holiday started extremely badly, as I seemed to have symptoms of Gastro Enteritis, was violently ill for the first 16 odd hrs of my vacation. Fortunately it was a false alarm, being just mild food poisoning. Well anyway I enjoyed my holidays, and so all’s well that end’s well.