Dog Race and Venetian

Recently, Priyanka had visited Macao. She had captured couple of cool stuff which i thought should be shared. One was the Dog Race, which is one of its kind in World and Other is the interiors of the Venetian Macao (is the largest single structure hotel building in Asia and the fourth-largest building in the world by area).

Cool Gadgets

Now added some new gadgets to my blogs. Now you all the more reason to visit this site frequently. Some of the new features are :
1.) Bollywood/ hollywood stars born today.
2.) Daily Horoscopes
3.) English language trivia
4.) My twitter updates

This will also ensure that the site has something unique updates to offer when someone visits this site. At least the top three points in case i also lag in updating the twits.

Anything else if needed can be added. Please give in your comments.

Wanted is a must watch

Salman is back and that too is a big way, A true star he is, makes a awesome comeback to the Silver screen after delivering few duds. Its a movie which stands stron on only one platform,i.e., Salman. The story and direction are decent but needless to say they are over powered by the star power of the hero. The screen presence is enigmatic ( see the last 45 min of the movie).
A star is one who makes all the ridiculous scene believable. It was earlier done in 70's, 80's with Amitabh, Dharmendra , Mithun da/ But somehow with the onset of liberalization, the movie got somehow more softer and honey coated where the hero cried and was weak (may be to sympathize with the generation which spent most of the time working in front of the computers and had a very physical nature of work). The absence these movies definitely created a niche demand which made "Ghajini" a huge hit last year. One key thing in these type of hardcore action movies is that if the hero doesnt have that screen presence, the movie stands a risk of biting the dust.
Wanted has brilliantly showcased the 'star power" of Salman. The movie has all the key elements of 80's potboilers - romance, songs, foreign locales, bad villain played brilliantly national award winner Prakash Raj,tinge of patriotism and garnished by little suspense.Its a story of a gangster and an under cover cop. Salman excels in all the scenes with able support from Ayesha, Vinod Khanna , Mahesh Manjrekar, Sarfarz Khan, Inder Kumar and other actors. The first half may be a drag but have your patience because the climax just lifts up the adrenalin levels. WELCOME BACK SAL MAN.

Dreamy Music

There comes a time when you really appreciate good music. I am doing that for the music of " London Dreams". Its Indie rock with Indian Soul full of Raagas. Each track has the capability of becoming a chart buster. None of the songs gets " i heard it earlier" reaction from me. The Lyrics are penned by Prasoon Joshi and he has done admirable job. My pick of the chart is the "Barsoon Yaaron" where Vishal and Roop Kumar Rathod have given the vocals with excellent guitar work. Hats off to the trio - Shankar Ehsaan Loy.

A small Obituary

In 2004, he had walked his way to Victory in AP assembly election when it was certain that his opponent was invincible. I thought his success would be short lived against his formidable opponent who would easily overshadow him as a massive leader. He surprised again by retaining the chief ministership and that he did it with elan with two AP Goliath leader biting the dust this time. One of them was a superstar and worshipped hero who had made his maiden foray in politics with full support. Not only the hero was marginalised, this AP chanakya made it a strategy to combat the other Goliath by making the contest a three pronged one resulting in marginalising his votes.

No wonder he was one of the "tallest" leader who stood his ground when the earth around him shook with the Satyam/ matyas scandal. He may be vociferous leader with allegation of corruption eating away his reputation but he ll always be revered in the heart of the poor people and general public.

And India had never seen such an unprecedented search operations - Sukhoi, Satellites, ISRO, CRPF, ANti Naxal Grey Hounds etc when his helicopter went missing.

India has lost a good leader. And i am honored that i lived in this time.

Football Save and Must Watch I say

And finally got a good game of Football. Our club being heralded with the champions tagged were challenged by the rest of the "stars". Till mid time, our team was down with 1 goal and the goal keeper had to quit due to some unforeseen circumstances. So literally i was picked from the crowd to play as Gaolkeeper. As expected i rose to the occasion and saved 3 back to back goal attempts. The one which was favorite to me is given below. The reason being that it was a good kick and was at an angle which could have easily gone into the post had it not been the timely block from my end.

ToastMasters and Sine Die

I have recently joined Toastmaster Club, SAP Chapter. It is a club dedicated for improving public speaking and the systematic way the proceeding takes place does impress one and all. Its all about removing the fear of public speaking. As a part of curriculum , i gave my first public speech today in the ice breaker session. The sole purpose of the ice breaker session is to get to know each other. And generally , these are very light and humorous session wherein every one shares their lighter moments of their lives. It is very informative and the first window where we get to know the speaker in a better way. BUT...i am different.

I took this opportunity to depict a college riot situation about 11 years ago and how i had actively participated and created ruckus in the campus. I spoke about how i charged the policemen , hit them , narrowly escaped being caught and was absconding for couple of days. I could write a comprehensive details about this but i leave it to some other blog.

Jai Jagannath

If we trace the origin of "Juggernaut", we will obviously see that it comes from Jagannath. He is the most revered god in my part of the country. Famously know as the God for the poor people, he is a integral member of every oriya family. The fact is anything auspicious always starts with his name. The first wedding invitation is given to him in person. Jagannath Temple Puri is still standing tall with 11th century. It is the testimony of an engineering marvel. Very few large structure still stand strong beside a sea for so long. None to my knowledge. You have to see it to believe it. The Puri Temple Kitchen feeds more than 1,00,000 people every day. Supply Chain Marvel.

BJB travesity

Humty dumty sat on a wall
Humty dumpty had a great fall
The fall was big and hollow
To shake the earth below
Responsibility blame game
What a shame
Throwing out the mutineers
Wonder what would be left overs
As the ruling party celebrate
We should deliberate
On what the situation would be
With no strong opposition to be
Do we call this democratic
With party system autocratic

Humty Dumty sat on the wall
Humty Dumpty had a great fall

Prince Danced

The Reality Show "India's Got Talent" had a grand culmination with Prince Dance Group wining the coveted title for the year 2009. I would not delve into their team composition of Daily laboureres nor how under priviledged they were and how it was a typical "underdog" story who managed to win everyone heart.

But i would like to mention how "mature" Sekhar Kapur was in his role as a judge. I have been tracking the judges long enough to say that he was class apart in his comments when he gave his comments. He was honest, humble and honorable. His comments were very informative and ofter reflected his artitistic imagination. In the final episode, when "other" judges were "beautifully , magificently etc" giving accolades to a gymnast group from Ujjain, he referred their act to be a painting in a canvas where their each discoherent individual performance were filling up the canvas and making it beautiful. I doubt any current judges will have that level of maturity to appreciate an effort. Truely, he was the actual prince and the actual content of the show for me. And he "danced" beautifully for me.

Looking forward to see Sekhar in the second edition.

August 20

Apart from being the birthday of one of my closest, it was marks the 65th birth Anniversary of Late Rajiv Gandhi, the youngest prime minister of India. He is credited with with some landslide changes in the India History. He represented youth and was the one who reduced the voting age to 18 years from 21 years. He increased the sports budget by manifold. He brought the telecom revolution which saw setting up of "PCO" in every nook and corner of country bringing in higher connectivity as well as more employment. He sowed the seed for the IT development in India which now employees largest number of people in India.

I still remember standing on the barricaded road along with huge crowd to see his caravan passing. He was waving towards the crowd standing on his jeep. He stopped and talked to few people. He was leaving for Sriperembudur after his Orissa trip as part of election campaign......

Jaswant Singh Ordeal

BJB finally did it. As expected, it had to act and it did not disappoint all by expelling Jaswant for writing a Book. That brings about a question deep inside me - in case we are affiliated to any organisation are we not allowed to think on our own. I don't need an answer neither do i have one but that leaves with some question which has started haunting me.

Does one shows his loyalty by blindly following the path of organisation. I know that there were some common ground based on which one joins the organisation which can be either ideas, ambitions and goals. One of my Management professor had put it succinctly with a simile to the ways Algae survives. Algae consists of amoeba. Amoeba in search of food come together and form a a algae. When the optimal size of algae is reached, it takes the help of wind/water and other medium to reach to a position where they can find food. Similarly people make an organisation to satisfy some of their needs - ambition , goals etc. But is the organisation that binding enough that we are forced to change our basic thought process. Then it can be visually seen as an amoeba forcing its way out algae and the algae unable to reach it destination. So whose benefit is it do be out of the association. Probably both and hence the necessitates separation. Here the Algae (BJB) with their Hinduvta mindset made this decision to dissociate itself with one of its amoeba ( Jaswant) as they felt that it was detrimental to their longer run. No wonder the amoeba should be sulking.

Now putting the liberal hat, now the logic should be applied to the citizen of a democratic country. We should be devoid of any rights as exercising any right may lead to any conflict of the general charter of the country. Slowly it will evolve to a dictatorial democracy leading to ultimate dictatorship. Then there would not be any difference between a taliban chalking out Sharia and government rule. Hence, apt utilisation of our rights are an necessity to maintain a healthy democracy. Thought should not be suppressed and appropriately vented out. They cannot be.

Still debating whether BJB did the right thing or not. And i am not at all talking about the way they did as i don't have much information of it.

Wall is Back

"Old soldiers never die; they just fade away!"
- General Douglas MacArthur, 1951.

I am delighted with the fact that now Dravid can now time his retirement from Team India playing in his blue jersey rather than playing for any domestic/ IPL side. For critics, who say that he is too slow, he has hit one of the fastest 50 in ODI ( in 22 balls). For people who say that he is only " test fit". he was instrumental in Royal Challengers reaching the IPL T20 Final. A man of his caliber deserves better treatment and he has got another chance to don the Indian cap. Hopefully, the younger brigade around him will learn to cope the shorter balls and about 100% team commitment. After all, he is the only Indian to be named the ICC player of the Year (2004) and all the highest scores which other Top Indian batsman made had able support of Dravid on the other end of the crease - Ganguly's 183 in Taunton, Dhoni's 183 in Jaipur, Tendulkar's 186 in Hyderabad, Laxman's 131 in Adelaide. Its only ODI statics. Team India will surely benefit with this inclusion.

All the Best Dravid for this stint in ODIs.

Happy Independence Day

Xcelcius : It seems finally i got addicted to this fascinating analytical tool. The graphical power of this tool is great. Was planning to upload a xcelcius file, which will give a geographical view of an analysis. Pulled out some statistics from 2001 census about India to make this flash file. I believe this is only the tip of the iceberg. A lot can be done by leveraging this analytical tool with Ondemand capabilities.

(Please hover the mouse over the states, to see the related statistics.The Top right corner shows the state population and the pie shows the breakup)

Flash File 1

And talking about religion and literacy rates, i got vinatage datapoints of 1991 ( when the new states of Jharkhand , chattisgarh were not yet created.

Flash File 2

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new…India discovers herself again."
Jawaharlal Nehru
(on Indian Independence Day, 1947)




And Wishing you all Happy Independence Day.

Not so old music

Unable to catch sleep, I swap channel to settle to B4U music. Got reminded on some old songs.

Khiladi _ wada raha sanam. 1993. Abhijeet and alka giving voice to jatin lalit compositions. Shot at table top matheran and mahabaleshwar which I visited in 2007

Chamtakar_ is pyaar se meri taraf na dekho. Anu's melody voiced by alka and kuamr sanu. This song was constantly on when I did my joint study with my room mate back in rec days

Maan_nasha. Udit narayan singing to tune of sanjeev darshan the then protege son of shravan. Some how they got lost in
the crowd. Inder kumar first flop. He was delivering huge hits till then like dil,beta. Success is shortlived if you don't innovate. Saw it in my engineering days

Deewana Mastana_ mummy mummy. Udit singing to this one of last laxmikant Pyarelal compositions. David dhawan then was a man with golden hand. This song features nitin desai, son of the great manmohan desai dancing with Juhi.

Show finished. Now to the new songs which I am sure must have been plagerised.

I used a mobile phone to post this blog through email.

Cloud computing_ saas and haas reading stuff on it and wish to write on them soon.

3 movies to choose from

It seems lethargy is creeping in. The vigour for writings blog is waning down. So mustering up all the energies to write this one. Recently watched 3 movies - Love Aaj kal, Black Friday and Sardar. Three different genre and three different approaches of film making. To be honest, each one was a good watch.

Love Aaj kal - Good Watch. Feel good movies are always a good watch but may not be good movies. I had more expectation from Imitiaz Ali. It was a hard effort but the repeatability spoiled the essence of the movie. You can find all the traces of his last 2 movies - Jab We Met and Socha nahin Tha - the first one being three worded movie title with reference to past tense - 'tha', 'met' and 'kal'. Coming to the stories, you ll find same peppy "metrosexual" dialogues which are also borrowed from Saif's Hum Tum and similar laundry list. It seems they wanted a tried and tested approach as it's Saif's maiden approach. The film USP is the double track where undoubted the older love story was much more clearer and easier to understand. The newer one a pot pouri of Hum Tum, "jaane tu ya Jaane Na" where Saif's makes himself to cry to tread in the tested waters, is a utter confusion. The repeatability also also has the worst effect on Rahul Khanna who has to nurse his battered ego in this movie (yes the same "main yahan kya gaane ka khet dekhne aya hoon" in Jab we met). Overall , it can be a good watch for all but for me it was a big disappointment. Imitiaz - Look forward to your next one.

Black Friday - Again a imitiaz connection. We have a 2 minute role played by imtiaz smoking and couple of dialogues as Yakub Menon, Brother of Tiger Menon. A very well directed movie by Anurag Kashyap. The devil lies in the details and he has captured it succinctly. The details of the Mumbai Blast and all the epilogue, prologues and aftermath of the event are well depicted.

Sardar - A biopic watched after a long time. It was a commendable job bringing the life of " Iron Man of India" in the silver screen. The good part of the movie was the humane side of sardar as shown in the movie. You catch the story of Sardar by internet searches or wiki study but the mvie is must watch to depict the thought process of the leader as we went through the partition of the country. One of the memorable screen is the one where he is discussing the waving off of loan component to Pakistan during partition. He right fully says that his intentions are honest but if something goes wrong the future generations might not understand the real intent behind his decision and may not at all appreciate the circumstances in which he is performing those decision. The conviction with which Paresh rawal has played the part is awesome. Another memorable scene is the one where he mentions to Lord Mountbatten that he would not rest till he has his fruit basket completely full with all the fruits in reference to annexation of princely states in India. So anyone keen on the political situation of India during the partition time, this movie can be a good watch.

Solar Eclipse and DDLJ

The second last solar eclipse was in October 24th, 1995. No, i am not a penchant follower of astronomy but the solar eclipse helped me book tickets for DDLJ which released on October 20th. Yes, DDLJ released in the same week as the last exclipse. Contrary to the eclipse, movie contributed in removing the eclipse that the western world had on our "BOLLYWOOD". For the first time, the NRI market was tapped and hindi movie was showcased to the outerworld. Earlier to DDLJ, there were only handfuls of "santranj ke khilari",'Reshma Shera" etc which jostled some western attention.With DLLJ , India loudly proclaimed its liberalised status and "arrived" in the world film and economy scenario.

Still vividly remember the week, i took money from my parents to buy photo chromatic lens to see Eclipse. No Wonder, i did not see the eclipse.

Missing the october week of 1995, and hopeful to catch the eclipse tomorrow morning.

Take a Shorter Kut from ShortKut

Review - ShortKut ..The Con is On...Conning the audience

The myopic attitude of people narrows their creativity. ShortKut is a fine example of that. The film has one masterstroke built on the not so brilliant story. But the time you reach that "different" Eureka moment of the film, you have lost your patience and are testing your patience. There the movie looses its steam.

Arshad Warsi's acting has gone for a toss. After his Munna Bhai heroics, he s somehow gone into a shell. He's become repetetive..Compare this act to Golmaal Returns and you ll observe no difference. He needs to do something different in his characterizations. Fear we loose another great talent doing histrionics.

Amrita Rao charater is half baked and the film script would have been crisper without her presence. May be the songs needed her can be a strong justification. But do we needed the songs.

Its a pity that this movie could have been much crisper, witty and short sans the songs, arshad histrionics and crazy "Bon Homi" scenes of chawlwalas.

Akshaye is the only good thing in this movie. The maturity with which he handles his character is only the saving grace in the movie.

Overall a avoidable film unless you want to be conned. Its better to be conned in it rather than be "kambakht" enough.

Neeraj Vora, you are not Priyan. I still long to see good work from you. The expectation comes from the great stories you have adapted/ written.

Ode to MJ - RIP

I grew up watching hindi movies and listening to hindi songs. My taste for music was shaped in a era where the effervescent Laxmi Pyarelalmusic was waning and we were introduced to the techo jazz of Viju shah & Co. The dance education forte was handled by Evergreen Govinda - yes he is an Dinosaur. Our only window to outside world except my oriya newspaper Sambad and English Telegraph was hourly long programme called "World this week" hosted by Black bearded Pranoy Roy. It was in the later part of 1990 when there was a segment on the launching of MJ's new album - Black Or white. For the first time, i saw a frail looking guy whom the world considered the best dancer of the world. I watched the entire song. In that song, he danced with a Odissi dancer- which again filled a sense of pride within me - He chose Odissi over other - Bharat natyam, Kuchipudi and the log laundry list...Yes....

And it was in mid 1990's where i had to sleep hungry one full night to pester my Dad to get our cable connection ,, which consisted of only 2 channels - strange isnt it .......One was Zee and the other MTV. With the limited time i had watching TV......no points guessing on the choice i had to make to watch the TV. I did an statistic research - 60% of the time , it was MJ only. He had just released remised version to his new Album- "History" - " Blood on the Dance Floor". Man the song was a craze. Simulataneously, i was exposed for the first time to all his all time hits. I just realised that person who was in late thirties had an music career spanning 3 decades- he was already a celebrity at the age of 5!!. He was the first black artist to feature in MTV. MTV changed their logo to "MJ TV". He had unprecendented world following - Raj Thakerey was the person who escorted him when we came to India!!!! I was truly amazed by the caliber of the person. Even the beatles couldnt survive 2 decades of glory and here was a person who was danced and sang his way to glory till date.

he had to undergo a lot of tribulations on personal and proffessional front, but his greatness is still pristine. MJ , you still dance in our hearts.

TRIP TO OLD DELHI

The three Musketeers: Bhabani (left), Swayam and Chitta (right)

The Bus stop near our car parking

"Chandi Chowk" the road perpendicular to "red fort"

Interesting shop at Chandni Chowk

The wired gullys on "chowri bazaar"

More Confusion :)

The first sight of majestic Jama Masjid


Red Fort

IN search SOME ACTIVITY IN my MUNDANE DAILY life, I ventured on SOME good FOOD HUNTING AT THE FAMOUS OLD Delhi chandni chowk and jama Masjid Area.
The plan was made on Friday. The venue was swayam's house at Noida. I started from Gurgaon and picked up bhabani on the way to swayam's house. Chitta joined us in Noida.
Day 1

The initial plan was to start on Saturday and have a rigorous 2 day visit to old Delhi. But the crucial juncture of the test match between India and Australia spoiled that. We were all glued to the TV till the evening and the freezing temperature ensured that we were sheltered in the warm abode of swayams house. So day 1 plan was squandered.

Day 2

The cold temperature ensured that we had an elongated sleep till noon the other day. In a panic to not to waste this day, we immediately made and ate breakfast courtesy the culinary skills of Bhabani and Swayam. The taxi arrived on time and we started our journey at 12 noon with exactly one and half days delay from our original plan.
On our way to "Purani Delhi”, we encountered the majestic "Akshardham" temple. The pristine Redstone interior gave a royal feel to this sight. The one expression it could derive out of me was "awe". I am sure 100-2000 years from now, people would be categorizing it in the same reverence as the "sun temple".
As we approached the old Delhi, we were welcomed by the grand site of "Red Fort". The first sight was enough to justify my long inquisitiveness about the importance of this monument. The sheer size and the aura exuded were awesome. Parallel to the red fort, we took the chandni Chowk bazaar. It’s an old market where you can find people selling everything on its footpath. And it also had a McDonalds.
Our main motive was to roam around the area. But the lunch time was taking its effect. With a need to find a good place to have "mutton”, we started our search for the Kari’s. I had seen a program on TV where noted journalist Vinod dua relished the rich delicacies of this motel and it was fabled that the chef’s ancestor also used to cater to mughols starting from Babur.
The hint we had was that Karin was near the Jama Masjid. It was a 100 meter walk where in we saw a small restaurant "Shamman" serving "jalebis" and "Samosas".Unable to keep our hunger in control, we decided to taste the delicacies before moving on. The taste didn’t disappoint us. I would suggest anyone going to old Delhi should have the jalebis served there.
We crossed the "chawri bazaar", a market which specialized in selling wedding cards before reaching the back of Jama Masjid. The dome was majestic, the architecture flawless and the view was serene.Karims Motel was just behind the gate no. 2 of jama Masjid. The place looked like an ordinary Dhaba. It promises to keep the same ambience since its inception in 1913. It had an interesting Vision statement of serving the ordinary people the palate of palatial kings...Interesting.

We ordered couple of mutton dishes. The taste was awesome and the feeling was royale.We spent around 1 hour ravishing the vintage royal food before moving on.
Our next stop was Darya ganj. Every Sunday was an occasion of a massive old book exhibition. Here you can find any book, if you are lucky, at cheap dirt prices. But I suggest, more than books, one should try the "rabri" and the "gajar ka halwa" at the road side stalls.
We ended our trip with a visit to the New Delhi which was in contrast more modern. We visited Palika bazaar and Cannought place before calling it a day to our journey. We returned back to Noida and came to Gurgaon by night.
The experience was awesome otherwise, I won’t be writing a blog this long. I have taken some snaps. Hope you see them and get motivated to visit "old delhi"