Salute a car or speak english

In a heated lunch table discussion, i had fervently advcated for India being a better nation than our neighbour who forced the school going children salute the car on roads. But evening news diappointed me. In one of our states, children were punished and humiliated for speaking in their native languages and not in English. Just curious enough, i dig deep into such interesting diktat which were imposed on People of late:

1.) a peculiar style of Salute by a Diplomat raised couple of eye brows

2.) Diplomat need to salute the minister in a peculiar style in a particular state.

3.) Producer forced put a disclaimer in his movie for using the word "Bombay"

Although most of the these were not approved by Govt but they still happened. Does it mean that i was wrong in my passionate argument for my country. May be Not.

On a separate note, i today pulled up the first music video which i had seen after the advent of cable Television. It was by a group called Erasure and song called Always

Odisha Coastal Tourism

As Orissa evolves into Odisha and we become Odia from Oriya, i take this opportunity to write something on it. In my career i have traveled 4 states to do 4 jobs- Andhra Pradesh ( Vishaka Patnam), Karnataka ( bangalore) , Maharashtra ( Pune ) and now Haryana ( Gurgaon). Everyone irrespective of the states recognised Orissa of 2 things, rather 3 things - Jagannath Puri ( in case they had been with their Parents on a religious trip), Poverty of Southern districts of KBK ( Koraput, Bolangir and Kalahandi) and the supercyclone ( May be Bill Clinton Mentioned about it).

In this blog, i ll mention about four coastal region places which can interest the viewers:

1.) Chandipur on Sea : Usually identified the missile testing center of India. The resort is on the Bay of Bengal and is approximately 16 kilometers from the Balasore Railway Station. The beach is unique in that the water recedes anywhere from 1 kilometer to 4 kilometers during the ebb and returns at the time of high-tide. The beach, due to this uniqueness, supports a lot of bio-diversity.

2.) Gahirmatha is the only marine wildlife sanctuary of Odisha.Olive Ridley sea turtles migrate in huge numbers from the beginning of November, every year, for mating and nesting along the coast of Odisha. Gahirmatha coast has the annual nesting figure between one hundred to five hundred thousand, each year. there has been decline in the population of these turtles in the recent past due to mass mortality

3.) Chilika Lakes: It is the largest coastal lagoon in India and the second largest lagoon in the World. Its a Sea lake surrounded by land masses. Apart from the migratory birds which fly from the artics every year, you also the see Jumping Dolphins.

4.) Sun Temple : The Wheel you see in a old twenty rupees note, is not asoka chakra, its the wheels of the sun chariot of Konark. Its a engineering Marvel made in 13 th century. It was initially made within the sea but the shore has receded. The poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote of Konark: "here the language of stone surpasses the language of man."

These are the few of the many. I guess this can be a good starting for you regarding tourism in Odisha.

Custom Gmail Message

Interesting customised messages which my friends have posted on their gtalk.

Time is a great healer, but a poor beautician.

Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned -Ayn Rand

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!

I'm the helpless victim of countless bad influences. An unwholesome culture panders to my undeveloped values and pushes me to maleficence

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Quiz on World Capitals

I conducted a quiz on World Capitals. Give in your improvements points.

Quiz Worldcapital

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Answers

Dhabeleshwar- the river island temple

Finally back to the hectic worklife at Gurgaon after a lazy holidaying at bbsr. This time i took the opportunity to visit the Shiva Temple at Dhabeleshwar, a small island in the Mahanadi River. It is about 50 km from Bhubaneswar. Alternate route can be taking a motor boat from mahanadi banks from cuttack. Of late, Orissa Govt is plying some interesting tours surrounding all key temples in the area.

Although the Shiva temple is relatively new, the place consists of relics from 11th century. Also, i would like to mention the organised ways the pujas are held in the temples. Apparently, there is segreatation of devotees based on the district they belong to. For example, as my ancestor belong to Kheojhar district, we had a specific priest catering to us who did all the pujas and arranged for lunch. The Temple visit was very pleasant to say the least. And , how can i leave out the only Hanging Bridge of Orissa. The walk through bridge over mahanadi river offered us picturesque views of the river banks, turtles swimming below and the idle boats waiting for the incessant drizzle to stop so that they can go fishing.I have to tried to capture these in pictures.

The Majestic mahanadi
The Suspension Bridge
Unemployed Boat
Another View
The Island Temple - Dhabeleswar

Me myself clicked by Priyanka

View from Temple

"Green Bank"

Cuttack the other end

Vastness

Bollywood Politics

Being a supposedly "good in statistics" person i wanted to stretch its boundaries by drawing some of my understanding of Hindi movies and its gradual progression with Indian politics. My experience and research got me involved in some serious facts as i made my journey from the pre Independence days to the current times.

First talkies was released in 1931. Interestingly it was the same year our leaders took a cue from it and became vociferous for their claim to freedom. Wish they had released "alam ara' earlier.

As we moved towards 1947, India got its freedom. So did our stars from playback singing. Till then the poor guys were giving their own vocals. At last, they don't have to sing it themselves. What a freedom for the audience.

1950's. We had color movies, Which also saw emergence of other political parties in India like Jan Sangh adding more variety/ colors to the political picture of India giving more vibrancy to our democratic system where in a viewer ( read voter) can recognize a red from a black.

1960's, fresh out of our defeat from our neighbour spelled a doom for people with small eyes which became a noticeable trait in almost all the villains.

Mid 65's we basked under our glorious victory from our other neighbours and fought the food shortage with Manoj Kumar dose of patriotic movies and

emergence of hero named rajesh who fainted the entire ladies population with his slight tilt of his head.

70-75. it was the practice ground for our messiah to make his field with no major things happening politically. He gave 13 flops in row in competition to the flawed policies of our Government. 1975 it was emergency. That year 3 movie character made news - Vijay ( the underworld Don of dewar), Gabar Singh and Santoshi Maa. Deadly combo. May be people faith in god increased and people wanted to be anti social /anti heroes. Till 1980's it was the same angry young man acting as anti hero.

When our angry young man took a hiatus for short span, it was terrible time for the ladies playing sister roles to our superheroes like Mithun and Dharmendra. Poor, they had to suffer all the attrocities of villains and formed the "revenge points" for our middle class heroes. It was the worst phase of Hindi movie, same can also said be of the indian political system.

with 1990's liberalisation, came a fresh air of life. we had more people working in front of computers with easy money , credit card calls and all world class facilities. That laid the foundation of a hero who can travel places and was geeky. Cried with girls and was mean and lean. We rechristerned ourselves as "Bollywood".

2000 on wards it was "me too" attitude with our rising forex reserves. We now compete with hollywood as India is progressing towards becoming the next super power. More of Krish, Drona, Dhoom with all special effects and big budget movies.

Lets see whats in store for future.

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.