Bollywood quiz

Do give your answers in the comments section. Do also refer my earlier quizzes which are there at http://www.slideshare.net/Subhankar42 http://subuwrites.blogspot.in/2010/06/new-quiz-url.html

More Confusion

PART 1: BRIDE HUNTING PART 2: RENDEZVOUS

The telephone rang.

Everything in this world is forced to a formal ending. Same had to be the case of this failed tryst. Nothing worked out as per the plan, the meeting supposedly failed like a pack of cards. So it was decided by the parents, of course, that the boy and the girl should have telephonic conversation to see if things can be worked out again.

After continuous pestering and cajoling, I agreed. I was confident that the girl would have also undergone the same fate. Now the key question was who will call whom. Before i could ask my father that the girls family should be calling, he had dialed in the number and handed me the handset. The girl was on the other end. After one minute of cold silence, a flurry of questions followed about what made me think that it was not working.

For the first time, i confessed up the first and the only reservation i had for this marriage. The girl was about five years younger to me and that was playing on my mind. She quipped that girls generally go for Mature Minds.Knowing myself well, i replied back that she might be making a mistake as "age does not guarantee maturity". That somewhat cleared the air for me but did manage to put some doubt in her mind. Now she wanted to think again and get back to me whether she is ready for this relationship. Genuinely cursing my tongue for making this stupid quip, i shared my mobile number on which she would be electronically messaging me the result of her thought process. She did not share her number.

I flied back to Bangalore. Two days passed by. It felt like ages to me as i was eagerly waiting for that coveted SMS. May be my killer statement would have made her look for guys closer to age group. Almost made up my mind for this failed attempt - after all she was a kid. She must be in school when i would have entered the engineering course. Still at some remote corner, some hope for the SMS was there. With this heavy heart, i went to a sports pub for the football quarter final match between my favorite team Argentina and Germany - it was 2006 football world cup. Argentina was putting up a great play and the match was down to the wire - the penalty shoot out.

Just before the penalties, I got an SMS from an unknown number - " I am sending this for the second time, why didn’t you call me back". Argentina lost and i was feeling ecstatic. Suddenly another contrary thought, one sms and your fave team lost - will it be the case going forward. I stayed with the positive thought. In my utter excitement, i called her back immediately without realizing that it was past 11 o'clock night. May be the intoxication of beer contributed to it. She hesitantly took the call with an warning that it will not entertained in days to come. Later on,my burgeoning telephone bills negated the same warning.

Apparently, she had sent a formal SMS that she was Ok with the relationship the next day itself and i should have called her to confirm that i was still interested. As i did not receive the SMS and did not reply, she took that i was not proceeding for the relationship. It was at the behest of one of her close friends that she sent the second SMS as a final good bye message.

I still think about what would have happened had her friend not asked her to message again. Maybe it was destined like that as we got married and we have been blessed with a little angel. I am writing this for the little one so that when she grows up, she can read all this.

And there are more stories in store for the new one. Some in person and some in writing.

Raunak-e-Ramazaan

Gate No.1 at Jama Masjid - The Trail Begins

Jama Masjid

On 17th August, we were invited by Itihaas, an NGO, to experience the celebration and festivities of Ramzan amongst the people of bustling Old Delhi. The walk conducted was very informative and was weaved around various stories of Mughal era. The rich insight offered by the stories highlighted the rich vision of our culture.

The Red Fort forming the Tip of the arrow

We started our tour at Jama Masjid where our walk directors described the city of Sahajahanabad (which is now known as Old Delhi). The city was built by visionary Shah Jahan, the mogul emperor – taking inspiration from the Hindu “shastra“and architected like a bow. The river Yamuna formed the string of the bow and the central Chandni Chowk was the road which formed the arrow.

Celebration Begins

It was quite fascinating to observe the fellow devotees breaking their daily fast. It was a celebration inside the Jama Masjid. The sight of ocean of People greeting, hugging and sharing food amongst each other was heartwarming. The most touching moment was when one of the families shared their food with us as if we were part of their family. These were some moments which has been permanently etched in my mind.

The Shops

After the exhilarating Jama Masjid experience, we were taken through the tour of crowded and buzzing alleys of the Old Delhi. It was an experience only to be felt. It was festivities all around. The smoke and scent of the delicacies of the street side food, the color filled decorated small shops, greeting people, smiling faces, running children in the narrow gullies are something to be experienced and not written.

Kala Masjid

Our next destination was Kala Masjid, Tuglaq era mosque (built around 14^th century) for more stories. We were told interesting facts around the historical events to depict the logical significance of rituals, design and festivities held during Mogul era and still continued in same vigor even today.

At Razia Sultan Grave

Our walk through the narrow lane continued where we were given briefings about the culture and societies as it existed three centuries ago. Our final stop was the Grave of Razia Sultan, one of the two female ruler in Islamic Era (Benazir Bhutto was the other one), situated at the interior parts of the city.

At Itihaas School

After the insightful journey, we were treated with a delicious dinner at the premises of the school run by Itihaas. The mouth watering succulent Kebabs, aroma filled Biryani and sweet dishes were prepared by one of renowned chef of Old Delhi.

As the evening came to an end, I was left with rich memories which I will be proudly carrying forward. Definitely , celebrating Ramzan in Old city of Delhi was an event in my life and I look forward to attending more of it going forward.

Team SAP - The Trail Ends

Rendezvous

PART 1: BRIDE HUNTING

Thanks to my wife Priyanka, i am not pronoucing it ren-dez-vus....

Where were we......Flash back - I got a call to BBSR....acronym from Bhubaneswar.

MBA had taught me many things. Doing an ROI analysis was one of them. Flight tickets would have cost me a bomb and that factored with the marriage not happening would have made this trip useless. So the minimum investment of 2

Reached Home - I was sure that no temple would have been left untouched by my mom in her act to plead god to make everything fall in place. Before i could settle down, i was given an entire checklist by her of behaviour competencies to be put on display for attaining the perfect result. Could definitely get the generation gap between transistors era and "transformers" era.

For the formal invitation, father of the prospective bride came to invite for us the morning hours. It was a simple invitation to visit their places where both the parents will meet and we will get to see the "insurance agent" - the name given by one my friend on knowing that the prospective bride is working for a insurance company. My father had out rightly rejected my innovative proposal to meet in person ALONE with the prospective bride alone in at a newly opened coffee joint at BBSR. Even though he considered it blasphemous, but to showcase his modern day thinking he tossed up this idea. In order to outdo each other, my father in law proposed that we should be talking to each other alone in a single room and we can lock ourselves to maintain our privacy. Before this discussion could go any further, I agreed to go their house with everyone and meet up with bride without any innovate meeting engineering.

Evening time, before i could reach my prospective bride's house, there was a plethora of  "Congratulations", "All the best" and "It happens" wishes from my colleagues on my newly acquired mobile phone. My sister was given the charge to pinch me in case i go on a binge on the good food that will be served. Last time, she was not there and i ended asking for an extra samosa. We were ceremoniously ushered to the meeting room. Then followed the deluge of hygiene questions -  Job, work, hobby and habits. I could imagine myself as the neo of matrix evading the bullets by bending my back to extreme - How long will it take them to uncover that i had worst possible combination of all the asked criteria. May be they were a family of doctors and hence were not aware of what an IT professional does. Then came the bride with water. Hope they don't ask her to sing - It may result in somebody asking to return the favor which could have opened a new feat in ripley's believe it or not.

As promised by my father in law, we were asked to go to a room and chat. As a precaution, i asked my sister accompany me and promised myself that i should not give any such ideas to my dad in future to be tweaked like this. Then the second round of rendezvous - I heard ladies were chatter box and i was seeing it now. All the things were covered under this half an hour - Career aspirations, boss bitching, good insurance plans and Rang de basanti were some of the items covered. No marriage talks and i was again lamenting about the return flight ticket investment. One more miss.

My mother was the worst casualty. She had just dreamt of her 10th castle and it crashed. My Dad started giving me Pep talk. He should have been the hockey coach of the recent Indian Hockey Team. I was supposed to fly the other day. Evening was spent talking to all my friends about another missed opportunity. I called my friend in Bangalore that nothing is happening and spread the news across everyone so that nobody "congratulates" me on reaching Bangalore.

Next morning, the telephone rang.

PART 3: MORE CONFUSION

Bride Hunting

Migrating some blogs from other sites...

Bride Hunting

Saturday, January 2, 2010 8:22:11 AM

story, marriage, subhankar

This is the series of stories

It was the middle of Hot summer June of 2006. It was a regular day with its regular set of activities. I came to office late and was preparing myself for my daily coffee. I was about to press the "CTRL ALT DEL" button, i got an yahoo notification that i have received a mail from my Dad with subject as Photo. It was his regular monthly update. Oh. Let me clarify.

The photo mails were the mails which my dad sent for the prospective bride. He had been religiously sending me these mails from Jan 2005. I really admired his perseverance and punctuality. After carefully avoiding initial photo mails, it took a crying session from my mom to look into the June edition. As i opened the mail, the office internet speed also accentuated my eagerness to have a look at the prospective bride photo.

My system hung which was a common phenomenon. As i rebooted, i went to the cafeteria with Vikas my colleague to fetch a cup of warm coffee. We broke into a conversation about office politics as usual. But i was incessantly thinking about the PC, whether it has properly been booted or did it die once again. My eagerness was quite obvious to my colleague who generously asked me to go back and carry on with any urgent deliverable my mind was occupied with. I took the opportunity and immediately went back to find that the machine has properly booted and was waiting for me to open the explorer again to log in to my mail account. I again went through the log in rituals and opened the new mail sent by Dad. The content read as " Priyanka Mohanty, MBA, Bajaj Insurance , Delhi. using my cognitive ability i could decipher that the name of the prospective bride was priyanka, she has done her MBA, and she works with Bajaj insurance in Delhi. Quite impressive profile for me being a typical Oriya nerd. Now came the important part - Opening the attachment. As i saved the attachment and opened it , i saw a simple girl standing in a smiling position. Before i could observe her facial features, i was disturbed by boss who was standing behind me.
He always considered himself the most intelligent person ever to walk on this earth. On seeing the picture in my computer, with his typical smile he quipped that " your sister looks a lot like you. Are you looking out for a prospective groom for her". He knew i had a sister.

I clarified to him that it was not my sisters picture and told him the entire story. He was very happy. To show how happy he was, he shouted to every one in my department who were sitting around me to come and see the pic of the girl to whom i was getting married too!!!!. Everyone came and congratulated me. And i spent the entire clarifying the exact story to everyone that it was "prospective" bride and nothing has been been fixed.

Later that day , my Dad had called me to come to Bhubaneswar sometime later that month as my prospective bride would also be coming during that tenure. The day later he confirmed the exact dates and instructed me to book the tickets accordingly. The day i left for Bhubaneswar my mail box was flooded with " All the best wishes" from everyone from my office. How come they did they know that i needed that the most. Premonition....

to be continued..........

PART 2: RENDEZVOUS

PART 3: MORE CONFUSION

Technology Blog

for Long, i wanted to have a separate a blog for technology blog, where i can post all the technology related thoughts....its a start and will strive to replenish this at regular intervals


www.Techierambling.blogspot.com

Do give in your valuable comments/ ideas.

A small Parody.....

I am going to talk about a four letter word which starts with F.....generally when we hear this term, we think about Power, speed, performance etc. ...But for India.it is the reason for giving sleepless nights to almost the entire nation especially the media and we propagated that word to the entire world....... Yes, we are talking about FAST.

Now a search on Anna gives me a pic of old man in place of the expected blonde. The news channels have free fodder. Apparently the fasting person lost 8 kg in 8 days. On listening to this piece of news, my wife looked at me and my innocent paunch with a mischievous smile.......No, i am not doing that.....then one news channel showed anna running in the rain....tell me which anna would you prefer to run in the rain wearing white...definitely not this one... then another news item stated the anna stayed along with Kalmadi......what would they be talking... Here's my take: Kalmadi to anna.."why happened senior?",,,,anna -"dude lokpal bill...and what about you bro"..kalmadi would have replied,,,,"water bill, electricity bill, shirt bill, engine bill etc...." Whatever said and done, my anna has been and always will be our suneil anna ....

And at the end of it what was the outcome, nobody knew...parliament just discussed something and sent to the standing committee.....Even the standing committee was swamped with all sort of lokpal bill..i even sent 1 to them which asked the MNC operating in India to serve beer in their offices....it seems that the standing committee has to stand for a long time..

Now talking about another fast done by the chief minister of a state to propel him to become the prime minister.common this is a fast and not "zandu balm" which cures headaches, body ache, cold etc.....Nothing against him....

. This is giving the eternal PM in waiting some anxious moments. Just spare a thought for this PM in waiting person. He has been waiting for his entire lifespan under "A tall" shadow but now being pushed by this fasting men. This octagenerian has now resorted to rath yatra......and add to misery, the govt. increased the petrol prices......what will happen if rath- which is truck manifested into a lord ram chariot runs out of petrol.

Whatever it is, seeing people FAST around me is making me furious.....

End of an Era

1996

Being an ardent fan of Vinod Kambli, it was disheartening to see him rested and a rookie 24 year old been given a chance to play in his place. India's semi-final loss was fresh in my mind. Still my heart rendered the injustice meted out to Kambli - especially after the emotions he had to go through when Clive Lyodd awarded the semi -finals to Sri-Lanka at eden gardens. The debutant was an utter disappointment. Lasted only 4 balls scoring a paltry 3.

1998

There were angst amongst the Indian public because the batsman was too correct. His copy book shot were always grounded but ended up in fielders hand. It was a pain to watch him especially when we had the God, the prince, the playboy and the gambler showing all the tricks around him. His inability to find gaps led to question marks about his ODI career.

1999

He was the top scorer for the world cup. However, he always had another player playing a better game for the same match which "belittled" his performance. He was happy contributing for the team.

2000-2002

He flourished under the great shadows of the god and prince. With prince taking over the mantle, he was made the deputy in charge. India's eternal hunt for an batsman wicket keeper was hurting India's batting line up. Around 5 wicket keepers were tried during this tenure. None could could justice with either Batting nor keeping. To lend some stability, he donned the keeping gloves unwillingly. And thus began one of the golden era of Indian ODI victories.

2003

India went to the world cup finals after 20 years.BCCI clever's match scheduling saw India playing kenya in the semi-finals. God thrived but unfortunately the team succumbed on the D -day. In all the hue and cry, all the excellent stumpings and magnificent catches taken by a part time wicket keeper was forgotten.

2004

It was one of the crucial tour to Pakistan. India beat pakistan in comfortable 3-2 victory. Dew factor was credited for the magnificent indian victory . The person who was instrumental in making sure that india benefited from the dew was happy taking the backseat. But international fraternity was cognizant enough to award him the first ever ICC overall best player trophy.

2005 - 2007

He has to weather out the turmoil in Indian cricket with differences cropping between the then captain and the coach. When he took the reins, there were a lot of talented players in the dis-coherent team. A big question was raised on the capability and future. But this tenure saw the emergence of most of the players , who went on to lead India to a world cup victory in 2011. India lost 2007 world cup under his leadership but most from that team were instrumental in our 2011 victory. 2007 saw an immediate ouster of the coach. Indian team had to travel to England without a coach. Still this man had the perseverance to double up as an manager and India managed to give a remarkable performace (England won the series 4-3). After he quit captaincy, his role in ODI's started diminishing.

2007 - 2011

The new captain of youngistan had no place for him in the new team. He was only called for the championship trophy as it was played in seaming condition and India required a "correct" batsman. But as the pitches across the world were continuously flattened out to meet the voyeuristic demand for increasing TRP, it seemed as an retirement call for this player. Again, in England when majority of core team players are injured, he has again been roped in to play.

September 16

Today is his last match. May be, he'll succed or succumb. I'll not go for records or win percentages. But i am fortunate to see a sports person entire lifecycle - the struggle in the beginning, glory for his talent, ignominy in defeat and again the resilience to serve the nation whenever he was provided with the opportunity.

Somebody rightly said - we don't need a Bharat Ratna for him, he already features in our national anthem

Trip to tripura

Visit to Tripura

A modest state with honest people. everyone seemed happy.

Redemption of a cricketing Nation

Its always not about winning. Its not always about "how hard you hit" but also "how hard did you take the hit and come back as winner".

The Pakistan team exemplified that. Here was a team which was in shatters in days preceding world cup. No captain allocated, their top world class two seamer humiliated and dropped from world cricket along with their former captain batsman.

This team would have given a mediocre performance and still no body would have bothered about them. They were looked down as cheaters and even most of the cricketing bodies even mulled severing ties with the nation. Added to this, terrorism has crippled their domestic cricket infrastructure and their country has not hosted a single test playing nation for the last two years.

They would have remained mediocre but they chose to fight with their captain leading from front - and is the highest wicket taker in the world cup. This team with a sub standard batting line up mauled over almost all the test playing cricketing nation in their group to finish at the top. Their group had the formidable Australia, Sri lanka, New Zealand and WI.

They played with grace and with all their heart. There was humility in their effort and sole purpose of redeeming the pride of their country which had taken a beating with all the match fixing allegation. Their each movement was under scrutiny, each miss magnified and criticized. With this pressure, what they did was commendable and awe inspiring.

If there is a team of the tournament award, i would not have any iota of an doubt to which team it should be given !!!!

The news we might have missed during Obama Visit.

While everyone was overjoyed with the arrival of Obama, there was a small news piece in the thrid page of a leading english daily mourning the death of Sidhartha Shankar Ray. My earlier memories of S.S. Ray was of him being the Indian Ambassador back in 1994, where he had forecasted a tighter Indo US relationship and how he see that coming. It was irony that he died on the Obama arrived India as his first State visit confirming to what Ray had predicted about decade and a half ago.

Definitely his work merited a lot of people mourning his death and at least a front page news. To sum up some of his key achievements:

1.) Chief Minister of WB during 1972-77 and successfully dealt with the maoist rebellion.

2.) Right hand man to Indira Gandhi and was said to be the brain behing the 1977 emergency

3.) Governer of Punjab (1987-89) who along with KPS gill quelled the Khalistan revolution.

4.) Planned the Calcutta Metro, the first in this country back in 1970's.

5.) US ambassador,(1992- 1997), was intrumental of change of India's policy of allying with US and was instrumental in putting business on the India - US agenda.

Ray's sharp verbal duels with his personal friend but political foe - then chief minister Jyoti Basu- is etched in golden letters in the state's legislative history. He also happens to be the grandson of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das ( C R Park !!!)

I believe this is a massive loss and 1 salute to this great personality.

fight over an H.

Does H makes that much of the difference. The name remains the same. For instance, my name "Subhankar" has been tampered with free usage of H everywhere as if H is an free electron which can take any place or be removed at will.....shubankar, subankhar, subankar. I never used to take any cognizance of this till today i came across this news piece.

Does it make any difference or is it my sense of indifference. I have stayed out from my state to have that feeling. But is it that important that we use our high pedestal of democracy to discuss this matter on priority. "Whats in a name"...........Shahrukh khan lend a name to Rajni as a goodwill gesture.....

Farmer suicides, illegal mining, rampant increase of naxalism will be have wait till we fix the "H". Thats called living on the "H" :)

Guess the symbol

http://tiny.cc/9z4ea for answer

New york

Check out the pics

New york

View more presentations from Subhankar Pattanayak.

Times Square and Empire State

The Splendor of New York. Taken from Empire State Building.

Statue of Liberty. Ellis Island and World Trade Center

central park , American Museum of Natural History and Metropolitan Museum

Times Square and Empire State

Visit to Madame Tussads, New York

my recent visit to Madame Tussad - Good to see Amitabh being the sole representative from Asia .