2010 - Another year passes by !!!

2010 Dec 31 - Apart from being my cousin's and friend's birthday, this date signals the ending of a complete year according to the Gregorian calendar. You want to know about the Gregorian calendar ? (I knew it!) This is unfortunately not the place for that. Wiki it out my friends , wiki it! (And hey, in the new year,please contribute to the Wikipedia cause too!)

This year has been truly memorable for various reasons and I will list a few salient features of the past year:

1. 2 Job Changes - Ah ha, well I didn't plan this out but people/situations/challenges bombarded me and ding , I changed two jobs! As of this moment, I am jobless but had truly crazy, amazing moments with both the jobs. Without naming companies, I was able to change my domain from A to B , with strong backing of A and lot of learning in B. You want to know what I learnt from this ? Well, don't get stuck with the same thing . IF you are bored, just get a new job !( This specially applies to the Indian market right now as there are tens and thousands of jobs coz' of the truly dynamic economy. Do you want to know if India is the place to be in ? Oh Hell Yeah!)

2. New places - Well I saw 4 new cities and 5 airports this year. That summarizes my traveling for the year. Hyderabad - the Nizam capital, was a wonderfully different experience ( See my Taj Mahal Post) and totally loved the place.Had a fantastic time with friends(Bha and Bha) and cousins there ,ate super hot biryanis, had wonderful filter coffee, saw tons of movies at cheaper prices and in general, learnt a lot !
Riyadh was the 2nd city and man, that was SOME experience. IF you want to make money, thats THE place without a doubt. I will remain silent about other aspects. Jeddah on the other hand , which as you might have guessed , was the 3rd city and located along the sea, is beautiful and chilled out comparitively!( If you know what I mean!) Last but not the least, I saw Kolkata and I love the place for Mishti doi, Rasagullas and this breakfast place Flurrys!

3. Cousins Bonding - This definitely was the year where I spent maximum time with my cousins. Partied with them, played with them, cracked jokes with them etc etc.

Played tons(literally!) of TT games with my 18 year old Hyderabadi cousin and he wants to beat me black and blue in the new year (didn't happen this year). His golden words in 2 separate meetings were - "There is a generation gap between you and me!" and "Till now I just knew a cousin with your name existed. Now I have evidence!".

Realized that my Pizza hut salesman cousin ( Ah , if you need pizzas , let me know, I will redirect you to him!) and I rank among the worst PJ crackers on earth and also saw "you know what" in the theater this year. Ah ha,"you know what" doesn't refer to the Potter movie!

My other Engg. cousin gave me tons of tips on building bodies and man, the biggest compliment I have got this year is that I have put on weight!( The other compliment was that my hindi has improved!)

4. Facebook - One of my new year resolutions for 2011 is to get out of this Facebook addiction. I must have taken innumerable quizzes , played tons of games, "liked" tons of posts and pictures, commented on a zillion more, got predictions about killing my cousins and cousin's friend, joined a group called "ganchali bidu kannada mathadu" , put up statuses , checked for cool updates and to top it all, watched even a movie on that ( which I think is totally hyped. Its good but not that great!)

5. Dance - Danced multiple times this year in my own inimitable "jumping" style at a wedding , a couple of times in Hint where I saw my family's answer to Malaika Arora and once during a friends' get together party. Felt happy that my cousins are as pathetic as I am on the dance floor! However, never get tired of hearing "Munni" or "Sheela" !!! That just means I would like to dance more but probably in a structurally better manner.


Well well , on that optimistic note, wish you all a fabulous and fantastic new year ahead. May you all enjoy the best of health, wealth and spirits( this strictly doesn't mean just booz!).

Ciao!

My good samaritan act...

This happened a couple of months back in another country ....I had written it then and I will do a Ctrl C Ctrl V here.
Last evening I had to go to this place to quickly pick up something and so took a taxi and went ... i was greeted by a dark guy who knew some english words and arabic and somehow he asked me where I was from . I then found out that he was from Sudan and with great difficulty he told me he had been here for 12 years. By the way most taxi drivers are from India/Pakistan and they talk to you with so much of warmth ,especially the pakistani drivers. So going back to that story, as we trudged along the wide but absolutely crowded Wed night streets ( Wed night has max traffic , its like Fri evening in India ), he suddenly started singing "pardesi pardesi jana nahin" . I was like open mouthed and absolutely surprised and he suddenly said "aamir khan" /"karishma kapoor" and said "i like i like" ... since he found some encouragement with me congratulating him , he went on an absolute spree - sang a Sunil Shetty song next from Rakshak (of all people sunil shetty!! and i didn't even know this movie ) ,muqala muqabla oh laila was his next and he asked me who that hero with the beard was...then sang some akshay kumar song and then he mentioned shah rukh khan and said "kola kolia " and i said "koyla" and he said yes and gave me a high five!

By this time we had reached this place and I was totally entertained by his antics and asked him if he will drop me back to the hotel . He readily nodded and it took me 10 mins to get back and what do i see? There is this policeman who has stopped by and given him a chit and he had to pay 100 Riyal which is pretty expensive...Drive till there was 20 Riyal and then he asked me to sit in the car and he was so depressed . I felt really bad for this guy and he kept looking at the chit every now and then , nodding his head in absolute frustration . Finally when we reached the hotel , i gave him 100 riyal( I had to pay him 25 ) and asked him to keep it . He held my hands and said "thank you thank you" and immediately gave me his number and said "call , 30 min i come here " with loads of arabic in between and at that time did I get to know that my friend's name was Ahmed. What started off as a small ride ended with me losing a lot more money but making this person really happy.As I walked back was just reminded of "pardesi pardesi jana nahin"....

The singing bug

In recent times, I have had a very strong urge to get back to music and I am almost desperate to do so and pursue it to my best ability. Meanwhile , here is a humble attempt at one of the non-filmi songs I really like .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAbZMWF79BM

You have to start somewhere as they say...

Taj Mahal

if you thought looking at the subject line that I had been to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal monument, then I will scream and say "gotcha" ! I did visit that as well but it was sometime in the 90s. Coming back to the present,this Taj Mahal is actually a pretty popular hotel in Hyderabad which has played a very important part in my new job ! Long pending blog but decided to write this when I boarded the flight this morning. This , my friends , is an 'Ode to Taj mahal hotel ' !

Having gotten used to staying in 5 star hotels ONLY in my previous job, this was a humbling experience initially to start off with, with a few parts not working in the room or requiring some level of fixing .For eg, the TV remote had to be pressed real hard to change a channel, the fan had this whirling noise and automatically used to switch off as if it decided its own destiny. Nice philosophical twist to the fan tale!

Well having said that I must say I completely enjoyed the stay and as I discovered in my last stay, most waiters now acknowledge my presence with a "hello " or a nod of the head, the guys who clean the rooms salute me which is in a way, embarrassing or the guy at the reception asked me how many days I would stay in this trip with a very enthusiastic "Hello sir". Much of this was on evidence when I went to the hotel with my colleague and friend Ram to have a cup of coffee in the evening( our daily routine almost) and this waiter came along and wished me and asked us what we wanted in a much more "user-friendly" tone. A few kannada speaking waiters were way too happy to have me in their midst and speak in kannada coz' till then I was speaking to them in my usual awkward Hindi ! Also, when you stay for that long in a hotel, you end up eating every item that they have in their menu and that was definitely the case here as well. But I must say that most of their dishes taste real good.

OH another thing that I discovered after staying there for more than 25 days and that too this one by accident was that they serve the World's best Upma or Uppit( Somehow I had missed this!). I have always loved this dish but at restaurants, it is somehow not that great but when I had this a couple of days back , I was totally bowled over by the taste. Ever since , I have been recommending it to whoever I have met and I think they all feel that I am out of my senses! Yet another specialty is their coffee. I still remember the meeting with my manager when he was down in Hyderabad. He gulped down 5 cups of coffee one after another because it was so good. Yes, 5 freaking cups! I restricted myself to a meager 2 cups!

The other thing that happens at this hotel very often are birthday parties , retirement functions and even weddings. The most irritating of them are the birthday parties, most of them of kids between 1 and 3years, because they have blaring loud Tollywood and Bollywood music till 11pm but I guess because of their cheap rates and location, most people prefer this location compared to some others. All in all , the experience has been interesting and pretty good! So following is my recommendation :

I , the writer of this blog, sincerely and strongly recommend my readers to definitely visit this wonderful hotel in Himayat Nagar, Hyderabad if and when you get a chance!

Also make sure you have Upma and a cup of coffee !!!

The time when I was caught cheating.

For some weird reason today, I was reminded of this incident that happened several years ago . It almost seems like another life altogether. This incident was a year or two after we moved to the house in Banashankari. To set things in perspective, I was in class 4 or 5 and at that age , my only motivation in life on a daily basis was to play and you ask me which game ? Cricket ofcourse.

After moving in, I slowly became part of this group which had kids from 3rd to 6th I think and I got comfortable with those guys and used to be happy that I prospered in cricket pretty well in that group! However, there was this other senior group that I wanted to be a part of. All of us in our group revered those guys coz' it seemed really cool and complex to play with them. Am sure many of you have had this sort of feeling at some point. I used to be a bit reticent initially but slowly gathered courage to ask them whether I could play with them. They said yes and my joy knew no bounds! Just that over the next couple of months , as it always happens, my sole purpose was to field and if everyone else in my team got out, I used to get a chance to hold the cricket bat. Oh, bowling was out of the question!

This being the premise, we came upon this period where there were no funds to buy tennis balls. ( We used to lose them at an alarming rate!) It was decided that some senior folks will pay 10 rupees and some of the junior ones like myself would pay 5 rupees. We were given a couple of weeks time . I didn't know how I could tell my parents about this and it seemed almost impossible. I approached one of the guys and asked him if they could give me a discount and after thinking he said ,"Ok , you pay me 2 rupees but don't ask me for any more discount". I was ecstatic that I managed to pull this off! Next challenging task was to actually get this money.

In our house, there used to be a bureau in the corner of one of the rooms where my dad used to drop in some changes from his wallet from time to time for daily vegetable purchases yada yada yada. So one evening I stole 2 rupees and eased that into my pocket (felt very guilty!) and went out on my Atlas bicycle (Oh yes,that was the generation when kids used to move around in bicycles every day!). I was already a bit panicky that I rode out in front of my mom and she didn't have a clue about that. I went straight to the guy's house who had given me the discount but unfortunately, he wasn't there. I next went to the 2nd senior person and guess what ? He asked me to hand it over to the senior guy coz' he didn't collect that money. Cursing this 2nd guy , I came back home and left the 2 rupees in that bureau.

Next day was a Sunday and we always started playing by 4pm( an extra hour!!!) and most importantly Dad was home. So again I slipped in that money and was about to rush off in my bicycle(I was even more nervous that day coz' Dad was home) when my Dad suddenly heard the coin sound (I had 2 1 rupee coins instead of a 2 rupee note!) and asked me what was the sound. I panicked and suddenly he raised his voice and that was all that was required!!! I was in tears and my dad shouted at me asking me what was happening and from where I had got 2 rupees. Got inside the house and then told him the complete story and he asked me why I was stealing etc etc. Told him I didn't have the courage to ask him for the money because after all I went out to play and not to deal with money . He said irrespective of what the circumstance, always speak the truth and if you are wrong just accept it. Time slowly passed and after 10 mins( it seemed like an entire day!), he gave me 10 rupees and asked me to contribute it to the team fund. Imagine the surprise on the senior guy's face when I handed him the 10 rupee note! After that every Sunday they used to personally come near my place and call me out to play though most of the times all I did was field till a year or two later when I atleast used to bat!!!

I might have forgotten other incidents but this one I can never forget! In hindsight, all I can say is that particular incident definitely made me a much better person and gave me a lot more courage to be honest even in times of trial. Thanks Pa!!

I P L

IPL 3 has been a pretty interesting experience so far... Following have been the my observations:

1. Many international players are part of the team setups and as a result the standard of cricket is probably really high.
2. Karbon Kamaal Katch...Ridiculous! Several such terms have added to the irritation quotient.
3. New ad breaks in between overs have been very irritating (but not for the sponsors). The head honcho of IPL can probably even generate revenue out of a endangered sport. Every cell of the person's body probably thinks of generating revenue.
4. Several more matches next year with the team count going upto 10.
Assuming only 4 foreigners can play for each team , you have atleast 7 local lads in each team which means atleast 15 locals would be in the dug out waiting to play a game. So 15 * 10 = 150 . The thing I like about this is around 150 Indian domestic /club cricketers are going to be super rich coz' of this. And what does this do ? It will increase the no of kids playing cricket and they will take it more seriously . You ask me what is the plus aspect of this ? Atleast I hope this will convince more parents to allow their kids to get into sports ( i mean cricket , sports and cricket in India are synonymous!) which means more people will end up doing what they want to do, which is good for the society as a whole ;-).

With respect to the quality of cricket , 2 things might happen - a. we don't have so many good players and as such many teams will have weak pathetic teams resulting in several one sided games that will wane the interest . b. We might find several Manish Pandeys and that would be a treat to watch , which would spur my next statement . So kids out there - what do you want to do ? Don't be surprised to hear "play in IPL " !

On another note, IPL was voted recently as the most innovative company and what with 1 billion dollars profit expected this year and "supposedly" doubling every year from now on, seems like March- May is the season where you are going to be flooded with cricket.
Finally its the viewers who end up paying tons of money. Consider me , I have already gone to 3 RCB matches(previous years I just caught them on TV) and that definitely eats into my resources but then you watch RCB win and say, wow , paisa vasool! Apparently, as seen last year cricket in this country is probably the only thing that is recession free . I just hope from the billion dollars they make, they go ahead and donate some amount of money to other sports in India or Mr Modi should go ahead and do an IPL in atleast one other sport , but deep down I have a gut feeling that will never happen .

To end , can we unanimously declare that Cricket is our National Game ?

Anvesha - The Singer

Saturday / Sunday nights are generally spent in front of the idiot box and its pretty much family time - probably the only time my dad is not working or I am not running around doing something and as a result, mom is relaxed! Last few weekends, we have been closely following "Music ka maha muqabla" on Star Plus apart from all the stupid senseless fights, viewers have had a chance to listen to some breathtaking singing from Shankar Mahadevan , Shaan and Shreya Ghoshal apart from their team members. Its definitely a big treat for someone like me who is a huge fan of all 3 singers.

However in all this fun, one particular voice has stood out - that of Anvesha. A Bengali girl , all of 15-16 years old but with a completely gifted voice, classically trained and a terrific attitude towards music. Its simply refreshing to hear her perform and has impressed everyone with her mellifluous singing. Its almost given that she wins the "star of the day" award with her exceptionally good singing every time she performs. Perfection probably is her middle name. It speaks a lot about her that in rounds where she has performed, Shankar Mahadevan and Shreya Ghoshal themselves have stepped in to perform in order to match her singing.

After appreciating her so much, I thought its only fair to highlight it on my blog. Wish you all the very best and God bless you ! Conquer the world with your singing!

Dress well , whether you like it or not.

I don't know why I was reminded of this now and I am not sure if I have already blogged about it but I am going to write about it anyway.

There have been many such embarassing moments in my life ( and hopefully in others' lives too , why should I be the only one!) and this particular incident was very awkward. This was when I had been to Mexico city a year and a half back. I had 3 flights to catch with very long breaks at the airports and I even met my friend Lalitha and her husband at San Francisco during a very long break( around 9 hours) before heading to Mexico city. All in all from the time I left my house till the time I got to the hotel, it must have taken me around 45 hours or close to 2 days.

Reached the hotel at 6am in the morning on a Sunday and had a quick breakfast and then slept. I had no idea which universe I was in coz' of the sluggishness that encumbered every cell of my body. Finally when I got up it was late afternoon and had a light lunch and waited for my Project Manager's call. He was from the land of Texas and if you jump hard from there, you will land in Mexico city. We spoke finally around 6pm and planned to meet later for dinner.

Now I am not / I wasn't till I met this person , very wary about what I wore for dinner at such hotels when I end up staying there. Who wants to even think about this after a typically hard day's work ? You just want to gobble something and hit the sack. As it is , I was tired and when the time came, I was in my tracks and went down to meet Mr PM at the lobby. So here I was in this tracks and there I suddenly see this grey haired huge Texan ( probably twice my size in height and weight!) - ( I found later that he is in his early 50s) who looked very experienced and was in a spick and span black dinner suit. I wanted to rush back immediately at Usain Bolt's pace but he saw me and recognised me.

(Within me , i kept saying, dude, what the !) We exchanged pleasantries but believe me, it wasn't pleasant at all. I was determined that very moment that I would be dressed more than decently for the morning. Dinner followed and he was and is such a wonderful person. Was extremely glad when we took leave at the lift and I felt extremely awkward. Next day, I spent 10 mins extra with the coat and I think he complimented saying I was looking good and presentable and thats when I told him that the previous night , I was so damn tired that my head was throbbing continuously.

Anyway, the trip was excellent and I got to know Mr PM better. You can read my Tequila experience somewhere in my blogs. Moral of this particular story however was - dress well especially when you are meeting someone professionally even if its a Sunday night and you are hopelessly jetlagged,whether you like it or not !

A game of cricket...

Well high time i wrote something about cricket since I think/read(newspaper/cricinfo.com)/talk(lunch/tea/dinner/news time) about this atleast once a day... The "/" means it might be at any of those times and doesn't mean ALL of that every day!

You would say , dude, its impossible not to be touched by cricket in this nation! But I give you an example of my cousin Mahesh who is untouched by any teeny weeny thing to do with cricket and almost lives like he is in Europe - every cell of his body thinks/talks football ! Anyway, Mahesh, if you are reading this, thats the amount of awe, surprise, dedication and appreciation I have for you.

Anyway, my recent memories of cricket include India and Sri lanka playing whenever I went to channel 107 and after a while I completely stopped that as it was so freaking boring. I mean every player, his wife and kids in the 11 and the 15 and the 'A' team from one side knew every player, his wife and kids in the 11 and the 15 and 'A' side from the other side. It was as tedious as you reading the previous line. Seriously!

On the other hand, I loved and I tell you I really really loved watching Dale Steyn bowling to the haughty Englishmen and lately, our own Indian fellas. I had previously got this feeling only when I watched Allan Donald bowl to the Waughs or Wasim Akram bowling to the Aussies. 99% of my body wants to be a fast bowler(1% wants to be a batsman who wants to play with a straight bat :D) and watching Steyn when he is at his best is like eating the best Masala Dosa in the world and relishing every bit,nibble and byte of that! yumm...

Ahh, let me not forget , I like this guy Manish Pandey, provides me with the same restlessness and tension that I had when I used to watch my all time favorite Brian Charles Lara. His Ranji Trophy final exploits should have been enough to make him play instead of Saha against SA but the selectors didn't think so . Pity them. Anyway coming to Brian Charles Lara, I followed these doctrines :
1. Never watch him play live as he always gets out. Remember several such occasions. One was in the 3rd test against Australia he was batting on 182 when I switched on the TV and did my yahoo and told my dad that he is batting and immediately, the next ball , he nicked Colin Miller to first slip !! Unbelievable.
2. Always watch highlights whatever time it is coz' he is worth it. Watch the 90 runs he made against Aus in late 90s where he took 90 balls for his 1st 50 and 20 balls for the next 40 and obviously won the game!

One of my dreams was to visit Trinidad and that actually came true and I saw where he practiced his cricket, which school he went to, his memorial, got a memorabilia and finally missed meeting him by a day or so as he was out of the country!

Finally, last evening I played cricket at the office nets where people just gather in numbers after 4.30 to play. I think I might have bowled 15 overs for an hour and a half. I never probably was more irritated with my bowling before ! Every ball was down the leg side - whatever I did it didn't help for the first 30 mins. It slowly improved and finally got a couple of nicks and then bowled a good bouncer, got a guy beaten and gave him one of those fast bowler STARES and then got him nicking again and then stopped as I wanted that good feeling to stay within me...

Seemingly very long post but hey I have missed IPL...hold your horses ,thats going to come soon as well :)

Cheers!

Sahasa Simha no more!!!

I can't can't , just can't believe Sahasa Simha Vishnuvardhan is no more. I grew up watching his movies and till I discovered some great Dr Raj movies, he was my favorite , even after watching Dr Raj movies, he was still my favorite tho with Annavaru obviously up there.

An unassuming actor with hazaar style(his swagger when he made "whistling" entries in movies) , he made ordinary scripts look extraordinary.
Remember my early days watching his "Neenu nakkare Haalu Sakkare" / the brilliant "Singapoorinalli raja kulla" or several others on Doordarshan on Sunday evening ( This was when we had no cable tv at home ) or watching the super hit "Nishkarsha" in Shanti theater or "Muttina Hara" on independence day or even the kickass "Nishabhda" with his army of dogs.

The man was all style and substance and totally loved him . I couldn't believe that he had played villain in "Gandhadha gudi" coz' he always , always remained the hero who could beat up tons of people with his famous left hand clenching and punching. His family movies were equally brilliant and he made sure the time spent was definitely worth it. Remember watching a total brainless movie , just because it was him when I was even admitted to the hospital earlier this year and more recently watched him in the Baghban remake where he was as usual terrific.

His recent film "Bellary Naga" got rave reviews but I missed the movie . He was one of the 3 actors in Kannada cinema to complete 200 films as a mainstream actor( others being Annavaru and Rebel Star Ambareesh) and I had just seen those posters in Vision cinemas last week(will release soon!) and this morning, when I got up and heard he was no more , I was totally shocked like tons of other fans.

Thank you sir for all the entertainment you provided all these years . God bless your family and we all pray for your dear ones' well being. May this great artist's soul rest in peace..... Amen.

Moviezzzzzzzzz

A break from office and a decently long one at that has resulted in me watching a good number of movies.... Here are my expert comments and if you want to or don't want to watch these movies, you can decide after reading my blog! Please note these may or may not be new movies and the rating has to do with just perception of the movie... Your comments are welcome ( Atleast that way I know someone has read the blog!)

1. Kurbaan - (2.75/5) - Hugely hyped due to the pairing of Kareena and Saif did not make this a box office hit but I felt it was decent despite some flaws and unbelievable( where unbelievable is not equal to jaw dropping! ). Watch it if you like Saif in particular and surprise surprise- Vivek Oberoi has acted well after maybe Company.

2. 500 days of summer - (3/5) - Super casting and a different sort of a flick where this guy is trying to get over his heart break .The order of the 500 days shown in the movie keeps the interest right up there. Some scenes are simply awesome and people can so easily connect to certain situations and will feel they have been there and done that. I never felt I would feel like beating up the girl(the absolutely stunning Zooey Deschanel) but after one particular scene towards the end, this feeling came through ! A nice positive ending ups the happiness quotient but only just. Worth a watch on a lazy Monday morning but if you're busy on a Monday, catch it on a Sunday and maybe you will give it a better rating...

3. Italian Job - (3.75/5) - Loved the movie. Period. This is a brief brief(haha) - A gang steals gold from Venice with the security folks literally watching the gold referred to as the "Italian Job"! (Can't be "Greek Job" or "American" right? ) Then one of the folks comes up with his own idea of stealing the whole thing and even succeeds till after a year, the gang reunites to steal it back with another "Italian Job", this time in America (and even this time, its not called "American Job"!) . I don't want to give away one more byte or even a bit about this as I want you to watch it! (Go to IMDB for more info in case you ain't convinced even now :P). On the downside, you would say that you have seen tons of Hollywood movies in a similar sort of genre but hey, this ain't bad. Another not so good thing I heard was that this is being remade in Hindi, maybe they will call that "Italian kaam"??!! Oh Oh Oh ....

4. Kramer vs Kramer( 4/5) - My level of respect for Dustin Hoffman went up through the roof after watching this heart rendering film.(earlier it was just at ground level :P) Hoffman is a complete workaholic ( atleast in the movie !) and totally ignores his family till one day, his wife leaves him and her son and goes away. The next 18 months is all about the father and son bonding which is delightfully portrayed by Hoffman and Justin Henry( the younger Kramer). The mom( the wonderfully restrained Merryl Streep) returns after this period and a court case follows for the custody of the kid. Kinda gets senti towards the end but I think its a must watch ! By the way, this has been copied already in Hindi and was made into an extra senti movie with the music premise... Remember Akele hum akele tum ?

5. Cinderella Man (4.25/5) - Super duper movie . Success follows failure. True life story of James Bradock. Set during the great depression period. Magical combo of Ron Howard and Russel Crowe with Renee Zellweger adding in her charm. Never loved boxing more . Never shouted so enthusiastically( in my mind, watched it late night) during any other movie climax ( so far atleast) urging away Russel Crowe to kick the other boxer's ass. A must watch. I would put this on the top 10 inspirational movies of all time - The other couple of movies that I think fit this bill are "October Sky" and "Lagaan". Let me not get started on those now! Need to find another 7 on this list but for now, have 3 irreplaceable ones already in here !

6. Mussanje Maatu (0.75/5) - The 0.75 is for the one song that is hummable. I bought this non-pirated VCD for 70 bux coz' it was majorly hyped( not sure if it was a hit). Maybe I made the mistake of watching this after Cinderella Man. The acting was just about passable but the movie seemed so desperate for success and was even a bit manipulative. Hope Sudeep and Ramya's next movie Just Maat Mathalli ain't this disappointing!

7. Color of Money ( 2.25/5) - Had huge expectations what with Paul Newman and Tom Cruise going all out. Story is about this Pool retired guy (Newman) whose hope is rekindled seeing the brilliance of Cruise and tries to teach him how to bet and win money while playing Pool. What follows is a roller coaster ride and somehow I couldn't connect as much or feel that happy about the complete movie . Directed by Martin Scorcese whose movies I generally louuuuuuuuuuuu but somehow, it just, just didn't happen this time around. The rating is for the excellent pool skills ( thousand times better than my Yahoo Pool skills :P ) and the tremendous acting.

More movies / masti soon and part 2 of my trip to follow....

A super fab trip - Part 1

When my dear friend Ankita announced her marriage dates in early Oct, I was sure I was going to attend her wedding but I never expected the trip to be as memorable and jhakaas as it turned out to be.
Dec 10 - An early morning Spice Jet flight to Delhi was just the beginning. Deepika( my other married friend in the gang) and I met at the airport (Deepthi couldn't make it unfortunately due to health issues). From check in till the time we landed in Delhi, we spoke non-stop , and I mean that coz' I so wanted to sleep during that flight but didn't get an iota of sleep. It was super fun and man, that was just the start.

We anticipated Delhi to be really cold and chilly but was very pleasant and soon we were on our way to Mayur Vihar to meet a couple of other friends in a Delhi auto .That guy didn't loot us even though we were not fluent with our hindi . We spent the afternoon and late evening going to a nearby market place in a cycle rickshaw!!!! Yes, they still do exist in huge numbers and unfortunately, that guy didn't allow me to ride it as I would have loved to do so. For someone from Bengaluru, seeing a cycle rickshaw gets the adrenalin pumping am sure! The small market had this awesome Gol Gappa place and there started our Gol Gappa session.... Was recommended to have "Sujiwale Golgappe" and had exactly that and it was marvellous :D .

Soon evening set in and we headed towards Ghaziabad- the venue of the wedding ( after the ladies took hazaar time to get dressed up as usual) . A couple of decent rooms were booked for us . After spending a few mins there, we went to the wedding venue and it was at its zangiest best. The bride's bro Anmol took us around all the unbelievable arrangements that were made. A huge table for mocktails , another huge table for just salads and fruits, a huge table for pickles initially caught our eye. Walking into the shady area(:D) , we found mouth watering Chaat being served and a sweet caterer and then a huge line full of awesome dishes. Our eating sessions were on and off from 8pm to midnight.... And we had Gol gappas here as well without fail!

Lets come to the main point though... Ankita dazzled completely in an almost unrecognisable getup and we all felt really good seeing her family so upbeat. Soon, the Baraat arrived and the guy was looking so calm and composed and well prepared or maybe he was nervous! Varmala followed soon after and people went to dance on the dance floor. I for one , totally suck at it but who cares ? Just jumped at the opportunity to dance(or awkwardly jump as I call it) my heart out. Ramita was kickass, all we tried to do was follow her. ( and we weren't so good at that). The bride , bridegroom and their entire family then joined on the dance floor and everything was really fantastic... The puja started at 2.30am and went on till 5am by which time I was dozing off sitting next to the mantap like many others !

I created my own record for staying awake for 25 hours at a time before falling asleep at 6am . The wedding was absolutely great but all that I wasn't aware of one single thing when I hit the sack! A couple of other friends represented us at the "Bidaai", something that I am not a big fan of . I mean its an event that completely freaks out the guy!

We headed back at 9am to Delhi after what was a great evening/night/early morning! More in my next post....

Movie of the year - Inglorious B*******

I belong to the breed of moviegoers who come out talking about the negatives of the movie and initially focus on all the not so good things of the movie and then look at the positives(if any). In most cases I find the first bucket completely outweighing the second . Rarely have I come across a scenario thats the reverse and today was one of those rare , extremely rare occasions .

Ladies and Gentlemen - Quentin Tarantino it is ,yet again, making a Tarantinoesque ( next word in Oxford ? ) movie titled "Inglorious B*******" and is it glorious or what ! I won't give away the story here as I would be doing gross injustice to anyone who wants to watch it and hey, every movie fan should and must watch magic - Tarantino style!

Like Kill Bill, this movie is in the form of chapters , like Reservoir dogs and Pulp fiction , this movie is taut and slick and I don't care whether the Oscars are awarded to this movie or not!

Seldom do I go to a night show, infact I remember doing this only a couple of times and seldom is the hall full and seldom does the audience start clapping very very enthusiastically at 12am after the movie is over. The stunned and "Oh my god" expression on the audience faces' once the lights came on spoke volumes about this experience.

You might wonder whether this is an English movie since there are subtitles throughout with german/french/italian , all being spoken at different times but the man keeps it all together leading to a fantastic climax. Acting is top notch with Brad Pitt's strong southern accent matching the Christoph Waltz' ( Hans') spine chilling act and the steely determination of Melanie Laurent. Screenplay is fabulous and the eye for detail is amazing.

All in all , more than Paisa Vasool. Fabulous movie. Fantastic acting. Terrific direction . Quentin Tarantino....

Iktara iktara...

Of all the new songs that have come out, the one song that has mesmerized me completely is this song "Iktara" sung by Kavita Seth for "Wake up Sid". Its in the sufi genre and her deep voice adds charm to this excellent composition by Amit Trivedi. ( remember Dev D ?) . You can catch a clip of that right here!

An award - WOW !!!

I have been out in the cold ( not weather wise ;) ) coz' of typhoid initially which kept me out throughout July ( celebrated my 25th birthday on bed!) and then been catching up with work and trying to put on weight! As I was getting out of the rough weather, the weather itself slowly turning out to be rough.... Its been raining crazily in Bangalore , great weather but loads of people falling sick coz' of it . God bless all...

The reason for me to write this entry is to express myself at having won an award for "Best Customer Delivery" in the last quarter's all hands that was held recently. This is what anyone does in Services - serve the customer - be it if you're in a Services company or a hotel waiter or a music director trying to churn out zingy tunes for the listener. To be awarded in this category was indeed very special.

The experience was interesting ...I was working from home that Monday afternoon when I dialed into the All hands call. 30 mins passed by with different sort of updates/ plans / what we have to do blah blah and then the awards section kicked in. Previously, I had been nominated in "Emerging Star" , "Innovation" categories and had gotten so used to not getting the award that this time as well when I saw my nomination , I was going to write to my manager asking me not to me for anything.

The director read out the nominations and then as the Power point slide slowly switched to the next slide and the director said " and the award goes to " , I didn't want to get disappointed like earlier times and as a result had no expectations . But then he said "Madhu M " and the slide had my name and why I had won the award . WO HO HO .It felt really kickass didn't feel out of the world but felt good!

Instantly had quite a few messages from my friends on the chat tool congratulating me and over emails. It felt wonderful . A unique compliment was from a friend who said his belief in the reward system was restored coz' someone like me had won this award.

Thank you! This probably means that I should work harder on the not so bright side of it (;) )...

June 15 2009

After an unusually long hiatus guess whose back - ah , its me again. I shall take an oath as well which is that i promise not to crack pjs in this blog.
Well, i just lost the passion to write for a few months and then suddenly, there was a sensation that made me write this. What have i done in the last few months ? I certainly haven't travelled which reminds me that I forgot to complete part 2 of that trip. Just to cut that short, while coming back, I missed my flight ( I think this was destiny!) and as a result got a night out at Paris( Blimey, Paris !!!) .
The only mistake I made was to go around with this annoying Indian guy who was freaking self obsessed and just wanted to be shot (may i add, with the camera!). Leaving that apart , I must say, Paris is probably the most beautiful place I have seen. Its rocking and it stands for all the wonderful things anyone can ever dream of - beautiful places( you can omit the under ground stations in this category!) , awesome buildings none better than the magical Eiffel , fantastic fashion sense , kickass subways, brilliant roadside eats and terrific weather ( atleast when i was there! it was 4degrees celsius!) . Though this trip also resulted in me missing my friend's engagement. Well, there has to be a compromise somewhere na ?
I was hooked onto the IPL the past month or so till it got over, supporting namma bevdaas till the end and they happily messed it up . Nadal lost which broke my heart and then Federer won and cried and was hailed the greatest ever . Come Wimbledon with no Nadal and we are in for a teary final yet again ! Nooooooo not again, Murray - come on !
Did i hear someone say "What else ??" Ok , let me think .
Oh yes, we also played a cricket tournament and lost all the games . This was even after we paid 8k from our pockets to play the tournament - Shame shame .
"and then ??"
Hmmm, after a long time, I somehow feel like reading a book or books and I just bought a book called "Six graves of munich" from the great Mario Puzo . Hope its a good read .
"dude, no movies? " - The only thing I have seen that is worth seeing is "Angels and demons" and this was infinitely better than Da vinci code and hey hey, have watched almost an entire season of the most amazing TV show ever - Crystal maze !! Do you all remember how awesome a show that was ? Solving interesting games and getting a super crystal at the end of it all ? Trust me ,its worth watching all over again..... And yes, Prison Break has ended . What happens at the end ? Its a happy ending and they killed the hero as a result of which there can't be sequels or new challenges in that show until the hero's kid grows up :D.

Last thing - India sucked bigtime last night at the world cup. I think they all need a big break. Fatigue has overtaken them and I have got tired of watching cricket ..... WImbledon, come fast....

A joke worth a Coke ?

Before i go ahead with my blog story of Copenhagen , I wanted to share a "pathetic" joke.

A friend and colleague Aditya and I were having some technical discussion and at the end of it , the following ensued:

Aditya: no more comments from u/
?
i thought u ll fire in a few more of them
me: am not a fire engine

Well , he wanted to punch me but I guess this is one of my better lines in the last several months . Hence blogging about it !

Just when I finished that, another friend said , "hey, am headed out" .

Me : "Unfortunate that you missed the goal " ( " Headed out " !) .

Ppl say that Pun is the cheapest form of humour and my level falls in that unfortunately !!

Copenhagen Visit

Sunday it was and i moved out early from my dear village and caught the first train available. The air was chilly and was snowing. (Well, 1 week and I was accustomed to it ! No longer surprised). The train journey was a bit chaotic owing to the fact that there were tons of people travelling with their luggages strewn all over. I made a mistake by going to the Copenhagen Airport coz' later I discovered I could have bought 2 tickets - one to go to the last stop in Sweden and then board another train to Copenhagen city. Blimey! This would have saved some time!

A big Latte, a to and fro ticket from the Copenhagen airport and a quick 10 min journey to the city on a Sunday was refreshing to say the least! Armed with jackets, a monkey cap and gloves, I stepped into the lovely city of Copenhagen. The atmosphere around reminded me of a really old city that takes pride in the architecture and designs. I had chalked out a plan about what I wanted to see at this place and to my dismay, found that one of the main tourist destinations was undergoing construction ! Well, it doesn't happen just in India :)

I have found this new found passion for walking along streets with a camera in my hand just to take a quick pic if I find anything interesting. Again , I was disappointed coz' most of the shops were closed coz' it was a Sunday. Hoping that my plan of going there wasn't all spoilt, I spoke to a couple of Arabs who have been there and they found it really funny that some guy was going around the city in that cold weather. But but but , they were really helpful and told me what would be open! I headed back to the train station and had 2 options - Find something more useful or get into a train and go to the next stop where there was apparently a museum!

I opted for the former and guess what ? The Taxi driver turned out to be an old Indian man. He was drunk though but did enough to drive me to Nyw Haven( wrong spelling but don't mind!) - from where a canal tour was about to start . I found this in the nick of time from the map and was obviously thrilled ! What better than to go on a Canal tour in a port city !

The canal tour had loads of tourists and the trip was fantastic! Saw various boats and ships that were used in their old times, saw their Opera house, the Little Mermaid , the Copper house, their flag, loads of museums and finally lovely churches - beautiful architecture all around. Believe me , it was freakin cold in the ship but hey, how often do I get to see all this!

To be continued

Älmhult(pronouncedElmhult) experience

Following are my thoughts/experiences in a place called Älmhult in Sweden . This first one is about my arrival in Älmhult.

Well,
What an eventful first day in Europe ! Well after what I thought was a really long flight to Paris (close to 11 hrs from Blore, have been in longer flights before but i guess it was after a long time and hence felt weird!) , we were not allowed to get down from the plane coz' ppl were busy trying to clean up the ground coz' it had snowed in Paris, the previous night. After what seemed like an eternally long delay, we got down and i saw one of the most confusing yet cool airports. Confusing coz' there are way too many terminals and cool , coz' the design of the airport is such that ppl landing out of flights and ppl chking in the same area .... Something that is uncommon.

The next flight was pretty much normal and short ...close to 2 hr flight to Copenhagen . Only interesting aspect was that I didn't get any veg food in the flight apart from some juice and bread and that added to the hunger. I thought the interesting parts of the journey were complete without knowing that the most interesting part was just about to start !

The next one was a 100 min train from Copenhagen to Almhult and man, was it an amazing train journey. The train kept going from one place to the other and even backtracked with instructions like "train will change track to this , train will change track to that " . I must have seen a couple of places atleast twice . Also, the speed of the train was something amazing to experience .Reminded me of Sydney but this was superior by a long way ( that was coz' of the distance ..this was inter-city whereas that was just within sydney). At 5.01pm ( yes , its 5.01 and not 5.02 or 5.00) , it landed there and i froze more than i ever did in my entire life.

The place was filled with snow.(pics to follow soon!) 1st time in my life had i seen actual snow all over and that too covering a real large area .....a super sight . After quickly wearing the new overcoat that i bought just before I left( thankfully) , i proceeded to figure out where this hotel was . At that time, i could hear familiar sound of tamil and found that our indian population came to my rescue here as well ! 3 wiproites who are working here for the same customer , talking in tamil walked past and that was enough for me to enquire about the hotel .

They gave me some instructions and asked me about my journey and why i was there etc and went away. As I walked on those slippery roads at one point of time, i completely lost balance and fell on the road to the joy/glee of a guy in the car who was on the . Quickly figured out that the funda is to walk with small,short steps without a trace of dragging your step and thankfully didnt slip again!

Was blissfully thankful to find the room and man, the room looked like a hostel room but very well furnished . This is surely the smallest hotel room i have ever stayed in .

There is a window and a door that leads me out to a common lawn shared by other rooms and guess what? Its freezing out there and its filled with snow ! The lady at the reception told me to wait for a few days to see 100% snow as this was a mixture of snow and rain .

Well, i then enquired what i should do about food and she said the restaurant was closed but i can use the microwave oven. MTR came to my rescue here and the couple of packets i had taken along with a kitkat made sure that i had enough to eat for now and wait for hopefully sunny skies on the morrow.

Will I stay alive to see another day?

After the recent blasts in Mumbai, in the last few days, I have not had too much guts to go out to places that are thronged all the time and I think thats' been the case with most people. Now, its a different thing that I would surely go probably after a few days, but somewhere in my mind ,there would be a lingering thought - Will I come back alive ? When I spoke about this to a few friends of mine , they seemed to agree without any qualms.
I happened to be in Hint, one of the popular pubs in the past few days after the blast, and guess what ? There were 6 people at 9 pm in the night and the attender said that they would close shop at 10pm and go out. This is the same freaking place where you can't step in on most of the days - weekdays/weekends.
After the first blast early this year, public was angry and they spoke about the "spirit" of the city. The Govt came in , consoled people , pledged to fight against terrorism . But hey, soon there was another blast in another city . Reactions - ? Ditto . People were still "asking"/"hoping" for better security. But after the blast on 26/11, people have had enough of that. Even the elite society has now woken up . The reactions have been strong and people are demanding security from the Govt or saying that they won't vote. With Elections just 5 months away, the Govt is rolling a few heads ( All this time , nothing of that sort happened), the Opposition is basking in the glory and hoping that this would be their primary election strategy.
On one of the news channels, I heard a politician say : "See what happened at the Parliament. They attacked it once and then we fortified it to such an extent that the same terrorists will have to think 10 times before they think of attacking Parliament." . A member of the aam janta, who was also there said : "If you can fortify the Parliament after just one attack(where no person died and remember there was a political consensus on that !!!), why can't you people fortify or atleast improve the security in the city". Time was up and the politician was stunned . Program ended.
I ain't saying that politicians shouldn't make money , let them make tons of it , but do your freaking job atleast ! The Ex-deputy chief minister of Maharashtra(he resigned this morning since his "conscience" told him last night to do so this morning ! Last evening he had said that there was no question of him resigning!!) said a couple of days back that a "Small thing" like this keeps happening in such big cities. The first thing I wanted to tell that incompetent fool - "If out of the 200 people ,even if 4-5 people were from your family, would you have said anything ? " Damn you !
Another thing thats been irritating me is the phrase "Hindu Terror". What the hell ? There is no such thing as Hindu terror or Muslim terror as terrorism doesn't have any religion . If religion was part of that , as part of the recent attacks, there wouldn't have been 5 muslims, all from the same family, wouldn't have been killed in the railway station. Ridiculous nonsense!

Every now and then , we have so many people dying due to natural causes like floods , tsunami and earthquakes and now , to add to that we have these bomb blasts day in and day out . At this point of time,I can't think of what inhabitants in Kashmir/ Naxal areas might be going through daily.
I think the only thing that has happened because of this recent terrorist attack / other attacks in the past few months , is to bring in more equality amongst people of different classes in terms of thought - People in Kashmir , in North East, in the metros , will all have the same thought - " Will I stay alive to see another day?"