School

Since the time I shifted to new place, I am observing and traveling with a new crowd around me.
I come across them as soon as I step out of my house.
While locking my door in the morning I see a bus coming towards our apartment to pick up a school going kid staying upstairs.

So, here is a boy, 3 or 4 years old (I guess he is a boy. A confusing personality. Very short hair but with the angelic face of girl. I even do not know the name to make out anything. But my inner senses convinced me to call him a boy).
So there he comes downstairs carrying a branded bag on his back and another bag in hand having his tiffin box and the water bottle. His father accompanying him to the bus and has to wave his hands till the bus takes a turn. I notice all other students in the bus, very well dressed and carrying stuffs equally good as described for the boy staying upstairs.
While moving towards my bus stop I come across some 3 or 4 such school buses having almost the same picture. It feels so good to see the better picture of the upcoming generation. A good education to all of them.
But the picture turns dark as soon as I reach my regular bus stop. Here I meet with another bunch of students. On my way to work there are 2-3 schools. I meet many of these school students at the stop. The situation here is in stark contradiction to one described earlier.
The students standing here hardly seem taking care of themselves. Irrespective being boy or girl, these students are shabby. After seeing for so many days, I roughly have an idea about their school uniforms. Rarely do I find any student in complete uniform. Many of them do not even have footwear. Among rest half go to school wearing broken slippers. The worst comes when I see their school bags. Not exactly but it’s still the beginning of the academic year and I am yet to find a single student whose school bag is in good condition and without any stitching. Many of the students carry with them what I would dare to call a school bag. Once I came across a boy whose school bag was torn more than half. I was wondering how all things were still inside that so-called bag while I could see all the corners and material inside it.

I feel these are the neglected students. No body care about them. It seems their parents are happy fulfilling the sole responsibility of admitting these kids in school.
May be they cannot afford to provide their kids with good facilities, but can’t they even care to stitch their bags? Can’t they ask their kids to at least wash their face before moving out of home.

All these results in the kind of treatment they receive in buses. The drivers and conductors treat them like the herd of animals and they have nothing to reply. This may be one situation; I wonder how they are treated in their respective schools, which do not even care of their uniforms and the condition of their school bags.I am worried what kind of future do these students have. Do they have any?

The Golden Compass

I wish to live in the world of fantasy. It excites me very much. I enjoy reading and viewing stories that takes you away from the reality but at the same time makes you believe what comes across you.
May then it be the journey of the ring in the trilogy “Lord of the rings” or the story of Harry potter. Even the Chronicles of Narnia amuse me a lot. I even enjoyed watching the movie “Bridge to Terabithia” which I doubt many of you must not have heard of.
I find myself lost while reading these books or viewing them. At some point I wish to be a part of that world.
Very recently I came across a new fantasy world. It was introduced to our world as “The Golden Compass”.
I watched the movie many months ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Since it was the first part of the trilogy, it left the story incomplete at the end of the movie.
The movie motivated me enough to get into the pages of the “The Northern Lights”, the first part of the trilogy.
Story deals with the journey of an innocent girl from her home place “Jordon College” to the extreme north.
As every fantasy introduces you a new set of concepts, which you need to understand and believe, this story also gives some new concepts.
Consider a life where you are not alone. You are connected to an animal who is your dæmon . You cannot be separate. If some thing happens to it you feel the pain. Animal that changes from bird to cat to cheetah and any other form till you are a kid and gains a fixed form for the adults.
With the introduction of a dæmon in your life, then you are taken to a journey where the girl “Lyra” has to fight against the act of oblation board experimenting to separate the kids from their dæmon . You experience it cruel and hate any such experiments.
Mean while you try to peep into future that Lyra is reading out of altheiometer.
You wish to praise “Iorek Byrnison” a Panserbjørne an armoured bear who agree to fight for Lyra till she achieve the victory or he the death.
You get to know about a new elementary particle (like electrons, protons) called dust. It does not react with any thing. But is found over humans, adults specially. Children are not or rarely affected.
You enjoy the moment while realizing the association of dust with the growing up of children and their dæmon stop changing their form once grown up.
You felt enchanted while knowing the connection of dust with the original sin.
You are thrilled to know that this dust can open a door to enter a new world.
You feel like reading Bible once where in is the origin of word “dust”.
You are taken up by a shock while reaching the last chapter of the book. Interestingly the movie “Golden compass” has not covered the last three chapters of the book. This leaves us a lot to explore in the book and this is where you receive the biggest shock.
At the end of the book, you are just confused as you were while reading the book.
All your predictions seem to falter as you reach the last few pages.
The story leaves you with no conclusions to present and also leaves with any choice than to hastily move on to next book.
I finished “The northern lights” the first novel of the trilogy “His dark materials” by Philip Pullmann and now heading for the second one “The Subtle Knife”.
May be you also try to travel through this fantasy-land!! What’s say?

Ground Breaking

Today morning we had a “Ground-breaking” ceremony for the new proposed fourteen-storied building of our organization. Unlike the usual ceremonies this one was rather informal.
We received an email just 20 minutes prior to the event and were told to gather at the proposed site. When we reached there, as expected the arrangements were still going on. But at the same time the atmosphere was rather calm and joyful. No sign of tension present on anybodies face. It was more like a “Ghar ka karykram”.
Later some sound started coming out of the speaker. I managed to hear “Hello, Chup, Hello, Chup.” I tried once again to hear what is announced and at the same time wondered why we are being asked to keep quiet (Chup = quiet) when no body is making noise. But after serious attention paid, learned that it was just a trial to check the sound saying “Hello, check, hello, check”.
Once the tasting was over some familiar words but in very strange voice and tone started falling on our ears. It was “Gayatri Mantra” and the “Hari Om” Jaap that we heard in foreign and very odd accent. It was a punishment to hear that. Soon the board of directors arrived at the place and we were relieved from the punishment.
For the first time I came across many new faces and realized that ours is a very big organization.
The program started and went through many talks giving varied information about the organization, its future plans and many other things. In the mean, the main event of ground breaking took place. A JCB was brought for the purpose, which was something different from what we normally see TV.
While we were getting bored hearing the talks, something happened that did disturbed us but was at the same time was rather amusing.
Our sitting arrangement was made in a pandal that was supported by heavy bamboos. In the beginning it was all fine but as time passed wind start blowing around and its speed slowly went on growing. Suddenly I found some kind of moment near me. Initially I did not understood but soon I realized that the bamboo that was supporting the pandal was almost two feets above the ground!
I was looking at the bamboo and every body around was looking at me. It was a situation full of surprise, tension (whether now the pandal will fall down!) thrill and being funny. As the wind blow faded for a while the bamboo came down to its original position. It was then forgotten and everybody returned to the talk.
But once again a big blow of wind came and to every bodies surprise the bamboo this time went up too high, crossed the two rows of chairs ahead (nobody seated in their) of us and had almost hit the person in the third when I almost jumped and caught hold of bamboo and brought it back to its position. Everybody around started looking at me, do not know if I was looking funny or was it a respectful look for saving one’s life. The wind was now blowing very fast and sooner not just me one more person had to keep the bamboo at its place. Later I realized its not just the bamboo next to me but every alternate bamboo was floating in air but since I was quite in center of the pandal and moreover I had just saved one life, all the eyes were set on me.
Soon all the drama was over. With heavy discussions not on the ground-breaking ceremony but on the floating bamboos we headed towards the much necessary (after all this exercise) refreshment counter.

Updates

Some recent updates I would like to add here:

• Finally on Saturday, long awaited installation of linux on my system is done. It was a really long wait. Lot of technical difficulties had to be crossed to see this day. Further, the key software also got easily installed that had made my boss to wait for almost a year or more. So, friends, now I will be spending more time “working” on linux and might find less time for rest of things including blogging.
• This incident also took place on the very same day. I had an uninvited guest at my home. I found a lizard wandering around. I confronted and asked,
  “ You haven’t taken prior permission to enter in my home and so you will have to leave immediately”.
  But the lizard was adamant. It gave no response to my words.
  Leter I kept another proposal
  “Look, may be you can stay but then do you agree to share the rent!!!”
  The lizard went more adamant and simply turned its face.
  It came to my nerves and I challenged the lizard “Its either you or me now”
  And then I had my weapon in hand “the broomstick”.
  But since I am very nice at heart, I just decided to threaten the lizard by hitting the ground some 15 cms ahead of it.
  Unfortunately, what happened then was not convincing.
  The lizard sensing the change in my nature decided to run away and unfortunately took the same path where I planned to hit the ground.
  It had almost crossed the point of strike but could not cross over enough to save its tail.
  In a moment the tail separated from the body. The lizard ran away in some other corner. I could not follow it since something made me stop there itself.
  I had only heard of it before but I saw it happening for the first time in front of my eyes.
  Once detached the lizard’s tail was wriggling like an earthworm on the floor. I just could not understand what is happening for a moment.
  When I came to senses, I decided to make a video of the same, but damn it my all the camera cells were burnt out. I could have used the camera of my cell-phone.
  But since this idea struck me while writing this post, so it was not possible.
  This incidence has now triggered my scientific mind to find out the root cause as you must be aware those scientists don’t believe in what they hear but believes in what they realize themselves!!
  I am still wondering did I kill a life since the tail stopped wriggling after some time? Do you have any answer?
• My next update is regarding my attempts to get Tata Sky installed at my house.
  As you know I am trying hard to get it installed so as to be able to watch Olympics. But no success as yet.
  To get Tata sky activated you have to call on a number given on the net and get it activated. Once activation is done, the people associated to Tata-sky personally come to your house and install it.
  My problem is my call is not getting picked up! I follow all the instructions; I sequentially press 2, 1 and then 3 as asked to finally reach to a point where I can talk to somebody who would help me to install it.
  But for whatever time you wait, you just keep listening a melodious (its not any more) music that keeps going on for endless time.
  Some change to this routine music listening happened on Sunday when in between this melodious music, I was told how I to subscribe ten sports by just sending one SMS.
  I don’t mind subscribing any damn channel but first let me get this Tatasky installed!!
• This Sunday I finally came face to face with Batman. I managed to watch “The dark knight”. No more words about the movie here since it deserve a separate post. Hopefully I will soon come up with another post dedicated to “ ‘The Dark Knight’ and the hunting”.
• Last but not the least, few hours ago I was overjoyed with the news that India has finally made it to the Gold medal. Abhinav Bindra scored 700.5 to win the gold medal in 10m shooting while the rest two managed 699.9 and 699.7. I do not how these odd numbers with one crossing 700 and others touching 700 appeared. But that does not matter much. Abhinav almost snatched the gold from Finland’s Henri by performing better in the very last set. I feel a bit sorry about China’s Zu Kinan, the winner of Athens Olympic. His only aim was to be a champion in his very own land, but ultimately had to satisfy with the silver.

Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni

A mascot in Olympics has been a old tradition which started long back in 1972 Munich olympics. The mascots help to bring up the spirit of olympics, the sportsmanship. They try to introduce rest of the world to a small element of history of the host nation.
2004 Athens olympics had the official mascots as Athena and Phevos, the siblings. This year at the Beijing Olympics Fuwa is selected as the official mascot. I found the story behind present mascot very interesting which made me write this post.
Fuwa literally means good luck dolls.Fuwa under the name has five members suggesting different charachteristics associated with them. They are presented in colors similar to the five colors of the olympic rings. They also represent four of the china’s most popular animals - the Fish, the Panda, the Tibetan Antelope, the Swallow -- and the Olympic Flame.
Most interesting story is about the names given to these mascots. They are given a rhyming two-syllable name. Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow. When these names are put together, it can be read as “Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni” that means "Welcome to Beijing".
Well there are many more meanings associated with these mascots. I wrote about the things I found most interesting about them. There is lot more to read and know about them which you can find this link.
http://en.beijing2008.cn/spirit/beijing2008/graphic/n214068254.shtml

Beijing 2008 Olympics

Finally today the much awaited (for me at least) Olympics will shoot off.
I am very excited about it but at the same time feel sorry that I might not get a chance to watch any of the games. I still haven’t sorted out the problem of TV connection.
Anyway, I hope this time India would show better performance over the 2004 Olympics. In 2004 we won a silver medal in Double trap competition with a great performance down by Lt. Col. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.
Will we improve our position this time?
Need to do some analysis for that.
But hold on, to analyze, we need to know all the games we are participating in and all the players representing India.
Do we know our participants by name at least or may be the total count!!!
I doubt. I doubt how many of us would have tried to dig out this information from any medium available?
I tried to search this information and landed up at this link http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_indian_players_are_participating_in_2008_olympics
Not a single answer to this question!
Does anybody know this answer? Hello!!
Is there any official website that gives this information?
I can easily find the names of all the players playing in final eleven of third test match against Srilanka and even the names of players selected for the upcoming Champions trophy, even in local newspapers forget the internet and national level newspapers. And here I am struggling to know the strength we are sending to fight for 302 gold medals in 28 different events.
Leaving this aspect behind let me compile what all I could gather about our preparations for Olympics
§ I heard about Indian Olympic Association Chairman saying not to expect anything from present Olympic team. As a justification it was added that they are preparing for the upcoming Asian and next Olympic games. I just wonder what they were then doing since last Olympics? May be similar comment we will hear during coming Asian games and also during next Olympics! If Chairman himself is so pessimistic what say about people. I would have expected him giving some words that will fill our players with positive attitude.
§ Apart from this other news is that we failed to qualify for hockey.Men’s as well as Women’s. So, no “Chak de” this time.
§ Yesterday we got another jolt with Monica Devi, one of the weight lifters failing the dope test.
§ We do have hopes of showing some performance in Archery, Shooting and Boxing though I am not aware of who all are the participants there.
§ One more hope resides with the swimmer Veer Dhawal Khade who is consistently performing well.
§ The tennis duo Bhupati and Paes are again together, but I am doubtful if this reunion will prove any fruitful.
§ I would personally like to see some good results in Badminton.
That’s all is the information I carry related to Olympics and India’s participation in it. Though we never performed well in Olympics in recent years (once the charisma of Hockey was over) but still their used to be big enthusiasm in people about Olympics. But this year, I hear nobody discussing a single word on Olympics. Even doubt if anybody is aware about today’s Inauguration.
Hope for the best and wish our players good luck to perform the best they can perform!!!

P.S. Will anybody help me knowing the Indian players!

Oh hell!! these cell phones

We have a lady here who has a ring tone of old telephones. Everyday it rings at least 10 times, every time extended till the maximum possible duration. This lady has a tendency to speak quite loudly and in last months we all sitting on the other side of her desk (where she can’t notice us) laugh heartily knowing a priory all the details of the conversation and reciting it parallel.
There are two other people who keep receiving and making calls every now and then. I still wonder what business they are in which makes this possible.
The worst thing is I am surrounded on three sides by girls and ladies who show great stamina in conversing for long intervals worth counting in hours and not minutes or seconds.

Today morning one of the person left his mobile in the office and it started ringing. Not once, not twice but it received six continuous calls. It seems the cell was of very upgraded version since people sitting beside him tried to put it off, silent and even tried answer the call but all efforts went in vain. We were forced to listen that sweet musical tune for a long timeNo wonder when the fellow returned all the eyes were set on him and his cell went silent forever since then.
Just now after getting too much irritated with frequent cell tunes, I decided to go to my boss and discuss this issue and make some stringent rules.
I went near him and was about to hit his desk, when his phone started ringing!!!!!!

Why always the Asians at receiving end?

Recent news has perturbed me a bit.
Just have a look at these:
§ Australian and South African cricket players not enthusiastic to participate in the Champion’s trophy to be held in Pakistan in September in spite of heavy security. Not to forget that south Africa is one of the countries with highest crime rate.
§ A security committee from Australia will visit India prior to the test series to be held soon in India. Based on the report given by this committee will Australia decide if their team should visit India or not. These cautionary measures are taken considering the recent bomb blasts held in Bangalore and Ahmedabad. One of the test match is to be held in Bangalore.
§ Many of the players, athletes are planning not to participate in Beijing Olympics that will soon be start in August 08. The reason behind this is not political but the high level of pollution in Beijing. These athletes will rethink about their participation if china could bring sown this pollution level. To avoid any embarrassing situation China has to stop many industries from working in coming month and has to bring up some funny laws like giving permission to vehicles with odd and even numbers on alternate days.
These are some of recently appeared news items. But if we try to search, we can always come up with a situation where some Asian country is made to make some special arrangements, few adjustments so as to make conditions acceptable to Europeans or Australians or last but not the least the Americans.
For that reason you can also add the names of Iran, Iraq or even Korea in the list as other suffered Asian country.
Though the days are over when a country used to be a slave or a colony of a European country. But still the tendency of those countries to rule Asians is not gone. They always manage to make us do what they want. They always make us stand at the receiving end. In spite of the blunders made, European countries like Germany or Italy never stand on this end.
At the same time we Asians are equally responsible for this situation. We always try to follow their path and thus land in their trap. There never is a way that an Asian country shows to the rest of the world. May be for an exception we can mention the name of Japan, the country of rising sun, which has set its own standards and make these master countries stand at the same platform as them. And possibly that is the reason why the Japanese athletes could threaten the neighboring Chinese of wearing special masks during whole of their stay in Beijing.
I feel our recent N-deal is also a similar kind of adjustment that will allow we Indians to stand a bit higher than other Asians but again at a lower position than these masters.
May the day soon arrive when we live with our own rules !

Friendship day

Sunday, August 03 was celebrated as “Friendship day”.
I do not remember before this I ever celebrated this day. But yesterday, unknowingly I did.
The previous day I had spent time in shifting to a new location. Of course it was tiring and at the end of the day what all I planned was to lie down on bed like a dead man. But Mr. D who helped me in shifting put this proposal to accompany him for a dirt track cycle race. I told him yes initially but then repented a bit since we had leave for the racing spot at early 6.00 o’clock.
So as planned I was ready by six and was in his car heading towards the site of competition. Unfortunately it was the first time for the organizers and so as expected start of the race was delayed till 9.00 o’clock.
Among all the competitors, my friend was the only lucky person to have somebody their cheering him up. I feel I managed to do something unintentionally for my friend. I am not sure if my presence did mattered at all, but I could witness my friend’s joy for standing second in his first ever cycle race.
I think Mr. D also decided to keep up with the friendship day’s motto and in spite of being so tired after cycling 52 kms on those dirt tracks, accompanied me in my personal work.
Once done with the race we headed towards one of the famous malls to do some shopping. This shopping was not intended for me but for my friend Mr. R who was some 1000 kms away from me. We finished the said shopping and returned home.
At home I received a call. I came across a question full of surprises that I got up so early, went out with almost no break fast done with the lunch delayed till late after noon, further went to a mall and did shopping for some body else with out giving a single thought to do some shopping for self?
This made me think if I at all gained anything out of today’s all expeditions!!!
Yes, I gained a lot today
I feel, for the first time ever, I celebrated the “Friendship day”.
Whole of the day, I did not forwarded even a single already forwarded friendship SMS to any body. I did not call any body to wish “Happy friendship day”. I even did not tie the friendship band to anybody’s wrist, but instead I spent whole of the day in doing some thing for my friends, which was totally unintentional.
I feel that should be the spirit behind this “Friendship day”. If we can keep up with this spirit then we won’t require any specific day to justify our friendship but instead we can then turn every day in to a “Friendship day”.

Confessions

Today I want to make a confession here.

I feel so sorry to say but this is a truth that I fail to understand the Humor in English.

For that matter may be it is the literature or even a play.

I am writing these words out of my recent experiences on either of the criteria.

I finished reading the fourth part of “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian”. I was then in search of a new interesting book to read. The search was on and in the mean time, I heard a lot about a big name in English literature, P.G. Wodehouse, a comic novelist who sort of ruled the world for almost 70 years and was called “English literature's performing flea”. Not one or two, but almost 4-5 people told me about him in a very short span of time. And then it so happened that one my friend finished reading one of his storybook “Right ho, Jeeves”. I got drifted by the way he used to talk about the book and his singularly laughs thinking about some incident from the book. I asked him if I could borrow the book. He agreed and gave me the book.
I reached home and started reading books. The book has nearly 240 pages. I was reading it as if there is no tomorrow. Five pages finished, then ten pages. Slowly the count reached over thirty pages. And oh my god, I still haven’t laughed a single time. I called off for the day.

Next day I continued reading the book but had the experience similar to previous day. No humor encountered. Still with a small ray of hope I continued reading the book and soon realized that I have finished the book, but still I did not come across any incident that will make me laugh.

At the end of reading the whole book what all I could conclude was the story was more of a kind of a joke told to you by a three or year old kid, who keeps telling you the joke for almost half an hour and after that when he conclude the jokes (where you can not figure out the end of joke) you are supposed to laugh as if you have really enjoyed and the joke was really funny.

The story was so elaborate, so explanative, and so full of minute details that it just took away all the fun out of the incidents to be happened and is supposed to be funny. It just could not amuse me. So, my words to Mr. Wodehouse are “ Sorry Mr. Wodehouse you failed to make me laugh”.

Another experience is about this TV play, which is actually is very famous among youngs. It’s all about a bunch of friends with name of the serial also as “Friends”.

The serial does not have any storyline as such but instead have short stories with the humor hidden in the conversations made by the members of this friend circle that includes three boys and three girls, if I am not wrong on the count. And here is the problem with me. I just could not understand this humor in their conversation. I plainly went through the first four episodes. May be it is too early to make any comments on this, since I have hardly been through only four episodes of Season-I. Though these four episodes haven’t succeeded in bring up that one must needed smile (forget a big laugh) on my face, but still looking forward to other remaining episodes to make it happen.

Just wish me luck or better wish luck to these “Friends” to succeed in their expected task.

The compliment, the power and the responsibility

Not every day ends on such a good note. And if it is a Friday, then nothing like it.
The day started with routine business. Some work, a bit mail checking followed by a cup of coffee. Some more work, some more e-mailing, a quick discussion, a compulsary followed up with a cup of tea. And there, we are in the lunch break.
Atmosphere for the story of the day start building up after this very lunch break. It’s Friday, second one in fortnight, the day when the IPR team visits every lab and reviews lab notebooks of the people working in the lab.
When I returned from Lunch, I found almost every single person in his/her seat (a usual picture on alternate Fridays) busy completing his/her lab notebook. Well, I never needed to worry about such last minute completions. Every body knows Dr. Kaustubh is very much punctual about time.
The time arrived when the IPR team was in our office. The team consisted of three people, two boys and a girl. The girl (Ms. R) falls under the category of not great, but still a beautiful girl. After checking two other notebooks, she arrived at my desk. I had already kept opened (unlike others!!) the pages in the notebook to be reviewed. The sole purpose behind all this was to make my as well her life easy and to save time (time is money).
Ms. R went through all the pages two-three times and then suddenly stopped with no expression on her face. And then in not so very sweet voice said
“I have to tell you something”.
Now these words took me back for a fraction of seconds. Since I am a new entry in the organization, I am still not confident with the proceedings in the organization, and so I expected some new suggestions coming my way.
I said “ Yes, anything wrong!!”
Ms. R “ You have a very beautiful handwriting”
Flattered.
Speechless for few moments, some thing sweet landing on ears, although the voice was not.
I just managed to say “Thank you”. Dr. Kaustubh knows how to keep emotions in control.
It’s first time I received a compliment for my handwriting from some unknown person. This made me happy.
I went home being happy. But that’s not the end. It later triggered a series of thoughts in my mind. It also brought another feeling in my mind.
I remember Spiderman’s uncle telling him “power always come with a sense of responsibility”.
Those words then struck my mind then.
So, now here onwards whenever Ms. R will come to review my notebook, she would expect similar handwriting. May be next time she will not praise it, but if it is not up to the mark, there is a big possibility she may comment alternatively. So, it may happen that I would start concentrating more on the quality of the handwriting but in the process possibly the quality of the real matter to put in may degrade!!!!

Jallosh

Aaha!! Here’s a weekend. A Long awaited one.
It reminds me of one of the weekend Saturday I spent with hundreds of maharashtrians, met outside maharashtra, in Maharashtra Mandal, Bangalore.
With the help of Mr. R who now has shifted to Pune, I had a chance to attend an event “Jallosh - 08” organized by “Gathi-Bheti” group located in Bangalore.
The day started with an early wake up call at 5.15 a.m. Bit unusual since in last many days I have not opened my eyes before 7.00 o’clock. I was ready by 6.00 and was on the bus by 6.15. Had to change 3 buses before reaching Mr. R’s house in Bangalore, where Mrs. R. joined me. We still had to collect our tickets for the event. Mrs. R’s friend had warned her to reach the Maharashtra Mandal in Gandhinagar near Majestic by 9.00 o’clock other wise he will not give us the tickets (although the program started at 10.00 !!!). We made it to the destination much before time. Once reached there we came to know that only tea/coffee had been arranged. Mrs. R prompted me that last time they served the break fast!!!! So, we were left no option then to take a cup of coffee and settle down in our seats. The program started only by 10.00 making us seat idly for a long time.
Once the chief guest arrived, the program shoot off with the usual Deep Prajavalan Karyakram. The two coordinators arrived on the podium, introducing their group “Gathi-Bheti” with their Ghosh-wakya “Aamhi kahihi karto” landing on our ears after every third line in the introduction. But all in all it was a good introduction drifting us in to the feeling of “Aamhi kahihi karto” literally meaning “ we do anything”.
I don’t exactly remember, but if I am right, it was followed by “powada”, a kind of song sung at the top of the voice, loudly to stress a point, mostly representing evidence of important historical events. But it has also been successfully used to spread the words of social cause.
A funny conversation between two coordinators then followed with one of them acting a drunkard. A competition between them with one saying beautiful, philosophical, romantic poems, while another (drunkard) manipulating the same poems with a sense of alcoholism in it. The tussle between Charolya (4 liner poems) with Darolya (same poems with essence of alcohol) was rather amusing.
A small play (called Ekankika) was then presented about a person’s time out in an asylum brought there by mistake. A very poor attempt to make people laugh was then made by 4 girls preaching the lessons of time management in the form of Pravachan. I think the only program in the whole set, which received clapping much before it finished (do I need to write the very intentions of early clapping). Last session before lunch was a musical treat with songs from different periods of marathi cinema sung by different vocalists.
After the musical treat was the time for real treat - the maharashtrian food. I was dying to have it since it has a long time I have had good food. The lunch was fantastic with Shrikhanda as the sweet dish. Guess what!! now a days I find myself getting more and more inclined towards Shrikhanda !!!! Can you help me reason out why is that so!!!! Anyway, the food was good and I was happy.
While settling down back in the hall, we realized it’s getting more humid and sweaty. A probable rain in the evening was knocking at the door. With all the doors closed and curtains down, the heat grew more and more. To add to it, a presentation giving details of Mahrashtra Mandal right from the history of its making to its new ambitions was presented. It was funny and a meager attempt to impress people by reading out what all was written on the slide. On top of it, most of the presentation slides were in English!! In the mean time I realized rain has started pouring down the cloud. It was lurching me to come out of that boring atmosphere and get drenched in the rain. But as you all know me very well, I have a great control on my mind and so nothing happened.
Then came the relief in the form the chief guest, Shri Dilip Prabhavalkar walking up the stage. Interaction with him in the form of interview was arranged with a lady asking questions to the guest regarding all different characters played by him as part of play, TV serials and then the big screen. I am not sure if this is what his famous “Mukhavate aani Chehere” is all about or was it just a modified version to be accommodated in the program. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because it finally succeeded in entertaining us to the fullest. The clip he showed from his very old TV serial Chiman rao was too hilarious. At one point I was about to loose my conscious with all the good food taken in some times back to come out. I realized at times that I was gasping for air with whole of the time space occupied by the laugh riot. It was sensational. He then performed and presented many others of his characters on stage. I appreciate them all but the one which took me by surprise was the make over he did to himself infront of us with minor additions to his normal face. With in few minutes Mr. Prabhavalkar was changed to a 90 years old Krishnaji rao!!! What ever he then presented there touched the heart of every soul in the hall. In very few words he brought us face to face with the problems faced by an old age person. I think this was the biggest treat I received that day.
Hold on!!! But this was not the end. Picture abhi baki hai mere dost. The program was yet to finish. This great performance by Shri Prabhavalkar was followed by a classical dance on song Breatheless. I feel people around found it a very good concept, but I was not much amused, since I had seen a similar performance by a guy, done only few days back on Boogie Woogie. Another dance performance on a recent famous song “kombadi” then followed. It was an ok performance, but gained once more shout and so re-performed. The last two performances actually gave me a feeling of attending a college gathering.
In the mean time, heavily pouring rain had stopped and with the end of the program, we were also free altogether to move back to home.
Grabbing the much awaited and urgently required cup of tea out of the big crowd, we made our way out in search of an auto.

Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na

With lots of expectations and enthusiasm yesterday I went to watch “Jane tu ya Jane na”.
My Friend Rama who recently left Bangalore to join some MBA course had turned back for 2 days off.
I met him in the afternoon at the lunch session where we decided to make a go on this very much-praised movie.
So there we were off for the evening show of 19.15 hrs. He was stuck with some of his old company friends and took a bit long then expected to come and pick me up. It seemed that with the heavy traffic system of bangalore we might either miss the movie being not able to get the tickets (the movie being going very famous was the reason of this fear) or else would miss the beginning.
Finally we were there at 5 past 7 to see a small Q of 4 people standing with me being the fifth one. Also relieving was the fact that the show was scheduled at 7.30 p.m.
With 25 mins. to spare we planned to have a quick dinner at the Bhagini restaurant just in front of the Innovative multiplex. It was necessary since the movie would end by 22.00 hrs by which time almost all the restaurants of Bangalore are closed!!!!
After a heavy dinner we were seated in our respective places just in time and the movie started.
First shot: a bunch of cool guys and gals shrieking song “Jane tu ya jane na” in a car to airport (chill down!!! no offence, totally acceptable being the first scene of movie) shifting to discussion among friends and a newcomer in the group (as a date of somebody in the group) that moves on story telling of a particular love story. It then converts to a dream with a horse riding and a table with a desktop and suddenly a phone ringing, bringing us out of dream to reality with hero (jay) consoling her friend Myaw (don’t remember actual name) who is unhappy since her cat is not well and finally died, followed by a mourning meeting with every body praying that the cats soul gets the peace, cut to a song Kabhi kabhi (a high pitch nasel attempt, reminding Himesh Reshamiya, who possibly would have done better job with his oooohs and aaaaahs) to bring smile back on girls face. Whole of the college then attempts their skill to bring back that just one smile. (Just wonder why were the professors and other non- teaching staffs were not involved in this exercise). Just remind me of the rubbish college scenes from the old famous (once again) movie Kuch kuch hota hai (I guess that the name of movie with Shahrukh, Rani and Kajol. Forgive my ignorance if I am wrong).
I just wonder why some particular person is important for whole of the college!!! I don’t remember anybody from my college being so popular and so important for the college.
The exercise continues further and hell I suddenly realize this is a horrible movie. How can somebody enjoy such a crap movie.
I cannot write about the further events in the movie since they go on becoming more and more difficult to digest. It just reminds me of my earlier experience of watching movies like Bombay to Bangkok and Tashan!!!!!! This movie ranks third (or may be competing for second position with Tashan) in this list.
Few other notes and queries about the movie
Imran khan, the hero of the movie I found has a tinch of Aamir khan and Hrithik Roshan. The looks ofcourse go close to Aamir, a bit of acting skills also but the dialogue delivery and body language resembles Hrithik a lot. I realized it first in the scene where he was supposed to fight to some guy who called him “Fattu” in front of myaw. Since then I started thinking whom does he resemble, but no success. The answer suddenly clicked me while coming out of the theatre.
But, all in all, still his acting skills are good and I would prefer to watch his movies if it comes to opt between some of his movie or of Abhishek Bachhan.
There were no expectations from Jenelia (Myaw) and soon it turn true when she opened her mouth to utter her initial words in the movie. Possibly her accent went acceptable with the fact that her brother also spoke with similar accent giving a hint that whole family might be speaking this way.
Whole movie I was wondering what is the occupation of Jay’s mother which makes her run behind Inspector Waghmare. Was it all to add some spice to the movie hinting to possible revenge attempt by Inspector on Jay in the later part of movie!!! Paresh Rawal here did ok job but then totally disappointed by uttering words “re baba” in his typical “Ganapatrao Apte character” tone of Herapheri.
The characters of Nasiruddin Shah, Sohail khan and Arbaz khan were humorous but considering other events happening in the movie I had lost interest and could not enjoy them. I again wonder how suddenly in the jail Jay realized that the two khans are his beloved Bhalu and Bhagira bhaiyya. No such explanation in earlier part of movie that he has two brothers with such names!!!
Nasiruddin’s portrait scenes remind me more of Hogwarts school of magic.
Well the list can go a way long but will stop criticizing movie with last one query. When Jay was in jail, he was requesting Inspector to allow him to make one call to myaw, which was denied. I just wonder why he did not tried the same when he was allowed to move out the jail!!!! Considering “always logical” manner of Aamir khan, this seems to me a stupid lacunae. Agree movie would not have end in that case with a ‘fantastic’ climax, but may be he should have shown making one or two failed attempts, then saying “Damn it” and then riding the horse!!!
Its not a criticism now but again a query. What would have happened if Myaw had found boyfriend before Jay found his girl friend. I guess, looking at their characters, things would have been different and might the story have ended on different note.
Enough of criticism, now few things I appreciate in the movie.
First and foremost thing, the movie is well made. The direction was very clear with no lacunae, and queries like how this happened? What happened to that? Except at the end showing Mr. Bogot. I am unaware if any humor or reference is hidden in it.
The movie was clean having no dialogues with double meaning.
“pappu can’t dance” song went well. Did enjoyed the beats (Only continuous 4-5 amusing minutes in the whole movie).
Few scenes I liked in the movie include
The uneasiness in the scene where Jay wants to get down of the car with his girl friend but Myaw insists he should stay and move on with her in the car.
The siblings conversation pertaining to the loneliness experienced and lived by Myaw’s brother.
Inspectors reporting on walkie-talkie informing that the terrorist has been arrested who is shouting “Myaw, Myaw” loudly and further sings the song “Jane tu ya Jane na”.
Last but not the least, I feel the movie went famous only because of the fact that it is connected to Aamir Khan. People expected a logical and a very well made movie from Aamir’s group. Though these expectations might have been fulfilled to certain extent but still Aamir’s magic is not seen anywhere (atleast to me).
I think I must stop writing now my comments on this movie now. Words already written are capable enough to ruin me. Guess what, I am forwarding these comments to my fiancée who enjoyed the movie the most.
May be, hereafter, I will be stated as an example to the saying “Aapne hi paun pe kulhadi mar lena”.

Nightmare come true - II

The story said earlier continued with lot of anxiousness for next 24 hrs.
As it was suggested I sent a mail to the manager requesting him to help me sorting out the problem.
There was nothing I was able to do in the case and so I end my day with a note to accept whatever comes next. Whether I get my money back or not, either case acceptable.
Saturday morning I checked my mail box just to see a reply from the bank saying they can not take care of my request and asked me to check with my branch.
So, a sad start to the week end.
Since further things I was able to do monday, so, I gave up all thoughts and moved out to visit Bannerghatta National Park.

More details about Bannerghatta National Park in some other post.
While returning home back at around 5.00 p.m. in the bus, I received a SMS from the bank saying the money has been deposited back to my account!!!
phew!!!
thats the end of my anxiety.
wanted to jump in the bus but gave up the plan since the bus was already jumping a lot.

Learnt a lot from all these proceedings and have decided to be more careful ( which I am not at all) atleast regarding money matters!!!

Nightmare come true

I made a mistake today, (seems a blunder at the moment) that too after keeping in mind not to commit it.
Since the time I started using internet banking I started getting nightmares of transferring money to an unknown account.
I had to transfer some money to one account. I already have taken experience of using money transfer facility available in internet banking. So this time I was bit relaxed with the fact that I am aware of all the processes I need to go through to transfer money. And believe me I actually did not do wrong myself on carrying out any step. But still the mistake has been made.
Today morning I transferred money to an account in corporation bank. The recipient had sent me the account number through mail. Few other details were also provided. And all these details were written in mail with a serial number allotted for every information.
Like 1. Name : --- 2. Account no. XXXYYXU4523. MICR no. ---------
Now if you don’t read it carefully and immediately start putting this provided information to create payee’s account, then you are in trouble. Same thing happened with me.
If you watch closely there is a space between the information for the name and the next serial number 2, but could you find any space between account number data and the serial number 3!!!!!
No!!!
That is where I went wrong.
I put the account number along with 3.
Surprisingly the transaction succeeded.
Bu when the recipient told me she has not received the money, I sensed the trouble. I cross- checked the account number by sending her the sms I received from my bank. Things then started getting clear. The account number actually ends at 2 and 3 is the next serial number meant for MICR no.
I actually saw stars in front of my eyes (they are still there). The recipient called the corporation bank and enquired. She told me that no account with the number I provided exist and so my money will revert back to my account. I oculd not see any such thing happening. I went downstairs and asked in my bank. There I came to know that I need to write an email to the manager informing what has happened after which with in 7 working days the money will be deposited back to my account.
I do not know if at all it will be deposited back in my account. Only thing I can do is pray god to make my life easy by depositing it back without any more hassles and not making me run around for getting it done.
But I just wonder how on earth my night mare has come true.
PS: I would request every one using computer to take some efforts on formatting there letters so as to avoid any such hassles. This was just a mistake but it may creat blunders too.
I was struggling to find a story to post and see how I ended up with a horrible one.

Night time strolling

Yesterday it was a horrible night for me. Though I am used to such nights now days, but it reached the limit yesterday.
There are lots of stray dogs in my surrounding. Not totally stray dogs, but the ones familiar to the residents of the place, still free to move around.
There is this one dog (female) (I think I can call it a bitch), which is at the root of all the trouble.
It has a very bad habit and that is the cause of my trouble.
It starts barking at the very odd hours of night and kept on doing so till the time you don’t wake up and loose your sleep.
It makes you come down on the street and search for some thing that you can throw at it and make way for a safer sleep.
No doubt the dog is otherwise very innocent (looks) in daytime, and don’t do prolonged barking at night with any malicious reason.
Yesterday, the dog was at its best and I had the worst of the nights.
Yesterday night witnessed a record breaking 7 hrs 45 minutes prolonged barking that started at 10.30 p.m. and continued till morning 6.15 A.M and just stopped 15 minutes prior to my time to wake up.
I was on the street at all the odd hours of night making a feeble attempt to make the dog go away so as to get a peaceful sleep for rest of the time available.
But all efforts went in vain. The dog and adamant and had probably made a firm decision to brake all its earlier records.
I was wondering was it only me who was troubled by the dog and how all rest of the people living there are not troubled, because I did not found any body else than the dog and myself moving around at those odd hours.
One more thing that made me think is what happens to all those stones, which we find lying on the roads in the daytimes. At that crisis time when I desperately wanted their help, none of them were insight!!!!
I just find me fortunate that I am staying at the ground floor. This reduced my efforts to just come out of house, search for a stone and then try to hit it in the direction of dog.
What would have happened if I had been staying at the second, third or higher floors!!!
(I am ignoring the fact that the trouble would have been less at that height and some body is searching for the stones)
I have decided that here onwards I will go home from bus stop collecting all the stones coming in my way!!!

Third time in a row

This is my first post on this blog. But this is not my first blog. Earlier twice did I create the blogs.
First attempt was a total failure. Except for posting a beautiful snap taken by me, I did nothing in that blog. With time I forgot its username and password and possibly it is still alive carrying a single snap.
Few months back, I created a new blog. I posted not one or two but eight posts. But soon realized the posts do not really portray my mind.
Result: I lost interest and deleted my blogs
Now its third time I am returning to this venture and trying to make a mark.
Hope I will succeed in doing it the way I want to do it and will continue for a long time.
This blog will carry words that would reflect my views about anything happening at that instant of time. Later on may be I will change my views and my concepts. But still the posts in this blog will remain unchanged.