Blood in the Time of Holi...


Today was just another day in my life. The fact that is was Holi hardly registered on my mind except when listening to music on TV. I had an early morning meeting at 8:30 AM and was as usual late in getting ready. It was 8:15 AM by the time I stepped out of bath. I quickly put on clothes, cursed myself for being so lazy, picked my keys and made a quick time check. It was already 8:20 AM. My daily commute to the office is 8 KM but given that it was early morning with nothing to slow me down I was confident of making office by 8:35 AM and earlier in case other residents of Hyderabad co-operate. I told myself that people wouldn't waiting those extra 5 minutes instead of wrapping the call early.

As I started my bike and headed towards office, there were no signs on the road that today was Holi. Hyderabad was becoming lazy like me and was losing zest for life. May be the city youth had better things to do. The fact that it was not a holiday for a lot of corporates might have subdued the effects of Holi.

Meanwhile, I had come about a km from home. The road was split by a divider. I was tailing a car few meters behind it and thinking of overtaking it. Something struck me.... on the other side of the road, I noticed a guy running towards the divider from the other half of the road being chased by his friends with color sprays. This wasn't an unusual scene except that he was running in a direct collision path with the car. I could almost sense an impending disaster. My heart skipped a beat. In the next sixty seconds, I saw the guy leap on to the divider while being chased by his friends with colors. He seemed totally oblivious to the fact that he was crossing the road. He was focused on avoiding his friends and nothing else seemed to matter. What happened next was inevitable.

The car driver honked with all earnestness to avoid what was about to happen. The guy leapt from the divider and was hit by the car. I don't remember if he was hit while in mid air or just as he set foot on the road. My mind totally went blank. I was hardly two meters behind the car. The car driver braked with all intent and the car came to a screeching halt. The next few seconds seemed like eternity to me. I slowed down my bike in fear of what lay ahead of me.

My first glimpse of the guy was something dripping down his hand as he lay down on the road. I stopped my bike to see if I could get down and help. His friends following him immediately reached out to him and were checking on him. For a moment there I thought I saw blood dripping from his hand..My mind started racing - where was the nearest hospital? Should I flag an auto? But slowly I was coming back to my senses. What I saw on his hand was not blood but a slight shade of pink. Thank God!! It was just a plain holi color.This relieved my greatly. I realized that my mind was playing tricks on me. By the time I reached him he sort of was able to sit on the road. People had started gathering around him. He was able to speak and was crying. His friends were chiding him that he should watch before crossing. May be he was one of those lucky guys to escape unhurt in a road accident but when the car hit him It seemed certain that this was a day he was going to remember for the rest of his life. The fact that the car driver was just ambling and not speeding might have saved the day.

Whatever happened I was thankful that nothing serious had happened to the only guy I saw celebrating holi...

Pan Singh Tomar (PST)


It is very difficult to create an interesting plot and keep the audience hooked without a central character assuming a larger than life image. Pan Singh Tomar goes about doing that and does it with such finesse that your mind never wavers to think wait - where was the all the heroic stuff?? In a long time I can say that I haven't watched a movie where the plot was central to the movie. Coming from movie goer who would stop watching the cricket once SRT gets out, it says a lot about the movie. It is a true biopic. Never was an effort made to project the central protagonist as a superhuman. Not when his superior officer does not allow him to go to war because he is a sportsperson - Not when he is mocked at for staying back while his friends go to war - Not when his cousin taunts him for being a coward running all his life - Not when he falls asleep while his gang members get slaughtered by the police . This I would say is what a normal man would do and not the Hindi film Hero.

It is a simple story of a well meaning man who has been wronged by the system and goes about seeking revenge after knocking on all the doors that he can think of. But the thing that separates this story from the rest is the way he goes about doing it. The movie does not try to justify the hero turning into the villain but narrates it beautifully enough so that the audience can empathise with his suffering.

More than the story, I should say it was Irfan Khan's acting abilities that brought PST to life. Never do you get a feeling that he is emoting - he just seemed so natural in the character. It is the earnestness of his expression when he says he wants to get into sports so that he can eat more food, you realize how good an actor Irfan Khan is. He is ably supported by the support cast who deliver a decent job be it his army superior or his coach. The director also wanted to highlight an underlying message which you realize only towards the end - the way we have treated out athletes : the apathy that has left many die penniless. But then again, if that was the message of the movie, it was alluded to only when PST echoes his sadness saying that people recognized him only for his acts as a bandit and chose to ignore all his efforts a national steeplechase champion.

If the story drags towards the end, it is because there is really no end to a story until the story dies on it own. This was the story of PST and it had to be shown until PST is no more. Perhaps the director could have ended the movie once he succeeds in his revenge. But if he wanted to get his mesage through at the end, it was imperative to show that the path PST had taken had death written all over it.The climax was a little disappointing when he tries to jump across a canal to run away from police but perhaps that is what people in real life do. When you can't fight, you take flight. All said and done PST was a total Paisa vasool!!

Sydney.. First Impressions


It has been sometime since I have been to Sydney - more than 2 months So it wouldn't be fair to call them first impressions but neverthless these are the impressions that have stayed with me for this long.

I am not what people would call an avid traveller but whenever an opportunity had presented itself I haven't exactly been shy. So this time it was some office work that took me to Sydney. It was a 40 day trip - just long enough to look around the city and not get bored.

The First Day


One thing that the world recognizes India is by its diversity, cultural and from an economic standpoint the population. Its not an easily ignored fact that more than 20% of the world's population lives in India - not by the world and not by Indians either. So irrespective of the place you are in, the time of the day you are never short of people around. You should be happy if its not crowded. Australia in contrast is huge land body with pockets of population thrown here and there. In fact if someone were to travel on foot from coast to coast chances are for a majority of your trip you will be talking to yourself.

Compared to other Australian cities, Sydney is much lively place with friendly people. My office located near Darling Harbor is more or less the heart of the city's Friday evenings. But I guess I can't say the same about suburbs. The first thing that struck while I was walking back to my uncle's place from the train station was how empty the roads were. If I were to walk that long a stretch without seeing any one people in India, I would think - Hey may be its a curfew in town or well the croatoan virus has turned the city zombie and the survivors have fled. But then again I guess that is how people like it there. Once you get home you stay indoors rather than loitering around on the roads. Nevertheless, this was something that took me sometime getting used to. One question that would always pop-up in my mind was if someone wanted to check directions whom would he ask but then i guess that is what we have GPS for. Surely I can't live in such silence and serenity. I am much better off in India.

The Asian Invasion


Before I traveled to Sydney I wasn't aware of the number of Asians there. In fact it was a big surprise for me.  Chinese, Japanese, Indians, South East Asians I mean its common sense that you find them there but the numbers were simply surprising. There simply seemed to be more Asians than Australians ( and I am not talking about aborigines here). Well China and India, people are your true contribution and your legacy for posterity.

The Sun and Vitamin D


All it takes is a peek from the sun for people to throng to beaches. I used to find it surprising when I would read about people craving for a sunny day. I mean in India you would rather wish that the sun would go hide behind the clouds. But then the weather has got to do a lot with it. The temperate climate is moderate in nature and the sun wasn't exactly out in the supposed summer I was staying there.

The Desi bonding and an undercurrent Identity Crisis


Staying at my uncle's house also allowed me explore the desi circle. One thing I find rather heartening is that people who probably wouldn't see eye to eye in India would end up being great friends there. That is probably because in foreign land there are no barriers of caste, culture, creed, social stature standing in way.

The mix of people i met with were either middle aged uncle aunties or the younger generation (mostly in teens). There was such a contrast in their approaches to life. During my brief encounters with the middle aged, I realized an yearning for a better India but I can't say they have started feeling like a true Australian. They are caught up in a no man's land. An Indian in Australia is not really concerned about what happens to Australia unlike in India where even in the tea stall guy has an opinion about what the PM should do with the year's budget. Everyone is busy in getting through the day and staying happy. I am be over simplifying it but then again its just an impression. There seemed to what looked like an undercurrent Identity Crisis. Human beings being social animals have always craved to be part of groups sometimes as big as a Nation. This identity based on commonality gives them a larger comfort.

The youngsters looked at a lot more ease with their Australian identity. There were no nagging doubts about their affinity. Perhaps, some of them might even support Australia in an India-Australia match. The desi bonding does exist but it does not preclude them from feeling Australian to put it succinctly.

My Japanese friends


Even though I was staying in Sydney I was working for a Japanese client. They say understanding local culture is quite important to be successful in a business geography. It could n't have been more true about the Japanese. Japanese are very respectful people who places a lot of emphasis on what they speak and how they conduct themselves. But their respect sometimes gets translated into the English words they choose while speaking which sometimes might sound funny to an outsider. Let me give some examples:


Japanese : Team members, Please summarize the achievement and share it to me before close of business today.
Me : Good Lord!! what am I supposed to do today that would be counted as an achievement???

What he really meant : Guys Please send me the status by EOD

Japanese: I will wait for all data and make a judgement tomorrow
Me : Oh My God!! is it going to be a Go/No Go call tomorrow? Will the project be scrapped

What he really meant : Guys once i get all information we will decide on the next steps!!

And the Japanese believe in a simple motto : "A Bug is a bug is a bug!!". Irrespective of impact and priorities all bugs are equally important and need to be addressed. I had such a tough time convincing them that we should do things on priority basis but at the end of the conversation while they agree to everything you say they simply reiterate : "A Bug is a bug is a bug!!" and needs to be fixed.

Fitness Enthusiasts


If you put aside the Ian Thorpe's of Australia, I was really surprised to see the number of people doing afternoon jogs or bike rides. I mean putting aside the fact that in India people might either get roasted or frozen depending on the place, it still speaks a lot about the Australians. They truly are "fitness freaks" and I mean it in a humbling respectful way.

They lay a great emphasis of staying fit. In fact one of my cousin's boss was travelling to NZ so that he could participate in the 60 KM run there. It might have sounded crazy in India but in Australia I would say "Atta Boy".

War Memorials


One thing Australians really take pride in their heroic efforts in war and people do really respect great sacrifices made by the Australian soldiers in WW-I and WW-II. The War memorial in Melbourne is truly a stunning museum with a lot of artifacts from the war. They sure know how to treasure memories and respect them. The trip of the memorial took me more than half a day and in fact if time had permitted I would have loved to spend the entire day. Aircrafts, tanks, guns, Submarines,warship models etc all in one place.

I could go on and write about the other places I have been to, the Lint Ice cream that I ate at only the world's second Lint outlet outside Switzerland, the Bridge that rotates to let ships go by, the trek to the Three Sisters, the beaches in Australia, The ferry rides, Torango zoo, The ANZAC bridge, The Opera House, The Road Trip to Melbourne, The Mint Factory, The Parliament House, The Fish Market, My tryst with Yamcha etc. But may be in a different post. This post has already crossed all limits of "reasonable length". So I am going to wrap it up now.

Rock Star

The movie I felt failed to capture the spirit that drives a rockstar. May be it had got to do with the expectations that you have about a sterotype rockstart..passionate, headbanging, coke snorting, suicidal drunkard. More than that I was disappointed with the unreasonableness of the plot - Why does he get thrown out of his house? Pathetic attempts at humor where he tries to act heart broken because good songs are born out of pain? Or simply his unwavering response to all situations that he finds himself in... Walk away with a serious expression on his face.. Is that his reaction to everyone and everything?? Why does the police beat him up time and again for no reason?

Among the new breed of bollywood actors Ranbir has been a little more versatile not only in the choice of his roles but his performances as well. But this was the first movie where I felt he did not do justice to his role. I felt that the director surely lacked the vision to carry on a rockstar movie. The movie started with a very good premise for a rockstar's life - " Meet me beyond the boundaries of what is right and wrong". He was supposed to carry that forward. Instead all we found was "Junglee javani" recurring again and again and again. It was fun the first time but the same theme repeatedly starts getting on your nerves. This rockstar's life seemed to be driven only by his emptiness and may be that is why the film seemed empty to me.

Putting aside the fact that it was a very lengthy movie for a movie with no plot/story, I was disappointed with the presentation as well. The non-linear movie narrative style could have worked for this movie if only people didn't get confused which timeframe is the scene based in. There seemed to be a present, a middle present, a past present and a past. I mean frankly it did not need so many back and forths.

The only saving grace for the movie seemed to be Rahman's music. But as with all his music, the first time is always a tad disappointing but overtime you learn to like it. The music grows on you. The movie is definitely not worth three hours of your life!!

The Long journey back home!!


They say "Home is where heart is". After a point in time, it is no longer at your parent's place. While you will always feel its home but you know in your heart that this feeling will pass and you will have to go back to your real home - the place where you live day in day out. You may not love it but you will always crave to be back to routine.

This time when I was travelling back to hyderabad from a short trip to Vijayawada, I had a booked an A/C sleeper at 11:30 PM in the hope of spending more time with my parents. Dad came to drop me off at the bus. The first look of the bus gave me jitters. When I had reserved an A/C sleeper, this was not what I had in mind. This was a refitted normal bus which had been converted into A/C. I had lost hope of making it early home and catching up on sleep but had no clue of what was in store.

The ride was bumpy to say the least. The A/C switched off after the first hour and not even a blower in the vicinity. Being tired I managed to fall asleep but not for long. I kept tossing in the bed wondering what was happening until I could see day light. Not bad I told myself. I was in rush for the loo and was hoping the bus would pull up at some point and slowly made my way to the driver's seat. The bus jerked a little and started making weird noises. The driver stopped momentarily and I dashed out into the green trees. I had come back relaxed only to realize that the problem was much bigger. The driver said that the fan belt was broken and he needs to get a mechanic to fix it. The signs were looking ominous. It was 7:15 in the morning.We were still 2 hrs away from Hyderabad and it usually took two more hours from the outskirts. I was beginning to get worried.

The cleaner informed us that we would be shifted to the bus from vizag. The driver set out in search of a mechanic. The clock kept ticking away. People started making frantic calls to the travel office to see if any alternate arrangement can be made. Kids and ladies were getting nervous. The more adventurous folks started taking hikes in lorries destined for Hyderabad. I knew there would come a day when I would have to travel by lorry but I was hoping today wasn't the day. Even getting into the lorry with the luggage seemed an ominous task. There were no signs of the driver. People started losing patience. It was 8 AM now and no signs of improvement.

I had made up my mind that if nothing happens in the next 15 minutes, I should get going if I had to have any hopes of making it office before lunch. Dropped a quick sms to my boss and checked with folks around as to where we were. People started talking and I got to know that we already had to stop for 2 hrs midnight because of a tyre change. I was informed by other knowledgeable passengers that we were 7-8 kms from a place called choutuppal. I didn't even know such a place existed. I got my luggage down told the cleaner not to look from me when the bus eventually got fixed. Most of my co-passenger were not so lucky to take such chances since they were travelling with kids.

I started flagging lorries to see if one of them would give me a lift till Hyderabad. After a few misses, one taxi guy stopped and asked me to get in. There was no discussion, I immediately got in with no second thoughts. I asked him where he was headed. He told me that he was going till Choutuappal and I could catch a shared auto from there. It was 8:15 AM in the morning. Not bad I told myself. Finally my travel woes seem to come to an end. But the journey was not over yet.

The driver told me that I was lucky enough that the bus stopped near a town and not near Hyderabad since it would have been next to impossible to find something. I wasn't sure what he meant but he sounded convincing. Finally he dropped in choutuppal, charged me 25 bucks for 5 kms but I was relieved that I could see people around. For a moment there I felt like I was in Hyderabad. I got into a shared auto and dropped in luggage behind the seat. The driver cramped the 9 seater with 14 members and started to move. I wasn't complaining, given the choice between a truck and the 9 seater, I told myself I was doing pretty good. It took me an hour to reach LB Nagar cross roads. I knew home was easily two hours away. I quickly checked into a city bus which took me further 1.5 hrs to reach ESI from where I hopped into another bus bound for KPHB. It was 11:30 AM by the time I set foot in my house.

It had taken me exactly 12 hrs to cover a distance, that in normal course would take not more than 6 to 6.5 hrs. But this was no normal day. The experience though not enjoyable was new for me. All in All, It was one long journey back Home - the kind I would hope not to repeat in the future. 

Signs of Ageing


The New Age Miracle ads would have you believe that dark spots, wrinkles etc are signs of ageing. But if you ask me, here are some real signs of ageing:

(1) You become a man of method rather than instinct. No longer are you a man who can follow his whims and yet not care about the outcome
(2) Discipline and timetable sort of become a way of your life. No longer can you allow yourself the luxury of random events. One slight disturbance can throw the whole day off.
(3) You need your 6 hours of sleep or end up being agitated all day long till you make up for the lost sleep,
(4) No longer do you have space for one more ice cream. You should be happy if you can eat one without worrying about the calories.
(5) Youngsters start telling you that by the time you completed your engineering they were still in school.
(6) TODO lists start becoming the order of the day. You can no longer leave office at will but have to submit yourself to the tenets of a good employee and fulfill your responsibilities even if it means being up at 12:30 in the night to attend some stupid conference calls.
(7) Everyday you enter the gym saying to yourself - "Why God Why? Do I really have to run on the treadmill?? Can't I just skip it this once??" . The next day is the same story.
(8) You are no longer sure whether your hair would turn grey first or you become bald first.
(9) You no longer have friends to hang out with.. Most of them are either married or are seeing someone.
(10) Watching late night movies is no longer an option since it will throw the entire next day schedule off.
(11) Your facebook friends hardly post any updates. Even whey they do its about an exotic location they toured this year for their honeymoon or yearly trips.
(12) Saturdays and Sundays are filled with boredom and you start inventing new hobbies to feel that you are not wasting away your life.
(13) Reading/Watching news is a must. Its on par with brushing your teeth.

All in all, if any of the above signs start manifesting then be assured that you no longer are a youngster :)

George Orwell Quotes

All Animals are Equal but some animals are more equal than others

-Animal Farm

It is not less bitter because it is perhaps one's own fault, to see onself drifting, rotting, in dishonour and horrible futility, and all the while knowing that somewhere within one there is the possiblity of a decent human being.

Oh Well, God save us from self-pity!!

-Burmese Days

Men....

Contrary to popular opinion, a man can shut out love if he so desires. However, to do so, he must free himself not only from the woman who has bewitched him but from the third person in the story : the ghost who has put tempation in his way.

-Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Love.... Must Read

Quoting Verbatim from Neil Gaiman..infact copying straight out of someone's blog :)

Have you even been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life…

You give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like “maybe we should just be friends” or “how very perceptive” turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

Why don't I blog?

I have wondered about this question for long. The first answer that comes to my mind is I am simply lazy. That's the easy part. The other part is I am a form guy not class (for the uninitiated - read those who never watched cricket in their life) form is temporary while class is permanent). So when I am in mood I am tempted to write infact write quite a bit but in off times I behave like a guy who has nothing to do with blogging. When i try to drill own, the deeper answer lies in the fact that i wait for earth shattering events (read something out of the ordinary) something eventful/meaningful/funny etc rather than the mundane events of my existence. I can't think of anything important happening in my life for the past 6 months. May be such events don't occur that frequently after all and i have to be content and relish the little nuances of life. Simple facts such finally i am going to reignite my old passion. Well before you are off to imagine something, i am talking about resuming my tennis lessons. This was one game I was passionate about learning so passionate that i remember playing five set matches from 11 pm to 2:30 am when i could barely keep the ball in the court (with an equally talented opponent :) ). Hopefully this would be a longer affair than just a fling.

Coming back to the more important issue, may be I should write something rather than waiting for something special to happen. In fact this arose from a conversation I had with an aquaintance who confided in me that she gets excited by even small things in life that at times it renders her speechless which reminded me of my own inability to feel excited in life. I realized that I am more of a stable/inert gas which would need a really high amount of energy to get its electrons excited. Is this really how life should be led? They say life is not measured by the moments that you live but by the moments that take your breath away. You might wait all your life but those moments could be few and far in between. So I say try to make every moment count!!

On a completely unrelated topic, I have been reading quite a few blogs of late. Not an ardent follower but a follower neverthless. In fact my current form in reading habits is quite good. I completed reading Oliver Twist a few weeks back. It has been one of those which has always intrigued me but haven't been able to lay my hands on it. I like Dickens writing. In fact his slow pace is pleasant and the length to which to goes to describe the era often makes me wonder if he lived in all those places to capture such details. He goes into great length to establish his characters. I have read that he creates some of his characters from real life acquaintances which makes me appreaciate the effort further because he has taken a real human being and fitted parts of it into figments of his imagination.

The next book was "The kite Runner". I have had this book for close to an year but never dared to open it. How can someone title a book "The Kite runner"? I had no clue what it meant. But the narrative was good. I would not say gripping but it was poignant enough to keep me binded. It was like an old movie where one hardship follows the other. But the Hero in the book is falliable, vulnerable and nothing hero like. You will be able to identify with his fears. For not everyone in life is meant to be a hero. I thought he could have ended the story at different points. In some ways the ending in a larger sense is predictable and cliched but the twist towards the end felt a little overboard. But I liked the phrase - "for you a thousand times over". The first time when he uses it does not have same kind of effect. But when you read it towards the end, it makes all the sense. The next in the list is the "Sea of Poppies":. It definitely looks from a different genre and hopefully will help me maintain my form.

I now look over my pillow and watch Benjanim Graham's "The Intelligent investor" which is sort of questioning me when will i have my due. In due course is all I can say.

Ajay Devgan's Dance!!!

While it might sound like an oxymoron, today i did see it on the TV. Its from a movie called Cash. It happened today morning. I was having my breakfast and MTV was playing on in the background. I suddenly saw ajay devgan trying to shake his leg. Then I started thinking when was the last time I saw him dance. I thought for a few minutes before i gave up. Now that was funny. He was doing those slow moves pretending to dance. I suddenly wondered how did he manage for so long without ever dancing....

The other thing that surprises me about the actor is the fact that they call him an "ACTION HERO". Its similar to calling Denziel Washington a Action Hero. Now come on.. who are we kidding? I know Denziel washington is a great actor, his dialogue delivery immaculate but then never saw him kick some butt. Similar is the case with Ajay devgan if you put him in the context of bollywood films. I am great fan of his acting. He can really make u cry..but then calling him an action hero for that is pusing it too far....May be he can try pretending that he is really fighting..but then he definitely is no action here...


PS: I am great fan of his acting.. Pure Fun intended...

Donnnn's cricket...

Its been more than a month since we have started off with Donnnnns cricket. For the uniniated its our version of gully cricket that we play in the hallowed l-base. The trigger was when Gb came down to campus and asked us to revive the k-base cricket. The next day evening, i just casually asked Thatha that we shud buy a bat for playing cricket and to my surprise thatha agreed. I was counting on RK, Dr. vasudevan (both of them expert cricketers) and Sandy to occassionaly chip-in to play. It was difficult to imagine Kris p or Sesh playing given that i have never seen them playing any sport ;)

But what happened in the next few days really surprised me. I was more like may be once is a week we will play for an hour. But then PK surprised me. His enthusiasm for cricket knew no bounds. In fact it was infectious to the point of dragging in Kris P and Sesh. Kris P is a good pace bowler in our 4 yard pitch and sesh can play some glorious cover drives. Now thats interesting...

Things took off on a good note where we started playing almost everyday..infact now we play around two to three times a day.Come to think of it, its a validation of how vela we are. I should credit PK with driving the whole thing... Without him i guess we wouldn't be playing so frequently. New members joined in a few days time. Suri is still learning the basics but its good fun to have him around. Jooz comes down whenever he takes a break from his CA mugging...

All in all i would say that Donnnns cricket has been succesful beyond my wildest imagination. Also i would say it has helped us gel better given that most of these guys are maggus to be frank. If there is something missing to complete the perfect picture, i guess its DR's absence.. but once he is back from exchange it would be really wait for it..its coming..AWESOME...Hope that this interest lasts that far :)

Of Trailers and Ads!!

There have been a lot of ads and trailers that have appealed to me in the past. But none of them so tantalizing that it resulted in the fulfillment of the motive behind the ad i.e. the purchase decision by the customer. The closest I ever came close to was when I felt like buying the Bajaj Avenger. The ad truly rocks!!! For someone who believes that the purchases should be made based on the features, quality and other boring stuff about the product, I was for once not bothered about them all. I had no clue what the bike had on offer but the image projected about its rider - that was something. Something you would want to emulate. But sadly, the ad was a few months late, i had already bought myself a discover for its features overriding the temptation to buy the Unicorn..

Anyhow coming back to the ad that I was watching, it was the fast track ad. Fast track ads especially for the watches had always been different from the rest of the pack. In fact after seeing the first fast track ad, one of my friend did buy a fast track watch. Now thats what i call succesful adversting. The world has moved on from where the Narmada scooter would drag in a elephant behind to the point or the Bajaj kawasaki turning into a leopard. The new generation ads are no longer about the product but more about how the product fits into your personality. If not exactly, atleast something that you would aspire to be.

Moving on to movie trailers, I had seen this new trailer of the Darjeeling limited. It is really hillarious.. In fact you should check out this youtube link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg7dRHndKQs&mode=related&search=

Its a tale of three brothers claiming to be on a spiritual journey. Starring owen wilson and "The Pianist" (well i dont know the actors name but he won the Oscar for best actor for his role in "The Pianist"), and some other familiar actor. The first feel that i got of the movie was it was about subtle and clean humour. Do check out the trailer for more..

This is one film i am looking forward to based on the trailer. Lets hope the movie is as good as the trailer if not better :)

Kids these days!!!

The new generation kids are far more intelligent than we can imagine in our wildest dreams. Let me validate my hypothesis with a few incidents...

Incident 1:

My first interesting experience in this regard date back to the time when I was working at Verizon. Right out

of college it was my second year at job. One of my cousins from US had come over and i had arranged for

their accomodation at Hotel shelter. Its a nice three star hotel with a complementary breakfast which

offers numerous varieties. so i decided have breakfast over there the next day.


I start interacting with my cousin. She's in her school and is apparently a spelling bee champ at her

school. And my english is as u know Mashallah :)

Right when i was about begin my breakfast..she starts posing anagrams for me. I was able do the initial

few. But then the main purpose of having breakfast over there was being defeated. I longed for a

dictionary for all the words she started quizzing me about made me wonder if I would want to meet her

again :)


Incident 2:

I am a bit wiser now and if someone wants to play around with words i tell them right away that i am not

the right person.

I have a friend here who is in her kindergarden. We play games like snake and ladder and

ludo (though both of us dont know the rules :))

Any how whenever I wanted to leave her and return back to my real world, I would excuse myself saying

that i have an exam or that i have homework. Now these are the only two reasons that she would agree to

let me go. This went on fine until i had my semester break.

She asked me to come n play. I told her that i had homework to do. She retorted :" It always about

your homework. What about mine?"

Now if you think this was shocking, the next one left me speechless. I told her that i was going home and would be back on saturday. Immediately i realised my mistake and told her that i wud be back on sunday.

Now guess what would be her reaction ???


After a second she shot back - " You are telling me lies. first tell me the correct thing"

I was left speechless. I told her mom that in an year's i wouldnt be intelligent enough to lie to her

even i want to :)


Incident 3:

This relates to another kid who just got into her medical college. I scrapped her something and she

replied back saying "dankee". Now I was confused. A search on google revealed that dankee would mean

"smoking pot" as per the urban dictionary. Now this did not make sense nor was i able to figure out any

alternate meaning..

After due thought, I felt that it might be some sms lingo for "Thank you". In a weird way it does rhyme

with it. The interpreation was correct but the truth is totally different.

"Dankee" or "Dankae" is apparently a german word for thank you. Now that's serendipity for me :)


These incidents have left me without any doubt abt the smartness of next generation. I hope that i will be able to keep pace for a few more years :)

Quotable quotes

Pawan kalyan (in kushi) : "Prema doma yelanti tokkalo commitments pettuko kudadu..ippudu chudu nenu yenta anandam ga vunnano..yenta vullasam ga unnao yendukante nenu yevarni preminchaledu yevarni
ishtapadaledu"

(Translated to English - Don't get into stupid commitments like love...look at me how happy
i am. Because i did not love anyone or like anyone )


Amitabh in old Ajnabe : "lakh khode chahe tho kya hota hai wahi hota hai jo manjure khuda
hota hai"

Anil kapoor (in Trumurti) : " Khude ko kar buland itna ki takdeer se pehle khuda bhi bande se puche bol teri raza kya hai"

Uncle Ben to spiderman: "With great power comes great responsiblity"

Batman : " Its not who i am underneath, but what I do that defines me "

Davy Jones : " Life is cruel. Why should the after-life be any different?"

My physics prof : "Life is cruel dear!!"

Davy Jones : "You are a cruel mind jack sparrow!!"
Capt Jack Sparrow : "Cruelty is a matter of perspective!!"
Davy Jones : " Is it?"

Captain Jack sparrow : " You have done it all!! The trick is to survive right!!"
Captain Teague replies : "No son, the trick is to live with yourself"

Rocky (to Appollo Creed): " Keep on punching!!! Appollo"

Ayn Rand in Fountain Head:
"If not you, who??
If not here, Where??
If not now, when??"


In tum bin : " Pyar kiya hai to jaroori nahi hai ki woh aap ko mil bhi jaye..."

My take : " Mehanant kiya to jaroori nahi hai ki us ka phal aap ko mil bhi jaye"

From Gladiator : " Death smiles at you and all you can do is smile back!!"

Anonymous : " You can fail for lack of intellect or strength but a true defeat is when you fail in the spirit"

Anonymous : "Be the change that you want to see in the world"

Anonymous : " You never asked God when he gave you something that u didnt deserve, so don't bother him when you dont get something u felt u deserved"

Chinese proverb : "A fool is one who knows not and knows not he knows not"

The lure of the camera......

Everyone who's held the camera for the first time knows about what i am talking.....and if the gadget happens to have a lot of features like different modes of photography (night, sport etc), N-x zoom, etc...then its ok to give into the greed.... As Gordon Gecko says - Greed is good....I wouldn't drag it that far but a little greed is okie....
I had to give into this temptation yesterday when i was en route to Mysore...

Sorry If i had held onto it too tightly but then the lure is no less than the "precious" ( of golam fame)..and I am but mere mortal....With the camera in hand you start imagining yourself as an artist none less than the great DaVinci himself.. You keep trying things..playing around with settings, zoom, lighting, angles.. oh..one day and i already imagining myself as a photographer. Though i would not like to be the one in "With the photographer"..it would defeat the very purpose with which stephen Leacock so elaborately described his harrowing experience...nonetheless electronic gadgets do have that draw which makes you keep trying...

Anyhow coming back to my experiences with photography.. well one days is too short to call it an experience...but still it was awesome. Never did i let someone else take it and with the kind of architectural marvels around in mysore and unlimited memory in the cam ( there are only so many photos you can take in one day :)). I was in my own world until someone wanted to photograph me. If there had been a chance i wouldn't have allowed them, but would it be the precious if it dint draw so many towards it :)

Profs and their ways........

Once you cross puberty you start assuming that you have become wise. And beyond engineering unless someone comes up with a compelling logic, its difficult to convince you or change your viewpoint. Its more like there is system of knowledge and your way of thinking which gets hardwired into your brain.

But there are profs who can truly change the way you think. Partly the reason is the wealth of experience that they have accumulated over the years. Having seen so many like you they have become wiser with each passing year.

Of late I have had some really interesting experiences. Let me share one of them....

It was a busy day and i had too much of work. I was in no mood to attend the class. But the fear of a surprise quiz made me drag my feet to the class. So I made a plan (Now its too simple to call it a plan..but still). I decided to go till the class and check out if the admin staff was around. With them being absent, it was certain that there would be no surprise quiz.

Hurray!! today is my lucky day I told myself. This is the standard thing that everyone follows. But i wanted to make sure the plan was watertight. So what i did was I choose a strategic position where in I can see the prof in my direct line of sight but the prof can see me only if he raises his head at a particular angle. It was my vantage position.

(The set up was similar to what kings of yore had in their durbars when prosecuting criminals. The king would sit at an elevated position and would look down at the proceedings through a gap that exposed him only till the upper chest. The logic behind that was that any object thrown would have to follow a projectile motion to hit the king. A straight throw would bang against the upper beam and fall down)

So in this strategic position I waited for the prof with my eyes focussed on his path towards the classroom. It was five minutes past the class time. I was getting nervous. Even if i see the prof walk in he would close the door behind him. i would have to run downstairs to catch up with him.

My purpose was to check out if he brought any quiz papers to the class. The prof finally showed up. I saw some charts in his hand and no other handouts. Yes!! I can safely bunk the class. I had sealed all possible loopholes. I went back to my room and resumed my work. I had a deadline to meet.

It would have been nice had the story ended here. But after half an hour i receive a message from one of my friends. It read " Dude !!! the prof is holding a surprise quiz. He got the paper wrapped in the chart!!!"

I read the message twice to make sure i was not hallucinating. I sent back a reply : "Well there is only so much you can hedge against :)"

You can anticipate somethings in life and plan for it but not everything. If I was good enough a planner, it would not have been necessary to bunk the class in the first place :P

So the next time you think you can out out smart your proof (????) think again....

PS : I later got to know that the Prof announced in the class that he wanted to it to be a real surprise. Hence he did not ask for the admin help and hoped that the students would not disappoint him (with an evil grin!!)

You cannot satisfy everyone....jaane bhi do yaaron

Have u ever realized that you have a compulsive need to make everyone feel happy satisfied. Sadly, it is not possible in all circumstances. Imagine two players pitted against each other, can both of them be equally happy at the end of the game??

That's true of some of the situations in life... there is not always a happy ending...
Imagine an argument.. towards the end it need not end in an amicable way...so how do you make this right??

May be you can't but there is a simple test to determine if there was an error on your part in the first place...

If you feel even slightly bad about what happened and ur actions then may be there was some fault on ur side as well...But if you dont feel even the slightest remorse then probably everything was alright...

So whenever ur in doubt ask yourself do you feel the slighest remorse for what happened or what you did.. If not forget it and move on...

Jaane bhi dho yaaron....agar Bhagwan hi sab ko kush nahi rakh paya hai toh hamari kya hasti hai??

As Teague would say : " The trick is to live with yourself"

(For the non-pirates....Teague is Captain jacksparrow's father :))

Arbitrage opportunities and Traffic Jams......

Yesterday I was enroute to forum for watching a movie (what else than "Shankardada zindabad")... I observed a simple phenomenon.. sth that everyone sees in a traffic jam...
You always see bikes zipping through the gaps between cars.The driver behind the wheel watches it until he's pissed off and closes the gap...

Aribtrage is a similar phenomenon in the financial world. Ok for ppl not so financially inclined and challenged by jargon arbitrage refers to an opportunity for making a riskless profit..for example assume that Red chilli rates are higher in US than in India (even after including the transportation costs), then for an arbitraguer it makes more sense to buy chilli in India and sell in US...Now u might say what the heck...this is the fundamental principle of business. Everyone makes money only through spreads or differentials caused due to information asymmetry. Arbitrage is slightly more complex in the sense that you deal in contracts (futures,forwards and options if u want the MBA jargon..) instead of actual underlying... OK too much of fin gyaan.. Let me get back to what i wanted to say.....

So arbitrage opportunites are like those gaps in traffic..the bike guys being the arbitrageurs...The opportunity window exists so long as the person behind the wheel is not pissed off.. and what drives him crazy.. too much of exploitation of the chance

(jyada chance pe dance marenge log tho usse gussa tho ayega hi na...)..and he closes off the gap..

Those who got past in the window make money.. others look for alternative gaps :)
The truck or lorry driver is the one providing such an opportunity.. it can be closed by the car or truck guy ( in which case its like markets responding to the opportunity to close the window) or might be a traffic cop..(ok this does not happen in real life....)..if i were to draw a parallel to a regulator traffic cop seemed to be the only actor there :)

PS: For the fin studs.. please forgive me for simplifying arbitrage ( I hope i got it right).. I know its ur bread and butter...par abhi main to bachcha hoon.. A se apple hi boloonga na....Arbitrage thodi hi boloonga....

My philosophy in Life....

The other day one of my friends asked me this strange question :

"What is your philosophy in life??"

(His ulterior motive was to find an answer for one of his submissions due the next day :) He was lookin for sth that he might correlate with...)

Anyhow i m as removed from philosophy as an amoeba is from a neuron.....so i cud not give him any answer for i knew none...

so i cannot say that I live by so and so philosophy that extols the virtues of humanity and helps achieve the zenith of one's own existence...and makes you think beyond the realms of this universe and time..

I am simple guy who wud even find it difficult to comprehend such a thing....

So after much deliberation.. i decided that if I did have one..it would be based on what's more tangible...n wud be an integral part of my life...

finally i arrived at one.. its based on the basic needs of life...roti, kapda and makaan types...In my case its roti and sleep :)

So My philosophy is :

"Be tired enough so that sleep is waiting for you..instead of you waiting for it when u reach your bed....
and whenever u sit before ur day's meal...you have worked hard enough during the day so that you are hungry enough and feel deserving of the precious meal..."


I can sense all philosopher's of yore gettin restless in their graves contemplating options of reincarnation.....

So i wont insult all the great philosopher's of the past by calling it philosophy :)..and restate it as the motto that i live by...I guess this compromise shud do .......