Projects within Projects

Things under your control. which are not under your control. 

take a deep breath, count to 10 and identify if you can control it or not. if not, let go.

Assemble Developers, QA folks and start working on a side project.

take it as an opportunity. It will be strange in the beginning, hectic when you are deeply involved.

in 3 weeks time, it will be alright, the new normal.

 

Hi ppl,

Happy New Year 2008!! to you guyz. I'm blogging after 'sometime'.
In Coming to Office at 10:30 and leaving at 6:30 in the evening , there was little room (or time) for blogging.

Everyone is looking back at the year that was , 2007, and preparing their own lists. List of most popular films, engaging Citizen Journalist stories', highs 'n lows in the fields of science, politics,economics,sports ,entertainment,geo-politics, et al.

I can't help but pause at the thought that "The more things change, the more they remain the same".

SRK won the SAB SE FAVORITE ACTOR for the 5th time in a row. There are (many) more hits than flops. Global warming has attracted a few more headlines the past year.....it goes on....

What i personally liked about 2007 among all this sameness was that, now people do recognize the power of unity. That there is justice after all in the system if one is committed..!! a bit sad that justice doesn't get automatically delivered.. but, hey.. Har desh perfect nahin hota..:)

Cut to the Lead India campaign... I am pleased that this initiative has been taken... i am only thinking what the Finally Elected 'Leader' will be powered to do.. for that one has to wait and see.

Another Cool way to mint...!!

Just Drop in @

http://www.lemonade.com/index.php?cID=43376

2006 -- HALF-TIME STAGE!!!

Its been 7 months and some days infact. Some of my friends who got admission into management institutions have already joined and are warming upto "Management" principles and the like. A few others are planning to go Green-bucks hunting....if u know what i mean..!!

Last article was embellished with Fanaa and Krrish(spellings are official!!) . so, a bit of follow up on this. Yes, Fanaa was a bit disappointing, largely bcoz Kunal Kohli's ineptitude ditched him again. Krrish turned out be the largest money-spinner, the likes of which Bollywood(or Hindi Film industry, if you are a bachchan loyalist) hasn't seen or heard of in recent times.

Italy managed to pip France in the final stages of the World cup Finals..but, were deserving winners on that day atleast..so 3 cheers to Italy!!!

Now, we'll come to my mindset at this point of time. I am largely looking at spending some more time with my current employer(read 1 or 2 yrs). I have a feeling that i am still sitting on the fence and didnt enter the 'Arena' yet... but, right now the fence isnt that bad...

Cinema Cinema

Looking forward to Fanaa and Krrish is all that one can hear when any one is queried abt any Hindi movies one would like to see. Is it really possible that these movies will be that 'big', well , i dont have an answer. But it just goes to further highlight the case of pathetic scripts that are being turned into "Expected" money spinning jumborees.

Fanaa is talked abt for the romantic pairing of Aamir Khan and Kajol(any extra 'a's??..) but it is after all a love story or something with terrorist under currents(ala Dil Se). At this point only these two things come to mind and i can only sense a film where the protaganists display their true potential and manage to rise above the fim than vice-versa.

Krrish is India's first Batman-Superman combo dished out for Children and who are children at heart. u'll say...c'mon....so many 'heroes' jump from 10 storey buildings without any protection, escape from fast skidding cars.... unhurt.....etc. ..etc...
but ,this my friend is a film where the 'Hero' has the official license to do that. Frankly, this doesnt excite me....... period.

If we further look into this year's releases we have KANK, Dhoom 2 , Omkara , Munnabhai:2nd Innings...and some other interesting projects that come to mind as 'interesting'.

Deep down, if we begin to analyze why so many movies depend on glitz and glamour than substance to stake their claim;.. only thing that comes to mind is that India is still a land of hard-working , toiling workers who wish to day-dream and they find a medium in movies.

This u can say bcoz in 80's when the feeling of being wronged was widely prevalent in youth psyche.. Amitabh Bachchan was doing his 'Angry Young man' roles and was quite a hit.

Its just that ..those days have given way to this era..where dreams not only have wings..but are capable of carrying you on them.

Music and boundaries

It is better advised to have a fence separating best-of-buddies homes’.. but I am not talking of those type of boundaries here…

I want you to look at music as an art form and whether it should be regional , national or global…..

As a believer in the universal appeal of any art form be it music, dance ..et al ..Music shouldn’t have any geographical boundaries….ppl of different regions should be given the opportunity to savor and relish the compositions of musicians and singers of different nationalities…….

Why am I discussing or putting something as banal or seemingly banal as freedom of action….

Coz, sometime back there was a big hue over one mr.adnan sami singing for hindi movies or to live in India as a singer…

Foremost was abhijeet, well…….c’mon if some one from any other country wants to set up his home here….we should feel humbled (and he’s no illegal immigrant either!!)

His problem was that singers in India are not allowed to exercise their vocal chords in Pakistan……should it be a problem………


I suppose there will be a section of ppl who wud take my opinion with a pinch of salt, but a ‘Liberal’ India should be open to such ‘foreigners’..!!

Management or the beginning of it......


It all started 3 yrs back..... some one said , one puneet has been preparing for it from his first year in BTech(CSE).. OK.... I need that much dedication and commitment .. ??......nah, i am different.!! .... find some more examples which sound and feel more like "me"....... then, one of my friend(sorry, dont rmbr) said that his friends' friend started preparing only in July, ...just when the application for "CAT" is out. and.....well, he made it to IIM-B. !! wow.....i can see myself emulating that feat.. if not in even less preparation time...


Soon enough , November came.....runup to that was slightly different to what i expected....starting in February(!!)..... graph was steady but slow till April, then 6th semester exams happened. After that i went home to take a 'break' as usual and returned in June.

I felt.....yeah good...... now i can just go and start from where i left in april. hmm.... starting trouble... well, ok.. go thru the material ......(oh that one that those ppl gave in march..remember now...) .. ok. doubts!!..wow....starting step...... but, i will not attend doubt sessions or ask anyone....

what the heck.......are these same questions going to repeat themselves in CAT or what......!

(dont mind the concepts repeating...if they do.....tough luck dear......)

After fillling the form in july.....

some where in september........ till now the vehicle just abt starting to feel the road at 15 kmph..

CAT is not about solving maths, english, analytical questions man.....CAT is abt how well u can eliminate tricky time-guzzling problems and picking neat and clean starters .. (dont mind the comparison) .........rush of blood.....CAT Is for !!!!ME!!!!..... no one can solve 150/180/xxx questions in 120 minutes., anyways....

Come october..... time for self-introspection regd. CAT......(euphemism for i am not going to clear it this time!!)..


huh!!...... man, it is not enough to avoid certain questions .... one has to pick good number of moderate desserts as well...... ok..... i am anyway through with the preparation(time ran out.. actually!! ).

November, ... november 23rd ..still better(it was 2003)........ preparation.....nice movie the night before ....just to keep the pulses racing next morning... CAT is tough yaar.... (i am feeling).....

I come out and hear ppl around me murmuring...."CAT is leaked man......i am screwed big time!"

huh!....another attempt on Feb 14th........... till then..... ENJoY!!

I used to feel that blogging is what ppl do when they are alone. Coz when you have ppl around u.. whom u seem to know..u will always chat or do something or the other.

A city is often described as a place where a lot of ppl reside individually in their own worlds. I too feel it's the right way to describe it.

So I too will start bugging….oops……..blogging……

Taxi No. 9211

Taxi No. 9211 is a very queer title for a film. 9211 is read as ‘Nau do gyarah’ which is a colloquial term for absconding or fleeing. So how is this related to the film….or its characters. The protagonists of the film are fleeing away from their own life or something like it.

John is a rich businessman’s son and ...nothing else. Nana patekar is a taxi driver but tells his wife that he works as a LIC agent. Add to that, nana doesn’t like continuing in any odd job he does..he keeps moving on to other similar terrains. John’s father has left a will in which he states that a loyal follower of him gets the will and not his son. But, john being a rich brat thinks that , a work around is possible and creates a duplicate will which has him as the benefactor. That will is safe in a locker and he has to get it atleast to prove to the court.
The night before , after partying revelry , he jams his car into a tree. He picks up nana’s taxi and gets ready to leave. Nana is no Schumacher and his taxi is no Ferrari either. John gets annoyed with this. He shows the driver……what... money dear. In the process, taxi rams into a crossing maruti when the signal is red. John does a ‘9211’ and leaves nana to 'handle' the situation.

But…..and a very important but……. John has lost his key in the taxi. He realizes it and returns to the same place from where he flew. The taxi is there but it is locked and nana is no where to be seen. He founds out that he’s been taken to a local police station and by the time he gets there ..in a taxi again…. Nana has managed to escape from them while they were taking him to another thaana.

What is this….. yeah…it’s the same way john feels too….
His lawyer in the meantime manages to get another hearing for the case after john fails to turn out…..the lawyer sends some gundas to ‘treat’ nana well. nana in turn takes the brakes of the car that john is riding….what else can be done to a car in a movie….
John being the hero manages to get out with just his life. Cut to nana and his wife.
Nana’s wife is vexed with his abhorrence of life in general and joy in particular and threatens to leave the house once john goes to her home and tells her abt nana being a taxi driver. Nana now goes to the firm managing lockers where john’s will is kept and manages to bluff the manager and gets john’s will. By the time john reaches his house, the will(in torn state) is pasted. His ‘friends’ desert him knowing his financial power or the lack of it.

John manages to recollect something he saw in the taxi and he goes to the school where nana’s boy studies. There nana comes to see his boy one last time and gets caught by the police.

John feels bad seeing father and son split. Back home, more sorrow engulfs him when his girl friend (Sameera Reddy) leaves him too. John decides to set nana free on bail. Nana and john share a drink in john’s house. Nana shows him the will and tells him that the torn one is actually a fake. Nana rushes to the railway station to see if the train has left or not (knowing the punctuality of trains, he has high hopes)……but, “iska tho bad luck hee kharab hai”……train has left. He now returns to his house.

There he sees a birthday cake (it is john’s birthday too) and his wife and son. Who brought them back …..well….john of course…… and he goes to his father’s loyalist and tears the ‘will’ prepared by him. Then the care taker tells him that he’s just that and nothing more.


So, finally john and nana face their lives……..Happily ever after.

-----Zinda---

Zinda is the story of a Bengali couple (Sanjay Dutt and Celina Jaitley) . Sanjay works as a software programmer/designer in Thailand bcoz his employers are not willing to let him work in India and they give a hefty pay in return. This is the innocuous opening of this film. Then , koena learns from the doctor that she is pregnant……Sanjay gets kidnapped….he’s in some sort of black-hell…he’s watching on TV that his wife has been murdered…… all these sequences leave u with an eerie feeling. There is a lull after this…..sanjay gets used to these conditions…some one comes twice a day to feed him fried wantons(bhajiya, if u will) and every 3 days or so….some ppl will come to clean up the mess he’s made and to check him if he’s ‘zinda’. There is a buddhist sign in his room which sanjay understands as the message that he’ll meet his captor……but when…..no one knows at this moment. He learns Chinese martial arts……by watching television ofcourse. Finally after 14 loong yrs…he’s freed with mobile and cool goggles (bcoz he’s not exposed to direct sun for so longJ). Incidentally….his captor also wants to meet Balajit roy(sanjay) …so he’s providing hints for him. He meets a cabbie (lara dutta) to check out the places where wanton is served……that is the only link he has as of now.
He meets his old friend (Mahesh manjrekar) again , but he’s not in a state of mind to tell him everything that has happened. He finally gets to know where he’s been kept and goes there to kick the bloody life out of the manager…..manager(Raj zutshi) is an irritating and cheap “hostel” owner. Sanjay gets injured in the process and someone calls a taxi and sends him to lara’s house.

Lara is not thrilled with this situation…but accepts unwillingly. They flee from Thailand assuming that his captor will not be able to find him once he crosses the city limits… then, another attack on him and he finally discovers how his captor is finding him out everywhere…he’s fitted with a transmitter……he removes it and voila …his captor cannot find him…. But…..captor’s don’t depend on simple things like these….not in Sanjay Gupta’s films anyway….. sanjay meets his captor .or the other way round….. and he gets to know the reason for him being captured…..

Sanjay when in school plays a juvenile prank on john’s sister and it gets worse for her to ‘live’ anymore and she commits suicide. Then john is a helpless 7 or 8 yr old. Now he’s a business magnate with several companies under his empire and one of which ,bala works for. This was all setup before bala even came to Thailand. John has the custody of sanjay’s daughter……yes , he killed sanjay’s wife after she gave birth to a baby girl. She’s now 14 yrs old….the same age when john’s sister died. She’s locked up in a room and buggers are waiting for her…..
sanjay cannot tolerate this…..but, without saying anything more…john too falls off from the building and …..dies, then what. Sanjay finds where his daughter is locked up and goes to free her. She’s not to be found. Then he gets a call…..whoz this…….papa, I am at your(our) house.

Sanjay is relieved to see his daughter….. he feels “john ke seene mein bhi dil tha”………….