Why should we get over all this? December 9, 2008

Life in mumbai is apparently back to normal. TOI got one of its journalists to take a gun inside a crowded station in mumbai ,into a crowded train and back and noone detected it..this is 3 days after the mumbai terror attacks. When will our security be revamped? Why should we all be expected to just “get over” it and continue life as if nothing happened? Because something DID happen…call it intelligence lapse, inefficiency of untrained police (with all due respect for the sacrifice they made) or sheer madness by the terrorists..The number flashing on the screen always has always been just a number, “100 killed in Mumbai”, ” 200 killed in Assam” but this time around, one of those 180 something killed was someone I knew,and suddenly I felt the pain that comes from all this..For the first time I broke down in office while reading the news.If I was feeling that much pain and frustration, I can’t begin to imagine what his near and dear ones were feeling..Its heart wrenching and I know that whatever I can say will not ease the pain and it just feels inadequate…

It was the first time probably that so many of the 5 star hotel staying “elite” were affected.If there was something remotely not-evil in all of this, it was the fact that the backlash that followed against the politicians was from this sizeable “elite” of our country. This huge chunk of people (including me) who have possibly written blogs about the corruption of politicians but never voted before.The chunk who crib about our country’s inefficient police, their outdated lathi sticks fighting with AK 47’s, but have never bothered to get on the voter’s list. I don’t believe in lighting candles to show solidarity or even worse, “wear a white” shirt in remembrance of the mumbai attacks. This will do nothing to/for our country. The need of the hour is revamping security and putting the country’s need before your own and to do this, we need intelligent and sensible people ruling us. I don’t want murderers or thieves who are interested in eating the money meant for our country’s defence to rule us.Do you? The first thing I did after this time’s terrorist attack was to register myself on jaagore.com and I will ,hopefully, be voting atleast by the next elections! Its not enough to say “It will be a choice between the devil and the deep sea”..Because its all a vicious cycle, you don’t vote, the same assholes stand for elections again and again and win by bribery and blackmail.We have the option to cast a “blank” vote (We don’t think any candidate is suitable to be elected) and a sizeable chunk of these blank votes will force them to give us a better candidate to vote for. I am all for Damning these *&%## terrorists and its not like terrorism is taking a backstage, but these attacks have forced us to introspect, see what is going on inside our country and what we have found is just not acceptable. There has been not a single attack in the US after the 9/11, will we be able to maintain those security levels with troublesome neighbours all around us? I certainly hope so..if not for me, then for the generations that will follow us…

Pandal Hopping – Kolkata,2008 – Part 1 October 12, 2008

Pandal Hopping – The newest 2-words in my limited vocabulary. It all started when we decided to be in Calcutta for this Durga Puja (i.eNavrathri). We had heard distinctly different versions of Durga Puja ( Henceforth referred to as DP) in Kolkata..From “It’s way tooo crowded ..Get Out Of The City While You Can” to “Its Mind Blowing. You Shouldn’t Miss It” . Anyhow by sheer chance we stayed put here inspite of Atul’s 1 week chutti and got the opportunity to see the whole of kolkata come alive.I was spell bound as to how a city which usually doesnt wake up till 11 am and sleeps by 11:00 pm transforms into a 24-hour live wire..It is that time of the year when the whole city becomes 1 big college campus. The crowd in the pandals in the wee hours of the night is just so surprising. Taxis are plying till 4:00 in the morning. Girls and boys are seen roaming around in groups beyond 1 in the night.The amount of effort and the amount of creativity which goes into the making of each pandal just amazed me. The beauty of it all , the lights , the decor, the ambience gripped me and made me go into this “pandal-hopping” frenzy these past 3 days. I have managed to cover some 12-13 pandals notwithstanding the crowd , the huge lines you encounter before you can enter and the distances between pandals, the jams on the roads and the pain in your legs..phew..But trust me its worth all that. Anyhow, So here’s a brief description of the pandals I visited this year…Basically, In Kolkata the “actual” Puja is from saptami till dasami (7th day till the 10th day)…and day 1 for me refers to the first day I went visiting Pandals..

Day 1 (which is actually Day 5 of the navrathri) : 12 am in the night, Atul’s friend Srirup called and asked if we wanted to go Pandal Hopping. We said “Yesss” very enthusiastically. This , after spending 2 exhausting hours in Science City. Exhausting not because we walked too much or anything, but because looking at the mindboggling crowd there tired us.Seriously, somehow the sight of all the kitch-pitch tiresss the mind and the body and we were ready to crash by 10 pm .But pandal-hopping sounded like fun and apparently this is the only day where you can see the pandals,walk around it leisurely and find parking space since Puja will start from day 7 of the navrathri…But inspite of this, 2 days before puja “starts”, the crowd roaming around in the city was unbelievable. Our first Stop was Maddox Square , which is basically a big adda for college/school going kids..The pandal is not all that spectacular (although since that was our first Pandal, I thought it looked verry pretty) The radiance on maa Durga’s face and the other diety’s faces is amazing. Plus the speciality of the Maddox Square Pandal is that there is one piece of REAL gold jewellery on the thakur (i.e Diety in Bengali ) .. So there’s like 24 hour police security for this Puja Pandal.

Next stop was Ballygunge Cultural and Samaj Sebi..Samaj Sebi was my first sight of a beautifully designed pandal..2 lifelike horses on a green patch of land..And the brilliant deities..Everything from the grass to the “concrete” like temple to the horses all made completely from scratch just for these 4 days of puja. Ballygunge Cultural, just a few minutes away, had these huge White pillars with painted glass in between, made of paper mesh and plastic..Again I felt the deities were incredibly beautiful..I loved the colours , the accessories, the radiating faces of the thakurs. On retrospection, these were not particularly spectacular compared to what we saw later..

Horses !

Next we went to Mudiali. Oh man..What a sight..It wasn’t huge but compact and beriiiiiiiii beautiful.It was made like a temple..white in color..beautiful ( I am so running out of adjectives to describe these pandals!) with extremely life-like pigeons on top ..Seriously those pigeons were simply extraordinary..I couldn’t stop looking at them..We could just not believe that this structure which looked like one of those everlasting solid monuments was made with
wood/cardboard!!! There was this beautiful Shiv-Parvati Carving next to the temple.All in all the structure looked like it had been standing there for eras together but one touch and I knew everything ws put up just for the Pujas.

Try and see the pigeons on top

Beautiful Mudiali Deities

Next up was Ekdalia Evergreen and Singhi Park..and our “awe” of the whole thing just kept increasing.Ekdalia Evergreen’s Lighting was fantastic..The colorful light boards were showing adorable animations of animals swaying and playing..all this with just a simple “on-off” mechanism..nothing fancy..but damn cute.The Pandal lookied like victoria memorial and was made almost completely with glass pieces..Sooo pretty! It was glittering like a gem under all that light. And I had no words for the beauty of the idols inside..Me and Atul decided Ekdalia will definitely win some prize.(there is a competition every year in different categories and as I came to know later, it didn’t).But it was soo beautiful..

Beautiful Ekdalia

Across the road was Singhi Park. One look at the lights outside and I thought “Las Vegas”!!! The rows of beautiful, brighttt neon lights felt like it was leading me to a casino around the corner Each of these light boards depicted a form of pollution..Water Pollution..Air Pollution..Sound Pollution etc..The pandal’s colour combination was brilliant..It was shaped like a 2-headed Peacock with the Puja place in between and you wouldn’t believe what the entire pandal’s decoration was made of..Thread reels..of different colours..the peacock feathers, the decorations on top..thread reeels..Unbelievable what people can do .. The dieties were in this beautiful pink..the colour combination..green pandal and pink idols was just breathtaking..I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face looking at all this. All this beauty was making me very happy ..

Singhi Park Pandal

Singhi Park Lights

The stalls outside these pandals weren’t completely set up and Srirup kept saying how the atmosphere will transform to some sort of mela..with food stalls..Puchka, bhel puri pan, the balloon shooting stalls..ferris wheels and most importantly the dhaaakis (the traditional drum beaters).Although the pandals propelled my tired feet somehow through these 5 pandals, I suddenly had had enough and wanted to see my sweet little bed at home.We had walked around quite a bit since most of the roads are made one-ways and no entries so that people can walk peacefully..

At the end of my day 1, I think I have finally stumbled upon the reason why this city is so lazy..the bengalis conserve alll their energy, all their creativity, alll their activities for the Pujas, expend it alll during the pujas and then go back to conserving again …Day 1 for us was actually like a preview show of all the pandals in south kolkata.We actually went back to most of them again on day 2 and day3 .

To Be Continued…whether you like it or not

Hello – Movie Review October 11, 2008

Hello! I did not go into the theatre with many expectations since I thought the book was pretty much one of Chetan’s Bhagat’s worst. Not only was the book too “bollywood masalaish”, it also had a weak plot..and the premise the book was based on, ‘the call from god’ is over in  sm 5 minutes! I don’t think that counts as “being based on”..So yeah, the movie did not disappoint me as much since the book had already let me down. So I went with low expectations and expected to be mildly entertained.I was surprised that inspite of Chetan Bhagat being involved in the screenplay, he did not have a say in the “sets”. How ridiculous those funny shaped tables in that 5 star hotel ambience looked..I don’t think its too much to expect them to design a “Call-center” look alike set..all you need is cubicles and for the “larger-than-life” movie, all they had to do was enlarge the cubicles..but no, to make it filmy they had to make them all look like they are sitting in some make shift call center in some hotel lobby!! Another thing which struck me as odd was the casting..When I read the movie I envisioned the “usual” call center crowd..i.e the hip and young – 20-25 yr olds.In this movie though, the cast looked easily some 10 years older.Sharman Joshi could have passed off as a 25 yr old but Sohail Khan??? No way!! He looked like one of those guys who everyone in colleges call “uncle”..There are ofcourse exceptions in every call center..but all of them looked older.You can watch it for the Sharman Joshi – Sohail Khan bits which were entertaining. Sharman Joshi was as expected good.Gul Panang looked really out of place and that cleavage showin top with that jazzy skirt on those “very child bearing friendly” hips looked ridiculous. I’ve seen Gul look so much better in other movies (rather in one other movie..Dor). Amrita Arora was asusual irritating.I think it’s time she loses the Doll kind of makeup. She hardly looked like she was made to do all the house work as a bahu ..she looked like she spent all her time at kitty parties and beauty parlours. Not to mention the fact that the girl still needs acting lessons. I feel Isha Koppikar would have been a better choice for Radhika..and Amrita as Isha ..Isha Koppikar could have been given more scope to perform.I did not find anything spectacular about her role or her acting.Military Uncle was good like a supporting cast should be..Sohail Khan’s characters and dialogues was actually cute if only he was 10 yrs younger ..
Other than these flaws and the weak story line and some logical flaws like how the call center company allows their employees to drive their vehicles without any problem, and their very cliched portrayal of Americans and their problems,the movie was okay ..I dint get too bored and when the book wasnt that gripping anyways we cant blame Atul Agnihotri..

Soumen’s Workout July 17, 2008

I have been trying to find out information about Soumen’s Workout on google for ages and never been able to exactly figure out WHAT it was. So I finally ventured into one of the centers here on Ashutosh Mukherjee road . What gave the overpowering impetus to my perenially-growing-lazy-ass, was seeing myself on one of those security camera televisions. For a minute I saw it and thought, “who’s that fat aunty with that skinny boy” and when I realised it was mee and Atul (who seems to be very unfairly losing weight), it totally freaked me out!! snifffffff..

Neways, till that time, all I knew about Soumen’s Workout was through their ads all over Kolkata declaring “Lose 2 Inches in 4 Days. No Machine Zone” ..(and then after the IPL, i kept seeing “Korbo Lorbo Kombo” slogan on their posters) There were so many koschens in my mind..what was it exactly? No Machine Zone..Okay so its not a gym..Is it like the weight loss centers like VLCC , Vibes? Hmm Maybe not cuz I guess they use machines too..Do they give you some weird tasting pills to lose weight? Or is it a Aerobics Center?? Or Yoga? Or Whatiteeeeeeez!!???!

So, as I said, I finally decided to just go there and SEE what they do — here ’s what ALL I found out :

1. It’s run by this guy named Soumen ( Duh ! )

2. It looked almost like Aerobics to me but Soumen say it’s not completely aerobics. The workout is like 20-30 minutes of Cardio and warm up exercises and then 30 minutes of floor exercises targetting any 2 areas of your body (Like waist and hamstrings or Abs and Back etc) They also claim that they dont repeat the same exercise for an entire month but for almost 30 minutes everyday you do the same thing..stretching and warm up exercises and the cardio..

3. It costs around 1.5k per month for 26 classes a month (Sounds like a good deal.6 days a week is a lot!). If you take the 3 month package it costs 4k (first month you need to pay 500 for admission)

4. They have 1 hour batches starting from 6:45 in the morning till 8 in the night. I think from 1 pm to 4 pm there are no batches though. You can go for any batch on any day.

5. They have many centers all over Kolkata..Salt Lake, Park St, Gariahat etc etc.. (I guess the main one is the Ashutosh Mukherjee Road one)

6. They claim to make me “perfect” in 1.5 months lol..Yeah so they say I can actually lose 2 inches in 4 days (Tomm is my 4th day..We shall see if I have lost anything).Plus they say, I can attain my ideal figure in 1.5 months! That’s not too far .. But you know even If its not ideal, I shall go with the old adage ” Something is better than nothing ” ..

7. You can contact them at : 9830216280

8. There are no other Aerobics Classes this side of the town..So definitely worth giving a try.

I can’t think of any more details that i can give. I sure hope this is useful to someone ..

Free Falling Markets – Valuable Tips Part 1 July 4, 2008

Okay so you might think “What makes her soo darn qualified to give stock tips?” Well, Haha, I am certainly not qualified to tell you how to make money. Rather, I shall deal with the finer things in life — How NOT to wipe out you entire life’s savings As I have learnt and rightly, the word “experienced” in the stock market is associated with someone who encounters very heavy losses. I think you’d know by this time how “experienced” I am in that field!

But then, enroute to these catastrophic losses, you learn some very valuable lessons so here I am blogging and giving you the gyan

Lesson #1 : Don’t be impatient – Oh and how many times have I done this!! When the elders say, “Patience” is a virtue, Listen to them..Refreshing your demat site some 20 times every 2 minutes is not going to get you the price you want. So stay away after giving your buy order for the day.
It’s like, you give a buy order for say, some share for 196 Rs..And then you see, inspite of your refreshing it a million times, its just not coming to 196..on the other hand, its actually hovering around 198-200.You Immediately change the order to 198 and trust me 95% of the time, the next minute would see the share price fall to some 194 and you’re like.. DARN!! So just go with your initial gut feeling which told you that it will come to 196..if not today then tommorow so dont be hasty.
Lessons #2 : Don’t be greedy : Sigh..yes many a finger has been burnt by being greedy. Its good to have high expectations from your stock but have a limit to your expectations. Don’t wait for an indecently exorbitant profit. Keep a limit of say 20%..and SELL it when it reaches your limit.

My story goes like this..I bought some shares of some company D (Am not revealing the real name of the stock just to keep the post a little mysterious ) , at 800 Rs and slowly with time D rose to around 1200.So what would you have done? just SOLD IT, Right? But nope..Greedy me just did not allow it..Greedy Me thought” Hey if it can reach 1200 it can reach 1500 too” ..But fairy tales seldom feature stock markets in them..and D crashed..to an all time low of around 400 and with very less probability of rising above 600 again.. You get the moral of the story right??

Lesson #3 : Don’t take “share” price tips seriously — Yes don’t listen to anybody because nobody can predict market sentiments accurately. Even if the person giving this free gyan is your uncle, brother, aunt, friend (unless that friend is from some reputed i-bank ) Never take it too seriously.Do your own research, make your own call about a company and THEN invest your money. I had the misfortune of taking my uncle seriously when he mentioned that some company, call it N ( Continuing with the mysterious touch) will touch 500 when it was around 463 (Ofcourse the same uncle now claims he could never have said that) but neways I bought N’s shares at 463 and then began the free fall..And for every 50Rs that it used to fall, I used to buy 50 more shares in the hope that SOMEDAY i’d offset the loss. So as of now I have some 300 shares of Company N at an average loss of 150 per share..Double yayy..

Also to be mentioned is how you should NOT go to say, moneycontrol.com , pick a Lucky share at random there, read 2-3 comments about how its the next big thing and how it will sky rocket in 2 weeks and end up buying it.Strict No-No..There are malicious evil people in this world, who will say promising things in the hope that the price WILL go up if enough dump people exist in the world who will read their comments and buy it :p..grrrrrrr…And unfortunately I was playing with “futures” (More on this when I come to lesson #4) when I picked this.So company S’s comments said that there will be a buy back of shares at a price  100 rs higher than what it was going at , in another 2 weeks,.But as MY luck would have it, it never went up..the idiots did the buy-back at a much lesser price!! And S is one of the more predominant contributor to my loss now..3 cheers for S..heepp heeepp hurray…ugh

so Yes I have done enough dumb things to last me a life time and No I still haven’t stopped trading !

Gosh, I have so many more things to warn people about,but some other time..soon..

To be continued….

Dasavatharam — Too many kamals spoil ….. June 27, 2008

Somehow, the thought that kept flashing in my mind when I was seeing Dasavatharam was
— “Too many Kamals Spoil the broth” and How!
I feel like Kamal Hassan decided on the movie’s name first and then decided that somehow he has to fit in 10 roles whether they make sense or not , zabardasti! I guess its my mistake going for it INSPITE of warnings from so many people that it was pretty pathetic.But you know how u can think “How Bad Could It Be!!” and land up going for these horrid horrid movies? So there I was in the sparsely populated theatre with my paavam “non-tamil” speaking husband (Atul) for his FIRST ever tamil film experience. I never thought the day would come when I would have to apologise for one of Kamal hassan’s movies..

I really think the movie wouldnt have been so bad IF Kamal hassan had had a LITTLE lesser amount of love for himself.He could have easily given 7 of those avatars to other people. The makeup looked so shoddy and so artificial. I mean It looked almost comical..these overly made up wax creatures (the normal wax dolls definitely look more human like than these!!) running on the roads, chasing each other, jumping up buildings, singing on stages..phew..I was scared the makeup will start cracking in places whenever there was a fire scene..Atul was guessing which characters were the Kamal avatars just by picking the funniest and most ODD looking character on the screen. and It was so true..The moment a comical weird looking creature popped up on screen, it would be YET another Kamal. I would say, the WORST looking creatures were Fletcher and the Grandma.Initially we were laughing at the way George Bush and the Japanese fellow looked. But after seeing Fletcher and Granma we decided to give the worst look award to them ..Fletcher,George Bush and Tall Kamal actually had one similarity ..they all looked like the Incredible Hulk..in white ..Oh wait Tall Kamal also looked a bit like Frankenstein..or maybe that was intentional

Next going to the 55 crores he was supposed to have spent on this movie (a big chunk of which was used for the graphics ) and the 3 year effort it toook to do the “special” effects!!?? What special effects..??? Agreed that the Tsunami towards the end looked okay but the rest of the scenes looked really amateurish. It was way tooo obvious that compute graphics were being used..to potray that ship scenes, the scenes with water in it, and even the bike chase scene looked like a movie out of the late 70’s! And people din’t even Lip Sync properly in the movie..there was a CLEAR lag or watever when Asin was singing krishna songs ..and a pretty noticeable problem when Mallika Sherawat was trying to talk in Tamil..I am soooo disappointed by the technical faults in a 55 crore movie ,that I am pretty sure, Kamal has a palatial new house built somewhere in chennai

Now coming to some reviews which I read, which talked about how this is an “INTELLECTUAL” movie and not a masala movie . LOL…ROTFL.Okay Just because he mentions the word chaos theory in the movie , doesnt make it even a teensy bit of an intellectual movie.C’mon, What would you say the probability will be, of a bullet hitting a singer with throat cancer and whisking away his cancerous cells along with it so that ,not only does he LIVE but he can also now continue singing all his life???!!???!! LOL..I actually burst out laughing at the absurdity of it..ofcourse noone complained cuz there were hardly any people in the theatre!! Oh and the last scene with Fletcher dying in the tsunami but not before he was poked by an Indian Flag..lol..Why does patriotism come in here anyways? Govind, the protagonist was busy developing bio weapons for the US and came to India only in pursuit of that vial not for any patriotic reason! And what was being portrayed was how GOD overpowers science and all that…Ok whatever…He wanted to add Masala..so he did..I was also disappointed by the quality of jokes that a Kamal Hassan movie should have had.I was remembering Pancha Thantram, Thenali..Avvai Shanmugi..Pammal K Sambandam..Sigh..What riots these movies are..and In comparison here’s one of the most pathetic “jokes’ in the movie —- The last scene between Fletcher and that Japanese Kamal..

“Remember Hiroshima” asks American Kamal…

“Remember Pearl Harbour” says Japanese Kamal

too funnny re!!

To be fair to Kamal, I loved Balram Naidu..Absolutely adorable character and the only saving grace for the movie. I was looking forward to seeing more and more of Balram Naidu and his jokes..too cute

But other than that, there were just too many avatars of his, which dint make any sense ..What was that Vincent fellow doing there? What mannu mannu was he talking about? Oh and why did they have to bring in Shingen Narahashi? Must be to crack that Pearl Harbour Joke..and to Shout out “Tsunami” when he saw the tsunami ..cuz you know, only the japanese knew what the tsunami is..wink wink ..hehhe.. Patti Kamal looked a bit grotesque but was pretty cute in the scenes with Balram Naidu..Sardar Kamal was completely over dramatic..and who would pay to see an old sardar and his old (but still beautiful) wife dance on stage?? Eeks. George Bush Kamal looked comical..but nothing compared to that joke of a guy,Fletcher! The First story and the first kamal …other than the shockingly disgusting way in which Kamal was “tortured” in it, I have no averse feelings towards Mr.Nambi ..so I shall let that be..the Giant Kamal who was super imposed on the screen some of the time it was obvious because people looked like they are talking to the air and not to him…and who had no real role to play really other than helping My favourite Balram Naidu crack a few jokes at his expense.

I think that covers all the kamals, who existed JUST to satisfy his super sized ego..:) Asin as the heroine was very irritating..She was constantly screeching and screaming. I wonder how Kamal could fall in love with her..even In the movie!! Mallika sherawat..her item number slightly bordered on vulgarity ..ok someone tell me Why did they get Fletcher and Mallika married neways ? Was that to get Fletcher an indian visa ? Ok forget it, this movie isnt worth analysing soo much : )..
Net Net ,
All I can say
To Atul is : Sorry for putting you through Dasavatharam but It was soo sweet that you sat through patiently ..
To all the other non-tamil speaking audience who were in the elevator with me and actually thought that the movie must have made much more sense to people who knew tamil — No It did not make sense to Me either..
and To GOD/Whoever it is that puts these ideas into Kamal’s head — Please GIVE me the comedyyyy Kamal Back…he was sooo good at it!

PS : Btw I am impressed with the way people have caught on to the whole “dasavatharam” concept and analysed it so much..Here’s a blog with the mapping between Vishnu’s 10 avatars and Kamal’s 10 avatars. Really interesting –>

http://sathyaphoenix.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/the-mapping-of-each-ten-roles-to-avatars-in-dasavatharam/

The New Bangalore International Airport June 10, 2008

The new Bangalore Airport opened on the 24th of May, and soon I was having nightmares about my next bangalore trip. How will I reach office ? or Rather WILL i reach office? Will I get a bus? OR Will I have to shell out HALF the airfare just to get to koramangala? Gosh..Life was soo much more blissful before this new airport opened up 40 km from the city! I used to peacefully catch the 8:50 Deccan which landed at 11:30 and I’d be in my office by 12..which isnt too bad! But this time around I had to take a 6:15 am flight, to take into account the 2.5 hours of travel from the airport to the city..not to mention the fact that I had to get up at an unearthly near-midnight hour (4:30 to be more precise!)..Sobb! The only consolation was I’d atleast get free breakfast on Jet Airways..yayy(luckily this flight was cheaper than Deccan). So I landed at around 8:45 am.It took us some 30 minutes just to get down from the flight, reach the baggage claim, get the baggage and head out. Anyways, I expected to see path-breaking architechture and creativity flowing in the new airport but was deeply disappointed.Its a rectangle, made of glass and shiny and glossy but thats about it.And to think, people were comparing this to the Dubai airport. But to be fair, I saw only the “domestic” arrivals area so hopefuly things get better elsewhere!

Continuing with my “Travel Saga”, There were signs pointing to where the bus stand is , so I followed that and reached the bus stand. There were conductors in white uniform standing there just to point out which bus to take depending on where you are going.Ofcourse ideally, they should have just made bigger versions of the route map which is being circulated everywheree, and displayed it prominently along with bus numbers. But what the hell, the airport started off only 10 days back so I shall cut some slack. It took the bus another 10 minutes to get full. The bus was one of those Vayu Vajras : Airconditioned Volvos with luggage berths in the front plying to and from the new airport.Not bad at all. It took us 1 hour to get to malleshwaram and the likes..and then almost another hour to cross the traffic and reach koramangala.So the bus started at around 9:30 and I was in my office at 11:20. ALmost 2 hours. Thats exactly the flight duration too! The buses have designated drop off points so I had to get down at the st johns hospital signal and take another minimum distance auto from there to reach my office near Maharaja. Not too inconvenient since I was travelling light. But I did notice, people with a lot more luggage struggle quite a bit to get down at the middle of the road esp near the indian express building and queens road etc. Anyhow net-net, It wasnt TOO bad an experience. Its obviously a much bigger discomfort for domestic passengers than having it on “old” airport road but well we cant do anything about that can we?

And now to give some fundaes about how to travel from/to the airport :

Option 1 : Take the MERU / EASY taxis from the airport. This costs a bomb though.800 bucks to koramangala! And they have phone numbers , which you can call if you want a pickup from your home to the airport

Option 2 : Take the bus. 150 bucks to Koramangala. From the airport, its a no-brainer taking these buses. But if you want to get to the airport, just check out the website www.viaworld.in

You can book your seats in the volvo and for 100 Rs more you can book a cab which will pick you up from the house and drop you at the Vayu Vajra pick up points

Option 3 : www.airliftonline.com : A very impressive company having a fleet of 32 innovas. Its a sorta share-taxi thingy where you pay 350 bucks to get to the airport from specific pick up points (Another 150 bucks if you want a pick up from home) .But its all hi-tech..GPS tracking system to track traffic ; Personalised tv screens for every seat to entertain you in those 2 hours ; a Luggage box on the top of the innova. Pretty neat idea!

Well these are the 3 options. I am sure more companies will soon start catering to the “I dont mind paying more than 150 but 800 is too expensive” category of people

Those 7 Months.. April 22, 2008

Yeah its been 7 months since I wrote my last post. That is probably the longest time I’ve gone without writing a word here ( even if it meant Starting a draft and never completing it) and WordPress has changed quite a bit. I like the new and improved dashboard which gives direct access to all your drafts and stuff Great Job with the look and feel as well…

Anyhow, not tooo many things happened in the last 7 months (sic!).

I made a month long trip to seee the world …

Other than that I got Married finallly to my sweetheart of 7 years…

PLUS I have shifted base from bangalore to kolkata …

Unfortunately, I Dont want to cram all the details of everything I’ve done in one post.So I shall prioritise and write another post shortly.

This one was just to remind ppl to come back to my blog..I miss this..:)

Cricket — That Unifying Factor In Our Lives :) :) :) September 30, 2007

Aah..Sighh…What A Feeeling..How the heart leaps with Joy when the Indian Cricket team actually win something! It is a such a rare occasion isnt it? People were getting tired of burning effigies and throwing stones at the players houses..;)..The Twenty 20 World Cup and Young INDIA has it in their pocket…Woaahhh…

This new version of cricket, Twenty20 , is reallly exciting and triply interesting..Full of Masala and a fultooo mass entertainer…:) ..With average RPOs of 7, people hitting 6 Sixes in an over and the concept of Bowl Out similar to Penalty shootouts, all give it the right concoction for the fast-food generation that we’ve got goin ..I am actually wondering if I will be able to watch an ODI with 100 overs after this!!!

So anyways point was, A India-Pakistan cricket match makes everyone seem so sporting , cooperative , fun and sooo much nicer.Consider my previous feelings towards Auto drivers (Ranging from Seething Fury to Extreme Dissapointment in mankind), And Imagine Me going in an auto , talking amiably to the auto driver, Sharing scores (I was getting minute by minute commentary about Pakistan’s innings by ISD call from my parents and the Auto driver, whose name was Sriraju btw , had overheard the first conversation) , talking about the Potential of Rohit Sharma, Praising RP Singh’s prowess with the ball ..all with my New friend Mr.Sriraju (aka Auto Driver ) .Oh and yes All this was interspersed with screams of Joy from both Me and Driver, when India took their first 2 wickets ..After which I had to get down..sadly..Sigh..and to top it all He happened to be one of the “good” auto drivers (very very rare..like our victory;)) If only people were so sweet everyday..Everyone on the road seemed to be rushing home to watch the match and there were motorcyclists who stopped and asked my auto driver the score instead of directions ..And earlier that day , the whole office (that would be the 10 of us i.e) were animatedly discussing cricket in the lunch room and everyone in the office stopped working at 5:30 sharp (that was actually a PlANNED thing) and gathered in our “conference” room to watch the match on tv..There was chips (Slurpp), there was beer and there was a whole lot of “betting” on what score India will make! See? There’s somethiing about cricket that makes auto drivers Friendly, managers angelic , bosses – a whole lot MORE fun and the whole world a very very rOsy place !

PS : I should mention though that the Amount of gifts and money these cricketers have been getting is not very amusing! And I should say I am glad the match was abandoned yesterday.I doubt after staying on “CLOUD NINE” for a whole week, these guys would be able to achieve an above 300 target..Plus I actually agree with the hockey players..Why should the STATE governments prefer cricket and reward ONLY cricketers? We cant stop the private companies from Showering gifts on them, but the government should have shown this much interest when we won the Asia Cup Too.And What about when Pankaj Advani won those World Championships and Vishwanathan Anand, who is actually chess no.1 in the world now and our football team too won the Nehru Cup..In true CHAK de INDIA style I heard ..Sigh .. Cruel Cruel World..One minute it seems rosy and immediately after, Unfairness is discovered..

Shantaram September 9, 2007

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts is my latest conquest(his BOOK i.e!) and a fantastic read All it took for me to finish it is a viral fever stint at home for 4 days ..

Since the story can be found anywhere on the web ,am going with what I liked (or disliked) about the book..

My Favourite Character : My favourite character HAS to be Prabhakar.Someone who sees the world through rosy glassses and believes in the inherent goodness of everyone and someone whose smile is described as the widest possible.I even love the adorable way he speaks English.I think every paragraph with Prabhaker’s character in it was a real pleasure to read and it actually bought a Laugh to my lips!

Quotes :When they are about to board a general class compartment in the train (a first for our Australian dude Lin), Prabhaker arranges for a porter to literally carry the dude inside.Its just too hilarious.Prabhaker, before they climb onto the train, asks Lin to catch hold of the porter ’s shirt and tells

“Say it also Lin, Say it the words – I Will never Let it go the Shirts“

My LEAST favourite Character : It will have to be Karla.I sorta intuitively never liked her from the time she appeared in the book.Although the protagonist falls in love with her the first time he sees her.Karla seems like one of those people who just dont trust anyone, are sly and cover up their own lives to create some sort of weird mystery and use everyone who comes their way for their own selfish purposes.

My favourite part of the book : The Head of the slum, Qasim Ali, meting out justice. He says “Justice is not only the way of punishing those who do wrong, it is also the way of saving them“.The grace with which he reforms a wife beater and a drunkard is worth reading.The same wife beater becomes a better man and even goes on to the become the head of the slum after a few years. Another instance is when two men start quarelling over something.Qasim intervenes and gets them to tie a rope around 1 of their legs so that they work “together”. The couldnt walk without cooperating with each other..And thats how it worked.:)

Oh and I got one more.The bear and the bear keepers!! The bear appears the first time, sent by Abdullah to hug Lin (Since Lin  used the term “bear hug” once! LOL).The entire slum gathers to watch the bear, which seems so adorable and harmless ..Then it again makes an appearance towards the end where the slum dwellers and Lin dress the bear up like Ganapathi to save it from the police and parade it some 3-4 kms down the road on a vegetable cart! I could just imagine what an adventure that would have been!!

My LEAST favourite part of the book : I think it has to be the war in Afghanistan.It seemed to stretch forever..and did not seem to have any real purpose to me.

What Shocked Me : Arthur Road Jail and its conditions as described by the author.The author is arrested for no good reason and is tortured for months inside the jail without having a clue about WHY he is in there (Very “ZINDA”) Its disgusting that our police will act according the whims of just about anyone..

And definitely Madame Zhou, the famous and very powerful “pimp” — owner of the “Madame Zhou’s Palace” and the things she got people to do there..! Ughhh..

What Lightened My Mood : Apart from Prabhaker, it was the way Vikram pursued his love, Lettie relentlessly. Every time he appeared in the book, he was trying to woo Lettie.And finally he wins over her by proposing to her atop a moving train..very filmy and pretty entertaining! And Didier’s one liners kept the mood light too..
My favourite “philosophical” part : Philosophical discussions ..There were many of those in this book.It will surprise you how philosophical a smuggler, counterfeit money minter and a DON can be.Although I found most of the philosophical discussions between Lin and Abdur Rehman (the great Don) a tad stretchy,there was this one concept which sorta stuck to me.

“Doing the Wrong Things For the Right Reasons”..thats how the DON justified his actions in Afghanistan and at several other circumstances.And Lin realises, that in his life, even the right things were goaded by the wrong reasons! Even the wrong things you do for the “right” reasons are well, wrong and accepting the consequences is the best you can do.So although Lin has escaped from prison for doing whatever it was, his mind is never at rest.There is this one guy who kills another debauched guy from the slum who was mistreating his wife and sister.Lin is amazed at the peace and calmth he sees in his eyes even though he is in prison and he doesnt want any help to get out because he knows he did the Wrong thing, albeit for the right reasons….and this chews up Lin’s mind a lot more than before.

Some facts that I learnt :

1.AK 47 – Avtomat Kalashnikova..Never bothered to find out the full form for AK! ..This rifle was the most influential and most widely manufactured.It could fire a 100 rounds per minute on Auto and 40 rounds per minute on semi-automatic,single shot mode.Oh and as a limitation,It caused a muzzle flash which was so bright that it sorta temporarily blinded the person firing it and gave away hiis position in the night.Plus sometimes, a round grew so hot in the chamber that it exploded in the user’s face! That was why so many guerilla fighters, held the gun away from their bodies or over their heads in battle operations.

Hmmm Interesting..now we can find more faults in “war” movies ..

2.Standing Babas — Also called as Khareshwaris are people who took a vow that they will never sit or lie down for 12 years.They drape themselves on a chest high swing, when they sleep with their legs hanging in the air! Its a form of self inflicted corporal punishment as a way of getting spiritual enlightenment.The first 5-10 years, the legs begin to swell and become bloated out of recognisable shape , resembling a tree with all its gnatted roots.After that, their legs become thinner and thinner till only the bones remain and a thin veneer skin appears to cover them.The author says it is a painful unending agony for the standing babas.If they do walk at all or stand (Instead of suspending themselves on a sling), they keep moving from one feet to other, swaying since the pain of the pressure on one leg is unbearable..Oh and they smoke a LOT of ganja..Understandable I guess!!!

Alrite, I have dissected the book enough..and I dont really think people who havent read it will get it..but I think I am happy with the way I’ve analysed the book hehe