And the Oscar Goes to..................

Well - i wanted to come back to blogging with my fav topic- Bollywood but then i had the previous one saved in my draft folder and was begging to be posted. So technically this is my comeback post ;-).

Well as most of you might know i am a hindi movie junkie. I practically watch all movies that gets released and the movie has to really have the substance to keep me away from the theater(Ramu ki Aag and Bhansali ki Saanwariya had that).

This weekend was special- with the X-mas week and holiday season ahead of me and no plans whatsoever( well i had the anniversary of my scotland adventures coming up tho) i thot it would be a good idea to catch up with the two big releases- Welcome and Taare Zameen Par.

I liked Welcome. And that is all Iam writing about this movie.And no this is not yet another review.

Because I want to salute an absolute masterpiece created by mr.perfectionist aamir khan.When I saw Chak De this year- i thot that was a master act, but then the best was yet to come.

To be frank the movie never excited me in the pre release phase. The fact that I didnt know who the story writer was or what was the name of the child artist was a proof in itself(Ok Ok am being a little boastful here but i do follow these stuff) that I had not followed the developments. And I should thank the critics(whom we criticize always) for being very fair on this one(guess anyone with a little bit of honesty cannot find fault in this one).

The first thing that strikes you is the research that has gone into this movie, amol gupte(writer and the original director of this movie and aamirs college friend-see you didnt know this ;-)) and his wife have spent a lot of time and energy on each detailing which has resulted in this masterpiece.

Next is the Kid- Darsheel Safary. What a find. I would say this kid has carried the movie on its shoulder. And its nice to see aamir taking a backseat whether it is title card or on screen. The kids acting is at its best when he is not mouthing any dialouges but is using his expressions. The supporting cast looks perfect and ofcourse with aamir it doest look like he is acting.

And this movie is not about dyslexia but its just a medium through with the writer/director wants to tell todays parents on how pressurized the whole atmosphere has become for a child. This point is well summed up in a dialouge of aamir where he says - Race jeetne ka itnaa hi shauk hai toh ghodon ko daudaoo.

For all the heartland hindi folks- there is badnews. No heroien and no item songs. But a special mention to S-E-L 's music. It fits abzolutely into the narration. All in all a masterpiece(i know i have overused this word- but it deserves it). And the good news is after a slow start the movie has picked up because of word of mouth.

Now to my title- will the indian film fraternity and the concerend authority send this movie to the oscars as india's official entry for 2007? Only time will tell. I dont have much hopes on people who sent Jeans,Paheli and Ekalavya to the oscars............

What if.................

How long have I been away from blogging?? Never mind . Here I am with a couple of stuff to post.

So does the title of this post give you any idea of whats in store??? Well Read on.

I have always felt that there are some professions in life which are to be chosen only if you have a passion for it. The first time I thot about this was when I had to choose between Engineering and Medicien after my class 12(I chose neither is a different story). I think i am better suited for a different profession (I can see u nodding your head too ;-))) and can safely say atleast 7 out of 10 guys in my industry would say the same.But, can a doctor say the same about his job? Think of it - if the person who is treating/operating us says,I am in a wrong profession!!!!!!God Bless Us.

You can see many people around you jump to a different profession, take up higher studies in different stream or altogether stop the current stream of occupation and do somethng radically different( famous people being would be harsha bhogle,shankar mahadevan and nagesh kukkunoor to name a few). But can a doctor(this profession is just a example) do the same?? I doubt it unless he persues some creative talent of his. So if a person who has become a doctor not by choice goes on to practice(which he suerly will) what happens next? Can he have bugs in his code???(i am presuming most of my readers are software professionals or are related to s/w in some way or the other) Can his "Go live" fail??? Can there be a Sev1/Sev2 ticket?? I guess the answer is No. But with the top of the class S/W engineers having bugs in their code or having failed Go-Lives...What about these doctors???

So how well is our education system or family system (where a doctors son or daughter is expected to be a doctor) handling this ?

I dont have any answers- i just put out whats on my brain.....give a thought before you visit that doctor next :).

Which Server Are You using??

Well -I had to share this with you. And that is what gt me out of my hybernation. After staying in London for almost 9 months now, I planned to go in for a Pay monthly(Post Paid in our country) Simcard. And was excited to see a online offer from a very leading telecom company - O2. So I applied for it. I got a mail to send across my Pasport copy and a bank statement(Proofs of identity and residence). I sent it across to them and waited. After 5 days I am asked to give them a call. When I do it - I am told to send the same documents again. Cursing them, I send the email containing the attachment. And then I give a call to their customer support dept after about an hour. Her starts the asli story -
Me : this is regarding the Order number XXXXXX
Jenny(o2 person) : Can I take your passport number for identity please.
Me : It is XXXXXXX.
Jennny: Is your passpor hand written?
Me : Yes.
Jenny : Sorry sir, you woudl have to email it to us.
Me: I have already maild you the docs twice.
Jenny: When Did you do it?
Me:One of your customer care guys asked me to do it in the morning and I have mailed it to you.
Jenny:But we woudl never ask you to mail it.
Me : But I was asked to do it.And have mailed it in the morning.
Jenny: Which Address did you send it to?
Me :Its XXXXX@o2.com
Jenny:OOOOOOH You mean e-Mail, I was thinking of Snail Mail!!!!
Me:(^%&$%&^$%^&%&^%$&^$%&^).
Jenny:But we havent received any emails from you.
Me: But I sent it a long back, are you sure your mail servers are working fine??
Jenny:Ours are working just fine,Can I know Which mailserver are you using?
Me:(Surprized that she woudl know about servers) Well,I am not really sure which server is being used.
Jenny: Well, which server did you use to mail us - Yahoo,Hotmail or rediff.
Me:(Wanted to ask her - if she was blonde)Well I use Gmail.
Jenny: Which mail???
Me: Its the Gmail.
Jenny: NEVER heard that one before. Probably its one of the slowest servers and hence we havent received anything from you yet.
Me:(Couldnt take it anymore)Its ok jenny, will try and ask the Gmail guys to use better servers- thaks a lot for your time. Cheerz.

Well Friends - now you know why the BPO sector is booming in India. Together with the knowledge of answering the calls, our folks have common sense to reply simple queries.
Jai Hind!!!

Cricket-The game,the religion,the business......

India lost yet another match(not that I care).And they are out of the world cup. Sachin Tendulkar failed yet again in a crucial match. Our bowlers were average and our feilding was anything but spectacular. After we have seen the fate of Bob woolmer, what can we expect now?
Hope nothing as crazy as that happens,but for all the hype and the adulation- a the end of the day one is left wondering - is it all worth it? The talk and the chat shows, the endorsments, the parties and the good luck wishes, the havans and homas done for the good luck of the team.The audience is always left wondering- was it all worth it???
Will anything change???? I would say NO. Sachin,Rahul,Saurav will continue to play cricket for the next x-years. Might be a robin uthappa or a irfan pathan(mind you he did not play a game) will be dropped from the team. Would be surprised if greg.chappel continues. But for the rest, it will be business as usual after the world cup.
The public memory is shortlived. The next series India plays in India - they will win resoundingly and the junta will be ga ga over the team and its performance and Life goes on...........

Badshah the House breaker!!!!

Back after a small break from bloggin. And to start off,I have choosen my fav topic - Bollywood. From the pat two weeks, for reason unknown me and my roomies have been watching bollywood tearjerkers like - K3g,KANK(if you are wondering what these are- then juz get it) and KKHH.
When I saw this scene in KKHH, where shahrukh tries to woo kajol all over again when kajol is already engaged to salman, it struck me that shahrukhs block buster movies are the ones where he has either taken away the gurl from the shaadi ka mandap or has wooed a gal who is already engaged to some one or married to someone.Juz look at this list -
KANK- Rani is already married to AB
KKHH-Kajol is engaged to Salman
KHNH- Well, he had to die else Priety would have gone for him and not saif
DDLJ- Kajol is engaged to marry parmeet sethi
DARR-Juhi is married to Sunny(tho here king khan was unsuccessful)
KHKN - Suchitra krishnamoorthy is engaged to dipak tijori
DDLJ- Madhuri is Akshay kumars gal.
Pardes -Mahima is Apoorva agnihotris Mangethar....
Phew and the list goes on...Am not deducing something out of this.Just a thot in this chota sa dimaag ;-)).

Santa never came or Did He?...Contd

Day-3(Xmas day) - Since Nitin and Sweta had to go to the Xmas Mass - all of us got this extended sleep. and since it was xmas- we had the kitchen for ourselves and With gopi in the team we had to have a gr8 breakfast. So after a delayed start to day3 - we set out from Portree hostel . I go to the other car to keep a bag in it and by the time I come back - I see my car full and Mr.Praveen has decided to change cars - I am not impressed by his sudden chane of heart. I go and sit in the other car.Since Nitins car didn have fuel they decide to head to the next town for gas station(Xmas day - everything is closed). And we(in my new car) decide to go on a loong drive of the Isle of skye. So with some good Bollywood numbers blazing - we set out on the drive which promises to be memorable(no pun intended). We stop at this one lace which resembles Ladhak or afghanistan landscape where you have flat land for miles togethr. After a few miles of driving the ladscape changes into greenland and we have the sea for our company onto our right. One more photo session (in near to 0 degree temprature) done and we continue our drive. By now I have swapd position with Sarbjoth and I am in the front seat. I am engrossed in deleting some of the pics i had taken earlier .And we are moving along a mountain terrain and as the car turns over a bend i feel that the car is out of control and before I know the car hits the mound along the road and flies in the air - the next thing I know is the Thud with which the car comes to a halt.For starters - we are uside down - I can hear pavithra and Amit moaning in pain - I look a adarsh and see his eyes bleeding and lips swollen and Sarab in the back seat says - 'door jam hua hai'. I realize that I am not feeling any pain or bleeding. I unhook the seat belt and try to open the door - no luck. I see the wind shield a lil open - ask adarsh to break the same - but when i realize he isnt giving it enough power - I kick the same with all my power - it moves a lil. On the Second shot - it opens up enough for me to crawl out . Adarsh also crawls out behind me. Then luckily for us the back door opens from outside. Sarab comes out first and looks fit and fine. And we see Pavi and amit in pain. Sarab carries Pavi out of the iverted car and I help amit out of it. Adarsh is freezing and bare foot and he asks me to find his shoes. I go into the car to find his shoe which is stuck to the gas-pedal on the roof (:-)).

We dont have the mobile network to call the emrgency number(999). So I stop the next car (German tourists) and ask them for help. They get help fromt he locals from the next town. The 999 is informed by them and we wait for th ehelp to arrive. Its already 3:30 and its getting cloudy- cold and dark.But yet we get to see the scotish hospitality and generosity. Pavi was taken care by the lady from the nearest town. I got adarsh and Amit to sit in the cars with the heater on. And finally we get the ambulance(a medical helicopter) and fire engine come in after about 45mins of the accident.
Adarsh and amit had a Hlicopter ride to Inverness hospital.
At the end of it all - I should say that we were damn lucky to have escaped with a broken hand,one bleeding in the eye and a pelvic fracture and 2 of us unscratched.

With all of them taken care of and with police taking me and sarab into 2 different cars for initial investigation and alowing us out after recording our statement and with the police officers assuring us that all the luggage in the car would be handed over to us at the police station - me and sarab were off to bradford hospital in the hospital with pavitra in stretcher.

Back in the portree hospital - when I sat down with a cup of tea in the night..It dawned onto me - how much worse it could have been.This Xmas will always be - Unforgettable...to say the least.