Black Friday

Few years back, when I first heard the song 'Bandeh', the first commitment I made to myself was to witness its 'First Day First Show'. And got the chance to fulfil that after two years. Not many movies go that dark, that Black Friday has managed.

So, Is Black Friday worth it?
Ratings - 4/5.

Black Friday is a docu-drama based on '93 Bombay Blasts. (Just for the fact) The movie was banned by the court since it contains actual names of the accused involved in the blasts. Black Friday, a 2.5 hour movie moves ahead in the form of chapters (the story is based on a book by S. Hussain Zaidi). The first half of the movie shows how the plot was implemented and the ones who were involved in blasts. Then comes the chase and nabbing sequences of all the guys who planted the bombs (which I feel was a bit extended at late). The best part of Black Friday is its honesty. Everything shown in the movie seems damn real. All the scenes of interrogation are shot fantastically (even the red lit interrogation room where only 'BLACK outlined' silhouette is visible seems extremely barbaric; but that's the reality...the third degree of police).

Acting wise, on individual front, all characters are good. K.K.Menon as the strict officer in-charge is ultimate to watch. Pawan Malhotra as Tiger Menon is good. Aditya Srivastava as one of the bomb planters is best of them. His best scenes are when he roams around in search of a hideout after the bomb blasts.....Bombay->Delhi->Rampur->Gorakhpur->Jaipur->Tonk->Gorakhpur->Calcutta...and as time passes by, he is neglected by his Dubai Dons and in the end finds him self-jailed. The picturization also gives you hints about the whole process of intriguing young teenagers by some terror outfits and then left to die once they achieve their motives. One interesting fact about the movie is the usage of real-time footage. All the NEWSTRACK videos, were taken from a scrap dealer, then suitably edited and then embedded in the movie. Also, this 'female-less' bollywood flick contains no romantic relationships, just brutal grilling drama.

Lastly, all credits to Indian Ocean for a majestic background score. How many hyped rock bands have the potential to attract you to a theatre? If you are a college goer and have attended any of their concerts, you would know what the band is capable of! Their song 'Bandeh' topped the charts two years back when Black Friday was to come out. Full version of 'Bandeh' (7:48 min) can be downloaded from coolgoose.com. CLASS APART song......If not for the movie, go for this number. You won't be betrayed, bet on...

"An eye for an eye, makes whole world blind"....Mahatama Gandhi

A hope also arises from the release of Black Friday. A hope of upgradation of our acceptance towards this kind of 'truth' cinema. The best example being of "No Man's Land"...a Bosnian movie which revealed reality facts to the world and made it to the ocsars arena. Let's hope, movies like Black Friday will make us proud on international platform one day.

All INDIAN OCEAN songs are available at (click)

CSI trip, 2006...unique again

After the last trip (read CSI trip-2005), the unique-st trip ever of my life, me with 42 of my classmates went to Dalhousie. The trip had expectations; to which it was fully fulfilled (thanks to engineers like us…you will get to know once you decide to read the whole write-up). After experiencing last year’s trip, nobody (from our class) was in the mood to miss this one too (so in total 43 out of 72 guys went for this year’s tour).

The duration of our trip was from 8th Sept 2006 to 12th Sept 2006. Like last time, we were asked to report to college at 6:30 pm (sharp!!) and we did that (we commit ourselves to non-following of rules but exceptions always persist). Unlike last year, the college authorities had a mini-bus ready AT TIME (for ferrying us to Old Delhi Ra. St.). For the first time I released the pain of those chickens, who are caged and then transported…my feelings were quite similar to that…50 in one mini-bus (precisely speaking the vehicle had the body of a mini-bus built on the chassis of a RTV…see through ur imagination).

Not surprising, our scheduled train (some express) was nowhere near the scheduled time (but i.e. the same old story…dunno why do they name these trains as express?). One major problem was in the sequencing of tickets; as a result, the whole batch (we were 63 accounting all years) got fragmented. But no problemo…

Our delayed express came, all rushed, sat where we got space, messed up all ticketing sequence, created havoc among other passengers...basically, it was like 40-50 mad bulls infiltrating a reserved train compartment. The journey was like normal; full of DumC, singing (oh yes! We did make sure that others are disturbed). Meanwhile our accompanying behanjies engaged themselves in gossip and we in becee (male version of gossip).

The train reached Pathankot (unbelievably, it landed there at right time) but then our buses were late. Dalhousie is reachable only through roads. Amidst a raining background, I happen to see an interesting character in the form of a female beggar at the Pathankot platform. Not that she looked gorgeous but I was really astonished the way she asked money from our gang…esp. from Roll No. 64 and Mr. Sa___d _lam (real names not to be published). The nice things that she said to both can’t be written for decency reasons. She had ‘THE’ most unimaginable begging style one could ever imagine…great sense of pride while begging.

Here is the modulus-operandi the way she operated – she approaches her target guinea-pigs with great sense of confidence and proudness with a minimum demand of Re. 1. If her g-pig refrains…then…words like BC, MC, KLPD, etc etc rains from her mouth (again for some decency reasons I can’t elaborate this).

The vehicles arrived, we boarded and the whole motorcade of CSI moved to the final destination.

The ambience of the environment up there wasn’t as bad as last time around when we went to Mousourie. Everybody reached in one single piece comfortably (unlike last time). The common room of the hotel was moderated by NiLoo, Jhahill n Suar. Me went with Bobo n KP (our last time hero).

Post lunch, we all went for site-seeing amid a fog-filled evening. “Nature provides a deceptive regularity and hence enslaves the mind of a more than willing conformist to the channel towards conservatism and dogmatism that hinders enlightenment and a dialectical intellectual progress” (this line is borrowed from CAT- 06 paper). The effervescent feelings gained from the silver horizon b/t thick clouds and dim rays of crepuscular mesmerized every single soul. Purity in air n in thoughts came at ease. Darkness of the night and the glory of streets lights helped create a romantic tryst with the nature. The scene reminded me of THE greatest creation of all senti-songs Akon’s Lonely and many more songs like song of EP…Waqt

“ waqt dhalta raha,

mein chalta raha

andhere mein bhi ek roshini thi,

us roshini mein bhi main jalta raha ”

Evening faded away while browsing the local market (one could find all MAKE make-up things up there – from khanjers to three-way knifes, all present).

On reaching our staying place, we did performed THE necessary rituals…to name some…
gang rape type of thing of some guys (n this time it was done more forcibly…sry, under some strong influence, I can’t name them), the waking-up act by the ‘jumping wrestlers’ party headed by Bobo,
which completely destroyed the sleep of many guys with a bandwagon effect.

A series of interesting events happened all around, some of which I won’t mention and some of which I will…so read on:

Why would anybody on earth discuss anything about ghosts, bhoots, bhootnies, chudeils and many more lovely people…that too at 1 am, that too on roof of the hotel amid the lovely dark night residing b/t the Mts. Of Himalayas; Why? Yep, why did Anku baby, Chedi, KP, Bobo…even San took part in the discussion on this very important topic at such a lovely time…why…no answer from me…may be bcoz the word ‘entertainment’ have different meanings for different guys. Now you know, Engineering in India is tough man…it can bring about a total change in your thinking mechanism…beware!

Janab ka bravado act can’t be forgotten…a director in making for sure. He did most of the recording of the DJ nite; thanx to IEEEshu Tyag’s vi-cam…majestic camera work bro…keep it up.

The DJ nite…we all danced, jumped, hop, pop, pounce, caper with full excitement but then when we see THE final video we can’t find ourselves… :(

IEEEshu Tyag’s (no real name plz) hilarious acts. He narrated stories from his past village-years experience n IIT preps; in addition to this, he created titles like ‘JBC’. Man he simply made the night a laughing riot…a real raconteur…well I need 2000 words more to describe him in total…

Chedi experienced a special moment in his life when he interacted with IEEEshu Tyag, who was in his full form…moments of fun…merriment atmosphere…all it created was [lol + hee hee].

Room mates – Bobo and KP…Bobo, man of emotions…who loved toilet more than bed. KP…he utilized 1 n ½ hrs of his life by trying to wake me up…he did that ok…but then, he was unsuccessful (please accolade my sleeping talents). A blast of a time…this picture on ur right describes the college life…COOL, FRIENDLY, COMPETETIVE with some ‘PANGE’ obviously…just ‘luv it’…one of my best pics from my college life

I also can’t fade off that period of my brain where I experienced moments that brought me within an ace of my suicidal points…lol…again, thanx to KP…his Sanskrit jokes (class-apart knowledge), historical philosophy and bond English (again class-apart)…all of these must surely lye under the ‘deadliest weapons’ category of the world…but I survived them…yep…bravo…just kidding KP. Also, among the rememberable things lies the DumC, which we played in the Sumo…by which I backfired on KP.

All good things ends well…but not always…while returning, the packed food in dinner got stale…but the concerned authorities made sure we had our dinner and responsibly, ordered food for all from pantry. Indian Railways once again stood on its expectations, by providing us with food worse than the earlier thrown stale food. By the collective efforts and common understanding, a huge majority of food was thrown out for crows and dogs through IEEEshu Tyag’s window seat (it didn’t had grills)..

And what to say about the delicious Rasgulla juice…Niloo threw that too out of that grill-less window. It was thrown when another train was confronting us by the slideway track. Betraying all laws of physics, somehow a gigantic pseudo force developed and got too forcible, thereby changing the direction of the juice towards the compartment before us, which had unfortunately SENIORS sleeping…no extra lines for guessing what, happened next!!

On the trip, some important valuables were lost…Devesh’s watch and IEEEshu Tyag’s wallet (which had Rs 60 + all-important DTC bus-pass in it)…

If you have information about these things, do reach back through commenting….Also, I urge to all readers if they have any incidents, which they think sud be shared...plz write them down in comments

MAY GOD BLESS U all !! People we survived this one too… ;)

And YES, I finally DID !!

(sry! but as u read u 'll know that this post is a bit date)

YES, I finally DID! (not expected tho). I knew I would do it one day. I knew it would happen sometime, but I didn’t expect it coming SOOOO soon. Man! some things steer across you so fast, that you are unaware of the consequences they have on you in those influencing moments. But then you do realize what have you done...afterwards.

These things are very imperative and they tend to pre-empt other activities and decisions in order to give ephemeral pleasures. The feelings they create are exquisite but the actual desire very painful. These things arrive instantaneously and straight-away affect the top floor of the body, that too in an adverse manner; which in turn gives all directions to our body to perform uncontrollable impulsive acts.

And YES I finally DID! I did all the crap things mentioned above, resulting in losing my new year resolution. Ya! I successfully killed my 5-day old (new yr resolution), which was to open my eyes at 6.00 a.m. everyday under any circumstances. Okie, in simpler terms: the resolution was to awake at 6 am in the morning. And, now the story how I broke my resolution,

1 a.m., 6th Jan 2007, me arrived at my compu desk after a long night walk with Stanley (my neighbour). Yep! we do night walks in Dec and Jan also and reminisce mostly about his [past + present] break-ups and all crap topics of universe like – is Pluto a planet? Security measures of our residents association, Cricket, Latest movies,................Like everyday, I went for my walks at 11 p.m. and retired back to my place at around 1 a.m.

Further more steps…On reaching my compu desk…I found my desk being utilized as a couch by a piece of paper! "Paper" yes a piece of paper, I kept staring at that. Something in bold broad black ink was written on it…it read

"WAKE ME AT 4 a.m. PLEASE" - AMAN

This was the message left by my bro, who wanted me to wake him up early so that he could riffle through this syllabus, make ‘farre’ n other cheating essentials and combat his Chemistry Pre-Board Exam. Man! nowdays, brothers like me just have value equivalent to an alarm watch…for sale. Sensing the importance of the message, my new year resolution faded away from my mind. I committed myself to help my bro meanwhile trampling my new year resolution. From 1 a.m. to 4 a.m., I dedicated my 3 hour gap to songs; Erected a playlist comprising of hits like Duur (Strings), Lonely (Akon), Bandeh (Indain Ocean), Septic, Breakaway (Kelly Clarkson), For U (The Calling) and accordingly to the mood…Wake Me Up When September Ends (Green Day) and many more….

Finally, my compu’s right hand bottom-most corner showed 4:00 AM…I went in search for my bro, discovered him under two blankets…and presented a third degree. Third degree in sleeping includes slapping on unshaven cheeks, production of a shouting alarm (keeping in mind others don’t get disturbed), etc etc. After a few minutes and my successful third degree, I was anticipating a ‘thank you’…but…as always

Me: "abbey uth yaar, chaar baj gaye" (okie! buddy, wake up its four)
He (after gaining consciousness) : "tu paagal to nahi hai! kyu utha diya" (r u mad, why did you wake me up)
Me: "abbey tune hi to paper pe likha tha ki chaar baje utha dena, phir" (man! u only left a message on that paper saying wake me at 4 am, then)

He: "abbey aaj sat hai, exam kal tha, sone de bhai" (dude! today is sat, exam went yesterday, let me sleep bro)

ME: "Good! I knew I would lose it but in this way….GOSH"