A.v.a.t.a.r - A Visually And Technically Appealing Reprise

How many men will you find in this world who can do thinking on unimaginable lines and then dedicate a massive 230 million $ budget to create a movie out of that.
James Cameron after his last creation ‘Titanic’ has done exactly that. He has written, directed and produced this visual masterpiece.

Avatar deserves a 3.75/5

Plot –
Avatar’s plot will sound similar to some especially to those ones who have seen movies like Dancing with Wolves. In Avatar, humans land onto a planetary body namely Pandora, whose natives are known as Na’vis. Na’vis form a breed that looks like genetically created tall-slim-wild chameleons that have blue bodies with sliver sparkles on them. Their ears are inspired from wild rats and face cuts from cats. They have their own language. They are natural acrobats and hunt wild animals using bow-arrow in the majestic dense forests of Africa (oops Pandora). Some of you like me may draw an analogy of some wild tribe in Africa with Na’vis of Pandora (and you won’t be totally wrong). Pandora, the habitat of Na’vis is a green heaven and looks like a dense tropical forest with giant animals thrown in. More description about Pandora may dilute its visual beauty, thus I will halt here.
Story starts with humans landing on Pandora with the intention of mining unobtanium and taking it away. Humans adopt two strategies for this purpose. Two strategies are very familiar to us – first is to send a messenger and second is to fight & destroy (even Ramayana followed these two strategies but in that epic, the intentions were totally opposite). Messengers (including our hero – Jake) are transported into the bodies of Avatar (genetically created Na’vi body-suits). The plan is to infiltrate into Na’vi clan and then negotiate terms for peace with humans. Our hero Jake proves himself as a Na’vi warrior through his female Na’vi acquaintance (Zoe Saldana - our heroine). However, after successfully becoming a part of the Na’vi clan, he gets to know the hard reality. The huge-home tree of Na’vis (which looked like a banyan tree with branches wrapped spirally onto its stem) was standing on the vast resource of the metal which humans wanted. After knowing that the messenger idea is of no use, humans go for the second option of destroying. Rest of the story is predictable of how they themselves got destroyed!!

Castings in science movies do not have a pivotal role. Our human hero Jake (played by Sam Worthington) is a paralyzed ex-Marine and our Na’vi heroine Ney’tiri is played by Zoe Saldana. Both have given satisfactory performances. The ‘main’ villain of the movie, as you may call him is the military head of humans, Col. Miles Quaritch (played by bodybuilder Stephan Lang). His performance should have been more powerful. Rather than showing aggression through pumping iron on a benchpress, he should have been fiercer in his acts. He looks powerful but not overly dangerous (even though his military-fashion-growling is continuous). You may find a bit amusing to accept it but some military acts reminded me of recently released G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra.

Visuals are top-class. You will not get better visual movies than this. It can be easily compared to LOTR (Lord of the Rings – pioneer movie when you talk about ‘graphics’). The effort gone into R&D of Na’vi people and to create the universe of Pandora is huge. One can understand 12 years of its making. However, Avatar could have been better. One major point of difference which could be found when compared to LOTR3 is the climax. In LOTR 3, climax had surprises, twists and the victory seemed liked a victory. In Avatar, climax does not stand upto that level though it had the potential. In concise, as this review's title says, Avatar is A.v.a.t.a.r (A Visually And Technically Appealing Reprise).
Some movies are meant for heart (A Beautiful Mind), some movies are meant for mind (Shawshank Redemption), some movies are meant for smiles (Home Alone series) and some movies are meant for eyes (LOTR series). Avatar falls in the last bracket and caters to its audience justifiably.
Imagine the time when a part of world will be devoid of a particular resource. Thanks to visuals like these portrayed in Avatar, atleast our eyes will have the luxury to see them. One does get these types of impressions in back of their mind especially when current world scenarios are experiencing a divide (referring to 2009 Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen)

Lastly, can’t say about Avatar’s Oscar score but definitely, James Cameron will earn great respect as a visionary in the field of cinema. I end with the lines I started with. It takes a lot of courage to think of absurd ideas and then implement them without supports from over-priced superstars. Acknowledge it.

“Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world and in here is the dream”

ps: when I started writing this review, IMDB gave a 8.4/10 and it was ranked 165; now it has a 8.9/10 and a rank of 51.

one year after 26/11 attacks...

Today is the first anniversary of 26/11 terrorist attacks which happened in Mumbai. Television one year back was broadcasting the ordeal LIVE, now it is telecasting recorded customized tributes...I am also adding a small tribute here on my space...

Wanted to dedicate something! Found nothing special...just a picture of Taj Heritage, Taj New and Gateway of India which I took on 20 Jan 2008. It is the best picture of Mumbai in my picasa. The events of 26/11 just make it more respectful & special...

My tributes to the Late Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan and all those 180 men who died a year before. May their souls rest in peace.

ps: Ever wonder why a foreign national (who we all know is a terrorist) still tried in sessions court?? Why can't we just try him out directly in Supreme court?? Why do we have to follow Sessions Court -> High Court -> Supreme Court for a guy who is not even an Indian!! Why can't the rules be amended for this?? We are automatically delaying justice and spending taxpayers money (mine included) on his secure lifestyle in Arther Jail!!

Same sentiments were echoed by TOI's site at 2:16 am on 26/11 along with facts as there topmost headline...

Peace(.)

Convocation of my Graduation

Can’t forget the day…can’t afford to forget it…so lets move on from start:-

Prelude –
Like always my university processes involves a mandatory form (photograph compulsory). Invitations were mailed only to some fortunates. Shanky was the only one whom I know to have that invitation – wonder what made him so special. One day before, while surfing Yahoo I got to know that our chief guest was Mr. Omar Abdullah (Chief Minister – J&K). Our convocation was taking place 1.5 years after our leaving from college. Henceforth, it had to be nostalgic.

The ‘C’ day –
Owing to our professional and business etiquettes, Sandy and I reached the base camp (our faculty) right on time i.e. 10 A.M (as stated in Form A). Not many were seen there. Chedi came in next and started talking about the same things in same tone that was expected from him – first signals of nostalgic moments.
Our trip to ground floor toilet (allocated to Civil Engg Dept.) was again memorable. While coming out, and seeing the tap from which we used to drink that drinking water made us laugh. Now, both of us in reputed (?) IT MNCs drink Bislery and Aquafina (without that FUN). The huge H-styled faculty building had some revolutionary changes in it – our building had got a lift now (a non-functional one). Back in my thoughts I was happy for Dr. Wali M Choudary (the famous and only rockstar teacher of my university). He had once wished a lift in our faculty. That day was our Database Management sem, the longest one of my graduation. All those who were present in that room with Dr. Wali dude, will cherish this new gift – the lift.
The building also wore a new paint combination – combination of purple and muddy checks. A new staircase was there to greet us. Rest of the ecosystem was same – spacious parking lots, green lawns guarded by bamboo stems. Dean office and the attitude of people inside it were unchanged. World most arrogant and stagnant soles sit in that office and they still had that elite royal self-comfort feel in them…sarkaari mehekma

Slowly everybody started to turn up. Surprising they were not much late (blame professionalism). Among the crowd, there were (Civil friends – Harkesh, Himanshu and Puneet), (EC friends - Apoo, Atanu, Avinash, Varun), (dear Elect. friends – Anshul, Vineet, Praveen), etc. Random greetings from/to known faces came in plenty. Compu batchmates also started to arrive – Anku (still a baby), same old Deepu, lean and fit Hi V (surprisingly in sandy shape), airtel sponsored Nana (Amit Singh), ‘stray’ Shanky dog, fatty ‘soft-toy’ Tau, Baba Ather (coming from Hyd especially), topper Alan with black eyes gogs, Shuja, Akif, Atyab, Asad, naughty ‘Naveen’, IITian Jeetu (from videokaun), study sexy ‘Sharma’, Balloon Bobo ‘Ambuj’ and Bhaskar along with Vikram and Shankar. The girl gang of our class also came in.
(Customary line but with a very true and honest feel inside my heart – some of my very close friends were not available owing to their work - Niloo, Sahil, KP, Ieesh, Devi, Akshay, Sumit, Varun, Jeetu…phir kabhi sahi)…कर्मनये वाधिका-रस्ते, माँ फलेषु कदाचना

Next in line was another form to be filled - perhaps the last one for my graduation. Form was related to hiring of robes and the scarf. These were being given from newly constructed workshop, which gave a visible feel of jail and us being the judges (thanks to the black robe). Canteen was the same, though the rates were hiked by Rs 3 for lunch thalli. Same vendor, same style of servicing and the same taste. The famous Kauwa Biryani was still selling in name of Chicken Biryani…and…students were still a fan of that. Ironically, price of thalli at my college canteen is same as that of lunch buffet at my office (but will the food @ college canteen ever match with food @ office, will the ambiance of canteen ever match with ambiance of cafeteria, will the lunch at cafeteria ever match with lunch Enjoyment at college canteen)…No ji

We all got our robes and scarfs. Robe was shinny black in colour whereas scarf was shinny maroon. All were looking like life descendants of Batman. Maroon coloured scarf on boys would have taken us on another level of fashion; Bhaskar along with Vikram and Shankar creatively converted that scarf into a bow (which looked wearable). All it needed was a shinny sword to become a dictator (dreams fulfilled).
Photosession @ faculty was mandatory. We went to our department to get clicked. Unfortunately all classrooms were locked (planned), but the multi-functional lab was open. Mr. Baashear Alarm was in the lab with a lot of students who had that feel ‘agar-aaj-program-nahi-dikhaya-to-fail-kar-dega’. Sympathies to them. There were minor changes in the corridor too. Shoe racks were in place with a new notice board (which I presume would be used to display attendance -> sessional marks -> sem pass/fail result -> SPI). We also went to other beloved sites like staircase and the toilet allocated to our department. The second floor’s GT played host to more than 80% of our class’s boys on the last day of college (major project viva) who went inside it with an intention of getting themselves clicked but soon all were found wanting for space after our examiner came out suddenly out of one of the toilet closets. Some posed for nature’s call, some realized it, some ran, some started thanking him and some even posed for drinking from those toilet taps (pyaar aur darr aadmi se kya kya karwaate hai). Subsequently, we all got the same grade in that course.
We also met our HoD was the same man – Dr. MMS Beg (control your imaginations). He was roaming in the corridor and we exchanged some ‘Hi’s and ‘Hello’s with him. He informed us that there was something planned for us at 6 PM at the faculty auditorium – the mini convo.

Now I will have a break and explain you the planning of convocation. Ours is a very big university with a lot of velle courses. So, the official convocation involves all faculties, all students, VC and a chief guest. Students don’t get the degree in the official function, rather deans of respective faculties receives the degree as a lot from the VC. In our case, because ours is a flagship course (yo yo), our faculty organizes another function at the faculty to give away the degrees (thank you thank you sirji).

Back to our ‘C’ day…

Around 3 P.M., we all assembled at Ansari baba grounds for official convocation. Nice bright setting sun behind us made the convocation extremely picturesque and pleasing. The function started with chaos (as usual) with around 2000 students indulging in gossiping and BC baarzi. Teachers who have no respect for their voice started to monitor the crowd. Finally the prayer was all it took to make the morons (us) silent. Then there was our university official tarana (song) - “Dayar-e-shauq Mera” sung fabulously by our ‘saree-kurta’ chorus. I was hearing it for the first time in my life. Wow!! Address from our new VC (Mr. Najeeb Jung) was next in line. Our past VC was educated, and this one too sounded educated. And educated administrators are always appreciated. After his address, he formally presented the degrees to respective deans. Official convocation also saw VC conferring the degrees of doctor of letters on Marshal of Indian Air Force ‘Arjan Singh’, former Chief Justice V.N. Khare, our university’s former VC Lt. Gen. (retd) Zaki and Prof M. Amin. This year, I saw the interview of Marshal Arjan Singh on 26th Jan and knew he was over 90 years old; consequently I was quite amazed and frankly quite astonished to see a man more than 90 years old saluting 5 times with full power, flexibility and adeptness (now this automatically brings dignity with respect). Finally the chief guest addressed the youth of tomorrow (us). Omar Abdullah was very candid in his speech. He openly disclosed about his prepared speech. He was given one by our university, next two were prepared by his personal staff and the last one was derived from first three. He rejected the prepared versions as our VC had already spoken his words…same quotes and same lines and same couplets. My university is champion at that. However, what followed was a candid lovable sober short impromptu speech. He admitted it’s easy to get into ancestral occupation be in acting or politics. He also advocated and appealed to US to join public service. The official convocation ended with national anthem. A total of 137 gold medals were conferred on toppers and 3279 degrees/diplomas and 112 PhDs were awarded.

Snacks (same canteen quality) were arranged for us. Man! I love them. It was now time to get the degrees. We all assembled in our faculty auditorium. Dean was also same – Mr. Humpty Dumpty. He was removed from his post in between our years of graduation studies due to corruption charges. But back came he like a phoenix…yo baby yo. He organized a mini but more important convo for us. On stage were HoD of various engg disciplines (Civil, Mech, Compu, E&C, Elect), Dean and a chief guest for mini-convo CRRI director who did his doctorate from Canada. Toppers of various courses got medals and appreciation from the chief guest. Then degrees were conferred to various courses – B.Tech (Civil), B.E. (Civil), B.E. (part-time Civil), M.Tech (some Civil course), B.Tech (Mech), B.E. (Mech), B.E. (part-time Mech), M.Tech (1st batch, some Mech course), B.Tech (E&C), B.E. (E&C…don’t even dream about any other course in E&C), Diplomas (polytechnic guys), B.Tech (Elect), M.Tech (courses of Elect) and laastly B.Tech (Comp. Engg). After the long wait and agonizing courses calls (all of whom were pre-emptive to our course for some reason), the batch of Computer Engineering 2004-2008 got the nameless envelopes. Surprise surprise!! We all were given empty envelopes rather than our degrees here. The writer of this article was the last one in his faculty (or university?) to be given the empty envelope in person by his respective HoD cum major project mentor (Berkley returned Dr. MMS Beg). Just for a thought – my parents named me with an ‘A’. No more words here – it was a different experience to go onto stage, shaking hands and getting snapped with him with a Gold medal in Batman dress. Can’t say whether, it will be a long standing memory, but it did bring me some ephemeral happiness. The process of becoming a complete engineer still had to go through the last stage. ‘Go and get it from your dept. office’. We all rushed towards our department. There too B.E. guys were given preference. Wonder and wait, both coexists (never mind). Finally, I, officially the last person of class present on that day entered into that scared room (the dept. office) and took the degree from Mr. Nizam. Man! he still has so patience – he sits on that throne of the office signing forms, collecting forms, distributing forms, receiving forms, filing those forms – actually one of the most efficient, calm and rumour-less guys of my university (unlike dean office duds).

Robes were returned and degrees were earned that day. There was a feeling of accomplishment in body movements but never a feeling of victory though. And it’s a true feel. There were some last talks, some last conversations may be…last greetings, last naughty lines and last jokes...last minute pics…

Cannot forget the college, have so many memories of it. Have cursed it to extremes, have cribbed about its processes, all getting me that important dose of nirvana in life. Have earned a job (yack!); have earned some friends (yip!)…have said so much in my COLLEGE life…it all can be summarized in one quote (borrowed) which is so relevant to my current life…

The crowded Highways are often a pain
but nothing is as crowded as memory lane

Customary thanks have to be given – thanks to Billi, Bobo, Tau, Jeetu and Deepak for taking pics in their cam (half of them are ‘blurred’ – read some of them ‘cult’). Thanks to Vineet for having me my share of Gold fame. Guruji (now in videsh) deserves a special thanks (or xie-xie in local language) for his motivational talks and even more motivational visuals. Thanks to Bobo for giving me a lift after witnessing what I can do to a car. Billi deserves an add-on apology from me as I got impulsive with him; giving varying threats to getting him endangered and extinct. Class topper Alan should be credited with thanks as soon as she reimburses toppers-party-bill which is lying with Bhaskar along with Vikram and Shankar.

May all my batchmates of Jamia (2008 batch) find luck and success in all their future endeavors. God bless you all. Any wrong doing from my side to anybody (countless they are) should be forgiven [now that’s by order]…

This is it; the end of chapter ‘Graduation’ in my life।

Rendezvous @ IIT Delhi

Rendezvous is the annual cultureal fest of IIT Delhi. It is known to be one of the grandest fests across Northern India colleges and has a footfall running into lakhs.

I was fortunate to attend all days of this mega extravaganza with my friends - Sandy, BVS, VJ and Jeetu (from Videokaun). There were more than 70 events spread over 4 days (24th Sept 2009 to 27th Sept 2009), however due to some limitations like working hours and inability to create multiple physical entities of our bodies at a given instant of time, we weren’t able to attend all the events.
Our dedication and efforts made our presence possible for the mega event on each day. Details:

Day 1 - 24th September 2009
Event – SPECTRUM (inter college dance competition)
Value of our efforts – Our friend, Jeetu (from Videokaun) is doing a non-B.Tech course from IIT D. He loves taking risks and has therefore daring risk management skills, which got us all inside the OAT (open air theater). Kudos to him! Dance competition was among 9 colleges - IIT D, IIT K, NIEC (Delhi), Murthal (Haryana), LSR (Delhi) and more. Winner – NIEC which had 9/11 and third umpiring as there themes were the clear winners. Crowd appreciated the pelvic thrusts by the girls and the foolish movements by the boys. Choreography was highly innovative and movements of limbs were in sync. Henceforth they were the clear winners and took 56k as the 1st prize.
(due to the explicitness, more pics are not being uploaded)

Day 2 – 25th September 2009
Event – KALIEDOSCOPE (fashion parade)
Competition was among 7 colleges – IIT D, Insitute of Home Economics (Delhi), PEC (Chandigarh), Hansraj (DU, Delhi), Hindu (DU, Delhi), NIFT (Delhi), Lady Irwin (DU, Delhi), etc.
Value of our efforts – This talented event always attracts more specialized talent than needed. Sandy had this intuition and arranged for our entry to heaven. Kudos to him!
Fashion when seen live looks like fashion. We saw gender of both denomination dressed in various geometrical shapes, sizes, curves and cuts. NIFT team dressed themselves in materials which can be recycled (innovative). Surprise package was Institute of Home Economics, which had an all girls team dressed up in circus style (nicely compiled). Also, with the help of IITians, we were able to draw a very important conclusion i.e. size zero is not charming (matter of concern). The event ended without any wardrobe malfunction.
(due to the explicitness, more pics are not being uploaded)

Day 3 – 26th September 2009
Event – SAAZ (instrumental music)
Value of efforts – This event saw low representation from our side. BVS decided to sleep after the event which happened the day before. VJ skipped the event to get a piece of paper, which looked liked a post-graduation degree. Jeetu (from Videokaun) was attending his non-B.Tech course at IIT D. However, I decided to utilize my free time by getting some peace and went to see the performances by the twin duo of Amaan and Ayaan Ali Khan with appropriate persons (again thanks to Sandy for arrangement). The duo took time to get into form and after a while started juggalbandi sessions. Towards the end they played songs of Bengali and Assamese genre. One of Bengali songs they played was ‘Ekala chalo’, which was a pleasant surprise for me.

Day 4 – 27th September 2009
Event – DHOOM (feat. a totally manic lady, rock band – ‘Faridkot’, Mohit Chauhan)
Value of our efforts – All of us made ourselves available for this mega event. All of us even skipped our evening sleep for this. Reason - Mohit Chauhan (former lead singer of band ‘Silk Route’). After our successful entry, we were terrorized by a girl who wanted to ruin the evening by her voice. She was distorting famous bollywood songs by her voice and was doing her best in that. Even after the best efforts from crowd to boo her down, she was adamant to perform. The more crowd shouted, the louder she shouted. They call themselves ‘Groove Adda’; beware of this for the sake of your welfare!
Next in line was Faridkot, a band which got fame from channel [V]’s ‘Launchpad’. They brought energy onto the terrorizied faces of crowd. They are a mature band and look experienced and professional than their precedessor. Band lead vocals is a sardarji who has a great long standing voice…you will like it. Do listen to ‘Laila’ and ‘Mahi Ve’.
Finally was the turn of Mohit Chauhan. He has emerged as a hit-number-giving-singer in the world of popular Indian music with some fabulous songs to his name. He sings effortlessly and has a gifted voice best suited of blues music. The OAT at IIT was packed to see him perform. The footfall must be around 10 000 plus. His performance included his old ones to new ones. Namely- Dosti, Dama Dum Mast Kalander, Boodein, Dooba Dooba, Khoon Chala (from RDB), Sabse Peeche Hum Khade (from Let’s Enjoy), Tum Se Hi (from Jab We Met), Dooriyan (from Love Aajkal), Masakali (from Dilli6), Pheli Baar Mohabbat (from Kaminey), etc. Spectacular stuff!!

yEpPiE
Last weekend was a bit off for me, but this whole weekend went fabulously and it proved as an inevitable evidence for one my philosophies. Life is like a sine curve. You have a low point, you got to have a high point. You touch the lowest point, you will touch the highest too. You see rock bottom, you will see the tip of iceberg. You see dusk, you will see dawn. You sleep sad, you wake happy.
That’s the ‘Law of Equilibrium’*, which brings life to stability.

* Same law prevails in Chemistry.

Cheers and Keep Rocking
AG

Kaminey - fimply fuperb n awefome

A dark rainy day at Delhi's Priya complex and ‘just-out-of-bed’ timings. Brothers land up to see Kaminey brothers (also spotted Kamineys - a Teen-Diva girle? and a Splitsvilla loser!). The whole complex was empty accept ticket window. And then you realizes that’s it…House Full…aife aife kaife kaife. I have started to use ‘f’ more instead of ‘s’.

Story –
The movie is about two brothers separated in school-hood. Two brothers – Charlie (who pronouns ‘s’ as ‘f’) and Guddu (hak..hak..hakla). In attitude, Charlie is like a musfular horse while Guddu like an innocent donkey (may be it reflects in their names). Charlie is a gangfter who is in horse betting gamble and wants to have his own bookie booth while Guddu wants an ideal life (i.e. increment in age is directly proportional to progress in life). As story proceeds, destinies of the two brothers get connected. While our innocent ass has made his ‘tomboyish-aggressive’ Marathi lady (Sweety) pregnant, our horse’s luck has just got him a treasure. Sweety’s brother is another Kamina in his movie (Bhupe Bhau), who chants ‘Jai Maharasthra’ and will not allow his sister to marry our ass. On the other hand, Charlie with the kind of treasure he is handling is out to get into trouble as there are a lot of kamineys in the movie - a Bengali brothers trio, a drug dealer who have Nigerians as his clients and how can we leave out Bombay police (Bo-po).

Starcast -

Fahid Kapoor (Hein…ye kaun hai), alais Shahid Kapoor. This has to be a defining movie for him. Difficult to imagine but he has done full justice to both roles of horse and donkey in this movie (I mean role of Charlie and Guddu respectively). As Guddu , he is Budhhu and innocent. This kind of acts has been his forte, thanks to his choco looks. But his appearance as Charlie is fimply fuperb, awefome. He looks macho, hunk and carries the role very well and pronouns ‘f’ instead of ‘s’ very correctly (fantaftic).
Priyanka Chopra who enacts as Sweety here is bold, both in thoughts and acts. She is fitted into the whole plot very nicely. Frankly I can’t see anybody else doing her role (especially that stain-gun firing scene).

Kamineys (the Dons and the Gangs) – the Bengali brothers trio (man!! they actually looked gangster material…bhalo khoub bhalo), Francis (how can we miss him when we speak about Dons and Gangstars in Hindi cinema; so he too is here), Tashi (a drug dealer who loved tattoos, bitches, doggies in descending order), Bhope Bhau (now this character is played by Mr. Amol Gupte, who was the creative director of Taare Zameen Par…where was the actor till now?), Mikhail, awesome (sry, awefome) and is the best Don amidst them. Lastly, Bopo (Bombay Police)…we can’t miss them.

Vishal Bharadwaj – director & music director & story writer & etc & a creative genius. He is known to have a different taste in bollywood. In Kaminey, he has brought the much acclaimed Tarantino’s dark-wit. Even the Tarantino’s trademark “Mexico-standoff” (all characters stand to put each other off) was there in the climax….recount reservoir dogs or copied ‘Kaante’. How he amalgamated the concept of two parted brothers, gangs culmination, love b/t a stammering hero & an aggressive girle and the wit from pronunciation is truly commendable.

Why Kaminey is not Pulp Fiction?
Because it’s not that Kaminey. Vishal Bharadwaj could have made it into a gangster cult movie with the story and cast he had, but then in India, commercial success in an important factor if you want to stay KNOWN in bollywood. His climax has some brilliant shots but there could have been more blood - more deadly execution. The love story b/t Guddu and Sweety could have been shortened and gangsters should have got more footage. But keeping in mind, box office expectations and the taste of common public, this is fabulous work done. 3.75/5

Songs –
Fuperb. Dhan Tan Nan by Sukhwinder is good but do listen to Mohit Chauhan’s Pheli baar mohobat ki hai (the credits song). My favorite one “meri arzoo kamini”

Kabhi zindagi se maangaa
Pinjare mein chaand laa do
Kabhi laalten de ke
Kaha aasmaan pe taango
Jis kaa bhi chehra cheelaa
Andar se aur niklaa
Maasoom saa kabootar
Naachaa toh mor niklaa
Kabhi hum kaminey nikle
Kabhi doosre kaminey

“jindagi un rasto se nahi banti jinko hum chunte hai,
balki unse banti hai jinko hum chhod dete hai”

A Walk to Remember…in Rain

11 pm, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, New Delhi
Just got up after a 3 hour long ‘shot-nap’ in which I remembered my kal (yesterday)… Yesterday, it rained in Delhi and I experienced my best walk – “A walk to remember”.
AG remembered ‘the walking dream’ in dreams today

Yesterday it rained in Delhi.

I boarded my cab around 6:30 at evening. At that time it was drizzling. Somehow we managed to cross Noida without much traffic but as soon as we entered Delhi, it was a standstill. After standing for Maharani Bagh for a substantial period of time, we finally managed to move and crossed the Ashram flyover. When I saw outside, cloud where on ‘cloud nine’ and it raining very heavily…And

I took the CORRECT step…

“bass phir kya tha, main chal padha, un rasto par jo jaate the mere ghar”
I decided to complete my journey from Lajpat Nagar on foot. As soon as my left foot got down, sound of ‘chap’ came; it was full inside water. Nerve chilling water after such a harsh summer…finally. Within 1-2 minutes I was all wet and getting wet in that intensity of rain was heavenly. It took me to a different world, a world where you don’t think that Tuesday comes after Monday and that Tuesdays are working.

I have a serious disorder, that I am Myopic with quite a high power. But today I wasn’t able to see through my specs; frost comes free with rain. Taking them off was a brave move and again a correct one. Now the standstill traffic was clearer to me. Standing at the starting of Lajpat Nagar flyover, it was a unique scene – Cars lined up in ascend and water coming down from the crest of the flyover…fabulous irony. Somebody was playing “rut ye tal jayegi, himmat rang layegi, subah phir aayegi…ye hosla kaise jhuke, ye aarzoo kaise ruke”. Must be our cab driver.

Remember you stand beneath a shower and you let off your emotions through bathroom singing. Ditto here, just that here you are on roads…but then who the F cares? Strangely I discovered Anu Malik was the best flavour for this kind of wheather. His lifetime’s best creation “dekho baarish ho rahi hai, its rainning, its raining, itz raaainning” finally got a perfect voice and an awarding ambience. Though sympathies to the listeners: drivers.

Slowly and steadily I walked through the canals flowing besides the Ring Road crossing important junctions. During this leg I also witness the man made Moolchand lake – an eerie on that day. Ring Road was Hell on that day and all cars destination was through that Hell road!!
It was raining, I was walking.

On my journey I passed through a hot posh South Delhi market. There was a group of girls in the same of mood. They were dancing and enjoying the rain to the fullest. It reminded me of that fabulous Kajol song “ho gaya hai tujhko to pyaar sanjana, laakh kar le tu inkaar sanjana”. Rain romantics seeping in.

It was now the turn of service lanes which were again tiny lakes today. I saw a jazzy car zipping towards me with a high velocity; it was Honda Jazz (the ‘why-so-serious’ one). Assessing the water reality around me, I turned instantaneously and my back had a huge splash of murky street water. WOW. On any other day, I would have taken an extreme reaction but today was different, it wanted more of this kiddish fun. “ek baar se dil nahi bharta mudd ke dekh mujhe dobara…tan tana tan tan tan tana..”. Wish the car would have turned back and I would have experienced that splash once more.

I ended my 2.5 hr long voyage and reached home safely in the rain. At late night, the rain finally stopped and a cool breeze was flowing, making the night more romantic - “aaj mausam bada baimaan hai”. What an experience, truly a walk to remember!

PS: Next day was Tuesday and was working for me. The man-made Moolchand lake was still existent and seemed the authorities wanted it to be permanent spectacle.
Took me 3.5 hrs to reach office, that too in a car.

Lucknow - City of Nawabs

Lucknow is the capital of India’s largest state Uttar Pradesh and is known as ‘City of Nawabs’. It is associated with words like ‘adab’ and ‘tehzeeb’ and they will be mentioned later in the article.

My adventure with Lucknow:
My adventure with Lucknow was a memorable one and UNIQUE as it demanded sacrifice of materialistic pleasures, tested my stamina, my emotions and lasted for over 3 months. Consequently the write up will include more than just a traveler’s review.

From a traveler’s perceptive, you need just two days to absorb the best of city.

How to reach Lucknow?
Distance from Delhi is approx 600 km and it takes around 14 hours to complete it by non-deluxe state transport buses. A very strong suggestion - if somebody is traveling from Delhi to Lucknow by rail, kindly make use of Lucknow Mail (an ISO 9000 certified train; to be separately reviewed) or Lucknow Duplicate. Having slept 8 Friday and 8 Sunday nights in LM, I believe it is one of the best trains currently running in the country.
Rate Card for LM – Rs 594 (3AC), Rs 222 (Sleeper)

Start:
We boarded Shatabdi (morning edition) from New Delhi Railway Station and landed in Lucknow at 12:30 A.M. Unlike my earlier journey, this ended normally and within time. It was a comfortable ride as expected from Shatabdi. Cost per ticket - Rs 610

Sites:Bara Imambara and Bhool Bhulaiya – It is a complex man-made structure. On ground floor you have Imambara, which has some artifacts from past and photographs of the time when Lucknow was flooded by river Gomti.
Above floors have been named Bhool Bhulaiya (Lost by mistake). For first timers, it’s advisable to take a guide along. Puzzle inside is quite simple. You have to start from one hall and end at another. At every crossing, there are 4 ways to go, out of which 3 are wrong. And the correct one leads to Delhi, Agra, Faizabad (as per our guide). Apart of these, there are other facts too (like building’s material made up of organic stuff, etc). As you reach higher floors, view of the city is majestic. City looks charming from the top galleries and you can see other nearby monuments too.
Disclaimer – many Nawabs of Lucknow do not agree with the information provided by guide and consider them false.
Rate Card: Entry ticket (Rs 20), Guide rate (Rs 75 for Bhool Bhulaiya/ Rs 150 for Bhool Bhulaiya + Imambara + a nearby Baouri). If you are going for guide kindly go for Bhool Bhulaiya only.

Nearby monuments include – Chota Imambara, Clock Tower, Rumi Darwaza and more of Mughal architecture. They all are worth one look and not much spectacular.



Next day early morning we went to Lohia Park and Ambedkar Park since it was close to our Gomti Nagar guesthouse. These parks are huge. They are not parks, they are fields. They are fields in which money has been invested like water. There are no bulls here for tilling, but there are arrogant elephants everywhere. Sadly, there are no crops for these fields. Fields (parks) are good, still in harvest (maintenance) but when you see the cost for making them; you can’t appreciate them. May be thatswhy, crowd wasn’t there. If the concept is extended to the ciiy and these fields starts coming up everywhere with those elephants, City of Nawabs will soon turn to 'City of Elephants'.

Next places to visit where malls. Lucknow malls are quite different from that of metros. These malls have many ‘budget’ outlets rather snobbish showrooms. Consequently, buying percentage in Lucknow’s malls exceeds malls of a metro like Delhi. Two of the famous ones are Saharagunj (Hazratganj) and Fun Republic (Gomti Nagar).






Markets:

Hazratgunj market near Vidhan Sabha is the best market of the city. Aminabad and Chowk are considered cheaper and are famous for there Chicken Suits shops (Chicken is some type of embroidery which ladies like).

Food:
One thing you love about this place. Awadh-lucknowvi andaaz is best on platter and food here is relatively quite cheap. Some places which you have to try –

Ram Aasrey Sweet Shop – This shop belongs to Ram Aasrey Halwai. The first branch was opened at Chowk. Besides Chowk you have branches at Hazratganj too. The best community which is served here is Malai Paan (also known as Malai Ki Dori). Instead of beetle leaf, Malai is used to make the paan. Inside stuffing has dry fruits in liquid sugar. The taste is quite unique and lovable.
Rate Card – Malai Paan @ Rs 8
.
Royal café @ Saharaganj mall – This shop is located in the food court of Sahaganj Mall. It is quite popular among localities and serves Indian dishes. There USP is availability of taste at very low prices. I was a regular here and am a big fan of there Thalli. Servings in Thalli include – 4 combinations of dals/vegetable (including paneer items), veg biryani, 1 naan, 1 lachha parantha, sweet curd (mouthwatering) and 1 sweet with salad and papad. 1 Thalli per person can serve the purpose of Breakfast and Lunch. Mouthwatering is the term I use for there food and the Thalli here is definitely one of best North Dishes items available in Lucknow.
Rate Card – Thalli @ Rs 76 (taxes extra)

Burma bakery @ Aliganj – I used to buy my snacks from this place. Building itself is quite multi-functional – Bakery is on the first floor while first floor hosts mosque. Try there chocolate cookies.
Rate Card – Choc Cookies @ Rs 76/kg.

Worst place to eat in Lucknow is Tunde Kababi @ Aminabad. Now this place is very very hyped. Ambience is horrible. This place is equivalent to Hell if you are a hardcore veggi. I was accompanied by some of my Lucknow acquaintances and the review of non-veg written below is heresay from them. Kababs are in the form of circular soaps and there top surfaces are burnt in already over-burned oil. Chicken Butter Masala was one more dish which was ordered. According to my understanding of Chicken dishes it was a ‘gravy-wala-chicken’. People with me thought it was killed twice before being cooked and must be a victim of malnutrition. Gravy was mixture of yellow oil and red oil and had a disgusting smell in already disgusted environment. Now about the veg items which I tried. Menu has only 3 veg items – raita, biryani and kheer. Biryani was boiled rice with non-veg smell. Raita was a chemical mixture of 30 ml ‘beakerfull’ of white colured diluted liquid and 2-3 spatulas of Boondi balls floating in it. Roti were inspired from chewing gums ads. We weren’t that brave to try Kheer.
Rate Card – 1 Kabab soap @ Rs 10, Gravy-wala-chicken @ Rs 50 (approx), Raita @ Rs 15, Rice @ Rs 20.

Also, Lucknow also gets quite a lot variety of Mangoes. Langda and Dehseri are found in abundance and are quite cheap here.

Finding a room in Lucknow with adab and tehzeeb –
This should not be extended to all of Lucknow localities.
Lucknow doesn’t boost much IT or much industry and therefore number of migrants are quite less. Single Employed Bachelors find really difficult to get a room on rent. Searching 1 BHK in a locality nearby office is not an easy job. I finally managed to adjust myself in the city but the landlords screwed me up totally. Forcing a new rent agreement, thorough scrutiny of ‘yours truly’ and 50% increment in rent, it was all bestowed on us with all Lucknowvi adab and tehzeeb.

Return from an Ordeal –
After being on receiving end of all adabs and tehzeebs, we were finally returning back. We boarded Shatabdi (evening edition) from Charbagh Railway Station at 3:30 pm and were scheduled to reach New Delhi around 10 pm. Just when I was thanking God for my long journey, a surprise came on the way. AC wasn’t functioning in the train (we had crossed Kanpur at this juncture). The Lucknow crowd with all their adabs and tehzeebs went for a manhunt for T.T. and Superintendent, who in turn where somewhere on train but not visible. God must have given the helpless people some hidden powers. Some passengers decided to halt the train and wait till the railways send a different one. GOD BLESS THEM for this INSANE idea (at this point we were 2 hours away from Lucknow). Thankfully sanity prevailed and we finally decided to continue with the journey with open doors. Shatabdi soon turned into an interstate local with a fare of Rs 785. Some IIT Kanpur students figured out the fault was with generator and gave up. Superintendent turned up and another cruel reality came out. He wasn’t able to communicate with driver. What would happen incase of a hijack or a burning train? Will Vinod Khanna, Jeetu and Dharmendra turn up as savior as they did in the movie? God save us. Just before Etawah, some pantry guy fixed the generator and it worked till Delhi.

Thank you God (dil se re).

Introspection of my blogging days

Ok! Today I am a bit in past…a bit tired…a lot actually. But my heart is tempting me to write. So I will write…

This is in respect to my predecessor very sadistic post (Nescafe demolished @ IITD) which made my blog & my name & a couple of my friends (bonus!!) gain some fame. Speaking Pictures and AG got featured in HT City, Delhi Edition (pg 8)

But how do I see it. I ask myself this all the time. Bought my pc in my 2nd year of college, got a broadband in my 3rd year, got this idea of blogging from Deba’s blog but wasn’t very confident initially. Saw it as a time waste and as a difficult one to implement….somehow thought I should post some of my cartoons here. Fivepointsome came and Chetan Bhagat made me believe that I too could write BC.
Thankfully I had been accompanied with softwares (GIMP & Adobe Photoshop) and my fabulous lenses of my camera phones (posthumous Nokia 3250, Nokia 5220). They provide all important pictures to all the bakwaas speaking I do here.

But a blog is something more than that. I find that it’s a space and it’s a free space here (free in all senses). You can write the talk to yourself here and read back what you were talking 5 mins back. Then you can think. And then you can liberate your feelings through words. Add a pic or two of yours and a blog is ready. And you will be appreciated as ‘philosophical’...
See it’s as easy as fcuking. So what it’s not…who cares…you can make it on your blog…after all, this is the place where you get absolute freedom of thinking.

Speaking about which domain is the best one to start a blog. My opinion is Wordpress. Though it is not as popular as Google owned Blogspot.com but it has much more to offer than it.

Blog is a zone for you. It is a space for you. It makes your work of introspection quite easy & keeps your lateral thinking alive.

Bass phir kya main chal padha…
Keep Blogging

ps: Few clarifications related to the article which got published in HT
1) Sandy refers to Mr. Sandeep Sharma and he is male
2) BC is abbreviation for baat-cheet
3) 'Me and Sandy' is grammatically wrong; it should be 'Sandy and I'

I want to appreciate one of friend’s comments here. Thanks to Mr. Tau, he brought up an interesting point which is the appearance of word BC in a newspaper…finally recognized ;)