An Alternate Paradigm

New Age Nursery Rhymes

2012-01-29T23:51:00.000-08:00

Baba black sheep why do you drool?

I just got bribery 3 bags full.
1 for my master 1 for myself,
1 for the rowdy boys, to buy voters down the lane.

Pussy cat Pussy cat where had you been?
I had been to 10 janpath to look at the queen.
Pussy cat, Pussy cat, what did you there?
I saw a frightened minister under the chair.

Twinkle twinkle gold bars,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the reach so high.
Soothing the black market, in the sky.

Humpty dumpty sat on a stock
Humpty dumpty had a great fall.
And all the Queen's politics and the corruption fame
Couldn't put Humpty dumpty together again.

Sonia had an old lamb, old lamb an old lamb,
Sonia had an old lamb
His integrity was white as snow.
And whatever Sonia said, Sonia said, Sonia said and whatever Sonia said
The lamb was sure to follow.

Om Shanti Shanti

2012-01-01T22:58:00.001-08:00

I hear people give up on religious beliefs in the interest of preventing terrorism. It seems they take the lines by Colonial Cousins 'Religion is the reason, the world is breaking up into pieces ' too seriously. But honestly, the world will anyway break into pieces. If not religion there will be something else to take care of that aspect of human evolution. We need a paradigm shift in our understanding of terrorism.

Paradoxically, hatred is an emotion that people love to nurture. Add to that our daily encounters of fear, anger and jealousy that creates a pool of sewage where we sink our tender hearts . Then eventually comes one intellectual with amazing oratory skills and mind blowing convincing power, that points finger to a section of community while belonging to another particular section of community thus channelizing this sewage into that direction. So whether it's religion or something else depends upon the 'leader', and his/her oration. Hitler channelized this hatred against Jews, Osama Bin Laden channelized this against Americans, Hafiz Saeed channelized this against Hindus while L. K. Advani channelized this against Muslims, Rahul Gandhi used this against the saffron clad sadhus, Digvijay Singh against the anti-corruption lobby, Maoists against the capitalist government, KCR against non telangana brethren and Raj Thackeray did the same against north Indians giving equal opportunity to Sanjay Nirupam against Marathi people. What we need to understand here is what is at the core? Is it religion or is it a philosophy? If you look deeper you will understand that it's human emotion given a shape of philosophy that eventually vents into religion, caste, nationality, community et al . And the opportunity for such philosophies to crop up is plenty because the breeding ground of anger, jealousy and fear eventually leading to hatred is bountiful with our minute to minute encounters.

Our leaders have a hobby of collecting such pieces of hatred and then channelize them with their convincing power. "You see that fellow is going ahead of you killing your opportunity to progress" thus blossoming jealousy into hatred. "You see the way so and so religion is growing? They will soon eat up our space on this planet" thus allowing fear to rise into hatred. "You know why you were late for the interview? Because chaps from the unwanted community have occupied all of our public transport leaving no space for you to travel and breathe", sculpting anger into hatred. All these "leaders" need is; to nurture hatred in us which coincidentally turns out to be our favorite hobby. The argument they make to convince us seem plausible, since it is something we can relate to and is served to us in oration at its best.

Try to look little deeper, in their arguments; it's not the solution of the problem, but but it is our emotion of hatred that gets pumped up. And what is missing in all of the scenarios mentioned above is understanding of human values.

There is a very valuable quote from H. H. Sri Sri Ravishankar that says "Fanaticism flourishes when religious concepts are kept before human values." And there lies the solution to our problems. Understanding the depths of human values is what can help us get rid of these emotions.

I am not in denial of the problems people face. With increasing population and limited resources to live on, our socio-economic fabric is bound to go through the acid test. But we tend to find out solutions in philosophies that promote hatred, and probably because that's an easier way out. When it is hatred that we need to get rid of, we struggle to get rid of a particular community or religion. Who imbibes this hatred within us? Is it religion? No, it is a philosophy without the background of human values. It is religion without the spiritual essence.

Sri Sri has the perfect metaphor in this context, "Religion is the outer banana skin, while spirituality is real banana. People stuck on religion chew on the skin while throwing out the banana." What really is this word spirituality? Sri Sri puts it up simply, "Spirituality is nothing but caring & sharing ; offering oneself in service." When we are in service, we end up taking a voluntary responsibility, thus committing ourselves to be the social change agents, attempting to build an ideal society through love and compassion.

So changing our religious beliefs will not help since the trend says that our "leaders " always have some agenda to make sure we nurture hatred for the sake of their power in our society. Society changes, ideologies change, philosophies change, beliefs change, what remains the same is the "leader " with a pointed finger, with new ideology, new belief, new agenda to nurture hatred so that s/he can securely fasten the seatbelt of power and enjoy the ride while we juggle the tower of our principles and religious beliefs on the tune of those new philosophies. Whether it's the way Muslims say Aamin, Christians attend mass prayers or Sikhs sing Ek Onkar every religion in its every prayer harbors peace and happiness in our hearts. Observe the way Jews greet, Buddhist meditate, Jains live their lives and the Hindus end their sessions.

Loka samastha sukhino bhavantu,
Om Shanti Shanti Shaaantihi

(Let there be happiness everywhere.
Om peace peace peace)

SaaRe GaaNaa

2011-10-16T10:53:00.001-07:00

The music industry has been claiming ,
Sangeet ko na roke deewar
Sangeet jaye sarhad ke paar.
(Nothing can stop music. It travels beyond borders ).
This line proves itself every time we rock our head to the tunes of Strings or sway our hands to Bryan Adam's Here I am. The jury at Oscars that commemorated Rahman or the Afgan in Kabul admiring Kishoreda's melodies would nod their heads on the translation of these lines.

But did you ever contemplate that music creates boundaries at a very subtle level? Instruments like Violins, trumpets etc rarely see the light in a poor man's shop. A college fest cannot host a cultural event without a guitar and a drum. Pandit Ravishankar and his daughter Anoushka are heroes amongst the elite while we need specialized singers for the Bhojpuri audience. The August crowd takes it as a matter of "taste" to get charmed by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi while we make provision of Vithal Umap for our folk people.

Generally and rather thankfully people are open to different types of music. But imagine if these subtle boundaries becomes rigid. Imagine if the flavor of nationalism pours itself into the tender brains of music lovers. Music being a matter of passion has the potential to breed the patriotism type flavor.

My theory is that human brain doesn't take effort in raising doubts. Mind somehow loves the taste of negativity and uses this drug as the prescription of life. Just today I happened to meet someone who was keen on 2012 disaster since according to him it would liberate him off these daily life's problems - clear indications of a mind bred in negativity and hatred. We love to hate someone and eventually live to hate the same entity. So if the nations are at peace, imagine (I know hypothetical but still imagine ) that India and Pakistan suddenly become chaddi buddies. Obama is revered across all Muslim countries. There is no reason for the world now to hate each other. An unaware mind might scout for other reasons to breed hatred. Imagine the Heavy Metal youth forming cult underground societies across the globe to take over from the elite Classicals. The folk music people fighting for their rights to capture the center stage. Imagine the Classical Fraternity of India (CFI) forms a coalition govt with the Jazz Club of India with someone to the likes of Zakir Hussain is leading the pack as Prime Minister . Evidently the tabla lobby being strong within CFI they are currently pushing the bill to make tabla mandatory till school level. There is a strong opposition from the pianist who are always under represented in the house. To revolt against this oppression and the lack of freedom of choice the underground Guns&Dozes is planning a revolutionary attack over the kurta pajama chaps.

Thankfully there is little or no space for the above scenario to be true ever. We all know we have reservations over certain type of music branded by certain type of instrument. These are very subtle and invisible boundaries. I have simply aggravated these subtle boundaries in the picture painted above.

Hatred can be cured by acceptance. Recently in one of the satsangs of Art of Living that I attend, I realized that instrument, music, genre etc is no emotion's monopoly. Why can't a devotional song be a rock song where guitar and drums play an instrumental role? The fusion band Indian Ocean is doing fabulous job in creating a symphony of tabla, guitar, sitar, drums etc. Cultures that create a sense of belonging and a will of acceptance bring a great deal of relief to an otherwise hypocrite society. Thanks to such instrumental efforts that today music today has become a tool to bridge gaps, a tool to appreciate each other & a tool to connect hearts.

posted from Bloggeroid

Straight lines

2011-07-12T08:32:00.001-07:00

These are few lines ... straight from my heart ...

Trees in search of water have their roots spread deeper
Nimish

The success of a person can be measured by the kind of people attending his / her funeral
Nimish

However good your intentions are, you cannot clean anything unless you use a clean cloth
Nimish

If it is your idea, then it is your responsibility to make sure it is implemented. Else you are just like anyone else
Nimish

The quest of life should be you noticing yourself rather than you noticing whether others are noticing you or not .
Nimish

Wishes remain incomplete to boost another motivation in your life
Nimish

you may never know the cost to ditch your discipline
Nimish

posted from Bloggeroid
hi its me

India Won Finals ...

2011-04-17T21:41:00.001-07:00

Because Amir Khan wore his lucky old T shirt,
Because Dineshbhai Patel successfully managed his match long maun vrat.

Because N.T.Raju didn't budge to move from his lucky position,
Because 'not to keep left foot down' was Mrs Sen's 4 hr mission.

Because the tri coloured bangles' reponsibility was shouldered by Priety Zinta,
Because Rahul Gandhi positioned himself amongst stadium's aam junta.

Because Ramanathan Iyer performed hrs of Rudra Pooja,
Because justice awarded imprisonment to Shiney Ahuja.

Because Izaz bhai offered a chaddar at the darga of Haji Ali,
Because Tatya Kulkarni fasted in front of the one & only - Bajrangbali.

Because the Wankhede encore in unison 'ganpati bappa morya'
Because of the mere presence of the phenomenon called Tendlya.

Because Sr Bachchan resisted his temptations of live commentary,
Because the words worked in our favour from the commentary of all time jinxed Ravi Shastary .

A billion hopes, a billion superstitions, a billion prayers worked it may seem,
Forgetting all of this at the end we dip ourselves in the national celebration that lauds the efforts of the Indian team.

posted from Bloggeroid

Dipped in love ...

2011-02-13T23:28:00.001-08:00

Love is what attracts the electrons to a positive charge,
Love is the umbilical cord that connects a foetus to the life at large.

Love is the force of earth that holds you abreast,
Love is ur relationship with the air till in peace you rest.

Love is in the comfort of the warm hug at night or in rain,
Love is in the faith that the sun will rise again.

Love is in longing to meet that kills you inside,
Love is in the smile in your eyes that reside.

Love is in the sense of belonging towards your old scooter,
Love is the magic that protected Harry Potter.

Love is in the white flower presented to sentries,
Love is in the music that dissolves the boundaries.

Love is the feeling of Oneness that syncs the universe with thee,
Love is what connects you and me.

Happy Valentine's day.

Nimish.

posted from Bloggeroid

Straight lines

2011-02-13T05:16:00.001-08:00

These are few lines ... straight from my heart ...

Trees in search of water have their roots spread deeper
Nimish

The success of a person can be measured by the kind of people attending his / her funeral
Nimish

However good your intentions are, you cannot clean anything unless you use a clean cloth
Nimish

If it is your idea, then it is your responsibility to make sure it is implemented. Else you are just like anyone else
Nimish

Wishes remain incomplete to boost another motivation in your life
Nimish

you may never know the cost to ditch your discipline
Nimish

posted from Bloggeroid

Return to your innocence

2011-01-26T06:57:00.001-08:00

Isn't it ironic that people engaged in the industry needed for our very existence are found neglected? Why do people we practically cannot live without carry an adjective of "poor" against their identity of "farmer"? Agreed a laborer in every industry doesn't necessarily be rich. A farmer - essentially is a labourer in the agricultural industry is merely working for the landlords, the traders, the merchants and the political bigwigs that govern the rules of the industry. But when you compare it to say a laborer in IT industry, you do not really find a starving person barely able to meet his family's square meal. Again someone would debate that this has always been a difference between a white collar job and a field work job. But should this be a prerogative of the industry that is responsible for our survival? Today all the billionaires have sprung up from the industries without which we lived for centuries together. These industries are not responsible for our survival. They simply soothe our existence. Logic dictates that this economics when peered through the glass of demand and supply asserts that our demand for our survival is no longer given the due importance. I think there is a paradigm shift in our requirements and priorities where today we value our existence more than our survival.

It feels ironic that today we worry about screwed up internet connection while taking our survival for granted. It reminds me of the story where once a lion hired an ant to do some work. The ant being hardworking and efficient impressed the lion very well with her initial deliverables. Lion now wished to increase the efficiency and hired an owl as a consultant. Owl suggested on introducing a grasshopper as a manager to the ant to monitor her work. The grasshopper reported on some infrastructure malfunctioning and requested a crow to repair their "logistics". The owl now suggested that since we are too many people to work, we need a place to work. The lion hired an eagle to scout a right work place and manage the admin of his company. Now with so many people working the lion couldn't really find the time to make sure his employees were happy. So he hired a parrot as an HR. With so many mouths to feed, all of the employees set their expectations towards the ant. They urged the ant to double the output by sitting late and working in double shifts. Ant, mentally tortured by this soon declined in her performance. With low output , the lion demanded a production report from the owl. Owl after a through analysis presented a report stating that ant has performed poorly. The lion then upset over the ant fired the ant. We, at times in the process of organizing our lives and soothing our existence compromise on the simplicity of life.

As stone age man, the funda was simple. We need food to eat. We formed a bunch of hunters. Then we found vegetables, we formed a bunch of farmers. Now someone needed to buy this food, we invented finances. To protect these finances we invented security. In order for this to synchronize, we invented systems. Then came people to govern the political , financial, military, healthcare systems. To automate these systems we invented IT. While all of these systems are needed to soothe our lives, we forget where did all of this began in first place. We have been giving excessive importance over the peripherals. Maybe the effects are slowly cropping up. With farmers committing suicide and increasing agricultural prices, we can infer that our ant is no longer in the mental and physical state to cope up with our increasing demands.

Let us pause our lives for a while, look back and ponder over this. Let us help our "poor" farmer remove the adjective from his identity. Let us return to our innocence.

posted from Bloggeroid

The Silent Mumbai

2010-10-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

There is a paradox in the tile of this blog itself. Mumbai a city that keeps buzzing can never really be silent. Even at night as the eye lids get heavy, you cant escape the energy in the air that resonates along with your morning alarm giving you another purpose to begin a new grind. Pu. La. Deshpande once described that, "Mumbai is the only city that knows that the clock has a minute's and a second's hand. This is a place where a watch is tied not just to a person's wrist, but also to his destiny." In this city of dreams, running is mandatory. If you are not connected with this essence of a Mumbaikar, you will certainly misunderstand a Mumbaikar's resilience towards terrorism as his/her apathy towards a subject of national grief.

I was buffering a clip where actor Siddharth was incorrectly canvassing Mumbaikar's inherent nature to work for himself as a stone cold heart that turns a blind eye towards a scar just cast on him.
I highly despise such insensitive comments. The actor sensing the lively energy in the city, concluded that the city has forgotten about its scars within a month's period. I have read and listened a lot of Mumbai bashing off-late. Critics have been heavy on this 'zindadili' attitude of Mumbai. I would want all of those guys to leave their comfort zones for once and get on field here when Mumbai is actually at seize.

When the terrorists were spraying their bullets across the city, there were stories of the common man on the road being brave enough to be at ground zero to help the injured. The city has never let the blood banks go dry in such times. Donations flood not just come in form of money, but also in form of volunteering. During every bomb blasts, it is the locals who have done the first aid even before the police or the paramedics arrive. When we are flood victims, the able cook food and pass it on to the needy. The next day we make a tally of our losses and make a new plan on how to run our lives bearing the catastrophe. Please don't blame a Mumbaikar of forgetting his/her scars.

I have friends who have taken months to recover from the trauma of 26/11 before mustering courage to take a glance at The Taj and The Trident. So Siddharth, if you think that people forgot about 26/11 a month later, then you are sadly mistaken. Do not expect an event of grief to be a piece of conversation on every dining table every single day. And talking about the issue over and over again is certainly not justified. You should make an attempt to give a vent to your grief and look towards the time ahead. As far as actions of Mumbaikars are concerned, you should have been there at the rally of 3rd December 2009. The anger of an average Mumbaikar was pretty evident in the posters, slogans their acts and voices. The aam junta this time was not blaming Pakistan, nor did it booed the terrorists. The protest constructively demanded justice and security from the government.

Yes I agree, the anguish did not reflect in the General Elections that arrived few months later. However I do not still attribute the low turnout as Mumbaikar's indifference towards emotional issues. I think that an average Mumbaikar does not consider politics as an answer to his/her questions a misconception that needs to be changed.

Overcoming yesterday's tragedy by setting out to work is a need in Mumbai. It is this need that drives its engines and makes Mumbai what it is. The resilience of the city begins its day 2 in remembrance of the tragedy, with high emotions, with fear but with a grit - a grit to work for myself, my family which in its own fraction adds some activity towards the nation. I see no reason to discourage this bounce back attitude of the city that in effect destroys the sole purpose of terrorism. I, a Mumbaikar, salute the spirit of the city.

Salaam Mumbai!!

Where Einstein Meets Hinduism ...

2010-10-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

If someone asks you and me, “What time is it?” we would involuntarily check our wrist, or roll our head to the grandfather clock on our wall. But there was a man few decades back who would have snapped back, “You need time in relation to what?” That geeky German / American with innovative hairstyle and a thick moustache acknowledged as world’s most intellectual brain was none other than Albert Einstein. The old man in his”theory of relativity” went down to the pendulum of our grandfather’s clock and changed the definitions and the very foundations of the concept of time. He said that time is different for different people. “Well of course!” you might say “it is night in the USA right now while its day time here.” Please step back from that door in case your thinking is heading there. Do you think someone like Einstein would come up with a world renowned theory to prove that? What the genius meant was that what felt like 2 seconds to you might well be 2 days, 2 decades or maybe 200 years for someone else. “How can that be?” “Is he nuts to think something like that?”

I know, it is something difficult to imagine and understand, but needn’t be difficult to digest, after all even Joey the dumbest of all characters amongst the FRIENDS could assimilate the concept in one of his roles. Joey, acting as Victor on one of his stage performances in season 3 of FRIENDS gets on a spaceship to some BlogOn 7 planet in search of alternative fuels and is set to return back after 300 years. “And, when I return 300 years from now, you would have been long gone, but I wouldn’t have aged at all. So you tell your great, great granddaughter to look up to me. Because Adrian, baby, I would want to meet her.” This concept even decades after Einstein released his papers of “Time Dilation”, is found amongst comic series. People even today find it difficult to understand and easy to mock at. So guys, a standing ovation for the genius who could actually do an out of box thinking and come up with this theory. Come on, get up and applaud the man’s creativity and his efforts to prove that thinking.

But a Hindu would find a man in orange robes, with garland on his wrists and a pair of chaps in one of his hands that when stroked together add background music to his rhymes of, “Narayan, Narayan!” smiling at this discovery. Ladies and gentlemen meet Mr. Narad Muni, a divine sage in Hindu scriptures given the powers and the ability to travel between different planes and planets of the universe. If the Hindu mythology really exists then Narad Muni is the one who should know about this and the means to tackle with this kind of physics, mainly because the Hindu scriptures have professed this theory more than 5000 years back. “Now what was that?” Let me tell you a short story found in the epic of Mahabharata.

Once upon a time (isn’t this how a story should always start?) there was a kingdom beneath the oceans. It was ruled by a nice benevolent king called as Kakudmi who had an extremely beautiful daughter Revati. Kakudmi finding none amongst the earthlings as a capable life partner for his daughter, decided to consult Bramha the creator of the universe himself to find a capable groom for Revati. Since Lord Bramha was already engrossed in the music of the Gandharvas (yes, Gods rock too), Kakudmi decided to wait patiently for Gandharvas to finish their concert. After applauding their performance, Lord Bramha was amused to see King Kakudmi an earthling waiting at his door step with his daughter. Kakudmi sought consultations of the Lord Himself to find an appropriate groom for Revati. Bramha laughed at that moment and said, “O King, you have come to my door step. Here on this plane of the universe, time is different from what it is on earth. In the time that you were waiting here, 27 chaturyugs have passed by on earth. Your kingdom is long gone by and all of the grooms existing in your era on earth are now dead. All of your fore generations are already dead and an altogether different kind of human life is now growing itself on earth.”

Now let us dig deeper into this concept of Chaturyugs. 1 Chaturyug is actually 1 Mahayug made up of the 4 Yugs viz. the Satya Yug, Treta Yug, Dwapara Yug and the Kali Yug. 1 Yug equals to 432,000 human years. But the Hindu scriptures shaking hands with Einstein’s theory of relativity assert that these 432,000 human years are nothing but 0.01% of 1 day of Lord Bramha.

While 1 Maha Yug is 0.1% of Bramha’s day. So if you calculate backwards, 27 Chaturyugs (27 Maha Yugs) roughly turn out to be 78 minutes of Bramha’s day and that is the time King Kakudmi was waiting at Bramha’s doorstep with his daughter while the earth below spinning itself while revolving around the sun successfully completed 432,000*10*27 years of its life (1 Maha Yug = 10 Yugs). I am sure Einstein must have applauded this story. Now what happens later to King Kakudmi?

Lord Brahma assures him that the Lords themselves are now set to take an Avatar on the earth and thus you can marry this pure and pious Revati to one of them. King Kakudmi after setting back on earth finds a complete different picture from the time he left. Not just that the landscape and the places have changed, but the striking difference is the change in the human race itself. Instead of progressing, the human race has degraded itself. People now are that of lower intellectual and physical capabilities. But then comes Lord Balaram, the brother of Lord Krishna himself who is one capable person to marry Revati. So as per Brahma’s suggestions, Kakudmi marries Revati to Balaram.

This Yug philisophy is very much in sync with the Greek mythology where the Greeks have divided the life of human race into 4 ages viz. the Golden Age, the Silver Age, the Bronze age and the Iron Age. The Greeks profess that humans have degraded way of life from the Golden Age to the Iron Age. Each of the ages can be related to each of the Yugs in the Hindu philosophy. So when the Greeks say that we are now living in the Iron Age, Hindus christen the current time as the Kali Yug. The definitions and the descriptions of each of these Yugs do go hand in hand with the Greek Ages.

The difference that I would notice in the philosophies is that Hinduism drags the concept further to a cycle of Maha Yugs that come and go every now and then. And all of these 432,000*10 human years are nothing but few minutes of Lord Brahma. As per the calculations made in the Hindu scriptures, we are currently living in the 51st year of Lord Brahma and Lord Brahma along with this materialistic Brahmanda or today what we call as the universe, is set to live and exist for another 49 years. Ah well, excuse me, ‘Ahem!!’ 49 Brahma’s years.

VoteIndia

2010-08-11T09:22:00.001-07:00

Innocent Anxiety

2010-08-01T19:36:00.000-07:00

She was a toddler that could only falter without grasping her mother's finger. Her mother helped her trek the stairs of the immobile bus to the top of which the girl saw me seated right at the first seat. One cute smile and she guided by her mother proceeded to take an adjacent window seat. Sooner the mother left to get down from the bus and worried toddler followed her mom. The mom said something in Tagalog, but there are times when communication doesn't need words and I could feel the lady's instructions, "Do not get down from the bus, wait right here. I will be back." The obedient little child stood right at the doorway clutching a side bar firmly while giving some space for the new passengers to usher in. The tumult for me dissolved into a picture taken about 22 years back when I as a kid was holding the bar at the doorway of the train with expressions calling out to someone while my mother right behind me, making sure that I don’t get out of the train held me tightly. I was trying to reaching my dad.

It was the narrow gauge train to Matheran that is often referred to as the "Toy Train". Built during the British imperial times, this train travels at the speed of a centipede thus lagging behind a strolling human. But the sheer size and the charm of this train has a tourist attraction to it even today. I was way too small back then to have a clear memory of the trip, but certain incidents stay vivid. I and my parents got into the train and then suddenly my dad left his seat to disembark from the train to take our picture. My anxiety about him coming back to his seat could not smile for that picture. The wheels of the train then yanked into the motion and the train at the top of the hill began its journey. Worried I ran at the doorway while the uvula at the back of my throat kept shouting in pleads for my dad to come back on the train. The incident remains afresh in my mind since it was accompanied by a pinch that pricked me with a feeling of losing a parent. The tender brain back then had little intelligence that it is less than a child's play to get back on that crawling train. So although the incident enriched me with the knowledge of speed and relativity, the worry that hovered upon me for certain time made a timeless space for itself in my mind. And today makes me realize about all the sleepless nights that I have given to my parents while they stood at the doorway waiting for me to come back home.

Here the girl obedient to her mom’s instructions didn’t step down from the bus and anxiously kept waiting at the doorway while grasping the bar tightly. She was patient with her actions yet anxious in her expressions. And with every pair of shoes entering the bus that didn’t resemble to the ones her mom wore, her anxiety took her to another level. Soon the bus got into motion and yet the girl stood there clutching the bar even tightly. Finally to her relief, her mom got into the bus set in motion with a glass of juice for her daughter. The child all happy then went back to her window seat and smiled happily at every passing car. With a complete and secured feeling she didn’t budge her mom once while enjoying the breeze from the window and sipping the lovely cold juice from her mom’s hands. I was appalled by the strength this girl had while waiting for her mom, there was trust in her actions that said her mom will fulfill her promise to come back, but it certainly accompanied the worry in her eyes that left her insecure. Perhaps this is love …

Nataranga

2010-04-25T07:58:00.000-07:00

No, its not a movie for people who understand marathi, but a movie for anyone who can understand the language of passion. We are all passionate about some or the other thing at some or the other level. But what is the extent you can go to pursue it? The movie expands the horizon of the limitations of an entreprenuer and hence the ways to get over them.

The movie begins with the feet of an old man, faltering on the steps of the podium of "Zee Gaurav Puraskar" - a prestiguous award ceremony, and while he reaches the podium, the movie takes us to the flashback of how and what the man had to go through to pursue his dream. Guna Kagalkar (Atul Kulkarni), a man with a wrestler's physique, charming face and a typical masculine Indian moustache is a personality that all the men envy and all the women adore. Everything is perfect in his life, except for his passion for the Tamasha - the Marathi folk theatre. The man's addiction to tamasha forces him to drain down at least half of his earning, leaving behind his penniless wife and educationless kid.

With the machines greasing mankind's progress, Guna and his gang anticipating the sinking ship of their respective traditional livelihoods, resolute to disembark and make a ship out of their passion - the Tamasha. Being an entrepreur at determination and an artist at heart, Guna intrinsically carrying the traits to be the leader of the clan starts investing his money, time, vim, vigour to the extent of gambling his own dignity on the success of their new Tamasha.

The story of the movie revolves around the fact that Tamasha - the marathi folk theatre is incomplete without the presence of 'Nacha' - a panzy gay character. Here Guna has the entire pack ready with talent that garuntees entertainment. Even the female dancer that shall be taking the center stage stands alongside of these entreprenuers. But the only missing part is the presence of a panzy character. Days pass by with no hope and energy starts oqzing out of the chest swelled Tamasha. Guna's frustration is evident in one of his dialogues in the movie, "There's hunger right within, and a plate full of food right in front, but there are no hands to eat and no teeth to chew." Guna out of choice decides to play the panzy character himself. And thus begins an altogether new journey which eventually brings success.

The Indian film fraternity is sharpening itself towards perfectionism while following the likes of Tom Hanks and Renee Zelwegger. We had Aamir Khan flexing his muscles in Ghajani, just because he felt the role demanded that physique. Similarly, Atul Kulkarni, understanding the demand of the role, invested some good time in gym in sculpting a beefed up physique. Ajay - Atul as usual have been phenomenal in their music. But the most noteworthy aspects of the movie are exceptional direction from Ravi Jadhav and a remarkable acting by Atul Kulkarni. I wont be surprised if Atul wins the National award.

Rating: ****

PANAGBENGA 2010

2010-03-02T06:11:00.000-08:00

Hi, the profilgacy of exhibiting pictures in this blog is evident because I have myself clicked all of these images. To view the rest of the images, click here

PANAGBENGA 2010

It fluttered by and then suddenly landed on his camera lens. The photographer and everyone of us around him were merrily surprised. "How often do you see a butterfly play with you?" It fluttered again and now landed on his orange T-Shirt. The papparazi that so far was busy capturing the biggest event of the day for Philippines, turned their cameras towards this photographer and his new playmate - the butterfly.

He and his buddies sitting on the top of a Pajero, with their cameras and their tripods posited on the roof of the car took some time out of the biggest attraction of the nation and spent some time on this noteworthy incident. Their Pajero was parked right next to the 2 feet high divider upon which me and 10 to 12 other budding photographers queued up securing our positions to shoot the best possible glimpses of the event. This entire set was amidst few 100 thousand visitors who thronged to Bagguio to witness the 15th Anniversary of Panagbenga - 'The Panagbenga 2010'.

I vividly remember Joel telling us "Believe me guys, this trip to Baggiuo is going to be way different than any of your previous trips." I have never really been to Baggiuo, but the vim and the vigour that filled the atmosphere on 28th Feb 2010 clearly concurred his words.
"The government decided to start this festival 15 years back in order to re-attract tourist to one of the best known hill stations of the Philippines." "Re-attract? Why?" "The Luzon killer earthquake destroyed the entire place back then. But tourism is expanding rapidly here now, courtesy - Panagbenga. And here we are to witness Panagbenga 2010." "So what does Panagbenga mean?" "It is basically a season when the flowers bloom." "You mean Spring?" "Yes. And that is why they have a butterfly as their logo." I was reminiscing my yesterday's conversation with Joel as we walked passed by the Burnham park at the early freezing morning, while smoking out the natural mist out of our mouths with every passing conversation, and I thought Philippines will be hot before I came here!

It was early morning with lot of time to straggle along. I would generally wish to be in bed at this hour of a day and especially when its Sunday, but looking around at Bagiuo that morning all I saw was energy, anticipation and a verve to witness the festival of flowers. Looking at the tents where people stayed all night (presumably because all the hotels were overbooked), children playing around, people helping each other, I could feel warmth amidst that morning mist.Although, the Panagbenga parade was about to commence an hour later, we decided to secure ourselves in the best possible locations, before people began to congregate. But our assumptions were refuted by the general crowd. All of the places were already occupied and there began our struggle to position ourselves in the best possible location. Mervyn, Aaron and Mel found comfort along the road side while I, Joel and Cha pretended to be the officially appointed photographers while passing few clicks of the anxiously waiting crowd. But it wasnt really a matter of surprise that we were busted pretty soon and were pushed into the back layers of the waiting crowd by the strolling sentries. But luck found its own way to us. There was a road divider right behind the crowd that could give an altitude over the exact point where the road turns and the floats would halt for their performance. We werent really the first ones to think this, but being an early bird has its own advantages since I was now just 4th in the line, giving me a fairly decent view of the perfect angle to capture the event. And how I know that it was the best view, because right besides us was parked a Pajero, upon which a man with a dangling badge that boasted "Secraterait - Panagbenga 2010 Documentation Committee" was plumbing his tripod pipes to fix his camera on the car roof, while the rest of his team mates were busy securing their own positions at different corners of the car's roof. An hour passed away with no action, apart from the one when a garbage truck passed by on the parade track and the person
atop amused the crowd by flying celebrity kisses from the top. I was getting little fussy , even Joel and Cha had gone out for a drink and I, not in a mood to lose my position especially after kneering behind me at the ever extending queue, preferred to stand firm until the show begins. To kill some time, I perched my Sony Walkman on my ears to listen to Rahman making people dance on 'Fanaaa'. I never really understood what Gulzar had to say in this song with words like Ulfat, Darya and something that happens with Saaya and its Badan. But who cares, I enjoy Rahman in that song and the exhiliration of that song perfectly matched the zest of the exodus gathered at the Panagbenga 2010. The anxious faces soon started cheering the first float of the morning that begun an hour late. Well everyone in Philippines can understand that, it is Filipino time after all. I envied the mayor of Baguio that day when I saw angels dancing for him in front of his float that kick started the Panagbenga 2010. Looking on my right, I envied Cha since had secured herself atop a drinks van giving her best position and the comfort of her feet getting the due rest, in sitting position. while my legs shuffled their position taking turns to bear my body weight all the while. On my left, the camera men had suddenly turned their attention to the butterfly who had chosen to play with an Orange T-Shirt photographer belonging to the 'Documentation Committee'. "What is a butterfly doing here?" Was such a dumb question from someone behind me. Quite obvious, it is a festival of flowers, where we are about to witness one of the best floats entirely dressed and designed in flowers glide on the surface of the tar road.

With so much of fragrance in the air, the butterfly branding the logo of the festival decided to say 'hi' to everyone across the globe by conveniently choosing the officially appointed photographers to play with. And thus began the replendent ride of one float after another where there were performances, dressings, designs, art, culture, zest, enthusiasm, colours, music and all possible combinations that can make a festival successful mingled with each other. It all began with the leviathans of the retail industry in Philippines - the SM group showcasing their roaring tiger
entirely drenched in the yellow flower (I guess it is called as Marigold). Soon after floats from the likes of AMA, Metro Pacific, LBC, San Miguel, Aegis etc accompanied by school children, professional dancers together summed up the strength of 24 floats that paraded on the streets of Baguio for 2 whole hours entertaining and surprising the masses with every passing moment. "Do you have such festivals in your city back home?" Lego enquired. "Well we do have a republic day parade but it happens in New Delhi and I have never really seen one live anytime." However now I do promise myself to sit amidst that crowd sometime someday to witness the live performance of the Republic Day parade along the India gate. I enjoy watching the parade over the television, but watching it live is surely going to be one hell of an experience and Panagbenga 2010 just talked to me in the same language. I never realised that I have been standing (rahter struggling to stand) on that divider for as long as an average Bollywood movie would last and my legs are now complaining for the ire they had to undergo, but my mind and my heart knew that it was all worth it. Panagbenga 2010 was indeed an experience to remember.

Zeitgeist - The Spirit of the Times

2010-01-31T07:33:00.001-08:00

"So what do you do for living?" is generally the one of our FAQs when we get introduced to someone for the first time. Well ponder a bit at the object of the preposition - "living". It is a concept accepted by the world that we do something for our living and then we do something for our liking. Which means that the activity that we do for our living needn't necessarily be same as the one we pursue as our hobby. Imagine a world where you just pursue your hobby where all of your living needs are being taken care of by technology. Imagine living in a world where technology is the driving force and you are greasing the wheels of human progress by just doing what you like to do.

What would you like to do say entertainment - love to act? So pursue it until you get bored of it. Who will pay you for that? No one. Sounds weird right? If no one is going to pay me, how the hell do you expect that I would be feeding myself? Well, the answer lies in technology. Just like you are passionate about stage performance, there are a bunch of geeks who are passionate about lab performance. They would be the ones inventing robots and machines and automating the world that would help you make your own food. So right from purchasing goods - well wait a minute, lets hit the backspace key; so right from procuring goods to processing them and then finally serving a delicious dish on your table, everything will be done by technology.

"Buddy, robots working for me? I don't have that kind of money." Again, why did we hit backspace? Because in the Lotus Project of the Zeitgeist movement, no one pays for anything. They intend to remove the concept of money from our system. So you do not pay for robots and the scientist working in the lab doesn't pay for your stage performance. Sounds like a barter system isn't it? Well it does to me to. So let us dive ourselves a little deeper into this concept.

"Why is air free and water so cheap?" asks the video documentary of the project. Well we all know the answer that it is available in abundance. No one would really be spending a rupee or a cent for a cubic meter of air, because it is available for free and in abundance. Now air is not available in water asking divers pay for the oxygen cylinders. So what do we do to make sure that the food we talked about short while ago, comes to my table for free? Well, that's right, you know the answer - make it available in abundance. How to do that? The scientists of the lotus project believe that technology has answers to all these questions. And honestly, this doesn't seem impossible from my perspective too.

Again, little difficult to digest right? Let us consider wikipedia's example. Remember the times when we used to spend thousands on the stack of world books occupying an entire wall of our living room! Wikipedia was kneering on you and it said "Ha!". Today we have the best of the knowledge about our world available on internet and that too free. How was it made possible? Well, technology did it, didnt it? Well I would like to rephrase the sentence, 'Effective use of technology did it.' People who are passionate about their own subjects scribble on this online forum where information is validated by people themselves. Who pays all these goons? No one. And yet they do it because they love doing it. There are millions of programmers publishing their codes online. Why do they make it all available for free? Because they love that work. So today, coding is not really a rocket science, because most of it is available online. Then programmers build something over this free code and erect another beauty on it. Together we create marvels in the computing world and device something like Java, Linux or Android. Zeitgeist movement's 'The Lotus Project' is basically transitioning these already achieved benefits in the online world onto the real life. And 'yes' they say, it is possible.

Now consider a nice house on the sea-shore where you can lay on a rocking chair reading your favorite book in the verandah while the sound of sea waves soothe your senses. Who would not like to live that life? So there are tens of thousands of people who would like to own that place. You cannot make such places available in abundance, can you? This is a place where demand will always succeed the supply and then you hit a barrier of economics where you need money to decide a price on the property. "Well I agree", explained Eric - an active member of 'The Lotus Project'. "I agree that our system is not foolproof. All we are saying that this is an initiative and there are good chances that we can come across a good way of living if all of us work in this direction. There are certain loopholes that we would want to plug. But we believe that technology has answers to all of these questions." So that means that the egg is still incubating. We cannot hatch it now.

"I want to cite another example. Talent is rare. You cannot have that in abundance. Everyone plays cricket, but Sachin Tendulkar comes once in a lifetime. Everyone works in science, but Einstein is born once in centuries. How do you encourage the talent if there are going to be no incentives? Today Sachin, a guy brought up from a middle class family would aspire to own a Ferrari and rightfully desire to have a plush bungalow in one of the most expensive places in Mumbai. How can you give him an incentive to play?"

"Well we think that talent doesn't need incentive. We believe that people would pour out their devotion towards their field without any of these incentives." Eric answered although not entirely convincing me. Even the zeitgeist videos about religion and the conspiracy theories are nothing but a mere entertainment they do not convince me.

But looking at the broader picture, I think its worthwhile to keep a tab on this movement so that the next time we meet, I can just ask "So, What do you do" - removing the "living" part from it.

(Image courtesy: BP.blogspot)

3 Idiots is not a five pointer film

2010-01-01T18:37:00.000-08:00

3 Idiots

About 3 years back when Raju Hirani released his last film, I remember all the facebook and orkut statuses had been updated to "Bande Mein Tha Dam". It was the after-impact of the film. The story repeated this time with words being changed to "All izz well". Raju does make some impact on the audience everytime he makes a film and he has indeed done a good job in adapting Chetan Bhagat's "5 point someone" to his own "3 Idiots". The reason I am saying 'his own' is because 3 idiots is actually different from the original book.

Ranchordas Shyamaldas Chanchard aka Rancho (Amir Khan) a boy with a different outlook towards the concept of studying, a brain who thinks about applying science rather than merely learning it, got admitted amongst the geeky pundits of the Imperial College of Engineering aka IC where grades and marks determine how successful are you going to be in the road ahead. Veeru Sahasrabuddhe aka Virus (Boman Irani), the director of IC a man with constant wrinkles on his forehead and an ability to make anyone feel small is clueless of what is going to happen in his own college when his staff placed this guy Rancho and 2 more idiots Raju Rastogi (Sharman Joshi) and Farhaan Qureshi (R Madhavan) in one room of the hostel.

Rancho with a mentality of "Strive for excellance and then success will follow you" is least bothered about grades and results, and on the contrary, Raju and Farhaan however inspired are by Rancho's theory, have to focus on grades due to family pressure and the outcome is contrary. Rancho someone least bothered about grades stands first in the class while the other set of idiots come last and second last respectively. Rancho's answer behind this is the word 'passion'. He coaxes Farhaan to pursue his own passion of photography where he will stand way ahead of others. Raju on the other hand is lost in the race of grades and has long forgotten the word 'excellence'. Both the guys at the end rectify their flaws and follow what Rancho had to say for them. It is a happy graduation day picture, except that Rancho has disappeared from the set. The entire movie is in the search of this guy Rancho who disappeared from the graduation day 10 years back and the story above features in bit and pieces as the flashback scenes.

Raju has very well captured the student life, the race for grades, the student superstitions, the student pressure, the student suicides etc painting the education system very well on his canvass of 3 Idiots. It was a lively experience reminiscing the good old student days where we have lived parts of these lives in bit and pieces. Songs are very well made expect that I would say 'Zoobie Doobie' was a mistake.

C.K.Muraleedharan has done a wonderful job in his cinematography capturing Laddhak, Shimla, Manali and the IIM Bangalore campus as the IC at it's brilliance.

Now going back to my first expression, the movie is different from the original book - the reason being, it is a film. Raju has made it filmy with his typical melodramatic masala and obnoxious scenes where Amir Khan delivers a baby using a vacuum cleaner. The book I guess is Chetan's own story and hence much closer to reality. Ryan the hunk, Hari the guy with Prof Cherian's girl and Alok are 5 pointers and thus below average graders. None of them top the class. So to sum it up, Chetan has done a good job of bringing out an important real life topic while Raju has done a good job in putting it on the reels.

Rating: ***1/2

2 States - A Book Review

2009-12-14T10:23:00.000-08:00

Shuffling from my seat, I came out of my trance to see few Filipinos staring at me and pondering at the red colored cover page of the book I was reading. I realised that I had been giggling a lot in that 20 seater Jeepney. “Well you know this guy in a costume called as ‘veshti’ is running out of his wedding ceremony while his father-in-law is running behind him” I thought of offering an explanation. But ‘aah!’ whom am i kidding! They wont understand what it is all about. It is not their story. It is a story from my homeland, and my country. It is a story from a country where political beaureacracy governs family relations. It is a country where there is a constant fight, a fight to preserve your community’s dignity, a fight to preserve your own dignity, a fight to withstand your cultural principles and finally a fight against all of these fights. “2 states” , is a tongue in cheek story about all of these fights.

Krish and Ananya, meet at IIM – A, fall in love and then decide to get married. But the Amrish Puri here are their families. Sounds like a typical 90s bollywood movie right? Yeah, even i thought of Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak, DDLG etc. But the twist here is that the families are against because both the they belong to different communities. Krish the Punjab – da-puttar is loathed a lot by the Tamilian tigers of Ananya’s family. Krish and Ananya have to mould their plausible resolution into a marriage where the Malhotras and the Swaminathans congregate without a dissent. In the process, they go through vicissitudes of disagreements, family fights while struggling with the fine thread of their own relationship.
Again, sounds like a typical bolywood movie, well indeed it is! “2 states” is a complete bollywood style entertainer. Where it would score above any typical bollywood story is the nature of the story telling process. Chetan has very well managed to stick to the topic and write about the ‘2 states’. We get to see Chennai, its culture, the people, the places and their own reasons for hating north Indians. We also get to see the Punjabis justifying their hatred towards the Madrasis. The writer in the entire story has very well managed to debate on both the fronts and then emerge victorious with a nice chocolaty climax.

Ironically, Chetan claims this to be his own life-story. Well, his life in IIT has been in such a way that we have Amir Khan acting on him now. I wonder who is going to play him in “2 states” now. Well I have read this line somewhere, “If you want to be remembered after you are dead, either do things worth writing, or write things worth reading” And Chetan has managed to do both very well.

Free Your Thoughts

2009-11-29T11:54:00.000-08:00

[A Disclaimer and a confession: I am not too good in remembering names, so i might have goofed up with them in this blog of mine. Anyway, this time I would like to believe Shakespere 'What's in the name?' ]

“You know Eknath right?”
“What?” I was stumped.
Red mistook it to be a reaction that I didn’t know Eknath and continued, “Well I can understand India is a huge country, this person Eknath was very well known in the western part of India,”

“Well of course Red, I know Eknath in fact I come from western region of India.”
“That’s right” Carl suddenly came into picture, with a cup of coffee in his hand that clouted the Starbucks logo on it. “He is from Maharashtra, which is below Gujarat.”
“Oh! You know well about India.” I was really keen to see Filipinos know a lot about India beyond “Jai Ho!”
“Cool so you know Eknath. Then you must know his translations of Upanishads and Bhagavad Geeta.”
Had I decided to call up Preshit, Nilay or anyone from my old school days and begin a conversation about Ekanth. I am pretty sure that they’d say with watery mouths, “What lovely samosas he used to make!” referring to the canteen owner of our school. And here I was amongst some 20 odd Filipinos, discussing about Eknath and his lovely translations about Bhagavad Geeta, with a boy who was an atheist himself.
“We have people like Red in our group” Frank like a spokesperson, was explaining me the uniqueness of his group. “They have tried all religions and then decided to be atheist. There are agonistics, there are people from various religions and there are people like me who believe in Christianity.”
“Well I can see the cross as your locket. Wait a minute that is not a cross that is a ‘T’. What is that?”
“The crucification of Christ is a mystery in itself. Few say that He was crucified on a cross; few said that He was on a ‘T’ shaped structure when He died while others say that He died on a tree log while his hands were clutched together above His head.”
“Then why do we see the cross in churches?”
“Well this is one of the Pagan symbols. It was adopted by Christianity during medieval times so that the Pagans would find it easier to adopt Christianity.”
I nodded acknowledging reading something like this in Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code”.
I felt it was such a good decision to come within this bunch of Filipilno Freethinkers.

When Frank told me about this Free Thinking concept, I wondered why would citizens of a country where 85% population belongs to one particular religion talk about religious tolerance. My curiosity led me to Starbucks café at the Shangrilla Mall. Well it was my house warming day and I was little late (again, I am not making any excuses, I was late due to genuine reasons).
“We call it knon-Indian.”, chuckled John. “When you decide to meet at a time and then you don’t show up on that time, we have a word for that in Tagalou.”
“Although I wonder why would anyone relate ‘no-show’ to Indians? Are they always late?” seemed to be an honest question from Wella.
“Maybe we mean Red Indians.” Frank was I guess covering up for my community.
“Well!” I offered an explanation “maybe it is because India is 2 and half hours behind. So if you are 2 and half hours late, you are right time as per the Indian Standard Time.”
And everyone laughed, ‘Joke well received’ I thought.
When I reached little late, the group had already begun with their topic for the week.
“The situation is like, to be a recognized political party herein Philippines, you need to get an approval from the election commission. Here was a party GLP (Gay and Lesbian Party) whose application got rejected and we believe there is a role of church in this.”
I nodded, now understanding the need of such groups in a place where 85% are Christians.
“The panel is discussing as what can be done so that this imposition of church can be prevented.”
“Guys, there is a rally organized.” I heard Red addressing the rest of the gang. “If you support the GLP, come to the rally, wear colorful clothes. Make banners saying ‘Gays are OK.’”
“Yeah but write a disclaimer ‘I am not Gay’ “giggled John.
“Also, there are so many people yet in their closet, and we would like them to come out and declare their individuality.”
“Well, wait a minute; we don’t want people who are yet in their closet.” Paused Regg.
“Yeah, but people who are on fence, we can encourage to come out in open. Can’t we?” queried Frank .
“Yeah we can, but again that’s not the theme of the rally. The theme of the rally is to give us gays a right to have our own place in politics.” Regg clarified.
Sooner the gang moved their eyes on me. How are homosexuals received in your country? Is homosexuality approved in your religion? What are your own views on homo sexuality?
I answered their questions to the best of my knowledge. And soon the topic swayed from homosexuality to India in general.
“Why are Indians associated with computers everywhere? Is it that they are better in computers than us?” asked Red.

“Well yes I agree, Indians are really good in computers. But that’s mainly because there are just too many of them. They have many more computer geeks than we do here. And India is a big competition to Philippines.” answered Frank. I felt like thanking all the forefathers who never considered family planning as a way of life, thereby giving birth to computer geeks in such a large number.
I remembered JP’s presentation in our office town-hall meet where he compared our company rates to the Indian counterparts indicating that my Filipino company was indeed doing better than IT firms on my homeland. But this corporate competition is nowhere seen in the warmth of the Filipinos that I meet. In this group itself they declared, “We are cool with Indians. None of our communities have any issues with Indians.” I can vouch for that.
And amongst that warmth, this rendezvous with this bunch of people whose thinking I could very much relate to was indeed a tonic for my knowledge thirsty brain.

PS: TO Know more about 'Filipino Free Thinkers' click here

My Dear India

2009-08-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

My Dear India, I wish you Happy Birthday
I wish you Happy Independence Day,

I wish you a secured zone,
Where the Ganges and the Godavari play like a child.
I wish the Indus gets purified on the other side,
And the Padma-Meghna’s violent delta turns mild.

I wish the Himalayas stand tall to protect you from the yellow fever,
And your peninsula shines like a dagger,
Defending your borders with a vision of an eagle,
While claws of that of a tiger.

I wish you prosperity and growth,
Where the circular disc at center focuses on developmental politics.
I wish the investments within you gain returns very high,
And your GDP finds a growth in double digits.

I wish you electrified villages,
Where your farmer smiles when he droves his tractor,
I wish a GPS enabled device in his hand,
For him to forecast the climate factor.

I wish you 1 billion smiling faces,
All standing firm and united under the turf of your tricolour.
The tolerance level all so high,
That the saffron and green embrace at your foundation pillar.

I wish you happiness, I wish you success,
I wish you the enthusiasm to take over many.
I wish you a very happy Independence Day,
As we your children, make another tryst with the destiny.

I want madhur Bhandarkar to come up with a new film .. TRP

2009-08-08T07:31:00.000-07:00

TRP

Rakhi and her Swayamwar, the roadies of MTV, the talent hunt singing on the tunes Sa Re Ga Ma, the guts and the added glory of the reality show has taken over the boo-hooing of the family soap operas. Tulsi and Parvati have been replaced with Rakhi Sawant and Baani. The scripted drama still continues (as recently confessed by Ilesh from Rakhi ka Swayamwar, that the poems he wrote for Rakhi were not really his brainchild), but the dressing has changed. TV has evolved itself by showing the unreal under the name of "reality". But 'yeh public hai... sab jaanti hai'. Ilesh Bhaiyya, we have always been knowing that the reality shows are well scripted and pre-decided. What we would like to know is in what way is it pre-decided, who decides it and who is controlling this multi million dollar industry? It is certainly not Pramod Mahajan's laadla, neither any of it is in Anu Malik's hands. The big boys are well behind and shooting from these shoulders (I know I made a direct translation from Hindi, 'doosre ke kandhe se goli chalana').

The point is, there is a system that is making 100 crore people crazily glued to the television sets. There are people that thong to the auditions of these shows, in expectations that they will somehow land up in Mumbai and fulfil their dreams of becoming a national icon. These national icons wave kisses to the aam junta (the mango people) while standing on the carpet of this system of reality shows. Once this carpet is pulled off their feet, they get lost in the crowd below and people die to take kisses from the icon next in line. Remember Abhijeet Sawant, Amit Sana? Where are they? They are certainly out of the spot light and hence out of this system that runs the TV. What is this system? What does it thrive upon? What does it need?

The bottomline of all of the above questions is TRP.
TRPs are rating that decide the success of one particular show.
Sponsors endorse a show based on their TRPs.
The fighting judges (to get in the reality show, and then on the reality show), the fighting participants, the fighting audiences (with sms as their weapon) are all in the battlefield to ensure that the TRPs of their show do not fall. Who gains from these TRPs and who does not, will be an interesting thing to look at.

Madhur, imagine a story that talks about these TRPs, I am sure you can have a promotional campaign by asking people to vote from their mobiles whether the film will work or not!

Send TRP space A if you like the article or TRP space B on my mobile number, if you do not like the article. And you wont get anything out of it, it will only enhance the TRPs of my blog.

Work in recession

2009-08-08T00:21:00.000-07:00

This is one exceptional blog over here that is not original.
Just read it somewhere and found it very relevant to current market scenario.

Read on.. you'll like it too.

A Senior Manager working in an MNC, as usual after lunch goes to the cafeteria for coffee.

He relaxes in canteen.. He sees a canteen boy cleaning tables there.

To Kill time he decides to have fun with him.

He calls him.

Senior Manager - (Asks canteen boy) : How much do you earn?

Canteen boy smiles...

Senior Manager - what are your future plans?

Canteen boy keeps quiet...

Senior Manager - where do you see yourself 10 years down the line?

Canteen boy gives a cold stare.

(Image courtesy: http://krishlogs.blogspot.com )

Senior Manager - Jab mai Mumbai aaya tha tab mere paas bhi kuch nahi tha.... Aaj mere paas kya nahin hai... ???

naam hai..........,

shohrat hai.........,

paisa hai............

Izzat Hai..............,

tumhare paas kya hai??

Scroll down to find out his answer

Don't think that he answered like Shashi Kapoor of Deewar ki "Mere

paas Maa hain"

Canteen boy - Sa'ab mere paas bahut KAAM hai....

Senior Manager leaves the cafeteria silently........

Enough is Enough

2008-11-27T07:40:00.000-08:00

Enough is Enough

Mumbai has seen and stood in resilience against all sorts of terrors.
Mumbaikars have seen explosions in cinema halls, petrol pumps, corporate offices. They have seen, trains, taxis, busses, rickshaws and for that matter even cycles being blown out to pieces. The entire nation feels the pinge when the families of such victims cannot do anything beyond mourning. The recent attacks on the two most prestigious and luxury hotels on Mumbai, brought out a new face of terror. The so called Fidayeens are no longer here to fear their death. A scary chill does run down our spine when such murderers come out with the power to sacrifice in the name of religion. Let us talk to Mr. so-called-Jihadi, in the typical Mumbai style. " Boss, we are not terrorized. "

Now for a moment let us turn our heads from the west (both, west to India and India's west) to the center. The question is, what were the government officials doing with the red alert report submitted by the RAW? Were they busy playing "Malegaon arrest politics " with the opposition? And the opposition gracefully spent their resources featuring the accused and the casses as their election mascot. Why arent our leaders not sensible enough to understand that terrorism is an issue sensitive enough to be not used for petty politics?

We need a concrete solution for the problem. We need some good leaders in place to take the due course of action. Had there been a single casualty on the parliamentary attacks, the scene probably would have been different today. Our leaders would probably have taken terrorism as a serious issue. Let us go out to vote, and vote for the best possible candidate. Let us collectively understand the responsibility of choosing the right leaders for us.

I remember after the mayhem at the Malegaon blasts, the affected Muslim families were brave enough to throw the compensation cheques back on the government's face demanding for an action on the issue. The nation is in a need to draw up some inspiration from the episode.

Right now, my heart goes out to all of the brave policemen who have died in the counter - attack. Let us all pray for the safety of all the hostages, with a hope that the trauma end as soon as possible.

VOTE INDIA

2008-08-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

Whom do you think should be blamed for your taps running dry? Your building secretary? Or the local corporator for not policing or rather encouraging the water theft? Whom do you think should be punished for the potholes on your roads? The daily increasing traffic or the corrupt ministers at pwd who aim at filling their pocket at the tax-payer's expese? Who is ultimately responsible for the load-shedding that you and me have to bear for hours? Is it the lack of resources? Lack of funds? or is the existence of few dumb-heads heading our country with no vision in mind aout the nation and its power needs?

We travel in crowded busses, fall off the crowded trains, fall sick during some epidimic, face inflation, settle down to the mediocre education, fight in riots, feel insecured to travel in nights, live a terrorized life like there may not be tomorrow.
And we face all of this with a "Chalta-hai" kind of attitude.

We, the people of India have developed a sickening mentality of adjusting to the mercy of few power thirsty people.
Where there is a seat for at most three people, we push ourselves to discomfort to accomodate the fourth or even the fifth person. While appreciating the nice brotherhood feeling, we ultimately eclipse the flaws of the government and their sincere lack of planning in terms of calculating the influx and maintaining a proper infrastructure for the same.

But what is government? it is a set of people whom we give the power to govern us. in that case they are nothing but a set of people arisen from us. Then where do we lack in choosing the right? The main issue is here is that we, the people have forgotten to excercise our moral right to vote.

(Image Courtesy Vivek Thakkar's blog)

"What shall happen if and when we decide to vote? I love tackling the potholes." Nice point. Potholes may not be a problem for you per se, but they put the unborn babies at high risks. Potholes create problems with your neck and spine in long run. In such situations how can we live with the "Chalta-Hai" attitude? It is not just our right, but our duty to voice an opinion against this unjust approach. The constitution of India, world's biggest democracy has give you the ultimate power to voice your opinion by excercising your right to vote.

Dear India,

Give up the "Chalta - hai " approach.
Ensure that the power goes in the right hands.
And realise that this kind of power is there in your hands.

Vote India.

taSHUN

2008-04-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

ta-SHUN

Let us first of all evaluate as to why would anyone be pleased with the paper ticket exchanged for some considerable amount that permitted the person to step inside the dark hall flickering images of Tashan.
A. He/She is insanely in love with either of the actors and that it is to be considered a sin to curse their movies.
B. He/She is an ardent admirer of Yashraj films (i know a remote possibility, but for a moment let us consider the category) and that it is beyond his/her imagination that Yashraj is capable of producing crap.
C.You think when it is action, it has to be the extreme where the boundaries of all possibilities fail to score a goal.
But if you dont fall in either of the categories, then its much advisable to save your buck by reading this article.

What went wrong with the movie that I am chanting its praises right from the begining of the review? Remember the good old days of our hindi films where the lead actor of the film had to be neccesarily a hero! His singing should create an electric atmosphere, his romance should melt down all of the women and most importantly he should be a rambo or a demigod when his fingers culr to form a fist that no one in this world can face. His one shot from the gun shall perish the evil and the converse shall never be true. Take 1000 snipers against this one guy and yet he'll emerge vitorious.

Well while watching Tashan i felt like i went back through the time machine where the villan with a cruel laugh kills an honest union leader and his son/daughter emerges after 20 years for the much awaited moment when he/she finally gets to kill the villan and his cruel laugh at the last fight and then everyone lives happily ever after. The difference with respect to Tashan lies with the fact that because thou is moving more and more towards Kaliyug, thou shan't find an honest union leader. That good honest union leader is replaced by the leader of today, the Don of the area.

This Don faces a well-planned murder, masterminded by Bhaiyyaji (Anil Kapoor) who is the rickshaw driver of our Don. Bhaiyyaji then erects his own empire from ground zero with the help of the gold he just robbed from our Don. But Gudiya, the daughter of the Don, after witnessing this cold blooded murder, sheds off her charming, innocent, girlie type of skin to give birth to Pooja Singh (Kareena) charecterized by the vivacious and cunning qualities. This con lady fooling the globe has only one Lakshya in her mind, Badla (revenge). Hmm i know there are bells ringing in your mind, you now know the story and the climax.

But we'll talk about the climax later. Well the movie starts with Jimmy (Saif), a call center employee whose only weakness is girls. Melt down because of requests from the cute, charming Pooja Singh, Jimmy agrees to teach Bhaiyyajee (Pooja's Boss) the queen's language. Here in the process of achieving the impossible, Jimmy and Pooja start swiming in the pool of love to the extent that Jimmy plans to rob Bhaiyyajee off 25 crores, only to find out that the betrayal of the absconding Pooja and the money have left him stranded with police on one hand and Bhaiyajee the big time don of Mumbai and UP on the other hand. Now Bhaiyyajee assigns Bacchan Pande (Akshay Kumar) the job of accompanying the surrendered Jimmy to search Pooja Singh and the money. This is when Pande google's out Pooja and their lost love and then you of course know the climax of this typical Bollywood flick.

Here the character of our Bhaiyyajee bhakt Bacchan Pande is painted closer to that of our Raam bhakt Hanuman leaving apart fact that the climax differs from Ramayan. Pande is capable of jumping from any place to any place, escaping unhurt while tackling thousands of bullets making him an ideal God but playing the game on the wrong side of humanity. The action stunted out in the movie is as meaningless as David Dhavan's jokes which is certainly not to be preffered over doing something constructive. What you only get to admire in the movie is the ravishing looking Kareena and her improving acting standards, and some real good acting performances by Anil, Saif and Akshay. But on a larger scale the picture lacks the Tashan to make a genuine cinema.

We can surely conclude that the experiment made by the Yashraj banner to change the course towards making an action film has failed. I think they better stick to their side of expertise attracting at least their type of crowd.

KRAZZY kiya Re

2008-04-12T01:51:00.000-07:00

KRAZZY KIYA RE

“Be a rebel !” shouted Mr. Sampath and slapped the Roshans with a charge of stealing his music track that he used for the sony errickson advertisement and vindictively came out of the court with a cheque of 1 crore and 70 odd lakhs. But imagine if everyone across the globe decides to take him as his role model! Roshans would go bananas behind the movie “Kraazzy 4”.
Because it is not just the title track that has been lifted directly, but the entire movie is the Indian version of a 1989 comedy flick “The Dream Team”. Well for a moment, Mr. Roshan, heave a sigh of relief cause I am not going to bash you for that. Let us come back to the valley and find out why have you been Krazzy enough to make this film?

The movie is centered around four lunatics that have one common role model, Dr. Sonali Saniyal (played by Juhi Chawla) a psychiatrist treating them. Now to introduce each one of them, may I call upon the stage Dr. Sonali Sanyal? But where is she? Oh! Yes I forgot, she just got kidnapped. Well let us finish off the introduction first and then we’ll crack the mystery of her kidnapping case. The first lunatic is Raja (played by Arshad Wasi). Raja an angry young man falls in love with a girl Shikha (played by Diya Mirza). But their hopes to tie the knot are shatteed because Shikha’s dad lacks the manner to smoke cigarette. Sounds weird isn’t it? Annoyed by the smoke coming on his face Raja’s right hand swivels in the air and hits the palm part on Shikha’s dad’s cheek with a lightening speed. Disrespected by the behaviour Shikha claims that Raja is a lunatic and off he goes to seek solace under the shade of Dr. Sonali.

Our next contestant is Gangadharji (played by Rajpal Yadav). Stuck with Schizophrenia Gangadhar loves to walk around the lanes of freedom movement keeping Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Tilak etc as his role models.
Patriotic by heart, he knows how to respect the national anthem, the national flag and is determined to teach the world their importance and value. Next I call upon the stage Dr. Mukherjee. Well this is a case where the doctor himself is a patient and that too a lunatic. Obsessed with cleanliness and neatness the doc here wants to make sure that everything is at the right place. Last but not the least, may I introduce Mr. Dabboo (played by suresh menon). Dabboo hasn’t spoken for years and is always in the frightened mode.

Now imagine these four characters that cannot behave the normal way, are left lose in the suburbs of Mumbai! That is exactly what the movie talks about. Well, now how do we make this happen? The movie channelizes this through the kidnapping of Dr. Sonali Saniyal and this is when these four guys realize that we are here as a team to crack the kidnapping. Whom do they approach? The hospital authorities! Who are under impression that it is these four guys who have done the kidnapping? The police! Who have done the kidnapping themselves? Sonali’s husband! Who is the mastermind in the kidnapping case? Our four Krazzy guys are now caught surrounded by all of these on one side and the whole of unwelcoming Mumbai city on the other side.

In these circumstances that director has managed to tickle few funny bones, although by and large the movie is quite kiddish in nature and at times melodramatic. The climax of this melodrama occurs at the climax when Dr Sonali talks about “Bedard Duniya” and “Paapi Sansaar” in front of a dozen camera lenses. I would say this is where the story differs from the script of its parent film “The Dream Team” . Songs are not really attractive except for the ones where SRK does a hip-hop. Even the dance steps done by Hritik are captivating. Arshad Warsi has given a good performance, and so has Rajpal Yadav. Irfaan Khan is again at his best. But I feel that casting of Suresh Menon was not proper. The guy has amazing talents when it comes to tongue and speech, he can act out and smart out any actor very well. But we seldom notice him in the movie, and my expectations from someone like him were crushed mercilessly.

One message that I would want to give to the Roshans is that, Hindi cinema has matured a lot since those old time melodrama days of 90s. Please don’t go back to the time machine.

To Times Of India & Pritish Nandy

2008-04-05T01:09:00.000-07:00

The 60000 crore fiasco

In his article "The Politics of Profligacy" in Bombay times dated March 12 2008, Pritish Nandy sounds more like a politician than a well sound journalist.
His theory that the government should not favour the rural poor comes with a base that its the urban population that fills up the country's booty.

Politicians so far have been telling us fellow Indians that, "You are a Dalit" , "You are a Bihari" ,"You are a marathi", "You are a Hindu", "You are a muslim". Just when I felt, we have had enough, comes another certificate from Mr.Nandy, "You are an URBAN poor", "and you gentlemen commiting suicides are called as RURAL poor". Whatever the politicians do, we, the people of India certainly don't expect to see Media - the pillar of our contitution to breed divide and rule type of politics. Yes of course, our initial attempts should be to make them stand on their own feet, but if they fall despite of that, then Mr. Nandy it is our duty to support them to the extent that they can again stand.The farmers, me and you are all the part of the same constitution, and thus it is our moral responsibility to come u with a concrete solution for their problems rather than widening the Urban -Rural divide.

Although I d agree that the UPA have failed to come up with anything close to a solution. Ministers have lined up to take credit of the 60000 crore donation, but rather they should simple play the old game of pointing fingers as we need to know who gets to be blamed for this fiasco? Today's Times of India has reported increased number of suicides amongst the farmers ever since the politicians have started beating drums about the 60000 crore gift. For petty politics, the UPA simply came with a tractor and ran over the disturbed farmer's family. Giving waiver to a certain section of farmers means pressurising the other section to the other extreme. They cant fight the money lenders without the government help and support. You cant fight the tiger while in his cage. Here either the tigers eats you, or you commit suicide. We need some good brains to come up with a blanced solution.

GOALmal

2007-11-23T11:28:00.000-08:00

GOALMal
-Nimish Inamdar (Nov 23 2007)

Comments about the movie!! Well if anyone is interested in watching utter nonsense, here is an incredible opportunity for you. The lovely delicacy made by Chef Vivek Agnihotri is made up of the sweetness of a baseless story, the saltiness of usual melodrama, the spice of a stupid dialogues and the masala of a typical item number.
Let us try and imagine how did the chef start thinking about the movie? Maybe he wanted to make a sports movie, and found out that cricket is the topic turned upside down by many directors, you also had a movie regarding hockey sometime back, then why not try FootBall! Well Mr. Director, let me tell you, that you have made a building without the plinth.

Well the story is about too many things. It’s about football, its about the Asian community living abroad, is about racism, etc. And the bhel-puri attempted in the process is nowhere close to being tasty. The South Hall Football club ruled by the Asian community ridded with success and glory during the times when Boman Irani’s character ran over the field. But the glory slid down after mysterious escape of Boman in the year 1985. The slack in success for about 2 decades carried with it the economic burden and its climax came when the existing team couldn’t collect the amount required for holding the ground. With Arshad as its captain, Boman as coach and John Abraham as its major striker; the team is all set to win the next coming tournament where the prize money is miraculously equal to the amount required to save the club and the ground.

You may ask which part of the movie was really boring. Ask me which part wasn’t. To start with there is nothing new in the movie. Here lies a hopeless team, with hopeless background, no sponsors, no public support and most importantly, no coach. Ringing bells in your ears? Yes it’s a repeat telecast of Chak De India. Then comes the mammoth task of convincing the old time player (Boman) that he is getting chance to restore his glory and that he can come out of his drunkard, good for nothing image. Hello!! Haven’t we seen that in Iqbal? The asynchronous behavior between the two strikers (Arshad and John), coach motivating and organizing the disrupted team is another replica of the one shown in Chak De. Moreover every turn in the film is highly predictable and is of the typical Bollywood nature. There are too many errors in the movie. Apart from that, the movie seems to be a platform for promoting brands. Every match shown has a backdrop of cheap flex banners of the brands who have invested in the movie.

To sum it up, there is nothing new in it guys, you can save your precious time by taking a nap and prefer have innovative dreams

Cricket and IT's evolving faces

2007-11-18T09:04:00.000-08:00

Cricket the single largest passion of the nation has sought attention from people of all disciplines. Maybe its "The Bulk" phenomenon of economics that is acting as a magnet for all the moolah seekers or maybe its merely the passion for the game that people love to give attention to the game. But the fact is that today, builders give free homes to cricketers, mobile companies use Sachin and Sehwag for elevating their brand prestige, the finance guys take serious note of the money involved with the game, the gamblers find paradise in this unpredictable pool, the politicians seek publicity with the generous donations given to the winner's funds, the bollywood stars land up in stadium to promote their films. In such a situation how can we expect the IT industry - the industry on which the country's growth is thriving - to stay behind?

Technology has been evolving its faces in its cricketing implementations ever since we first saw the black and white televisions flickering images captured by the on field camera, constantly in search of ball. Technology has evolved a lot ever since and we are now at the stage where the high speed cameras can give you a slow-motion picture at the detail of milliseconds. Image processing is developing rapidly with the "wagon-wheel",
"negative images", "ball pitching area" and many more wonders making it an ease for everyone to ensure clarity with respect to their individual views about the ball just played, removing all of the ambiguities, if any. in this, what more can we expect?

How about using a blend CRM, BI, AI, Data warehouse etc!! Seems like a Latin for you??
Let me explain in lay man's words.

Imagine a screen predicting the next ball to be played by the bowler.
Where and how will he pitch the ball!
"WOW!! How is the that possible?? How can we predict the future?"
Well the answer to this lies with the AI (Artificial Intelligence).

1.Here we develop a system that will Google out (search for) the history of the baller

2.Find out the permutations and combinations used for the currently playing batsman.

3.Will calculate the probabilities of all the possibilities with respect to the current situation.

4.The situation can be compared with the time, innings, no of overs, wickets remaining, type of batsman playing, target etc with varying importance.

5.The system will list down all of the possibilities one below the other in descending order and..

tan-ta-dan..

we have a list of probable balls TO-BE pitched by the baller.

Guys, the future is here.

-NIMISH

a techie - PJ

2007-10-19T22:24:00.000-07:00

hey guys a PJ got clicked in my mind and i would like to share it with you.

if..
you are trying your level best to teach someone JAVA and the person is not really picking up well..

what proverb would you use??

ans: " Bail ke aage BEAN bajana"

;)

When Mumbai Sank

2007-07-30T22:27:00.000-07:00

It the end of July 2007 today and i am sure, most Mumbaikars might recollect the 26 and 27/2/2005 episode... When Mumbai Sank.
Everyone had his or her own experiences then.
This is my experience, i wrote it 2 yrs ago, but the scenes are still vivid in memory.
It was an adventure, it was a struggle, it was an experience.
Go through this link below..

When Mumbai Sank

ADreview: 'maine isse sadne se bachaya'

2007-04-28T21:38:00.000-07:00

dear Band Equity,

The section of BEst and BEkaar featured the colgate ad as "BEst".
However my opinion stands different with respect to your panel.

The advert nowhere implies promotion of "Colgate".The film shows father's concern of toothpaste reaching every part of the teeth.Thay have shown the toothpaste foam in liquid form reaches every part of the teeth and covers the teeth entirely, directing protection from all sides,however this is a property of the "liquid foam" and not colgate. If colgate can reach to all sides of the tooth, so can close up and forhans (remember the old time brand).

However, as you said the father-son chemistry did work to grab some innocence and thus the public attention.But are Colgate pioneers of the concept? Ever since the explosion of media in India, advertisers have exploited this concept to a good extent.sooner, the cute little kid in the kiddie voice promoting a band will be a question of monotony. we need something new to be a trend setter in the market. hence i go against the panel decision and vote the ad as "BEkaar".

'aapka panel iss advertisement ko sadne se nahin bacha paya.'

-NIMISH

A beautiful Sunset

2007-03-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

A BEAUTIFUL SUNSET

-Nimish Inamdar
(B.E. – IT)

“Hello everyone, I am, Nimish Inamdar, the EX-Cultural Secretary of our college.” There were smiles and smirks across the seminar hall, where all of the class representatives had gathered to wave goodbye to me and Neil, and spread a red carpet for the new Cultural Secretary (CS) and the General Secretary (GS) of our college. It took sometime to come back to ground reality and understand, that the prefix “EX” holds an importance now. In a glimpse, history turned its pages 10 months back and there I was standing at the same position, in the same seminar hall, with almost same crowd in front of me, but giving an altogether different speech.

It was my speech to the crowd, giving an explanation of why should I be the Cultural Secretary of our college. “The speech doesn’t make any difference, everything is pre-decided.” “Your chances are really low; don’t devalue yourself by contesting elections.” “We have elected you as the representative of our class, and now we want you to contest for the elections.” These were the voices in my head poured in by the opponents, friends, concerned and the unconcerned people.

But I knew it had to be my decision, gathering some will, mustering some courage, with shaky legs, I walked into the seminar hall to deliver that speech. I noticed that the shaky heads in front of me were slowly turning into pointed ears. Confidence in me grew and then bang I completed my speech with an applaud in the seminar hall, that roared another level of confidence in me. I had done my part, the pressure was slightly off, but that ease did not last long. Sooner the anxiety of results started pouring in me, and its climax was too good to be real. One of the contestants received 7 votes, the other received 9 votes, and I received thumping majority of 24 votes. I was officially the newly elected Cultural Secretary of Padmabhushan Vasantdada Patil Pratishthan’s college Of Engineering, for the year 2006.

With the advent of the event, and the following celebration joined with me few moral responsibilities. Responsibilities, that I decided to enjoy to my core. Cultural festive days and Fusion were so far considered the only responsibilities of the Cultural Secretary, as told to me by me seniors. But it was not until that I got onto the chair that I realized that there is much more to it. I decided to promote the cultural talent of the fellow buddies, by displaying their heroics performed inside and outside the college premises, on the college notice board. I also decided to find various platforms for all of the PVPP talent outside the college premises. I became a link of my college to the outside world, when it came to the events and festivals that they organized, and events and festivals that we organized.

The post gave me the most important turn in my life, when Youth for Equality (YFE), approached me to include our college in their fight against the unlawful inequality. Our college got a wide recognization , with an active participation, especially from the current Second Year buddies, who poured in large numbers for all of the YFE’s protests and rallies. In terms of man-power and the smart power, we outnumbered all other engineering colleges and most of the medical colleges.

Apart from the cultural activities, I realized that the CS is the second most important constituent of the student’s council, and that responsibility rolled on me automatically when we planned out to bring in various innovations, and changes within our college. The credit for the changes goes to the entire council and especially to the General Secratary, since he took a good lead in listening to all possible outcomes, and taking the right direction at the right time.

My entire term of CS of PVPPCoE, was full of excitement, zest and enthusiasm showed by all of our college buddies. This term introduced me to a new world; new friends, new contacts, new identity but most importantly a new dimension towards looking at life. I wish it to remain forever with me.

“Hey CS!” I heard a shout and turned back to see who called me, just to realize that it isn’t me anymore. The college activity had re-started that very day under the banner of blood donation camp, but this time under a new leadership. I looked at Neil, the smile on his face said more or less same lines under the same thought process. We hugged each other with an expression to appreciate each other’s work done in the entire council term, and then walked down the corridor to leave the bustle of the activity for the new people, and the new leadership.

Youth Going Politics

2007-01-15T03:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Citizens,

Q. Don’t you think that it’s cruel and unjust to beat
innocent students, throw water cannons, tear gas at
them, and put them behind bars in order to curb their
silent protest?

Q. Don’t you think that there is a possibility that we
are living under a dictatorship?

Q. Don’t you think that the government is playing the
game of “Divide and Rule” with its reservation
policies?

Q. Did you ever think of protesting against the
functioning of the system in a democratic way?

Q. Don’t you think the current politicians are
unfairly using public emotions for their vote bank?

Q. Don’t you think that there is an urgent need for
replacement of the people controlling the Indian
system?

Yes, we all do. We all read about it, talk about it,
in public, in debates, on screen, off screen, with
media, without media etc. But we all know that nothing
has changed so far. Hence we at ‘Youth For Equality’
decided to set our foot in this so called quick sand
in order to make it concrete.

To put it simply in one sentence, YOUTH FOR EQUALITY
IS BACK.

THE TIME HAS COME

Now with the BMC elections coming, it is indeed time
for us to fulfill our pledge towards achieving
equality. YFE has entered the elections. It is
fielding Sanjit Shukla, a law student and an active
member, from Sion, wards no 167, he will be filing his
nominations.

This move will have its repercussions even in Delhi! And a
win will start a chain reaction all over India in the
forth coming elections like in U.P. and Rajasthan and
will have the potential to shape up the future of this
country.

So everyone who stays in Sion, or knows
someone who does, please spread this information in
each and every building and locality in Sion. We will
be campaigning actively over there right from today.
We would like your contribution, may it be in terms of
the precious time you can give for our campaigning, or
in terms of money, and most importantly in terms of
your precious vote. We know the value of every single
vote, and now it’s your turn to realize it and
exercise it.

We have taken one step ahead.
We have proved ourselves while staying outside the
system; allow us to prove our valor and efficiency as
we fight the dirty politics to get inside the system.

- Nimish Inamdar
(On behalf of Youth For Equality, Mumbai.)

Ps: More on Sanjit and our strategies will be mailed
soon. Please mail in your suggestions and queries to
yfemumbai@gmail.com

Our helpline number : 9833158385

Salaam Mumbai -Saluting the Human Spirit

2007-01-07T11:56:00.000-08:00

hello everyone,
happy new year.
i want to start my 1st blog of the year with a difference.
And the difference is that for the 1st time the blog isnt mine.
Hats Off to Mr.Verma for a wonderful film.
It raises hope for life.
-NIMISH
With reference to the 7/11-2006 train blasts that rocked Mumbai, the video tries to explore Mumbai's Spirit and Courage to sustain and fight back terrorist attacks since the 1993 tragedy.

the 4th DIMENSION

2006-12-12T02:58:00.000-08:00

Illu-Vision.
-NIMISH INAMDAR
(BE-IT)

Swoosh!!!! Comes a sword at you almost piercing your chest Your heart almost leaps out, you freak out and in those shrieks you realize your are safe and alive. Slowly relaxing you loosen your grip on the seat and in that surrounding commotion you realize that others in the theatre had a similar “Out of the world” feeling. Here you are watching a 3-Dimensional or a 3D movie. Shrek, Chota Chetan and many others have come ahead with the 3rd dimension in the cinema fraternity. In such movies you will usually find Shrek punching his fist hard at you, jumping from the screen to your seat and performing other acrobats that you will give you the 3rd dimension of Shrek. But have you ever imagined the 4th dimension of Shrek?? Imagine Shrek coming out of the theatre screen and moving in and around the theatre. Imagine you are on the seats rotating in 360 deg and the whole plot of “The Shrek” is playing around you as if it is an illusion. Introducing the 4th dimension or this is what I would nick name it as the “Illu-Vision” or I.V. I.V. should be the future version of our current T.V.

How would this work?? Lets move ahead in time by say 50 years!! Your kids as typical Indians should be die hard fan of our very own cricket. The stage is set and everyone in your kid’s friend circle has gathered at your place to watch the India-Australia match being played at Wankhede stadium (Let’s hope it exist till then). Your kid will click on the remote cum phone cum Music Player cum whatever are the requirements in those days. Beams slide down from four corners of the room and you see “VIDEOCON-The Indian Multinational” as the string of letters revolving at the center of room. Then comes the sports channel and you get the see a panoramic view of the stadium from the pavilion side. The dolby effect will make you believe that you are actually inside the stadium amongst the shouts and crowd. But as usual “North Stand rocks”, thinking so your kid zooms across the stadium passing across the pitch and reaches the “North Stand” side of the stadium. An Australian pacer runs with full pace and with all his strength hits the ball on the Batsman’s pads. Bing!! A bell is heard and the batsman is declared out. The RFID sensors in the batsman’s pad detected the stumps behind and compared it with the position of batsman. In disbelief you wish o get a closer look in the replay and your kid zooms the I.V. to the batsman’s leg, an illusion of a ball in full pace comes from behind and passes your body and hits the pads. With a view as close as 2 feet away from the batsman, there is no ambiguity that he is out and you again zoom out to get back to the “North stand”

Here in the scene above the match is taking place around you. You get to sit on the lawn, sit on the pitch, stand on stumps, run across the stadium, mute people’s sound, increase the volume, have various presets of the shouting stadium, stand besides the batsman and do all the weird stuff that you always wanted to do in real world. The only difference would be, this wont be real but its an illusion of reality. Welcome to the Illu-world, welcome to the 4th Dimension.

Does Mumbai need the Malegaon Paathshala??

2006-09-12T23:19:00.000-07:00

Maalegaon V/s Mumbai
-Nimish Inamdar
11th September 2006

We always boast of the resilience of Mumbai and its attitude to jump back to life, to help the decease and clog the blood banks right after any natural or man-made calamity. The very next day we all are seen in local trains or BEST busses heading to our workstation lamenting upon yesterday’s tragedy. “Jindadiili” is the word coined by media for the workaholics of Mumbai. But do we anytime question law and order?

Law and order is one of the highest contenders when it comes to annual budget. The police, their sources of information, their intelligence, forensic labs, arms and ammunitions and many other areas flourish in the taxpayer’s money. But its not about the money, its about the moral responsibility. Mumbaikars have a laid back attitude towards law and order. “What were the police doing??” “Where were their sources??” “What was the intelligence doing??” These questions are the ones always hammered by the opposition in Assembly; the govt. giving out lame excuses to it and the matter is sealed. We might as well talk the issue in trains, busses and just nod on the line “Is desh ka kuch nahi hoga.”

Maalegaon on the other hand had another outlook towards the matter. The cheques given by Sonia Gandhi were returned back, crowd gathered after two days and protested against the lack of policing, there people are anxiously and alertly waiting for one word; ‘justice’. Have people in Mumbai forgotten that word? Or is it that we have lost our faith in that word. How many of us have a track of what is going on with the pending case of 1992 blasts that took place 14 yrs back? The newspapers talk about it in one of the middle pages and the news is lost amongst few political debacles. How many of us know about the Ghatkopar blast case, the vile parle blast case, recent multiple explosions in trains etc. How many monitor the recklessness and inability of police to come up with the final outcome even after 14 years? Where is the justice?

I admire the courage and the attitude of those who returned the cheques of 1 lakh rupees. It was a slap on the face of politicians who grade money above all. I want to conclude the article with one moral that I learnt from the incident “ It is the duty of the police to take care of our safety, and it is the duty of citizens to police the police”

Pandit Nehru's views on reservation issue

2006-06-29T01:11:00.000-07:00

Pt. Nehru the first prime minister of India and one of the great thinkers who had a vision to make India a super power had following views.

Strange isnt it??? Now the congress govt isnt following their own principles.

TRIBUTE TO ONE OF THE MOST PROMISING LEADERS IN INDIAN POLITICS

2006-05-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

Pramod Mahajan, the fighter of all times, lost the most important battle in his life today May 3, 2006 at 4:10 pm at Hinduja hospital. He was probably the most successful, self-made politician at his age in today’s political circles. Success invites friends and foes in equal numbers. May be in politics enmity tends to grow treachery and conspiracy.

But unfortunately it wasn’t a political treachery or a criminal conspiracy that pumped in the bullets within Mahajan, but an outrage or an ego clash that the person pulling the trigger turned out to be his own brother. Clueless and shocked as Mahajan lay wounded murmured “ Mi kuthe chuklo?” (“Where did I go wrong”) recalls Gopinath Munde. The answer to this question lies with perhaps only one individual who is currently in the police lock-up.

Pravin Mahajan showing no sign of remorse or regret has left both anguish and curiosity in the people’s mind about the backstage incidents that have not yet surfaced. Incidents that made Pravin bang four bullets to his elder brother and his father like figure.

Today as Pramod leaves the world for the eternal abode, I pray and hope that may his soul rest in peace. I give my condolences, to his family and to all the BJP leaders who may feel the vacuum. Indeed it’s not just a loss for the BJP, but a national loss as the man who could have been instrumental in shaping India’s future lives no longer to see it happen.

To Times Of India

2006-04-26T01:12:00.000-07:00

IT'S US... WE ARE INDIANS

This is in response to “I’m Dalit”, your article in Sunday Times dated April 16, 2006. I agree to the writer that the dalits were subjected to injustice for about 1000 years. Why me, I’m sure that the 1b populations of the Indian Peninsula wont deny that. I give my condolences, for the smart Dalit kids that were out of the system for so many years. My question here is, how long are going to play this seesaw game? Is it that the Dalits want to take some kind of revenge? So now its your turn, after another 1000 years it will be mine, then may be the millennia after that is yours. When do we become Human and become intelligent as we were meant to be? I believe that it’s high time that we reach the equilibrium and look ahead for the development of the country rather than fighting amongst us. The dalits were subjected to injustice, but so were Blacks in the USA, the tribesmen of South Africa. The world realized its mistakes and repaired it to move ahead in harmony and development. When do we as Indians match them?

I also want to make one more point. It was because of the few amongst the Brahmins that the communities began to recognize the Dalits as humans. Fighters like Sane Guruji, Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekanand, and Veer Sawarkar etc were all from upper castes. Even at grass root levels, all of my fore fathers, who have worked for the Congress during the independence struggle never discriminated the “Indians”. Then why is it that the Dalits feel the need to take any such kind of revenge? Its us my friend, we are Indians.

Ref:

I am a dalit. I too have some reservations

A reader responds to the Times Review story last Sunday — ‘I’m a brahmin. I have some reservations’
Dear editor,
My father first encountered casteism when he went to a tea stall outside his native village in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. The shopkeeper inquired about his caste and then offered him tea in a dirty coconut shell. My father was from the ‘Koliar Sambavar’ dalit caste. Tea was served in steel tumblers only to the forward castes (FC). My father’s uncles and aunts were aged over 50 but FC kids aged 10 to 12 years would stand outside our street and summon them by their first names. Government buses in those days would come only up to the FC streets as the drivers refused to enter our streets.
My father tried to enter the village school many times but he was driven away. The teachers were all brahmin. Brahmin children sat on mats, children from other castes sat on the ground while dalit children were shooed away. When my father discussed this issue with his elders, he was informed that brahmin children were entitled to all these benefits by birth.
My father, however, observed that most of the brahmin kids were lazy, some were plain stupid and one was even mentally retarded. But, they all went to school and sat on mats while brilliant dalit kids were kept out of school.
At the time of independence, 99% of all government functionaries of Tamil Nadu were brahmin whereas they formed only 3% of the population (The figure is disputed but is a reasonable approximation — editor). Rajgopalachari stated that children should be given training in the vocations of their parents, that is, children of cobblers should be trained to mend shoes etc, but he never talked about it after Periyar countered that the children of brahmins should only be trained to beg for alms.
In Tamil Nadu, as in all over India, dalits were restricted outside the village limits to
their own small clusters.
They are denied basic
facilities like well water,
education and temple entry. They are called by
derogatory names. Dalit
women are routinely
raped. They are supposed to
expose the upper half of their bodies (in the presence of higher castes). In FC-dominated villages, they are made to work as slaves. They are not paid anything. They are given enough cereals to survive. They are naturally expected to offer sexual services to the FCs. Dalit men are not allowed to ride bicycles. They are also not allowed to fold their ‘vesties’ in the presence of FCs. Dalit children are abused by their FC classmates and harassed by their FC teachers. Dalit kids who make it to the IITs are subjected to relentless abuse by vicious brahmin kids. These institutions are known as ‘Iyer Iyengar technology’ institutes.
My father felt insulted by the discrimination. He often discussed these tales of humiliation with me. I often felt that true equality would be possible only if the FC children were denied education for 1,000 years and our caste people were given 99% of all government posts. The FC children had enjoyed these ‘reservations/quota benefits’ because of their birth and not on account of ‘merit’. Dalits have enjoyed reservations for about 60 years, whereas the FCs have enjoyed reservations for more than 2,000 years.
I sympathise with T Surendar (author of the story this reader is responding to). The plight suffered by brahmins during the last 60 years is truly horrendous. Imagine being stripped of 100% domination by virtue of birth. Their children have every right to feel that they have been born in the wrong caste. The insults, humiliations, rapes, murders, tortures and house-burnings suffered by my ancestors appear to be a picnic in comparison. Truly, I am lucky to be born in a dalit caste. I thank my ancestors for the degraded lives they lived. They were treated as less than beasts but it is because of them that I have got reservations. I have been born in the right caste. After all, 22.5% reservations is life. My heart is overwhelmed by compassion for FC kids. I make them this offer. Please become ‘Untouchables’ from today. Live outside civilisation and be treated like animals. After 2,000 years of such glorious life, I promise you that your descendants will be given 15% reservation for 100 years in all government jobs. It is the offer of a lifetime, nay millennium. You will not regret it. It is a promise.
Brahmins have dominated every sphere of life for nearly two millennia because of their birth and not because of merit. Merit is not the issue. It never was. So drop these contrived pretences. FCs are not agitated on account of danger to ‘meritocracy’. They were happy with reservations for 2,000 years. In fact, they have the scantest of regard for equality, justice and fairness. The only reason for their agitation is that others will now enjoy the benefits, which they had cunningly cornered for themselves.
Yours truly,
Sam George

ANTI QUOTA system

2006-04-08T04:12:00.000-07:00

THE ENCROACHING SHARE

I don’t understand, why does even Quota system exist in India till now? I agree that about a century ago certain sects of our society were subjected to injustice, but so does plenty of people all over the world. I don’t think there are about 50% reservations for the Blacks in USA. South Africa doesn’t have any law to protect their dark skinned citizens.

I am in fact proud of the fact that India almost unanimously decided to step down and uplift the downtrodden by giving them opportunities. But how long are we going to continue this? 10 yrs, 20 yrs or 30 yrs were fine, and may be the need to uplift an entire generation. But it’s been 60 yrs since our independence and about three generations of the so-called downtrodden are relishing the increasing appetite of the govt. policies for their vote bank.

It’s high time that we descend the tide of reservations and gradually end it all, so that at least the forthcoming generation of the open caste people can breathe in the free air. 60 yrs back we fought for our independence. British, as the invaders always believed in the policy of divide and rule. Don’t you think we the politicians are doing the same to our society? As a kid when I learnt of the whole system of quotas, I mocked the govt. as it they who teach us about equality in textbooks and it is they who do not follow it. Why are the upper caste individuals subjected to this injustice?

I wont be surprised to see another dhoti clad man, calling the open caste people as “harijans” and performing satyagraha just to give the open caste people their moral right to educate and work in an environment of equality.

Are we going to wait till the point that the future generations would be reading about another freedom struggle in their history books?

My letter here is not just protesting against the 50% reservations at IITs and IIMs, my protest is for the entire system of reservations and quotas that acts like parasite for the Indian administration.

I appreciate one dialogue in the movie “Apaharan” wherein they mention that caste certificate is indeed a merit to get into the Indian administration, a merit that can eclipse the intelligent and the bright.

FUSION'06 is right here right now

2006-02-19T05:26:00.000-08:00

span style="color:#666600;">Padmabhushan Vasantdada Patil Educational Complex

Presents

FUSION '06

.......INNOVATION AT ITS PEAK!

Be there to witness the mega event on 27th, 28th Feb. and 1st of March, 2006 at

Padmabhushan Vasantdada Patil Pratishtan's College of Engineering

Eastern Express Highway

Near Everard Nagar, Sion

Mumbai - 400022

CONTACT : Neil – General Secretary 9833660401
Nimish – Cultural Secretary 9323232329

Email us at: fusion.pvpp@gmail.com

“ We would highly appreciate if you could spread the word ”

FOLLOWING ARE THE EVENTS IN FUSION’06!!

1. Glitterati
1. FASHION SHOW
2. VISUAL IMPACT
3. BALL-ROOM DANCING
4. BRIDAL CONTEST
5. NUCH BALIYE
2. Musicals
6. ANTAKSHARI
7. SINGING COMPETITION
<
a. HINDI SOLO/DUET
b. WESTERN SOLO/DUET
3. Smart It Out
8. Ad-mAd
9. PRESCO
10. GROUP DISCUSSION
11. PAPER PRESENTATION
4. Dalal Street
5. Treasure Hunt
12. INHOUSE
13. OUTHOUSE
6. Gaming Zone
14. CS
15. NFS , ETC
7. Fusion Laughter Challenge
8. Adventure and sports
9. Pro-nite

Rang De Basanti : A Pathshala for today's youth

2006-02-11T22:51:00.000-08:00

Rang De Basanti
-NIMISH
12th Feb 2006.

Rang De Basanti, is a movie with difference. What are the factors that differentiate the movie from the rest of the Bollywood? Well, to start with, there is no Amitabh Bachhan presence, neither vocal nor physical. Thankfully there are no item songs. For a change we have Amir Khan, the well-established actor who was introduced back in ‘The Rising’. To conclude, Rang De Basanti is a powerful script, and a wonderful story.

It is a story about D.J. (Amir Khan), Karan Singhania (Siddharth), Sukhi (Sharman Joshi), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Ajay Rathod (R.Madhavan)
and Sonia (Soha Ali Khan). These six friends consider friendship above everything else. All but Ajay have common interest and a common view about the nation’s plight, claiming that the country’s drains cannot be cleaned. Ajay on the other hand has an exceptional view to this and urges them to join IAS, politics, military and other such positions from where they can clean up the country’s gutter. It is perhaps because of this view that Ajay became an Air Force pilot.

Laxman Pande (Atul Kulkarni) who is a worker at a communal party often clashes with the beer parties of these friends. He has a specific hatred for Aslam because of his Muslim identity.

Ajay on an Air Force mission loses his life since his MIG crashes down, but in the process he rescues the heavily populated Ambala district, and drives his plane away to a remote area. The defense minister (Mohan Aghashe) blames the pilot for his careless driving rubbishing the media reports that the plane crashed down due to the cheap spare parts used in the planes. Ajay’s mother slips into coma, after the Rapid Action Force sent by the defense minister to disperse their protests, acts hard on her. Now the four freak out friends, along with Laxman Pande, plan to assassinate the minister.

What is it that gives them such courage to take such a drastic step? Here lies the genius of the movie. Sue, a London based filmmaker, after reading her grandfather’s diary, plans to come in India to make a film based on the lives of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev, Chandrashekhar Azad and their freedom movement.
Her grandfather was a jailor in India during the time of the freedom struggle. In India she finds her characters in these five people. Here comes a major twist in their lives, when they get into the characters they are assigned. They start feeling the freedom struggle, and the effort behind it, and most importantly, the reason behind it. Sue through her grandfather’s diary cruises all of them in the history pages giving them a glimpse of the bravery of the revolutionist, and their motive behind their sacrifice.

They start believing in communal unity, freedom and a way to demand our rights. After Ajay’s death and his mother slipping into coma, they correlate everything to the situation when Lala Lajpat Rai succumbed to death while shouting, “Simon, Go back”. And then came their turn to assassinate the Saunders of this era, the defense minister.

At every point the movie relates the current situation to the British era, indirectly claiming that, we again need to struggle to claim our independence, independence from the political atrocities. It is a shame that we’re fighting within ourselves to attain our own freedom.

I don’t completely support the message provided by the film. It says, “To clean up the system you need to come out of it.” While that in movies like Yuva was
completely contradictory. In yuva, the youth get into the system to clean it up, which I suppose should be the right way to influence someone. Although, they have made it clear, that in current system, it is not practical that a politician suffers punishment or is jailed. Do we have any other option to cure the corruption?

Also there are few errors in the movie that I’d like to point out. The movie is clearly underestimating the power of our fourth pillar: media. In a peaceful agitation against the defense minister, where about a thousand people gathered at the India Gate, TV news channels covered their protest, but nation couldn’t witness the merciless beatings by the Rapid Action Force. I can’t think of any reason that the media was not present during this shocking incidence, that led to severe injuries, and slipped Ajay’s mother into the state of coma.

The assassination of the defense minister is shown highly impractical. I don’t think that five immature students, who have never seen a real pistol, can drive on a motorbike, barge the heavy security, kill the Union Defense minister, and escape unharmed, and remain unsuspected for days. Again these assassins to reveal their motive easily barge into the All India Radio, a govt. building, go on AIR declare their crime and still remain safe in that building for more than two hours, without a single hostage on board. I don’t think it should take more than fifteen minutes for the cops to enter the building, once they declare the crime.

I just didn’t expect an Amir Khan movie to flow in this manner.

But overall, the movie is powerful and definitely with a difference. I can grade it as a must see movie. Certainly the generation will awake.

Rating: ***

FACE & EYES

2006-02-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

FACES & EYES
-NIMISH
6th Feb 2006.

My eyes are extremely dry. And I’m not kidding when I say that I literally use an eye lubricant daily so that I could develop the most required tear film around my eyeball. Things that touch my heart do not generally come out of my eye. To be frank the last time I could feel my eyes wet with emotions was on 11th sept 2003, when an academic disaster rolled like a glacier and left me shattered. That was the time when I saw a major dead-block in my career graph, stooping down my hopes and my dreams. It took two and a half years ever since to feel the same experience.

It was 26th Jan 2006, when the director who has been doing theatre in my college for about a decade gave me an opportunity to perform in his play. Just a day before he made up this statement wherein he could make up some space for me, in his already set up play, and he did stick to his word when he called me back the next morning. I became nostalgic, about the fact that a year ago I had a dream to work for the college play that couldn’t work out since the play was scrapped. My audition then, helped me get a direct entry as a lead protagonist in another play released six months back, when another opportunity clashed its dates with this one, my dream to work for a college play never turned out to be a reality.

Stage had always been my passion. Back during my school days, I performed a role of a mere courtier in a king’s court. With no dialogues, no expressions, all I had to do was stand in a corner with my profile to be exposed to the crowd. All this was merely to get a feel of the stage. The lights above, the curtains moving apart and the crowd sitting below in an anticipation of some entertainment were all fascinating. Then came an opportunity to work in a modern art play in my college days. Being a hardcore Agni House group member in R.D.National College, I gave my fullest to make the best out of the Agni House play, titled “The Poster”. When the curtains then fell back together, I could feel how lucky I was to get selected in the audition. I pounced on every opportunity, whenever I got to entertain the crowd with my acting skills.

With so much of heat for the stage I wonder why did it take more than two years for fate to introduce me to the Drama group of my engineering college (PVPPCoE)? And in the second academic year of my engineering days, it was mere introduction to the drama group. Working with them never worked out. I could never see the stage lights, the crowd’s anticipation, the applaud, and the appreciation about my work. Everything seemed to halt for more than two years. It took more than just pains to say goodbye to a highly talented team, and a very much versatile director two times before, and thus it was a thrill to get the opportunity for the third time now.

It was evening of 26th Jan 2006, and I was in our college’s seminar hall in middle of about five to six actors amongst the regular troupe, the director and the person whose part I was about to perform. He had been a regular actor for the role given to me and won appreciation around the city to do complete justice to the character. It was his absence for the day of the play that generated my presence for the same role. All eyes poked me, and I entered the set with full zest to complete my part with an applaud of appreciation at the end. I didn’t feel victorious until the director pointed out the nature of the character that I portrayed, which was very much different from the one played before yet could fit in perfectly to complete to jigsaw. “Nimish makes the character look like a spoilt brat, which is exactly contrary to one that was played before.” These words boosted the confidence in me, as all could make out what I had decided for the character fifteen minutes ago while reading the script. In the same confidence I recited the second plot of my entry and marked victory in almost everyone’s book. But I was new in the group, the rest of the actors, director etc were certainly missing their old buddy, and welcomed my entry with a condition that if in any case, the original actor found a chance to come back, he will be given the first preference. I had to nod.

The next day, I kept juggling between my cultural activities and the play practice. Being the newly appointed cultural secretary of the college on one hand, and being an actor selected for a play to be showcased tomorrow, on the other hand, I felt the weight of both things equally heavy. That evening we could make it to the actual stage for a final real time rehearsal. A call from my friend few minutes before told me that I had fared very badly in my semester five result. But I could forget about it all, when the curtains closed, and it was I, and the rest of the troupe behind them now. Once again after almost two years I could see the stage lights flashing from above, the set all ready where we are about to perform. The experience was good enough to make me get into my character and give the best out of me. The show was brilliant with everyone’s contribution being the best. I was spotted with a sunken jaw when I saw the last dance sequence. It looked simply marvelous in the U.V. The night I went to college to witness my result, as well as to collect one of the props required for the final drama tomorrow.

Waving goodbye to everyone at home, on the 28th of Jan 2006, I took off for my first work with the college drama, and looking at few parameters ahead, probably the last drama. My grandparents took pride when they looked at me. I always assume that I have inherited my acting from my grandfather, who has won few accolades in his old acting days. Like him, even I wish to carry on with my acting as a well-polished hobby.

The green room of the auditorium was now packed with the clan. We went through the whole script twice to make sure that things are perfect. There were still 3 hours left for the show, and I was confident to be a perfect ingredient of the team. After the dialogue rehearsal, I went directly to the stage to get a complete feel of the situation I would be in after about three hours. The stage had perfect warmth to welcome me in. The set, lights above and the microphones everything was activated. On the blue covered empty chairs raised an illusion of about 350 people waiting for me to perform.

Everything was happening, as I would wish for. Suddenly in one corner of the auditorium, I could see the man for whom I have tremendous gratitude. It was his departure from the show that brought in my entry. Thus in a way it was due to him, that I got my first and probably the last opportunity to work on the stage for my college. But I wondered what he was doing in the auditorium, since he opted out of the play. According to the director, that boy had sacrificed the character for me, which need to be an obvious situation for me. I had worked hard to polish the character. Now anyone else performing in there would be like snatching away my baby.

But soon, I realized that the baby was never mine. When I was requested to back out by the boy, I placed he ball in the director’s court. Bound by old emotional ties, the ball got placed, not in my favour. I was selected to be out of the show.

“You were given warning before.” “But why did you have to be a good guy?” “What else could I have done?” “You could have just said no, when he asked you to back out.” “ I can’t do that on someone’s face” “You have to learn that, or else things will get complicated.” “Ok, what am I supposed to do now? Is it that I have lost my opportunity forever?” “I’m afraid, I should say yes” “What do you mean?” “I mean that, in future you won’t be able to find out time for all this. This was your first and last chance and you missed that too.” “Ok, so what do I do next?” I closed my eyes. All the events in past few days flashed back in front of me. The performance, the dance, the wonderful moments that I spent with few, the stage, the lights, the curtains etc. I was going to miss it all. I felt the tear film getting developed naturally. Then I opened my eyes and came to the realization that I was sitting on the edge at the Marine Drive, where in front of me lay an endless sea. Few rag pickers below were searching deeply for their rags. “Will it help you in any way if you just sit here?” “You are right. I’ll make a try.” “That’s the spirit” “I still won’t be a bad guy to snatch away his role.” “What, are you a kid?” “What do I do then?” “At least get up from here, go to him, and ask him whether he can take his words back.” “ Yeah, I won’t die in the process, huh!! Why not try that?” “You are a kid, now at least move your bump off this place”

I got up from the seat, crossed the road, and went straight to the auditorium, where just outside, people had gathered for a small party, a tea party. I directly approached the guy, but before I could open my mouth, he apologized. “I have no personal enmity with you. I have been doing this role ever since the play has started. The crew, our regular audience, the judges’ etc. everyone are used to see me play in that role. I have emotions attached to the role. I’d never raise a finger about your inability to pick up the role. As a matter of fact you were doing the part much better than what I do. But we just can’t break the tradition.”

“Where did I go wrong? How did I land into this position? This is unfair. May be this is marking the end of it all. May be my travel with the stage was only with this point.” I looked up at the lights again, the closed curtains, and few people practicing behind it. Then I went into the green room, found a lonely place, closed my eyes, and waved goodbye to the backstage in my mind. Now for the first time in past 2 and half years, I was actually crying. It is too hard to say goodbye to something you’ve always wanted to do.

“You are full of negative thoughts. What makes you think to mark an end here?” “Now I just want to adore theatre as a mere spectator.” “Is that your hobby?” “Yeah I want to be a critic. Even this can be a good hobby. I’d love to do that.” “But don’t you think you are killing your desire to act on stage?” “May be you are right. I just can’t kill my wish. There has to be some way out here.”

Now I looked straight, I could see the endless sea once again in front of me, the sun was now setting down. I looked in the watch, the show in the auditorium just half a minute away was just about to start. I got up from the seat at Marine Drive, and ran upstairs to the auditorium to watch the curtains just opening for a brand new play.

-NIMISH

Ad Review: Digestive Marie

2006-01-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

I think Parle this time have goofed up with the concept of “Digestive” Marie. In the ad they show Kajol an officer of Anti Marie Bureau commanding a fat guy to eat Digestive Marie that helps in digestion. Now with this the product sounds like a medicine for digestion, rather than an enjoyable snack. It would be an embarrassing situation for someone to publicly buy the Digestive Marie from the shopping market, or serve a Marie of that kind to guests, wherein the person publicly reveals the problems of his screwed up intestines.

Even previous attempts of Parle to sell Krack Jack, by introducing Krack & Jack as two individuals replicating the sweet and salt taste was a total failure.

I personally love Parle products, and I am loyal to them as far as biscuits go. Hence I just hope that it doesn’t much affect Parle’s digestion.

Bourn to conquer

2006-01-07T02:52:00.000-08:00

BOURN TO CONQUER
-Nimish Inamdar
6th Jan 2006.

The Alchemist.

Alchemy is what few would say as science, or a mere myth in definition of few, to convert any metal into gold. Writer Paolo Coehlo reckons that people or sages doing research in this direction, have put themselves through many tests, and people amongst these who have conquered their goal, can provide answers to all the questions on earth. Sounds impossible and completely impractical, isn’t it? Everything in the book is symbolic. And according to me even “The Alchemist” is a term used for person attaining his final goal in life.

The story began with San Tiago, a boy from Spain, living alone with his sheep in order to live life the way he wanted to. Despite warning from his father that gave his future a shady and unstable look, the boy listened to his heart, and became a shepherd. One day he decided to listen to his dream and set out for treasure kept for him miles away in Egypt near the Pyramids. On his way, he learned many things from life, and many ways to live. He found his love, his passion, and finally the bliss to complete his dream. He could also talk to his self as also to the soul of the earth.

I feel somewhere in some part of the book we can find ourselves in the boy. Some of us merely crush their dreams and prefer a practical, simpler life; while some of go crazy behind their dreams and keep up with the passion, or rather I say a hope, to complete their dream. This book reminds me of the Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a short story on the life of Jonathan, a seagull who goes off the track in the chase of fulfilling his dream.

In short the book says, “It pays to unbelong.”

-Nimish

Movie Review :Bluffmaster

2005-12-19T10:04:00.000-08:00

BLUFFMASTER
-16TH December 2005.
-Nimish Inamdar

Dir: Rohan Sippy
Cast: Abhishek Bachhan, Riteish Deshmukh, Priyanka Chopra, Nana Patekar, Boman Irani.

RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW.

The person who can plot a scene, produce it, direct it and act in it, and make a lot of easy money by goofing someone or Bluffing someone, is a Bluffmaster. And in our very own Abhishek Bachhan playing Roy Kapoor plays the bluffmaster in the movie “Bluffmaster”.

“The city of Mumbai is like an ocean, where various types of fishes swim in their own sense.” Says Roy Kapoor, to Aditya Shrivastav a.k.a. Dittu (played by Rietesh Deshmukh), while both of them are sitting in a restaurant, as the former is teaching the later the art of goofing people.

“You need to watch and decide which fish suits you, as per your requirements, skills, and attitude to face dangers.” Dittu listens keenly to the lessons from the Bluffmaster.

Soon they become teammates and decide to goof up people together. Dittu doesn’t approve of Roy’s devoted love for his ex-fiancée, Simmi Ahuja (played by Priyanka Chopra) who breaks

their engagement after she finds out that Roy is a con man. In this scenario, Roy bumps across Dr. Bhalerao (Boman Irani), and according to his diagnosis Roy’s brain tumor wont let him live for more than three months. Now, Roy sets his life’s motive for the next three months, and that is to help Dittu take his revenge against Chandrakant Parekh (played by Nana Patekar), a big time con man who has goofed up many people to make money. Chandru, the Bluffmaster of all had also once goofed up Dittu’s father, and Roy along with Dttu is all set to take over him. Now comes the climax where we experience a serious U-Turn. Who is the Bluffmaster of all? Check out the movie for that.

With a good climax (for a change) the story line of the movie looks really good. But the director Rohan Sippy has put us through a lot of tyranny for the same. Many unwanted melodramatic scenes, dragged up scenes, few unwanted songs really make you feel like getting up from the seat. But the wait to watch the climax is worthwhile.

After movies with intelligent humor, like Khel (1992), Catch Me if you can (2002) etc all talking about con people one would expect the film Bluffmaster, whose theme revolve around the word ‘con’, to be on similar lines. But the film has not used the potential it could have reached with respect to comedy.

The movie gets really good in second half with Nana and his rib tickling script. Even Abhishek, Riteish, Priyanka and Boman have done pretty good job. I feel that director Rohan Sippy could have done much better with the film.

To sum up the movie is strictly OK, and something we can’t see more than once.

Rating: ***

Da vinci Code

2005-12-13T23:08:00.000-08:00

THE Vinci Code

All the four Senechaux guarding the world’s biggest secret are serially murdered in one single night. The assassin is deceived and misguided. As per decided neither of the Senechaux reveals the truth, and the age-old secret is about to die. Here lies the genius of a 76-year-old curator, Jaques Sauneire, the Grand Master of the organization, as he sets up abstruse codes for a noted cryptographer Sophie Neuve (whose grandfather he was), minutes before lying down peacefully.

As per directed by her grandfather, Sophie takes help of Harvard Symbologists Robert Langdon to crack all the codes in order to reach the destination. On that very eventful night, the whole of Paris Interpol headed by Captain Fache is tracing the duo on charges of murder of the curator.

The story has described that night with many twists and turns, all of them very convincing and yet unpredictable. Undoubtedly the most gripping book I have ever gone through. The novel throws a new light about the unseen life of Christ. We also get an in depth knowledge about the artwork of Da Vinci. Brown has also given detailed descriptions of the various monuments visited by the characters in the story.

The popularity and craze of this book tempted Ron Harvard to direct a movie starring Tom Hanks and Audrey Tautou.

It is expected to be released by early 2006. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382625/

PS:
I bumped upon this site, where the person claims to be the grand master of the Priory, which in fact is the most secret organization as described by Dan Brown. If you have any interest go through this site.
http://www.necessaryprose.com/thegm1.htm
Here are few links for those who have read the book. It might suit their interests.
http://www.mohawkcollege.ca/dept/literacy/da%20vinci%20code.jpg
http://www.leaderu.com/focus/davincicode.html

Diwali in New Delhi

2005-11-01T03:22:00.000-08:00

This year our neighbors wished o join us, but as we understand by our past experiences, nothing really positive comes out of that land. So but naturally Pakistan's friendship hand replaced the crackers of Diwali by RDX.What they don't understand is that Diwali is a festival of lights, and not to wizz off the flame out of people's lives. Those islamic extremists in the name of Jehad, even ruined ID for a few.L-e-T there be light on few this Diwali. Happy Diwali.
ps:
hey please visit this for my greetings...
http://www.logogle.com/ggl.php?hl=ja&lo=Happy+Diwali%2705+-+Nimish+Inamdar

Terrorized terrorists

2005-11-01T02:25:00.000-08:00

To,
Times Of India.
This is with reference to the cartoon made by R.K.Laxman in your paper dated Nov 1 2005, where he depicted the common man terrorized by the recent events of the terrorist attacks. An ardent admirer of him, me, would like to disapprove this time. After the bomb blasts of 1992, the very next day we saw 92% attendance in the offices. Even in New Delhi, the day after the bomb attacks, newspapers sprayed the city's resilience on their front pages. Four blocks away from the yesterday's bombsite we could see women buying utensils and ornaments. This has clearly shown the terrorists that India is unshakable. I'm not saying that we're stone hearted and have no feelings to moan about this loss. All I want to say is that, it takes every single person to do its bit in order to run this country, and we don't shun our responsibilities at the will of terrorists. This is a lesson for the terrorists.

-Nimish Inamdar

IIPM: Wrong Taste of Management

2005-10-23T06:14:00.000-07:00

Hi,
I came across some stunning discoveries about IIPM. Those 8 WI-FI towers are completely misleading. The management is making FAKE promises, and over that it turns out that the MBAs graduating from that institute are not acceptable MBAs.

Arindram Chaudhari, a self proclaimed management guru lured students by flashinga one page advertisement in TOI, where he lettered out his agnger against the IIMs, blaming IIMs for creating aftificial scarcity for MBAs.

That letter itself had some negetive effect as Mr. Chaudhari himself degraded the value of MBAs terming them as unnecessarily highly paid people.

Following are some links from which u can judge yourself.
Please go through them.

Aashaayen - Hopes

2005-10-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

IQBAL
-NIMISH INAMDAR
26/09/05

There used to be a commercial where a cosmetic cream acts as a catalyst to make a talented girl reach to the commentary box right besides K. Srikanth. The same product in another commercial used by a girl helps her make it to the film world after bumping Rakesh Roshan on a roadside. The marketing team of that product had a clear idea about the Indian market, that Cricket and films are two things that entertain the country and in a way, run the country.

These two distinctly different fields have often made attempts of collaboration in order to drift public attention on a larger scale. Many a times we have seen film stars playing on the field along with the cricketers for some or the other charity match, this is how cricket involves the film industry within itself. We have also seen the film industry-involving cricket in its own way of making stories on the game.

It’s always been a thrill for the audience to see these two national crazes coincide at some or the other point. We have seen Dev Anand’s ‘Awwal number’, Shah Rukh Khan’s ‘Chamatkar’, Amir Khan’s ‘Lagaan’ and many more that framed stories within cricket and a nail-biting climax. In the same theme we saw Subhash Ghai producing ‘Iqbal’ under the direction of his genius Nagesh Kukknoor. Iqbal, as the punch line rightly says isn’t a story about cricket, but it’s a story above cricket.

Iqbal, is a 18 year old boy, born in a family where his mother a cricket crazy, has aspirations and hopes to fulfill her son’s dreams of becoming a player for the Indian cricket team. But the patriarch family has unfortunately a father that may love anything but cricket, and has aspirations to make his son follow his trait of becoming a farmer. Ask Iqbal and he is already a cricketer. In his own privately constructed room, that mute and deaf can already hear the noise of the crowd echoing from the stadium out of his imagination. His dreams and hopes are tied with the support of his mother and his sister Khaleeja. Iqbal finds a new coach in form of Mohith, who now becomes his third support, thus enabling Iqbal raise his platform for the selection of Ranji Trophy.

Incidently Iqbal stands out to be the only person to get selected in the Andhra team of Ranji Trophy, despite of the fact that he had never played cricket anywhere else other than his own gully. This advent of success invites fame, glory, media, and politics. Iqbal in the lure of the much-needed money falls prey to match fixing, but finally tears apart the cheque of the opponent team’s coach who once due to influential reasons had thrown out Iqbal out of his academy. Iqbal stands out and is finally selected in the Indian cricket team.

We enter the theatre thinking big names like Nagesh Kukknoor and Naseeruddin Shah. But surprisingly we find the other cast highly convincing. Shreyas Talpade, the new comer in form of Iqbal has given a highly talented performance. Prathiksha Lonkar, Yatin Karekar and Swetha have also given brilliant performances. Naseer stands out in the movie, as one would expect him to be. Nagesh has once again proved to be an ace director.

Thinking of Iqbal, makes me think of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, a story of a seagull who finally attains his bliss despite of innumerable difficulties. Although the story may seem a bit common, Iqbal scores with casting, cinematography, script, and most importantly the direction.

There is a flaw morally unacceptable in the movie in the plot when Iqbal enters the stadium representing the Indian team for the first time. Right behind him we can see a crumpled tricolour, lying on the floor. I don’t see any reason to display this type of disrespect to the flag, and that too from a perfectionist like Nagesh Kukknoor.

On the whole the movie is brilliantly made, and I would grade it as a must see for everyone whether or not you like cricket.

Rating ****

When Mumbai Sank

2005-08-20T03:53:00.000-07:00

INTRODUCTION

It was showering heavily on BSE Tuesday morning with Sensex peeking just above 7600. It was a sight that gripped my attention and my hands did the same with our T.V. remote control. Roughly 2 hours passed by when I realized that I have missed 2 of my important lectures in the college and I ended up being a potato couch the whole day rather than attempting to go to college. How did I know at that point that something good was in store when I took this decision? No one else in the city could have predicted that I was amongst the lucky people who get the golden opportunity to avoid the mayhem that down poured the city.

TUESDAY 26th JULY

HOME
Very soon the CNBC and NDTV profit changed to Set Max and Zee Cinema. When things got bore even, I preferred to read instead. By now Aai had gone out for her classes and even Neetika was deeply buried in Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince. We both got out of our books when the vibrations of a huge thunder roared across the living room. The heavily splashing rain was now to be taken seriously. Just a peep outside made me realize that our building was now virtually an island and the efforts taken to avoid water logging two years back were all futile now. On the other side we could see about half a feet tall divider on the road disappearing. I had to capture this and thus I clicked the camera out of excitement wherever possible.

Later we called up Aai to call her back home. By the time she decided to come, water at some places was up to the knee height. She returned home by 4 in the evening completely drenched. Simultaneously Anju Atya kept calling me, as Neha’s phone wasn’t able to catch network. They were supposed to meet at Andheri and return home at Thane together. With the notice that the efforts to reach her phone were in vain she decided to actually reach her and set out in the waist high water. But for the best may be, the traffic didn’t allow her to proceed. Helpless, she turned back from Santa Cruz and came here.

NEHA
The torrential rains dampened the orange network all over the city, and unfortunately the missing girl out here, stranded in the waters of Andheri had the Orange sim card in her phone. Water was now almost up to the knee level just beside her office and as per decided to meet her mother she didn’t budge to her friend’s request to move with them back to home. Standing in rains with one useless umbrella she could get a perfect glimpse of the chaos around her.

Here was the time to use her presence of mind and thus she decided to hook at Bandra instead of going all the way at Thane. Finding it impossible to drive around a perfect road, her friends rode their taxi back to the same place. Perhaps this is a scenario all over the place, and its better to reach home soon. God helps those who help themselves and thus came the office peon, to the rescue. Guiding through the waters all the way, the two of them walked down from Andheri (east), to Bandra (east), a wonder ride that took more than three hours. She reached home by 8 in the evening to relieve a major pressure off us. All this while at home we could do nothing but wait. When we sat on our couches watching VCDs in an attempt to release some tension from Anju Atya’a heart, Neha was out there cruising her way through.

NIGHT TIME
“How come the electricity is still on?” was a question printed on all our faces. The clock showed the nighttime right angle and, we assumed that the water level by now had reached approximately to my chest height. So it was quite obvious that all of our electricity meters downstairs were soaked in water. Just as we didn’t finish up with this discussion the world turned dark and we could sense all of us, including the neighbors who had gathered in our house, smiling as if saying, “We were just expecting this.” A glowing candle entered the room and all we could now see were each other’s helpless faces. It was still raining outside, but the showers had calmed down a bit.

There are very few times in Mumbai that we actually get to use our age-old candles, thus when we do we use them generously. Even the battery-operated torch that we bought a year ago came to use. The high range torch was exceptional in guiding us analyze the situation in outer dark world, and it gave correct glimpses of the taxi getting slowly submerged just outside out back gate, the water swallowing the cars at our neighboring building and the compound wall of our building slowly disappearing. These were the indicators that helped us analyze how worse the situation was getting as time passed by.

The burglar alarms of majority of the cars mistook the water to be a burglar trying to sneak in and screamed to highlight its use. The circuits inside went lose and lighted the inside and outside of the cars when we watched this all helplessly from above standing in complete darkness. The headlights burning gave a wonderful Tyndall effect when water jumped above them. But this time it wasn’t such a good sight as we watched our car batteries getting drained.

Unfortunately my phone being old drained out its power too soon, and so did our landline fwp. Aai’s Orange sim card didn’t respond and so did Neha’s, giving indications that the Hutch dog cannot swim. So the only working phone left with us now was Neetika’s prepaid phone with unknown amount of balance. So obviously, the idea was to use it only for incoming calls only. We spent the remaining night talking to our neighbors and messaging few people about the condition we were going through.

REKHA KAKI
This may be a regular visit to the Mehboob Studio at Bandra, but its consequence wasn’t so. Rekha kaki along with Bappa set out at about 3 pm, Tueday, 26th July2005, in their Ford Ikon, with the faint idea of the sinking city. But the idea they had, was fainter than the reality. It took three hours for them to reach the Kalina fly-over from the Mehboob studio at Bandra, a journey that in normal course should not take more than 25 minutes. Had they not decided to walk down to their home in Parle from the Reliance Energy building, they’d have spent he whole night right on the top of the flyover.

The dipped themselves in the thigh high water below the flyover, and followed the clan when the driver volunteered to take care of the car. Watching them go, a lady in the back car handed over all of her shopping bags to the driver, to guard them and bravely or foolishly decided to walk down with her two small kids. It was but obvious that the water level was certainly more than her kids’ height. But she came back the other day at Ajit Kaka’s home to collect her bags, assuring that she did reach home safely, and so did Rekha kaki. But her story isn’t really too easy. On the way she apparently lost hold of Bappa, and that 89-year-old man was in the missing list for few moments. The water force at the Centaur junction was good enough to flow down an average healthy person. Thanks to the ropes fixed by the locals that they made it safely at home.

BABA
It was about 4:15 pm in the noon and the news was that offices all over the city have been evacuated. Baba opened the door and came out of the conference room to see a huge lot of people at their desks, in the office at the NKM building near the Marine Drive. If everyone were asked to leave soon then how come people didn’t budge to move out? The reason, it was too late. Water was splashing across the city; the whole system running the city had come to a standstill. Traffic Jams all over, water logging etc were the problems that advised people to stay safe where they were, in an anticipation that situation will get better very soon. This intelligent thinking was a result of establishing communication with people who’d left office three hours back and were still giving no signs of reaching home.

The Mumbai city was least hit on 26th of July. As a matter of fact when compared with the mayhem at the suburbs, we can say, it didn’t rain at all in the Mumbai city. Baba was amongst the lucky to be stranded in the city, enjoying the leisure of electricity and information sources. Night for him went really good with a brisk stroll at Marine Drive, watching movies like Sarkar and Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya (Salman Khan must be really happy to know that few people did watch the movie), and sleeping on cozy seats in a well air conditioned room. No one could imagine what was waiting for them soon ahead.

Baba along with three others decided to move out and make it home. The cab worked really well until Mahim, but its accelerator hardened and clutch-brake softened, as the traffic didn’t allow the yellow top to go across other numerous cars stuck in Jam. So all four of them took an obvious decision to leave the cab and proceed walking. It was good until they were at the Mahim flyover. They got the first glimpses of water logging when they got down from the flyover directly in the waist high water. Walking alongside the divider, they managed to reach the Kherwadi signal. Realizing how difficult the situation would be in near future, they became unanimous on coming at our place and then proceed, as situation would get better.

But nature was mocking at them. Zooming the eyes over the waters from the kherwadi signal to the Asara building, they got a clear vision of what seemed to be an average height man almost barely managing not to get drowned in that neck high water. Prompt came no from the rest three, and they took no time in preferring to walk down to Borivli instead. Baba took about fifteen minutes to get firm on proceeding ahead and then set out in the further deep water. I wonder he had ever swum in this deep water! Had it not been for Nilesh 6’1”, it’d have been a much difficult journey for Baba to reach home.

THE KHERWADI JUNCTION

“Yeh Sarkar kya kar rahi hai?”(“What is the government doing?”), Stated an agonized passer by.
“Isiliye toh hum yahan khade hai.”(“That is specifically why we are standing here”) I replied to that passer by, when I was within the waters right at the middle of Western Express Highway’s Kherwadi Junction in the waist high water. The smile that the passerby gave appreciated the work we were doing.

In the morning when I saw Nilesh helping Baba pass through the waters, I decided to put my not so small height to use. Just like me, many others including Amlesh and Sandeep got inspired by Nilesh and proceed with their helping hands.

We started by distributing the neatly organized Khichadi packets, courtesy Yamini. It came as no big surprise that the packets soon exchanged hands, and the needy consumed it to their delight. Next came the job to organize the flow of crowd. We directed at least few thousand people in organized manner so as to avoid the chaos and then stampede. This had to begin with rearranging the cars that were stuck at the junction. Thanks to 20 to 25 volunteers like us, that the job was made easier.

The compliment that we got from the passers by was the cream on the cake. It was sort of an adventure to walk in chest high water to the junction at highway, help people, and get their views, on the plight of the city. Santa Cruz wasn’t as bad as Sion- Ddharavi, was an obvious conclusion that we drew and passed on to the people who need the due information.

Two guys coming from Andheri, Saki Naka halted here to breathe some before going at Nerul. A lady walking down all the way from Goregaon, was destined to Dadar. It was an amusing site for few when they saw a dead crow on the top of a white colored Maruti 800, covered with flower petals, giving it as a scene of crow’s funeral according to one person.

THE NEXT DAY
“What a beautiful site!!!” exclaimed Baba, when, he saw land all around us. For two days we were stuck in an island, and had it been a continued process for another week or so, we’d have experienced the life of Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away.

After yesterday’s adventurous day and the dark night that allowed us to have candle light discussions about the people that created History, we saw a comparatively bright morning the next day. Me and Baba, after examining the cars neatly, decided to survey the whole area. All we witnessed around was the resilience of the city. Shopkeepers, throwing out wasted goods, people cleaning their cars, and most important happy faces of the rag pickers.

Anju Atya and Neha, made their way back home, and completed the journey successfully.

The day was spent in cleaning cars and storing water in our water hives. Electricity was still seen very far. Reliance Energy failed to respond, and so did the BMC with water supplies.

So apart from water level sliding away completely, and the positive attitude of the city, nothing else seemed positive.

The dark night was again spent in candlelight, but staring at that dim candlelight, we all could recollect loads of experiences to tell the future generations, and smile at the next morning to come.

Movie Reviews : Page 3

2005-08-07T06:05:00.000-07:00

STAGE 3
-Nimish Inamdar.
29th Jan 2005.

Relax on couch, sip a cup of tea, and unfold the newspaper to begin the morning routine. Page one, general national or international news, page two, metro news, then you proceed to page 3. After the black and white or gray flavor of first two pages, Page 3 welcomes glitter, glamour, colors, etc. It represents the lights of the city that burned the whole night when you lay on your bed in preferred silence and darkness. And Madhur Bhandarkar’s new endeavor Page 3 represents the darkness behind these lights.

Madhur has managed to prepare a relishing bhel-puri of many celeb-stories, to make a delicacy good enough to sit back and enjoy. It involves a heavy industrialist with a spoilt daughter and a worried wife who commits suicide after knowledge about her husband’s involvement in child abuse and molestation. The story involves, an on-duty ACP, who prefers to be among the party animals even when the city is under the threats of riots and bomb-blasts. It also includes struggling actress Gayatri (Tara Sharma) going through a phase of casting couch. The story doesn’t even spare male section from casting couches, but this time they are forced to homosexuality in an attempt to get roles.

The script allows a practical Sandhya Mridul in the character of Pearl who gets married off to a millionaire more than twice as much her age. But amongst these we also see a socialite played by Suhasini Muley who will actually prefer to work for people. Then we get to see an honest police inspector Limaye in the character of Inspector Bhonsle who pays for his honesty. The camera moves over many other areas where drivers chat, where gatecrashers enter or where a person struggling to appear in page 3, finally achieves his goal. The film above all includes Atul Kulkarni in the character of Vinayak Mane, a crime reporter who mocks at Konkona Sen, differentiating between journalism and entertainment.

We get to see all this from the eyes of Konkona Sen, a journalist for the newspaper Nation Today, who tucks down her parents’ wish and travels all the way from Banglore to Mumbai for her dream in journalism. But after watching the plastic life of these celebrities, she decides to change her beat to crime. Her boss, Deepak Suri (played by Boman Irani) being very cooperative, allows her to work under Atul Kulkarni. All the while she breaks up with her boy friend, her roommates, Pearl and Gayatri desert her due to their own paths and problems, leaving her quite alone.

Over this Nation Today fires her for making a story on the child abuse by the noted industrialist. Boman her boss who actually appreciates her story and her work, bends to the upper orders and does the proceedings for firing her. The whole world around her is plastic, artificial and completely unwanted. In this Atul Kulkarni stands by her and his words, “To change the system, you have to be in the system” encourages her to take up the same category job but in another press. This is where the glamour, glitter and the monotonous life welcome her back again.

Where do we find a relishing Bhel-Puri in this pathetic life? There lies the genius of Madhur Bhandarkar. He has created good humour when at the same time ridiculing the life of these stars. The film has managed very good casting. Atul Kulkarni although with a very small role has handled it all very well. Konkana Sen is undoubtedly good, same to Boman, Sandhya, Tara, Bikram and many others.

The world is a stage where we land and perform. But every world has a subset in it, and thus we get to perform and as well watch others perform on this stage. After the film I feel that it should be better to watch others perform rather than actually performing on this stage where there is a craze to rush on the third page.

Rating: * * * *

My View :Mumbai Split

2005-08-03T11:02:00.000-07:00

With the advent of the recent events, there has been too much of debate over the topic of Mumbai to be split from its parent state. I don't understand that why are we all intended to divide our country into bits and fragments, further complicating the bureaucracy? Can't we just stay together as one and resolve to overcome our bridges rather than creating rift within the country? If there was any problem with the government machinery in recent Mumbai floods, then it was due to the inefficiency of the Govt, elected by us. If we have to blame the government, why drag and curse the whole state that shared the same trajedy?
-NIMISH INAMDAR, Mumbai.

Mangal Pandey … Brave martyr or an Accidental Hero

2005-07-30T06:28:00.000-07:00

Mangal Pandey … Brave martyr or an Accidental Hero.
-Nimish Inamdar
30th July 2005.

This is the way the title of a book released recently by Penguin Publishers goes. The writer Rudranshu Mukherjee is a graduate from Oxford University and was awarded a D.Phil in Modern History by university of Oxford in 1981. In his book the writer pens down the detailed scenario on, before and after the fatal or the fateful day of 29th March 1857.

First of all let me clear a misconception about Mangal Pandey actually killed his senior. No he did not. Yes he did shoot on one of the officers, but it didn’t work as the ball missed Sergent Major James Hewson and he was saved. But Mangal Pandey seriously injured Hewson and Lt. Baugh in a sword fight and was hanged for the same.

Two days after this incidence started his trial that lasted for one single day, as a result which was well predicted by all that Mangal Pandey went to gallows. In his trial Pandey confessed of drug addiction, which he started off late and also made it clear that he was under the intoxication of Bhang when he acted the way he did. He could reveal nothing more than, “I was not in right senses and I did not know what I was doing.” This was as opposed to the British expectation of revealing names of his colleagues who could possibly revolt in near future.

The writer grabs this point and raises an issue that he being in the state of intoxication, was certainly not aware of what he was doing and turns out to be an accidental hero. But also raises out a possibility that Pandey needed that intoxication to carry the guts he needed to revolt.

I reckon that it makes sense, and thus for me at least there is no doubt about him being a true martyr.

But there are also certain facts that cannot be overlooked, and they do raise another question of whether his sacrifice was really worthwhile to blow the whole of North India against the East India Company? Mangal Pandey was a sepoy at the Barrackpore Cantonment near Calcutta. The first revolt that took place was miles away at Meerut.

The story there follows in this way that 85 sepoys were detained and sentenced to 8 years of rigorous imprisonment since they refused to touch the newly introduced Enfield Cartridges. The rumor about the Enfield cartridges being greased with the cow and pig fat had a grip over the whole of North India. Meerut was a place where according to the writer the name Mangal Pandey had not reached. It was the fury against the British Raj to detain those 85 sepoys that led to the revolt. The writer makes another point worth noting, that throughout the 1857 revolt, the Barrackpore Cantonment didn’t budge and the neighboring Calcutta remained loyal to the British Raj.

If Mangal Pandey didn’t much contribute to the revolt, then one would raise questions about his fame. The answer according to Mr. Mukherjee is that Mangal Pandey being one of the first revolting people, had created a sense of treat in the minds of the British. Pandey was a common name amongst the Indians and that prompted the rulers to generalize the term “Pandeys” against the revolting people. Thus his name got encrypted in history.

The forthcoming Amir Khan starred movie should be thus worth watching. I presume they must have completely exploited the mystery about Mangal Pandey’s life to make fiction out of reality. None of the records that exist till now have given perfect information about Mangal Pandey’s past, his parents, his wife, or that whether he was married or not, from where did he come etc. Thus Ketan Mehta gets a full opportunity to use things according to his convenience.

To sum up the 1857 revolt had a sole reason as the spark for the fuel, and that was the greased cartridge. I’d like to end here by a verse made by the last Mughal Emperor

Na Iran ne kiya, na Shah Russ ne,
Angrez ko tabah kiya kaartoosh ne.

[Neither Iran nor the Tsar of Russia could do what the cartridges (in India) did]
And thus... here started The Rising.

movie reviews: Sarkar

2005-07-03T11:07:00.000-07:00

The GODkar
-Nimish Inamdar
July 1, 2005

The most awaited film of the year is here and I’m amongst the first people to see it, and I’m glad that I’m. Ram Gopal Verma’s ambitious project shot under the heavy schedule of 45 days incorporating heavy names like Abhishek (yeah that is a heavy name today) and Amitabh Bachhan under the banner of the prestigious K Sera Sera productions was released today.

Sarkar deals with a family practically ruling the norms of Mumbai where our big B is the numero uno enjoying the maximum support of the crowd. Subhash Nagare a.k.a, Sarkar played by Bachhan Sr is a messiah for people as he is the sole person capable of solving their problems or giving them justice of course by illegal meanings. He has his own philosophies. Neither him nor his principles can be sold to anyone. He is determined to do anything that he thinks is right irrespective of the system’s rules.

In this background comes Rashid from Dubai to take the permit from Sarkar about drug trafficking from the region where Sarkar rules, but returns empty handed. To bring down Sarkar he joins hands with the rest and turn all the allies of Sarkar his enemies. War breaks open between Rashid and Sarkar & Co with Sarkar going to jail on false accusations and then consecutively to the hospital as a victim of the war. In this scenario his own son Vishnu, played by K.K.Mennon, turns a traitor. Now the responsibility comes on Shankar (Abhishek Bachchan)
and he manages to kill all of his enemies and once
again restore the pride the Nagare family had in
the city, and becomes the next Sarkar.

This mafia story is an exact replica of ‘The Godfather”. We had Don Vito Corleone then as The Godfather, and now we have Subhash Nagare as Sarkar. Michael Corleone’s image is seen in Shankar Nagare. We can even find images of Pete Clemanza, Tom Hagen and Tessio. Clearly Rashid plays the role of Virgil Sollozo. And now we need a family traitor, in the year 1972, we had Carlo Rizzi to do the job and here we have Vishnu Nagare. The conceptual difference that I see is that Subhash Nagare gets arrested here. Those who have read The Godfather know that it’s impossible for Don Vito Corleone to get arrested.

So those who have seen or read The Godfather, don’t watch the movie with high expectations as in every scene you find yourself saying, “Godfather.” This especially happens in the second half and thus it is more predictable. The first half, dominated by Bachchan Sr., rocks. In second half you get to see Abhishek in mainframe. We get to see some good performances in the movie with K.K.Mennon as a special mention. Undoubtedly both the son and father steal your attention throughout the movie, and as expected both of them are fantastic on screen. I can say this is one of the best pieces by Ram Gopal Verma ever.

On the whole the movie rocks. Whether or not you have read The Godfather, do go and see the Indian version of The Godfather.

movie reviews :Bunty Aur Babli

2005-06-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

Be my lover BABLI.
-NIMISH INAMDAR
11th june 2005.

I made did make an attempt today to watch Yash Chopra’s new comedy (or rather supposed to be comedy) flick Bunty Aur Babli (BAB). My 1st question to Mr. Chopra is, that was it really comedy? He should have at least given some hints when we were supposed to laugh. I did make few attempts to laugh during the movie time, but that sounded so artificial that the rest of the audience gave me the “Is he crazy?” look.

DO NOT and please do not go to the movie hall thinking that I’m going to have some rocking fun for three hours. Sitting in that air-conditioned hall I was thinking for ways to get out of that torture. My 50 bucks were waste- a total waste.

The plot seems all good when we here about two con people calling themselves Bunty and Babli run all over the country fooling people. But at every point the movie says, “Come on guys this plot was supposed to be funny… laugh.” And then we grin looking at each other. Don’t believe me? I can understand, with all the other critics and the review writers going ga-ga over it, what makes me sound it so miserable? Well the answer is simple; let me give you one example. There is a scene in the movie where Rani Mukherji (The babli out of them) sits on the rock all alone, then comes Bacchan Jr. to see her and notice that she is about to cry. What happens next? Well then our Bunty asks her “what’s the matter?” like any other normal person would do. Prompt comes the reply “Muzhe maa ki yaad aa rahi hai (I’m missing my mother)”. Fine pretty fair, no complaints so far. Now what happens next?? Well that’s it guys, it was a comedy plot in the movie, we all were supposed to laugh. Damn I missed it all.

If there is nothing to laugh, then u may ask what is there in the movie? Well I can say the plot is good. Two people fed up of life and the idea of living honestly sets up together to make earning out of fooling others. Babli as Binno calls herself aspires to become Miss India. But fails to do so and thus the blame obviously goes to her ‘Live with Principles’ attitude. Rakesh a.k.a. Bunty dreams of becoming one amongst the Tatas and the Ambanis but his honesty don’t allow him to do so. Both meet at this point of failure and decide to go to their Mecca i.e. Mumbai. In order to get the money to reach to their dreams, both successfully fool one person. But the money empties from their pockets soon and they make repeated attempts to make money. Soon they realise how good they are in this and now they realise the future of their career.

But obviously, it’s a Hindi movie, so they fall in love and get married (with no witnesses around). At this point comes Bacchan Sr. (mind you its second half of the movie by now). He is determined to catch these two culprits who have fascinated the whole country and lavishly robbed a few. Their crimes include robbing a shopping mall (completely), robbing a hotel (almost completely), and selling the great Taj Mahal to a phirangee (now how’s this? we need such capable people in our bureaucracy) and the last but not the least, robbing the gold out of RBI’s reserves.

But in no story do we hear that the bad wins, ditto here, except that it’s a Hindi movie, straight from the heart of Bollywood. So we cannot expect anything new out of it, and thus they get caught just when they decide to become good guys and live an honest life. But that’s certainly not the end. The climax is something a novelty for Hindi movies where the con people are used for the good of the society and not jailed for life or hanged.

Honestly and very truly there are very few moments in the movie where anyone would feel like laughing. It’s a typical Yash Chopra film with all the regular gloss. Rani Mukherjee tries to be sexy, but I must say the attempts are futile. It’s a treat to watch Bacchan Sr, and Jr, dance together in an item number. But nothing else really works even in that song. Many of the dance steps in many of the songs are completely unprofessional something that I could make.(Ha ha just kidding.)

On the whole, go and watch the movie if at all you love Yash Chopra. But if you are like me who hate him after every new movie he has made after Mohobattien then please donate that money in children’s welfare fund.

My Views: SUGGESTION FOR SION TRAFFIC

2005-03-20T01:56:00.000-08:00

SUGGESTION FOR SION TRAFFIC

As we all see that MUTP is accelerating its work, and now we can hope to drive on broader roads with less traffic problem. I would like to suggest the concerned authorities to also look into the traffic problem at the Sion-Bandra link road that is responsible to connect two major highways of the city. I would like to suggest a step to remove all the leather shops adjacent to the road and accommodate all of them in a five to six storied leather mall with proper parking space. This will relax the traffic problem and plus will generate good revenue for the leather shops existing there. The special allotment for the leather shops will certainly draw attention of the city towards it, and with organized parking space and widened roads the traffic problem in the area will decrease to a considerable extent.
-Nimish Inamdar

Veer Savarkar cannot be compared to Jinnah.

2005-03-20T01:52:00.000-08:00

Veer Savarkar cannot be compared to Jinnah.

This is in response to a ridiculous statement by a CPI leader in one of the shows conducted by SAB TV, where he arguably compared Veer Savarkar to M.A.Jinnah.Although M.A.Jinnah had some role in the Indian freedom struggle, he had a major role in the Indian partition, which we moan till now. Partition was something that Veer Savarkar was strongly protesting. So Jinnah first being good and then turning hostile has no comparison with Savarkar’s sacrifice in pre-independence era and his national service in post independence India. Jinnah turning hostile later on was selfishness on his part, whereas Veer Savarkar never put himself before the country. None of the acts of Veer Savarkar were in self-interest. Whether or not, his actions were good, may be a question pertaining to individual point of view, but no one can disagree his sense of patriotism, national pride, and service to the nation. So its sheer madness to compare a patriot like, Veer Savarkar to a traitor like Jinnah.

My Views: JUG'S HEAD

2005-03-20T01:49:00.000-08:00

JUG'S HEAD (As Appeared in The Times Of India Editorial Page :Conversation with the readers)
On the bright Sunday morning I decided to read the article written by Jug Suraiya about “Indians being the ugliest face in the world”. As I went through it I started feeling sick, and till the point I had completed it, I found myself besides my washbasin vomiting. That article almost made me to decide to get the next flight and run abroad. Although Mr. Jug Suraiya ruined my bright Sunday morning, I would give him a standing ovation for bringing out this topic. Everyday when I decide to walk on the roads, I’m deep in thoughts, and those thoughts just include my plans to dodge the live and dry spits. I think we, as Indians should realize the surroundings and its importance. There should be proper measures taken by the government to control the littering. The recently started campaign to ‘fine’ anyone littering, is a complete failure, and with this pace people will continue harassing our Mother India. There is an urgent need of introducing hygiene as an independent subject in the school curriculum, where even the social behavior and mannerism should be discussed. I hope that we do act as soon as possible to these unhygienic Indian conditions, and reach a stage where we say, “Daag, Dhoondte rehjaoge.” (“Keep searching for the stain.”)

My Views: Jassi Jamboree

2005-03-20T01:44:00.000-08:00

Jassi Jamboree (As appeared in Times Of India Editorial Page: Conversation with readers)

I agree the TIMES VIEW in the editorial section dated Sept the 2nd 2004, that we need to agree on official and national level that our icons or idols are changing, from the power-thirsty politicians to the glamorous television. And in that glamorous site, something as unglamorous as the character of Jassi definitely creates stir in the whole scenario. But still this doesn’t justify the recent attempt by the Indian postal service, to use Jassi as the main frame in the postage stamps. We can certainly smell commercialization here. Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahi is a series running currently on a popular television channel, and imprinting Jassi on something as popular as postage stamps certainly promotes the series, which is not the job for Postage. If Jassi is gaining some popularity by this surrogate advertisement, may be they should return some part of it back to the Govt. run tax-payers’ service of Indian Postage. Here all I want to suggest is that any Govt. run institution or service is not meant for promoting any product, brand, or any company. I hope that the Indian Postal Service keeps this in mind before taking any further steps on one of the most popular medium of communications.

SLUMMY CITY

2005-03-20T01:41:00.000-08:00

SLUMMY CITY

I saw that few people have grudges on the government's plan to remove the poor hut men’s homes, as read in Times Of India dated January the fourth 2005. There was one letter stating about the utilities of these hut men and thus their need for the city. I would like to mention this that if the government has decided to remove the illegal constructions then they are on right track. City is right now flooded with unemployment, so I don’t think that there is any vacancy for the jobs like sweeping streets, or cleaning drainages etc mentioned by my friend in his letter. Here I would like to emphasize on the point that the illegal constructions are to be removed and not every hut in the city. We all do share a dream to make our city look better, with better infrastructures facilities. But with increasing immigrants there is no space in the city to make the dream come true. So the solution to this would be vertical expansion and for the same we need to relocate the slums sometime or the other. So if the huts are legal they better be untouched or else relocated in order to elevate living space. But illegal constructions ought to be brought down.
-Nimish

My Views: LEGAL SUITE

2005-03-20T01:36:00.000-08:00

LEGAL SUITE

I completely support the stand taken by Mr. Subhash Bhende (TOI Sept 15 2004). In fact I wonder that how come any didn’t come across such an intelligent solution, to remove the voting rights of the illegal residents, a decade ago? Anyways better late than never is all I can say. If at all statistics mentioned by Mr. Jokin Arputham are true, it should be a matter of disgrace. If only 25000 illegal residents are occupying our city pavements, then we can imagine the amount of illegal land legalized by these power thirsty politicians. You walk across any road in the city like Mumbai and you are bound to come across some or the other slum colony. I ask, are these slums not illegal? If they are not, then the damage done by the politicians so far is tremendous, and it needs to be halted right now, so that the railways and the PWD don’t further lose their ever-decreasing land.
-NIMISH

IS THIS INDIA'S GATEWAY?

2005-03-19T05:05:00.000-08:00

IS THIS INDIA'S GATEWAY?

A trip to The Gateway Of India brings, filth, dirt, chaos, encroaching hawkers, beggars, and such odds into sight. Slowly these parasites are overshadowing the beauty of The Gateway, which happens to be the pride of Mumbai. Every foreign tourist coming in the city would like to make a peep in here. The monument comes with a history, which needs to be preserved. So as the government plans to renovate the Gateway’s Landscape, I would also recommend keeping a check on these activities. If possible, start ticket system to enter the monumental area, as they do for The Taj Mahal and other monuments of the country. I would also like if the tourism police try to maintain the decorum of the area, by actually implementing the rule of ‘Fine for littering the area’. I don’t object hawker’s intrusion if people are interested in them, but then at least they should be organized and not allowed to intrude area more than a certain limit. When we try to make our city clean, let us start by the monument that represents the city.
-Nimish Inamdar (Mumbai.)

Wrong Aid

2005-03-19T04:58:00.000-08:00

WRONG AIDs

I am not much in support with the government’s decision to grant Rs. 50000 to the family members of the victims of Methyl Alcohol. First of all, who is responsible for the drinking problem of these people? Although I do share the plight of the affected families, who have lost their loved ones, but drunkards are of no use to the society; in fact they create problems in the household work. With this logic the government should grant the aid to all the people facing drinking problem, just because they the financial burden for the family and the family is in need of some support. I think this action of the government will only encourage people to consume the ‘desi’ alcohol leading to still many deaths. Right now the people who are in need of aid are the innocents who faced the Tsunamis. I don’t think that the people who can’t live without alcohol, and who always prefer to stay in the drowsed state of mind, are innocents in any way! Yes, their families are innocents, but then there are innumerable such families. Is it practical to provide aid to them? So it would be better if the money were used in educating people about alcohol, the ways to consume it, prepare it and also the level or the limit to consume it. We should also educate people the ill effects of high-level consumption of alcohol, the way it affects their families, the society and ultimately the nation. Perhaps this may also help in reducing the rate of crimes that people commit for a bottle of alcohol.
-Nimish

License to Kill

2005-03-19T04:52:00.000-08:00

License to kill
I recently came across a popular TV serial where in a sequence the main character of the series, is shown chatting on a mobile phone while driving. I think media, and films make a major impression on minds of people and thus it becomes imperative for the stars to be responsible on the screen. People should be acknowledged that even chatting using hand-free is an offence. Many a times the screen artist refuse to tie the seat belt, speed on a 2-wheeler without using helmet. I think this makes a negative impact on the audiences. It’s high time that we get more responsible on small and big screens.
-NIMISH

My Views: Desis

2005-03-19T04:36:00.000-08:00

DESIS (As appeared in The Times of India Editorial Page: Conversation with the readers)

This is with reference to the ‘The times of India’ article, dated 17th December 2004, where Asian Indians were compared to Asians, and the rest of Americans. I personally feel that, comparing the Indian and other Asian immigrants with The US citizens is something unfair. This can be explained by the fact that, the best amongst the Indian lot gets the opportunity to go abroad, with US in top preference. So it’s but natural that, the best amongst all the 1b Indians may have settled amongst the Yankees. But on the comparison chart we saw the average of US citizens, where just the best lot wasn’t considered. It showcased the proportions of the average American. So, an average American can only be compared with an average Indian, and not an average Indian settled in US. When we say that about 63% of Indians are graduates and above, we should also consider that the literacy rate back home is merely 65.4% ad that of US is 96%.
But something that satisfies is that Indians have proved to be the best immigrants amongst the lot, as they are lot better than an average Asian. The desis shine along with India.

My Poems: Great Decision

2005-03-17T10:04:00.000-08:00

GREAT DECISION!
-NIMISH INAMDAR

TROUBLED A PERSON VERY DEEP IN A THOUGHT,
WILL HIS SON FIGHT THE WAY HE FOUGHT?
TO WHICH CAREER HE WOULD LIKE TO EMBRACE?
TO ALL SUCH QUESTIONS HE HAD TO FACE.

STRUCK AN IDEA IN HIM TO FIND,
THE ROUTE OF INTEREST IN HIS SON’S MIND.
SO THAT HE CAN HELP HIM TO MOVE AHEAD,
AND SUCCESS TO HIM BE EASILY LED.

MADE SOME SPACE FOR A LONG TABLE, IN THE ROOM OF HIS SON,
BOUGHT SOME THINGS AND PLACED THEM ONE BY ONE,
AND PRETENDED TO BE OUT OF THE HOME,
SO THAT, THE SON FELT, HE IS ALONE.

HE ENTERED THE ROOM WHICH HE USED TO LOVE,
UNAWARE OF HIS FATHER SNEAKING THROUGH WINDOW,
HE PICKED UP THINGS ONE BY ONE,
MAKING HIS FATHER HIS CAREER LEARN.

FIRST HE PICKED UP THE PACK OF CARDS,
THE THING WHICH WAS TO BELIEVE – VERY HARD.
THEN HE STARTED PLACING THEM,
AS IF HE WAS PLAYING A GAMBLING GAME.

THEN HE PICKED UP THE MEDAL OF HIS FATHER,
AS TO PEOPLES’ GRIEVENCES HE USED TO BOTHER.
AND GAVE IT SUCH A PROUD LOOK,
AS TO PEOPLES’ SERVICE HE WOULD HIMSELF HOOK.

THEN TURNED HIS ATTENTION TOWARDS THE BOTTLES OF RUM.
AND DRANK THEM ALL EXCEPT FOR SOME.
FOR HIS FATHER TO SEE THIS WAS VERY HARD.
AS HE COULD NOT IMAGINE HIS SON - A DRUNKARD?

UNABLE TO STAND PROPERLY HE CAME TO THE END,
AND TO PICK UP SOME HOLY BOOKS HE REALLY DID BEND,
SAT ON A CHAIR IN VERY PIOUS MOOD,
AND READ THEM AS MUCH AS HE COULD.

“WHAT POSTER OF MY SON SHOULD I PAINT?
A GAMBLER, A DRUNKARD OR PEOPLS’ SAINT.”
WIH A BIT OF THINKING CONCLUDED THE FATHER,
HE WILL BECOME TODAYS POLITICAL LEADER.

My Poems : From Full Stop To Coma

2005-03-16T10:21:00.000-08:00

FROM FULL STOP TO COMA.
-NIMISH INAMDAR
8TH AUG 2003.

“Think again before taking any action,
Are you sure that you have to do this?
Look at the world from horizon to horizon,
There is so much that you are going to miss.”

“I don’t think that I am worth it all,
To this competition I really can not bend.
I have been a big loser in my life,
To all this I must put an end.”

“But will jumping from this mountain top,
Help me in the society to change my image?
Will I really be an ideal person?
Or no traces of me on the history page.”

“But how does that matter when I am no more?
No burden or tension of life.
I will be finally free from the people and the career,
And will no more be sitting on edge of knife.”

“But getting success was my only dream,
And I will be ending it soon.”
“But why should I think that people will need me?
As my birth was not any boon.”

“My parent have spent so hard on me,
And my returns are not even small.”
“But killing myself would waste their money?
And from where will the returns fall?”

“Standing alive I can at least work hard,
And struggle to restore my pride.
And I will give my best attempt to earn,
And will die with the satisfaction that ‘At least I tried’.”

He stood up from the rock dusting his pants
And moved ahead in a new confidence.
Was all set to face the world,
After forgetting about this incidence.

Chameli Reviews

2005-03-16T08:47:00.000-08:00

Charm Meli.
-Nimish Inamdar 23rd jan 2003.

Sadak, Chandani Bar, Market, and now Chameli. PNC has has come up with the same concept of Red Light Area with a minor change. The one night show builds up a scenario of the RLA as witnessed by a rich white-collar person.

The story starts with depressed Aman Kapoor (Rahul Bose) who sets out in his car in a stormy night to get stuck in a RLA and by fortune or misfortune, meets Chameli (Kareena Kapoor) and then the ball revolves around them. The film snatches out the human out of the sex worker. “Even we have hearts” is the motto carved by the film.

In the first half the script dialogues Chameli. It’s all about her life, her family, her friends and her approach to life. The crew has successfully managed to create a sympathetic angle in the life of Chameli. The second half is basically tussle of Aman’s and Chameli’s life as the former encounters the daily problems of the later. He spends heavily, bears all the abuses, beatings, and yes influence, in order to save her. At this point the cupid strikes and brings some light in Aman’s darkened life. This part of the film encarves “Even we have hearts and we do care.”

The plot seems to be good with good direction, and a realistic approach. Everyone from the cast are good enough to portray their characters. The film reviews were flooded with the story that Kareena Kapoor was brilliant in her role. I would like to back out from this. At no point in the film did I notice that her acting was natural, and meant to perform as Chameli. According to me she is not yet fully matured enough to understand and carry this type of role. Such roles of sympathy always prove beneficial in career of any actress, and its this stage when they declare themselves to be away from the mainstream cinema. But in case of Kareena, I think her stage is still to run amongst the trees and sing songs. Cause more than acting her selling point is glamour, and its better she concentrates on that rather that choosing “meaningful” roles.

Lakshya Review

2005-03-16T05:50:00.000-08:00

Bollywood to unveil new “Lakshya”.
-Nimish Inamdar (21st June 2004)

The year was 1999, when the whole of the nation was closely monitoring the northern part of India, as the Indian army faced the enemy bullets to conquer the lost land. The phase popularly known as the Kargil war, had shown its effect on every part of our country, and as everyone predicted we couldn’t just exclude our very own film industry from this impact.

Our film industry, popularly christened as the Bollywood, tries it’s best to project a love story in every possible background, and even army is not spared from it. In Bollywood movies focusing an Indian war, more than the conflict between the two forces, the conflict in the army mind between love for nation and love for wife, family, fiancée, or friends catches the center stage. This scenario is also repeated for the Kargil war. As expected, one of the great filmmakers, Mr.J.P.Dutta made a film L.O.C. and gave an unusual equation to the industry, that number of stars in a movie is inversely proportional to the success of the movie. Perhaps it was due to this that Farhan Akhtar learnt a lesson and made a film with lesser number of stars as compared to his first movie.

But that formula didn’t work effectively in Farhan’s new venture, Lakshya. Although he has made a good impressive movie, still it was well below his standards. Someone would have been expecting something still better from the writer and director of Dil Chahata Hai. It seems that Farhaan is now bending towards the mainstream cinema, which has the same regular masala.

The story starts with Karan (Hritik Roshan), a college going guy, without any goal, or obsession in life. The ball continuously revolves around Hritik, when he gets inspired to join the army by Romila (Priety Zinta), and his passion to become an army man changes his personality, and attitude to look through life. This breakthrough, gives him an opportunity to display his talents on the battlefield of point 5179 in the Kagil war.

Although Hritik has managed to outperform his previous performances, in the second half, he is not completely convincing in the first half of the movie. He seems to carry the same trait of his previous movie (Koi Mil Gaya) where he acts as a mentally retarded person. So either he has overacted his role, or else his character is not made clear in the movie, since he is certainly not a mentally retarded person in Lakshya. Preity has managed to get the Barkha Dutt approach, in her journalist’s character, Romila. To my surprise big B, playing Colonel Sunil Damle, doesn’t have much of footage in the film.

The presentation of the film is excellent. Especially the war scenes shot with great accuracy does bring the audience closer to reality. The effort taken in the side of Computer Graphics is all worth it, as the Helicopters hovering the Kargil sky, the hiking of Karan and his fellow mates, and many other sequences as a part of Operation Vijay monitored on the computer, have managed to give a real life tinge.

I remember a widow of a martyr on the Kargil field relating her husband’s death, to J.P.Dutta, as it was his movie Border, to encourage the soldier to join the army. Well what can I say about Lakshya is that it could just encourage still more people to sacrifice their lives on the battlefield for their motherland. The impact of Hindi films on the peoples’ mind, is sure to set new “Lakshya” for it’s ever wanting audiences.

Swades Review

2005-03-16T05:45:00.000-08:00

WE THE PEOPLE
-Nimish Inamdar. 30 December 2004.

“Don’t forget Captain Russell that you are here to fill the treasury of the Queen!”
“I beg your pardon sir! But that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
These were the words scripted by Aushutosh Gowariker in his previous mega hit Lagaan. There he was talking about the Economic Drain. Many great Indian thinkers of the British era pondered on this issue viz. The Great Economic Drain. Now it seems that writer, director turned producer wants to amplify the existing buzz of a more serious threat to the nation, and that is of The Brain Drain. That’s how his new venture Swades was made.

Swades begins with Mohan Bhargav, a NASA scientists dealing currently as a project manager of a very important satellite that will help him create a mark on his dreamland. But Mohan isn’t much aware about his connectivity back home. But one thought always bothers him, and that is about his childhood Dai (care-taker) or Kaveri Amma, for whom he crosses the seven seas in order to bear his responsibility to take care of his Kaveri Amma from henceforth. But none other than Mohan’s childhood friend, Geeta, also equally loves Kaveri and both want their share of her pie. In this tussle, chemistry strikes between Mohan and Geeta and they fall in love. But Mohan also falls in love with his motherland, and especially the small village called Charanpur where Kaveri Amma along with Geeta is residing, and where Mohan works passionately in order to bring out a permanent solution to the electricity problem, becoming a undisputed hero.

What’s the best thing captured by the director? Well the answer is nor NASA, neither the USA but Charanpur. The movie has brought you the best possible glimpse of a typical Indian village scene, and there lies the genius of Ashutosh Gowariker. Shah Rukh Khan has given his best performance so far. The model turned actress Gayatri Joshi is also nowhere less than brilliance, may it be in acting, dancing or fully understanding the character of Geeta.

“Our lamp giving light to the neighbor’s home” isn’t the only motto carved by Swades but more importantly it creates a sense of independence amongst us all. If the government doesn’t act then it’s we, the people who should work for our own good, or else we will be habitual to the darkness of night. Country’s progress doesn’t solely rely on GDP, but the upbringing of the downtrodden villages. Although the movie has very few areas to be compared with previous film of the director, I should say that there isn’t much “Lagaan” effect in the movie. The movie has very less enthusiasm and comparatively less energy. Even few of the songs are inappropriately fitted, which creates few boring spots in the movie.

But looking at large the film is good, well thought and very well directed and I can rate it as a must see one, if not then at least once. After all it’s about We, The People.

welcome to my blog

2005-03-16T05:37:00.000-08:00

50000 graduate each year and few hundred companies to employ.
When few do sincere efforts others insert some ploy.
Growing technology, collapsing world too many people we meet.
Growing population, increased communication,
The hell!!! There’s no place to keep our feet.

Living in today’s fiercely competitive world is not an easy task, as at every nook and corner we face identity crises. Today is an era where people find space crunch, mentally, physically, economically but not virtually. The future is a virtual world and this is where people will find their own space. Here as I make my own website I engrave my first flag in this inviting world.

Welcome to my blog.
Am I a flirt? Am I full of dirt? Am I cool? Am I a fool? Am I full of fun? Or hot tempered as sun? This is where you get to write anything you feel about me as well as about my blog.

Thank you once again for visiting my blog.

NImish

2005-02-05T04:00:00.000-08:00

hi there