2 States - A Book Review

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

[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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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'

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

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

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

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

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??

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”