Chamunda Speaks Out...

My poetry – or my brief encounter with poetry during my school days!

2011-12-10T16:55:00.001+05:30

We all know about Ayodhya dispute, and what happened on 6th December 1992, and after that as well! For me, it was the day when I felt bad of being a Hindu, otherwise I was and am proud of being a Hindu. But that incident was not just a black day on Indian history, but also on Hindu culture! I know different people have different opinion, and I do respect those. But when opinion becomes action, against other community, then its no longer an opinion, but becomes terrorism. And on that day, we saw the terrorist face of Hindu. That incident was also a start of Pakistan supported terrorist activities in other parts of India. Prior to that, the terrorist were limited to Panjab, Kashmir and some part of North-East. Prior to that, the justification against India was limited to these regions, but then, post 6th December 1992, we gave justifications to the youth of all across India, to get influenced by Pakistan, and start supporting terrorist activities. But this post is not related to that, so I will limit myself here.

I was in school, and I wrote a small poem in Hindi, on 31st October 1989, 3 years prior to the actual demolition. Those were the days when Ayodhya was main topic, and was every day on the front page of newspapers. I saw that poem tucked somewhere in my old diary, and thought of sharing this. Its about request from God to all, for not taking the route of violence! But it seems we did not listen to our God, and went ahead with bloodshed of our brothers!

ये हिन्दू ये मुसलमान, आपस में लड़ रहे है,
बिन बात के झगड़े पर, क्यों ये झगड़ रहे है?

मंदिर हो या मस्जिद, क्या फर्क पड़ता है,
इबादत तो सब उसी, ऊपर वाले की करता है.

कोई खुदा कोई उसे, कहता है भगवान,
पर उसकी नजर में तो, हम सब है एक सामान.

हिन्दू मुस्लिम उसकी तो, दो अलग अलग संतान है,
पर दोनों के प्रति उसका, प्यार एक सामान है.

चाहे मंदिर में पूजन हो, या मस्जिद में अज़ान,
सबकुछ वो स्वीकार करता, देता है सबको वरदान.

आज किसका वो पक्ष ले, किसे दे अयोध्या का स्थान,
इसलिए वो विनती करता, सुनो सभी लगाकर ध्यान.

हिन्दू हो या मुस्लमान, सुन ले आज ये बात सभी,
ऐसी मंदिर मस्जिद, नहीं चाहिए मुझे कभी.

दंगो और फसादों से, जिसकी हो बुनियाद खड़ी,
और जिसकी हर दीवार, लहू से हो रंगी पड़ी.

मैंने अयोध्या में नहीं, इस विश्व में जन्म लिया था,
सिर्फ अयोध्या को नहीं, पुरे विश्व को ज्ञान दिया था.

कही मुहम्मद कहलाता हु, कही मुझे है राम वे कहते,
चाहे किसी विधि से हो, पूजा का ही काम वे करते.

हिन्दू हो या मुस्लमान हो, सिख हो या इसाई हो,
सभी मेरे ही बच्चे हो, सभी आपस में भाई हो.

इसलिए ए धरती वालो, मत लड़ो तुम आपस में,
अपने अपने गुस्से को, रखना सीखो, अपने बस में.

तुन आपस में लड़ कर, क्या सुख शांति से रह पाओगे?
अपने लहू भरे हांथो से, क्या मेरी इबादत कर पाओगे?

सच्चे दिल से तुम मेरी, कही भी पूजा कर सकते हो,
मेरे मन को तुम अपने, श्रद्धा भक्ति से भर सकते हो.

किसी पूजा की विधि पर, प्रसन्न नहीं मैं हो सकता,
पर इबादत करने वालो की, श्रद्धा का हु मान मै रखता.

इसलिए ए धरती वालो, अयोध्या का विवाद छोड़ो,
सुख शांति से रहना सीखो, हैवानियत से मुख मोड़ो.

तभी खुदा होगा प्रसन्न, और खुश होगा भगवान,
सुख और समृधि का, तुमको वो देगा वरदान.

This may not look good, by the actual standard of poetry, but remember I am not a poet, and written it long back, at the age of 17 only. So, considering that, I think it is good, and inspired by the time we lived in those days. So, thought of sharing it on my blog today, so that even if the paper in my old diary does not hold good for the days to come, this will keep me reminding the days we have faced in our life!

Life & Tunnel - A Pictorial

2011-12-03T10:35:00.001+05:30

About two months back, I went on to a 3 day trip to Pune. It was a family visit to meet my friend and spend some time in a resort for both of our families, catch up on old times, have fun with our kids! That was a good experience, but I am not talking about the fun we had together. While returning back, I clicked few pictures on the Pune - Mumbai expressway, and came across some wild thoughts. This post is about one of such wild thought. Its about life, and how we don't prepare ourselves for dark days in life! We are so careless and carefree, its like the story The Ant and the Grasshopper, and we all behave like the Grasshopper, hoping that nothing will change, and our good times in life will continue!

Let's move to the pictorial, and then we will continue with the text.

Sometimes, we are so busy looking at around us, enjoying our life....we forgot to look ahead...

...that there might be a tunnel ahead... and we did not plan for it....

...initially life looks brighter in tunnel as well... but we do not see the light at the end of tunnel....

...and slowly the light starts dimming... with still no light at the end of tunnel...

...most of the time, we only woke up to realise the problems in life, when the lights are very dim, and its almost dark... with still no light at the end of tunnel....

...But trust in GOD, perform your duty truthfully, do not hurt others, and believe in yourself! There will be light at the end of tunnel! The phase we spend in tunnel might seems like a lifetime, but once we are out of it, things will be different, our perspective to look at the life will be different!

So, we are back from the pictorial, and I don't think I need to explain anything after the pics and captions. Our life is full of surprises, and uncertainties. So, we should always be ready to fight any adverse situation, as that is called life. But when we are in the good phase of life, we just think that this time will keep on continuing, not knowing that its a cycle, and no one knows the status of road ahead! We all have heard about the story of Grasshopper, and what happened to him, but still we all think that it will not happen to us, even if we live our life as that Grasshopper.

In today's fast track world, we are becoming self-centred, and do not think much about what is happening with others around us! We enjoy our life with those who are also enjoying, and leave those who are left behind or just having a bad time in their life! But we should know that there may be a time when we will be having a bad phase in our life, and needs support from others! So, it is very important for all of us to take a step back, look at our life, the way we are living it, and take the corrective action before its too late. I am no expert in this field, and in the same place with all of us Grasshoppers here. So, I don’t think I can provide a full proof plan or solution. I just started thinking about it now, and whatever I thought of, can only give you that. But I have only just thought about it, not yet implemented in my life, as it may take some time to change a lifestyle, but I am definitely going to try my best!

Need vs want

The lifestyle we have, is full of greed. We are not needy, but greedy! We want all the expensive things in life, cloths, gadgets, cars, and forgets that life is not about buying expensive and new things, but about enjoying it! If we look at the kids, you give them expensive toys, but they can play with the empty carton box of the toy with same joy and enjoyment! So, its about enjoying life with the need, and not with greed! As greed can never let you enjoy things for long. You get a new Car, but very soon another car will be launched with more features, and you start thinking, I should have waited! This applies to everything we buy! So, why not think about our need, and go for something which is really needed, and then be happy about satisfying our need, rather than getting us something we don’t need, but we want! Next time think – You need it or you want it?

Friends & Family

Make sure you care about your friends and family. They are the one who can stand by you when you need someone! The more we grow; we keep on adding friends, but don’t leave the old friends behind! Try to be in touch with all the friends you made in past. Same goes for family, we take them for granted, and don’t care about them. We need to change our attitude!

Learning never stops

We have to keep updating our knowledge, skills and be ready for all kind of change. The world we live in is very dynamic, and things change so rapidely, we hardly have the time to catch-up. So, learning should never stop! This also helps us believe in self and boost our confidence in life!

I only have the above three points so far, but I am sure it is not the full list. Do let me know if you think of more, as it will help me transform my life from a Grasshopper to a person. Now going to enjoy a lazy afternoon with kids!

How Ra.One should have been made!

2011-10-29T16:17:00.001+05:30

After watching Ra.One last night, I was disappointed, not because I am a fan of SRK, but because I am a fan of Sci-Fi, Superhero, Special Effect movies, and wanted this one to be a record breaker, so that more such movies can be made in India! But this movie is nothing except copy of various Hollywood superhero movies. We have seen Terminator 2, which is the main copy for the story of Ra.One, where a villain comes from another dimension (from future in T2 and from game in Ra.One) to kill the boy, and hero also comes from the same dimension to save the kid. Then, we have seen Iron Man with heart, Tron with the costume, Spiderman with the train sequence, and Speed with the train sequence on road. There are more in Ra.One, and I am sure we all have seen these movies, and remember these sequences. So, while disappointed, I thought of writing my own review of this movie, so read on, and don’t worry about spoilers, as there is very little original in the movie, so even if you don’t read this, I can assure you, that while watching the movie, you will remember all these sequences and felt like seen this movie earlier.

The Original

Ok, I have spoken about a lot of copied stuff above, so what is original in this movie? There are few small original pieces, wasted in the movie. Like Ra.One the character, he is ultimate villain, and chances of hero beating him are 0.01%, which is cool. But the problem is, G.One has beaten him in the movie, whenever they fought, so what is with this 0.01% probability? Error in calculation maybe?

Although the train sequence was copies, but destroying Mumbai CST was a well thought and well executed sequence, but again, wasted. If they have to destroy this building, they should have shown the final fight there, and destroyed it in style! Also, the entry of Lord Ganesh is very original, but funny too.

The sequence with Desi Girl, Khalnayak and Lucifer seems original to me, not sure if that was copied from somewhere, but they should have avoided “Iskee Lee”, “Uskee Lee” and “Sabkee Lee” in this movie targeted for kids. But more of that in another section of this review.

The Story

They should have come up with some original storyline! Its like watching remix of various Hollywood Sci-Fi movies, with the base story directly lifted from T2! So, nothing original here, its seen that liked that, thank you, don’t want a desi version! Disappointed…

The Characters

Ra.One

Very few scenes where he is Arjun Rampal, and the best dialogue “Tum Ravan ko har saal isliye jalate ho, kyoki tum Ravan ko maar nahi sakte!” was wasted! He told this to a bunch of kids, who did not even bother to listen to the full dialogue, and left before he can finish it off with “Jo mar jaata hai, use baar baar marne kee jarurat nahi hoti”.. or something like that. This could have been in front of G.One, and not completely out of nowhere, without any situation!

G.One

Was he there in the movie? All I could see was SRK, and that is why no big star should do a super hero. We should leave it to professionals, who can act the character, and not the star!

Chitti

Yes, he came, he rule, and before we know, he is gone! There should be more of Chitti!

Rest

Yes, rest all characters were ok in their role. Nothing to mention about.

Comedy

Cheap comedy, was not able to laugh even once! All these comic situations were old, and already seen somewhere else, including Jackie Chan movies. So, nothing worth mentioning.

Action

Action was good, but nothing original in it. So, you may like it, but feel cheated as you have seen such sequence somewhere else, with better effects!

Special Effects

So far, best we have seen in India, and hats off to SRK for showing that we also can do such thing. This is the only plus point of the movie. Special mention to the destruction of Mumbai CST station and the train sequence.

The censor certificate / Parental Guidance

Ok, this is “U” certificate movie, so everyone can see this. But, I don’t think this should have been given “U” certificate, as it is a PG13 movie, or for India, it is “U/A” certificate. There are few dialogues and sequences in the movie, which you may not want your kids to watch. Specially, you don’t want you kids to start imitating SRK and doing Power Yoga in the house. Below are the list you need to know, before you decide to take your kids to this movie:

SRK the father throws keys and it lands in between cleavage of some firang and then there is one minute issue about it with the women showing lot of cleavage.
In some classroom, there is this “humorous” scene where the black, fat teacher is made fun of when her video of doing pole dancing is shown. She is revealing quite massive cleavage there.
SRK places his hand on Kareena’s boob and some 1/2 min issue is made about it. Don’t touch me and stuff.
Airport checking scene. Gay jokes. A male security guard makes SRK take his shirt off, and licks his lips seductively at the sight of SRK’s pierced nipples.
Three times hitting on private parts. G.one literally is holding Ra.one’s crotch and Ra.one asks “ye tum kya kar rahe ho”.
Condom Condom jokes, atleast I counted three times. Kareena says Condom Condom for Kunjam Kunjam, then SRK shows Condom ad to recharge Kareena’s “Moods”, and then SRK’s son jokingly says Condom Condom when he meant Kunjam Kunjam.
SRK spanking Kareena’s ass and says “Good Job Babe!”
Criminal Song – enough vulgarity. Kareena’s hotness distracts one though.
Our hero fights with three scantily clad Chinese babes named Iski Lee, Uski Lee & Sabki Lee.
Kareena writing a book on “Gali” and keep on mentioning “Tere Baap Ka …”, “Tere Bhai Ka…” etc
G.One starts doing hump throughout the corridor, and Kareena explain this to her neighbour as Power Yoga, which he takes seductively and start doing it himself with calling his wife..”here I come”

Well, the above list may sound very bad, its not so bad in the movie, and kids may enjoy the movie without even noticing these. But as IMDB does not provide such information to parents, and our censorboard has gone ahead with “U” certificate, I felt like putting this down for all the parents. You can decide on your own, based on the above information, to take your kids. If you ask me, avoid the kids between 10 to 12, if you think they do not know about these things. Below 10 is fine, and above 12 is anyway fine ;-)

My Opinion

I, like others, had a lot of expectation from this movie. But it is a total disappointment. I would still suggest one time watch for the special effects in this movie.

What I wanted to see

Ok, here are my two cents, if I would have got a chance to suggest SRK about the story.

First of all, there was no need to kill the father. Why can’t SRK the father fights SRK the Ra.One, to save his child? Yeah, copy of Robot, but with a difference, here is how:

SRK do not share a good relation with his son, and wants his son to like him
His son like Villains, and wants a stronger villain
SRK goes on to build a game, where Ra.One the villain is more powerful that hero, and give his face to the villain, so that his son can like him
The company also works for a secret govt project, for a virtual soldiers, and accidently a module of Artificial Intelligence is plugged into Ra.One code (this can be avoided, as it sound like a copy, but it is required to justify the game villain coming out of the game to take revenge)
Before the game testing can begin, SRK invites his son to play the game
The game has ten levels, where hero fights with Ra.One in each level, and Ra.One has just one power in first level, then one more power added to the second level, and by tenth level, he has 10 different powers. This should have justified the concept of Ravan as well.
SRK’s son beats Ra.One till 8th level, and then leaves the game, but Ra.One is not satisfied, and with the AI module built in, the concept of finishing this to the end kicked into Ra.One’s command.
The villain comes out of the game, to complete the game with Lucifier, SRK’s son, by killing him
The next three level’s are played at real world, with SRK the father playing as hero to SRK the villain.
SRK son likes the cool Ra.One, but soon realise that he is after his life, when his father saves him, in the 9th level, but one of the game developer (a friendly uncle of SRK's son) died in the fight!
There will be emotional scenes, where his son now realise that villains are not good, and he should be supporting and helping the hero, in this case, his father, as hero do sacrifices, do all good work and if he needs to be someone, it should be a hero like his father, and not like villain like Ra.One
SRK the father gets help from his son, who knows the rules of virtual world, to fight back in the climax, the 10th level, where he is the good one, the hero, and he face the villain, with all his 10 different powers!
He almost lost this battle, but they found the weak spot (like Ravan’s in Ramayana) of Ra.One to hit, and that saves the day.

This could have been a hell of the movie, with super hero, kickass villain, emotional journey of father and son all combined in one package! But this is just wishes…. Only if SRK has additional footage which can be edited to make a fanedit movie like the above….

I am not Anna!

2011-08-25T14:30:00.000+05:30

Anna Hazare is everywhere, you open up any newspaper, any news channel, he is there! The shots from news clippings show you that Anna has support of all India! You will see a lot of people on Ramlila ground in his support! Today is 10^th Day of his fast for Jan Lokpal Bill. People all over holding protest march, candle march, shouting slogans like Vande Mataram, Bharat mata Kee Jai! People have cap or T-shirt written all over – I am Anna! So, it’s all Anna fever for the last 10 days, and not sure how many more days it will continue!

But I am not Anna! And I do not want to be Anna! I do not support Anna’s movement! Don’t be surprised by this, as my last post was in April, and it was about Anna, whereas I supported him! So, why am I not supporting him now? Because I have my own eyes, my own mind and I can think, I can decide what is right and what is wrong! When he was right, I supported him, but when he is wrong, I am not supporting him, simple! Isn’t it?

Now the second question is, why do I think he is not right this time? When there are so much support from public, media and social networking, why my thinking is different? And that is why I needed this Blog, as I had some interesting debate on Facebook, and thought that it’s better to write it in Blog, than post it in bits and pieces over Facebook.

I admire Anna for bringing this bill in front and so close to getting into a law, which was ignored for such a long period. He did the right thing, and we Indians are thankful to him for that. But, this time, he has gone a little far. He is now proposing something, which cannot be done as per our constitution. And as a republic, the largest democracy of the world, we cannot let this happen!

Anna wants his bill to be passed as law, bypassing all process which is written in our constitution! This is anti-national activity! This is not expected out of people like Anna Hazare or Kiran Bedi!

People argue that public is with Anna! Where is this public? At Ramlila ground? On the street at various cities? How many are we talking about here? 10 Lakhs? 20 Lakhs? 50 Lakhs? But we are talking about 125Cr Indians, and we are talking about Parliament, which is the house of public’s selected representatives! We the people of India have selected them all to run this country, and they represent India, not Anna! Anna should understand that Govt is selected by people, whatever flowed process it is, but it’s based on our constitution, and Anna only have support from max 5% of the population? That too is questionable! So, he does not represent India, he is not India. He is another social activist, and was doing a good job of bringing this bill into limelight. He should have put pressure on govt to pass it asap. But bypassing all democratic process is very dangerous and can lead to much complicated similar campaigns in future! There will be many more people, who have public support - for example, Kashmir freedom, and can come down on street quoting Anna! That is why I do not support his movement.

Again, there are arguments about all our politicians are corrupt and they will not let this bill pass. But who are these politicians? Who selected them? It’s the same people who are now supporting Anna! If we are saying that we did not select or support right people for last 64 years, what is the guarantee that this time we are supporting correct team? And, if we call for support to Anna, let him form a political party, with all clean people, run for election, and then form a government! If he really has support of India, there should not be any issue with this. Then why this arm-twisting going on at Ramlila ground? Is it because he and his team know that they cannot do this under oath of the government? Because it will not be possible for any government to pass any law like this? But if this is the case, and Anna knows about this, why is he on fast? What will he get out of it? I don’t think he has any ambitions to become politician or minister! What I do not understand is, why he is doing this, knowing that his demand is not possible! Or, does he really know this? Maybe his team has not informed him with the practicality of the situation!

I have spoken to a lot of supporters of Anna, and most has one thing in common, they think that India’s complete system is corrupt, starting from ministers, judiciary, and departments, everyone is corrupt and there is no hope for anything! Some even argue that the democratic process of election is not able to select right candidates! But they fail to understand, that when we talk about the whole system, it includes us as well! Who are these people we are calling corrupt? Police? Judge? Railway ticket checker? Babu in govt office? They are all Indians, and they are all part of our society! So, if they are corrupt, means we are corrupt! And this fight is against us, not against handful of leaders! And, we all are corrupt, believe me, it will be very hard to find someone who has not paid money to get something done in his or her entire life! We encourage corruption, and now we are fighting against it!

But again, I do support fight against corruption, but I respect my country, and I respect my freedom. I do not want that freedom to be taken away by anyone! And what Anna wants, is to take that freedom away! A bill prepared by few individuals without any proper public support, converted into law without any debate or discussion? This is extremist and not democratic! If this happens, we will have to justify similar other public movement. We will have to justify Babri, Kashmir, Khalistan, 1984, ULFA, LTTE, Jharkhand and many for decades. All these have support of LAKHS. 1000s sacrificed their life. But these are undemocratic demands, and that’s what Anna is doing right now!

Let’s hope Anna end his fast and let the real representatives of public, the parliament decide about the bill. His bill can be presented for debate in parliament by any MP. And I am sure he will find one good MP out of 550 to do so.

Annaji, please end your fast, as your current demand is not going to be met, not because it is not right, but because it is unconstitutional, and no government, even if they want, can do that. If government wants to pass your bill, it still has to go through Standing Committee. Your demands are not practical, and it cannot be met. So, please do not continue with your fast.

Anna Hazare – and various methods of protest!

2011-04-09T10:20:00.000+05:30

Anna is going to break his 5 day fast today! He finally, got the government to agree on Jan Lokpal bill. I am not here to argue if the bill is perfect or as Government was quoting since Anna started his fast, the bill is not correct in its current form. All I know was that there is a draft, and it was side-lined for some time by our politicians. Anna forced them to get it back in limelight, and discuss, fix, implement it. This is what according to me he wanted, and he got it.

This article is about how he got it, and not what he got it. Anna went on fast unto death from 5th April 2011. Remember, he is 72 years old. Initially, he was ridiculed by government, opposition tried to cash-in by offering support to him, but he refused the political support, and continued with his fast. Media loves such news stories, and in no time he was on every news channel, on front page of every newspaper! Then started social network support, people started posting about him and the protest on FaceBook, Twitter etc, showing support for him. Few organisation organised protest march, candle lighting etc peaceful protests to show support in Anna. This got more momentum, and in no time, he is the biggest news of the nation! We forgot about our World Cup victory a week ago, everyone was talking about Anna! Common Men, Politicians, Celebrities, everyone was kind of supporting Anna and his cause, except people in Government. But we knew that with such kind of people support, and states poll around the corner, Government will have to find a solution for this. That’s exactly what happened!

So, if you remember my earlier article, about Gandhi, I don’t believe that Gandhi’s way of protest will work in today’s world. But then how Anna is able to pull it off? And it’s not the first time he has done it this way! This prompted me to re-think the whole protest model, and how it works in modern times!

We have 3 different protest model, we can always create sub-models under each of these, but on broader category, its mainly 3 models:

A cause to kill for
A cause to die for
A cause to protest for

I know the above sound confusing, but let me explain each one by example:

1. A cause to kill for

This is the type of protest when you just go out and kill the accused! Its quick justice! This is most useful when you don’t have any trust in the corrupt system. There are various examples of this type of protests, including freedom fighters like Azad, Bhagat Singh, today’s Maoists, to some extent.

2. A cause to die for

This is Gandhi’s way of protest! You should be ready to die for the protest. Don’t compromise, and protest until you get your way or you die! Be it fast unto death or getting beaten up by police, still continuing with protest! Anna has choses this path.

3. A cause to protest for

This is the most popular method of protest in modern world! Almost 99% of people use this kind of protest. This is the most flexible and easiest path as well. This is the middle path of both kill for and die for! How it works? Easy, you want to protest, do whatever you can to protest, and once you reach your limit, back-off, adjust and get on with your life! You will be satisfied that you raised your concern, but somehow the whole system is corrupt or incapable of, so no one listen to you. Also, this “whatever you can” is a very big terminology. It includes taking legal action, putting road blocks, disrupting trains/traffic, forcing others to close offices/shops, destroying public property, beating up innocent people, it even includes killing innocent people! Whenever there is a call for one day strike, this kind of protest! Whenever you see buses being burnt or trains held up, this kind of protest! Whenever you read about terrorists killed innocent people, this time of protest! Whenever you read about moral police beating up people on Valentine’s day, this type of protest! I think you got the picture!

You may ask me to split the 3rd into different parts, or object putting terrorists with our politicians or moral police. But for me, both are equal, terrorist killing innocent people, and someone destroying public property. They both should be treated like terrorists only. But again, this is not something we are discussing today.

Coming back to the main point, Anna Hazare, and his method of protest. He chooses the Gandhi style, “a cause to die for”, and succeeded. But, he only succeeded because there were support from media and public. There was the poll factor as well, which prompted Government to take quick action and avoid public outcry. But all this only happens because Anna was ready to die for! He could have died had it not been supported by media and public! But he was prepared for it. So, it’s not that Gandhi’s style of protest will work, it may work, if backed by proper media coverage, and organising public support around it. But still, there is limitation for this protest method. You can protest against a lawful agency using this method. You cannot protest against Maoist if they kidnapped someone, as they will kidnap you as well, and force you to eat something, breaking your fast. Or there is high chance that they may kill you, killing the protest immediately. So, for any agency or organisation which respects law, this method can be used for protest. But success can only depend on your determination, if you are ready to die for it or not! Anna is successful in getting the government to bow down and agree on the bill. But there are others, who tried and failed on this method. I am not sure if you remember, Mamta Banerjee tried this fast unto death for Singur issue in 1996. The state government did not listen to her. They simply choose to ignore her fast! There was public support, full media coverage and the drama lasted for 25 days. She finally called off her fast on the basis of “personal appeals” of Prime Minister and President (neither of them visited her). There are various other examples where people may have hospitalised, and no one cared during the fast unto death protest! So, don’t put your hope too high, as this is not the sure shot success method of protest. Well, like I said, if you are ready to die for, then you may get justice, after your death. Like the case of Mamta Banerjee, had she continued for more days, and died, there was no way Left would even be able to claim victory in West Bengal. The ruling party may have finished forever! But, was she prepared to die for the cause? I didn’t think so, and now I know she was not. So, she opted for 3rd method, do whatever you can (fast) and then back-off (call-off), get on!

Before I end this article, would like to mention a little perspective on corruption, as Anna was fighting for the bill against corruption, and there were thousands like us supporting him in this cause.

We all are corrupt, and help nourish the corruption in our society. We always look for short cuts by using money or influence. We ask traffic police to take some bribe and leave us without the penalty. We pay donation money to schools for our kid’s admission. So, it’s not our leaders, it’s not our bureaucrats, but it’s us who are corrupt. I know about the scams, and how corrupt our politicians are, but let’s not forget our own mistakes. Do we have any right to stand up and say “Mera Neta Chor Hai” (My Politician is a thief)? How can a Pot calls Kettle Black? We are same like our Politicians! I fully support Anna and his cause, but that according to me is just one small step in right direction. If we need to eradicate corruption, we need to change. We, the people of India, need to stop paying bribe, stop helping corruption, stop tolerating irregularities. Until and unless, we step up, corruption will continue to grow, as we are nourishing it! So, you need to fight the same battle Anna has fought with government, but this time it’s with yourself, to clean yourself from corruption, then only you can fight against it! But the problem with all of us is, we all know we are corrupt, we accept it. We have multiple excuses for being corrupt as well. We also support Anna in his anti-corruption cause. So, we are in both the camps, and when the main support of Anti-corruption front is corrupt, this front will never succeed. So, we only have two choices – accept corruption as part of our society or fight against it. We cannot accept corruption in society by paying bribe/donation, and still fight against it! But that’s what people are doing today with Anna! I am sorry Anna, but I can only give you moral support, as I am a corrupt person, and has not been able to win in my own internal fight to eradicate corruption from me!

World Cup 2011 – We won it this time!

2011-04-03T10:56:00.001+05:30

I was there, in 1983, when India won their first ever Cricket World Cup by defeating West Indies. We Indian believed in our heart, that we can do it, but in our mind, we were not 100% sure, if India can defeat two times World Champion, in the final of World Cup! But the underdog did it and lifts the cup! I still remember those days, when there was no live telecast, and radio was the only hope for us. But, it was 1983, so radio also gave you live commentary till midnight, and then goes silent. No, the match continues, and commentary will be transmitted from the ground, but our very own AIR (All India Radio) will just record it, and not transmit it post-midnight. Why? I still don’t know after 28 years. Maybe back then, there was no culture of overnight shift, or it was thought that people will not be awake, even for World Cup Cricket, and India playing in final, post-midnight. So, the arrangement was that the commentary of post-midnight will be recorded, and replayed, as it is, from 4 AM onward. So, in those days, you have only option of getting the outcome of the game was in the evening, when AIR or our very own DoorDarshan airs their daily news, or if you are not privileged one with radio set or a TV, wait till next day to read it in the newspapers. So, we all Cricket fans listen to radio till mid-night, and then sleep with alarm to wake up and start listening to the recorded commentary from 4 AM, cheering to every ball, which has already bowled 4 hours earlier! That’s how we celebrated our victory in 1983!

But 2011 is different, India is no underdog anymore! We are hosting the World Cup! We are one of the front-runners for the cup! And 28 years later, every ball is watched live by billions of Indian across the globe! It’s not only telecast live by our DoorDarshan, but also on 2 private sports channels! The same feed is used on both private channels, but one with Hindi commentary, to cater the Hindi speaking millions of viewer! We saw Sri Lanka struggle to get them to a decent score, we saw Mahela Jayawardene knocking a century, we saw Sreesanth getting a bearing in his every over, we saw 66 runs in last 5 overs, we got worried as the target becomes 275, from what we expected (by the game till 45th over) to be 230 max.

Then we got shocked by Sehwag getting out on just second ball of the match, with score of 0-1 in just 0.2 overs. We got into real depression when it was 31-2 with Sachin got out! It was almost over for India! We were hoping at least 150 from both Sachin and Sehwag! Losing both so early in the game, with such a high target to achieve, it seems impossible! Most of us lost our hope! It looks like a one sided game, a repeat of Eden Garden India-Sri Lanka Semi Final match in 1996! For those who don’t remember, that match was called off and Sri Lanka was awarded the match, pushing them to Final, where they defeated Australia to win their first World Cup. The reason for calling off that match was score of India 120 for 8 wickets in just 34.1 overs! The viewers in stadium started throwing stuff at players, because they could not stand the pathetic situation of Indian team. I know that was not sporting at all, and I still think that was a black day for Cricket, especially because it happened in Kolkata, my city! But coming back to 2011, it looked like we are going for the same repeat, and will be done by 35-38 overs! BUT!!! Well, you know the meaning of this “BUT”, you must have watched it! India, coming back into the game, with Gambhir and Kohli staying on firm ground, keeping the asking run rate under control, and not showing any pressure of having lost 2 (most) important wickets in just six overs! Then after Ganbhir got out, by his own mistake, just 4 runs away from his century, we saw entry of Dhoni! Another setback for us, as Dhoni has not played good in any of this World Cup matches! Why Dhoni now? Send Yuvi! We need Yuvi here to hit hard! That was the voices coming out of our heart! But, Dhoni has something else in his mind! He took charge of what Ganbhir left, and stayed till the end, to hit the winning six for India!

So, after 28 long years, we won the World Cup again! Dhoni and his team has got a place in history, along with legends like Kapil Dev, Ravi Shastri, Sunil Gavasker and others of 1983 squad! The greatest Batsman of our time, Sachin’s dream of being part of a World Cup winning team is fulfilled! And our generation, who has only read about or told about 1983, witness the history in making! They now can understand our feelings, back in 1983!

There are two reasons which are very important in this victory of India, at least to me:

We took the cup in style, by taking our revenge on the way to the Cup! First it was current Champion Australia, who literary crushed us in 2003 World Cup Final, defeated us by 125 runs! Then it’s our Arch Rival, Pakistan! Well, Pakistan never won a World Cup match from us, but again, it was not easy! And well, any defeat of Pakistan in India Pakistan match is a treat for all Indian cricket fans! Then the final with Sri Lanka, where we needed to take revenge of our 120-8 in 34.1 overs score of 1996 World Cup Semi Final! In another word, the road to victory was not easy for India, but we not only won, we won it in Style!
It was a victory of Indian team, and an indication that we are ready to play without Sachin! Yes, I know people will not like it, but Sachin is getting old, and he has to call it off some day. We should be ready to accept that Sachin will not be in the team forever. And the final match shows that our new generation is ready to take over from Sachin. I know that we owe a lot to Sachin for our victory over Pakistan in Semi Final, but the Final displayed the courage of young blood playing under pressure, and giving victory to India!

You all know what happened after the match, the craziness on the ground, all across India, people coming out of their home on the street to celebrate! Our cell phone network were jammed, I was not able to call anyone for 20 minutes! Social Networking sites were full of updates about this! It was a combination of Holi and Deewali on the same night! India went crazy! Indian went crazy! You greet everyone you see, for the victory! The celebration continued all night long! But it’s not over yet, the celebration will continue today, and the days to come!

India has won the World Cup! Congratulations to all of us! Thank You Dhoni! Thank You India Team! We could not have asked for more!

India Pakistan World Cup Semi Final 2011 - I was there!

2011-03-31T21:15:00.005+05:30

The Planning and Ticket

It all started when my friend JD called me on Saturday, March 27, about the tickets of this game. All the news channels and newspapers are constantly telling that tickets are sold at very high premium, and not easy to get. I never planned to attend this game in the ground, as it was in Mohali, around 300km away from my place. But just knowing that JD is going, and emotionally, I too was completely attached to this game, decided why not? It took me just 5 seconds to decide about paying Rs 22,000/- for Rs 500/- ticket of this match. It’s not that I bought the ticket from black market on a premium, but ours was a package from official Tour Partner of World Cup, TUI.in, and it includes a T-Shirt, transfer from Chandigarh to Mohali and back, apart from the ticket. I know what you should be thinking after reading this, yes, we paid premium for the ticket, but at least, we did not pay it to some black marketier selling tickets on high price, illegally. So, this left us to plan for Delhi-Chandigarh travel on our own. But before that, I already started telling people (and on Facebook/Twitter) about our prized possession of tickets for this match! We got the delivery of tickets and T-shirt on 28th March, in Gurgaon only. Then we called around and got a decent deal on Cab to take us to Chandigarh and back to Gurgaon after the match. There was no option of staying in Chandigarh, as we don’t know anyone there, and all hotels were completely booked due to match. So, we knew it would be hectic, but again, it’s India vs. Pakistan in World Cup Semi Final! The Game is not on a Wednesday, but it’s on The Wednesday!

Journey to the Stadium

The excitement and the fact that we have the tickets which are sold out as high as Rs 75,000/- combined with the plan of starting at 4AM in the morning, did not let me sleep on the night before the match day. Another friend of mine, Kaushik was planning a day trip to Chandigarh, to meet his friends, so we asked him to travel with us. He was only going till Chandigarh, but it was good that he was with us, as we gave our phone to him, instead of putting it unattended without any security in the bus. We started a little late, at around 4:30AM, and drove without any stop in between for breakfast or tea or even nature calls. We were at the meeting point (Piccadilly Hotel) in Chandigarh at 9:30AM. We let the TUI guys know that we are here, and were told that the bus will leave at 11:30AM for the stadium. Then we had our tea, courtesy of TUI (I forgot to mention earlier, the package includes high tea as well).

With some time to spare, we realised that we have not taken anything with us; looking at everyone else, we realise the need of cap at least, to protect us from sun and heat. Well, we went to Sector 22 market and got us Caps, then a big 4X6 Indian Flag from Khadi Bhandar! That was the biggest flag they had in the store. So, equipped with this, we came back to the pick-up point again, only to understand that cell phones are not allowed due to security! That was a big downer for us, as we were planning to take pictures from our cell phone cameras. In fact, it’s not just cell phone, binoculars, cameras nothing electronics were allowed. There was no clarity on this, but the organisers called up their sources, plus checked with people who were at gate, already entered to understand this. At the same time, some people were claiming to have spoken with people inside the stadium with their cell phone already with them. So, the information was not clear, but again, as per the tour organisers, police was asking to throw away the battery and take the phone inside. So, according to them, if we are taking the cell phone with us, it’s on our own risk, and they suggest against it. We both had expensive phones, and don’t want to be in a position when we have to throw the batteries away (In fact, JD has iPhone, where you can’t take out the batteries). So, heart-broken, we decided not to carry our cell phone with us. This is one of the disappointments, as I don’t have a single photo of the ground or me there! It’s only in the memories, and no pic. Later we saw that security was not so rigid, and it depends on individual police to allow or not allow your cell phones. A lot of people were inside with their cell phone. We thought that we could have taken the risk. But it was too late by then.

The Security – or the lack of it

We travel to the stadium, and then walked up to the Gate 5, from which we needed to enter the arena. But the crowd was like anything. There was no queue, or to be more precise, there were multiple queues, with people pushing each other to go in, there were three checkpoints, but security was not very tight, as it was supposed to be. I don’t think you can cope up with so many people coming inside the stadium, and check every individual. I could have taken anything in my socks or shoes, as no one checked these. Also, I only saw a police checking people with metal detector, casually, and only checking the pocket area around my waist. If I had anything below my knees, he would not have known. Frisking was also going on, but limited to pockets, and was not going below Knees. There also I realised that we should have taken our cell phone with us. Some people around me took their cell phone, and no one objected. But one policeman told me that if detected, we will ask to throw the battery before you enter the arena. Both Prime Ministers were in open ground, and greeted both teams, before the start of match. With this kind of security, I think they were lucky. We went to Chandigarh, from Delhi, and there was not a single checking done of our cab throughout the journey. Then again, we went directly to the stadium, without any checking of the bus. We were inside the stadium, with very minimum security check. Maybe people in our stand were not treated as security risk, as the angle of both PMs from there was not making it an easy target. But, I still think that security was not enough.

Overall, it took us 1.5 hours to enter the stadium, due to mad rush and no order outside. I think it should have taken only 30 min, with proper queue and if the order is maintained. But again, it’s not easy to control thousands of people, especially when police don’t want to use force. I do like this about the Police, as they were trying their best to maintain order, and advising people to form a queue, to enter, no force was used. Police could have used their sticks to maintain queue, but that would be a spoilsports for the fans. So, I think they took the right decision of not using the force on public. Anyway, the only two disappointments I got with this match was that I don’t have any photo, due to my cell phone not allowed, and the way I had to push myself into mad rush of public trying to get enter, and spend 1.5 hours to get entry.

Inside the Stadium

JD and me, inside cheering one India win!

When we enter the stadium, it was already 1:15 PM, so we decided to eat something before taking our place inside. The food quality was terrible, but again, who can complain about this? Item’s rates were not very high, which explain the food quality. So, after just samosa, we decided to stick to packaged food like Chips, ice-cream etc. Water Bottles are not allowed inside the stadium, and no pouch was available, as polybags are banned there. We got into Arena at around 1:30PM, and instantly fell in love with the ground. It is a small stadium, and both India and Pakistani players were practising in the ground. We can easily see them very near to us. It was nothing like Eden Garden where you are so away from the ground, without the binoculars, you can’t identify any player. We enjoyed watching our players as Indian team was practising in our corner. Sachin was the closest of all, and you know how people are mad about him. So, the cheering and shouting were already started. Thanks to people of TUI, they were already inside and block some extra seats for us and others like us. This was good, as we were trying to find out two seats for us, and mostly we were getting one empty chair in each row. So, thanks to TUI (another worth of money we paid), we got decent seats.

The Match

India won the toss, and decided to bat first! This was no surprise, as the analysis in the morning newspaper also suggested the same thing, bat first, score at least 280 run, and bowl with attack to take wickets. Then what all happen, you know it already, you watched it on TV, or projected screen, or live streaming. If you have not seen the match, The Match, The India Pakistan Match, what the hell you are doing here? Why are you interested in reading my experience on the game?

Ok, back to the topic, the point is that there is no point writing all about the game, as it’s already known to everyone. So, I limit myself to the specifics of the game, with my experiences.

Well, the match started with all the hype, the fours, the score from Sachin and Sehwag, people cheering with every run coming out. We were 47/0, and everyone was thinking about 350 score target, then we lost Sehwag. But Ganbhir continued till some more time, before he got out as well. So, initial overs of India was great to watch, cheer, but when we started losing wickets regularly, and Yuvraj gone on first ball, it was all slow. The crowd was not finding anything to cheer about. Yes, Sachin was still on the ground, inching towards his century of century. But even Sachin’s inning was also not hard hitting or spectacular. He got multiple lifelines throughout the inning. He went out after 85 runs added to India’s score. This contribution added to the 29 run victory of India. Well, overall the middle of Indian inning was boring to watch. There were nothing to cheer about, and regular wickets made it more painful for Indian fans. Our flags were tucked. People in our stand decided to try Mexican wave. After 5-6 tries, we were successful and it started. Then almost for another hour or so, we enjoyed doing the Mexican wave. Then Raina hit some good strokes at the end, to take India at 260/9 in full 50 overs.

Thanks to Sanjay (left) who manage to get his mobile inside, for all pics

Pakistan started with the hard hitting boundaries. And after 8 overs, they were 44/0 with target of 261 looking very easy to them. I was tried, like everyone else, and the match was not going into right direction. I felt a little sleepy as well, because of no sleep last night. So, decided to get some coffee for me. As I took my coffee, crowd roared like anything. It was the first wicket of Pakistan. I rushed back into the stadium. But this has not done any major damage to Pakistan, as the game continued like before. We all were discussing that we don’t have much score, so taking wickets is the only option India has now. Again, at 15th over, I decided to get something to eat. I went out, but came back immediately as another wicket was gone. This was taken as lucky for India. The whole row as well as people in the next row up and down started telling me to take another walk and come back, every 10-15 minutes. At first, it looks odd to me, but what the hell! This is part of game, and being a cricket fan myself, we know the meaning of being lucky or unlucky for India team. So, believe me, I have not seen any wicket taken by India, apart from the last two, Gul and Misbah, as the game was already in our hand, and I don’t need to go out to help India. Also, it’s worth mentioning here that, all my visits outside the Arena took a wicket, so I can considered myself lucky for team India. Or maybe it’s the other way round. I am not lucky for India in the stadium. The earlier matches I have seen in stadium, I don’t remember India wining any of these. So, that was the reason Pakistan’s wickets were not falling when I was present in the ground.

We were not very happy in the Pakistan’s inning. The target was very close to them, and as the wicket were falling frequently, game was still interesting, but not in control of India. So, we all were worried, and even at the end also, when Misbah was playing, the crowd was not happy, as we all knew Mihbah can hit hard and turn things around even with just 1 wickets in hand. But it becomes clear in the last over, with 30 runs needed to win. The crowd went crazy on every ball of the last over. And after the last wicket, crown erupted like a volcano! I am sure all of Mohali must have heard the cheering of crown inside stadium. Everyone was yelling their lungs out! It continued till the presentation started.

The Match – beyond the game

Rahul Gandhi made an appearance in next stand, and spends some time with normal people. There were lots of police around, and noise as well. We thought that someone must be fighting over some issue, and then only Police is there. But within minutes we came to know its Rahul effect. I read in the newspaper today, that both Sonia and Rahul both sit in the common stand, but can confirm it was only Rahul, and not Sonia.

There were songs played at the end of every over, and as it’s Punjab, the songs were Bollywood hits or Punjabi songs. And what else people need, than songs to stand and start dancing? Match did not allow them to cheer much, but the songs kept us on our foot. The dancing increased with songs from Chakk De India, Lagaan, Rang De Basanti, and on Punjabi Bhangra songs.

The start of the ceremony was with both team in the ground, big flag of both teams in front of them, and the national anthem playing in the background. The first was Pakistan’s, and then it was ours. I never had an opportunity like this in my life. I was standing, along with 25,000 (minimum) people, all standing, and singing our National Anthem! This was a feeling I can never explain in words. You have to be there to experience it. For me, this was the best moment of the game. Then, again, after we won the game, the song Vande Mataram was being played. This was the A. R. Rehman version, “Maa Tujhe Salaam”, and not the original national song. But again, the whole stadium was singing along. I again felt something inside me, while singing Vande Mataram with such a big crowd! This song started just after we won the game, so this moment of winning the game and singing Vande Mataram with 25,000 more people is the second best moment for me in this game.

Cricket unites India. We did not know each other, and never introduce us throughout the game, but everyone siting around us were talking like we know each other for years. We all had single goal, we are supporting India. We cheered together, we shouted together! Even people across the stalls or different stalls were with us, and we started Mexican wave easily, multiple times. It was like everyone is bonded with each other.

Post the Match

Well, the traffic was horrible. None of the vehicles were moving an inch for an hour. Not sure what was the reason, but we found our bus, still in the parking lot, waiting for everyone. So, we waiting another 30 min, and made a start. We were sure that the 15 min journey to hotel, will take at least 2 hours today. But, the bus driver knew a short cut, and we reached our hotel in just 20 minutes. This was another privilege of the premium we paid for the ticket. The main roads were full of fans running around in bikes, cars shouting and celebrating the victory. People were openly drinking in their car or on road. I did see Police closing one of the eating joint where we were finishing our dinner, and asking everyone to clear the area. Few guys were beaten up by Police as they were drinking Beer on the road. Well, I saw the opposite of Police action, as in the morning, they were very controlled, and not using any force on public trying to get into the stadium. But in the night, I think Police waited till 1 AM, and started the drive to send people home. After all, Police had a hard day as well. So, it could be an isolated incident, of Police beating up some teens for drinking beer. After the dinner, we started at around 1:30 AM for Delhi, and were at our home by 6:30 AM. I slept throughout the journey, and the day today. I know JD has to attend office, and I cannot imagine how he will work. After 15 hours of sleep, I am still tired. Maybe the night sleep will help me regain some strength as I also have to attend office tomorrow.

Nature's Warning to us - Slowdown!

2011-03-12T12:28:00.003+05:30

Another tragedy has hit the world yesterday! A massive earthquake of 8.9 scales has hit Japan, followed by TSUNAMI, killing thousands of people. Those who survived will have to struggle to survive! They have lost everything, and have to fight with a devastated life! Some of the survivors may recover with their life, and get back on their feet. But with most of the people in impacted area, it’s not going to be easy getting back with their life! They may have lost close family members, surely have lost everything they build so far in their life, home, job, life’s earnings, savings, everything! And the images of this incident, it’s going to be there to haunt them for life! I cannot even imagine how they might be feeling right now; let alone how to start again with their life! From thousands of miles away, I can only pray for them, pray to God for giving them strength to recover!

This was shocking news for all of us! We know what an Earthquake can do; we know what TSUNAMI can do! Who can forget 2001 Earthquake and 2004 Tsunami! When the news came out, no one has any idea of the impact, but we know its 8.9 and Tsunami, so we know that the impact is going to be much much bigger! We feel so helpless in such situation, watching it on TV, reading it on news sites, but can’t do anything to prevent it, can’t save a single person from the impacted zone! All the world can do is to watch, and let the natural disaster finish, to go and look for survivors! People are swept away by water like insects! Our existence in this world is so fragile, so small, that we can die in millions by just one natural disaster! Sometimes it feels like The Universe has a larger, much bigger plan, and we are not part of it!

Yet, we earthlings are so proud of being superior species; we want to rule the planet! We are exploiting the natural resources as if it’s unlimited! We know that we do not have any other home, but still we are working round the clock, to destroy our only home, The Earth! The clock is ticking very fast, and these natural disasters are Mother Nature’s way of telling us to slow down! Because if we don’t, it’s not going to be a single boom to finish the human population, but a slow and painful end of our home, our world, our species! We and our family, friends have to live with dying out natural resources, trying to survive without proper food and water! Think of this life we are going to live in future! It’s not like some Sci-Fi movies vision of a perfect society in future, but a gloomy picture of dark and painful future! This is what we are going to get, and our kids are going to live through it! This is the future we are creating for our children!

As I mentioned earlier, all I can do for the victims of this tragedy, is to pray for them, pray to God for helping them survive, and live through the tragic devastation of Japan! But I will also leave you all with one of the video, which showcase our future world. This documentary, Earth 2100, was made in 2009, and the focus was the green summit, to get all nations agreement for stopping global warming. But it will give you the idea of where we are heading, with our friends and family, to a dark place called Earth’s future! Its in total 9 parts, and I have posted just the first part of it, and you can view other parts from related video. If you want to watch it on YouTube, with playlist, click on this link.

[Please note that the video posted on this page is not mine, and searched/linked from YouTube. If anyone thinks these videos are not following copyright law, please get in touch with YouTube to get these removed from there.]

Uncle Pai is Dead, Long Live Uncle Pai!

2011-02-24T21:52:00.000+05:30

Yes, it’s shocking news for all Comic Fans in India! Uncle Pai is no more with us! He was 81, and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award this month at India's first ever Comic Convention held in New Delhi on February 19-20. He was supposed to be at the event on 20th Feb, but a week before, he was admitted to hospital for treatment of a fracture after he fell from a staircase. Today morning, he suffered a massive heart attack and breathed his last around 5 pm. He is loved by children across nation, but never had any of his own.

I owe him most of my history and mythology knowledge to him, for Amar Chitra Katha, I was able to clear my history exams in schools! And, I am not alone; there are millions of others like me, who get to know about our history and culture through Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle. Anant Pai, or Uncle Pai, as he is better known, is immortal in our heart; he will live with us, in our Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle collection, in our history and mythological knowledge, and in our learning, which is passed on from generations to generations. Below is a documentary film about Comic Books in India. I found it on YouTube, and posting it here, as it concentrate more on the history of Amar Chitra Katha. Interview with Uncle Pai is one of the highlights of the film.

There are many articles you can find on him, as the whole nation's comic fans are mourning his death, and all newspapers will publish his news. I am no writer myself, and can’t give you anything new on him. So, I will not write much at the moment, but will end with a heavy heart and just the prayers that his soul rest in peace. I will read a copy of Amar Chitra Katha, and few stories from Tinkle tonight, to pay my respect to the Uncle of Indian Comics!

RIP Uncle Pai!

First Annual Comic Con India 2011

2011-02-16T22:26:00.003+05:30

What is Comic Con?

It’s a convention about Comics! But its not just limited about Comics! Yes, primarily its about Comics, but as we all know, that Batman, Superman, X-men, Spiderman and all these have already taken over our entertainment in a big way. They are not limited to just Comics, but are in Movies, TV series, Books, Merchandise, games and what not! Comic Con, or Comics Convention, started in San Diego way back in 1970, and still goes one as one of the biggest event every year! But hey, Comics fans are everywhere and no one can stop them to organise their own Comic Con in their cities! So, we have Comic Con happening in New York, Baltimore, London, Emerald City and more.

Why a Comic Con India?

Yes, there are many Comics fans in India. We started with foreign comics when Indrajal Comics started publishing Phantom, and then generations grow on staple diet of Comics! There was a gap in between with new medium of entertainment like TV and Video Games make their way to India. But the recent scene is different. We have existing publications like Diamond Comics and Raj Comics still getting strong, with Raj Comics recently changed their style, art and storylines! Their Nagayan series was another example of this change! Amar Chitra Katha is back in business, with not only Comics, but DVDs, TV series and a motion picture as well. Then we got Vimanika Comics, another success story of bringing out more and more titles based on mix of Mythology and Fiction! They got Moksha and The Sixth published and liked by a lot of fans, and followed by some great line up including Kalki, Shiva, Dashavataar and so on! Then we have got another player, Comic Jump, whose co-founder Shreyas wins UTV’s business reality show The Pitch with the idea of Comics publication! There are various others, like Comix-India, who is yet to find a publisher, but still published 4 issues of independent Comics in India, using direct order to print service. So, the situation is different, and its not just a reboot of 70s comics era in India, but a fresh beginning of Indian Comics Age! We have so many Indian publications, artists, writers contributing to original stories for so much Indian Comics, and not just rip-off from western superheroes. The art is fresh, stores are fresh and original, this is keep getting better and better.

I remember when MTV started in India, I told my friends, that India will need its own MTV, and not just one channel playing English songs all day long! Those were the days when we were just beginning to see MTV, Prime Sports, Star TV and CNN. We just had two 30 min song diet from our very own DD, called Chitrahaar and Rangoli. Most of the Cable operators were just using one or two channels to show all the 4-5 channels, by switching it from their side 3-4 times a day. So, you may get MTV in the morning, then Star TV in afternoon and CNN in the evening… something like that. My friends laughed at me, and mentioned that I need to fix my brain, and stop dreaming! Well, now we have our very own MTV, and a lot of other music channels! But this is history. So, why am I mentioning this here? The logic is quite clear, with the similar boom happening in Comics space, we need our very own Comic Con in India! And my dream, like the MTV one, has come true again! We are having own very own, first ever, Annual Comic Con India! Its happening in Delhi! Its happening now! The two days event is on 19th and 20th Feb 2011, that’s the coming weekend! It’s a must attend event for comics fans in India. Even if you are not a Comics fan, if you are in or around Delhi, and got some time in hand, you should visit the event!

What’s in store @ Comic Con India?

Well, its all about Comics! You can meet publishers, artists, writers and a lot of Comics Fans! There will be new comics launch, workshops, contests and lot more! If you are interested to go a little deep into how comics are created, there are various workshops about that! Even the creator of Legendary Chacha Chowdhury, Mr Pran and Brain behind Amar Chitra Katha, Uncle Pai is going to be there! Mr Anant Pai will receive the 1st Annual Indian Comics Convention Life Time Achievement Award, with Mr Pran as special speaker for the Award Ceremony! Vimanika is launching their graphic novel “The Legends of Karna: Book 2”, Pop Culture Publishing is launching “Itch You Can’t Scratch” with other launches as well! There are workshops every 30 minutes! Then there is a contest for Superhero character dress-up! Everyone who will go in a comic character costume will get a gift, with awards for the winners! There is so much to look forward to! Still thinking why you should attend? Look at the list of participants below:

Chitrakatha: Indian Comics Beyond Balloons and Panels - Exclusive Preview of this Documentary by Alok Sharma at the Convention.
Avenger Toys - The Cult Memorabilia Store to set up shop at the Convention.
Campfire India on board for the Convention
Vimanika Comics – Launch of The Legend of Karna – Book 2 and other workshops
Diamond Comics will be at the Convention.
Fly You Fools : Saad Akhtar, Creator of the Popular Web Comic, Fly You Fools, to conduct a web comic workshop at the convention.
Level 10 Comics on board for the Convention, with workshop from their side!
Book Launch: Random Humor Digest Anthology Feat. Simpoo Singh & Lola Kutty to be Launched By Vaibhav Kumaresh! The Animator Behind Simpoo Singh. He Will Also Be Conducting A Workshop at the Convention.
NBT to Participate in Comic Con
Dheeraj Verma, Acclaimed Artist Behind Some Great Work From Publishers Such as Avatar Press, To Conduct A Workshop At The Convention!
Mediology Software signs up for the Convention!
Animation Xpress on board as the Official Web Partner.
Blaft Publication to Participate in Comic Con
Happily Unmarried on board as the Official Merchandise Partner.
Manta Ray Comics on board for the Convention
Tara Books on board for the Convention.
Random Humor Digest laughs its way in to the convention.
Pop Culture Publishing, a new venture of Twenty Onwards Media (P) Ltd to be launched at the Convention with 3 Book Launches!
Orijit Sen, Author of One of the First Indian Graphic Novels, The River Of Stories to participate at the convention with a Special Workshop
Cartoon Watch India, The Only Monthly Cartoon Magazine in India, to participate at the Convention.
World Comics India to be at the Convention!
The Animation Society Of India (TASI) will be at the Convention. They will be conducting workshops on both days as well!
Robosoft Technologies Signs Up As An On-Ground Event Sponsor For The Convention!
IndianTelevision.com has signed on as Web Partner for the convention!
Creative Gaga Magazine On Board For The Convention!
Indian Television.com joins in as Official Web Partner
Wilco International to Launch Wilco Picture Library at the Convention!
Cartoon Watch India to be at the Convention
Anibeez School Of Animation Signs up for the convention.
Digital Signage Network signs on as Digital OOH Partner for Comic Con India
Space Toon India will be at the Convention
Rahul Commerce to be at the Convention
Amar Chitra Katha makes it's way to the Convention!
Tinkle makes it's way to the Convention!
Crossword Book Stores to be at the Convention!
Green Gold Animation Creators of Chhota Bheem will be at the Convention!
Dial A Book to be at the Convention.
Artist Kshiraj Telang To Be At The Convention
Picasso Animation Signs Up As An Event Sponsor For The Convention!
Times Group Books To Be At The Convention!
Usha Lexus Hotels & Resorts comes on board as a partner
Time Out on board as the Official Magazine Partner.
Mocha on board as the Official On Ground Partner.

And below is the list of Events for 19th February 2011, the first day, please note that the below image is taken from Comic Con India official website, so the "Read More" links on image will not work. You can always visit the official 19th Feb Even webpage for more information. I have given the details of these events below this image:

Highlights of some of the events on 19th February 2011, Saturday:

Vimanika Comics Mythological Comics writing Workshop - 1:00 PM

Conducted by Kshitish Pahdy, writer for Vimanika Comics. Kshitish is a graphic novelist with over 4 years in the industry. He is currently writing on Moksha series for Vimanika Comics. Kshitish has also translated over 70 comic titles and graphic novels.

OUT OF THE BOX: A Special Workshop with Amar Chitra Katha - 2:00 PM

Featuring:

Reena Puri, Editor, Amar Chitra Katha

Savio Mascarenhas, Art Director, Suppandi 48

Prachi Killekar, Senior Illustrator, Tinkle

Rajani Thindiath, Assistant Editor, Tinkle

Shalini Srinivasan, Writer, Amar Chitra Katha

Launch of Ud Bilaw Manus - UBiMa - 3:00 PM

UBiMa - Out of the streets and fields of 'Beehar' comes - Uud Bilaw Manus! (Otter-Human!) Boldly fighting evil and keeping the world safe!

UBiMa is the superhero that Indian people had been waiting! A good son, an honest citizen, and speaker of (approximately) an Indian language! Ubima's adventures are fun, pacey, and mostly without a proper ending, but, as I mentioned earlier, they're fun!

An Insight into the Making of the Forthcoming Campfire Graphic Novel - Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves Reloaded - 3:30 PM

This activity will cover the main aspects of the making of a graphic novel, and in this case, the forthcoming, much-awaited graphic novel by Campfire - Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves Reloaded. This book is an interesting re-telling of the classic tale Arabian Nights, and is set in modern-day Mumbai. This story will create nostalgic value for those who have read and loved the classic tale, and at the same time will be an interesting 'original' story for new readers who might be inspired to go back and read the actual classic after reading this graphic novel.

Campfire will take the audience through the process of making of this graphic novel - right from the concept to the writing to editing and finally to the art work. It will be staged by a hired MC who will take the audience through the process, while a visual presentation will be running in the background. The discussion by the Emcee will involve interviews with the artist, editor, owner of Campfire, etc.

Various images of art-in-progress will be shown to explain to the audience how much work goes into creating a book that is meant to make reading more fun for them. The whole activity has been thought about with the aim of sharing with the audience the spirit and passion that goes behind creating an enriching book for them.

GRASSROOTS Comics Workshop - 4:00 PM

GRASSROOTS Comics are visual stories drawn by the common people themselves. These comics are being used as "a communication tool" in many countries of the globe. They are in Black & White form, so easy to photocopy and distribute in a small group or community.

The idea of the workshop is to let people know about the idea behind the organization.

Vimanika Comics Interactive Session - 5:00 PM

Conducted By Karan Vir Arora, conceptual writer, Publisher and CEO of Vimanika Comics, the first Indian comics publisher in the USA . Karan Vir is also won the Star young Exellence in Innovation Entrepreneur Award by the 3rd Indira India International Innovation Summit. Karan Vir is also a dedicated researcher of Indian mythology, working with a team of archaeologists, researchers and Scholars to endow his comics with historical and cultural authenticity.

With over 7 years’ experience in the training industry, he brings with him the techniques needed to impart knowledge to our readers again making Vimanika comics become a tool for not just entertainment but also knowledge.

The Animation Society of India Special Worshop - 5:30 PM

With the aim to introduce ANIMATION to the general public. Audience members will be invited to participate in the making of a short film using a stop motion technique known as 'Pixillation'. The resulting film will be then be shown to the entire audience. This is by far the simplest technique to explain the entire concept of animation. The workshops will be so designed that participants with no prior knowledge of animation or film making will be able to contribute and participate in the process.

Workshop by creators of Ravanayan - 6:30 PM

Vijayendra Mohanty and Vivek Goel have been parts of the comic book fandom since childhood. Their love for comics drew them together for the creation of Ravanayan, a soon-to-release imaginary retelling of the story of one Hindu itihasa's most prominent antagonists -- Ravana. Previously, Mohanty and Goel have also collaborated on comic book projects like the first season of Northern Song (Level 10 Comics).

The two will be at the Delhi Comic Con to talk about the ingredients that go into the making of a comic book, the khichdi of collaboration, and the general ups and downs of a career in comics. Goel will throw some light on the art aspect and Mohanty will talk about the storytelling.

There are no accidents AKA Chitrakatha Session at the ComicCon - 7:00 PM

Chitrakatha: Indian Comics Beyond Balloons and panels will reveal its first teaser at the ComicCon and then we will showcase and share some of the most interesting stories behind the history of Indian Comic Books and Chitrakatha the documentary project.

It's going to be one fun-filled conversational session with Comics lovers where the makers of this documentary will discuss why the age old saying - There are no accidents, still holds true when one talks about Indian Comic Books and this documentary.

How chasing a train in 1940s made a slum kid one of the first Indian comic book creators and how a couple of idle machines helped and brought in the comic book culture in India. We will be sharing the intriguing stories of creators who created some of the most loyal imaginary friends we all still have in common.

And yes, if you are interested, we would also tell you how watching Kab, Kyon aur Kahaan - A Dharmendra movie one Sunday afternoon on DD in the late 1980s made Chitrakatha possible.

We will tell you why - There are no accidents.

Now the second and concluding day on 20th February 2011, Sunday. Again, the links on image will not work, but I have given the highlights of events below the image:

Highlight of Events on 20th February 2011, Sunday:

The Amination Society of India Workshop - 11:00 AM

With the aim to introduce ANIMATION to the general public. The workshops will be so designed that participants with no prior knowledge of animation or film making will be able to contribute and participate in the process.

Special Interactive Session with Creators of Level 10 Comics - 11:30 AM

Level 10 Studios will introduce Level 10 Comics and Comic Jump and also talk about their special edition Comic Jump Independent that featured content by independent comic book creators from across the country. They'll be talking about the importance of creator owned content for the future of Indian Comics and how they are trying to position Level 10 Comics as a platform for showcasing Creator content and usher in the next generation of brilliant concepts.

Launch of The Random Humor Digest Anthology - 2:00 PM

The Random Book, is not just any random book, it's the hand-picked, assimilated, distilled and unabridged collection of the best of Random Humor Digest. All the best articles (and some that we could not publish earlier for legal reasons) as well as stuff with Simpoo and Lola from our secret vaults, in one neat, glossy, hardbound package to best suit bathroom-libraries all across the nation!

Special Workshop with Mr. Vaibhav Kumaresh, Renowned Animator - 2:30 PM

He plans to share with the audiences the process of how animation films are made. It will start with the screening of different types of films: ads, channel promos, public service films, as well as music videos. That will be followed by case studies from hand drawn 2D animation, clay/ puppet animation as well as digital 3D animation films. Questions from the audiences are most welcome!

Special Interactive Session with Vishwajyoti Ghosh, Author of Times New Roman & Countrymen and Delhi Calm - 3:30 PM

Mr. Ghosh will be talking about his book Delhi Calm - A graphic novel that re-imagines Delhi in the 1970s

Imagine waking up one morning to learn that all your rights as a citizen are suspended this moment onwards. Imagine living the way the State tells you to-being told how, where and when to laugh, live or love. Imagine constant surveillance-all your acts, words, thoughts watched, all forms of expression subverted for the purpose of nation-building. 'Work More, Talk Less', yell microphones as you walk down the streets... But do not worry-Delhi is still calm. It is the India of the mid-1970s. Three young men with vastly different perspectives, but all dreaming of 'change', cross paths during this time. Do they sink as individuals or swim as a collective?

Was William Penn right to say that 'Democracy dies in the hearts of democrats, before it dies in the hands of a dictator'? Find out in Vishwajyoti Ghosh's powerful graphic re-imagining of one of the most seminal moments in the history of Indian democracy.

Launch of “The Itch You Can’t Scratch” By Sumit Kumar - 4:00 PM

A Former Writer For Savita Bhabhi, Sumit Kumar Takes The Reader Through His Short But Eventful Life. From The Absurd To The Comical, From Mundane Activities To Mind Blowing Realizations, From Entrepreneurship To Embarrassment. This Is A Self Effacing, Honest View Of The Life Of A Young, Confused Man Suffering From An Acute Case of The Itch You Can't Scratch

Why and how to start a webcomic - 7:00 PM

Can't sketch, but want to start a comic? Get on the Internet and start a webcomic, where horrible art is appreciated and stick figures are the most popular character design! The workshop will be on how to start your own webcomic and make it successful. From recording ideas to publicizing your comic on Twitter/Facebook.

Then, there is Contest for Best Dressed Comics Character, where every participants will get a surprise gift, with great prizes for winners! And the best news is, this contest is on both days, so double the chances of winning!

You can get more detailed and latest information on Comic Con India official website!

I am going to be there, all day long, for both days! With so many events, I am still thinking how am I going to visit the stalls? I am not able to decide which event to miss, so that I can visit stalls, meet artists, writers, and buy some comics! Let’s see what I can do! But if you are coming, chances are you will meet me at the centre, where the workshops are being held!

Make your plan to attend it, be a part of history! Remember, this is First Annual Comic Con India! You can always attend next year, but that won’t be the first one!

Be there on 19th and 20th Feb, at Dilli Haat, New Delhi (Opposite INA Market).

[I am not associated with the event organisers, or any other comics publisher. I am just a comics fan, and wants to show my support to the event! I have used information and images from Comic Con India website, including the event list and participants. If anyone think I am violating any copyright, please do let me know and I will remove the objectionable portion/links from my Blog.]

Gabbar Singh - गब्बर सिंह का चरित्र चित्रण

2011-02-06T14:41:00.001+05:30

I got this on mail, and it is hilarious writeup about Gabbar Singh's character! If you don't know who Gabbar Singh is, then stop reading here. If you have seen SHOLAY, chances are you must have seen it multiple times! Still we can't get enough of SHOLAY and its characters! Gabbar Singh, like all other SHOLAY characters, is immortal. This article is based on the fact that if, and I say again, if we teach Sholay in our textbook, there will be teachings on its characters. And considering the new era of movies with anti-hero or main actor playing negative role, there is going to be a different perspective on Gabbar's character. Read on to enjoy:

गब्बर सिंह का चरित्र चित्रण

1. सादा जीवन, उच्च विचार: उसके जीने का ढंग बड़ा सरल था. पुराने और मैले कपड़े, बढ़ी हुई दाढ़ी, महीनों से जंग खाते दांत और पहाड़ों पर खानाबदोश जीवन. जैसे मध्यकालीन भारत का फकीर हो. जीवन में अपने लक्ष्य की ओर इतना समर्पित कि ऐशो-आराम और विलासिता के लिए एक पल की भी फुर्सत नहीं. और विचारों में उत्कृष्टता के क्या कहने! 'जो डर गया, सो मर गया' जैसे संवादों से उसने जीवन की क्षणभंगुरता पर प्रकाश डाला था.

२. दयालु प्रवृत्ति: ठाकुर ने उसे अपने हाथों से पकड़ा था. इसलिए उसने ठाकुर के सिर्फ हाथों को सज़ा दी. अगर वो चाहता तो गर्दन भी काट सकता था. पर उसके ममतापूर्ण और करुणामय ह्रदय ने उसे ऐसा करने से रोक दिया.

3. नृत्य-संगीत का शौकीन: 'महबूबा ओये महबूबा' गीत के समय उसके कलाकार ह्रदय का परिचय मिलता है. अन्य डाकुओं की तरह उसका ह्रदय शुष्क नहीं था. वह जीवन में नृत्य-संगीत एवंकला के महत्त्व को समझता था. बसन्ती को पकड़ने के बाद उसके मन का नृत्यप्रेमी फिर से जाग उठा था. उसने बसन्ती के अन्दर छुपी नर्तकी को एक पल में पहचान लिया था. गौरतलब यह कि कला के प्रति अपने प्रेम को अभिव्यक्त करने का वह कोई अवसर नहीं छोड़ता था.

4. अनुशासनप्रिय नायक: जब कालिया और उसके दोस्त अपने प्रोजेक्ट से नाकाम होकर लौटे तो उसने कतई ढीलाई नहीं बरती. अनुशासन के प्रति अपने अगाध समर्पण को दर्शाते हुए उसने उन्हें तुरंत सज़ा दी.

5. हास्य-रस का प्रेमी: उसमें गज़ब का सेन्स ऑफ ह्यूमर था. कालिया और उसके दो दोस्तों को मारने से पहले उसने उन तीनों को खूब हंसाया था. ताकि वो हंसते-हंसते दुनिया को अलविदा कह सकें. वह आधुनिक युग का 'लाफिंग बुद्धा' था.

6. नारी के प्रति सम्मान: बसन्ती जैसी सुन्दर नारी का अपहरण करने के बाद उसने उससे एक नृत्य का निवेदन किया. आज-कल का खलनायक होता तो शायद कुछ और करता.

7. भिक्षुक जीवन: उसने हिन्दू धर्म और महात्मा बुद्ध द्वारा दिखाए गए भिक्षुक जीवन के रास्ते को अपनाया था. रामपुर और अन्य गाँवों से उसे जो भी सूखा-कच्चा अनाज मिलता था, वो उसी से अपनी गुजर-बसर करता था. सोना, चांदी, बिरयानी या चिकन मलाई टिक्का की उसने कभी इच्छा ज़ाहिर नहीं की.

8. सामाजिक कार्य: डकैती के पेशे के अलावा वो छोटे बच्चों को सुलाने का भी काम करता था. सैकड़ों माताएं उसका नाम लेती थीं ताकि बच्चे बिना कलह किए सो जाएं. सरकार ने उसपर 50,000 रुपयों का इनाम घोषित कर रखा था. उस युग में 'कौन बनेगा करोड़पति' ना होने के बावजूद लोगों को रातों-रात अमीर बनाने का गब्बर का यह सच्चा प्रयास था.

9. महानायकों का निर्माता: अगर गब्बर नहीं होता तो जय और वीरू जैसे लुच्चे-लफंगे छोटी-मोटी चोरियां करते हुए स्वर्ग सिधार जाते. पर यह गब्बर के व्यक्तित्व का प्रताप था कि उन लफंगों में भी महानायक बनने की क्षमता जागी.

Please note that the above is not written by me, and I got it in my mailbox. If someone thinks that posting it on my Blog is in violation of any copyright law, please send me a mail with copyright information of the above article, and I will remove it from my Blog.

Sholay - Special Edition DVD of Alternate Version

2011-01-08T18:05:00.002+05:30

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011 TO ALL!
This is my 50th post on this Blog, and I never thought I can post upto 50 when I started. I wanted to post this in December 2010, as my last post of the year. But somehow, the time taken in research as well as year end holidays delayed it, and now we are with this, my 50th post, about Sholay Special Edition DVD and Alternate Version, as the first post this year.

Sholay! The name is enough! Yes, I am talking about Sholay the movie! The most famous movie of Indian film industry ever! There are so much written about Sholay, that I don't think I can add any new information in the already known knowledge about this movie! It’s a cult movie! Even today, after 35 years of its release, people still remember the characters, not just the main characters, but small guest appearance characters such as Surma Bhopali or Jailor, Sambha, Kalia as well! We still refer Sholay dialogues in day to day conversations! So, if people know so much and remember this much about any movie, what additional info I can add from my side to already available ocean of information? This is the 50th post of my Blog, and I though why not write something new about Sholay, to make it a special post. Then started my research on Sholay, and I could not possibly find anything which is not already available for everyone else. Then, I decided to watch the movie again, and while watching, I just realised that the DVD I have with me of this movie, is not available in market! It is an exclusive copy of Sholay! You can say that it’s The Director’s Cut of Sholay. You may have bought the DVD of Sholay for your collection, and it could be one of the two versions available in the market. But trust me, both versions are pathetic and Sholay deserve much better treatment than just cheap releases. So, people know that Sholay is widely available on DVD, but I don’t think everyone knows about the quality of print available, and what are the two different print available in market! I have the third one, which again is not very good, but much better than what is available. So, my 50th post on this Blog is about Sholay, the DVD releases, Director’s Cut, and the wish for a new kind of DVD/BluRay…. Read on!

Different Version of the movie

So, basically, there are two version of DVD available in market. Sadly, in India if you are going to buy original, no matter which one you buy, it’s the same version you are going to get. That is the theatrical release of this movie. So, what is the second version? That’s the Sholay, uncensored! They way this movie was made initially, and presented to India’s censor board. To understand this, here is little bit of history behind the shooting and release of this movie:

Sholay was India's first 70mm widescreen film and also boasted stereophonic sound. However, since actual 70mm cameras were deemed too expensive to be used to shoot the epic actioner, the movie instead was shot on traditional 35mm film and the 4:3 picture was subsequently blown up, cropped and matted to a 2.20:1 frame. This also proved cost-effective in that separate 35mm prints would be needed anyway since few theatres in India were equipped to show widescreen films.

Now, here's where the complications set in. In the weeks leading up to Sholay's premiere, India's censor board revealed that they were refusing to clear the film for release as they objected to its violent final scene and ordered director Ramesh Sippy to shoot a more 'sanitised' climax if he wanted his hard work to make it to the cinema halls. Left with no choice but to comply, Sippy scrambled to re-shoot Sholay's finale. This is not all, censor board suggested few more cuts from the movie, small ones, to give “U” certificate. Getting “A” certificate means reduced audience and a big loss of revenue, so director had to adjust and agree to censor board. So, the climax was reshot, and then movie was released with “U” certificate with cut suggested by censor board. If you happen to see the censor certificate of Sholay in any of your DVD, look at the name, it says “Sholay (Shanshodhit)” or “Sholay (Revised)” in name.

What’s the difference in both versions?

So, now we know there were two version of Sholay, the uncensored “Original” version, with 204 minute length and the censored “Released” version, with 198 minute of runtime. The major difference between these two versions is of course the climax of the movie. Gabbar was killed by Thakur in the original story, but censor thought this to be a bad example for a Cop, even when retired, killing in revenge. So, the released version has Gabbar captured by Police. Below are the details of differences in both versions of Sholay:

Original version shows a village person on fire during a raid by Gabbar after Holi song. This was cut by censor in Released version. Approx 7 second extra footage in Original version.
Original version has approx. 2 min of extra footage showing torture of Sachin, this shows ruthlessness of Gabbar, but was cut in Released version, thanks to our censor board.
Original version shows Ramlal fitting metal studs on Thakur shoes. I am not sure if this was cut by censor or Director thought that its not required to show, as Gabbar was not killed by these shoes. But I think this scene was required, as Thakur used this shoe to fight Gabbar in Climax, even in the released version, and crushed his hands with metal stud in his shoes. This was approx. 45 second of scene.
This one is interesting, and not sure if this was censor or editor/director – Original version has kidnapping scene of Hema Malini, which is longer by 1.5 minute, including a bridge scene, than the Released version. Also, in the Released version, Hema is chased by dacoits, and at the same time, Dharmendra is following them as well. But the Original version, Hema is chased by dacoits and captured after approx. 8 minute of chase. Dharmendra was only shown after Hema was captured. My personal opinion is that the Original version where Hema is chased by dacoits is more intense than the Released version, where Dharmendra is also chasing them. Then there is different background score used in both Original and Released version. Original has more of Tabla based background music during Hema chase, and Western music during Dharmendra searching for Hema. Released has only one scene, and it was kind of mixed background, of Tabla and Western, depending on who is shown on screen.
Original has Amitabh mentioning “Tatya Tope Ke Pote Hai Ye” about Dharmendra when he is bragging about his shooting skills to Hema. I am not sure the reason, it could be censor board, but this was changed to “James Bond Ke Pote Hai Ye” in the Released version.
Ruthless close-up of Gabbar’s face was shown for 2 second just before he kills Thakur’s grandson, the little kid. This makes the scene more intense and he looks more cruel.
Original version has some extra scene during the climax fight of Dharmendra. He was shown picking up a rope and goes to Gabbar on horse, whereas he goes on horse without the rope. He is shown dragging a dacoit with neck-noose galloping on horse-back. A little bit extra fight between Gabbar and Veeru is also shown in Original, but cut short in Released. This was approx. 1 min of extra scene you get in Original.
Original has extra scene of fight between Thakur and Gabbar, its more intense and graphic. It ends with Thakur killing Gabbar and then crying for the first time after his family was killed. This was the best performance of Thakur in the movie, and the sequence was well thought by director. Thakur was taking out his pain, frustration and agony by crying out after he killed Gabbar. But thanks to our censor board, we get to see Thakur happily handing Gabbar to Police, and never seen crying for his family. Original version was way better than the Release one.

I am no expert on Sholay, the above was result of watching both version at the same time. But there could be more such scene which I missed to notice.

Different DVD versions of SHOLAY

SHOLAY was released in 1975, and for next 15 years, no one was even aware of this alternate or Original version of movie. Myth has that somehow, a British VHS release of Sholay happened in 1990 with this unedited, uncensored and Original version. Eros has released both versions in DVD later on, as they are selling it outside India, and don’t bother about the censor/uncensored version. But, sadly, there is no indication on the cover about the version, and its going to be a guess work only. If you happen to see old stock of EROS/DEI and EROS/B4U, pick the B4U one for Original and DEI one for Released version. In India, you get Excel or Ultra or MoserBaer, all are censored and Released version.
Now comes the second biggest difference between Original and Released version. Obviously the biggest one is climax of the movie. And when I am referring Original here, we need to go back to the history, and remember that Sholay was shot in 35mm and blown-up, cropped and matted to make 70mm movie. The Original version DVD of Sholay is 35mm print, and in 4:3 ratio. Is that a good thing in today’s world of widescreen TVs? Yes, I would say. Because, you get extra picture on top, bottom, left and right in each frame, which were cropped to make it 70mm! Check out the screen shot below and you will be surprised to see how much extra is there which was cropped in the Released version.

The inner rectangle area is the one you see in Released version, compared to the overall area you see in the Original 35mm 4:3 version.

Check out the kind of detail you are missing if you watch the Released version.

So, there are two DVD prints available, now lets talk about the quality of prints in these two DVDs as well.
Original Version : This DVD is presented in full frame of 4:3 aspect ratio, as the movie was shot. But again a bad job in authoring, or maybe its not authoring and the source itself, because we are not sure about the source quality. There is over brightness, less sharpness and lack of colour in this version. The picture looks very dull due to this.
Audio on this version is Mono! Can you imagine? Mono sound for Sholay? It is even worse, the source is mono, and then you get surround output of this mono sound. This means, all your speakers emit same sound, at same decibel and they call it surround! It does give you a feel of 70s theatre where you get mono sound, but with large speakers, the sound is very loud! Then there are noise, hissing and other distortions to irritate you.
Released Version : Video on this version has slightly better clarity and sharpness, but it has its own problems. It is presented at a zoomed 1.85:1 aspect ratio with black bar on top/bottom. Image is soft and blurry. Picture does not have any major wear and tear marks, so I am assuming a somewhat clean source was used for this DVD. But the transfer job was not done right, with washed out colors and grainy look, this DVD lack details even in the day time scenes, and become very dark in night sequences.
Audio is 4 channel surround mix, but its very average and you will not able to feel the surround channel separation, apart from very few moments. But these few moments, the sound output is good and noticeable. There is no hissing or noise, but there are echo issues with the sound.

What we wish for…

So, pick your choice, and you are not going to get any good DVD of SHOLAY in market! Its one of the above two only, and none is good. We all are hard core SHOLAY fan, and know that SHOLAY deserve much more than this. The wish is to have a proper DVD/Blu-ray release of Sholay, with re-mastered print, and both Original/Release version, director’s commentary, loads of extra features, including interviews of people associated with this project. I even wish they do a new theatrical release of SHOLAY with the original version, as the censor board is not as rigid now as it was back then. Imagine Sholay getting released again, with extra 6 minute of scenes, different climax, DTS sound! People will love to watch it again! Had this be a Hollywood movie, we could have Director’s cut released a lot earlier, with proper DVD releases as well. But this is India, and our wish is still a wish, even after 35 years of the movie released, we are still wishing for a proper DVD only!

Exclusive Special Edition DVD of SHOLAY

Piracy is not good for movie industry, but still there are many pirate groups, who release movies on net, with better screener prints just after the release of movies. There are groups who release DVD Rips of movies. One such group started a project of bringing SHOLAY DVD on net, with some clean-up and retouch done. As they didn’t have access to original source material of movie, they had to work on the DVDs available in the market. The end result was better than what is available in the market, but definitely not a great improvement, as you can’t do much with this kind of source. Below are the changes/clean-up done with Sholay DVD to bring to us an optimised, better version, kind of Special Edition DVD of SHOLAY. This was done in 2006, and I happen to grab a copy of it from net. You may still get this edition somewhere if you look for it, but as its pirated, not sure if I can recommend getting that. I have four original DVDs of SHOLAY with me, and I think it gives me right to keep atleast one pirated copy of SHOLAY as well. Below are the details posted on net by “CANUCKERFAN” of CCE Release group.

This my first release using CCE manually. What started out as a "simple" backup, per request by someone (big fan), ended up with a complete re-mastering of a legendary movie. In my initial attempt I overshot the sector size of the DVD5 specs, so I had to start over. Anyways, despite that, after hundreds of script testings, screenshot comparing, track manipulating, much filtering, and conquering the flawed authoring of the source, I give you Sholay... (with extra scenes and the alternate ending!!!!)
Technical notes:

The source was horrible for a DVD9, to be blunt. The video capture was filled with noise, grain, halos, you name it... it was there. Don't even get me started on the filthy colours. Oh and did I mention the hellish blended frames?!?! But keep in mind this movie is 30+ years old now. However, it is the best Sholay source there is, except for obviously the raw FILM version which only the studios have access to. Wish I had those connections. Then there's the audio, it had distortion, hissing, and some clipping. And their source was a mono stream, lol. (mono --> 5.1?!?!). Very lackluster for a "professional" copy. Now, I know that audio is almost always left untouched for DVDR's, but since it was so low in quality, it just didn't go well with the video. So I thought I'd re-encode it. If any of you have the original, try comparing the streams. About the only thing good about the source was that there were practically no extras, and the entire DVD9 was devoted to the movie itself, which is how all movies should be. Keep extras and other stuff for Disc 2. Now during the restoration process, here's what was done:

Video:

-cleaned it up a lot, I mean alot (grain, dirt, halos, orphaned pixels, blocks, etc). now obviously, there are still some present, but the majority of them are gone.
-restored progressive frames and decimated from 29.97 fps to 23.976 fps (cut down compressibility by about 20%). I couldn't IVTC this bad boy, too blodgy for that. so basically, less blockiness and less mosquito noise (less compression). Whoever "telecined" this (if you can call it that), sucked at it.
-took out many of the "blocks" present as well. really sad that a DVD9 has evidence of compression. however, most of them are gone. it's much more cleaner now.
-sharpened it up. really brought out the detail!
-as for colouring, I darkened it, which might seem odd. but whoever did the transfer brightened it way too much, and the colours seemed washed out. so for compensating this "darkness" that I applied, contrast was upped and saturation was also increased. it looks A LOT better.
-oh, and changed the resolution from 720 X 480 to 704 X 480. this was 'cause there were some black trims on the side of the original, getting rid of those helped with compressibility.

Audio:

-removed all of clipping/popping present in the original stream.
-took away the vast majority of the "hissing" present, sounds SO MUCH better now.
-the original stream was totally make-shift. I used a proper Scenarist Dolby Digital encoder to re-encode the audio. The rear speaks emitted too powerful of a sound in the original, this should be fixed now.
-some parts of the stream are still slightly distorted, but it was almost impossible to eliminate this, I tried. distortion is something that is inherent within the stream, caused by some BAD recording/transfer methods. despite this, it's still a vast improvement over the original track. you will all enjoy it.
-now the only minor side effect is that there's some ever-so-slight "bubbling" effect left over. however, this effect will probably be only heard by audiophiles, and seriously outweighs the hissing. not too worry about it too much.
-just as a note, I kept the stream as 5.1 since it was already converted. really no point to convert back to mono now to save compressibility, especially since the fps change already saved a lot already.

I just hope no ripper has to encounter a source like this ever again. But where there's Bollywood, this will happen, lol.

Release Specifications:

Source: DVD9 NTSC R0 Retail
Video: CCE SP2 4-pass re-encode @ ~2588 kbps
Video format: NTSC
FPS: 23.976 [29.97 with pulldown flag used in a SAP]
Resolution: 704 X 480 4:3 FS
Matrix used: AVAMAT 6
Audio: Sonic Audio Dolby Digital AC3 5.1 re-master @ 384 kbps 48 Khz [same bitrate and frequency as original]
Subtitle(s): English
Extras: Blanked [there were basically none]
Removed: Fourthcoming [out of date now, lol], PUO's, Intro clip, and FBI warning
Region: R0 [region-free]
Menus: Yes
File format: ISO image
Size: 4.37 GB
Language: Hindi [movie like this shouldn't be dubbed]
Runtime: 204 minutes

Important Notes about this release

1)Please, for the love of all that is good in this world... DON'T use Nero to burn images, use ImgBurn. it's a small, robust, and almost bug-free burner. Nero is notorious for handling images incorrectly. It'll save me and you both headaches.

2)Throughout the movie, there are about 3 frame/colour oddities which occur. Nothing to lose sleep over at all. Just thought I'd mention it. Nearly impossible to get rid of, without sacrificing too much, but it's a very minor occurrence, many of you won't even notice it.

3)I wasn't able to get the subtitle to turn off by default. So on some players, it may be on automatically, which is easily corrected by turning it off. Assuming you don't need it of course. Again, not a big deal.

Screenshots

PS: Almost forgot!! A very, very, very special thanks to some people who helped me along the way. This release would have been impossible without them (or it would have taken even longer w/o them lol). So in no particular order, I thank the following for their suggestions:

bEnGaLi tHuG
SunnY
Badal
manono (didn't know your legendaryness extended beyond doom9, sorry I forgot you)

Thanks guys. You were very much a part of this.

The above box is not mine, but taken from internet, and its available on various torrents sites. Its something which is not legal, but I would definitely put this as the best copy available anywhere till date. I even brought the new MoserBaer DVD of Sholay recently, only to find out that its much worse than others. I think that group CCE has released "Sholay.1975.DVD5.NTSC.CCE-VRG SPECIAL.EDITION.DIRECTOR'S.CUT" as a tribute to the epic movie Sholay, and I am proud to have a copy of it with me. I still watch Sholay every now and then, sometime just few parts, sometime full movie.

This brings to the end of my post, and I will leave you with the video of Sholay's alternate climax sequence, thanks to YouTube!

Child Sex Abuse - How we parent can prevent it!

2010-12-11T12:12:00.002+05:30

A few days ago, I read a local news about a school van driver molesting three kids for more than 1.5 years! This is sick! The age of these kids is between 6 to 12 years! I am not sure what fun or satisfaction these criminals get by abusing small kids, but I am sure of one thing – the punishment we give them according to our law is not enough! Talk to any sensible person, and they will recommend the highest possible punishment for such act! And if you ask me, I would like them to pay for the torture they have done, and the trauma they have given to these kids for the rest of their life! I would like them to be buried alive upto the waist, in an open ground, and left there to die! Or torture them, slowly, cutting one piece of their body at a time, and keeping them alive, so that they get the feeling of their own doing to the kids before they die! I want them to die, but no sudden death, slow, tortured death! And I want everyone else to know how they died, so that others understand the implications of doing such act! We have to set an example to this society that anyone doing so will not be left with just few years of imprisonment only! There are elements in our society who are playing with our trust, and doing unforgiving crimes with our children! They need to know the punishment and should be ready for that! This is the only way of keeping our children safe in today’s society! I may sound barbaric, but we are living in a society of barbarians, and you need barbaric law to secure your child from these hunters!

Another thing was told that there are some minor students also involved in this act. Can any of you imagine your kids getting involved in such kind of act? But deep inside, we are also responsible for both, our kids getting abused and our minor kids turning to crime!

I will take the first case of kids getting abused, how often you talk to your kids about what they have done in school or how and who are their friends? If you do this talk regularly, its good, and chances are that your kid will tell you the day he/she will be approached by someone. But in today’s life of nuclear family, and both parents working, they hardly get time for their kids. This prevents kids to speak up to their parents about any issue. A communication gap is created between parents and kids! Take the current case for example, kids mother did not suspect or know with her three kids molested for more than a year! Also, do you think that other kids travelling on the same van were not molested? They may not come forward due to bad publicity, but there must be some more such cases.

We have to spend time with our kids, and it should be a well thought good time, not just “hmm” type of responses to their talk, while doing something else. Kids need someone who can answer their questions, if we as parent don’t answer it, they will reach out to someone outside, who may take advantage of our kids.

We have to monitor our kids as well! Freedom and privacy is good on paper, but I don’t think kids are mature enough to handle privacy. We need to monitor their activities, friends, reading and watching habits to understand and control what they should not get exposed to. I have seen people taking their kids to watch “3 Idiots” movie. You may ask, why not? It was a good movie!

Correction, it was a good movie for Adults, and not for kids! If you have shown this movie to your kids, you have exposed them to various things which they should not know now – Suicide, plus suicide on failure in academics! Rape and Nipples as funny thing! I did not let my kids what this movie, but thanks to our TV channels, who don’t follow any code of conduct and censorship. My kids saw the promos of “3 Idiots” and promo features the rape dialogue. He asked me about rape, as he don’t know it yet. I explained the ragging which happens in school or maybe in real life as rape to him. He once asked me why people joke and laugh about first night after wedding. That was a difficult question as well, and it came from some movies, as he saw girl waiting on flowery bed, where friends are holding the groom, joking and laughing about. I got away with the answer that as we have arrange marriage, where bride and groom never get to meet and talk, so they look forward to meet each other, where others tease them by holding.

So, my kids are coming up such difficult questions, gathered out of TV, comics, movies etc, but atleast they have me to ask and get a suitable answer according to their age. I am sure all kids should be having similar questions. But do our working parents get time for their kids, so that their kids can comfortably ask these questions to them?

You have to play with your kids, make them feel comfortable with you, mix with you, and open to you so that they can ask anything. Also, never ever shut your kids on asking questions. Their questions may be difficult for you, but if you don’t answer them, they will stop asking you. This means they will try to find someone else around them, who they can trust and get some answers. Also, the more you communicate with your kids, more you know about them. And believe me, the time you spend with them is worth every second of your life! This time is not going to come back, and once they grow up, you will miss them as kids! So, make the most of your time with them now!

So, whatever I have written above means communicating with your kids, right? Why waste lot of space on writing just this? Well, the basic need is to communicate with your kids. But you need to know what to communicate as well. There are few things you need to know, on what/how to tell your kids about sexual abuses and how to encourage them to prevent/report immediately.

Talk a lot about their day, what they have done in school, park etc
Assure them again and again that they can tell anything to you. I never punish my kids for telling the truth, so they don’t hide anything to me.
Always remember, when you talk about sexual abuse, make sure you are not scaring them. Kids should not panic; otherwise they will be over cautious with everyone around them. It will impact their normal growth. Let them know the dos and don’ts without getting them into any fear.
Teach your kids about different parts of the body. Explain them about cleaning these parts, like hair needs shampoo and oil, nails needs to be cut regularly etc. You can proceed further in this conversation to specify private parts. Tell your kids that its not appropriate for anyone to touch someone else’s private parts, even for close friends.
Lead by example, and do not show over affection (you know what I mean) with your spouse in front of your kids. If, by any chance kids touch your private parts, which is very normal in their early years, don’t just ignore that touch. Tell them firmly that it is inappropriate to do so, and not to repeat again, with anyone.
Tell your kids to report to you immediately in case someone tries to touch them inappropriately or tell them something which is not appropriate. This may result into lots of other complains like students calling them names etc, but be patience and listen to their small problems. Talk to them, try to sort out things. But you should never put the entire blame of things on your kid. You need to explain why its their fault, and explain it logically, so that they understand and choose the right path. If they always get blame on them, they will stop talking about their problems to you.
Of course, tell them not to talk to strangers, not to take anything from strangers, even from unknown kids as well.
You should meet their friends, even ask your kids to invite friends at home. Just keep an eye discreetly, so that you know his peer group. If you think something is inappropriate, talk to them and explain why and how its wrong.
You need to be vigilant for any signs of sexual abuse as well. If child is getting nightmares, sudden change in behaviour, bruising etc, you need to understand what’s going on with their life.

The above are just few pointers, but you need to be more open, vigilant and careful with your kids. Parenting is not an easy task, and there is no simple 1-2-3 formula to do it. You keep on investing new things everyday. Some of my friends told me that its not easy to talk to kids about these things, and asked for some advice. I can give some tips below:

Start talking to your kids about body safety when they are very young.
Use an easy thing for your child to understand, such as telling them, "Your private parts are the parts that are covered by your bathing suit. Nobody should be touching you in these areas." Explain that sometimes the doctor has to look at your private parts to make sure you are healthy, but mommy (or daddy) will be there with you.
Tell them about appropriate touching, such as Mommy and Daddy helping with bathing, or helping when they go potty.
Let them know that it is okay to tell, even if the person tells them not to, or that something bad will happen to them if they do.

But always remember, its you who has to come up with situations to talk to your kids, and be prepared for the difficult questions. You should be creative to answer the questions. But still, there may be some direct or indirect questions, which you cannot answer. So, you also need to explain your kids on their age, and what is appropriate according to their age.

Tell them that in their study, they gradually go into learning more complex stuff on the same subject. They learn the easy part of maths, then in the next class, a little complex part. They cannot just start solving math questions of higher classes, they need to wait for few years, till they grow up and reach to that level, step by step. Once they are clear about this logic, explain the same logic to them, about books, magazines, TV series, movies etc. You should let them watch only shows which are appropriate for them. I never let my kids watch Bigg Boss, but KBC is all ok. So, make sure you are in control of what they are watching or reading. Not forcefully, but by explaining them that they will watch it once they are of appropriate age. I let my son watch Superman movies, but not Smallville, as its for teens and above. So, my son knows, and accepts this. I know that if I force him not to watch it, he will try to watch it somewhere else or behind my back. This is the last thing you want, that your child is hiding something from you. My daughter wanted a book which was a teenager love story. I explained her that she is not yet ready for that book, and she agrees to wait till she is old enough to get that. I do allow them to watch a lot of cartoons, bring them comics (well, comics are my fav too), games etc, so they know that its not a regular restructure on everything, but only on certain things which are not appropriate for them as of now. Still there are peer pressure, all of their friends have watched “3 Idiots” , and they wanted to watch it too. I had a hard time explaining that its not correct for their friends as well, and if their parents are not restricting them, its not a good thing. Finally, after a lot of counter arguments, I was able to convince them about it. But now if I look back to that, I loved that conversation. Similarly, check on IMDB for parental guidance before you let them watch any English movie. Make sure its appropriate for them. I don’t trust our censor board, so for U certified movies in hindi also, we (me and my wife) watch to confirm if its ok for the kids. Then we let them watch it. Same goes for TV, never let them watch these reality shows. Discovery or NetGeo are good, then its Cartoon Network/Pogo/Disney. But keep an eye on the cartoons they are watching, as there are some Japanese cartoon dubbed in hindi / English, and these are not at all good for kids. Also, Animax is not a kids channel, so everything animation is not appropriate for kids. Again, I have not let my kids watch “Roadside Romeo”, which was promoted as kids movie. It was a love story, with lust for a kiss, and I don’t think kids are ready for that.

Similarly, I let my kids go on internet as well, but its restricted. They are not allowed to use chat or mail. I have custom browser (KidZui) which opens up when they log in, and only allow selected websites. Apart from this, I also have ek9 parental control software installed, which never allow them to go anywhere they are not supposed to. Let me also tell you, these soft wares are good, and free for personal use.

I think this article has gone a little longer than expected. So, I need to end this here. Before I close, always remember, it takes just few minutes of sex to become parents, but it takes a lifetime to raise your kids properly!

Thanks but No Thanks Gandhi! We don't need you today!

2010-10-02T23:21:00.003+05:30

I am drunk today! It’s a dry day in India, as it’s the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi! The Father of Nation! Known as Bapu! I know you must have heard about him, or his name atleast! But why I drink on the day of his birth? Well, it’s my way of showing him, that India has changed, and we don’t need a Gandhi to free us anymore! We are free! India is one of the, or I think the biggest democratic country of the world! We, the people are responsible for our country! We select our leaders! We choose how the country should be run! We are free now! Bapu, thank you for helping us when we needed you, to get rid of British, and become a free India! Thanks, but no thanks, we don’t need you anymore! The rule of game has changed now! We have terrorism in India now! Gandigiri will fail against terrorism! As you know, your satyagrah will only work if a lot of people participate in that! But if you do something like that today, you will not be put in jail, but someone will kill you on the spot! You may die again, and not alone, but killing almost 50-100 people with you, as it may be a human bomb which will kill you!

Terrorism is something which knows just one way of solving any issue, eliminate the opposition! If there is no one to oppose you, there is 100% chance of your wining! So, you can’t fight with non-violence against terrorist! They understand only one language, violence!

There may be many who differ from my point of view, and yes, sometime I do differ from my own point of view! But, if you have people getting killed in different part of the country, how much longer you can maintain the law and order with non-violence? If a terrorist like Kasab comes and start firing his AK47, do you think a satyagrah will sustain that? Sorry, but I don’t think so! The only option to fight terrorists is, actually giving them a good fight back! Army style and not political fight!

I have very simple formula to deal with terrorist activities, and along with, activities which are terrorism, but not treated so! Below are few points:

#1. Change the definition of terrorism!

Anyone, who is responsible for killing people, generic in nature, mass murder, public property destruction, preventing government from doing their job, encouraging public to get into act of terrorism like encouraging people to kill other community members, are should be treated as terrorists!

Any person, who is responsible in helping terrorism or terrorists in any way, no matter how small that help is, and also, no matter if that help is done without the knowledge of these being terrorist, should be treated as equal participation in terrorism!

These helping people should also be treated as terrorists! Now the catch – If someone took RS 10,000 and created a fake passport for anyone, and if the person with fake passport turns out to be a terrorist! So, as the passport was illegal, and it was issued to a terrorist, then the issuer of this fake passport is also a terrorist! So, to clear this a little more, under this definition, Maoist, Kar Sewak, Anti non-Marathi demonstrations, any forced strike are all treated as terrorism. Also, with this definition, any illegal activity, if it turns out to be helping terrorists, also treated as terrorism!

#2. Change the punishment of terrorists!

Punishment! Yes, there should be punishment, but our court of law should not decide any punishment for terrorists! In point # 1, we have already established who can be considered as terrorists. Now court has to provide a ruling, if the charges are correct or not, that’s it! If the person is proved to be a terrorist, and a terrorist means by any action, not just the person killing others, but those who provided phone sim card illegally to terrorists, those who gave them shelter without proper document checks, those who has done anything, even smallest help to the killers or other terrorists, even without knowing that they are helping terrorists, but the help was illegal, should be marked as terrorists as well! So, with this, court will provide “Guilty” or “Not Guilty”, and all guilty will have just one punishment – DEATH!

Why am I talking about death penalty for terrorists? Because it’s not just one person who terrorised the whole country, but a group of people! And most of this group always get away with just small punishment or some fine, which does not bother them to do such act again and again! You may ultimately hang Kasab, or couple of people from our Parliament attack, but what about those who provided car, parliament stickers and duplicate passes, guns, shelter to these attackers? Duplicate stickers or pass – 3 months jail? Guns – 3 years? Shelter – 5000 fine? Stolen car – 3 months? I want all these to be hanged! And treated as terrorists, with all their rights forfeited, like all assets, insurance claims etc., all forfeited! They will not get any benefits from any of the organisation in India! They die, and die like a dog! Infact my opinion if death penalty is not painless death, but a painful death in open with photos and videos all across to send this message to all such wannabe terrorists, that what’s in store for them! I may sound barbaric, but we are living in a barbaric world today!

If we have these two laws in place, there is no doubt terrorist will reduce to a large extent! I know that main terrorists are brainwashed that they will go to heaven after they die and it’s a good cause they are fighting for, and other bullshits! They are ready to become Martyr for their cause and don’t fear death! But think of those who help them, in our own country, for some money, as they know that they will get away with small punishment, even if caught! They will not take the risk, as they are no martyr, but some greedy people who want to cook their food on other people’s cremation! They don’t want to die, so will not help so called martyrs!

Then the other problem of corruption will be solved to a large extent, it will not go away, we will still have corruption and scams in various events like CWG or T20 etc., but it will be almost resolved for common man! Now you or I cannot get a driving license without proper tests! Because if that license is later used in any of the terrorist activity, the issuer authority will also become terrorist and gets death punishment! There will still be corruption in cases where you pay money to push your file from one department to other, but with all papers in order only! So, this law will not eradicate corruption, but it will help reducing it!

The third and most important, it will help marking those under terrorism, who so far has been hiding behind public, and creating lots of damage to our country! The so called political party activists, who destroy public property, beats up innocent people, all in front of camera, to gain publicity! Now they know that it is terrorism, as per law, and there is only one punishment! I dare them to do this again! Same goes for organisations like Maoists etc., which are not treated as terrorists by our government! Now, the law will decide if they are terrorist or not, and if they are, no one can negotiate their punishment!

So, Mr Gandhi, Bapu, I know what you did for us, and thank you for all that, but its time India moves away from Gandhism and embrace Chandrasekhar Azad or Subhash Chandra Bose! If your enemy is beating you, yes, I can go on with my non-cooperation movement, and gets beaten up! If someone slaps me on one cheek, I will not say a word and turn the other cheek in front! Yes, all this is fine, but what about the situation when beating becomes killing? If your enemy is not using sticks, but AK57, and instead of beating or slapping, they are firing, killing thousands of people! Do you think your way of protest will work? I beg to differ! You had a charisma, I am sorry; pardon me, as I am still drunk, You have a charisma! And that was the reason British never touched you! They knew if something happens to you, the whole nation will turn against them! They have seen this when a police station was burned by mob! So, it was ofcourse the power of your non-violence, but also the power of mob furry, which helped you succeed! Otherwise, it’s just s bullet, and that’s what happened in the end! One person just came and ended your life! Think about this, if the same three bullets were shot at you, when you reached India from South Africa, what would have happened to all those movements against British? Nothing! No one remembered Gandhi! It was just another name somewhere in the list of countless died during that time! We could still be a British colony! But that did not happen, as British were not terrorists, they were running a government, and a sensible one! As far as I know, from what I read about, and heard from my grandparents, that British were not bad rulers, and law / order was in a better shape! Yes, there were flaws, and some discrepancies between Indians and then, but that is bound to happen! Fact of the matter is, Gandhi cannot fight terrorists! We can’t fight terror with non-violence! We need to fight back!

So, on this International Day of Non-Violence, let me push my own opinion of Violence Against Terror! I maybe drunk, but it’s not something which I am writing for the first time, check my earlier posts on terrorism, and you will find similar approach of dealing with terrorists in these posts as well. So, it’s my own opinion, as it’s my own Blog! Like it or leave it! But if you like it, please spread the word, so that someday, someone can take right step, and create such law! Till then, I am just another Indian, waiting for my turn to be killed in some terrorists attack somewhere! And so are you if you are an Indian living in India! Accept this as part of your destiny, don’t be afraid, enjoy the life!

Babri Masjid! The verdict is coming

2010-09-29T00:12:00.003+05:30

It seems like we will have the court verdict on Babri Masjid land dispute on 30th Sep 2010! Do we really want to know what was there? And how much back in time can we go? What if there was a temple earlier? What was there before that temple? What if it was the birth place of lord Ram, what was there before Ram was born? This is endless! We cannot go back and change the history! No matter how wrong or bad it was! What’s done is already done! Britain has taken a lot of stuff from India during their period; can we ask them to return everything they have taken? It’s like you brought a land, build a nice house for yourself, and then all of a sudden, someone comes and asks you to vacate this house, as his ancestors were living there 200 years ago! WTF! And that’s not all; he will kill you and your family, distance relatives as well, if you don’t give him the house! This is ridiculous! I fail to understand why court took so many years! And I fail to understand why our govt allowed 6th Dec 1992 to happen at all!

So much has already been written about it, so I will not fill up more pages on cyberspace, but 6th Dec 1992, in my memory, is another assassination of Gandhi in India! A bit on bigger scale! So many innocent people died in the aftermath! And what we gained? Nothing! One of the political party came into power, did nothing good, some scams as usual, which no one get punished ever!

Tulsidas wrote Ram Charit Manas to show Ram as Maryada Purushottam, to promote Hinduism in Mughal era. On 6th Dec 1992, some so called Hindus destroyed the very meaning & status of Ram! Now Ram stands for fear and brutality! I am ashamed that people think my religion is same as of those who destroyed Babri Masjid! I am proud of being Hindu, and don’t consider then who destroy temple/mosques as Hindus! Infact , lots of these may not know that our religion is not Hindu, but Sanatam Dharma!

It is high time for us to understand that we can not change history! We have to live with our past, accept the history as it is! Right or Wrong, you just can’t amend anything which has happen in past! You can destroy our present and future if you try to do such thing! That is what happen in 1992, the riots which follow 6th Dec were examples for what can happen again, if we still try to make changes with history!

This is something I can go on writing about, but it’s getting late today, so will wind up with something I thought of, just few min ago:

मज़हब को लेके करते, आपस में हम सब दंगा;

मंदिर मस्जिद तोड़े, लहू से रंगे तिरंगा

शहरों और गलियों में, आज लहू की बहती गंगा;

मतलबपरस्तीयो का आज, फल फूल रहा है धंधा;

सही गलत क्या सोचे, हमारा विवेक हुआ है अँधा;

Big Bang or Firecracker?

2010-09-11T19:24:00.002+05:30

I was watching a show on Discovery Channel, about our Universe and its origin by Big Bang. It was detected that after the Big Bang, our universe was created and it still is expanding. But what was there in that space before the Big Bang? And also, what is beyond our universe? What is there where our universe is expanding? There are so many unanswered questions; I don’t think our science is mature in Astronomy. But not sure why people like Stephen Hawkins proclaim that its gravity which has created this universe, and not God! It’s not that being a religious person, I am hurt by this statement. I do believe in God, and in Science. But I do know the limitation of both! Science can give you many reasons for things happening around you, but cannot answer all your questions! Science cannot help you in your personal problems, neither can God, but when you pray to God, you get a strong positive energy in yourself. This positive energy is faith, and believes that someone is going to take care of things! Again, this positive energy may not be able to help you in all situations, but it does help in many, where you need to do some effort! Well, this is not my debate, that universe was originated by a Big Bang on its own or someone / something created it! So, I will leave science to continue their study and discoveries!

While watching the show, my mind started wondering onto different possibilities of our universe, and what could have happened? I am no scientist, but when you let your imagination run wild, you come up with wired kind of thoughts! Once such thought came into my mind, which I thought of putting down here today.

We know that time is relative, and feels different to different species! So, what if this so called origin of our universe is no big bang, but some kind of fire cracker? It has exploded, and now the lights or energy is expanding at a given speed and during the process of this cracker exploding and expanding, we have a lifetime of our universe? It is a possibility; you or any scientist for that matter cannot just overrule it as an absurd idea!

Expending Universe or Firecracker?

Think over it, we measure everything according to our timeline or standards. But what if the timeline is different for other creatures? Like the time it takes for us to reach out and drink water will be much less that to a tortoise! We know a lot of insects, which has very small life span! But consider this, that very small life span for us, is a lifetime for them! So, what if the whole lifespan of our universe is relatively same as explosion of a firecracker into some unknown construct!

We don’t know much about our universe, and nothing at all about beyond that! What if this whole universe is an experiment in some kind of lab in some other construct! It’s like we tried to recreate Big Bang at our level recently in France. There are so many possibilities, when your imagination run wild, thinking hard about these may spin your head! It’s Saturday evening, and I think it’s better for me to relax my mind with some good old scotch! See you all soon!

Happiness

2010-09-07T23:08:00.001+05:30

What is happiness? Can we measure happiness? Is there a mathematical formula which can be used to define happiness? How can one person be happy in a situation and another is not in the exact same situation? If its hot summer, a rich person can only be happy if the AC is working, a middle class person (who can’t afford AC) wants fan to be happy, a poor fella who can’t even afford fan, will be happy if there is a wind! So, the meaning of happiness differs from person to person! And this example does not mean that money brings more comfort which brings happiness, as money is not always responsible for happiness. You can have a person without money, still happy and enjoying his life! Similarly, another person with lots of money, but not happy! So, what is happiness?

Happiness is a state of our mind, and it’s relative to our choices, lifestyle and a lot of other stuff which can control our happiness. According to Lord Buddha:

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts. If one speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows one, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the wagon.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts. If one speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows one, like a shadow that never leaves.”

So, Buddha talks about happiness and sorrow as result of our thoughts. I do agree with this, to certain degree. Don’t get me wrong, I am a religious person, and my religion is Sanatana dharma, popularly called as Hindu Dharma, by people who don’t know the actual religion. My religion gives me rights to even challenge the god’s saying and put a counter argument if I don’t agree with it. So, I don’t agree with Buddha’s saying in full, but it’s indicating in the same direction as my thoughts are moving. I will write someday about my Dharma as well, but in some other post.

So, coming back to the topic, “Happiness” is what we feel, when we get a satisfaction, or achieve something which we wanted. Sorrow or sadness is just opposite of it. So, happiness is a feeling, and it is directly linked with our lust or desire. If you don’t have desire for something, you won’t get happiness even if you get it. Some people might argue that they were happy when they got some unexpected stuff in their life, but I think that even if that is unexpected, but you still had the desire for it, hence the satisfaction and happiness comes along!

So, if happiness is just a feeling, is it possible to be happy always? Can we carry that feeling with us all the time? I think it is possible, it just requires some changes in your perception of looking at things.

"Happiness is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. It is a way of interpreting the world. While it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it." (Happiness, Little Brown, 2007).

So, if we need to be happy, just try to look at the positive things around you, and not just let yourself down with the negative things in life! This will keep you happy and when you are happy, you are more energetic, more creative and achieve much higher grounds! Still not convinced? Take another example, remember last time you were not happy? Looking back at those time, thinking about how that phase of unhappiness passed, and what challenges you faced at that time, chances are that it will bring smile on your face! So, thinking about the past, which was not a happy period, brings smile, then why was it not a happy time? Also, some of us always complain about our current situation like job, studies, families etc. But, those of us also remember our past as a good or better period of life, as compared to the current one! So, we are not enjoying our present, complaining about that, and when the same present becomes past, we like it! When you were in school, it was difficult, when you join collage, it was difficult again, but you think of your school days as some of the best days of your life, then you more to a job or business, again difficult, and the memories of collage are priceless! So, what is it? Why the present or current situation is always difficult period, and the same is good memories a while later? It’s the perception of looking at things, which decide what brings happiness in our heart!

What steps do we need to take to change our perception?

Think Positive – avoid negative thoughts about anything or anyone!

Forgive and forget – Forgive others mistakes and forget about those

Control your desires – this is the main one, when you are free from desire, you will not feel pain of losing it to someone!

So, if we master this, or change our perception, then we can deeply connect with people, unleash our creativity, even enjoy the raging traffic, not only listen, but humm the songs on radio while you wait for the jam to clear, and return home to embrace your family in a blanket of love and caring.

Signing off for today, see you soon!

History of Comics in India

2010-08-14T08:30:00.006+05:30

“चाचा चौधरी का दिमाग़ कम्यूटर से भी तेज़ चलता है।” (Chaha Chowdhury’s brain works faster than computer)

Remember the above phrase? I am sure a lot of you will, and not only that, this was the only knowledge of a Computer we knew back in 70s. Who knows that we Indians will reach out to the world using this computer, and become the king of IT Industry!

Back then, I mean, before Chacha Chowdhury, Bahadur, Amar Chitra Katha, Indrajal Comics, Billo, Pinky and many more, before Comics really arrive in India, before the golden 60s, comics were not much in vogue in India. The selection that was available was in the form of imported digests and books like Tintin (originally French private detective), Asterix and Obelix (superheroes of Gaul, erstwhile France), Archie (American School Boy) and Commando (war stories of World War II) etc. A costly product for an average Indian, these comics were rather available to the children of the wealthy.

The Early Years

In 1960s, the Times of India (TOI) launched Indrajal comics, which revolved around foreign heroes. The news paper also started daily comics’ strips, which attracted children. It was the first serious effort directed towards the evolution of comic culture in India.

Well within the buying capacity of middle class children, Indrajal Comics made foreign comic heroes like “Phantom- the ghost who walks”, Mandrake the magician, and Flash Gordon household names in India. They later added Indian characters starting from most popular that time, Bahadur.

However, at the same time, some indigenous comic characters also originated. Pran Kumar Sharma (Pran), a young cartoonist associated with the Delhi- based newspaper, Milap, started a comic strip Daabu in early 1960s. It stated adventures of a teenage boy named Daabu.

`Pran`, as Pran Kumar Sharma is universally admired, had created umpteen comic strips, like Shrimatiji, Pinki, Billoo and the still legendary and popular Chacha Chaudhary during the 1970s.

The immediate success of Indrajal Comics gave a further boost to the indigenous comic industry and in 1967, Anant Pai, a former executive of the TOI, founded Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) to bring out Indian culture and history through comics. Anant Pai, popularly known as Uncle Pai, is also considered the father of Indian comics.

The ACK comics were mainly of two categories – Mythological and

Historical. While the mythological comics catered to the characters from Classical Epics and religious stories, the historical comics featured regional personalities /events promoting national integration. It requires a complete article on ACK, so we will skip it here. But this is one of the oldest comics brand, still in production. There are a total of 439 ACK titles, of which 255 are still in print. If it matters, ACK is also available on your mobile phone, if you have Vodaphone connection! Check out Vodaphone Live for details!

The Middle Years

The success of Indrajal Comics and ACK inspired other publishing houses who launched their own series on their own themes: Dreamland Publications and Diamond Comics at New Delhi, and Jaico Publishing House at Mumbai.

In the beginning of the 1980s, Anant Pai and India Book House launched the first Indian comic magazine for children, called Tinkle, which was a big success. Tinkle diversified on the educational themes developed by Amar Chitra Katha, including science, contemporary culture, etc.

At the same time, Target, a children and youth magazine published two page comics. Target magazine was an innovator as its artwork was original and of a high quality for its time. Manjula Padmanabhan, one of the few Indian female comic authors, did illustrations for Target. She also created a female comic character called Suki which was serialized in Sunday Observer in the 1980s. Another notable Indian

comic publishing house is Raj Comics, which enters from their Pocket Book business into Comics pu

blishing, is home of characters such as Nagraj, (an Indian superhero with special powers), Doga, Super Commando Dhruva, Parmanu and various others. In Tamilnadu Alagar comics is the most famous one.

The 80s also saw some short lived, but notable Comics launch, like Comics series featuring Amitabh Bachchan (written by Gulzar) as Supremo the Crime Fighter, and Sunil Gavasker as

Sunny.

Then come 90s and we saw the end of Indrajal Comics after 27 years of publishing! Amar Chitra Katha went out of circulation, resurfaced again by Diamond Comics, and then went out of print again! This was the era of cable TV, and very few comics publishing house continue to publish comics. Diamond Comics and Raj Comics continued and are still going strong!

The Recent Years

During the ushering in of the 21st century, a much esteemed partnership between Richard Branson`s Virgin group and India`s Gotham Comics, has led to a new company, Virgin Comics, motivated towards giving birth to new lines of comics, doused in Indian mythology and Indian history. Virgin Comics started publishing in 2006, and received good reviews, but went out of the print in 2008 when Virgin restructured and decided to discontinue with publishing. The principal icon of Virgin Comics however is the superhero, Devi, but other series have incorporated a science-fiction adaptation of the ancient Ramayana epic, a series based on the life of a supernaturally proficient Sadhu, as well as umpteen ones based outside India. They also launched India Authentic series, similar to ACK, but with completely different artwork and presentation style.

Fluid Friction Comics, an International comics company with an Indian partner has taken Indian mythology as the basis of stimulation for their comic series. Their prime series DevaShard, is a kind of beautification

on the life of Karna (the legendary and controversial son of Kunti in Mahabharata) and their future titles will also be based about other inherent characters from the Mahabharata. All these stories from Fluid Friction are founded in a fictional world based on a mythological notion of the Earth 7000 years ago titled Bhumi. The

graphics excellence in the comics has been reproduced by an actually global team, boasting artists from both the eastern and western hemispheres.

We have a new player in the Comics arena in India, Vimanika Comics, which has made their foray with their two pilot series, The Sixth and Moksha. Vimanika Comics is the brainchild of its visionary Karan Vir Arora. The Sixth is the re-incarnation of Karna in the modern world, who is haunted by the images of Karna and his life-traverse, in his dreams. The story follows his exploits to understand its roots, while he moves to his roots in India, following his mind-trail. Moksha, has a different setting altogether, which is conceptualized in a unexplored time-space between two famous Indian epics, Ramayana and Mahabharata. It’s a double-hero storyline, following two most powerful Indian mythical legends Parashurama and Hanuman, picking up from where their stories are left untold, and re-imagining it with some fiction. Both these comics are just the beginning, with more to come from this publishing house. Another new company Arkin Comics has launched their series The Irith recently. It is based on a team of Indian super heroes like Justice League.

Self publishing of single panel gags and other cartoons by Indian cartoonists is gaining momentum. There are many Indian webcomics available today on the net. Badmash, aimed at the Indian diaspora, "Curry Bear Comics" revolves around three South Asian college kids and their white friend, "Fly, You Fools!" is aimed at Indian residents, and deals with the daily irritations of life in India. 'Savita Bhabhi', is possibly the first pornographic comic in India. 'Arbit Choudhury', is regarded as the World's 1st MBA Comic Character. "Sunny Kris", a webcomic focusing on Indian workplaces through its five characters is another new addition to the growing list of independent webcomics.

So, overall, the journey was not bad, with a great early year of 60s till 80s, then a bump in 90s with cable TV followed by Internet, and then again back in the limelight! I will leave you with a last piece of information, ever considered Spider-Man, as an Indian boy in Amchi Mumbai? It has already happened! Marvel's Spider-Man: India project, which was the first major release by a large comic company, introduced India-based artist’s talent to the mainstream, and which was published in India by Gotham Comics. The title was inspired by the success of American comics in India. This four part series explore the origin of Spider-Man, showing him as an Indian boy in Amchi Mumbai! Why only four part? They did some mistakes; It lacks originality, and was a copy of original Spider-Man, like Mary Jane becomes Meera Jain, Peter Parker becomes Pavitra Prabhakar! The biggest mistake was to put a Dhoti as part of Spider-Man costume! Who wants to like a Super Hero in a Dhoti these days?

2 States – A Comical love story!

2010-07-26T00:27:00.003+05:30

I have read it few months ago, and loved the book. So, why am I writing about it today? Something happened, which prompted me to write about this now, and it’s not that I read the book or any specific part again today. Infact, it’s somewhere in my house, and I don’t know where I put it after reading. So, what happened?
Venkat saw my LinkedIn profile, and saw that I have read 2 States. He mentioned to me that the story of 2 States is almost 90% similar to his own story! We were on phone, so this discussion did not continue much further, and I will get some more details from him, about “his” story. But, later when I started thinking about this, and remembering my own love story, I realise that it was fun, hilarious sometime, and madness! Of course it was romantic, but full of crazy activities! Then, I thought of some of my friends who has done similar crazy weddings, and surprise to understand that it was all madness, fun, and romantic at the same time! I did not realise it while reading 2 States, but now if I think of it, and compare my own story with it, I will find a lot similarities. Yeah, like Venkat I cannot say it’s exactly 90% my story, but there are similarities.
I am not talking about similarities here, but think of it, when you live it, you are tensed, confused, angry, under tremendous pressure and not sure what else. I am talking about the situation when you are in love, and try to get your families understand it, and if not, then run away from home to do a love marriage, without the approval of your families. Friends are always there to help you in such situation, but think of the situation itself, you are feeling pressure, and confused on what to do next. There are various people telling you not to marry the girl you love, relatives, parents, family members, friends of family! It seems like you wants to go away from all these! You can’t think straight! It’s a decision you need to take, and no one is available to offer you a clear advice, yes friends are there and they give advice as well. But they are of your own age; no one is there to give you an experienced advice! And when I am talking about advice, it’s the positive or neutral advice, and not the family/parent’s version of it.
Now, after years of your wedding, you look back to that time, to remember what you did, what you said to people. The activities, running away from parents, family, the arguments, your first meeting with in-laws, your thoughts about their customs, different rituals, the in-law’s family, relatives, and how you feel about them! The pressure on you to manage the new family, expectations of everyone! Your first fight with wife! Its all hilarious when you remember it now, but back then, it was a living nightmare! Love was the only thing which keeps you going in that situation! The whole world, except some friends, is against you and your love! But, you overcome all these, and now you are a happy and settled married person! So, my reason for remembering 2 States today was remembering my own love story, and laughing about it! But yes, I am no Chetan Bhagat, so my story is limited to my and my wife’s memories, sweet and romantic, with comic memories!

The Immortals of Meluha

2010-07-07T18:57:00.005+05:30

I am not a big fan of English fiction, have read some Tom Clancy ones earlier, but recently tried one of the English translation of my favourite hindi thriller writer, Surendra Mohan Pathak, The 65 Lakh Heist! and loved it. Then comes Chetan Bhagat series, I tried 2 States while travelling to Mumbai on business trip, and that opened up a new frontier for me in reading. I was limited to hindi fictions only so far, and liked the simple yet interesting writings of Indian writers. Now, after just 4 months, I have finished all Chetan Bhagat books, two of the SMP translations, and few others.

Recently finished The Immortals of Meluha, a 400 pager fiction about Shiva. A mix of mythology, history and fiction. This is a thriller, and first part in the Shiva trilogy. I really liked the pace of novel, as things happen very fast and you are really hocked to the book till very last page. The only downside of this book is that its not complete in its own, and you have to wait for the second part. Any such book in my opinion should be complete in its own storyline, and the sequel should start the story from where we left it. As we don't know when the next book will be published, and then we have to wait for the third and final book as well. What I am thinking of is that I will wait for both the parts to be published, and then will start from book 1 again, to finish it altogether. But, if you like good fast thrilling story, with mythology mix, I recommend this book to you. Also, I got mine at Landmark, without any discount, but I now am ordering all my books online, with Cash on Delivery option, as the online store gives you 20-30% discount on the price, which you won't get in stores. And with CoD, no online payment issue at all. The author has launched a website for this book as well, and also created a trailer for its promotion, watch it here:

Also, you can visit the website at ShivaTrilogy. This is a new type of publicity, and it worked as well to create hype about the book. But the book does live on its hype. The way story of Shiva or Mahadev is re-imagined with the timeline of Indus Valley civilisation, and the way Ram Rajya principle was explained, it’s worth reading. But you must know that all this is pure fiction, and not history. Some of the facts were used from history and mythology, to create a pure fiction thriller, retelling the story of Shiva, the Mahadev, starting with him as a normal human being to his becoming of Mahadev. I will not say much about story, but the presentation will keep you glued to the book.

Terror Strikes again!

2010-02-14T23:08:00.004+05:30

This time terror strikes at Pune. Again, some innocent people are killed in the blast at Germen Bakery! And in another few days, we are going to start our Indo-Pak talks again! Even without any anti-terrorist activity shown by Pakistan! Are we so desperate for this? Why can't we just accept Pakistan as our enemy and leave the things as it is? Why can't we disconnect ourselves completely from Pakistan? No ties at all! No Business, No Sports, No Art (specially No AMAN KEE ASHA), nothing at all!
It seems to me that we are asking, or rather begging Pakistan to show some mercy on us! Why not give Kashmir to them? Why not politely ask them, if they want any other area of India, and give that too ? We don't have balls to stand out against Pakistan, then its better to accept the defeat, and end this war! Anyway, we are not fighting this war, we are getting beaten up here!

So, I will not write much today, just one statement for our so called leaders or Politicians or those who are controlling India --- From your actions (or non-actions perhaps), it appears that "Thakur Ne Hizro Kee Fouz Banai Hai"

Happy Republic Day India! Be Safe!

2010-01-26T11:09:00.004+05:30

Don't be surprise by the "Be Safe" part in title, as it is a normal wish I use on every occasion now a days. We are in today's world of terrorism, and specially in India, you never know what terrorist act is in store for the next hour! So, "Be Safe" is my wishing mantra for everyone!

We have completed 60 years as a Republic, and achieved the most tough task of forgetting the meaning of Republic today! Go ahead, and ask anyone on the street, specially aged between 5 to 35 yrs about if they know the meaning of Republic or understand what this work "Republic India" stands for, and you will come to know that no ones understand that today! Why go out and ask around, YOU, who is reading this, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? Don't try to Google it in another tab! Its ok not to know, as it is normal for our period! In 2010, Republic Day means, a chance to get a long weekend by taking Monday off! Thats what it stands for today!

Aman Ki Asha is an initiative started by Times of India and some other newspaper in Pakistan. They have roped big celebrities into this, including Amitabh Bachchan! But I fail to understand why we go again and again to Pakistan, only to get stabbed into our back? Don't we have enough of our own internal problems to deal with than again starting to be friends with Pakistan? Why do India and Pakistan needs to be friends? Why can't we both stay as we are? Neighbors who don't like each other! Enemies? Yes, I do feel that till Pakistan don't stop all anti India activities and help remove anti India terrorism from its land, its not our friend! And we should not have any sort of ties with Pakistan! Nothing at all! There is no AMAN KI ASHA till Pakistan government do something about it! And I care a damn if people of both side wants peace, its not what we are going to get! There is no Aman Ki Asha with Pakistan at the moment, and we don't want to become friends with Pakistan till they stop doing what they do best! I really liked what is done with all Pakistani players at IPL auction recently! They should not have been invited at all! There are people who say sports should not be involved into politics...blah blah blah! But they need to realize, its not politics, its WAR! And we don't play with our enemies! We should not participate in any sort of activities together with Pakistan! No business, no sports, no concerts, nothing at all! We don't need any such false Aman Ki Asha type of activities with Pakistan! I really thank all IPL guys to choose not to include any of the Pak players! This is a very small step, and I think we should continue to take such steps more and more to show that we don't need Pakistan in our life anymore!

Kasab! Our royal guest! Yes, thats what I think he is now! After what he and his team did in Mumbai, we are treating him well, and showing that we really treat our guests as god! You may say that he is not free, and is in jail, so how is he a guest? Remember that if any one visit India as Royal Guest, he or she is not free to go anywhere in India. They are treated well, but visits are restricted as per protocol! And thats exactly happening with Kasab. He is well treated, with restricted visits to court only. It only happens in India!

There was a news on giving forgiveness to Rajiv Gandhi's killer! How can we forgive a terrorist? We should hang them, but we are allowing them to get married while in jail, give birth to children, and then ask for forgiveness? What the FUCK is this? They may have forgotten Rajiv Gandhi, but I am not! And its not only Rajiv who was killed on that day, there were others as well! Do we go and ask each and every family for forgiveness? Who knows, if Kasab is sentenced for few years of prison, he may ask for forgiveness after couple of years, and due to some political gain, we may consider it as well? Maybe some media house will start some sort of another Aman Ki Asha for Kasab's freedom as well! Please stop this political tamasha! We may be the Land of Gandhi, but don't forget, Gandhi never said we should not punish terrorists! He talked about Amhinsa, non-violence, but never about letting killers go away free! And even if Gandhi comes and ask me to forgive these terrorists, I will not! I still strongly support DEATH SENTENCE for each and every one involved in any of the terrorists attack, including those who helped them by selling sim cards or stolen car or with duplicate id cards! All those who are involved in any way to help (no matter how small help) to terrorists, should be hanged! No punishment based on their involvement, if they are involved, kill them! Even if they did it without knowing that these are terrorists, its no excuse for getting away from capital punishment! Just hang them! This will stop a lot of corruption as well!

I think its too much for one post now, so I will stop it. I need to write more frequently now. I will try to be more regular on my blog!

Welcome 2010

2010-01-01T17:55:00.005+05:30

Wishing you all a Very Happy New Year 2010!

Kolkata

2009-10-01T09:20:00.005+05:30

I was recently in Kolkata, for Durga Puja. It was a very short trip, of just 7 days. Considering Kolkata my home town, and birth place, 7 days is short! All my childhood friends are their, my school, collage, places where we hangout, the list is endless! Its been almost 13 years I left Kolkata, and moved to other cities for job, but I haven't left Kolkata as such. I can not leave Kolkata, not just because it is my birth place, but there is something in this city, which keeps this very close to my heart! The city is still very much traditional, old fashioned, and full of poor people. But the city also have new shopping malls, multiplexes and clubs/discs. So, you get the best of both world. You can sip a cup of tea early in the morning in Bhand (small clay-pot), and I mean as early as it gets, even at 4 AM! Then you have the option of egg-roll @ Rs 20 to Kathi Roll @ Rs 700/-, both in the same city! Hand-pulled Riksha to Auto Riksha to Taxi to Radio Taxi, the choice is yours!

Well, a lot has already been written about Kolkata, and I will not repeat it again here. The context is that I visited Kolkata and wanted to share some of the pics here. Below is the slideshow of pics taken in Kolkata.

If you want to Visit my Album and view these pics, click here...

Subho Bijoya!

2009-09-29T08:22:00.004+05:30

Wishing you all SUBHO BIJOYA! Those who don't understand the meaning of Bijoya, its the celebration of victory! Victory of Good over Evil! I will post more details and some pics, as I was in Kolkata, the home of Durga Puja! But, for the time being, here is an video with lovely animation and Durga Puja Dhak Music!

One Year after the Blasts!

2009-09-13T09:51:00.005+05:30

Its one year since two blasts - one in my city Delhi, and another in my line of work, Investment Banking. Last year, Delhi was shocked with multiple blasts, and Lehman went bankrupt, sending multiple shock waves and panic to the industry!

How we have cope up so far in last one year after these incident? The world economy went into recession, and now on the recovery path. Governments had to shell out much more money to banks in order to survive the economical breakdown. Had the Lehman was saved with Government funding, things could have been much better. But not all is lost, and it help reducing the overspending of the Banks. Now, Banks across the world are cautious about how and where to spend money.

Delhi Blast is nothing serious, the city was back in action from the very next day, and completely on the track in few days. They call it "Spirit of Delhi" or whatever, but I call it necessity of the common person to come back and start working, or their family will not be able to meet the ends. So, its not that "spirit" but the need which drive people out of the fear and came back to normal life. And with lots of other terrorist activities happening, Delhi Blast was not that important.
Those who lost their loved ones, I am very sorry for their loss, and sorry that I am writting this incident as not important enough to be remembered or to be dealt with. But it is not my personal opinion, it is the way we, as a nation, take any such incident! We are so used to terrorist activities, we just know how to react for a day, and also we know how to forget about it in one-two days (depending on casualties). Our government blames Pakistan for everything, and continue to function as it is. Do you think Pakistan is to be blamed for all the terrorist activities?
This brings another question, why blame Pakistan for all the terrorist activities? Even if there are training camps in Pakistan, and funding comes from there, can't we see that its our own people who help terrorists? If we take terrorism as a serious problem, why can't we stop anyone from crossing the border with guns and explosives? Someone told me that being such a long boarder, it is not possible to monitor and stop terrorists crossing the boarder. I tell them, if this is your biggest problem today, then there is nothing "not possible", and put all your resources into it. You may have to spend 10 times more than today, spend it! We are talking about handling the biggest problem of the nation! Spend every penny on it from the budget, and do it! There is no excuse for it. You got to take care of it! But, nah, its not that important! We have to build infrastructure for Commonwealth games next year, there are lots of other stuff needs to be done. Some people loosing their life due to terrorists? That's fine, we have enough population and loss of few individual does not have any significant impact on the bigger scale! Our Government don't think about the feelings of those who lost and will loose loved ones in all such terrorist activities. Ask them if spending on stopping terrorists is more important or commonwealth game, only if you don't yourself know the obvious answer.

But in India, we continue to live under terrorist threats, and we are now used to it. I don't have any hope for getting rid of this fear anytime soon. This is my destiny, and the future life I am giving to my children! This is the price for being an Indian. I had the option of settling down in Singapore, and many of my friends are there for good, not coming back to India. One of them even went out to get Singapore passport, after surrendering Indian passport. He is a Singaporean now. But I loved my country, and always wanted to come back. My parents never wanted me to settle abroad, and never even visited me while I was out of country. That prompted me to come back, and find my place here in my own country. I knew that I am not just giving up a comfortable life in Singapore, where you don't have to struggle for basic necessities like Water, fuel, electricity etc, but I am also giving up the security feeling I had there. We used to take a walk in weekend late at night, like post midnight, on the road/park, and never even thought of getting mugged. My wife could hire a cab, and go to an unknown area, just having the address with her, and the cab driver will take her to the destination, no chance of any harassment from cab drivers or any of the locals. I was ready to adjust on these, but terrorism is not something I was ready for. Its not that I am now thinking that I should not have come back, but its the feeling of being a target all the time. Its like I am a small bug, and can be killed anytime without me knowing about it. We all Indians are like that, even if we don't agree, but in actual, we all are bugs/mosquitoes/ants and anytime anyone can kill us. Nothing can change this feeling, and I have to live with it.

Those who know me personally, may think that I don't look like so pesimist or in fear all the time. Then why am I writting like I am? Well, I am what I am, and I don't stop living because of fear of death! So, I enjoy my day, have fun with kids, but beneath, I know that its not going to go long, and my tern will have to come some day! Not the normal life and death turn, but someday, I can be a name in the victim list of some blasts somewhere. I can't stop going out, visiting different cities, so I am a potential victim, and can be a target for being an Indian.

The Phantom. Ghost Who Walks

2009-05-30T10:46:00.003+05:30

The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many forms of media, including television and film, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the African jungle. The series began with a daily newspaper strip on February 17, 1936, followed by a color Sunday strip on May 28, 1939; both are still running as of 2009. The strip was at the peak of its popularity read by over a hundred million people every day.

If you don't know who I am talking about, this post is not for you. But if you know, read on! There are many of my friends who post Phantom Comics on their blog, so I will not repeat the same, and encourage you to visit their blog for Comics, specially now unavailable Indrajal Comics! Try finding Indrajal Comics on google, or thy their blog search, and I am sure you can find lots of links for blogs posting Indrajal Comics.

So, what am I bringing on the table? Below is the details of Phantom in other media, as most of you already know about The Ghost Who Walks from Comics!

The Phantom - In other media

The Phantom - Novels

Avon Publications in the U.S. put out 15 books based on Lee Falk's stories. These ran from 1972 to 1975.

The Phantom, The Ghost Who Walks 1972, Lee Falk
The Slave Market of Mucar 1972, Basil Copper
The Scorpia Menace 1972, Basil Copper
The Veiled Lady 1973, Frank S. Shawn
The Golden Circle 1973, Frank S. Shawn
The Mysterious Ambassador 1973, Lee Falk
The Mystery of the Sea Horse 1973, Frank S. Shawn
The Hydra Monster 1973, Frank S. Shawn
Killer's Town 1973, Lee Falk
The Goggle-Eyed Pirates 1974, Frank S. Shawn
The Swamp Rats 1974, Frank S. Shawn
The Vampires & the Witch 1974, Lee Falk
The Island of Dogs 1975, Warren Shanahan
The Assassins 1975, Carson Bingham
The Curse of the Two-Headed Bull 1975, Lee Falk

The Phantom - Movies

A 15-part movie serial starring Tom Tyler was made in 1943. A sequel was filmed in 1955 starring John Hart, but after problems with the rights to the character it was partially re-shot and re-named Captain Africa.
The Phantom was also made into a movie in 1996.
It starred Billy Zane, Kristy Swanson and Catherine Zeta-Jones and was directed by Simon Wincer. It was written by Jeffrey Boam, who also wrote Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
No less than three unauthorized Phantom movies were made in Turkey. Two were made in 1968 and both were titled Kızil Maske (the Turkish name for the Phantom, meaning Red Mask). The Phantom was played by Ismet Erten and Irfan Atasoy. In 1971 a movie called Kızil Maske'nin intikami was made.

The Phantom - Television

A TV pilot was made in 1961 starring Roger Creed as the Phantom, with Lon Chaney Jr. and Richard Kiel in supporting roles.
An Indian TV serial named "Betaal Pachisi" (meaning Phantom XXV), starring Shahbaz Khan, Tom Alter and Sonu Walia, and directed by Sunil Agnihotri, was inspired by the Phantom. It was first aired in May, 1997 on the Doordarshan TV network of India. Each episode was half an hour long and in the Hindi language. There were 49 episodes in total. However, this series, which originally was inspired by Phantom, ended up nowhere near Phantom.

The Phantom - Animation

The Phantom has appeared in two animated series. Phantom 2040 is about the adventures of a descendant, the 24th Phantom. In Defenders of the Earth, the Phantom teams up with fellow King Features adventurers Flash Gordon and Mandrake the Magician. The Phantom also made an appearance alongside other King Features characters in the 1972 animated movie Popeye Meets the Man Who Hated Laughter.
In Defenders of the Earth, The Phantom was able to use supernatural means to give himself increased strength and speed, by saying the incantation:
"By Jungle Lore The Ghost Who Walks Calls forth the strength of ten tigers" (or "the speed of the cheetah", etc.)
It is only in this cartoon series that the Phantom has such an ability.

The Phantom - Stage

A musical about the Phantom was produced in Sweden in 1985. It was written by Peter Falck and Urban Wrethagen and starred Urban Wrethagen as the Phantom. A recording of the songs was released on LP and a comic adaption of the story was published in the Swedish Fantomen magazine.
I will leave you all with the cover page of first even novel (of total 15 published ever) of Phantom, written by Lee Falk himself!

The Financial Crisis Explained In Simple Words By a fellow alchoholic

2009-05-22T20:38:00.000+05:30

The story is really insightful:

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Berlin. In order to
increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers -
most of whom are unemployed alcoholics - to drink now but
pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a
ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around and as a result increasing numbers of
customers flood into Heidi's bar.

Taking advantage of her customers' freedom from
immediate payment constraints, Heidi increases her prices
for wine and beer, the most-consumed beverages. Her sales
volume increases massively.

Since she was buying more liquor , she got extended debt
period from her alcohol suppliers to bar . A young and
dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank
recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets
and increases Heidi's borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts
of the alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert bankers
transform these customer assets into bonds like
DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are
then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands
what these abbreviations mean and how the securities are
guaranteed. Nevertheless, as their prices continuously
climb, the securities become top-selling items.

So no one was complaining, Customer getting drink on debt,
Heidi getting drink on credit from supplier and paying it
with the money she get with the banker. Banker sold it off
to market as bond and these bonds were being purchased and
sold among investment bankers among themselves.

One day, although the prices are still climbing, a risk
manager (the spoil sport) of the bank decides that the time
has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by the
drinkers at Heidi's bar.

However they cannot pay back the debts.

Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations and claims
bankruptcy.

DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95 %. PUKEBOND
performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80 %.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar, having granted her
generous payment due dates and having invested in the
securities are faced with a new situation. Her wine supplier
claims bankruptcy, her beer supplier is taken over by a
competitor.

The bank is saved by the Government following dramatic
round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing
political parties.

The funds required for this purpose are obtained by a tax
levied on the non-drinkers.

Cheers !!!

Wii Homebrew Channel

2009-05-17T00:23:00.001+05:30

After almost a year of purchasing my Wii, I finally installed Homebrew Channel on it! It was a risky decision, as I could brick my Wii, making it completely useless. So far, I have spent around US$800-$900 on the games and accessories. If you risk making an investment of such a large sum useless, it’s a big decision. I spend many hours on google, and found a lot of tutorials, made a list of what needs to be done, still was not sure how to get help if I do something wrong. I tried looking for people, who can do this for me, but it was suppose to be such a simple thing (only for those who has done it), no one seems to be able to make a living out of it! But I think it’s a good idea, as I know there are a lot of people like me, who may not wants to do it on their own, and let someone expert do it for them, like unlocking the phone. So, where was I? Ok, I had the tutorial, the stuff, but not the courage to do it. Finally, I registered myself to two such forums where this is being discussed, and post the message, just my inclination of doing it. I got few replies from some experienced guys, who have put the tutorials as well, asking if I need any help. So, I post some more messages, clear few of my doubts and decided to start. As it has given me some confidence, that someone is available to help, if I needed.

Just after 30 min, I was done, well almost, because I needed to test few things, which requires playing backup games and that took some more time, but in just less than 30 min, I was sure that nothing went wrong with my Wii and the new channel Homebrew is installed on the main menu.

So, I decided to pick the simple tutorial used by me, and add few missing information, which were left out of tutorial, thinking people are smart, but I think when doing something like this, its better to be dumb and follow exact instructions. Below is my version of the tutorial, hopefully it’s a better one!

*DISCLAIMER*

I WILL TAKE ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY WII’S THAT GET BRICKED DURING THIS PROCESS. PROCED AT YOUR OWN RISK! MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GOING TO DO HERE! YOU ARE GOING TO MODIFY THE SYSTEM FILES OF YOUR GAME CONSOLE, WHICH CAN TURN YOUR CONSOLE INTO COMPLETELY UNUSABLE, AND YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO RECOVER FROM IT. SO, IF YOU THINK THAT THE RISK IS WORTH TAKING, ONLY THEN CONTINUE. THERE ARE VERY LOW CHANCES OF BRICKING YOUR WII, BUT NO MATTER HOW SMALL THE CHANCE IS, YOU SHOULD KNOW WHOM (YOU) TO BLAME IF SOMETHING WENT WRONG! ALSO, I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH NINTENDO OR THE HOMEBREW CHANNEL. ALL PROGRAMS ARE PROPERTY OF THEIR OWNERS. THE HOMEBREW CHANNEL OFFICIAL WEBSITE IS HTTP://HBC.HACKMII.COM/.

PLEASE ALSO NOTE THAT THIS TUTORIAL AND FILES PROVIDED IN IT ARE ONLY APPLICABLE FOR A PAL WII USED MAINLY IN EUROPE AND SOUTH ASIA. I BOUGHT MY WII IN LONDON, AND USE IT IN INDIA, SO IF YOU HAVE NTSC WII, PURCHASED IN AMERICA OR JAPAN, YOU NEED FEW DIFFERENT FILES, THE STEPS ARE SAME, BUT MY SUGGESTION WUOLD BE TO GOOGLE IT.

Well, the Disclaimer is long, but really needed. It took me almost six months to decide that I should do it. I kept a track of what’s happening on the soft mod development, and around 3 months back, the steps are much easier, and the software is much stable. So, I decided to proceed. Its entirely on you, if you need to proceed or not. But even if you don’t, proceed reading further, just to know what is possible now.

What is Homebrew Channel?

The Homebrew Channel is a self-updating homebrew application loader by Team Twiizers which allows users to load homebrew applications without having to run the Twilight Hack every time. Once installed, users can access the channel from the Wii Menu just like any other Wii channel. It can launch homebrew applications from an SD or SDHC card or via TCP/USB Gecko using Wiiload. The newest release is compatible with the 23 Oct Updates.

Well, the above might be like greek to most of you, then here is the simple English definition:

• The Homebrew Channel is a freeware homebrew application loader – So, it is just an application loader, help run other application.

• It was developed to provide a way of easily running unofficial software on the Wii console. – So it can allow you to install and run many unofficial applications on your Wii, which Nintendo don’t want you to try, like media Player, Calculator, game emulators etc.

• Once installed, it appears as a standard Wii Channel on the Wii Menu. When launched, it displays a list of applications found on an SD card, and the user can select an application to launch by using a GameCube controller or the Wii Remote.

Hope the above make more sense to you. But, there is another use of this, which I think is most widely used by everyone – It can run backup games burned on normal DVDs.

Not that I am deep into piracy, as the most piracy I have done so far is to watch some online videos and listen to some online music, where I don’t know if the server it was loaded on has license to show it or not. I don’t download movies or music, let alone games. It’s because I don’t need to, I can get the movies/music easily and very cheap on stores here. Why should I download it?

But I do want to backup my Wii games, as each one of these cost me around $30 to $40, and I don’t want a simple media failure ruined my money. So, this feature is useful for me as well.

What do you need? And how to do it…
A printout of this or any other tutorial you are following, so that you don’t miss any steps.
Wii Software Version – You can get this by clicking on the Wii icon in lower left corner on your mail menu. The version is displayed on the top right corner, and it could be something like 3.2E or 3.3E or 3.4E….

An SD card – Make sure its not SDHC (if its very cheap, it is not, but check on front, it should be written SD or SDHC). Also, the size should be of maximum 2 GB, as Wii does not recognize cards of more than 2 GB size.
A Card Reader – To put required files on the card from your computer.
A Computer – Oh yes, you need a computer to download and put the files on SD Card.
Internet Connection – this is only needed if you want to downgrade your Wii system version. If your Wii system version is 3.3E or 3.4E, you need this, and you need to connect your Wii to internet, wired or wireless.
An original PAL Zelda:Twilight Princess game disk
THESE FILES – Donwload from this link, or the two other links below

STEP 1 : Make a shady SD card
UnZip the contents of the file linked above to your empty SD card.
**IMPORTANT** If you've got 3.4 firmware navigate to SDCARD/private/wii/title/rzdp/, delete data.bin and rename Twilight3.4.bin to data.bin, or the twilight hack will fail...... otherwise let's crack on......
STEP 2 : Twilight hack
Put the newly created SD card in the Wii's SD slot
Go into Wii Options/Data Management/Save Data/SD card/ and copy over the twilight hack file to the wii.
Run Zelda:TP straight away and when the save file is loaded walk your man backwards, the game should crash and the ELF loader will pop up and start installing the homebrew channel
When asked to update homebrew channel ... accept
STEP 3 : Downgrade/Upgrade to 3.2, If you're already on 3.2 skip to STEP 4
STEP 3-1 : Only for peeps with 3.3/3.4 firmwares... anything else skip to STEP 3-2
Load Wad Manager in Homebrew Channel and install IOS16-64-v257-prod.wad
Load Custom WM in Homebrew Channel and install cios_fix.wad
Load IOS Downgrader in Homebrew Channel
STEP 3-2 Load cIOS Downgrader in Homebrew channel, scroll down to 3.2e (e = europe for PAL) and install.
You should now be running 3.2 firmware
STEP 4 : Install goodies
Go to homebrew channel and install starfall, read the gumpf and press B&1 when ready ( if you read the disclaimer it says use 1 instead of 2... B&1 ) and install everything on the list by pressing + on each item ( you might have to press B&1 a few times to get it to work )
Run cIOS Installer in Homebrew Channel
Load "Install Shop IOS51". Say Yes to installing IOS51,Yes to patching a fix but leave the Wii Shop Channel.
Load Wad Manager in Homebrew Channel and install BackupLauncher_03g_Wiiish_v3_EN.wad and IOS38-64-v3609.wad.
Now you should have the Wii_ish backup loader channel on the Wii menu.. use this to launch Wii backups

You can softmod without downgrading to 3.2 but starfall only runs on 3.2 and blocks games trying to update or mess with the firmware.

Another fresh new year is here . . .

2009-01-01T11:24:00.005+05:30

Another fresh new year is here . . .
Another year to live!
To banish worry, doubt, and fear,
To love and laugh and give!

This bright new year is given me
To live each day with zest . . .
To daily grow and try to be
My highest and my best!

I have the opportunity
Once more to right some wrongs,
To pray for peace, to plant a tree,
And sing more joyful songs!”

The above poem is written by William Arthur Ward, I found it on the net somewhere, and thought of sharing with you, as it reflect my feelings for the new year!

Wishing everyone a Great Year Ahead! May this year be peaceful, economically good and everyone enjoy their life without any fear!

The year is over!

2008-12-29T11:23:00.003+05:30

Yes, 2008 is almost over! It was not a good year at all! Terrorism was on its peak this year, World Economy slowly slipping into recession, and the impact is on all sectors!

Personally, I changed my job after 7.5 years, so there was a major change in my life this year. My kids got enrolled into a new (and somewhat better) school this year. And before the year finishes, I bought myself an LCD TV, kind of the most expensive gadget I purchased so far in my life! So, the year was not bad for me, in fact, if I look back, it was good for me.

I changed my job, moved to a new company, with good raise after spending 7.5 years with my previous organization! It was like leaving a family, but the change turn out to be a good one. In just one month, I was well into the job, with recognition from everyone around me in the project! That’s a good thing, as I myself was not sure if I will be able to adjust into a new place! That’s what happens if you stay for 7+ years in the same company! Good thing for me was that out of these 7.5 years, I spend 1.5 years in Noida office, then our office moved to Gurgaon, and after 6 month in Gurgaon office, I was sent to US, then after 8 months, I moved to Singapore. I came back from Singapore after 4 years, and spen 1.5 years again in Gurgaon office. So, in a way, I was not static to one place in this company, and people as well as surrounding keep changing. Otherwise, I am not sure what impact anyone will have for working in the same office with same people for 7+ years! I consider myself lucky for this.

I remember, when I was in collage, one astrologer told me that I have "chakkar" in my leg, and I will be travelling a lot! This somehow turns out to be true in my case. I started my career in Calcutta, then moved to Nagpur for better job opportunity. Here, one thing is worth mentioning, when I join my first company in Calcutta, the job profile was only for Calcutta office. But after six months, I was asked to travel across the country! Can you believe, a person in user industry (Tyres) IT department was asked to go and provide on-site support to the agents! Way back in 1994, when IT was slowly finding its place in India, when Internet was not known to anyone in India, when we were running DOS and Windows 3.11 in offices, our product was developed in FixPro/Clipper and running at 52 locations across India. I along with one more person used to travel to all locations and install new releases, provide support to them. So, my travelling started since then! I met my wife for the first time in train! That’s another story I will write about someday!

Well, I got carried away with the "Chakkar", the point is, I moved to Nagpur, there the only travelling I used to do is to Calcutta and Bilaspur/Chirimiri, my in-law's house. But apparently, this company has also sent me to Calcutta and Raipur on official trip few times, but not much. Then I moved to Delhi and since 2003 onward, I was out of country! I went to US, then to Singapore. Last year, I came back to stay in India by choice. But I went to London for 2 weeks this year, so can not say that I have not travel abroad in the year! Again, coming January, I will be going back to London for a month! So, this "Chakkar" continues on me!

But there is a change, which is a first in my life I would say! in the year 2008, I did not travel to Calcutta at all! I don't spend whole year without visiting Calcutta, and in 2008, due to various reasons, I was not able to go! One of the major reasons was my parents visiting Gurgaon twice in the year. But my parents are not the only reason for visiting Calcutta, my friends are there! When I was in Singapore, I used to visit Calcutta 4-5 times a year. And now I am in India, and not able to visit even once! This is a first and I will remember it for the rest of my life!

I wanted to change my kid’s school, and went for getting them enrolled for the next session, for 2009-10. I was lucky; they let my kids join from mid-session in this year only! And within just one month, the difference of school is visible in kids! So, it’s really a good change for me!

Then in the last month, I decided to buy an LCD TV. I settle down for LG Jazz 32 inch TV. It was costlier than Samsung and Sony, but I like the sound quality, as well as the picture quality! There is a feature of USB connectivity, with DivX playback. So, I can just plug my pen drive and play my AVI files! I like that feature the best! All XviD encoded files are played without any problem and with great quality! The only downside of this purchase is, that just after 5 days, LG started giving a DVD player free on the same price! So, had I waited for 5 more days, I could have got a DVD player with HDMI output! But this is not something we can predict!

Well, it’s not a goody goody year only, as my son was in Hospital for Malaria, and required one unit of Blood Palettes for him. Which really was a tough task, as it’s not stored in the blood bank, and not everyone can donate palettes. My blood group is same as my son, but due to no visible veins, I can not donate it. Thanks to my friends, I was able to get through this. Then my wife was in hospital for Malaria. Thanks for the doctors and God, all is well now.

So, overall 2008 was not bad for me. But with the terrorism and economic meltdown, the future does not look very good! I am not sure how the 2009 will turn out to be. I can only pray to GOD Almighty to bring us a good year! I do not want an extraordinary year, but if GOD can give us two things - ability to live (without terrorism) and ability to earn (decent economic conditions), I think we all will have a great year. Am I asking for too much from the GOD?

Life is coming back to Normal, or is it?

2008-12-07T19:53:00.004+05:30

Its almost a week for the incident to be over, and slowly, people are returning to discuss other things, like movies, music, politics, economical meltdown, petrol price fall etc..

So, is the life coming back to normal? I don't think so! If anyone think like that, just wait for another attack to another city, or another bomb blast somewhere to remind us again of our fears! It will happen, very soon, as with the current trend, every month there is one or two such incidents happening ! So, it will happen again, as we have not done anything to stop it! Changing few ministers will not stop the terrorists to act again!

I read in the newspaper that couple of guys has been arrested for buying the SIM card used by these terrorists. Good, but what punishment we can give them? six month jail? Rs 10,000 fine? Maybe both?

If you give them death sentence, if found guilty, who will dare do such thing again in future? Think about it, as this has two benefits, anyone doing anything illegal, just for few bucks, will learn a lesson that they can end up getting death penalty for such small corruption activities as well. So, anyone breaking the law, issuing id cards, driving license in lie of money, will thing before doing so, that is the money they are getting worth the risk? And if these things are not happening, terrorist will find it hard to attack again, as they are too much dependent on help from corrupt officials in our country!

But its not going to happen, and these culprits will be out again to do the same illegal activities again, to help the terrorists again! Innocent people will die again! And life will come back to normal again! We will again talk about cricket, as England tour is going to continue, with hell lot of money to be spend on team's and match security! That brings another question, is it worth spending crores of rupees on match security and continue the series? Why not we just scrap the series? Why not we understand that we are at WAR and these things do not work out during war? But, who am I to question these things? A normal person, a citizen of India, the country living in fear of terrorist attacks! And we are not suppose to ask questions, but continue to live in the same status, die in a terrorist attack, and let other move on!

So, till the time I am alive, will continue to live and wait for my turn to be a victim!

Will I ever feel safe in India?

2008-12-07T00:21:00.005+05:30

We are helpless, and waiting to be chosen as next victim of this terrorist attacks! Some protest and expression of anger is going on everywhere, but not sure if that will help us feel safe again! Not sure if I can let my kids go to market alone to buy a candy! Not sure if we can have a vacation somewhere on a tourist destination in India! I spend my childhood in India, and I felt safe, I spend 4 years in Singapore, and I felt safe, I felt safe in traveling alone to various part of South and West India during 90s, in my first job! But not anymore! I do not feel safe now!

Today was 6th Dec, the day better remembered for Babri Masjid demolition! Being a Saturday, I did not step out of my house! Its not that I am safe in my house, but the fear of unknown, something which can happen anytime, anywhere... did not let me venture out in the market!

I will go to office on Monday, as that is required, but avoid going to movies, or new year party or any other celebration! I have an excuse that due to grief of Mumbai attack, I am not participating in any of the celebration, but deep down I know that its my fear, and nothing else!

Now, the big question is - What kind of society am I giving my children? And will I ever feel safe in India?

I am still thinking, and do not know the answers! If anyone knows, please let me know the answer as well!

I am not proud of being Indian! But am afriad of it!

2008-11-30T21:02:00.007+05:30

Almost everyone has an opinion and solution to the current terrorist activity in Mumbai. Just to remind you, I am talking about the attack happened during last week of November, lasted 3 days and there were gun battle at various locations in Mumbai. I know this is needed, as a week from now, no one will remember what happened, we will have other multiple, and maybe more deadlier attacks to talk about.

So, if you ask me, do I have an opinion? Yes, I do, but I don't think it matters. What does an ordinary citizen of India can do in this situation? I can hide I guess. But when they are coming inside the house, I don't think hiding is an option now. What will anyone do in such situation? We can not fight it, and we don't have a govt who can fight it. Our leaders will repeat the same condolence messages, packed with some "guilty will be punished" comments and some encouragement messages like "The spirit of people of India" and life will go on like it was. All of us who are not yet caught in any of these attacks, may ask for vengeance, attack on Pakistan, drastic measures by govt to tackle it and keep it a regular topic for gossiping for a week of so. And those who lost their near and dear ones will be deep in sorrow for maybe few months, and crawl back to the terms of life, and start adjusting with life. But life goes on. Life goes on after earth quack, life goes on after Tsunami, life goes on after a terrorist attack, life goes on! Its not the spirit of any city, which brings the city back on track, its the circle of life, and the universal truth of "Life Goes On"!

Don't fool yourself, because I am not fooling myself. I accept that I am not proud of being Indian, I am afraid of it. I can not venture out in night, I can not go to any tourist place, I can not travel to any other city by any mode of transport, I can not trust anyone on street! Its not that I am not doing it, I go to office, my kids go to school, wife goes to market, we go to shopping mall or central market for shopping, I travel by air or train from time to time, my wife also travel without me, with kids by train or air. But we all do these, still afraid, and forced to do, because Life has to go on! We have a life to live! We just can not sit at home, locking ourselves inside. We want to, but we just can not afford it. I have to work, kids has to study, we need vegetables and other stuffs from market. So, we have to drag ourselves out of home, and get back to normal routine. I can feel the same urge of all the people who are out on street after any attack, and our politicians call it "The spirit of being Indian or Spirit of Mumbai or Spirit of Delhi etc etc..."

This is not the Spirit of Indians, this is the need of being Indian, that one must go out, face the terror, to earn your livelihood. Today, these terror attacks are part of our daily life, we just read the news like any other road accident news. Discuss it for some time with friends, and move on. But that is what we are showing outside, we all are very much afraid inside, and our way of showing these fears is showing anger, and helplessness. We can not bring any change or do anything about it, so we can just learn to live with it. I am still trying to adjust to my fear of being Indian and living in India, hope you all will also learn it soon.

Its not that I think of this situation as completely hopeless. Don't get me wrong, there are many ways to fix this terrorism problem, I do have few suggestions, but I don't see anything happening, and till something happens, we are still living in danger of being the next victim.

I do want to give my way of solving this problem in the post, otherwise you may think that I don't see any hope.... In my opinion, we need to do the following to tackle this problem:

Capital punishment to all who are involve in terrorism, not just who fire the bullet, or plant the bomb, but even a small accomplish should only be given capital punishment, and nothing less. Also, no appeal for such cases, single court and final verdict. The verdict should only be Guilty or Not guilty, as there is only one punishment for guilty.

Secure our borders, don't let anyone enter our boarders. Just shoot to kill, don't capture anyone entering the country illegally, kill them on spot! You may kill some innocent person, but secure our boarder.

Cut off all diplomatic relations with Pakistan. Don't do any trade, sports anything! Close down our offices, no relations till this terrorist problem is resolved and Pakistan hand over all the wanted criminals. I know Pakistan can never handover all the criminals to us, but that will also be the reason for keeping Pakistan away and not starting the relationship again with Pakistan.

Spot the Indus water supply to Pakistan, and force it to resolve all the problems before they get any water!There are other such pressure we can put on Pakistan forcing them to take action! We should do it!

I don't want to write more on an issue which I think is the most widely discussed and written about issue today, just wanted to express my fear and anger towards it! I am in anger, in fear, and worried about what kind of society we are giving to our children. I have two kids, 10 and 8 years old, I have not let them watch any violent movie so far, and they are grown only on cartoons or family movies. But, how can I prevent the real violence in their life? I am an Indian, and living in fear for the safety of myself, my family and friends is part of being Indian living in India! So, I am not proud of being Indian, I am afraid of it!

What A Day Today!

2008-10-17T22:43:00.007+05:30

Karwa Chouth! Yes, today is Karwa Chouth, but my wife don't do fasting. Not because she does not believe in it, but its not celebrated in our family. We have different similar fasting day for women, its Jiutiya. It's a different story that my wife does not do fasting in Jiutiya as well, because she is not into this fasting and all. She prays, but no fasting, believes in GOD, but limited to self prayers only. I truly support her in this.

But, when I am saying its a great day, its not because of Karwa Chouth, but other reasons.

Today, Sachin Tendulkar beats another world record! He beats the highest test cricket score of Brian Lara. He is on top now, but when was he not? I know a lot of people hated him, when he was not playing well or so. But, I always liked him, although I also felt on time that he should take some matches off, to recover in form, which he did not do, apart from breaks forced by injuries. But, even if he is out at 7 runs/10 runs, they way he bat on ground, is awesome to watch! Just great strokes! Its not the run which matters, its the way he take those runs! Take any inning of Sachin, small or long, 5 runs or 150 runs! You will find his batting style worth watching! The problem with 5-10 runs is that you only get to see him play for 10-15 mins. But he has proved again, that he is Sachin! And continues to get out very close to 100 :-)

Today, I had a good meeting in office, I was worried, because I am new and in this meeting, I was left alone by my manager, in front of a different team, along with their business users, and it was related to some back and forth email between my Manager and their manager, on service level agreement between two teams. We send feeds to them, so they are higher in the food chain, and equipped with business users, they were ready to push for harder terms. But I did well. I did ask a senior member of the team to be in the call, for help. But, I did well. We did not agree to any of the non-practical approach. For a person just 6 weeks into the job, I feel good about it.

But, that's not all, Amitabh Bachchan return home today! He was in hospital for 7 days, and we all his fans were praying to GOD for him. What a relief after almost a week! The only problem is, that he promised to word harder! He needs to understand the importance of relaxing and taking things slowly. He is not getting younger. He continues to work long hours, do not take time-off, then his body will demand it. And the way his body will ask for some time off is painful for him, and for all of us, his fans! He needs to understand it clearly, that he should do limited movies only. Discuss, think and take only quality movies. We, all fans are ok to see him in just 1 or 2 movies in a year, and not in hospital! Hope he listen to us and act accordingly. But, nevertheless, today is a great day!

Yes, What A Day!

Amitabh in hospital!

2008-10-11T17:01:00.004+05:30

Just came to know about Amitabh admitted to hospital. Today is his 66th Birthday, and instead of celebration, he is being taken care by doctors. Well, I am and I know all of his fans are praying for his health. I am sure he will recover and comes back sooner than we think.

Just wanted to express myself on this news, so a small post for BigB!

Happy Dushehra!! Happy Durga Puja!!

2008-10-09T19:22:00.007+05:30

Wishing all of you a very happy Durga Puja and Dushehra! I was not able to visit Calcutta for Durga Puja and spend my whole day today in office, as I am managing Application Support Project! Well, that's not what I am going to crib about, like my team members! I knew when I came on-board that I will be working on most of the Indian holidays! So, there is no surprise here for me. And I have manage similar (a bit bigger and more messy) project in Singapore for another bank, and used to work on Singapore public holidays.

My wife and kids are already in Calcutta, and I am all alone here in Gurgaon! So, yesterday, when I was coming home in the evening, just remember that there is a small Durga Puja organized in my locality, and just went there. I grow up in Calcutta, and years after years, Durga Puja is somehow very normal for me, like never had a chance to think that I might miss it some day. Durga Puja for any Calcuttan is like part of life! But when you are away from Calcutta, you start knowing how much you liked that and start missing it. Same happens with me, and this small pandal was nothing compare to what they make in Calcutta, the budget over there are in lakhs for most of the big puja. But, here, with small budget, the pundal looks great! That was something inside me which makes the vision just fascinating! I think it was just the joy of seeing the pandal and Maa Durga's Pratima live here in Gurgaon, instead of watching pics on the net or newspapers. The pic of Pandal is in left of this text, and you can see that its very generic, but I think thats what is called your beliefe! Beauty lies in the eyes of the person!

Also, just one more update, I am going to try my hand on fanedit! I will put a detail post on it later, maybe in this weekend. But just for now, fanedit are movies edited by fans, to make it a while new watching experience. I have seen a fanedit - Spiderman Birth Of A Hero, a 3:53 hour movie, created using Spiderman part 1, 2, 2.1 and 3. That was great! A must for all Spiderman fans! The thought came to me that why not re-edit a hindi movie. Its not that I will be doing the first fanedit of any hindi movie. As per my knowledge, Sholay is the first hindi movie to be released on net as "So called Director's Cut" and that was the first indian fanedit movie. I will put up a post on sholay fanedit as well. I think the Sholay one will be my next post. So, watch this space!

Very few people know that I am also associated with one of the major Durga Puja of Calcutta. Md Ali Park Durga Puja is one of the big Puja. I am a member of Youth Association, the origaniser of this puja. I will close this post with some pics of this years Md Ali Park Puja. This years theme was Global Warming!

Enjoy the festival season! Happy Dushehra and Durga Puja to everyone!

Polday 2008 - Bollywood Ramayan

2008-09-13T22:16:00.004+05:30

As mentioned earlier, I have got the Polday 2008 video and uploaded it on YouTube. You will find the links below in this post. This presentation will be a little more close to my heart, as this was my last day in the company were I have spend 7.5 years! Actually, my official last day was 29th Aug, Friday, but I was allowed to participate in Polday, just the day after. It was a good show.

It all started with just a concept of Musical Ramayan. We wanted to show the story of Ramayan with the help of Bollywood Songs. The situations and songs were finalized by general discussion with the overall team. We cut and prepare the songs, few situations were cut to shorten the overall time. Casting was done, and practice started. Soorpanakha was changed twice, Lakshman and Hanuman were changed once, Ravan was changed twice as well. Overall it was just one week of work, and it was complete fun! While we were practicing, some guys were busy preparing the title boards for our presentation. They are not on stage (except for Aslam, who showed the boards in the drama, but you may not be able to spot him), but thanks to all of them, as without the title boards, the impact of this presentation could have been much less.

Roshan gave us idea of using actual pics of our managers for Ravan's 10 head. So, we took photograph of Roshan, Navneeth, Harinder, Soumen & Samir. We couldn't find time for prints and this idea was almost dropped, but we were able to prepare it just 30 min before the show! This was one of the main attraction of the show!

Now, no more talking, below are the links, again the show is of 13 min, and YouTube only allows 10 min of videos. So, we split it into two parts. Enjoy!

Polday 2008 - EG 61 - Part 1 - Bollywood Ramayan

Polday 2008 - EG 61 - Part 2 - Bollywood Ramayan

Moving on to a new job...

2008-08-31T18:02:00.004+05:30

After 7.5 years, I decided to move on to explore new avenues on my career path. Its a mix feeling, I know that I am going to miss this company, as I have been part of its culture for last 7.5 years. Its hard to say good-bye to people you have worked with for so long. How can I say good-bye to people who are among very good friends of mine, people who pushed me to achieve new heights, guided me on my path to achieve it and helped me whenever needed! So, I didn't say good-bye to anyone!

I also wanted to say a big “Thank You” for the support I got from everyone there, but I think that is not needed as it is part of culture there. I have not got any special treatment, but seen that everyone is ready and willing to help & support each other.

have spent the biggest tenure of my professional life there. It felt (and it still feels) like our company! Working there is like playing World Cup Cricket on home ground. You get the toughest challenge, biggest reward and along with it, support of all associates. I might be exaggerating a little bit, but it’s my last day and I have every right to get carried away with emotions!

The phrase “last day” brings out more emotions, and memories. Memories of our Noida office and Rathi’s tea. Memories of Bankware, its fun-filled 24X7 work to meet deadlines. Memories of UBS, the problems, challenges, regular pizza in office, drink and dinner parties, stream outings. And the recent ones of Gurgaon office, fighting with TAG team, struggling with BGCs, and ofcourse Polday.

If I continue to write all of it, I think my post will be more than allowed limit in size. I will mention just one incident which has the biggest impact on me here. I came back from onsite after 4 years; entire Gurgaon office was filled with new faces. It was like joining a new company. I went to Bhagirathi madam for my access card renewal, and she recognized me by name! It was surprising as I was out for 4 years, never visited Gurgaon office while I was onsite, and I put on a lot of weights! Still she recognized me and not only that, she gave me my anniversary gift which has returned due to invalid address three years back. I sent a mail that I will collect it when I visit Gurgaon, and forgot about it (three years!), but she not only kept it, immediately handed it over to me! This single incident made all new faces in Gurgaon familiar to me and I become part of Gurgaon office! No more onsite hangover or feeling lonely in office! That’s the culture and people I am talking about!

I Thank them all for giving me such wonderful experiences!

Now, from Monday onward, a new journey starts, with fresh challenges, new culture, new atmosphere, but many familiar faces. A lot of my friends are in this company and I am sure a lot of new friends are waiting! Thats because I believe in that there are no strangers in this world, all are friends, waiting to be introduced!

Polday

2008-08-19T22:28:00.006+05:30

Just a quick info, my company's annual day in on 30th Aug 2008, and we are preparing a Musical show for that. I will put more details later on, but for the time being, just wanted to show our last years performance, which won Best Presentation Award!
Below are the YouTube links, as YouTube has limiation of 10 min, we have split our 12 min video into 2 parts:

Part 1
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=8-GQ9yUsmdU

Part 2
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=ktqQi2pLQ9o

I will post the new video as well, and chances are that we win the prize again!

Until then, signing off, njoy the videos.

Superman - The Last Son!

2008-06-21T10:46:00.003+05:30

Just finished reading Superman - The Last Son. The five part story arc's first three parts were published in Action Comics #844 through #846. The next parts were delayed to give Kubert sufficient recovery time from health problems he did not wish to disclose. Because of this, the fourth part was delayed and released with issue #851. The eleventh annual of Action Comics, released in May 2008, completed the storyline. Because the better part of 19 months passed between the publication of the first part and the final installment of the story, much criticism has been centered on the creative team and DC Comics in general.

I read the first part in Gotham Comics, published in India, last year. I liked it, but after that issue, Gotham Comics stopped publishing comics in India. They have done it earlier and they did it again! We in India don't have any other option but to get the comics online, if you want to read it. An all Indian creative team is creating comics like Ramayana Reloaded, Devi, Saadhu, India Authentic, Budha etc for the international market, and we are deprive of reading these. I think such issues are responsible for piracy initially. Well, thats not what I wanted to write about today.

The story is really good, and it challenges the creativity of Superman story writers to the limit. How can you go about the Super-hero who can not be harmed? The start was good, a child from Krypton landed on earth, much like Superman himself, but this time in downtown Metropolis. Superman bound to feel emotional and his judgment will be impacted with his anger on government over the child custody and experiments they wants to conduct. But very soon, this turn into a Superman fights prisoners of Phantom Zone under Zod's command. That turn was also good, the child turn out to be Zod's son. But, Superman joining hand with Lex to defeat them looks like hurried attempt to end the story.

In my opinion, it could have been a masterpiece with Superman turning against government for the custody of this child, and rather than Zod with other Kryptonians, it should have been Govt with Lex verses Superman.

What i like most out of it is characterization of Superman. He struggles to figure out what to do with the child. There are elements of Superman that this story draws out in a emotional way, his sense of feeling alone and isolated. Its like a minority trying to live among people not his own. He also tries to relate to his father and people, whom he has never seen in reality. Superman's wish to have a family and to make a connectivity with his people. These are portrayed in a beautiful way in this comics. I read it on net, but soon they are coming up with hardcover edition, I think I will buy it for my collection.

I think thats it for today, will be back with more later.

Wii - The new era of Infotainment!

2008-06-19T08:07:00.001+05:30

Today Wii is just the very first version! But like PS and XBox, they will also come out with new versions, could be Wii2 and Wii3 or maybe the next version of this revolutionary console should be called Wii-Online! Most of the people surely having a wish list of Wii next version, here is mine:

Great graphics capabilities
3D realistic Mii to represent you not only in games, but also on online communities, virtual worlds like Second Life!
Mii Plaza should grow to becomes a new virtual world of its own, where we (our Mii) can communicate with each other, like Second Life!
IPTV compatibilities, with different channels can be added to main menu, for quick access. BBC has already started its video service for Wii, more to follow.
Wiimote and nonchok is good, but offers limited virtual reality. More gears to offer complete virtual reality gaming, like something to wear on your head, for head movement, a knee pad for leg movement. Wii Fit is already in market, but more gears are required!
Individual login and profile management for each member of family
A Music / Radio channel for listening to your favorite music from SD Card / internal memory or internet!
More internal memory required! Much more required! Current 512MB is nothing these days!
More educational game titles are required! Big Brain Academy is not the only one which a child or family needs, we want more innovative ways to let the kids learn!
Online or saved Comics reader! I can read comics on my PC/Laptop, on my mobile, why not on TV using Wii?
Demo games channel to let me play demo and decide if I want to buy it or not!
A revamped news channel, where I can customized the news sources, like Google News!

The list can go on and on! But with current Wii constantly out of stock at major international market like US and UK, I don't think Nintendo is planning for a new release at the moment. But, once the technology has been showcased, and people start carving for more, its bound to happen. If Nintendo is not going to do, someone else will do.

What I see is that the new era of merger has began! We have seen Mobile and PDA merger earlier, and very soon, the PC and TV will merge to start the new era of entertainment, or should I say Infotainment!

Sarkar Raj! - Awesome Movie!

2008-06-09T21:59:00.003+05:30

Watched Sarkar Raj yesterday! Its Sarkar all over again, and more! If you have seen Sarkar, and liked it, go and watch Sarkar Raj, its more intense, more shocking and I think one of the finest creation of RGV!

After AAG, I was not very sure about this one, but RGV has again proved me wrong! He has delivered a masterpiece one more time! I will not take much of your time, and get down to business.

The best of the movie--

Amitabh Bachchan! Should I say more ? He is same character you saw in Sarkar, with more intense look and some great dialogues which you can remember after watching the movie, something like old AB movies, after a long time. He is the central focus of the movie, like the original. There is a change from the original. Here, you get to see an angry AB, taking charge of the situation and killing people. The Sarkar AB was taken a back seat and ABjr was doing the killings. His GOD like persona is simply awesome!

Abhisek Bachchan! He has deliver a great performance. I think after his performance in Yuva and Sarkar, this comes next, before Guru! Some of his dialogue deliveries with AB are great! I loved the part when he replied to AB "Aap kahate hai, nazdeek ka phayda dekhne se pahale door ka nuksaan soch chahiye, waise he ye bhi sach hai kee nazdeek ka nuksaan dekhne se pahale door ka phayda soch lena chahiye!". There are some part which I will not mention here due to spoilers, but look out, ABjr is coming in big way!

Ram Gopal Verma! Awesome! Simply great script! great direction! great camera work! its a dark movie! Quick pace of the movie didn't let you think about the next turn, it happens and you just get shock! He has delivered another great masterpiece!

Now the not so good part---

Aishwarya Rai! No need for her in the movie! Yes, she was part of the story, but the transformation of her from a business women to a crying.. falls in love for ABjr is too quick and need more character building! Her father dealing with AB jr and movie without her could be a better one I think. But anyway, I think she is part of the packaged deal!

Villains! I hate to say that there is no impact in this movie from the villains side! None has been worthy of standing against AB duo! Thats the weak part of the movie. It could be a better one with some better villains.

Climax Explanation! I personally think it was a bit different approach of RGV, but in my opinion, the explanation should have been shown in a different way, rather than someone just explaining it!

Overall! Its a great movie! Go and watch it!

Bhoothnath - a must watch for the whole family!

2008-05-11T20:38:00.004+05:30

Yesterday, I went to watch Bhoothnath! I was with my kids, and enjoyed the movie! Kids were the one who enjoyed the most! The movie is for kids, but parents and the whole family will like it! Its kinda Disney movies, made for the whole family. Yes, the 2 hour 15 minute movies is not 100% well made, specially the songs are not fitting and could be taken away from the movie. I think out of all the songs, I prefer "Banku Bhaiya", Hum to hai Andhi" to be cut from the movie, and leave the "Hey Buddy" as the climax song only, and not in the movie! It still leavs us with two more songs in the movie, but these are situation based and ok to be in the movie. The best part is of course Amitabh Bachchan! But the kid has got great talent! He and BigB both carried the movie perfectly well! Juhi is lovely as a mother! SRK was good in his small but impressive (not so impressive) role. I will really give credit to the first time director to have SRK in special appearance and keep him in that small role. Any other director could have given him a song to make the movie more commercially attractive! I will not discuss the story here, but will mention one thing about the movie, which gives this movie an upper edge than any other similar movie. Ghost with a kid! The very first thing comes to mind is that ghost will help kid in different aspects of kids life, like school bully problems, exams etc, but this movie keeps itself clear from that area! Ghost in this movie refuse to help the kid in sports competition saying that there is no magic in life! He needs to fight back and win the race himself, without any help! Yes, ghost is involved in some hilarious incidents in school, but no help as such in real life problems. So, I would say, take some time out, go with the whole family and you will enjoy this movie! Worth watching with your whole family!

London Bankware Meet

2008-04-08T11:26:00.003+05:30

I was in London for two weeks, and got a chance to meet all my Bankware group friends! We met at The Sir Paul Pindar Pub in Central London to enjoy our Friday evening! It was all fun, getting updates about everyone! Well, I guess its same everywhere when you meet friends after a long time, you talk about whats happening, you drink, you talk about past, you drink a bit more, you talk about everything else going on these days, you drink! The main idea is to spend some quality drinking time with friends, and thats what we did!
I was carrying my K800i Cybershot phone, and clicked some pics that evening. Putting up a slideshow from that evening, for my friends!

The power of Piracy!

2008-04-08T02:17:00.005+05:30

I enjoy watching Wrestling or to be specific, WWE, as there is no competition today to WWE. It has already taken care of WCW and ECW. I don't think TNA is really up against WWE, at least not till today.

Well, that story some other day, but today, I came to know about a new DVD set from WWE, called "The Greatest Superstars Of Wrestlemania", and wanted to know which matches are put on this DVD. The obvious thing to do is google it, and I did, but only to get torrents for this DVD set. It is only at page#3 of google search that I found something useful. Maybe my search was not good, as I searched for "WWE The Greatest Superstars Of Wrestlemania" on google.co.in (my default home page). For those who don't know what torrent is, I would just say that its one of the easiest and most widely used medium of piracy today. Someday, I will put up a post on torrents as well, but till then, just google it if you need more information.

Its not that the google is not searching for right pages on net, but there are so many torrent site, if you do a search for any popular software or movie, chance are that some of your first page search include a link to torrent. Some pirates may call it power of freedom, but in my opinion, its Power of Piracy! I don't need to provide data or statistics to show how much money is lost due to piracy, just a simple example will do. I was very keen on watching Jodha Akbar, but when I came to know that its 3hour plus movie, I was a bit hesitated to go to theater for the movie. One of my friend gave me a DVD of the movie, it was on 4th day after the movie was released. The DVD was having 1 GB avi file with crystal clear quality of the movie. There were few more movies were available on the DVD, like Taare Jameen Pe, RAMBO 4 etc. All DVD quality, in xvid format. I watched Jodha Akbar at home, and liked the movie. But wished I could have seen it in theater, as the fight sequences and war scene might look much better on big screen. But after watching it for 3+ hour, I did not find it worth watching again on big screen just for the war and fight sequences. So, they (the movie producer) lost a customer. And I am not one, the torrents are making it easier for everyone to access the good quality of movie as soon as there release. So, lets say if 100 people could have watched JA in theater, with piracy, now only 30 people go to see the movie. Rest watch it at home with the help of piracy. So, do you think it will be possible to make big budget movies without getting paid from all viewers? I will let you think and answer this question on your own!

Free Internet Channel on Wii

2008-04-07T02:37:00.005+05:30

I was in London for two weeks! I am not a traveler so spend my weekends with friends over there. Apart from meeting friends, and a get-together, the best thing I did is to get a Wii for myself. If you don’t know what Wii is, try google. All I can say about Wii is that – The Future of entertainment has started with Wii! Now, will not explain Wii here, but write about something which you may find interesting to read and know if you have a Wii or planning to buy one.

I am really enjoying my Wii along with kids! Its great! I got Wii Sports, Wii Play, GT Racing and Carnival games. Mostly we are hooked to Wii Sports and Wii Play. I did some search and found that Wii can be used for net surfing, well, not a great thing to do if you already have a laptop or desktop with you at home. But, I downloaded the browser anyway, and found two things which prompted me to write about it.

Games Games and more Free Games for your Wii

First, Opera browser which runs on Wii is capable of running flash 7.0 stuff in the browser. What that means? It means, you can play a lot of flash based games which are available freely on net! Any game developed on flash 8 or higher version (9 is latest I guess), will not run on Wii, but there are endless games available on net which you can play on your Wii! Infact, there are few sites which caters Wii compatible games only. Try below sites:

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/wii/

http://www.wiicade.com/

http://www.wiiplayable.com/

http://www.eiksoft.com/wii/index.htm

http://www.wiiarcade.com/

The above sites are Wii specific, but there are a lot of other sites providing free online playable games based on flash. There are two things required for a flash based game to run on Wii browser, first it should be developed using flash version not more than 7.0 and second it should only be using mouse for control. Try our Indian game site, http://www.zapak.com and you can find few desi style games as well!

Last word, you can always play these games on your PC or laptop, but using a wireless controller instead of mouse has a different feeling!

Unlimited Broadband Connection = Unlimited Entertainment on your TV

The second best thing about Wii browser is that it can play online flash player based videos! That makes it YouTube compatible. Now I can watch all YouTube videos on my TV instead of small PC screen! Just go to YouTube, search for a video, then zoom it using “+” key on the remote to show the video area on full TV screen. It’s so great, that instead of watching TV, I am now watching YouTube on my TV. Its like Video on Demand service, you watch what you want to watch and when you want to watch! That too, its free!

YouTube is just one site, not the limit, there are a lot of other online video sites, including ones which host full online movies, and are compatible as most are using similar technology! So, fire-up your Wii browser, and open up a whole new world of entertainment on you TV!

Getting Internet Channel for Free

I recently brought my Wii and it does not come with Internet Channel like the earlier sets. Earlier, the browser was in beta stage and was coming free along with Wii, but they stopped distributing it free and priced it 500 Wii points, approx $5. Here is a simple way to get Wii Internet Channel for free.

When you open your box, check in the documents, you will find two cards for Club Nintendo registration. Go to the website, register your Wii and Wii Sports game using PIN# written in both the cars, and you will receive the following Wii Stars:

User Registration 250 stars

Wii Console 1000 stars

Wii Sports 1000 stars

Total 1250 stars! If you are buying more games manufactured by Nintendo (not just licensed by them), you get more stars. Like I got 250 more stars for my Wii Play game.

Now, you need to link your club account to your Wii Shop Channel account. Follow the below steps for doing that:

How do I link my Club Nintendo account to my Wii Shop Channel account?

When you have a Club Nintendo account and your Wii console is connected to the Internet, go to the Wii Shop Channel from the Wii Menu.

Once you are connected to the Wii Shop Channel, select 'Start Shopping'.

On the next screen, select 'Settings'.

On the Settings Screen, point your Wii Remote at the Club Nintendo logo and press the A Button in order to link your Club Nintendo account.

You will then be asked to enter the email address and password that you normally use to log into your Club Nintendo account.

Once you entered your details, select 'Link'.

When the link has been established you will get a confirmation message. Select 'OK'.

Your Club Nintendo Membership is now linked to your Wii Shop Channel account.

It’s very easy after this, just log on to Wii point card shop, (https://wiipointscard.nintendo-europe.com/php/index.php?lang=en_GB) and redeem your stars for Wii points. Most of the times the 500 point card is out of stock, so you need to buy 200 or 100 one, whichever is available. Also note that you can only redeem one card per day, so you may have to buy 200+200+100 to make it 500 points in three days. This is assuming you may not get 500 point card and only option is 200 or 100 point cards. Also, every 400 star is equivalent to 100 Wii points. So you need total 2000 stars for 500 Wii points. All you have to do now is write down the Wii point card number, go to Shop Channel and add Wii points to your account using the point card numbers. When you have 500 points in your account, download Internet Channel.

Those who already have internet channel on their Wii, can use these points / stars to buy other games/collectibles for free.

Another year gone! Welcome 2008!

2008-01-19T21:07:00.001+05:30

yeah, i know its already 19th of Jan, but the last few days of 2007 and first few days of 2008 were a bit hectic, and i sneaked in between for 5 days vacation to my home town Calcutta! celebrated new year in Calcutta with friends. we were drinking from one bar to another on the new year night! well, that was fun! with just no sense attached to it, but it was pure fun!

These Days... 12-Dec-2007

2007-12-12T23:56:00.001+05:30

Nothing much these days... watched Dus Kahaniyaan yesterday! utter crap movie! don't waste ur time and money... yaar free me bhi mat dekhna! the only good thing abt the movie was that it ended in 2 hour.

Heroes season 2 was ended with just 11 episodes! watched back 2 back all episodes last weekend! its good, but too short for a season! they planned for 23 - 24 episodes, but due to writer's guild strike, they had to finish it half-way. the story was well planned and moving in good pace, but in episode 8 only it started shaping. too bad they had to end it in 11 only. hopefully the strike will finish and they can start volume 3 post winter.

Well, i did saw Rush Hour 3 on DVD couple of days back, and frankly, didn't like it much. it was ok to watch just for the hack of Jacky and Chris, but story and presentation lacks gripping. its Terminator 3 of the Rush Hour series.

Talking abt T3, i just heard that they are producing a TV series on T3 named The Sarah Connor Conicals. its premiering in Jan 2008, lets see how it is. for a Sci-Fi fan like me, its good news, after Heroes, there are more.

Thats all abt these days, and yeah yesterday there was a shootout in one of the local school here. Now India is at par with US in atleast one thing - shootout at school! my deepest sympathy with parents of all three kids, the one who died and the two who were involved. but i believe parents are responsible for this in many ways! i hv two kids, one boy of 9 yrs and one girl of 7 yrs. still they only watch cartoons or kids movie. i never let them see any serial or movies not meant for kids. but its sad that we don't hv such discipline in all the homes. parents watch crap on tv and let kids watch that along too. the voilence we see on movies or news channels, is not appropriate for kids, but we let them watch, and see how they learn. kids are very fast learner, they learn a lot from watch tv, specially meaningless action movies and Wrestling where fight or bullet is the only way to settle score.
whatever has already been done can not be undone, so we can only offer our sympathy with the parents, but all other parents should take notice and start taking precautions abt this.

well, thats it for now..

Aaja Nachale - The Return of Madhuri!

2007-12-07T00:34:00.001+05:30

Madhuri is back! Just saw Aaja Nachale, The Musical! Yes, the name should be Aaja Nachale, The Musical! Because it is a Musical movie! Most part of the story is shown into songs! But, wait, the presentation is not that u go out of theater for a smoke during songs! Its like u r watching an Opera! A Musical Broadway show! Its a new experiment in Indian Cinema! From the Box Office initial reports, people are not liking it, but no one can predict indian audience. u never know what they like and what don't! But the movie is really worth watching with entire family! They don't make many family movies these days!

And it has Madhuri! Aha! Dhak Dhak Madhuri! She is WOW! She is UUFFFF! She is Ouch! She is still same Madhuri! The story does not support any Dhak Dhak songs, but the way she danced in the movie... u need to see it... i can not explain it in words! Its just Madhuri Magic! Madhuri was more than enough for me to watch 2 hour 21 min movie! And I am not alone! There are many Madhuri crazy guys in India! Of course if u go to see a Dhak Dhak or Choli Ke Peeche Madhuri, u may be disappointed, but go to see Madhuri, and u will love the movie as well!

Just one think I noticed, Madhuri is not showing her tummy now, maybe due to the birth mark from her pregnancies. Her dresses are all covered up from front! Bare back is always a trade make of Madhuri and it continues!

will not write much, go and watch the movie! and njoy Madhuri!

Haneef - Innocent until proven guilty or TERRORIST?

2007-07-19T23:13:00.001+05:30

He is a terrorist! Yes, thats how people will see him for the rest of his life! His life is ruined forever! Its not innocent until proven guilty, but guilty from the day one! With the international media coverage, its already confirm that he is not going back to the civilized world again; there is no place for him anywhere but in terrorist camp! I am not sure if he has the guts to pull the trigger or go as human bomb and kill innocent people. If he can not do that, he is jobless as there is no other job he can do now!

Why am I thinking abut him anyway? Does this has anything to do with me? No and Yes! No because I don't know him, and I don't care what happen to him, its like just another news item to me. Yesterday a building collapsed and till now 28 people are dead, with chances of toll going up. I see 28 innocent people dead, including kids, he is alive! But there are a lot of other reasons which prompt me to think and write about it, the Yes part of its impact on my life! It does impact me when I see how our government reacts and lay-off his hand from any of such cases. It does impact me when I see that we don't get any help from our govt at the time when we badly need it. It does impact me when I see how media can turn an innocent person into a deadly terrorist in just few hours. It does impact me when I see how can the power of media be misused against anyone! It does impact me when I see how a person is illegally held by a developed nation just because there are suspicion on him It does impact me when I see how the law is twisted to do illegal task by a develop nation. It does impact me when I see no human right commission is raising any voice against whats happening with him. It does impact me when I see no other nation is condemning whats being done in Australia.

I am not assuming that Haneef is innocent, yes I will not use Dr in his name anymore, as I am sure he can not practice now... not now, not in future anymore! He may be a terrorist and they may find proof against him. But as I said earlier, I don't care if he is a terrorist. The fact is, everyone is treating him like he is a terrorist and its already proved! For one second, I can assume that general public has a tendency of assuming guilty based on media report, but how can one justify what governments are doing! When I am using govts, I am including India as well. Any Indian citizen working abroad looks for help from his country in this situation. Its our govt duty to ensure that he receives a fair trial. How can one trust and love India after knowing that the country will not stand for him when needed most? How can I think of going to such developed nation after knowing that I will be treated like Haneef if they even have a little doubt on my character?

I am happy in India, atleast here I know that I will not get any punishment soon even if I am a terrorist! Don't believe me? Check out the Mumbai Bomb Blast case, after 14 years, the sentences are being given now. 3 of them got death punishment. After this, there will be appeal into different courts and then to the President. So it could be another 10-15 years before they actually get death penalty, if the decision is upheld everywhere.

I can suggest a way to eradicate terrorism from this world, and I think our so called developed nations are already following most part of it. Just kill anyone who you think can be a terrorist or having relation with any known terrorist. If you happen to catch a terrorist, kill him, kill his family and all his relatives. Very soon you will remove that religion from the earth, so no one will be left to become a terrorist. Like it? I have to get it patented, otherwise someone from US will get a patent on it and no other country can use this trick!

Jokes apart, if you ask my personal opinion, I am in favor of a very violent torture for all terrorist who are involve in killing innocent people! No matter who is it, what nationality or religion he/she is following, its just one thing, if he or she has killed innocent people and there should only one penalty for it - no, its not death, I don't want them to die, I want them to live, live for atleast few years, with everyday going to the living hell of torture! I know its against human rights, but what they are doing is also against humanity! And you can only stop it by giving hell to those who think they are going to heaven once they die! I am not targeting any particular religion here, but if any religion is asking to kill innocent people, I don't believe that religion should be followed by anyone! Come and tell me that your religion ask you to kill an innocent person and I will say your religion is bullshit!

Anyway, thats my opinion, everyone has their own way of thinking, and I respect that. Innocent or Guilty, Haneef is a terrorist now! And thanks to him, I get to know the dark side of our govt as well as some developed countries!

I am back... its been a while!

2007-06-27T16:25:00.001+05:30

Did anyone miss me here? I don't think so... as I don't think anyone reading my blog... everyone writes there blog like its been read by millions of visitors from across the globe. it may be true for few blogs, which are famous, but not for all. I am sure that apart from me, no one is going to visit my blog. But as the saying goes, u need to be part of the world, keep doing what others are doing. so I decided to continue with my blog.

Now for the title, I am back, not only on my blog, but also I am back to India. After a long trip of 4+ years to Singapore, now I am back to India. I am loving it. Its been 3 months now, and I am enjoying it. There were friends and other people in office, telling me not to go back, as I won't be able to adjust in India after spending 4 years of "good" and "safe" and "easy" life. But I was clear about it, I have to adjust, there was no second thought about it in my mind. That is why I am referring it as "long trip" and not stay. I never wanted to stay there. Singapore is great place. Do visit it if u get a chance. And you may want to settle down as well in Singapore. My case is different, as I never wanted to go outside India at the first! I don't regret it, but the decision was based on job requirement and not of my choice back then. But I do enjoy my stay both at Stamford in US and Singapore. I have made some very good friends as well. Professionally also I have gained a lot knowledge. So, overall, not bad. But again, its great to be back in India.

So, u will c a lot more of me here.

Sanmarg on Internet!!!

2005-11-23T01:09:00.001+05:30

its 3:37 AM in night, about three hours ago, I just did a search on google for "Sanmarg", and i could not belive my eyes when I saw a web page link of Sanmarg! Its like a dream come true for me!

Stop press!! You must be thinking what Sanmarg is, right ? Well, its a Hindi language newspaper published from Calcutta (now Kolkata), and I grow up reading that everyday! It was a small organization and the newspaper is just 12 pages all daily. So, you may call it a local newspaper, but it has more than 800,000 readership in Eastern India. There are few other newspapers available in Calcutta, like Janasatta, a national hindi daily from Indian Express group, and Vishwamitra, another local daily. But only Sanmarg knows what Calcutta wants to read in hindi newspaper.

Now, just imagine how I feel with getting an online edition of my newspaper! But this is not all, they are online, but with a difference. Instead of putting up news and articles on their site, they put up exact replica of print edition of the newspaper! That is something like I am in Calcutta, and reading my own newspaper in morning! I spent about 3 hours reading all seven days edition. It was emotional, nostalgic and somewhere I find myself closer to my home, my Calcutta. Now I will be reading this newspaper every morning with my tea! So far, yet so near to home! Thank You technology! Thank You Sanmarg!

3 arrested for illegal distribution of copyright songs on Internet

2005-08-18T09:29:00.001+05:30

original url of the article : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/163682/1/.html

3 arrested for illegal distribution of copyright songs on Internet
By Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE : For the first time, three men have been arrested for the illegal distribution of copyright songs on the Internet. The Intellectual Property Rights Branch of CID (Criminal Investigation Department) acted on information received from the Recording Industry Association of Singapore. The three suspects, aged between 16 and 22, were found to have illegally distributed songs in digital format on an Internet Relay Chat channel. They configured a computer programme to send broadcast messages to IRC chatters, inviting them to download songs from their computers. Persons found guilty of illegally distributing copyright materials are liable to a fine not exceeding $10,000 per article, and a maximum fine of $100,000. They can also face a jail term of up to five years or both. - CNA/de
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am not sure why guys are still going for this. Its not worth taking the risk! I know its tempting, but hey, you should understand the law as well. These teens are not mature I guess. They are just doing it for fun and thrill of it. This is sad that law has to take its course, but my sympathy goes with their family as well. As a parent, one can feel the agony their parents must be going through at this time. With the age group, all are school or collage students. And with this, they got a bad stamp for all of their career. I know a lot of people world over share movies or songs between themselves. In fact, I am not sure if giving my copy of original movie DVD to my friend to watch is leagal or not, but I do it. I and some of my friends buy original movies and shre between ourselves for watching. It cut cost to all of us, instead of everyone buying their own copy. But making a duplicate copy of my original DVD / VCD and giving it to someone is illeagal and I know it. Recently, one of my friend had got DVD of Mughl-E-Azam, an old hindi movie, which is re-released recently with colorization process, making the movie color from its original black&white. I was already having the original B&W DVD in my collection, but wanted to catch the movie in color. It was not released here and recently there were two shows as part of Indian Cine Festival, but tickets were sold out. So, I borrowed the DVD from my friend, and was surprised by the copy. Normally Hindi movies in DVD are just movie, thats it, no extra features, nothing. So, the only difference between a VCD to DVD is picture quality, and sometime sound (not all Hindi DVD gives 5.1 audio). But this one has two disk set with lots of extra features, including deleted scenes and one full extra song, which was not included in original classic movie. So, after watching it, I wanted to include this movie in my collection as well. I could have simply made a copy of it with my DVD writer, but instead I purchased the copy from shop. Its been a while I downloaded any mp3 even from net. I use to do it earlier. But now, I have a broadband connection, and I can listen to online music from sites such as raaga.com or humfm.com, instead of downloading the music. This way, I am not doing anything illeagal and enjoying the music as well. I am not sure why people go for download, when other options are available. Last year, I tried downloading movies from IRC channels, but I got fed up very easily with that. The quality of movies are not watchable, and most of the time its not full movie. You spend hours in downloading movie and when you watch it, you think its not worth it. So, I stopped doing it altogether. Not because of the law, but because of the fact that its not worth it.

Anyway, life goes on...

Yaad agaya who gujara Jamana.......

2005-08-16T11:32:00.001+05:30

When gulli-danda and kanche (marbles) were more popular than cricket ...When we always had friends to play aais-paais (I Spy), chhepan-chhepai and pitthoo anytime ...When we desperately waited for 'yeh jo hai jindagi'..

When chitrahaar, vikram-baitaal, dada daadi ki kahaniyaan were so fulfilling ...

When there was just one tv in every five houses and When bisleris were not sold in the trains and we were worrying if papas will get back into the train in time or not when they were getting down at stations to fill up the water bottle ...

When we were going to bed by 9.00pm sharp except for the 'yeh jo hai jindagi' day ...

When Holis & Diwalis meant mostly hand-made pakwaans and sweets and moms seeking our help while preparing them...

When Maths teachers were not worried of our mummys and papas while slapping/beating us ...

When we were exchanging comics and stamps and chacha-chaudaris and billus were our heroes ...

When we were in nanihaals every summer and loved flying kites and plucking and eating unripe mangoes and leechis ...

When one movie every Sunday evening on television was more than asked for and 'ek do teen chaar' and Rajni' inspired us ...

When 50 paisa meant at least 10 toffees ...

When left over pages of the last years notebooks were used for rough work or even fair work ...

When 'chelpark' and 'natraaj' were encouraged against 'reynolds and family' ...

When the first rain meant getting drenched and playing in water and mud and making 'kaagaj ki kishtis' ...

When there were no phones to tell friends that we will be at their homes at six in the evening ...

When our parents always had 15 paise blue colored 'antardesis' and 5 paise machli wale stamps at home...

When we remembered tens of jokes and were not finding 'ice-cream and papa' type jokes foolish enough to stop us from laughing ...

When we were not seeing patakhes on Diwalis and gulaals on Holis as air and noise polluting or allergic agents ...

the list can be endless ... on the serious note I would like to summarise with ...

When we were using our hearts more than our brains, even for scientifically brainy activities like 'thinking' and 'deciding' ...When we were crying and laughing more often, more openly and more sincerily ... When we were enjoying our present more than worrying about our future ...When being emotional was not synonymous to being weak...When sharing worries and happinesses didnt mean getting vulnerable to the listener ...When blacks and whites were the favourite colors instead of greys... When journeys also were important and not just the destinations ... When life was a passenger's sleeper giving enough time and opportunity to enjoy the sceneries from its open and transparent glass windows instead of some superfast's second ac with its curtained, closed and dark windows ...

I really miss .. do u?

Yeh Daulat Bhi Le Lo ...
Yeh Sohrat Bhi Le Lo ...
Magar Mujhko Lauta do Bachpan Ka Sawan..
Woh Kagaz Ki Kashti Woh Barish Ka Pani..