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Building a house in India: A paradigm shift
2007-08-28 04:47:00
All the members of the G-gang used to laugh at Prasad when he used to come up with this statement Shucks man! I should have been born a few years earlier. I would have been a millionaire. But then, over a period of time, we could realize what he said was just true. The IT (Information Technology) scenario around the time of 1998 was one of the best periods for a budding engineer to blossom. People made money like never before, investing in the stock market and reaping the benefits to the last pie. It was the time when the common man turned into a big man.Let us forget the IT boom and the resulting doom. Let us go back to the early nineties, no, the late nineties. Everyone knew that if you could come to the US for a couple of years, it was well within your reach to build a palatial home in Malleswaram, Bangalore. Make it three years, and you could enhance your home with the best of furnishing. There was a huge difference in the economy of the two countries - USA and India . ...
More About: House , Building , A House , Shift

The dilemma
2007-08-23 00:28:00
Ramu felt the sweltering heat hit him on his back from the solitary ray of the sun. He was lying on the ground in the backyard of his mother's ancestral home in the village, at a spot about three feet away from the well that was the only source of water for the entire household. He was at bliss in this part of the house, which was well populated with all kinds of trees, the vegetables of which found their way to everyday lunch and dinner. In spite of the covering from the trees, he felt a single ray of light peering through the gap formed by the branches of the neem and drumstick tree. He tried to ward off the ray by moving aside slightly, but as he was confronted by one more, its counterpart, he fell back to his original position. His laziness prevented him from making further adjustments and rightly so. The backyard, the well, the trees and the stone used for washing clothes gave a sort of aura to the place elevating him to an unexplainable bliss. He loved drawing water fr...
More About: Dilemma , The D , Dile

Indian restaurants at Boston, Sigh!
2007-08-19 22:10:00
Boston, easily one of the biggest cities in US with considerable Indian population and of course, lot of Indian restaurants by the wayside. The suburbs have a good number of restaurants well balanced with North Indian and South Indian food. The weekends give us good time to explore these restaurants and rate them based on the delicacies served. Being a dosa freak, my eyes involuntarily go to that section of the menu which serve different types of dosas. In Bangalore, whenever I used to venture out to eat outside, even if I made up my mind for dosas, I would not feel complete without eating the Masala Dosa. Here too, it is no different. Though the menu lashes out ten different kinds of dosas, I would simply settle for the Masala Dosa. Habits die hard, and towards masala dosas, it is impossible.We have easily visited about ten different joints over the last couple of months. One bite of the dosa, and I know that it is nowhere, not even remotely close to what I get in Bangalore...
More About: Restaurants , Boston , Sigh

India - Shining and Rising @ 60
2007-08-12 08:21:00
It sometimes requires a lot of effort to come out of your dumps, beat the blues and get into the real world amidst the thick of things. The last two weeks kept me busy with the unfavourable modes of life, and after sighing (a bit actually) and sulking, I came to terms with reality and now have moved on pretty well. A two weeks of hiatus from the world of blogging, I wanted to continue only if I found something stirring and moving to write about, instead of writing about the daily vagaries of life. What better topic can get more evocative than writing about the country! All India n channels are beaming the news to keep us aware that India is turning 60, but that feeling lay hidden somewhere in the corner of my heart, and I had not truly felt the magnitude of the moment. Of course, the feeling was developing within over the last few days, but not good enough to express it in words. Some things are best left unwritten when the moment does not take you over. One has to wait for the right...
More About: Shining

Some things are just Godly...
2007-07-24 00:32:00
Life is such a complicated and intricately woven web of happiness and sadness, that the passage of time lets you experience both of them at mutually exclusive moments. It just does not cease to amaze me on encountering bizarre and crucial decision making instants in life, that over a period of time, I just can't help thinking about it. Life throws its challenges at every stage, and you end up battling it against all odds. It sometimes makes you wonder Did that really happen? Did I really do it? How in the world did I get out of the mess? Who helped me overcome it? These questions more or less leave you probing for those elusive answers. It is at this time, that you wonder at the beauty of creation of life and matter; the hidden answer surfaces raising its hood in all conviction, and you know that some things are just beyond our control, look upto the heavens and the sublime feeling of Godliness merges with your life. At some point, you realise that life is not just about scientific...
More About: Things , Some

Partner - Mindless laugh riot
2007-07-22 07:22:00
There are some movies to be watched, just leaving your gray matter behind. You should not question why some things are happening and take things on screen value. After a rather eventful day at Newport, RI, we caught up with the latest David Dhawan laugh riot, Partner , starring the old time favourite Govinda along with the current controversial macho man, the ever undressable ready Salman Khan. The duo along with the beauties Lara Dutta and Katrina Kaif just got us entangled in what can be called as a feel good movie, combining all elements of reel life to get us hooked to two and a half hours of absolutely mindless comedy.I am sure it would make no sense for me to give a review of the movie with a structured baseline of the story. Come on guys, it is a Dhawan movie. You can't expect a strong storyline to fill the minutes. The scenes are churned faster than the speed of the light, with reel after reel of What the hell is happening on the screen. It was funny to see Govinda come back...
More About: Laugh

She...
2007-07-20 02:56:00
A beautiful sunny day in the offing,How could I not enter the forests,She tagged along with me slowly,A comfort to have her with meThe days gradually progressed,I found not a soul in sight,It was a sojourn always tricky,But there she was to keep me chirpyTough to find your way throughCreepy creepers all over you,I could sense the trickles of blood,She was there to keep me goodBerries and cherries in my belly,Nothing else to gloat over fully,She was the perfect cushionFor the rest of my mealA moment of tiredness fell,I pushed along heavily,Again, I fell back to her,She was there to fill the voidA long time later, I realised,She was slowly leaving me,The sick feeling was getting to me,Now, it was just a matter of timeFinally, I was really alone,I was feeling the heat,It was the point of agony,How I wish there was more water!

Cape Cod
2007-07-19 02:28:00
Some places in the world attract all the attention for being tourism highlights. This is a must watch and just cannot be missed fills the mind. On the flip side, there are other places, which are equally brilliant and picturesque, and not many people know about it. I am not saying that the place we went to last week is obscure, but it is not as popular to the international community. The bottomline is simple, go to some place with a group of fellas and have real good fun. That's exactly what we did last weekend.Pic: See Siddhart's hair to believe it was windy!Staying on the east coast, it would be criminal if we do not make use of the weekends. With an impending winter in the next three months, we had to do some outdoor activities. It is the question of now or never for the rest of the year. As such, my roommate and I planned it for two or three weeks in a row to see our plan go down the drain. It was too frustrating to miss out continuously. So, last weekend, we decided, come wha...
More About: Cape , Cape Cod

Who is in the herd, Ms. Sengupta?
2007-07-13 02:57:00
Hello Ms. Porcine Creature,I am sure I have the right to address you that way after reading your column on IBNLive. Ms. Anuradha Sengupta, a prominent reporter of IBNLive, I would have expected neatly worded sentences than the crap you wrote on your insane piece of so called review. It was disappointing and totally disgusting. More importantly, it was totally unwarranted.Do you realise that it was not due to certain individuals that the whole country was talking about the biggest movie of the year, the Rajini starrer Sivaji. Are we the ones who control the media? I remember every ounce of publicity being generated from every leading channel, and of course, even your sty (IBNLive) was a part of the campaign. Did we as the general public ask IBNLive to splash photos of Rajini all over your front page? Do you think we cared about how much money it made on the first day? Thanks to all the media hype, the movie made an impact like never before in the publicity arena.Every individual has ...

A reason to flee - Quick(x)star
2007-07-08 22:05:00
The greatest pleasure I derive can be attributed to the incoming flux of new people that I get to befriend. I have always found it fun to hang out in groups, come up with long discussions late into the night, hit the right topics of interest and venture out for some outdoor activities. As I came to Boston, my enthusiasm for meeting new people never died down. My enthusiastic fervour as a student remained the same even after employment, and I went on to grin and smile as soon as I met a fellow Indian. Not that I did not smile at an American, but it is just that a fellow Indian provides a local solace!I realized over a period of time, how wrong I could be. Here in Boston, hardly the Indian public returned the smile. Oh! Let alone a smile, it was a stare like that of Shoaib Akhtar giving at Sachin Tendulkar after the latter hits a six. This did not happen just to me, but to a couple of other guys too from school. We were all in a fix. We did not know whether to continue grinning or smi...
More About: Star , Quick , Reason

Not "fair" enough...
2007-07-04 05:23:00
A scene from the movie Sivaji. The hero is trying to woo the heroine and is trying to gain access into her house. Her neighbour comes to the hero with his daughters. The hero sees these two seemingly dark girls and vanishes from the spot. The theater erupts to applaud the so called comedy in the scene. I was dumbstruck for a second. The whole scene was shown in bad light. I had no words to describe my disappointment on the way the scene was filmed. Amidst pranks in schools and colleges, the dark character has to give in time and again to the endless stream of jokes played on him by the jumbo boys. He is made to look like a morally starved creature devoid of everything in life. The incessant chatter would end up hounding the hapless guy and he would have no choice but to stare silently at the comments made on his physical traits. This doesn't happen in the American or European countries, but in our very own land, and within our very own community. I have always wondered how anybody ...
More About: Fair

As tough as it gets
2007-06-29 05:56:00
It has always been my desire to get into the realms of reporting. Journalism has come across as a daring and wonderful profession.I always tell my friends that I would have been a journalist if I hadn't got into engineering. It is altogether a different matter that I do not have the creative juices flowing when it comes to professional writing. It involves considerable hard work to report the news in a perfect way and it is equally important to catch the reader's attention. The most important aspect of writing is that the language must be grammatically perfect. A few words altered to your whims can completely change the meaning of the sentence. It shouldn't strike a discordant note with the listener when he reads your sentence. A bad sentence is like bad music. It cannot go unnoticed.I realized how difficult it can get to hit the right note when different kinds of people are catching up with the blog. I have to think more than once when I translate my thoughts to words. I just ha...
More About: Tough

A perfect gift
2007-06-28 02:33:00
Special occasions tend to create special moments and you generally tend to savour that moment for a lifetime. Happiness is a state of mind and you wish to share that with some people who make a difference. Gift s are a way of expressing your "something" for the person. The "something" can be a token of friendship signifying the person's importance. I am never a gifts guy, for I more often than not tend to forget the person's special occasion. The special occasion could be a birthday, wedding anniversary, graduation ceremony or anything else. The thought of gifting someone with something is really not an easy prospect. It is difficult to hit upon an object that would appease the receiver. This can be known only if you know the person well enough to understand what he/she likes. I have always considered books to be the best possible gift for anybody, though I guess I have now lost the moral right to talk about books. I hardly have read anything in the last couple of months. The best ...
More About: Perfect

Why vernacular?
2007-06-26 01:19:00
The latest court verdict in Karnataka concerns the 2000 odd schools in the state to switch to Kannada as the medium of instruction bypassing English. English is the global medium of communication and it is imperative that we get a good grasp of the language that would aid us in the development process. Here, it is not the question of promoting your local language, but you are effectively terminating the ability of the children to come up in a competitive environment.In India, every state has a language of its own along with the national language, Hindi. Being born and brought up in India, there is no doubt that it is important to learn your local language as well as the national language. But that doesn't mean that you should shun English. India is emerging as a major global power and we are dependent on our western allies to work in close co-ordination and improve the economy. As long as a person has the basic knowledge to speak, read and write in the local language, it should mor...

Sivaji Rightaa.....Athiradee!
2007-06-25 04:14:00
There has never been so much hype and hoopla surrounding a movie release. All the big guns of Indian cinema are involved in the latest Tamil film, Siva ji . Rajinikanth, the style icon of India got together with the showman of Tamil cinema, Shankar in sync with the best music director of today's times, AR Rahman to generate funds from the oldest production house in Madras, AVM studios to come out with a product that was going to kindle the masses. The end result was something hyped beyond what any normal movie could achieve in hundred years. The sheer magnanimity of the production costs can fill anyone with awe and wonder. The movie was made at a whopping budget of close to 80 crores, no small amount by any means. A Rajini, Shankar, ARR and AVM movie obviously would get all the media attention. How can I miss such a movie. I am sure even if the reviews were bad, I would have gone to watch the movie. When the reviews from all the channels were good, there was no choice but to watch th...

AR Rahman in New York - Simply Magical
2007-06-18 07:29:00
It was the year 2005 when I came to the US to do my masters. ARR then had decided to come to Bangalore about two months after I came here. The depression of not seeing the God of Indian music perform live in Palace Grounds, Bangalore had hit me hard. Two years hence, I came to know that he was performing live in Nassau Coliseum, New York City. I was dead sure that I was not missing the show for anything in the world this time. I was in Rolla at the time I came to know of his performance and I was coming to Boston after a month, but I knew that I was making the trip from Boston to NY exclusively for ARR. Almost every friend of mine knows how fanatical I am about ARR. I just had to call Shubhika who is in NJ, Shubhika, Do you know something? ARR is performing live in NY on June 16. She replies, Yeah, Of course. I have already got the tickets for both of us. Do you think I don't know about it?The drive from NJ to Long Island need not be written about at all. The traffic was moving at ...
More About: Simply , New-York , Rahman

River of thoughts
2007-06-15 02:15:00
Ramu was lazing on the banks of the Cauvery. The local folks were worried that the surging water level may render them homeless. Ramu always thought it to be a little funny, for Cauvery seemed anything but threatening to him. He had literally stayed on the river bank for the last fifteen years. Be it studying for the exam or having fun with or without company, the river offered the kind of solace that could not be provided by any other. The rains had lashed the village in the last month or so. Warning messages soared from every source. Ramu found the whole thing to be a big ado about nothing. Nothing in the world could make him change his opinion about the river. He had even shouted at his mother when she tried to advise him to avoid the river bank. He lay there well into the evening with no inclination to head back home. The aura of this place can be matched by no other place, reflected Ramu. How can people consider this place to be dangerous, he wondered. People who w...
More About: Thoughts , River

Yeah, she is the type
2007-06-07 04:55:00
After much contemplation, we (read me and my roommate) decided to watch Choti si baat. The best part about watching this movie is that, the characters are so close to reality that it is easy to step into the character's shoes. Amol Palekar fits the middle class character so perfectly that it is easy to map yourself in his position and feel like a fool or bask in his glory. There were certain scenes where you really feel for the hero, when he is trying to patafy (Indian slang meaning to woo) the heroine.Ok, that's not the point that I am trying to convey here. I wanted to talk about girls in certain movies who set me thinking for an instant. Yes, she is the type of girl I would like to spend my life with. That's happened to me with a couple of movies big time. So, when we were watching Choti si baat, both of us were drooling over Vidya Sinha. The simplicity of the lady just bowled us out. She was the perfect example of a calm and composed face with oodles of beauty. I know it is a...
More About: Type , Yeah

Great Expectations
2007-06-02 20:48:00
Life is not all fun to talk about just the interesting things. Relationship is such a strange and complex thing. It is funny to visualize how human beings react differently to the same situation with different people. This phenomenon set me thinking about the underlying essence of a relationship. There is a certain extent beyond which you can't reveal your inner self to everyone. Rather, it is difficult to say more about yourself to another person beyond the limiting point. The limiting threshold can be extended, but certainly not by much. Expectations from a relationship is viewed as highly farcical. We interact with hundreds of people on a day to day basis, getting close with certain tens and finally finding the right set of people whom you can call as real close friends. You can count on these few for most of the things in life, be it the times you require material support or emotional strength. So, we do expect certain things to be done for us by a certai...
More About: Great

New York - An again and again feeling!
2007-05-30 01:03:00
Pic: Two square at Times SquareThere are some places in the world, the aura of which can leave you gasping for breath. The layout of these cities are just breathtaking and the feeling of I want to see it again does not leave you at all. Paris, one of my favorite cities in the world, got that feeling instilled within me for two whole days a couple of years back. The city is still fresh in my mind and I would love to make a trip to Paris time and again. Now, it was the turn to visit New York , the financial capital of the United States. I would easily place New York in the same bracket as Paris. New York easily is the best place I have been so far, and there is no doubt that I will be visiting NY again and again. It is a place which will keep calling you and there is no choice but to bask in the beauty of Times Square.Pic: New York CollageDay ZeroI am not referring to a placement section of an IIT or an IIM. Day zero just happens to be the first day, when we all drove to Sh...
More About: Feeling , Feel , New-York

A la Swades...?
2007-05-16 22:27:00
As I recover from the sadness of leaving Rolla to begin my job life at Boston, sitting in the lounge of the food court at the Charlotte airport, I got a wonderful forward from Prasad directing me to take a peek at the IBNlive article composed by Sandeep Verma, an analyst at Lehmann Brothers. I did not need this article to set me thinking but it kind of gave me an idea of what all the desis here in US are thinking about returning back home.One of the common topics of discussion in any forum "Are you returning back to India for good or not?" generally gets a lot of heads thinking, at least if it doesn't get them rolling. Even a die hard American fan desi who would want to settle here will think twice when you ask him this question. It is not easy to say yes to that question even if you know it is a no. The American dream is such that everything is so undecided - you don't have any idea how you are going to fare in your GRE, no idea whether you can get an admit, absolutely no clu...

Graduation and it's all over - Really!!!
2007-05-15 09:25:00
Pic: Graduation !!!!The feelings on 12th May, 2007 can just not be translated into words as I went on to the dais to shake hands with the chancellor and the dean in the presence of a host of dignitaries, and more importantly in the presence of some of the closest friends at Rolla. Yes! I am talking about the graduation ceremony at UMR, Rolla. Yadu and I have had a similar background with both of us having worked for a couple of years in the same company before doing our masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and having arrived at the same time, it was highly imperative that we leave together. Pic: 1300, #7 - Rama, me, Venkatesh and YaduThe graduation ceremony is certainly a once in a lifetime experience, and I just understood why this ceremony is so important in the United States. I have none of my family members in the United States and so, obviously, I look upon friends before taking any step in this big land. I, rather we, had the good fortune of having s...
More About: Adua , Really , Ally

SPB - The best of many generations
2007-05-06 08:11:00
Talk of South Indian cinema, and immediately you have some vintage names ripping through your mind. In terms of music, you have MS. Viswanathan and Ilayaraja making gigantic waves in Tamil cinema and the first instance of singer who can leave you craving for more is none other than our very own and dynamic S. P. Balasubramaniam (popularly known as SPB). SPB is one of a kind singer who has added so much versatility to the vocal world. Be it a Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Malayalam movie, you couldn't find the songs not having SPB lend his voice to it. That was the case in late seventies, extending to the eighties and well throughout the nineties, and the best part is, he still continues today for selective compositions in the same way. He is a music director's delight and his well defined voice modulation is truly unbeatable. There is so much life to the song when sung by SPB.SPB made his mark in Tamil cinema when MGR was looking for a fresh voice. It was way back in the early ...
More About: Generation , Generations , The Best Of

There is something about Rolla
2007-05-01 06:59:00
On the world map, there is this little tiny speck of dot about the size of a micron in the central part of North America named Rolla. The place is in obscurity, not only to people outside the United States but also to people within. Any trip outside the state of Missouri, and you can see the people straining their ears to come to grips with the township of Raala (as it is pronounced). But, Indians that we are, we find that extension of the aaa to be a little mesmerizing and more often than not, our tongue ends up rolling into a Rollaa. The local community here would give you a silent glare for murdering the pronunciation.Pic: UMRThe graduate school here at Rolla is quite a famous school in Missouri, and the Indian population just fills up. Yes, but just two streets from the department to the apartment. University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR), now rechristened to Missouri School of Science and Technology is the best of the lot in Missouri for the engineering program. Every year, one can s...
More About: There , Thing , Some

The Namesake Captured!
2007-04-29 10:17:00
The essence of a novel taken to big screen lies in the way the originality of the book is preserved. It is highly important that the core values of the characters etched in the book is translated to perfectly similar characters on the big screen. It is not entirely impossible, but only very few film makers can pull off such a thing with absolute conviction. Mira Nair had a very tough job on her hands to maintain the standards of the brilliant book by Jhumpa Lahiri. At the end of the day, I now can understand why the entire crew was so confident of the movie.I had the opportunity to view the movie at Seattle. I generally do not expect much from movies based on adaptations from literature because it is no easy task to realise the originality of the script. This was no different though all the reviews were positive. The movie started off in a brilliant Calcutta setting, reeling off titles in English embedded in Bengali script. The start itself gave me a feeling of an unknown au...
More About: Ames , Namesake , Mesa , Names

Kane and Abel
2007-04-26 10:27:00
A flight journey has never had the charm to hold me onto something interesting or something that I can look forward to. It has always been a careless "Oh no! yet another" attitude that drives me to boredom. In yet another long journey flight from St. Louis to Seattle, I just wondered at what I should be doing to satisfy my seven hours including the transit time at Chicago. A copy of Kane and Abel lying in one of the many corners wedged in my room caught my attention. I have read that book previously but that did not prevent me from reading the same thing again. As the saying goes, "Something is better than nothing" takes an all important meaning when you really have nothing. Flipping through the pages of the book, yes, that's what I remember. A second time reading does not generally fascinate me unless the book is really good. Kane and Abel had me in raptures when I had read it first time during my undergraduate days. I would rate it as one of my all time favourite novels b...

Media - What a mockery!
2007-04-19 21:10:00
You just have to open any Indian news website and the headlines scream forth - Abhiwarya Wedding, What happened in the last one hour, Sangeet at the wedding, Men jealous of Abhishek...and so on the nonsense continues. I just wonder why the media has to give so much publicity to a private wedding affair. Is anyone really interested in finding out what they are upto? There is a limit to all the idiosynchracies and after a point, it really gets on your nerves. It is also apalling to see a new comment everyday from Amitabh Bachchan proclaiming his son to be a demigod or something, praising his acting skills and what not. Why in the world should the world be interested in whether Aishwarya is a good daughter-in-law for the family or not? What is the need for Jaya Bachchan to issue such statements? The front page of every Indian newspaper is hogged by the wedding as if there is no other important issue to tackle at this point of time. To top it all, the coverage continues as to who the i...
More About: Media , Mock

Pot-Pourri
2007-04-16 23:54:00
It was one helluva month, what with the thesis defense and course completion. To top it all, the H1Bs were getting over even before it actually began. But, right now, the relatively free state of mind allows me to get back to blogging. I am going to be much more regular with my blog updates. It is like one of those television serials, "Amitabh Bachchan in a brand new avatar making a comeback like never before." I also wonder at all the movie artists who make bigwig statements like "This movie is completely different. Such a sensitive topic has never been handled before. It is a once in a lifetime role." What crap! What nonsense! It would almost make me tear my hair in agony at the cliched statements.I do not want to create that artificial hype and aura about my comeback to regular blogging. There would be periodic updates on anything I find remotely interesting. I would have loved to write about India's world cup prospects, but the way they have damaged their reputation, nobody wan...

Bye Bye India!
2007-03-28 09:08:00
Right now, the most common topic of discussion for an average India n would be the performance of the Indian cricket team at the Carribean world cup. An endless list of adjectives will easily ooze out on the slightest provocation. A country of close to a billion cannot find the right combination of eleven to succeed in the most passionate sport in the country. Truly disgusting! Where are we getting it wrong? Is the selection committee not able to find the right eleven to represent the country? We do not care about how we fare in the other sports, but when it comes to cricket, the common man is ready with his views.India has been knocked out of the first round, thanks to the ignonimy of losing to the minnows of world cricket Bangladesh, and to Sri Lanka, who have improved leaps and bounds in the last few years. The lack of pride was so evident in the way the Indians played on the field. There was no sense of passion or commitment to enforce their way to winning positions. One felt tha...

Emotion(less)!
2007-03-09 22:30:00
Last week, we had a discussion about the different facets of emotion in human beings. The movie field is a fascinating field just because it is such an important source of entertainment for the common man. Of course, it has its share of controversies and other big issues, but over a period of time, it has emerged as an important industry in terms of revenue. Movie business is really big money. Getting back on track about emotions and movies, where is the relation? We have our special actors and actresses who gladden our hearts during those two hours, and we are taken to an ethereal world, where imagination takes over everything in an atmosphere filled with pure gloss. This is when we felt how difficult it is for newcomers to cope up with this profession. Any actor has to display various emotions in those two hours, which actually would have taken months of filming involving different artists, and at the end of the day, he has to come out unscathed from the reel life experience. That...
More About: Emotion