First Day Last Show - TZP

This is the second FDLS, the first being BB (sorry for the shortforms, but they make life easier :D). I watched the trailer of Taare Zameen Par (TZP) during BB for the first time, and was quite excited to watch the movie. So me and M went on friday to see Aamir's maiden creation. The first day is the best one to watch a movie since u have no personal reviews from anyone, so u r the first ones to make an opinion about the movie. We discovered this during BB, since Chak De turned out to be an average flick for me and M after all the hype about it.

It starts off with a beautiful animation for the titles, similar to the cartoon animation titles in older comedy movies. The technologically advanced version is amazing to watch. It sets off a theme of being a movie which children would love for the next 3 hours. The hero, Darsheel, is introduced in the first scene itself, and the movie begins with his daily routine and his total ignorance towards studies. The kid has done an extra-ordinary work in creating the sympathetic environment for himself in a very short time. I had a chance to see the reactions a kid who was sitting besides me and Darsheel was already his hero, in the first 20 mins of the movie, though he's shown to be a loser. The setup is in an ordinary Indian family in Mumbai with 2 sons and parents. The elder son is an ace in whatever he does and the younger is the exact opposite. The parents think that the child is not interested in studying and is a useless fellow. They beat him and scold him for his misbehavior (and here Darsheel has successfully received the ohhhhhs and aahhhhhs of the female audience), threatening him to put him in boarding school if he continued with his rebellious nature. And finally the same thing happens.

But since the kid has been highly misjudged, he continues to be the same at boarding school too. All the more, now he prefers solitude and has no mood to do even his favorite, painting. He feels left out of the family and doesn't correspond with the parents or brother as before. Here, I would like to say that Darsheel has hardly any line s to speak, but he has acted so well that u can feel the pain he is in. And then suddenly one day, comes a magician, a new drawing teacher (Aamir) who sees the kid about to be devastated. And he strives and succeeds in bringing the kid back on track. No spoilers here, u will have to watch the movie to see how he does it.

All in all, an excellent work by Aamir as a debutant director, who is very well aware of the expectations of the Indian audience, especially from him, and has fully delivered. The movie, is no doubt, a serious one which makes every parent cry, but its surely an eye-opener for very many parents, who fail to understand child psychology. Performances from all the actors are very good, including Tisca, and the best actor of the year is definitely Darsheel. Aamir also looks good, though with wrinkles on his face. But not at all as bad as SRK. Watch it people.

Rating - * * * * */2

Reunion

The word reunion itself comes with a hidden meaning of reunion of friends, who had left each other, after a considerable amount of time. And I also met my best friends on this weekend after being away for almost 6 months. It was one of our friend’s wedding in Ahmadabad where we were to meet. So it was a weekend of double happiness for all of us, wedding plus reunion. P’s wedding was planned for almost a year now and as days progressed, it was sure that I could attend it. J also finalized her future plans and according to that, she could also attend it. This simultaneously turned into a blueprint of my reunion with J and P. And the countdown started. And after almost 3 months of eager wait, the day of P’s wedding finally arrived. I met P in the morning and was very happy to see her again, in the same perfect health as she was when she had left after their graduation day. Then me and M went to pick J up at the airport and as we waited for her to come out of the Arrivals gate, a tiny shiver ran through my body in that 1 minute. I had missed all my friends in my wedding and was very eager to meet all of them with M and introduce her to them. And she came out as hussly-bussly as ever and the final reunion occurred.

It was very similar to meeting my family after 2 years; truly enough, since they were my family back in the US. And from that point on, ‘fun unlimited’ started. We chatted and laughed and gossiped and teased all through the time we were together. Sadly, P was not with us, since it was her wedding :D. But, me M and J had a धम्माल time together. Though keeping in touch in today’s world is a very easy thing with chats and skypes all over the place, the pleasure of meeting a friend in person has its own charm. And the same thing happened. I meet J online almost everyday. But still, now I am eagerly waiting for her wedding for the second quick reunion ;).

Review time

1. Wings of fire -
This is the biography of ex-president of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam written for him by one of his colleagues. The book has been divided into sections of his life. The first section is very nicely described glorifying his birthplace of रामेश्वरम and his near and dear people. I am really very excited to see रामेस्वरम now. He talks about the simple ways of life of people in that period who had great minds, thoughts, instinct togrow and make progress and help India develop into a great nation.

The book then steps into his life as an engineering student. He tells us how he wanted to pursue a career as a pilot, but couldn't make it there. However, with the help of his mentors and teachers, he gained extensive knowledge in aerospace engineering. He tells us how his teachers and two of his closest friends inspired him to attain new heights.

As a bachelor of engineering, he had excellent opportunities at hand. His association with Prof. Vikram Sarabhai has been put down very nicely and you immediately start admiring Prof. Sarabhai, if not till then. The book then gets you involved into the Indian space research program with details of development of the concept, resources, skills, people and finally, the satellites, SLVs and world class missiles. The passion in the minds of those great scientists is undoubtedly commendable and respectable which has made us possible to see India as world's 2nd best military power.

Finally, he describes his role as the head of the defense research organization of India. The book can be considered as an excellent guide or handbook for want-to-be managers. It is a very good read for young engineers and scientists of India, and also for people who love this nation from the bottom of their hearts. The book stands on this one big foundation of patriotism. Dr. Kalam has sown a very powerful seed, it is upto us now to water the seed and fertilize it and make our country the most powerful nation in all respects.
Rating: * * * *

2. Bhool Bhulaiyya -
I would call this as a very nice come back by Priyadarshan. The talented director had largely lost his way after Hera Pheri and it seemed that he would never return. The major success of Hera Pheri lured him into making similar movies with Paresh Rawal as one of the lead actors in each of them. But none turned up to be even close. All movies were full of बक्वास.

But the promos of Bhool Bhulaiyya itself were very catchy and me and my wife at once decided to take a big risk and watch another of Priyadarshan's creations. And the movie starts off, like all of his earlier ones, in a village somewhere near U.P./Bihar. However, the storyline also starts right there. The suspense about a lady haunting a very old हवेली in the village catches you immediately. The supporting starcast is almost the same which Priyadarshan has used in his earlier movies but they have been properly confined to their respective roles throughout the movie, including Paresh Rawal. Shiney Ahuja and Vidya Balan, who are supposed to stay in the haveli have acted nicely as a wouldbe couple who has come back from US to get married in India. Shiney is the prince of the village and the heir to the हवेली. He is a non-believer in ghosts and laughs the haunting story out. Amisha is shown as the adopted daughter of Shiney's uncle, Manoj Joshi, and is supposed to be in love with Shiney. The family also knows about this and thinks Shiney would agree. But, with Vidya marrying him, Amisha gets upset. The haunting starts to increase by the day and strange and weird things start happening in the हवेली. Shiney and Vidya, being educated people, decide to take up the matter and dig it out.

It then that they come to know about a story of a king of the हवेली who is the fore-father of Shiney. He used to like a female bengali dancer in his दरबार who in turn used to like the poet of the दरबार. When the king came to know about it, he slayed the poet which led to the suicide of the dancer. But the dancer wows to revenge her love's death and supposedly haunts the हवेली. Being unable to believe in this story and looking at the happening incidents, they find out that Amisha is mentally upset.

And then enters the Hero, Akshay. His entry was hugely applauded in the theatre and I was amazed by the magic Akshay has on people. He's a psychiatrist and starts his investigations which give him a very different viewpoint. The story has been very beautifully taken from a comedy note to a serious and suspense story. Priyadarshan is successful in keeping the public glued to their seats till the end. The performances are very good, especially Vidya Balan. In all, the movie is a must watch - good job Priyadarshan.
Rating: * * * *

3. Om Shanti Om -
This is Farah Khan's second movie as a director and also her second movie with KK. It is about a junior artists love for a herione which makes him take birth again - yes, its about rebirth. It starts in the 70s era with KK as a junior artist who likes Deepika. One movie shot finds her surrounded by burning huts (similar to Mother India) and KK jumps in like a real hero and saves her life. She also likes the person in him but is secretly married to a bigtime producer, Arjun Rampal, and is unhappy. Their marriage is a secret to the public. But now she is fed up with it and is also expecting. Arjun is freaked out with this news as it is not what he wants now. He is looking forward to a big project "Om Shanti Om", which now wont be completed since its star, Deepika is pregnant. So he kills her and flees, but our real hero, KK, sees this and tries to save her, but in vain. He also dies in the fire. But he takes birth again to revenge Deepika's death.

And from this point, the story kind of loses track. Farah could have shown it in a much better way. But she has given undue importance to minor details to maintain the comedy in the movie, but it ends up making the movie just a normal flick. The lack of experience can be seen here, though I think Subhash Ghai had equal experience when he made Karz. But that one is one of the major milestones of Indian cinema. KK is shown to be the son of a leading actor in his second birth with an unnecessary foreign accent and style. Instead, she should have shown him to be what he really is at this point of time, or at least as Abhishek, a starlet who has juust started acting. The reappearance of Deepika is random and the climax is all the more random. As for the performances, Deepika looks verry cute and lovely with her innocent looks and should continue to do so. KK seems to have acted in this one just for the sake of it. His Chak de was better. Rest all are average. In all, Farah Khan should not remain as a director of Main hoon na type movies, but should make progress.
Rating: * *

Star Blog

The Mumbai Mirror on this Sunday had an article which was basically, an interview with Aamir Khan. There, I found mention of the star's website and blog. As is known, Aamir is not a very outgoing person when it comes to media, so we get to read very little of him. So I checked out the website which hosts the blog now, and was very happy to read his blogs. He also has a chat on the website, which I haven't checked yet, but the blogs are good tp. He is very informal and friendly in his blogs, and I personally felt nice to read it. He has definitely used it for publicity of his upcoming films (TZP at present), but its very obvious. I just felt like sharing it with u guys.

Orkut Marriage

Note: This blog was waiting for some time now, due to technical problems in my site.

Marriage, as we Indians see it, is of two types conventionally - arranged and love. Arranged marriage is supposedly prevalent only in India, though I have strong arguments about it. It is the type in which the entire family is involved in finding a partner for the person getting married. So, it is basically done on the basis of education, salary, horoscope matching, family background (and assets) and other qualities of both, bride and groom. Love marriage is the type where the two fall in love and decide to get married. No clarifications are needed here.

Now with the widespread of the internet in our everyday lives, arranged marriages are also done with the help of internet. I mean, there are matrimonial sites which post profiles of candidates. But about a few years back, a site was born with the name orkut.com. Here you can create your profile and get in touch with other orkut users and make new friends. There are communities which have people with some common interest. However, naturally, the site is also used to look for partners. And this has given rise to the third type of marriage which we term as Orkut marriage. Myself and 2 of my closest friends have found our life partners in this way.

The best part in this type is that the relationship develops on the basis of the inner soul of a person, and not the outer physical looks. Likes and dislikes match and there's no stopping. This way, there are no boundaries which would stop the two. You can be anywhere on the globe, the only need is internet access. We three also found our partners in our same caste, which made it easier for our parents to accept it. There was little sweet curiosity at the time when I personally met my wife, but it lasted only for a couple of minutes. After that, we both were talking the regular stuff we used to chat or talk on phone.

I have also heard cases of people getting mislead/deceived, but then you need to do some preliminary checks. But as for my view, it has given a whole new dimension to the way marriages happen in India, and guys and girls, I would advise you to go slow and steady to win this race.

Microsoft officedead

Many of my friends know I had created a personal website and was hosting my blog there. It was a MS officelive basics subscription which is offered free by MS. I was one of the ones who got the beta version and were initially allowed to use MS FP for site design. Later, they changed the privileges and just allowed templates. In the mean time, the upgraded my account to premium, which I didn't notice and had to pay $35 p.m. for 2 months. When I asked them to downgrade the account, they did, but I still cud use FP, due to some flaw in the switching on MS's side. I was happy, till I started getting errors while saving files to my site, soon after coming to Swades. I informed them about it and they said they will have to escalate it to the programming department (which, I have a serious doubt, whether it exists or not). After no response for about 15 days, I filled out the online form again and then I used to do it almost twice every week. MS, the owner of Windows and IE, couldn't find a solution for the problem, and I had to delete my site.

When I tried to create a new site, firstly, the basics subscription is not available in the country which is a software industry giant in the world, India. When I asked Jolly to register for it from the land of opportunities, US, it didn't work either.

So, now I opened my blog with my favorite website, Google. The following 3 blogs are reposted here from my earlier blog. Hope to post my latest very soon.

Bye bye Cinti....

Approximately four years back, I landed with my friend, Pushkar in Cincinnati with a dream to continue my education and get a master's degree in structural engineering. It was a totally new world, new people all around, new place, new food, new lifestyles, and the list can go on. We had already decided on who will we be roomates with, and accordingly, me, Pushkar, Omkar and Yogesh got along, found an apartment very close to the campus and started our new "graduate life". However, we never actually stayed as roomates...no no, we didn't fight, but it felt like family right from the beginning. We had a lot in common, the most important of all - we all were from mumbai. All four of us had worked before we came here, infact me, Pushkar and Omkar even shared the same course. All of us were marathi, which was the next big thing and so we had a blast from the word go. The first year was all about new friends, Reena, Rima, Abhilasha, Reynold, Dhashu and a big marathi junta, about courses and more courses, finalizing advisors and thesis topics, cooking turns, enjoying the ISA functions, potlucks and oncampus job. We also went to St. Louis, Dayton, NYC, Niagara and Chicago. It was fun.

Then we moved to the oncampus apartment and to the second year of our program. This year brought in new friends, Jaya, Vidhya, Priyanka who went on to become some of the closest friends in my life. Courses reduced and thesis work increased in this year. The fun was all the same with ISA functions and our individual get togethers. I sang for the first time on stage during the ISA Deepotsav, and I was enjoyed it to the fullest (ya ya, i know i bored a lot of people, but I am talking about me here). Friendships grew stronger and the family became bigger. I also made my India trip this time.

Then in the third year, there were no courses. It was time to leave one by one, and so Omkar was the first one to do so. He got a job and the family had started to reduce now. Rima left next. Next was Pushkar and then Yogesh. Me, Reena, Jaya, Vidhya and Priyanka were the only ones left in cinti by the end of the third year. I too started working in Cinti itself.

And the job also brought in a very welcoming change. I bought a car and though I used it for work everyday, it was also kind of a family member for us. We used to hang out almost every weekend and try out new cuisines and new restaurants, watch movies, celebrate festivals and birthdays; basically we used to have a lot of fun. But then at the end of the fourth year, rest of the members started going one by one as each of them either got a job or graduated. The last ones left in cinti was me and Reena. I didn't get visa for this year, so I got my job transferred to the office in mumbai. It was a very nice thing, but that means that I am leaving cinti now. The place has given me a whole lot of memories, both good and bad, but the most important things I gained were friends for life, and a job. So here I am at the CVG airport saying goodbye to cinti and US and to all my friends, actually my family members here. I hope to see you all next year, till then you all take care and have a nice time.

अरे हुजूर, वाह ताज बोलीये!!

It's official now...the new 7 wonders of the world have been declared. And after a huge global online and telephonic voting, the taj of India, TAJ MAHAL got selected as one of the seven new wonders of the world. So what more better occasion to start my blog again, which was stagnant for quite some time now. The selection is the reward of all the efforts all the Indians all round the world have taken to vote for our beloved Taj. The other six wonders can be found here. The announcement was made at a grand show in Lisbon today, on the 07/07/07. And our dear Bips was one of the 3 hosts of the show, dressed in a sexy Indian outfit. Among the performers were J Lo.

It was about a week back that news got distributed in emails that the Taj has just 0.07% votes and we need to make a lot of efforts by voting for the Taj. I am sure many of us must have voted more than once, like I did, thanks to the online voting system. And the result is good. I really hope that this brings a huge amount of tourism to India, which is the second fastest growing economy in the world today. The weekend has turned to be really good for India, first the sensex crossing the huuuge 15000 mark and now the Taj getting voted as one of the 7 wonders of the world. I hope we are able to keep the Taj as beautiful as ever, the WONDERful symbol of love.

But wait, thats not all. The new 7 wonders committee has now decided to announce natural 7 wonders of the world. Nominations have begun for the candidates here. The nominations will go on till 08/08/08. The committee will then shortlist 21 candidates and voting will be done for these 21 wonders. So, lets get going guys. We can make a collective effort to nominate some of the best natural wonders in India, like the desert of Rajasthan, valleys of Kashmir, the Himalayas, the Shivling at Amarnath, to name a few.