avyakta

कबड्डी कबड्डी - एक माती खालेल्ल नाटक

2011-11-02T13:59:00.005+05:30

फार कमी वेळा असं होतं, कि तुम्ही कलाकार, नाट्यसंस्था, दिग्दर्शक वगैरे सगळा चांगल बघून नाटक बघायला जाता आणि तुमचा भ्रमनिरास होतो. पण काल अगदी तेच झाले.

कबड्डी कबड्डी या नाटकाबद्दल ऐकून होतो, कलाकारांची नावं प्रभावी होती (मुक्त बर्वे, विनय आपटे), सुयोग सारख्या नाट्यसंस्थेचं नाटक, वरून मंगेश कदम यांचा दिग्दर्शन - एवढं सगळं म्हणजे नाटक चांगला असेल याची आगाऊ खात्री वाटत होती.

म्हणून, काल अगदी वेळ काढून, २०० रु चा तिकीट काढून, रात्रीच्या थंडीत बाल गंधर्व मध्ये नाटक बघायला गेलो, आणि "माती खाल्ली" असं म्हणायची वेळ आली. (कबड्डीत आणखीन काय खाणार म्हणा?)

खरा तर, नावावर न जाता हे नाटक बघायला गेलो, कारण वाटला काही तरी "substance" असेल नाटकात. पण नाही.

काय होतं नाटकात? खरं तर, मुक्त बर्वे चा अभिनय सोडून दुसरं काहीच नाही!

टुकार पटकथा, अतिसामान्य दिग्दर्शन, संवाद आणि अतिशय वाईट असा अभिनय (मुक्त बर्वे चा सन्माननीय अपवाद वगळता). होय, विनय आपटे चा अभिनय सुद्धा "चांगला" या दर्जात मोडत नाही.

विनय आपटे ला, ३-४ वाक्य एका लगोलग, कुठलाहि पूर्णविराम, स्वल्पविराम वगेरे न पाळता, अति खर्जातल्या आवाजात म्हणायची एवढी हौस का आहे, हे काही कळत नाही. त्यामुळे बरेचदा, संवाद नीट ऐकू देखील येत नव्हते. एखादा वाघ पाठी लागल्यासारखे, वाक्य मागून वाक्य फेकत धावण्यामागे, काय मजा आहे माहिती नाही.

बाकी ज्या दोन बायांनी, मुक्ता च्या आई आणि काकी चे काम केले, त्यांच्या बाबत त्यांनी काम का केले, हाच एक प्रश्न मला पडतो. सतत, रडवेला, घाबरलेला आवेश, आणि देवाला सतत हात जोडण्याचा अभिनय, या पलीकडे त्यांनी काहीच केले नाही. आणि सुमार तसाच काही अभिनय ड्रायवर चा. अतिशय loud अभिनय.

नाटक कित्येक वेळा भरकटत जातं. दिग्दर्शन बांधेसूद अजिबात नाही. लिहिलं देखील अतिशय वाईट.

बाकी जास्त लिहिण्य्सारखा काही नाही. एवढंच कि अगदीच सूमार नाटक आहे आणि अभिनयाच्या बाबतीत (मुक्ता सोडून) अतिशय वाईट आहे.

त्या पेक्षा, काही आठवड्या आधी बघितलेले, "फायनल ड्राफ्ट" हे किती तरी पटीने सरस होते. त्या नाटकात नक्की काय सांगायचे आहे, हे इतके ठळक नसले तरी, मुक्ता आणि गिरीश जोशी चे काम, संवाद, दिग्दर्शन अतिशय उच्च दर्जाचे होते.

असो, नारळ वरून कितीही चांगले दिसले, तरी कधी कधी आतून सडक निघतच. आपलं नशीब समजून विसरून जाणे हेच आपल्या हाती.

Manimahesh-Kailash trek and wandering in Himachal

2011-06-15T10:15:00.016+05:30

Okay, I wont procrastinate this time and would log the details of my trip before I forget. Few friends have been asking for details, so that served a good motivation too.

I have been to northern part of India, specifically the Himachal region for a backpacking/hiking trip. Total 8 days of trip, with intention to spend most of that time trekking/hiking in mountains. Me and Shekhar (my ex-colleague from Persistent) were the only two going on this. We zeroed in on Manimahesh-Kailash trek in himachal considering the time we had at our disposal. The nearest town to this trek is Bharmour, which is a very old town, as old as 6th century AD and was earlier known by the name of "Bhrahmpura". It was once the capital of King Meruverman's kingdom. Plan was to do proper trek for 2-3 days and spend the rest of the time exploring the area with no fix schedule. We planned to reach Delhi on Saturday 4th June and return from Delhi on Sunday 12th of June. I was to travel from Pune and Shekhar from Nagpur.
We had a great and exciting time there. Here is a brief travelogue of that trip.

Pune-Delhi-Pathankot-Chamba-Bharmour (4th and 5th June)

We both reached Delhi airport by about noon on 4th. Our train (Jammu mail) to Pathankot (in Punjab) was at night from Old Delhi station, so we had plenty of time to pass in Delhi before our train departed. Shekhar knew a friend who works with GMR at Delhi Airport so we met him and decided to go to Connaught place and spend some time having lunch and just roaming around, since we thought the train depart at 10:30 pm from Delhi. We targeted to get back to airport by 8pm or so, so that we could get our luggage and reach rail station by about 9/9:30 which should be comfortable to catch a train at 10:30. We didnt want to carry our luggage all time time so we kept it at luggage room at the airport (which is expensive BTW). We then caught a metro to Shivaji Stadium from airport and went to a restaurant named "Pind Baluchi" (good food) in CP and spent some good 4 hours there having lunch and drinking. Then while roaming around after that, we went to Jantar-mantar and spent around 40-45 minutes there. Around 6:30 or so, tired with heat, we got back to the Shivaji Stadium metro station and sat there for some time outside. Just to kill some time, we were exploring the Indian rail site to see the route of our train from Delhi to pathankot and suddenly noticed that our train which we assumed would start from Delhi at 10:30 pm, actually starts at 8:20 pm. It was close to 7 pm, with our luggage at airport which is in opposite direction to the rail station and we were near rail station at that time. Panicked, we started running down to get the metro ticket to Airport. We just had about one and half hour to go to airport, pick up bags, get back to metro to new Delhi station and from there get on to another metro to old Delhi metro and then get a rickshaw to old Delhi railway station. We had very bleak hopes of making to it. We got the metro to airport and reached there at around 7:20 or so. Went to luggage room, picked up our luggage went back to catch metro to New Delhi station. The metro reached there by 8 pm or so. We just had 20 min. We changed line, and got tickets for metro towards Old Delhi station. But when we went inside, found that there were hundreds of people in queue waiting for security check. There was no way we would have made it to the station on time joining the queue. So, we decided to take the auto directly to Old Delhi station instead. We were running all this time. The Rickshaw driver said, it would take him 15-20 min to reach the station. It was 8:05 already. Again, ours hopes started diminishing with every minute. The rickshaw came near about Ramlila maidan and found that roads were closed for the Baba Ramdev's hunger strike that started the same day. We lost hopes. But still asked the driver to continue. He somehow managed to find a road to the station. When we reach near station, there was a big rush on the road and it was already 8:25 (5 minutes late to our train). We left the rickshaw in the middle to avoid rush and started running to the station. We reached station at 8:30 and found that the train has just started running. We both rushed to the train (which thankfully was on the nearest platform to the entrance) and boarded the running train. It was our luck that the train, which actually starts from the same station, was delayed by 10 min. What a great exciting start to our journey we thought and occupied our seats. Reached Pathankot in the morning at around 7 am. Got fresh in the waiting room and caught the Himachal tourism bus to Bharmour via Chamba (a district place) from Pathankot at around 8:40. Reached Chamba at around 1 pm or so. The place was extremely hot. The road from Chamba to Bharmour is uphil and winding and we were gaining altitude. About 2 hours before Bharmour, the road was blocked due to a truck that got struck on one of the turns. Spent about 2 hours there and before starting again for Bharmour and reached Bharmour at around 7 pm on Sunday. Bharmour is a small town (a tehasil place). It was bit cold and felt like a hill station. We stayed at a IPH (irrigation and public health dept) guest house arranged by one of the acquaintances. Tired with all the running and travel of 2 days, we had a quick dinner and went to sleep early. Overall a very exciting travel to reach Bharmour.

Here is view of Bharmour from the guest house

Bharmour-Manimahesh trek-Bharmour (6th, 7th and 8th June).
Trek to Manimahesh Kailash starts from a village called Hadsar, which is about 12 km from Bharmour. Being a very narrow road around the mountains, buses don't go there. So, we got a jeep to drop us at Hadsar. Hadsar is at an altitude of 7000 ft. The trek route for Manimahesh Kailash is Hadsar -> Dhancho (around 8/8.5k ft) -> Manimahesh Lake (around 13100 ft)., The distance from Hadsar to Dhancho is about 6-7 km and from Dhancho to lake about 7-8km.

Here is where we stopped at Hadsar

The trek, that we planned, is also a route of a very well known pilgrimage in the region known by the name of Manimahesh Yatra. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gather at the place during Janmashtami time (i..e in the month of august this time). The entire regions economy is heavily dependent on this yatra and many people/shopkeepers earn their annual income during this 2 month pilgrimage period. Typically this time around, i.e. when we did the trek, its not common to go to Manimahesh because of presence of snow at the top and also lack of facilities (like walkways, shops, tents, food etc) which are available during pilgrimage period.
We took a guide from Hadsar to guide us the roads, which are difficult to found when there is snow at top. The first leg of the trek from Hadsar to Dhancho was not too difficult. The route goes along the Budhil river, which was flowing with force all white and milky, and lots of devdar (Deodar Cedar) trees and other flora on the way. We met few locals on the way, who were going up to leave their cows, who would feed on the grass in the mountains for 3-4 months and then come back. We reached Dhancho village comfortably in around 3 hours. Dhancho is not actually a village, but a place for pilgrims to stay during the pilgrimage. Since the season hadn't started yet, it just had two huts-cum-shops. We stayed in a shop called "pappu da dhaba". The hut had a capacity of accommodating 60-70 people at a time with enough winter gears. We were treated with trekkers favorite Maggie on arrival :) We had nothing else to do the whole day, so we just wandered around. The place had some good showers in the evening and lot of ice pellets too. We had early dinner, camp-fire and slept early. The dinner was hot rotis and yellow dal (yummy!).

Here are some of the pics on way to Dhancho

At Dhancho at night

Next day (7th) we got up early, freshened up and started towards our final destination at round 6 am with packed lunch (aloo parathas). The road was all steep and was not giving any chance to relax. Typical speed of 2/2.5 km per hour was reduced to 1/1.5 km per hour.There was a cold breeze when we started since it was early in the morning. Soon, around 9 or so it started getting hot and was adding to our woes. The road further up was going through glaciers and that's when I became nervous for the first time. Since the snow hadn't melted completely, the walk up to Manimahesh had to be found through the glaciers. Few of the glaciers were at the threatening gradients, with freaking cold river flowing beneath. Since there was no road, we had to create the road using our ice-ax. The risk was twofold. If the glacier cracks (which could happen since it had started melting already), we would be thrown into the cold river beneath it and it would take hardly minutes to die of hypothermia. Or, if we slip from the narrow path we were creating, which was more of a probability, we would be thrown hundreds of feet down into the valley. There were at least 7-8 such glaciers we crossed out of which 3-4 took my breath away out of fear. The guide was walking on the narrow path on the glacier as if he is walking in his bedroom, but for us it wasn't that easy.
We reached Gaurikund (the point at about 12.5K feet) from where we could see the breath-taking view of Manimahesh Kailash parbat (mountain). From there the walk up to Manimahesh lake is about 1 hour. Kailash is believed to be the home of lord Shiva. Local people believes that there is a natural Om formed out of snow on that mountain and we could partially see that ourselves. Our guide also showed us, what is believed to be a "peend" and "nandi". Apparently, no one has ever climbed Manimahesh Kailash peak, which stands tall at a height of about 18600 feet. After taking few clicks, we walked up to the final point, which is Manimahesh Lake and temple. there was at least 10 feet snow up there. The whole lake was frozen and the boundary wall of the lake was all buried in the snow. We could only see a partial arc in one of the corners. We walked around the lake with a judgement based on that arc. The Manimahesh temple too is completely inside the snow and we could only see a tiny edge of the trishul out.It took us about 6 hours to reach the lake.
After spending about 15-20 min, we started walking down, since the weather in the mountain is unpredictable in the second part of the the day and its very unsafe to be caught in rains at that altittude, with no shelter. Walking down the glaciers was much difficult that walking up. There were few showers on our way back, but nothing significant. And we walked back to our tents in Dhancho in about 3/3.5 hours. It was about 4:30 pm in the evening. We decided against continue walking down to Hadsar and instead relaxed and spent another night in Dhancho tents. Had a dinner of again hot rotis and yellow dal with ghira (local version of lauki or bottle gourd)
Here are some pics enroute

At Gaurikund

View of Mount Kailash from Gaurikund

Some pics at Manimahesh Lake/temple

This is what we saw of Manimahesh temple.

This temple in better season looks like this

Here are some of pics of our way down

We had to cross this narrow open bridge, below which the deep river was flowing with force

On 8th Morning, we stared our descent to Hadsar and walked very relaxed. Reached Hadsar in 3 hours and went back to our place in Bharmour on a local taxi. Though the capacity of taxi is 8, typically the driver accommodates at least 14-15 people (with few hanging outside) and drives comfortably through the winding roads in the mountains.
The day was open for us, so we relaxed a bit, had a lunch and did some local walkabout. We went to a place on the hill called as Chaurasi (means 84 in English). The place had 84 temples of different gods and goddesses. Temples of Dharmraj and Lord Narsinmha are the unique things about this place. Some of the temples goes back to 6th century AD. It is a very nice and clean place and lots of kids from the places around playing cricket there. We didnt do much on that day and instead relaxed wandering through the town.

Pine and Cedar Deodar tree side by side on our way back to Hadsar

Kugti - a beautiful remote village (9th)
On 9th (Thursday), we decided to go to place called Kugti. This place is about 25-30 km from Bharmour. We hired a taxi, which took us from Bharmour to Hadsar (which is about 12 km from Bharmour) and then further 9 km to a point beyond which the vehicle cannot travel and you have to walk good 4-5 km to reach to Kugti village. (All these 9km are on a very narrow path across the mountains. The path has only stones along the way and was very tough road to travel).
While walking to the village, we got company in the form of two ladies (one in her 50's and the other in her 70s, walking as fast as us). Walking is a part of life for the people in this region and walking few hours every days is very normal for them. Students here walk good 2 hours to school and 2 hours in the evening back to home. On our way to Kugti, I saw a school, which is probably the most amazing school (in terms of location) I have ever seen. The school is nothing but few rooms and big open space in front of it. The class was held not in the rooms but outside in the open spaces, with students either siting on the benches, or on the ground or standing while studying. The school was surrounded by lush green mountains and had a beautiful river running right besides it. I so much envied those kids studying in the school.
After reaching the village, the ladies invited us to their home and insisted on having lunch. We skipped that but promised to come back on our way back for some snacks. We then spent some time in the beautiful and serene village. It was such a amazing place that I wished we had spent a night there. But our schedule didn't allow us since we had to start in the morning for our return journey. After spending some time, we went back to the that lady's home as promised and had some tasty snacks (halwa, puri and curd).
We walked back to the place where the taxi left us and came back to Bharmour via the same taxi.

Pics from hike to Kugti

Best school in the world :-)

Beautiful Kugti village

Bharmour-Amritsar (10th May)
Our train from Pathankot to Delhi was on 11th night, so we had about one more day to somewhere in the midway between Bharmour and Pathankot. Lots of people suggested Dalhousie or Khajjiar, but all along we wanted to avoid touristy place and after seeing beautiful remote places near Bharmour we knew those places would be a disappointment. So, instead we decided to go to Amritsar for a day.

Before that, with some local help, we managed to visit the power house of a hydro-power project being built on Budhil river. After visit to the hydro-power project, we caught a ride to Chamba on a taxi and immediately at Chamba got a bus to Amritsar.

Amritsar (11th)
We reached Amritsar at about 11:00 pm in the night. We had a dinner at the bus stand and caught a cycle rickshaw to Golden Temple. At the golden temple, all the accommodation were full and it was midnight already so we went to dharmsahal and crashed there in a building where about 2-3 thousand people were already sleeping in open :-).
In the morning, we rented a room in a nearby hotel, got freshen up and visited the Golden temple (gurudwara). Its a beautiful temple. Although the standing in a queue to the main temple in a scorching heat was not very exciting. Soon after that, we went to the famous langar where almost 1.5-2 k people have meal every half an hour. The food was great (hot roti, chhole and dal).

Some pics from Golden temple

After golden temple, we went to Jalianwala bagh for about an hour.
At this point, as per our plan, we were supposed to travel to Pathankot and catch a train to Delhi at 10:30 pm (for which we already had booking). But people suggested that we go to the Wagah border (India Pakistan border place), where there is a retreating ceremony every evening at 6:30. But with that it would have been not possible for us to go to Pathankot to catch a train on time. So we decided to let go our train reservation and instead catch a bus directly from Amritsar to Delhi at night.
We went to Wagah border in the evening at about 5. There were thousands of people already standing to get into the stadium. We entered the stadium, with again the scorching heat hitting on us. The ceremony was good, with lots of enthusiasm on both sides of the border. The environment was similar to a indo-pak cricket match. The parade is unique in the sense, soldiers from both sides display their aggression and animosity with their feet raising as high as above their heads and thumping forcefully on the ground with eyes full of aggression looking into the soldiers on the other side.
I don't know what the history to such display of aggression in the formal ceremony is but I thought it was unnecessary. Nevertheless, it was fun to watch :-)

Pics from Wagah border

Later in the night, at 10:30, we boarded the bus from Amritsar for Delhi, which was to reach Delhi at 7/7:30 in the morning and I had flight at 1:55 pm to catch. Plenty of time. Or so I thought.

Eventful journey back from Amritsar to Delhi (12th June)
Very soon after getting into the bus, I fell asleep at around 11:30 or so. Suddenly, at 1:30 am in the morning, I woke up to a crushing sound. As soon I opened my eyes, I saw pieces of broken glasses all over me. Before I could grasp anything that was happening around me, I held the handle in front of my seat. I heard shouting of people in my bus. Shekhar besides me was awake too and was saying something like "stones are crashing on our bus". At first I thought I was seeing a bad dream. Many a times I see a dream of my vehicle meeting an accident, so I thought it must be one of those. But soon, realized, it wasn't a dream. I saw the bus travelling uncontrolled and driver trying to maneuver the steering wheel. I was seating in the first row on the driver side of the bus and my seat was just behind the driver. Being in mountains and travelling along the valleys for few days and still in half sleep, I thought we were still travelling in mountains and our bus was falling off and I thought I was gonna die. I don't remember much what happened then, but when I got full consciousness, I saw driver lying near my legs in blood and some one trying to help him. Soon I realized, that our bus had met an accident. The scene next to my seat was horrible. Driver seat was uprooted, windows shattered, glass pieces everywhere around me, driver side of the bus totally shattered and driver lying in blood. I saw, it was 1:45 am in the clock. We all got out of the bus. Helped the driver clean his wound. A motorcyclist passing by took the driver to hospital. We were about 80 km from Chandigarh. Apparently, a crane carrying truck has hit our bus from the front and our driver tried avoiding the head-on collision, tried to turn our bus in opposite direction and got hit in the drivers corner. The crane's pulley also hit the bus. The truck was toppled and the driver of the truck was badly injured. There were police and ambulances on the scene.
So there we were stranded in the middle of the night. Other driver on the bus, stopped some of the buses passing by and helped children and women continue their journey on those buses. Few of us left behind and couldn't find any other transport. Suddenly, heavy rain started pouring and we went inside the bus and waited for some transport. Soon the time went by and it was 5 am. I was 335 km away from Delhi, with flight to catch at 1:55. To be able to catch the flight, I had to report by 1:10, due to newer strict rules. I got of the bus and tried to wave at every vehicle passing by with my torch. One truck stopped. Me and Shekhar and few others got on to that and the truck took us to Chandigarh. We reached there at 6:25 or so and boarded the bus to Delhi at 7 am. Delhi was 250 km from there and my best chance was bus reaching Delhi bus stand by 12 noon (i.e. in 5 hours) and then travelling to Delhi airport which would take another 1 hour and I would report just about in time. I checked with the driver who said that the bus would reach Delhi by 12:30/12:45. With that, I would have no chance to catch my flight back. I requested him to please drive as fast as he could and avoid stopping in between and told him about the accident of my previous bus. He said he will try. He did indeed try. The race against time started again. He drove as fast as he could, though stopping in between to take passengers from the villages en-route, which was making me nervous. With lots of nail biting on my part, he reached us to bus terminus at 12:10 or so. We started running as soon as we got out towards metro station, caught the metro to New Delhi station. We didn't want to take risk of travelling on road and thought metro would be a reliable commute. At New Delhi station caught the metro to airport at 12:40 and reach at 1:00. Which gave me about 10 minutes to run to departure section and report. Instead of standing in line, I went straight to supervisor and did special request for check-in and got the boarding pass. Finally all the running was over and boarded the flight on time and slept comfortably till we landed at Pune. The exciting journey which started with running to catch a train, ended with equally fast running to catch the flight to Pune. This was more than adventure we signed up for :-), but was fun and excitement for sure.

Review: Hamidabaichi Kothi (New) - Marathi Play

2011-04-12T00:13:00.000+05:30

"Hamidabaichi Kothi" - a name that is reminiscent of the golden era of Marathi theater, a legendary play in Marathi theater, something that my generation only heard stories about and had many legends associated with it is back on stage.
Imagine a play with as a formidable cast as Vijaya Mehta, Nana Patekar, Ashok Saraf, Bharati Achrekar, Neena Kulkarni. Each name is capable enough to carry any play alone on their shoulders. And this was the play, which had all of them. Direction of the play then was by Vijaya Mehta. No other name in Marathi theater is as respected as hers. The very thought of this gives you goosebumps about this play.

Subak, a production house by well known actor Sunil Barve, has taken an initiative, by the name of "Herbarium" (what a name!), to bring back the select five plays from this golden era to our generation.
First of all, hats-off and big thanks to Sunil for his initiative.

I could not watch the first two plays (Suryachi Pille and Lahanpan dega deva) by Herbarium, but the third one (Hamidabaichi Kothi) was something that was impossible to miss.

I procrastinated and didn't book tickets via phone, so had no option but to go there just on time and try my luck. I was alone to go, since my wife cannot come with me due to the little one. But I was too determined to go there alone. I could only get the last row, balcony ticket, since the show was sold out. I absolutely dont like to see plays from the seats beyond 10th row. I was disappointed, but hopeful as usual, that I could find someone wanting to cancel the tickets on time. So I camped at the ticket window and ultimately found someone trying to sell his 6th row seat, just few minutes before the start :-)

Anyways, about the play now. Play is written by Anil Barve, directed by Vijaya Mehta and came on stage in 70's. It is a three act play and the three acts were retained even in the new version despite the fact that it has gone out of fashion now and almost all plays these days are just 2-act.

The new version of the play is directed by a leading name in theater direction today - Chandrakant Kulkarni.

Plot: The plot is set in an era (probably 1940-50's), when the traditional Kotha's were dying away due to advent of film songs records and people shying away from going to Kothas to listen to the traditional music. Most of the kothas soon turned to brothel to survive and resorted to prostitution for making living instead of traditional song and dance. One such Kothi belonged to Hamidabai, who once was known for her singing and had many classical singers as her fans, including one famous "khan Sahib", whose daughter she was raising alone. She was struggling to make her living with the popularity of traditional mujara's fading away. But she was not willing to compromise her ideals and did not allow her kothi to turn into brothel like other kothas. The story progresses with Hamidabai's death and the turn of events thereon and how the life turns for her daughter and the kothi itself.

While the plot would have been very relevant 35 years back, I think it has lost the relevance in today's time. It is good to see it as a famous yesteryear's play, but I think as a fresh play it would not go across well with today's audience in terms of the story.

It is one hard hitting and dark story for sure.

Acting: Without daring to compare with the original cast, the new cast is good too. Hamidabai is played by Neena Kulkarni, who played Shabbo in original play in 70s. New Shabbo is played by Manwa naik. Saida is played by Smita Tabme. Sattar is played by Jitendra Joshi and Lukka bhai is played by Sanjay Narvekar.
First and foremost, big kudos to Jitendra Joshi. Aamzing acting as Sattar bhai, a dalal/pimp. Simply flawless. Sanjay Narvekar was his usual in typical bhai type role of Lukka bhai. He did do well, but now a days he seems so monotonous in the same vastav-type roles. Smita tambe's acting was as loud as her dancing in Eka peksha ek. Manva Naik did justice to her Shabbo. Vikas Patil was a surprise package as "bahar wala", a servant at the kothi. Now, about Hamdia bai played by Neena Kulkarni. I hate to say this, since Neena is a veteran actor and I do like her. But I think she was still carrying her bearing from the saas-bahu serials she does now a days in her Hamida bai. I wont say, she was loud, but her tone, her dialog delivery at times was not very natural and I could see the shadows of her acting in daily soaps in it. I think she could do better in this role, given how immensely talented she is. She just needs to forget her daily soap acting :)

Direction: Chandrakant Kulkarni has done a great job in direction. I think his main challenge would have been to present the content of 35 year old play for the current audience. First of all, the original play was 3-act. Hardly any play these days are 3-act. If he was to retain all the 3 acts as per the original play, the play would have exceeded the normal time limit of today's audience (or shall I say patience). At the same time, just compressing it to fit the time frame would have done injustice to the plot. I think Chandu did a good job doing a balancing act, i.e. doing a 3-act play, without making it a long play and still being crisp in delivering the content.

So, overall very happy about the fact that I could see "Hamidabaichi Kothi" on stage, that too with a good cast and few glitches here and there wouldnt really matter to me.

Ratings:
Plot: 4/5 (probably 30 years back it would have been 5/5)
Acting: 4/5
Direction: 5/5

And once again, Sunil Barve - big thanks for the effort. Keep up the good work, we are all with you.

NO to "Bharat Ratna for Sachin Tendulkar"

2011-01-25T15:18:00.010+05:30

There have been talks about awarding Bharat Ratna to Sachin Tendulkar. I would be very disappointed if that happens, despite being a big fan of Sachin.

I don't believe Sachin's contributions are of that order, for him to be awarded Bharat Ratna. He is merely a sports person, agreed a great one. But his aspiration to become a sports person was personal, not from any desire to serve country (I don't know, how being a sports person can be considered as a service to the country). Yes, he definitely did a great service to the game and he should be awarded whatever is highest award for that game. If he made some Indians (who follow cricket) proud, it just happened, not that he intended to do so. He just liked the game and he played and played it beautifully, but that is about it. And he is getting paid rather obscenely for this "contribution".

There are other sport personalities as well, who have done great service to the game. It is just that, they failed on the "number_of_people_whose_emotions_they_evoked" criteria compared to Sachin, because their games were not as popular as Cricket. e.g. Vishwanathan Anand.

From Wikipedia:

Bharat Ratna (Hindi: भारत रत्न, translates to Jewel of India^[1] or Gem of India^[2] in English) is the Republic of India's highest civilian award, awarded for the highest degrees of national service. This service includes artistic, literary, and scientific achievements, as well as "recognition of public service of the highest order."

How does "national service" or "public service" apply to his contributions.I don't believe his service to the game should anyway be misunderstood as the service to the nation.

Bharat Ratna is not a popular choice award that should be given, just because cricket fanatic people of this country really want it.

There are many many people, who are doing far better service to the nation, selflessly. They have given life for that service, without any monetary return or expectation of fame. And they have truly made difference to people's life (not just limited to few minutes of euphoria after a win or a century).

There are people like Baba Amte, Prakash Amte, Abhay Bang and many many others like them, who haven't yet got this one. Awarding Bharat Ratna to Sachin, and ignoring the contributions of these would seem terribly insensitive IMO and a height of brain-deadness.

निशब्द

2011-01-24T23:38:00.004+05:30

काय बोलावे, कसे बोलावे..शब्दच खुंटले आज.

भारतरत्न, स्वर भास्कर, स्वर सम्राट, पंडित वगैरे वगैरे बिरुदावली ज्याच्या पुढे तोकडी पडतात असा तो महान कलावंत, आज आपल्यात नाही. पृथ्वी तलावरली आपली मैफल संपवून हा गन्धर्व आज स्वर्गातल्या आपल्या पुढच्या मैफिलिसाठी, आपल्या सर्वांना सोडून निघून गेला.
तसे बघितले तर, गेल्या काही वर्षांपासून जी काही त्यांची स्थिति होती, त्यावरून हा दिवस काही दूर नाही, हे ठावुकच होते. पण मन काही तसा विचार करायला तयार नव्हत. आज मात्र हे सत्य स्विकरावे अणि पचवावे लागणार आहे.

त्यांच गाण तस तर ३ वर्षां पुर्वीच थांबल, आता त्यांच अस्तित्व ही नसणार. पण त्यांच गाण मात्र चिरंतन आहे, ते होते, आहे अणि राहणार आहे.

हे खर आहे, की आता त्या मैफिली होणे नाही, सवाई पाहिले सारखा असणार नाही, त्यांचे मिश्किल विनोद नाही. आता त्यांच्या कैसेट ऐकून ऐकून, त्यांची आठवण करणे, एवढच आपल्या हाती उरले आहे.
मात्र, ज्या काळात प. जी होवून गेले, त्या काळात आपण होतो अणि त्यांना प्रत्यक्ष गाताना ऐकल, हे समाधान आयुष्य भर जपता येण्या सारख नक्कीचआहे.

आज डोळे ओले आहेत. परत एकदा अशा व्यक्ति करता, जिच्याशी तस बघितल तर काहीच नात नाही अणि म्हटल तर बरच काही आहे. मागे पु ल गेल्यानंतर असेच डोळ्यात अश्रु आले होते.

Natak review : Katkon-trikon

2010-12-30T22:28:00.002+05:30

Been meaning to see this drama for a while, but just couldnt make it for various reasons - new born being the main one.

Anyways, yesterday I made up my mind to go for it in any case, be it alone and I did.

Katkon-trikon is one of the best plays I have seen in recent times (probably in last 3-4 years).
The story of the play develops as an investigation of the attempted suicide/murder/accident of Aba Gokhale, who lives with his son Rahul and daughter-in-law Bhakti. Mohan Agashe plays the role of Bapat (investigating CID inspector) as well as Aba Gokhale, while Sandesh Kulkarni and Ketaki Thatte play Rahul and Bhakti respectively. These are the only characters in the play.

Katkon-TrikoN in English means "Right-angle Triangle". This triangle has a special property, which is well explained in the play and also how it justifies the name of the play.
Though the form of plot is in investigative format, the theme of the play is about the relationship between members of modern day joint family. I don't think it would be proper to disclose the full script here, but lets just say, it is about generation gap, it is about conflict in relationship between father, son and daughter in law. The characters in the play are so real, you can almost see yourself or people around you in them.

I think the highlight of the play in my opinion are two: One - exceptional writing of Vivek BeLe and two - powerful performance by Mohan Agashe. (Sandesh acted well too).
Dialogues are just exceptionally well written (hats off to writer). Overall treatment is great too. There is hardly any time wasted in something that should not have been there. It is just to the point all along.

I think it is a must watch play for all the young generation or for that matter everyone.

5 star rating from me to this one, since I didnt find anything to be critical about this play.
(If you can ignore the loud acting of Ketki Thatte, I am sure you will agree with me too).

Two events in last week that have deeply saddened me

2010-12-29T11:29:00.004+05:30

Two events that have happened in a week's time have really saddened me and made be ashamed to be an Indian.

The first one is the life imprisonment to Binayak Sen on charges of sedition.

The second one from Pune, of PMC corporators passing resolution to remove statue of Shivaj's guru, Dadoji Kondev and then the ruckus in house and on road following that.

Here is one man, Binayak Sen, a doctor, giving his life for poor people in Chattisgarh (whom government doesn't seem to care about), being sympathetic towards their plight, raising voice against their oppression by government machinery and at the same time condemning the Maoist violence. He certainly has his heart at the right place. Is this his crime? Where are the fundamental rights given to us by the very constitution of this country that includes freedom of speech and rights to freedom from exploitation?
His only crime is to be having connection with Maoists. Can that really be a crime? By that standard, should Sanjay Dutt be not sentenced for life, for his connections with the accused of Mumbai blasts in 93? (Connections so strong that he got 3 AK-56 rifles, few Grenades and a 9 mm Pistol as souvenir).
Binayak Sen allegedly carried the letter, that killed none. Sanjay Dutt carried the Guns and ammunition that killed many. If Binayak Sen is charged for sedition, shouldn't Sanjay Dutt be in jail for wedging war against the country?

Binayak Sen is doing what government should be doing but is unwilling to do. i.e. to talk/engage/being sympathetic towards the people in Naxal-hit area. Isn't this the only way to solve this problem? We as country have become so capitalistic in nature that we are more concerned about Lavasa being affected than poor in villages not getting basic necessities.

And relate this to the second news that I was talking about. Pune politicians are so done with solving all the Pune problems such as roads, traffic, water etc. that they are spending precious time and people's money on fighting over a statue. The illiterate, not-even-10-standard-pass corporators of Pune, who probably never studied history and who probably can't even answer basic questions like where was Shivaji born, have started claiming that Dadoji Kondev was not Shivaji's teacher (because he was Brahmin) and have voted in removing the statue? Then the other parties ransacked the house and then the city. And as people, we can do nothing but helplessly watch and digest whatever is going on. After all, aren't we the ones who asked them to represent us?

There are these corrupt men, who are blatantly wasting public money for their whims and still well protected by state machinery, forget about even one day of jail.
And there is this one lone man, imprisoned for life, for giving his life for poor and oppressed.

While ashamed for being part of this society, I still salute you Mr. Sen. It is people like you, who keep alive our optimism.

Feel sad for Tharoor but good about the collateral it caused.

2010-04-20T07:47:00.001+05:30

It really felt sad to see Tharoor go and stepping from MEA. He was one person I really wanted to see as minister after the election (I actually wished he would be cabinet minister for MEA) and was glad to see him getting included. He was part of new breed of politicians - educated, articulate, intelligent and I guess that was the problem.

anyhow, the good thing that this saga has done is that it has opened a can of worms for IPL, which I desperately wished happen for some time. While IPL is a great entertainment product, it had so many things going around which were murky and center of it is Lalit Modi. BCCI along with Lalit Modi had arrogantly established their monopoly in the country with no interference from government. The way it killed ICL (the original idea, that BCCI copied the moment they saw money in it) was blatant. The kind of money it generates is humongous and it is no wonder that cricket in India has got all biggies in it.

Tharoor got fired from all sides because of his involvement in cricket, while being a minister of a country - conflict of interests.
Why not question the conflict of interests of Sharad Pawar, Arun Jaitly, Farooq Abdulla, Rajeev Shukla and so many. What about conflict of interest of Franchise owners who are BCCI members?

There are so many questions to be answered, now that the can of worms is opened.

I am sure, given that the money involved here is so huge, that there is underworld involvement in here too.

BCCI provides people like Modi, Pawar enormous power that they abuse. I would like to see some government interference in BCCI governance, while keeping it autonomous, that would take away this power from them.

Dreams from my father by Obama

2010-03-10T23:06:00.001+05:30

Recently read the book that was on my wish list for some time. "Dreams from my father - A story of race and inheritance" by Barack Obama.

I am a big fan of this guy and big admirer.

And the admiration went further north after reading this book.

The book is autobiographical in nature. Obama narrates the story of his life. The story, in which he tries to discover himself. The story takes the reader to his days in Hawaii when he was a kid living with his grandparents, to Indonesia where he moves with his mother and step-father, to California where he studied, to new York where he worked, then to Chicago where he worked as community organizer in the south side finally to Kenya where he discovers his roots.

It is an intriguing tale. Through this story, Obama has commented on his experience and views about race and racism, from the point of view of an African-American.

It was fascinating to read about his days in Chicago and how he struggles to get the community together.

His trip to his "home" in Kenya is equally fascinating to read. How he meets in father's side of family there, how he learns about his ancestors, more importantly his father, their life stories, makes for an interesting read.

His father to him always has been a mysterious figure. He tries to "know" his father and in turn know himself.

This story is a journey of his self-discovery.

From being a father-less African-American kid in Hawaii, community organizer in Chicago to - First black person to be the editor of Harvard Law review, first black American president - Obama's story is a remarkable tale, truly reflecting his campaign slogan "Yes, we can!"

Overall, it is a very good book.

Already put "Audacity of Hope" in my list of to-be-read books

Balasaheb Thackrey has found a friend

2010-02-16T17:09:00.000+05:30

Balasaheb Thackrey must be really happy to have found a friend, someone who so agrees with him.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Al-Qaida-unit-warns-sportspersons-against-visiting-India/articleshow/5579429.cms

Shivsena - Terrorist organization with face

2010-02-14T19:06:00.006+05:30

What shivsena is doing is sick and is nothing less than anti-national in my opinion.

First they create disturbance everywhere in state with the help of their goons and keep the entire state machinery at ransom.
Then, when the blast in Pune happened, they blame government for putting their forces for the protection of film-goers and therefore responsible for lapses leading to blast.

Of course, putting the police force for the protection of multiplexes, film viewers (for MNIK), does not justify any lapses in security by state govt. if any and if the blasts are the result of intelligence/police failure, they should be blamed.

But, what Shivsena is doing, is just suck. Sick, to the lowest level.

What did they expect state to do, when they put their goondas on street threating public/private property and innocent people's life in danger? Not do anything? If state had done so, they would have blamed state for not doing anything despite a known danger, had anything happened because of them.

And if state takes some extra precaution to handle them, they blame govt for the blast.

So, they win in any case. Yes they win, but at what cost? People's life?

If at all, the blasts happened because the police force's attention was on MNIK release, it is shivsena to be blamed and they should be ashamed of themselves.

Diverting the attention of govt machinery/ police force by creating mayhem over a petty non-issue and therefore creating a hole in security for terrorists to sneak in and cause blasts - I don't think there is anything more anti-national than this.

(And they call SRK making some statement an anti-national..huh).

Shivsena in my opinion is more dangerous that those terrorist organizations. Those terrorists do not have a face, but Shivsena does.

And what is BJP doing? A silent spectator? I think, if BJP has to really improve in next elections, they would have to part their ways with Shivsena.

Lame duck government in Maharashtra

2010-02-11T08:41:00.001+05:30

The problem with Maharashtra is not - elements like Shivsena, MNS, Swabhiman Sena, Sambhaji bridge etc
The problem is not these senas and their senapatis.
The problem is the spineless, inefficient, weak government, that just cannot act.

The CM only believes in talking, making high claims but no action.
The home ministry is only reacting to situation and not doing anything to prevent.

Big claims were made after IBN-Lokmat attack. Nothing happened besides arresting few goons for few days.
Same continues with attacks on theater/multiplexes.

If they can show the effectiveness of police machinery that they shown during Rahul Gandhi's visit to Mumbai, on all days in Mumbai, things would improve.

If they are really in charge of situation, they should show some guts to arrest Sanjay Raut, Raj, Uddhav, even Balasaheb and other of their leaders,

Everyone (people from both sides) keep discussing who's right, who's wrong, SRK, Shivsena, who should do what...everyone has one or the other affiliation.
But does anybody care to see where the law says? Why are things left to individual discretion?
Because government does not have will, spine to do things that are right.
And this is not just one off thing. These things keep on repeating.

No wonder, all these senas are encouraged and are becoming more and more fearless.
So fearless that, the leader of the party who's controlling the police machinery in state, needs to go to these goon and beg. They are not to blame. Its the state government that is to be blamed.
Shame on Maharashtra government, shame on Ashok Chavan. Shame on Sharad Pawar.

Balance act

2010-02-09T21:41:00.000+05:30

How does Shivsena/MNS maintain the balance between following two stands of theirs at the same time, is beyond my comprehension.

1) Attacking Australian players because there are attacks on migrant Indians in Australia
and at the same time
2) Opposing and attacking Migrant North Indians in Mumbai

Don't they spend some time with themselves, trying to contemplate what exactly is their thought process?

3 Idiots - on Pune roads

2010-02-07T10:05:00.001+05:30

Idiot no.1: Driving vehicles with high beam at night, in city roads (not caring how dangerous is it for everyone).

Idiot no.2: Overtaking in traffic/single lane road, by driving in wrong lane (while other are trying to be in lane) not realizing that by doing so, s/he is making the situation worse.

Idiot no.3: Driving at high speed on city roads, not giving heed to pedestrians, cyclists, two wheelers on road (who also have right on the roads) and endangering their lives for own's need for speed.

And in most cases, you see all-in-one idiots (overtaking in wrong lane on city roads while driving at high speed, with high beam on).

Harishchandrachi factory

2010-02-07T09:56:00.001+05:30

Watched Harishchandrachi factory and I must admit that I was disappointed.
And I dont think the disappointment could only be attributed to the raised expectations (by everyone around) before I went to watch it.
Story/concept was good, but I don't think the overall effect was that good or convincing.
It seemed like the story was told in hurry. I felt like I was turning the pages of a photo album.
The scenes come just one after the other and you end up being just a passive observer.
The humorous pieces in between were enjoyable, but the core was missing.

I don't definitely agree that the movie was worth being the Oscar entry of the country.

I think one of the reasons for so much of a hype is that it is a period movie and that creates the unique factor to the movie.

Same with Natarang. The concept was good, music was phenomenal, acting was excellent, still the core was missing in the movie (IMO). But in comparison, I found Natarng much better than Harishchandarchi factory.
I wish to see Jogwa now and hope it doesnt disappoint me.

I agree with Shivsena

2010-02-02T08:23:00.000+05:30

Rarely do I agree with what Shivsena does. But this time, I am with them.
Padmashree for someone like Saif, Vikhe Patil is outrageous.

According to Wikipedia,
"Padma Shri (also spelled Padma Shree, Padmashree, Padma Sree and Padma Sri) is an award given by the Government of Indiagenerally to Indian citizens to recognize their distinguished contribution in various spheres of activity including the Arts, Education, Industry,Literature, Science, Sports, Medicine, Social Service and public life."

I wonder what was the distinguished contribution of Saif Ali Khan that made him deserving for this award?

Well, if snatching Karina from Shahid is one, then yes. He will get Padma Bhushan when he marries her and Padma Vibhushan when ..well you know when:)

If the Padma awards are given in the manner it is currently, there is one less award ceremony Amir Khan has to attend :)

स्वप्नं स्वरांचे?

2010-02-01T19:41:00.004+05:30

आईडिया सारेगामापा मध्ये उर्मिला धनगर विजयी झाली आणि कसे कसेसेच वाटले.

मला खात्री आहे की अंतिम तिघां मध्ये ती एकटी मराठी प्रतिस्पर्धी नसती तर निकाल काही और असू शकला असता. किंवा राहुल सक्सेना चे नाव सक्सेना च्या एवजी राहुल साखरदांडे आणि अभिलाषा चेल्लं चे नाव चेल्लं च्या एवजी अभिलाषा चांदे असते तर नक्कीच ती जिंकली नसती.

उर्मिला च्या आवाजात वेगळेपणा नक्की आहे, पण ते तिथेच संपते. आवाज वाईट आहे असे नाही, पण राहुल आणि अभिलाषा तिच्या पेक्षा सरस आहेत आणि हे गेले कित्येक एपिसोड सिद्ध पण झाले आहे.

उर्मिला च्या आवाजात तयारी नाही, स्थैर्य नाही. माझ्या मते राहुल जास्त लायक होता आणि त्यानंतर अभिलाषा. उर्मिला अंतिम तीन मध्ये असायला पाहिजे होती आणि होती देखील. पण ती महाविजेती होण जरा खटकले एवढंच

लोकांनी पण SMS करताना नक्कीच भाषावादाकडे जास्त लक्ष दिला आणि गळ्याकडे नाही, याचं फार वाईट वाटलं. मराठी लोक खरे रसिक म्हणून ओळखले जातात, पण या निकालावरून ते खोटं ठरलं

RIP Salinger

2010-02-01T19:04:00.000+05:30

Author of one of my most favorite books J. D. Salinger passed away last week.
Thanks J.D. for creating Holden Caulfield and writing The Catcher in the rye.

Traffic explosion

2009-12-08T22:03:00.002+05:30

I was talking to some friends few weeks back and was giving my thoughts on the traffic situation.
In my opinion, India is going to see an explosion in the road traffic and would see a sharp rise in the accidents/deaths due to road accidents.
The reasons are not surprising.
India (or many Indian major cities) is seeing growth in the number of vehicles on the road, especially 4 wheelers.
Car prices are going down, pay-standards are going high - not only in private sectors but even in public/government, lot of youngsters, IT professional, call-center professionals earning big sum of money - all this is leading to boom in the car market. Even for lower middle class people, buying a car is pretty normal.

But how is this buying power reflecting on roads? People got car, but not the driving sense. People drive four wheelers as if they are driving the 2 wheelers, with no control what so ever. India already had the problem of indisciplined driving. Add to it the number of vehicles, especially big ones, in the hands of inexperienced. Call centers, software companies, MNCs are providing vehicle service to their employees, which has led to employment for lot of unqualified labors to be driver. These people with no sense of driving are the most reckless on the road. Irresponsible auto-rickshaw drivers are always to make things miserable.

To make the worse situation worst, the pubic infrastructure has not improved. Roads are still narrow, hardly lit, potholes all over. No system in place to provide quick medical help in case of accidents.
The results are pretty scare and already seen everywhere on the roads.
Nowadays, it hardly occurs in a day that I dont see an accident (it may even be a minor).
In my opinion, the accidents and situation likewise are going to go up highly over next few years, and is going to become one of the major problem India has faced in near future, even bigger than terrorism.

Its sad to see that no one, no media, no Thackreys, no political parties are acknowledging this as issue.

Even now, road deaths in India is at a very high, in fact at alarming level. Media made a huge noise about swine flu. How many deaths did it cause, 100-200? How many deaths due to terrorism? 1000-2000? How many deaths are road accidents causing? Hundreds of thousands.
Just because it doesn't cause the kind of attention like Swine Flu, media will probably continue to ignore this.
There are some social groups in few cities trying to fight this, but they are small in number.

I dont know what the solution to this issue is. But immediate would be
- improvement in traffic sense is MUST. We can no longer afford to be reckless in driving
- increase in the number of traffic cops to seriously enforce the traffic laws
- better infrastructure - lights, road condition, dividers, traffic signals etc.
- better public transportation system is absolutely necessary

Although, this still is not going to solve the problem in long run. We may have to look for solutions like
- increase taxes on bigger vehicles to encourage use of public transport system (provided it is in place)
- ban private four wheelers in certain parts of the city etc.

The problem is big, solutions cannot be simple. But at least there has to be an acknowledgement of the situation.

On a lighter note.
How does the traffic system in US makes vehicle stop at junction or crossing? - They use STOP sign.
How do they do in India? - They put speed-breakers.
What does it mean? Either we cannot read or stupid enough to not get it.

My solution to Disputed structure/Ram mandir/Babri Masjid issue.

2009-11-30T20:45:00.018+05:30

I don't know how I can put my thoughts here without getting misunderstood by anyone with affiliation to either side. Nevertheless I still would like to, at least for my benefit, put those thoughts on paper.

Firstly,

I am/was not a follower of Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

I was too young to form an opinion when the movement was started and am too reluctant now that my thoughts are developed. It hardly matters to if there is a Temple or Masjid or a toilet at that place.

Secondly, I am an atheist in general sense (since I am not religious in general sense).

So, the fact that Ram was actually born at the place holds no significance to me.

Although, if we have to go by history I believe that:

- There must have been a place of worship (mostly of Ram) considered being the birth place of Ram.

- Babar invaded India (which is a known fact) and converted most non-Islamic structures to Masjid (which is also a known fact). Please note that I am not too offended by this because that was the way empires/rulers functioned at the time.

We now have two groups of people concerned with this whole issue.

- largely Hindu group, claims this to be a Ram's birth place and that there has to be a Ram temple at the place

- largely Muslim group, who did not want the masjid to be destroyed (the one Babar built) and now that its destroyed, opposes the construction of temple.

Clearly the group is too divided to have a solution. Although, I firmly believe that there is always a common ground no matter how distant opinions might be.

So, what are the common grounds here?

Before that lets first go with assumption that

1) Hindus believe Muslim Mythology and Muslims believe Hindu mythology. It’s unreasonable to go without this assumption, because both sides believe their respective mythology. So it’s fair to assume that they should also respect each other’s mythology

Now, if both sides keep their emotions outside the room and try to arrive at some facts/common grounds, they would definitely agree that

1) It “most likely” is a birth place of Ram (based on history, mythology etc). The fact that Babar came pretty late to this part of the world, benefit of doubt goes in favor of it being Ram’s birth place.

2) Babar invaded India and destroyed lot of temples in India (Muslims, please don’t take this personally). Not only the one in Ayodhya, but in general all over India

3) Babar “most likely” built Masjid there. (Masjid existed there is a fact and Babar might have built it is a hypothesis).

4) Hindus destroyed the masjid, Muslim were offended. (Hindus, please don’t take it personally)

So, what is the solution now that common ground is reached?

There can only be four possibilities to the solution.
1) Build both temple and mosque at the place 2) Build nothing or something else at the place 3) Build mosque 4) Build temple

I don’t think having Temple and Mosque both built at the same place is going to really solve the issue. This in fact might make the situation worse. We need a solution which will not only put the issue of Mandir/Masjid at rest but also brings Hindus and Muslims together for long term peace.

If nothing is built, it will keep the issue open indefinitely and let politicians make benefits out of it.

So, either a Masjid has to be rebuilt there or a Mandir.

And in my very “non-hindu” opinion, I think having a Mandir/temple there is going to do a lot good to everyone that having a Mosque there. Allow me to explain why:

- Its more or less certain that, this place can be considered as Ram birth place. Or at least a place of Hindu worship before Babar invaded. If mythological evidences are to be believed (and we already made assumption that each side would believe other side’s mythology), it very much could be Ram birth place.

- Ram is much dearer to Hindus than Babar is to Muslims. Had it been Prophet Mohammad, it would have been a tough call. But between Babar vs Ram, even a fundamentalist Muslim would call Ram a winner.

- Muslims are a minority in India and are generally protected by Government in most other situations (uniform civil code, reservations, politician's vote bank etc) and that is what most Hindus have grudge against. And they think, protecting Babri Masjid is just an extension of that.

In this situation if Muslims show a gesture of allowing Ram temple to be built there, it would go a long way in the communal harmony of this country. It is very unlikely for Hindus to go on back foot in this situation. Not because they are adamant, but because the issue is linked to Ram (vs Babar) and Ram is very dear to them. Even if they do, it would never bring the communal harmony as they already are complaining against existing Muslim protectionism.

So, I think Muslim being gracious and asking big brother to have its way will really help not only for this issue but for long lasting communal friendship.

Even at our homes, sometime a small brother has to give in for big brother in some critical situations and when that happens that small brother becomes a favorite little brother of big one.

Days of Shivsena are over

2009-11-20T20:11:00.001+05:30

There is a saying "विनाश काले विपरीत बुद्धि " which seems to be coming true for Shivsena. I think the end of Shivsena is very near. They have been acting all confused, frustrated since election. This generally happens when the end is near.
They still have not come to term with Raj Thackrey's success and their failure and are constantly in mode of denial. They cannot accept that people of Maharashtra have rejected them.
First, Bal Thackrey blamed Maharashtrians for not electing Shivsena, as if electing them was the only right thing for us to do and we were not supposed to do anything different.

Then he targeted Sachin Tendulkar for this comments on Mumbai and said that he hurt Marathi people.

I dont know which Marathi people is he referring to? Are the people in Shivsena the only population of Marathis in the state? I was not hurt and so were many Marathi people I know. So, how can he claim Marathis were hurt. He or Shivsainik may have been hurt; no one cares. Its beyond me to understand how Shivsena or Bal Thackrey or even Raj Thackrey can say that they represent Marathi people from the state, when they dont even have enough numbers from the election to prove that. Its clear that Marathi people or Maharashtrians have rejected them, their ideology in the election. On what basis can these people claim to represent us? Is there any other way, than election, to tell them that, no we do not need them and we don't want them to represent us. Please tell so, if there is. We will tell them through that way that we dont want them.We already told that through recent election. If they don't get it and if they are so stupid, we will tell again till they get it.

Today these guys attacked IBN-7 news center, which is not surprising as they have been known to do such kind of nuisance. The reason - "they cannot tolerate anything against Bal Thackrey". Its sad that such attacks come from someone who himself once was journalist and cartoonist.
Is this the definition of their Maharashtrian culture, Shiv rajya?

I can clearly see the end of Shivsena in near future, if they continue this mode of operation.

Today's leaders

2009-11-16T09:02:00.003+05:30

Sachin gave his own thoughts on Marathi/Mumbai issue here

Sure enough, Balasaheb Thackery fired back (I am not sure if he was in particular hurry to respond to Sachin's comment before Raj Thackery to prove certain thing, I don't know:)

One of the things I always find missing in our society is that people who are role models, who are worshiped beyond any doubt by millions in this country, people who could influence the masses in a very big way, never come out strongly in public against the hatred, politics of divide and support what is right.

India today lacks, and, I think, have been for many many years, true leaders. We do not have any political, social leader that crosses the boundaries of political, regional, cultural and religious ideologies and is listened and followed by all. Leaders like these are necessary to shape our collective ideology as a country. These are the leaders whom people do not doubt and take final words from. I think last such leader we may have had was Mahatma Gandhi, who influenced country as a whole.

Today, we definitely do not have a single one in social/political circle. And therefore we look for them in sports (Sachin etc.) or films (Amitabh Bachchan), music (Lata Mangeshkar etc).

And in my opinion, it is important for people like these, to consider as their responsibility to induce some good thoughts, directions, ideals among the people who follow them.

People may debate, that its not their job to do politics. I am not saying they should get involved in politics. As a matter of fact, they should represent themselves as apolitical and express their objective opinions about such things.

We need all such influential people in all such circuits (sports, movies, art, literature) to consider it as their responsibility to influence and guide people in right direction. These are the only people who carry some credibility in todays society and its a waste if they don't make use of it.

Sachin seems to have made a start. Hope this becomes a culture.

Miss - No miss

2009-11-05T08:26:00.007+05:30

Its been around three months since I came back from US and was wondering what I am missing and what I am not missing. I had the similar feeling, when I went to US about things I missed from India. Now it is the other way around.

People always worry about adjusting to new place and wish to stay with the surrounding they are comfortable with. But due to our human nature, it does take us much time to get adjusted to a new surrounding quickly and develop comfort zone around it. So, in reality, fear of new thing is just an illusion.

Here is what I think I am missing the most from my stay in US

- SouthPark: The one TV series I watched and enjoyed the most. The most intelligent comic scripts I ever watched.

- The daily show with Jon Stewart: Not a single day went without watching this show. This man is THE best. Thoroughly enjoyed watching this during Presidential election 2008.

- Public Library: Awesome public system, that was of great help to me. You can get number of books, videos from here for free. Source of countless movies I watched and books I read during my stay.

- Family Guy: How can I not miss this. Ridiculously, grossly funny. Don't go by its name. Its definitely not to be watched with family:) You can never be sure of, whats gonna come next:)

- Driving pleasure and driving discipline: One I miss dearly everyday on Pune roads

- Biking: Though I am making up for this by biking in India, but the biking there was much more fun

- Customer care experience: Especially if you put it in India's context

- Internet speed:)

- Work culture, time I used to get outside work to lot more.

And what am I not missing:

- Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'reilly, Glen Beck, Ann Coulter: You get the idea:)

- Freezing Cold: Oh yeah!

- Just witnessing the political polarization, anti-Obama conservatism, health care mess etc.

- Distance from Family and friends

Olakh na Palakh - Review

2009-09-29T20:04:00.002+05:30

Review: Olakh na Palakh (Marathi Drama)
Cast: Prashant Damle, Mangesh Kadam
Writer: Suresh Jayram
Director: Mangesh Kadam
RatingL *** (3 out of 5)

Story:
Its a suspense-comedy plot. An injured person (played by Mangesh Kadam) is picked up by police inspector Zarapkar (Prashant Damle) of Naupada police station, Thane.
The picked up person, claims to not remember anything before his injury and is a suspect of amnesia (temporary memory loss). Although, the belongings of that person recovered by police indicates that he may be someone named "Ashok Garware".
Inspector Zarapkar (Prashant Damle) calls Resham Garware (wife of Ashok Garware) for confirmation. Although, the story turns murky, when she, after first acknowledging that the injured person is in fact Ashok Garware, changes her statement and claims that he is not Ashok Garware, though he looks like and has possession of stuff belonging to, Ashok Garware. She does that for a reason (to get automatically rid of her husband, with whom she doesn't go along well and who is hindrance to her getting her father's wealth. Although, she retracts her statements frequently for various reasons.
The story then takes another turn, when inspector finds out that, there is one more lady involved in this story, who has left a voice mail on that person's mobile. He, as well as Resham Garware, suspects that alleged Ashok Garware had an extra marital affair.
What happens next, how does the story get straighten, is that person really Ashok Garware, who is that mysterious lady - You will have to see the play to get answers to all these questions, as it will be inappropriate for me to reveal.

Acting:
Prashant Damle as usual is great in playing a kind-of-stupid, yet honest and sincere police inspector. His comic timing is simply great. Mangesh Kadam acts well in his role tool. Resham Garware is loud and annoying with her over-acting. I found her quite irritating throughout.

Screenplay:
I found first half better than the second. Story develops at a nice pace, with some nice comedy and great punch lines from Prashant Damle. Second half was a bit let-down. Climax is pretty disappointing. Some scenes, were stretched a bit too far, for no reason (e.g. when Prashant Damle asks Mangesh Kadam to leave the police station, or some with Prashant Damle and Resham Garware etc). Prashant Damle(and to some extent Mangesh Kadam)'s acting and their comic timing, some great dialogs by these two, scores over the story line. So, instead of for watching it for a great story, watch it for some good comedy and acting. (Anyhow, hardly any plays these days revolve around story :( )

One thing, that I find pretty annoying in this, as well as in most, Prashant Damle's plays, are the unnecessary adjustment to have him sing a song. There is no denying that he is a very good singer. But mostly, these days, directors go overboard with him and make unnecessary addition of songs. Same with this play. It looks so unnatural to see how the play is dragged to create a place for his singing. I hope Prashant Damle realizes this before anyone else.

Overall, an OK play, could be watched for Prashant Damle and his comedy.

Hercules ACT 110

2009-09-19T22:15:00.007+05:30

Bought this nice looking, performance bike today. Gift from my wife for my birthday, to let me continue my biking hobby.
Thanks honey! I will get in shape soon:)

It's a hybrid one with aluminum frame and shimono components, pretty light weight and rides like a breeze. Bought from Surendar Cycle stores (karve road, Pune) for Rs. 10K.

Other bikes I considered before selecting this one were: Firefox cyclone (not a hybrid one, but mountain bike), LA Sovereign.

To frisk or not to frisk?

2009-07-23T02:05:00.005+05:30

Recently read about frisking of former president of India APJ Abdul Kalam by American airline at the airport.
Media, or some political people seemed to be very hurt with the fact that a former president of this country was made to go through security check by some airline personnel. This they say hurt his dignity and was very offensive to the country's pride.

This brought me back my thoughts about, how I dont like special privileges given to some government ministers not requiring them to go through security check (and how they throw tantrum at the airport when they are scanned for security by mistake).

First of all, I dont understand what is so offensive in it? If a person is clean, he should not be offended by these things.
Secondly, the purpose of this is not to hurt someone but a precautionary measure for the benefit of a large group.
Having someone at a top government position or minister or former president, does not mean that person cannot change. What if a minister, overnight turns in to a terrorist and decides to hijack a plane and run into some building? Can anyone deny that possibility? If there is a non-zero possibility of that happening, why should other passenger's life be put at risk by not scanning those people? The stakes are too high by not doing so?
Do we otherwise allow a minister of a country to break the red light, without caring if other direction traffic is still on? No. Generally there is a traffic person who would stop all the traffic and let the minister's car go, otherwise the minister's car would have to obey the traffic rule just like anyone else.
Same analogy can be applied here. If the minister is traveling alone in his private jet; then sure, dont check him. But if is traveling with hundred other people, no way should he be allowed without checking. Would a minister travel on a plane, knowing that there is a person on the plane who has not gone through security just because he is brother-in-law of a air hostess? No way!

In fact, I would demand that, each and every person traveling in my plane, no matter who that person is, should be scanned and checked. That should be a fundamental right of every passenger to demand.
I am sure that Abdul Kalam is not offended as much as other people are, who are crying out loud for a false pride.
If only these people could understand the true meaning of pride and dignity.

Goodbye Trek-930

2009-07-21T00:53:00.005+05:30

I said goodbye to my beloved Trek-930 yesterday. Had to sell it off as I am moving back to India.
What a nice bike it was. Vintage Trek-930, lugged steel frame, light weight, rode like a charm. I made a great use of it this summer. Used it to ride to office, to ride over weekends in parks, downtown, navy pier, lincoln park and what not.

I gonna remember it for my countless trails in bussee woods, peaceful ride back from office and ride in the Lincoln park. I am gonna regret that I could not do the 33 miles Des plaines river trail that I wanted to.

Here are some of the pics of my darling, that I am gonna miss the most.

Height of glorification

2009-07-18T05:20:00.004+05:30

Clinton flew in shortly after 10pm from Prague where her special aircraft had a refuelling halt after the flight from Washington. It is her first foreign trip since she broke an elbow.

This is from Times of India news report. Now what the heck is this? Why is there a need to mention what so special about this visit is? "First foreign trip since she broke an elbow"????

This is a limit of glorification. Now what next? When Obama visits India, will they write
"Obama's first south east asia trip since his 22nd trip to the bathroom in last 24 hours?"

निळु फ़ुलें ना श्रधांजलि

2009-07-14T20:24:00.003+05:30

निळु फुले गेल्याची बातमी वाचली। वाईट वाटले। तसे त्यांचे वय झालेच होते, पण तरीही...
मराठी रंगभूमि अणि चित्रस्रुष्टितील ते एक दमदार व्यक्तिमत्व। एके काळी मराठी चित्रपट सृष्टि गाजवणारे । त्यांचे नाटक बघण्याचा कधी योग नाही आला पण चित्रपट चिकार बघितले। सामना, पिंजरा, सिंहासन अश्या चित्रपतुन एकाहून एक सरस भूमिका त्यांनी केल्या होत्या। हिन्दी चित्रपट त्यांना काही मानवाले नाही। बहुदा त्याच कारण ते एक अस्सल मराठी व्यक्ति होते हे असाव। ते कुठल्याही प्रकारे हिन्दी माणूस वाटतच नव्हते।
त्यांना एक दोन वेळा प्रत्यक्षा बघण्याचा योग आला। अतिशय हसतमुख व्यक्तिमत्व। लोकांकडून असे ही ऐकले आहे की ते माणूस म्हणुन पण फार मोठे होते.
त्यांची अनेक मराठी चित्रपटे बघितली अणि त्यांनी खुप मनोरंजन केले। त्याबद्दल त्यांना धन्यवाद व आदरांजलि

At the cubs game

2009-07-14T01:32:00.008+05:30

Been to the Cubs Vs Cardinal game yesterday, at Wrigley field. It was my first live baseball game and always wanted to go to Wrigley field to watch cubs game, for all the hype surrounding it.

Game was low scoring and not that exciting (cubs sucked and Cardinals won), but the atmosphere around the game was all party like. Buses, trains, roads, houses near Wrigley field, shops selling merchandise was all - cubs, cubs and cubs.
Even I wore a cubs shirt, just to blend in:). People drinking, eating, shouting, cheering, rooting - it was one big party.

Here are some pics from the game. More photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/vivek.shende/CubsGame#

Barak O-mama!

2009-07-12T02:10:00.008+05:30

No matter whether you are a president of the most powerful country or a ordinary person on a street - "Men would be men" :-)

Although, this video probably appears to clear him. Not Sarkozy though. (Sarkozy! You naughty, naughty boy:)

Protective gear for umpires?

2009-07-07T02:30:00.002+05:30

Read about this incidence happened in England.
I had always wondered, since the cricket became aggressive game that its is today, why aren't umpires well protected. You see all kinds of gears for players but we haven't yet seen the umpire wearing helmets. You always see umpires ducking, bending, twisting to avoid the ball hit towards him. Shouldn't umpires be given the protection too? One can argue that, it might affect him seeing clearly and there by affect the decision. But I dont argue so much. Also, if we get third umpire (or rule like challenge/official review in Tennis), this wont be that much of a big issue.

The game has progressed so much over the years and becoming aggressive day by day and its very important that protection of umpires be also considered while changing the game.

Lucky 15th

2009-07-06T06:17:00.004+05:30

What a match it was today at Center court, Wimbledon.
Both player played fantastically and at the end it all boiled down to who would err first.

In my opinion though, Andy Roddick played equally great as Federer if not better. His service dominated the entire match. Federer couldnt break it till the last game, which ultimately won him the set and match.

If you look at the score, 7-5, 6-7, 6-7, 6-3,14-16
First set Andy managed to break RF's serve. Fouth set, he convincingly won.
Second and third set were neck to neck. So, in my opinion, Andy slightly had an edge over Federer till the final set. In final set (which seemingly felt like never ending set), each held on to their serves. But just in the last game Andy made some unforced errors, which gave way to RF to win his 6th grass court title.

It was sad to see that Andy had to pay price for his two bad shots over all his great work till then. Today's championship was purely decided by who erred first when it mattered. Destiny can be cruel sometimes...

मेरा नम्बर कब आएगा?

2009-06-25T21:03:00.003+05:30

I was pleasantly surprised to read about this government project and doubly so by knowing who is leading this project. I did not read anywhere about the time line for the project completion, but this is going to be really helpful in long term for our country.

This will give a unique identity to every Indian and will be easier for profiling and tracking of individuals. Everyone know about the benefits of SSN in US.

But at the same time, now that we are starting from scratch we should also learn from the problems of SSN system in US and try to address those in this new system of ours.

E.g. identify theft. We should make the UID system foolproof and not susceptible to identity theft.
Secondly, credit history and credit score. While these are good systems to profile a person's credibility and for background check, it also has its own downside. Its under private control, and sometimes seems unfair for poor people.

I wonder what the format would be. It definitely will be numerical and not-alpha numerical like SSN, but of course of larger length. SSN is 9 digit, which is sufficient for US population, but not enough for even current Indian population. I think it will be 10 digit or may be 11, to accomodate for projected population grown over next 100 years.

Looking forward to more development on this.

मंगेशकर, थांबवा हो आता!

2009-06-11T22:19:00.013+05:30

गेले काही आठवडे मी "सा रे ग म प - आजचा आवाज" हा कार्यक्रम बघतो आहे।

या कार्यक्रमाची जमेची बाजू म्हणजे - तयार, गाणारे गायक. जे गेले काही वर्षे, पुणे-मुंबई भागात व्यावसायिक गायक म्हणुन प्रसिद्ध आहेत। त्यामुळे गाण्याचा स्तर जरा उन्चावलेला आहे। परीक्षक म्हणुन पं हृदयनाथ मंगेशकर अणि सुरेश वाडकर सारखे संगीतातले मातब्बर लोक आहेत। त्यामुळे अवधूत अणि वैशाली सामंत यांचा थिल्लर पणा नाही। गायकांची गाण्याची निवड पण फार छान असते। एकुणच चांगली गाणी, चांगल्या आवाजात ऐकायला मिळ्तात, त्यामुळे एकंदरीत एक चांगला कार्यक्रम बघायला मिळतो।

आता खर्चाची बाजू :)
गाणारे चांगले असले तरी, सगळेच गाणारे ताकदीचे आहेत असं नाही। काही गायकांना ऐकून असे वाटतं की हे प्रोफेशनल नसून होतकरू गायक आहेत. चांगले आहेत, पण होतकरू वाटतात। (काहीच, सगळे नव्हेत)

पण, हल्ली ज्या गोष्टीचा जास्त त्रास व्हायला लागला तो आहे परीक्षक मंगेशकर यांच्या अवास्तव परिक्षणाचा।

पुढे काही बोलायच्या आधीच हे सांगतो की हृदयनाथ मंगेशकर हे माझे आवडत्या संगीतकारान पैकी एक आहेत। विशेष करून मराठी चित्रपट संगीत अणि भावसंगिता मधे त्यांच्या ताकदीचे फारच कमी लोक आहेत, अगदी बोटावर मोजण्या इतके। त्यांचा संत वांग्मय, ग़ज़ल, कविता, इतिहास इ॰ वरील अभ्यास फार दांडगा आहे अणि हे सर्व मान्य आहे।
पण कुठलीही गोष्ट जागा, वेळ अणि प्रसंग यांचा भान ठेवून करायची असते। मयताला जावून "आज मेरे यार की शादी है", किंवा लग्नाला जावून "बरबाद न हो जाए" हे गाण कितीही चांगलं गायलं तरी लोक चापलिने हाणतिल । या पर्वा मधे बरेचदा अस आढळून येता की पं जी, गाण्यावर भाष्य करताना, विनाकारण शेर, कविता, इ॰ ऐकवतात। ऐकवण्याला हरकत नहि पण ते विषयाला धरून असावा। बरेचदा अस नसतं। वर आणि ते फार लाम्ब असतं। म्हणजे होतं कसं की "एक नूर आदमी, दस नूर कपडा"। म्हणजे गाणं २ मिनिटांचा अणि त्यावरचं भाष्य १० मिनिटांचा। मी अस म्हणत नाही की ते जे बोलतात ते कंटाळवाणं असतं। कधी कधी तर ते फारच इंट्रेस्टिंग असतं पण त्याचा अणि परिक्षणाचा काही एक संबंध नसतो। त्यांना एवढ जर निरूपण करणं आवडत असल्यास तसा कार्यक्रम करावा। लोक पैसे देवून ऐकायला जातील, मी पण। पण त्यांनी त्यांचं भाष्य गायकाच्या गाण्या विषयी अणि त्यावरील त्यांच्या मता पुरतीच म्रयादित ठेवावं
दूसरी गोष्ट खटकते ती, म्हणजे आत्मप्रौढी। ती नेहमी त्यांच्याच विषयी असते अस नाही, तरी ती मंगेशकर घराण्या विषयी असते। याबाबत कुणाचाही दुमत नसणार की मंगेशकर घराणं म्हणजे भारतीय चित्र संगीतातील, विशेषतः मराठी चित्र संगीतातील, "फर्स्ट फॅमिली" आहे। पण सारखं सारखं दीदी, आशा, दीनानाथ किंवा स्वतः विषयी बोलून लोकांना का बोर करावं? दीदी, आशा ताई वर लोकांचं आधीच प्रेम, लोभ आहे, त्याला अजुन प्रचाराची गरज नाही। सारखं सारखं ऐकलं की, आपल्याला आवडणारं गाणं देखिल कंटाळवाणं होतं। तेव्हा त्यांनी हे कार्यक्रमात बोलण्यापेक्षा आत्म चरित्र लिहावं। दुकानात जावून, पैसे देवून ते विकत घेणार्यांपैकी मी पहिला असेन।
तिसरी आणि सगळ्यात जास्त जी गोष्ट खटकते ती म्हणजे, असंतुलित परिक्षण आणि उघड उघड "फेवरेटीस्म"। आवाजाचा कंप एका गायकाच्या गळ्यात जाणवतो अणि तोच कंप उघड असून देखिल दुसरया गायकाच्या गळ्यात जाणवत नाही। एखाद्याच्या गाण्यातला एक जरी सुर बेसुर जाला तरी तो फार खटकतो, मात्र दुसरया गायकाचं अख्खं गाणं जरी बेसुर झालं तरी त्याच्या/तिच्या गाण्यातला चांगला लागलेला एक "सा" सुद्धा पूर्ण मार्क द्यायला पुरेसा असतो अणि बाकि बेसुर गाण्याकडे लक्ष द्यायची गरज नसते।
बरयाच फोरम्स वर, अणि युट्यूब वर वगेरे सगळ्या लोकांचं या बाबतीत एक मत आहे। सगळ्याच लोकांना गाण्यातले बारकावे कळत नसले तरी चांगला गाणारा कोण, वाईट कोण हे नक्कीच कळतं। म्हणुनच लता मंगेशकर चांगली गायिका आहे हे सांगायला आणि तीचं गाणं आवडायला गवय्याच असायला पाहिजे असं नहि। या बाबतीत खुद्द पं जी देखिल माझ्याशी सहमत होतील :)
हे उघड आहे की विभावरी आपटे च्या गाण्यात कम्पनाचा दोष आहे, अणि तो फार जास्त आहे। तिचा आवाज फार चांगला आहे, यात काही दुमत नाही। पण तिच्या दोषा मुळे तिचं गाणं तितकसं चांगलं होत नाही। पण तिच्या या दोषा कड़े सर्रास दुर्लक्ष केलं जातं। पण तोच कंप अजित परब याच्या गाण्यात मात्र नाही आवडत। अमृता नातू बरेच दा बेसुर गाते, पण तिच्या बेसुर पणा कड़े डोळेझाक केली जाते। लोकांना न समजण्या इतके लोक मुर्ख नाही। त्यामुळे पं जींनी याचा पण जरा विचार करावा व भेद न करता परिक्षण करावं।

माझं मत विचाराल तर, माझ्या मते मधुरा दातार या पर्वातिल सगळ्यात चांगली गायिका आहे, आणि भेलांडे अणि अमृता नातू सगळ्यात खाली (सध्या जे उरले आहे त्यामधून)। बाकी मामाजींची मर्जी।

What next for Federer

2009-06-07T20:47:00.004+05:30

He has got everything now. He's been there and done it all. So, after (finally) winning the elusive french open, 14 career slams, what next? What a great player!!
But I think he would still want to beat Nadal in French open before retiring.
Long live Federer the great

Who really owns the "Marriage"?

2009-05-27T21:15:00.011+05:30

Supreme court of California ruled in favor of prop-8 yesterday and threw the ball back to public ballot again.
I am no legal expert, but I just cant stop wondering about the insanity of this whole affair.

First of all, why should "whether or not Gays have right to marriage" be decided by ballots? Should it really be decided by public voting , whether or not to allow or deny, a certain someone, right to freedom? Today, 51% are in favor of prop-8, tomorrow 51% will be against, and day after the situation might reverse again. What happens in this situation? How do you hold the legality of marriages happened during that window?
I understand, court's job is to interpret the constitution/law and give their verdict, but isn't it also to define a new law if need be, based on fundamentals of constitution? Were blacks not legally prohibited from voting some time ago? Did they decide by ballot whether to give them right or not? NO! What if tomorrow majority of people wants the civil rights of all black people to be taken away from them? Will court let people decide it by ballots and allow that just because majority of people agree with that? NO! Court has to instill some sanity, justice among the madness. So, my opinion is that court should not leave the decision to ballots. They should review the whole issue and see where it fits in the constitution? Whether or not it complies with right to "individual freedom". Whether or not in inherently contradicts with some fundamental aspect of constitution or law.

Secondly: Who really owns the institution of marriage? Why certain group suddenly rise and deny someone something that no one has ownership of? An individual cannot deny right to marry to someone, because individual does not "own" marriage. If certain church or religion (leaving aside the question, for time being, of "who really owns religion") does not want to give their "approval" to the marriage or does not want to carry the marriage of gay people- fine! Don't do that and don't approve the gay marriage in your church or religion. Some other religion will. You have no right to deny right to marriage under different church or religion.
If all religions have objection against marrying people of same sex - Fine! They will get married legally. You should have no problem, as legal matters are beyond your purview, so keep your mouth shut! Church or religion don't have the ownership of morality of the entire society. It only applies to people who believe in them.
So, Now since its a legal matter, court should decide between themselves and not again throw back to the people, majority of whom disapproved them in the first place. If they had approved it, the proposition would not have come to court in the first place. So, whats the point, again asking the same people, who denied rights to someone, whether or not those rights be given?

People don't want government to interfere in their religion or personal life otherwise. But in this particular case, they want everyone, from church to court, to come and decide about what someones fundamental right should be! They don't want government to take away their guns, but they are OK, if society takes away someone else's right to marry. Hypocrisy at its best! This is bullying at a large scale.

I don't think this is a matter of "gay marriage". Its matter of "denial of rights" to individual. Rights of something, which is personal, which does not invade any ones personal life in any way and does not deny, anyone who disagree with them, of what they want to choose for themselves.
So, live and let live should really prevail here.

Coming from a country, where marrying of a person to a tree or even animal is well celebrated, seeing this kind of public behavior is just beyond comprehension.

Shamelessness just doesnt end

2009-05-22T00:03:00.005+05:30

All the euphoria of election result finally came to the end.
After Indian voters showed some sanity by electing a national party instead of going for regional parties and fractured government, its time now for regional parties like DMK to show the senselessness and shamelessness.

After the election, now when the time for getting into power came, just like vultures these greedy parties are fighting for getting their share of pie.

Its such a shame to see these elected representatives fighting publicly and shamelessly for their own interest. They have no shame that people, who elected them, are watching them fighting for money and power, as if that is the only goal for which they are elected. No one cares that, they are elected public representative to serve the people. Everyone knows they become politicians to get power and money, but least they can do is to keep their greed private.
But I guess, they just don't care, because they know public memory is very short and in 5 years people would forget this.
And Karunanidhi (and DMK) is a leader of these mafia politicians who is openly demanding posts for his family members. I just dont understand, how come educated, progressive Tamil people vote for a jerk like this.

Shouldn't it be prerogative of PM to select the best team he wants? Why should there be demand? I think they are loosing the sense of basic reasoning here. People select you to be their representative and all you have to do is to represent them. PM will decide what is best in his interest and in nation's interest and will select this team accordingly.

What ends up happening is, administration is formed with this greed for power and money, and then we get the administration for which solving the national issues is the least of their priorities.
And we loose out on people like Shashi Tharoor, Jairam Ramesh, Montek Singh who could have been ideal to be part of the administration.

uhh..cant help but get disgusted with this sick politics.

May be another lesson for people: Dont vote for local parties..no matter which party you vote for, be it Congress or BJP, vote for a national party and give them enough mandate.

Obama - truly a rockstar

2009-05-18T21:32:00.004+05:30

Whoever watched Obama's speech at Notre Dame University yesterday, would know what I mean.
He is a genius. Not only a genius person, but a genius leader. Yesterday's speech was a testimony to his genius.
Accepting the invitation of a strong catholic university that differs with him on some fundamental issues like abortion/stem-cell research, realizing the strong opposition and protests that happened due to this invitation, being fully aware of the situation and almost certainty that his speech is not going to be smooth and still going ahead with it takes some guts.

He was so confident yet so outreaching in his speech. He was unfazed by the disturbance caused by the hecklers. He did not shy away from taking the controversy head-on. He was talking in front of thousands of people who were strongly against him on certain issues and yet he was not afraid to bring those subject in the speech. He not only brought these issues in his speech, but also put forth his views without getting bogged down with large crowd of different view as audience and yet with conviction and without ridiculing the other view, in fact being respectful about it. He is simply a master speaker.

What a contradiction America is witnessing between previous president and the current president. After eight year, America has a president who actually thinks and is liked by fans and opposition alike.

I wish we had a leader like this back in India.

Indian political league over

2009-05-16T23:24:00.008+05:30

Big day in Indian politics. The results of 2009 parliamentary election are out.
UPA led by Indian National Congress emerged as a single largest alliance. NDA led by BJP came distant second.
UPA secured a decisive victory. Congress set to cross the mark of 200 seats on its own. BJP is far behind and will be somewhere near 120.

The biggest news out of this election result is that people voted for national party this time. Unlike elections of last few decades, overall people preferred national party as opposed to regional party catering to regional issues. Though I am not a great fan of Congress party, its relieving to see finally the possibility of a stabler government.
People have seen the nuisance caused by smaller parties in execution of government for some time now. And they decided - "Enough! Let's have a government which can function normally and at least attempt to work on national problems this time".
The result for left parties (CPI/CPM) indicates this sentiment. Left had caused too much nuisance on many issues to UPA government (economic issues, nuclear deal etc) and they paid for it. They are completely wiped off and fortunately wont be able to dictate terms this time.
Good to see that other trouble makers, Mayawati, Mulayam, Jailalitha loosing grounds and voice in national politics. Although other trouble makers, DMK's Karunanidhi and TC's Mamata, will still be playing some role. But the good thing is that congress has too much strength this time. DMK and TC wont have that much of a bargaining power because of that.

These election results end the dream of L.K.Advani (another person I am not fan of) to become PM of a country. BJP probably didn't expect such a poor performance this time. BJP couldn't even open score in some states. One of the many factors that IMO could have affected is their rhetoric against PM Manmohan Singh. Labeling him as weak PM and opening same old rhetoric cannot be a national issue to fight election upon. Moreover, I don't believe that people in India bought that argument in the first place. Manmohan Singh may not be seen as a very outspoken, flamboyant person, but he is seen as intellectual being, honest person and a unlike politicians, some one who is focused on solving issues that this country is facing. He also proved his mettle during nuclear deal by not bowing down to left parties.
Now when you open your attack on such a widely accepted person, with shallow arguments and only argument being "he is the weakest PM ever", people think "naahh..I don't think so".
In fact I think, this probably backfired for Advani. So, instead of doing a negative campaigning if they had focused on issue based, positive campaigning, it might probably have helped BJP to improve their tally.
What went in Congress's favor was, PM's image, Rahul Gandhi's youth oriented campaign, opposite effect of BJP's backlash against PM. Also, Congress's leadership looked much more together than BJP's. BJP must sorely be missing Vajpeyee's charisma.
In all probability, Advani will not be cherishing his dreams for 2011. So, BJP needs to now find a new leader. A leader, which has mass appeal, who does not have stigma of 1993 like Advani, and one who is not elitist like Jetli. I would like to see Sushma Swaraj coming in the forefront as a new BJP leader.

Fall side of Congress getting overwhelming seats is the likely hood of congress's age old perverted, disgusting politics coming back in play. Pray, that doesn't happen.

I hope, PM will be right on job as he has many things to do. I hope he get best of his men on job and not cater to demands of other parties to maintain power. This time he has less reasons to do so. I hope he gets Chidambaram (or even Montek Singh Ahluwalia, if he could) as his FM and possibly Shashi Tharoor as Minster of external affairs:)

Good luck Mr. Singh!

Magic wand?

2009-05-13T09:00:00.009+05:30

Wonder what happened behind the closed doors of West Wing, what magic wand was waved that suddenly prompted Pakistani govt and army to start operation against Taliban in Swat region.
The same government, that made deal with Taliban in Swat region very recently, claimed the deal to be good for people of Pakistan, the same government who said they could not stop advancing forces of Taliban a few days ago, has suddenly struck Talibans when Pak president is visiting USA.
He is giving interviews all over the places, demanding help from USA, that includes monetary help, to help fight terrorists.
So, what has changed suddenly?

To me, it seems all made up. Pakistan government and military is trying to use the whole Afganitan-Taliban-Swat situation to milk the aid from US. If the Pak government wants, I am sure they can fight Taliban on their own. But because they know that it is in interest of USA to solve the problem, they are holding this situation for randsom. They are sure, USA will have no choice but to give billions and billions of dollars, military aid and all kinds of aid to Pakistand and hope that they will solve the problem. So, what Pakistan does instead is focus its military on Indian border (where problem does not exist) and overlook the Afganistan border (where the real problem lies). This way, they can let the problem get little bit out of their hands to get US worried to the point that they will be ready to give anything Pakistan wants, to defuse that problem.
So, Pakistan (Zardari & co.) get money to save their own country.

It seems this time, behind closed doors, US has tightened some screws and made them take some action and show results.
Now Zardari is speaking the language what Obama administration wants him to speak, viz. "We have no threat from India", "Govt. will do no deal with Taliban" etc etc.

Lets see how long can US keep these screws tightned and demand Pakistan to show results if they wish to get any further aid.

Will it change the internet?

2009-05-07T23:59:00.009+05:30

Will it be the next Google? Will it shade out Google? Or will it be yet another cuil?

Wolfram Alpha is supposed to change the internet search. It is one step ahead of Google. They put more AI into it, than just looking for relevant pages.
It will not only give you the search results, but it will do the formatting on the search results and give you definitive answers. So, it will save the trouble of clicking through different links that Google reports and then finding out the correct one for you. It is going to be the search engine, which really knows what you are searching.

From a internet resource:

If you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross-check and provide the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play the scale. Type in "10 flips for four heads" and it will guess that you need to know the probability of coin-tossing. If you want to know when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current location of the International Space Station, it can work it out.

Wolfram is an award-winning physicist based in America, who received his PhD in particle physics at the age of 20 (impressive!). He is the founder of popular Mathematica software, a standard tool for scientists, engineers and academics for crunching complex maths. Wolfram Aplha is supposedly based on Mathematica.

Its not released yet and is slated to be released sometime this month. http://www.wolframalpha.com/

Back from Vacation

2009-05-06T00:57:00.006+05:30

Came back from vacation on Sunday. It was my second anniversary and I hadn't taken vacation since my first anniversary. So, if I had to be alive to see the third year, a vacation was essential:)

I went to Florida. Visited Orlando (for theme parks), Key West and Miami.

Planning began about a month back, with booking air tickets, theme park tickets, finding deals for hotel booking, car booking.

I got 2 free return air tickets from Chicago to Orlando and Miami because of my accumulated Sky miles. So saved some big bucks there. Used Hotwire and Expedia to do the hotel booking and Priceline to do the car booking. Theme parks and other attraction tickets were directly booked from their respective sites. Got a good deal from Expedia for car+hotel booking and a great deal from Hotwire for hotel in Miami. I was able to book the 4-start hotel (Hyatt Regency) at the third of its actual price. So, things were all set even before I started the vacation.

The total duration of the vacation was 9 days. 6 days in Orlando and last 3 days in Miami.
Started the first day at Orlando by visiting the Kennedy space center at Cape Canaveral, which is a fascinating facility. Among many things I like there, the best part was the 2 IMAX 3-D movies (just these two movies themselves are worth visiting Kennedy Center) and meeting with astronaut Susan Kilrain.

Second day (and our anniversary day) we visited Disney's Magic Kingdom. And boy-oh-boy, what a great entertainment that is. I initially had hesitation for visiting it as I thought its for kids. But noooooo. There is something for everyone there. Magnanimous, marvelous, mind blowing, amazing, enchanting are probably not enough words to describe it. Everything there is so grand, opulent, perfectly managed and executed that you start having great appreciation for the people behind it. Right from the transport system within (there are trolleys that take you right from the parking lot, then there are ferry boats or sky trains that you can choose to go to the magic Kingdom), to the layout, planning, creativity in rides, shows, musicals etc. is just awe inspiring. At Disney, it was like a big party, with lots and lots of people.
We were there from morning 9 till 10:30 pm. There were fireworks at the end at 10 pm, which are only to see and not describe. You get worth for your every penny spent at the Disney.

Third day we went to Universal Studio Orlando. And it was like going to a single screen theater after going to a multiplex (I am referring to Disney here). Even though, some of the rides, shows were very good, I didn't feel the same charm as Disney there. Simpson's 3-D ride, MIB ride, twister show, etc are good. I very much liked the horror movie make-up show as well.

Forth day was for Universal's Islands of Adventure. That's some thrilling stuff. Great rides, specially the coaster rides. Hulk coaster was some crazy stuff. The Spiderman man ride (3-D ride) was worth all the money. I even liked some water rides there.

Next day, we went to SeaWorld Orlando. Its not as big as Disney or Universal, but it has some pretty cool stuff. Especially the dolphins, sea-lions, sharks, whales etc. Blue horizon show (about dolphins) and Shamu show (Killer whales) were the most popular and most entertaining shows. I also liked the Animals Ahoy show, where different kinds of trained animals do some interesting stuff.

Next day, 30th April, we traveled from Orlando to Miami. Drive to Miami on Florida turnpike is superb. Its about 235 miles drive.

Checked-in to the hotel in the evening. Hotel was in the Miami downtown. So roamed a little bit in the downtown that evening.

Next day, went to Key west. Key west is the southern most point/city of US, among lower 48. The drive from Miami to Key west is about 250 miles drive. The most part of the drive (about 100 miles or so) is a narrow strip into the sea. So there is a straight, never ending road, with sea on both sides. It was a long but amazing drive. Takes about 3.5 hours to get there. We went on a boat into the sea. Did snorkeling about 8 miles inside in the sea. Took a sunset ride and came back the same night to Miami.

The day after, was a day to relax after lot of driving and going places. So, we hit the beach. The popular south beach of Miami. The beach is beautiful and so were the people on the beach :) Miami beach city is a nice, vibrant city. Spent a few hours on the beach and came back in the evening. Next morning caught a flight back to Chicago.

Chicago had changed so much just in a week, that it was hard to recognize. The trees had leaves, there were flowers everywhere. It was not the same Chicago we left. Nevertheless, it was a welcome change. They say, Aprils showers, bring May flowers. How true!

Photos for the vacation can be found here.

Kennedy Space Center

Disney Magic Kingdom

Universal Studio Orlando

Universal Islands of Adventure

Seaworld Orlando

Key West

Miami beach

YSR Thackrey?

2009-04-18T06:31:00.004+05:30

Shouldn't YSR be charged for this unconstitutional remark?

From TOI
"Chief minister Y S Rajashekhar Reddy — warning voters outside Telangana hours after polling closed on April 16 for the first phase — that if the new state was born they would be barred from visiting Hyderabad"

Such kind of unconstitutional statements coming from Chief minster of a state is a disgrace. Can he be not charged, just like people are charged when they make statements against some community, does this also not qualify for NSA?

Another weekend of performance

2009-04-06T08:44:00.006+05:30

We performed yesterday at Madison, for Madison Maharashtra Mandal's (MMM) Gudi padwa program.
MMM is a young organization (1 year old). They did not have as many guests as Atlanta (Atlanta had audience of 500 vs 80 or so at Madison.) Nevertheless, we had to give the same level of performance. We tried our best. Glad that the group at Madison liked our performance and were inspired to do something like this themselves.

It was my first visit to Madison (which is a state capital of Wisconsin). Originally me and my wife had plans to stay there overnight at Devils lake state park, but weather didn't permit us. So, we just did a day trip to the city (which is about 120 miles drive). We went there early in morning to Madison downtown, had a lunch and then went for the Natak. President of MMM hosted a pizza dinner for us after the Natak. We came back at aroun 11 at night.

Here are some images from green room before the show.

You are right Mr. Dutt!

2009-04-02T00:04:00.007+05:30

Sanjay Dutt's recent comments in news:

"My father died because of Congress...they (Congress) did not listen to him, such a senior leader... and took Sanjay Nirupam in Congress, the man who accused him, the man who abused him when he (Nirupam) was in Shiv Sena. He died because of that," Dutt told a news channel.
He said that his father had revealed this to him four days before he breathed his last.
"He spoke to me four days before he died. The only hurt he was having was this. He told me they (Congress) have killed him," Dutt said. "

You are right Sanjay Dutt!! Your father was not hurt when his son was doing drugs, went to jail for possession of AK-47, or for his son's relations with underworld. But he was "so hurt" for the induction of Sanjay Nirupam in Congress, that he died.

What a baloney! How can he even have guts to say that? This is like stooping to the lowest level in politics. Good to know that supreme court didn't allow him to contest the LS election.

Hope it never does.

Back from Atlanta

2009-03-31T01:03:00.001+05:30

Came back from Atlanta yesterday.

Had been to Atlanta over weekend to perform for our play (Madrashine Kela Marathi Bhratar).
The occasion was Gudhi Padwa celebration by Atlanta Marathi Mandal.

It was a very nice trip. We drove to Atlanta from Chicago all the way. Its about 12 hours drive from Chicago to Atlanta (abt 720 miles). Although, it was not tiring at all.
Roads beyond Indianapolis were excellent. Near Nashville the drive is very scenic, with greenery and mountains (Especially for some one coming from Chicago:)
7 of us were in one van and therefore it was a fun filled road trip.

The play also went very well. Theater was filled with around 400+ people.
It was nice and responsive crowd.

When we came back last night, found that it snowed over weekend here in Chicago. After a month of excellent weather, it was disappointing to see the snow covered planes again! Not for many days though.

Gulaal - a nice movie to watch

2009-03-24T20:00:00.008+05:30

Another dark movie by Anurag Kashyap. Its a movie about post-independence, college politics, intertwined with caste politics set up in Bikaner (Rajastan). Its a story about a rajput student (Dileep Sing) who came to bikaner to study law and how he gets dragged into the college politics and how is he used for his own benefit by powerful Rajput leader (K.K.Menon).
Its a story of innocent student's journey through politics of betrayal. And as I said, its a dark movie. So, no happy ending.

The movie is pretty fast paced and keeps the grip through out the entire duration. Powerful acting by KK, Abhimanyu Singh (Dileep's friend), Deepak Dobriyal. I didn't like the acting of character Dileep (played by Raj Singh Chaudhary) that much.

The most surprising package comes from Piyush Mishra. He played a role of KK's whimsical brother. Piyush Mishra has already proven his acting mettle in Maqbool, where he played Pankaj Kapoor's confidant. He is a natural actor and he proved that in this movie too. But surprise was not about his acting. It was about his other contributions to the movie. He was also a lyricist, music composer and playback singer for the movie :)
Music is good and so is his voice. Lyrics are of different style. It's mostly a free-form poetry. Songs like Duniya, sarfaroshi stand out.

The "duniya" song draws its inspiration from Gurudatt's Pyasaa's famous song "Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai". Piyush Mishra wrote his version of "Yeh duniya agar mil bhi jaye to kya hai".

I am really very impressed by Piyush Mishra's talent in music/poetry department and would look forward to more of his songs in future.

Overall, a movie I would recommend to movie lovers. It's not a chick-flick type movie. So, if you like one of those, then you might want to avoid this :)

Treason or a lie?

2009-03-06T20:16:00.003+05:30

http://www.rediff.com/news/2009/mar/06mallya-was-our-man-says-ambika-soni-he-says-no.htm

Ambika Soni (or the govt) says, they planted Malya to bid and buy Gandhis' auctioned possesions and Mallya says, that is not true and that he bid on his own.

In Mallya's defense: Why would Mallya agree to act as a pawn? He is too rich to act as a pawn. Why would govt pick Mallya? If they needed to plant someone, they could have done with anyone else.

In Soni's defense: There has to be something going on between govt and Mallya. They wont suddenly wake up and claim that Mallya was their man, unless there is some truth in it.

Clearly, one of them is lying. Don't know which one. But one thing is sure. Lying for possession of belongings of a man, who is considered as an embodiment of truth is sure funny as hell :-)

Beyond that, Govt. (congress govt. which claims to follow the Gandhian principles), coming openly and saying they did something untruthful (like secretly planting a man to bid), is even funnier. And liquor baron having the possessions of Gandhi is equally funnier.

Delhi 6 : A city tour by a poor tour guide

2009-02-24T09:21:00.009+05:30

What a Disappointment! What a torture!

This is one of those movies, where you keep wondering "What the f**k is going on?" through out the whole movie.

I remember, when I was a kid, my grandmother used to tell me a totally made up story to put me to sleep. It used to be no real story, but she would just make up something to keep the story going till I sleep. The story would not make a sense in totality and was nothing but a sequence of unrelated incidences with same characters. Delhi 6 was similar to that kind of story telling. Except, my grandmother's story used to be much more interesting.

The movie starts with Abhishek Bachchan (Roshan) coming to India to drop his grandmother, Vahida Rahman, back home, in her Delhi 6 residence and ends up finding "home" there. And there after the story is nothing but a "tour de Delhi", that too of worst quality, with numerous irrelevant sequences in between.

I was not able to decide, if the movie is really about the home coming or showcasing culture of Delhi/India, or showcasing life of delhi, or the language of delhi, or about the communal harmony (or lack of it), or about feud in Om Puris' family or about the kala bandar (monkey man).

There are more references and mention of kala bandar in the whole movie than Abhishek Bachchan's. Honest to god!

The entire treatment of the movie is too amateurish. The editing is poor. The sequences are juxtaposed without any connect.

The creative juices of the director seemed drained out, by scenes like - the way communal riots erupts or the scene where Vahida Rahman has an attack and Abhishek is trying to get her to hospital in cycle rikshaw (huh?) and gets caught in traffic caused by a cow and then Vahida Rahman walks up to the cow in the middle of the road and feels better (how novel!)

In the first hour, the movie moves very fast trying to show too many things quickly.

It reminded me of a kid, who breathlessly tries to show to the guest all the new toys that his parents has got him yesterday.

There is no pause in the movie at all. It just keeps on moving from one sequence to another, not giving you enough time to make sense of it and therefore looses the sense of whatever the story is trying to tell (if at all it is).

It was like trying to cover a huge painting exhibition of thousands of paintings in 10 minutes. The only way to cover it is to move fast from one painting to another without spending too much time at any one painting and therefore ending up not really enjoying any of the work.

Editing is too poor.
Music is good but songs are non-situational and just thrown like berries in a muffin.

Sonam Kapoor does not have much footage in the movie. Abhishek is miserable in portraying the NRI youngster.

Rakesh Mehra has wasted the rest of the talented band of artists, with exception of Vijay Raaz who plays a character of corrupt Delhi police officer to the core. He really nailed it.

While watching the movie, somehow every now and then, I was reminded of very old DoorDarshan serial "Nukkad", which was a tale of characters of different shades. But nukkad was a 30 minute serial and had different story in each episode. This movie was like bad version of "nukkad" with no story but only chaos for 3 hours.

Alas! This too failed. I am still waiting for a good hindi movie for a long time. What's next?

Awaiting Delhi 6

2009-02-22T10:55:00.005+05:30

I haven't yet read the reviews of Delhi 6 and probably wont even read it. I am eagerly waiting for that movie to be available, either on internet or in theater (if at all it does).

Reasons? -
Liked the previous movies from the same director (Rakesh Omprakash Mehara). I hope this movie will also have a good story line and good treatment of the subject.

So far from what I have heard, although the story isn't totally new (I guess it has same subject as Swades), but its still not a usual masala movie story line.

Secondly, the cast is good. In fact too many good actors in a movie (and I am NOT counting Abhishek Bachchan and Sonal Kapoor in that list:)

Music is very good. Especially songs like Massakali, Arziyan, Genda ful, (now that's real A.R.Rahman).

So, hoping it to be a good movie overall. Let's see how it turns out.

Rahmania - What's wrong with you people?

2009-02-21T09:02:00.010+05:30

Don't get me wrong here. I like A. R. Rahman. He is the only other bollywood musician other than Shankar Mahadevan that I admire.
Rahman has composed some of the best songs in the recent history of bollywood right from Roza to Fiza, Swades, Lagaan, Jodha Akbar, RDB and so many to name. I absolutely think that he is one of the greatest modern day composers of hindi film music.

There is no doubt in my mind that, the international attention he is getting is very well deserved, to say the least.

But (there is always a but), then you watch the songs from Slumdog millionaire and think - huh, really? Is it really that great? All these people praising him (yesterday he was on Jay Leno show), going gang ho about him..is it really for this music from Slumdog?

Again, make no mistake. I am not saying, the music in this movie is not good. It is good. I liked the Jai ho song. But is it great? ..aaay donooot theenk sooo.

It's like Einstein getting Nobel prize for photo electric effect and not for theory of relativity. May be that is not a right example, but you got the idea, right?

Probably the right analogy would be : Lata Mangeshkar getting Grammy for her songs in Maine Pyaar kiya. One would think - "alright..the songs were good. But have you even listened to other great songs of her?"

Or someone considers Sachin as best Indian batman based on his 50 against Bangladesh. Our reply would be "Haven't you watched his back to back centuries against Australia in Sharjah?"

The music of Slumdog comes in the category of good, not great. And there are better albums in this category - not only by A.R.Rahman but even from others. So, why so much noise about the music in this movie. The only reason I think, is that this is Hollywood movie. Had this music been in any other movie, it would have simply passed as any other composition from Rahman in above-average-to-good category.

Anyways, that's how fame and popularity works. It's not so much related to the what the work is, but mostly the function of who is promoting that work.

Well, as long as the person getting praised is well deserved, who cares where the praise is coming from. Let'em come from all directions.

LTTE issue

2009-02-21T02:16:00.004+05:30

What is the problem with MDMK, PMK members and other Tamilians who are supporting LTTE and wants Indian government to intervene and stop Sri Lankan government from killing LTTEs?

Firstly, I don't know why they support the outfit which operates on the principles of terrorism, killing innocent (or may be even not so innocent) people.

Secondly, isn't it SriLanka's internal problem? I can understand the spirit of brotherhood among fellow Tamilians. But why should the SriLankan government allow external party meddling in their internal affair.

On one hand, we oppose Pakistan to stop interfering in Kashmir as it is our internal matter and even stop from any third party to engage in talks (and I personally support both the policies) and then on other hand we want our government to interfere in some one else's internal affair. Isn't that hypocrisy?

If something is going wrong, these groups or parties can voice their opinion in any other way (media etc) but that should be without crossing the limits of other country's sovereignty.

Correct me if I am wrong.

When will I connect to Steve Jobs?

2009-02-17T08:02:00.006+05:30

As per human web, every human being is connected with every other human being by no more than six degrees of separation.

Cut to - Linked-in.

Linked-in gives how many level separates you from any other user on linked in.

I tried to find if there is any famous personality (specifically from Tech world) in my network, by any degree of separation. I searched for Steve Jobs, Bill Gates etc:-). I was hoping to find some one in my network. I know it sounds funny, but I seriously thought so. I have some VPs, CEOs in my network, so I thought by some level of separation (no matter how large the degree is) I must be connected to Steve Jobs. Found out that he is not. He is out of my network.
But clearly, according to rule of six degrees of separation, I "know" Steve Jobs by no more than six degrees of separation.

Just wondering, when will Linked-in grow to reflect the true human web :)

So, which famous personality is in your Linked-in network?

Safe Heaven??

2009-02-11T22:10:00.005+05:30

I frequently come across this term - "Safe heaven". Usually in reference to Pakistan for providing safe abode to terrorists and I always wonder why do you need "safe" as an adjective to "heaven". Isn't just "heaven" sufficient enough? Is there something called "unsafe heaven"?

If even heaven isn't safe, what else on earth could be safe (pun!!).
Isn't "Safe heaven" a tautology?

Can moral policing in India be put a stop to?

2009-02-10T09:51:00.005+05:30

Home minister PC has announced that Ramsena has crossed the limit.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/PC-says-Ram-Sene-crossed-limits-RSS-favours-ban/421142/
What needs to be seen is, what government can do.

Ramsena is the latest from the crop of moral policing groups growing in India. There are many such groups, including Shivsena, MNS, Bajarang dal, VHP etc. For last few years, there are increasing incidences of moral-policing by self-proclaimed, culture-protectors groups whose main intention is to announce their presence for gaining political mileage.

Their activities include (but are not limited to), chasing, hunting, beating youngsters who choose to celebrate St. Valentine day with their partner without bothering anyone or terrorizing young boys and girls who decide, at their own expense, to go to pub/discos for the fun they want to have without taking away right of others to have fun their own way.

This is no different than what Talibani mullahs do in Afganistan. And that is why its getting really scary. If this doesn't stop soon, it might take a really ugly turn.

If government (whichever is in power) choose to ignore these anti-social elements for their political purposes, entire next generation of the country will have to suffer. Such kind of things need to be put to check in timely fashion before they get out of hands. Because once they do, the proportion will be beyond the scale to put an easy stop to.

There are certain values that distinguish India from Middle-eastern, or mostly Muslim country and that is freedom to its citizens to live their life their own way, follow their own belief, follow their own life style. The value of India is in its diversity and an environment which encourages diversity. And every government should try to protect country's core values as a primary responsibility. Loosing them have a long term impact on country's future. It may not be visible now, but its serious enough to turn India into yet another Afganistan over few decades.
So I just hope, such kind of rouge behavior is not encouraged, stopped right where it should be. And if government is not serious about it, then it is the responsibility of right-minded people to make government aware of this.

Will Republicans give Obama a break?

2009-02-07T07:10:00.002+05:30

Republicans continue to play sour losers.
They are just bullying against Obama, nitpicking and just trying to play a gotcha game with him.

Did these republicans, who are so painstakingly scrutinizing the stimulus plan to every penny, care to ask George Bush what he was planning to do with initial 850 billion dollars bailout plan? Did they breakdown and analyze the spending of every dollar? Bush didnt even had a plan. He just said that he needs 850 billion dollars. There was no trail, no scrutiny, no tracking of what happened. No one made such a huge and cry about it. Even, when after a few days Henry Paulson said, that his plan is not working.

Give Obama a break guys. You guys created this mess and gave him as a inaugural present to him. Give him a chance. He is not fool, certainly not compared to Bush. He is not making decision on his own. Countries all star economists are working with him. He is giving a concrete plan as opposed to just asking money. He is promising to give a dollar by dollar trail of where will it be spent. So, let him have his way.

IMHO, even though republicans are so opposed to the items in the plan which are more futuristic, I guess that's a great idea. He is not being just trying to find a quick solution, but is laying ground for future growth and future prosperity. Why are you so opposed to the idea of killing two birds with one stone?

Sometimes, I just dont get American politics. Politicians are bastard everywhere, no matter how poor or rich a country is.

How funny is that?

2009-01-24T03:30:00.005+05:30

What are the chances that some would sue stripper (for variety of reasons :)
How funny is that :-) Never ever anyone at strip club would have ever thought that some one could ever sue them. But they were wrong

And, why should a stripper, for whom wearing anything should be the last thing on her mind, be so particular about wearing a shoe (that too with high heel). I mean, come on! What will you match the color of the shoe against :)

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2009/01/23/kendrick.strip.club.WOIO

Leaning Tower of Delhi

2009-01-24T03:02:00.004+05:30

Will we have our own equivalent of leaning tower of Pisa soon?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Qutab_Minar_in_Delhi_tilting_due_to_seepage_Experts/articleshow/4023978.cms

And then it will probably look like this :)

Once - The movie

2009-01-17T22:41:00.005+05:30

Knowing my interest in music, a friend of mine gave me this movie to watch.
I had never heard of this movie before. And thanks to him, I ended up watching a brilliant movie.

Movie is about the two struggling musicians. A guy (Glen Hansard) from Dublin, who works in his dad's vacuum repair shops during the day, and earns money by playing guitar on street when he is off from the shop. He is having some relationship issues with his girlfriend who is in London. There on street he meets a immigrant girl from Czech (Marketa Irglova) selling flowers on the street and who also plays piano.

Their musical interest brings them together and there is some flirtation going. The guys comes to know that the girl is married, has a kid and she is staying away from her husband with her mother.

Meanwhile, guy is thinking about moving to London to get back to her girlfriend and also make career in music. Girl encourages him, help him record a demo album.
Same time, the girl also writes back to her husband and her husband comes over to stay with her and guy moves to London to his girlfriend, along with the recorded album.

Simple story, not sentimental. Music is simply brilliant. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova are both musicians themselves in real life. The songs in the movie are written and composed by this duo. The song "Falling Slowly" got Oscar award for the best song. I also liked the song "If you want me".

The movie is a low budget movie, shot just on two handy cams, though it was a huge success and earned lot of money and awards.

Funny anecdote:
During the Oscar award ceremony, when Glen and Marketa came on the stage to receive the awards, after Glen made his speech and Marketa was about to give her speech, the orchestra cut her short and she didn't get to say a single word and this shy girl returned without a speech. Later on, the host "Jon Stewart" (of "The daily Show"), brought her back and asked her to gave her speech. That was very thoughtful of Jon. Here is that moment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qx8yLvb0gZM

Two of the best songs of this movie:

Coldest day in winter so far

2009-01-17T22:23:00.007+05:30

Yesterday was the coldest day of the winter I have experienced so far.
For last two days temperature was constantly below 0 degree F (-18 degree C)
The lowest recorded temperature here yesterday was -18 degree F (-28 degree C)

I once again did my "water in the air" experiment yesterday morning. My wife recorded it on a cell phone camera (Motorola Q).

Not sure about the clarity. But you can see that I am throwing water in the air and its instantly turning into snow powder. It was the hot boiling water. (Hot boiling water helps because it reduces the density of water and increases chances of turning it into powder than just splashing on the ground).
Although, I boiled the water in the kitchen and brought out in a pot. The time took for it, reduced the temperature of the boiling water a bit. So you can see, some part of the water I am throwing out is splashing down. But, most part is still getting converted to powder.
It was really brave of me to open the patio door in that cold, wearing just the night dress for a half a minute or so :-)

Here it is:

Ceremony worth $150m

2009-01-16T04:26:00.004+05:30

Obama's swearing-in ceremony is going to cost more that $150m

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/01/13/2009-01-13_obamas_inauguration_is_most_expensive_ev.html

So much for a government fighting a bad economy.

RPM challenge

2009-01-12T21:07:00.006+05:30

RPM which stands for Record Production Month, is like the National Novel Writing Month, where musicians participate in creating a record in a month (10 songs or 35 minutes of original production). February is the month of challenge. Which means you get 29 days to work on it. It has to be written, composed, recorded - all in one month.
The idea is to encourage lazy musicians to move their butts and do what they always dream of OR meaning to do, but never do.

What do you get if you win - A million dollar. Really? -- well not actually :). But that's not the point.

The point is that, because of this, you get your act together and do something creative instead of just being lazy.

Here, you can Read the challenge @ http://www.rpmchallenge.com/content/view/844/290

Apart from music creation (which is a big part of it), I think recording is also an interesting part. If you can manage to record your own music - that's still a gain at the end of challenge.

My friend, who took part last year, is encouraging me to participate.
I have still not decided, as I don't think I have all the logistics. (But that's not the excuse - if you read the challenge:).

I am currently looking for gears to record my instrument with computer. I am not sure if I will participate in challenge at all. Although, if I am able to learn something about recording and mixing and stuff at the end, it would still be all worth.

Jai ho - Rahman

2009-01-12T20:46:00.006+05:30

A. R. Rahman becomes the first Indian to win the Golden Globe Award for his score in Slumdog Millionaire. Well deserved award for a very worthy person, who maintains a great balance between melody and modern music.
This award will give an opportunity for other (and probably much better)of Rahman's work to get global audience.
"Jai ho" for Rahman and here is "Jai Ho" for you:

Slumdog Millionaire: Two thumbs up

2009-01-02T06:29:00.003+05:30

- Excellent story line
- Good Acting
- Great way of story telling

Go watch.

Ghajini : Two thumbs down

2009-01-02T05:50:00.004+05:30

Not a joyous feeling to watch this movie if you are a Amir Khan fan.

It's a typical South Indian masala movie (I dont mean to be derogatory towards South Indian movies. I am referring to run-of-the mill movies made in South India besides some real good ones).

Quite rightfully, the movie is in fact not an adaptation of "Memento" in Hindi.

The only similarities between Memento and Ghajini are that
- both Amir and Guy Pearce are suffering from Amnesia and on revenge
- Both come up with a creative way of remembering things, like Tattoos, Photos with Polaroid camera, notes etc. (Actually you can say it was creative way of Christopher Nolan. Murugadoss shamelessly copied it. )

Other than that this movie is no different than a typical "badla" kind bollywood flick, with no similarity what so ever to Memento.
It's a story of Amir (fighting his amnesia) trying to find his fiance's killer. He knows the name and also the person who killed her. So finding and killing him is not such a tough job, especially if you are having those eight packs.

I wonder how would Amir agree to act in such a movie. Was it a "Memento" effect, was it eight-pack (what is that BTW?) or was it the hair style. It makes you think, is the same Amir who was in TZP.

Honestly I have got not one point about this movie to appreciate. Songs, Music is quite mediocre, in reality not good at all. Story is very weak.
Screenplay is unimpressive. The way Amir falls in love with Actress was so lame.

Acting of actresses is unmentionable. Amir is Ok, but he is also irritating when he is shouting.

Overall: You may save some money of yours, if you skip this one.

Limbaugh-Logic

2008-12-23T23:43:00.004+05:30

The latest from Rush Limbaugh. His new conspiracy theory:

"Economic crisis is started by Democrats to win the election".

Here is the transcript of what Rush Limbaugh said:

" I’m just wondering if a lot of this was by design to create economic panic. Remember now — the Iraq war had dominated everything, and the economy was said to no longer be an issue in the campaign for the first time. Corruption, other things were — ethics (well, the Republicans had those problems) — but the economy wasn’t. They wanted to create economic crisis, a mindset of this.

So Chuck Schumer starts a run — a $1.3 billion run on IndyMac, and then all of a sudden, look what we learn! All these mortgages are worthless. All the mortgage derivatives and the mortgage-backed assets are worthless. Everything was worthless. There was no there there. Every institution, every guy in the institution was an empty suit. We had to bail out this, we had to bail out that; it didn’t help. I just wonder if what was a planned attempt to scare people economically — starting a run on the bank, doing this, that, and the other thing — has spun so far out of control, it’s gone so far beyond what the intention was, just to win an election, that nobody knows what to do about it.

The only mitigating argument against is that the number one, the primary beneficiary of this — and you have to look that even in an economic collapse like ours there are beneficiaries — Who’s benefiting? Aside from the people being bailed out. The Democrat party and Barack Obama are benefiting."

Sometimes I wonder, If people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity have friends/family or any near and dear ones who tell them how idiots they are and how anything that they say is so senseless.

This just proves that right-wingers like these still haven't come out of the shock that democrats and Obama have won. They are still in denial mode and not ready to appreciate the fact that people voted what they thought was better for them.

These are the same people who would rebuff all the conspiracy theories (and they were much more solid than Limbaugh's economic crisis theory, and had some facts associated with them) about how Iraq war was planned by Bush, Cheney and company.

I wonder if guys like these will ever realize how hypocrite, illogical they are.

Bizarre Coincidences

2008-12-23T21:43:00.003+05:30

Yesterday, for no reason I was searching for lyrics of a specific song by Gangadhar Mahambare "Rasika tujhyach sathi". Then I started reading some of his other songs.
Then I started reading news paper and saw the news "Gangadhar Mahambare has passed away".

I have had many such bizarre coincidences in past.
e.g.
- (this happens so often) I am singing a song to myself, and moments later same song is played on radio or somewhere I could listen to.
- I am thinking about someone for no apparent reason and moments later same person shows up.
- In the morning I am thinking about a thing/person/place, then open a news paper page and the next news I read is related to what I was thinking moments earlier.

I don't know if these are just coincidences or something else. And I am sure it happens to almost everyone.

उठणार कधी पेटून?

2008-12-01T09:40:00.011+05:30

मुंबईत गेले काही दिवस चाललेल्या घटनांचा मनावर झालेला परिणाम अणि त्यातून उमटलेल्या खालील काही ओळी....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
जळलि आज पुन्हा ती
ती कालही जळलि होती,
त्या जुन्याच आघातांची
ती जखमहि ओली होती,
नव्या जुन्या जखमांना
जाणार पुन्हा विसरून?
उठणार कधी पेटून?

रक्ताचा पाउस पडला
मासांचा ढिगही रचला,
आकांत निरागसतेचा
ना कुणास पाझर फुटला,
हे असेच सरणावरति
गेलेत किती विझून,
उठणार कधी पेटून?

धीराचा बांध सुटेल
रक्तातून कोम्ब फुटेल,
राखेतून घेत भरारी,
ती आज पुन्हा जन्मेल,
अश्रुंची होऊंन ज्वाला
जाळेल अता भडकून
उठणार आता पेटून,

ती,
उठणार आता पेटून!!

- विवेक शेंडे
१ डिसें २००८

Copyright 2008, Vivek Shende
vivek.shende@gmail.com

War is Over. What next?

2008-11-29T20:16:00.013+05:30

Terrorists are removed from all the locations they were holed up in. It came at the cost of 200 innocent people (civilian and forces). Several hundreds are injured. Taj burnt for more than three days. The scene of beautiful Taj burning in flames was disheartening. At one point, when they flames were rampant, I thought entire Taj might blow away in this fire. Thankfully the gun fight ended there and the fire was controlled by the fire marshals soon.

Finally, its all over. But is it really?

What we as country, people, government are going to do?
Are we not going to take any lessons, like we didn't from any of previous incidences, may it be 93 serial blasts, or many recent bomb blasts? Will the reaction be just limited to media room debates? Will the reaction be just limited to blame games in campaign during upcoming elections? Or will the reaction be just limited to finger pointing in parliament amongst political parties?

We need reaction. We definitely do. There must have been no Indian who didn't have tears watching what was happening. Tears were not only for those innocent lives, but were also for our hopelessness. We felt ashamed of ourselves as a country that we can't even handle handful of terrorists who just came and blatantly and arrogantly killed so many. We felt ashamed because of our incapable leaders.

We need reaction. But more thoughtful yet passionate reaction from all walks of life and not by select few.

Sure we need accountability for this particular incidence. Maharashtra CM, deputy CM, state home minister, central Home minister, city Mayor they need to take responsibility. Current Maharashtra govt has really been inept in trying to tackle terrorism (internal/external) over years. CM is hopeless, deputy CM is equally so (just busy in engaging stupid issues like bar-girls and making big statements). City Mayor is non-existent. Central Home minister is worst of a kind in the history. They should all just take responsibility of the failure. They have done little proactively to address this age-old issue. It was reported that state govt had the intelligence reports of the attacks in advance and CM in respond to that said "But we didnt know exact time, place and manner of the attacks". What kind of stupid answer was that? Is that what you need to protect the city? The exact information of the attacks? Otherwise you would just sit there doing nothing? Deputy CM is now talking about having NSG like force for the city? Even a third grader would understand that vulnerable city like Mumbai with a history of attacks need special force to counter terrorism. And you realized that now, because you were busy in issues of bar-girls?

All these people should now try not to give excuses and put up a brave face to take the blame to them.

About reaction: I think the key thing here is to really identify the problems and not just trying to react to the situation. We have to be careful that this issue is not hijacked by opportunists (by potentially communalizing this) and thereby digressing from the main issue.

The things is that we have to depoliticize the issue of terrorism. It should be a top priority of any govt to address this issue with responsibility.

We need to revamp the police force. State police is clearly incapable of tackling the modern day terrorism. We need reforms in police. Police reforms have not happened since independence. Our police force as it stands today is only suitable for bandobast during festivals, VIP visits. You can't expect a police man with bulging belly and a stick in hand to counter terrorist with AK-47. We probably need to create two wings of police force. One for prevention of crime (like what they do today) and another to tackle situation like this, with all modern equipments and training. We need NSG like force in every major city/state.

We need something like homeland security. These terrorist came via Arabian sea route directly to mumabi. Now, if we can't even secure the coast of Mumbai, how can you prevent entry from other coasts of India near smaller villages in konkan, or malvan.
We need to find out why the coast guards were not able to catch these perpetrators.

And the most important, we need to address the issue of corruption all across. It is the corrupt system which is leaving our country in this state, with people paying price of it by giving their lives.
Security of the nation is politicians last priority. Their first priority is power and money. When they are in power all their energy goes in making money and maintaining the power so that they get next term to make more money. All the energy of opposition party goes in trying to get in power so that they can also make money and gain power. Its all a game of power and money and no body is interested in people who elect them. For politicians, these people are the instruments to be used in this filthy game of power and wealth. So obviously their security is last of their concerns.

As I had mentioned in many of my previous posts, India need post-independence civil movement. Only a people's movement can change it. We need to spread awareness that if we the people don't do anything, this wont change, in fact it will get worse. So it is in our best interest that people come together and change it. It doesn't mean we have to act the MNS or Shivsena way. We need to make people educated of the social issues, how those issues affect them, their role in addressing those issue, importance of the vote they cast, their rights as citizen to question whats happening around, need of good people coming in politics.

Ignorance of the masses is the weapon of politicians. We need to turn that around. Making more and more people educated about their rights has the potential of solving this problem.

I am not sure if this is anything different than what many people feel or have felt for last so many years. So I have very little hope that the situation would change so fast. But nevertheless everyone has to be hopeful that situation has to be changed and will change. If not immediately, may be in few years or decades. But we still have to do something, because if we don't do anything it will never change. By doing something, we can at least hope that some day it will.

If the Mumbai attacks really change the situation then I must say that these 12 foreign terrorists probably have done more good to this country than most politicians have.

Lets hope and lets keep hoping.

Beautiful Taj:

Taj Burning:

Mumbai Burning

2008-11-27T19:52:00.005+05:30

"War on Mumbai" is what media is calling it.

Terrorist attack is not a new thing to Mumbai. Mumbai has always been a popular target of terrorist attacks. No other city in India has seen as many bomb blasts as Mumbai has. Almost every year, there is some major terrorist attack that Mumbai faces.

But this time it is different. This is the biggest terror attack ever on India. The attack this time were blatant, audacious and full of arrogance. Random gunfire at CST, serial bomb blasts at multiple location, indiscriminate gun fire on the road towards crowd, gun fire in five star hotels, took hostages from the hotel and are still fighting with security personnel for last twenty four hours. This is not just any other attack, this is an open war, challenging India with sheer arrogance. Its close to clear that it has a link going back to Pakistan and probably there is LeT hand in it.

NSG is deployed, armed forces are deployed, Marine commandos are in actions and Mumbai police also assisting in action. How often do you see army deployed in civilian area fighting against terrorists. This just gives an idea how grave the situation is.

Beautiful Taj is burning and its not a good sight to watch.

Hopefully the action will soon be over and terrorist will be killed with minimum casualties to innocents people and forces.

As usual after any attacks, government started issuing cliched and meaningless statements like "we will not bow down to terrorism", "we will take strong action against this attack", "We will form strong laws to counter the terrorism" (Why does it require attacks of this nature to happen, to create laws?). Opposition started issuing age-old statements like "this is intelligence failure", "Govt. failure".
Such kind of statements not only make you sick and sad but also frustrated and helpless.

Questions that come to my mind are (and some of these are not new questions):
- What do we as a country do now? Do we know who are fighting against us? Can we do counter attacks on them?
- How long are we gonna continue to act as victim?
- What does it say about the preparedness of the country in such kind of situation. It took hours before NSG were deployed. Why isn't Mumbai police or ATS prepared for this? Knowing that Mumbai has always been a soft target, why do you require NSG to fly in from Delhi? Shouldn't NSG wing be present in Mumbai? Or shouldn't Mumbai have it own NGS like force? Watching them on TV, Mumbai police forces look totally out of control and helpless and pathetic to react to this situation.
- What does it say about our homeland security? Do we have one? Do we just react? Can we not stop terrorism pro-actively? Terrorist came from sea-route. Local fisherman figured out these suspicious people, but not coast guard? What does our coast guard do?

These are just some of the questions that make my brain go numb.
A dozen or two of young terrorist are fighting against entire city and country...I am just too ashamed of our capabilities as country.

Amidst all this anguish and pain, all my prayers and homage to the affected people and their families.

मिसिंग सवाई गन्धर्व महोत्सव

2008-11-19T02:56:00.025+05:30

सवाई गन्धर्व महोत्सव या वर्षी ११ डीसेम्बर ला सुरु होतो आहे। ४ दिवसांची ही शास्त्रीय संगीताची पर्वणी १४ डीसेम्बर पर्यन्त पुण्यात चालेल। या वर्षी कोण कलाकार असणार हे अजुन जाहीर झालेले नाही, पण नेहमी सारखे यंदा पण नक्कीच चांगले कलाकार असणार। काही दिवसांपूर्वी पंडितजीना ( पं भीमसेन जोशी) भारतरत्न पुरस्कार जाहिर झाला आहे, त्यामुळे या वर्षी मंडळाच्या कार्यकर्त्यांमध्ये भरपूर उत्साह असेल । गेल्या काही वर्षांप्रमाने या वर्षी पण हीच उत्सुकता असणार की पं. जी गाणार की नाही ? तसे त्यांचे वय आता फार झाले आहे त्यामुळे त्यांचे गाणे आता पहिले सारखे होत नाही। तरीही लोक त्यांच्या वरील प्रेमामुळे त्यांचे गाणे ऐकण्यासाठी जीवाचे कान करणार

८ वर्षात हे असे पाहिले वर्ष असेल की मी ह्या कार्यक्रमाला हजर असणार नाही। दरवर्षी सवाई चे चार दिवस हा एक वेगळाच अनुभव असतो । मी आणि माझे मित्र मैत्रिण असा आमचा ८-१० जणाचा ग्रुप असतो। मी ऑफिस मधून आधीच गुरुवार आणि शुक्रवार ला लवकर जायची परवानगी घेतलेली असते। पाहिले तीन दिवस, म्हणजे गुरुवार, शुक्रवार आणि शनिवार दुपारी ४ ला कार्यक्रम सुरु होतो अणि रविवारी सकाळी ८ ला। आमच्यातला कुणीतरी एक, 'तो कुणीतरी' बहुधा मीच असतो, लवकर जावून जागा पकडतो आणि बाकि सगळे मग कार्यक्रम सुरु होण्याच्या वेळेला येतात।
गुरुवार अणि शुक्रवार मी २ च्या सुमारास तिथे पोहोचतो। शनिवार सुटीचा दिवस असल्याने मी १२ वाजताच तिथे पोहोचतो। रविवारी सकाळी कुडकुडणारया ठंडी मधे ५ लाच तिथे पोहोचाव लागत जर चांगली जागा मिळवयचि असेल तर.
आता सवाई ला जागा पकड़ने हा एक वेगळाच आणि गमतीचा विषय आहे।
त्या आधी थोडी तिथल्या बैठकी विषयी माहिती। हा कार्यक्रम शाळेच्या मैदानात होतो। मैदानात एक भव्य मांडव घातलेला असतो। मांडवा मध्ये काही जागेवर खुर्च्या / सोफे इत्यादि असतात अणि उरलेल्या जागेत सतरंज्या घातलेल्या असतात। त्या सतरंज्या म्हणजे भारतीय बैठकीची तिकिट घेतालेल्यांची जागा, कुणीही कुठेही बसु शकत। कुणाचीही ठराविक अशी जगा नसल्याने सगळ्यांचा हाच प्रयत्न असतो की शक्य तितकी पुढे व चांगली जागा मिळावी।
आता सवाई मध्ये (स्वतःसाठी व सोबतच्यान्साठी) जागा पकडने (वा अडवणे) ही पण एक कला आहे। ही कला साधण्यासाठी तुमच्या जवळ तीन गोष्टी असायला हव्या। एक म्हणजे तुमच्या घरी असतील नसतील तितक्या चादरी आणि सतरंज्या वा पसरता येण्याजोग्या तत्सम वस्तु घेउन येणे (यात पसरायला तुमचे 'पाय' देखिल चालतात)| एकदा का तुम्ही ह्या गोष्टी पसरून तुमचे 'राज्य'प्रस्थापित केले, की तुम्हाला दुसरया गोष्टीची गरज पड़ेल।
तर ती दूसरी गोष्टी दूसरी म्हणजे, आजू बाजूला जागेची कितीही कमतरता असेल, बाकीच्या लोकांना बसायला जरा देखिल जागा नसेल, तुमच्या इतकेच पैसे देउनही लोकांना खाली मातीत बसावे लागत असेल, लोक आशाळ्भूत तुमच्या कड़े बघत असतील, आणि तुमच्या "राज्यात" (म्हणजे पसरलेल्या वस्तुवर) १० च्या जागेत ५ लोक जरी बसले असतील, तरी जणू काही झालच नाही या अविर्भावात बसून रहाण्याची शांत वृत्ति । लोकांनी जागा मागितल्यास त्यांना सर्रास खोटे सांगावे की "आमचे बरेच लोक अजुन यायचे आहेत". नाहीतर, तुम्हाला नंतर पाय पसरून बसायला (व कधी कधी जोपायला पण) जागा कशी मिळणार ?
आणि तिसरी व अतिशय महत्वाची गोष्ट जी तुमच्या जवळ असलीच पाहिजे ती म्हणजे "आपण म्हणजे जणू साक्षात् सवाई गन्धार्वांचे गुरुबंधुच आहोत, व शास्त्रीयसंगीत ही फक्त आपलीच मक्तेदारी आहे, अशा थाटात आपल्या "राज्यावर" आक्रमण करणारया "घुसखोरांचा" पुणेरी खोचक शब्दात अपमान करण्याचा अगावु पणा . कारण सवाईला जितके प्रस्थापित तितकेच घुसखोर |
भांडताना प्रत्येकी ५ वाक्यान्मागे समोरच्या ला एकदा ठणकावून सांगावे की "मी सकाळ पासून आलो आहे जागा पकडायला। तुम्हाला जर इथे बसायच होत तर आधी का नाही आलात? आता जा तिथे मागे बसायला, आमचे अजुन लोक यायचे आहेत, आम्हालाच जागा नाही" हे वाक्य कितीही खोट असेल, तुम्हाला स्वतहाला, उशिरा येवून देखिल एखाद्या दुसरया (बहुधा मुर्ख) माणसाने जागा दिली असेल तरी काळजि नको। पुढच्या माणसाला या गोष्टीची सत्यता कळणार नाही. कळल तरी गेला उडत।

तेव्हा अशा प्रतिकूल परिस्थितित जागा मला जागा मिळाली की होणारा आनंद हा शब्दात व्यक्त न करता येणारा। मी चादर घालून माझे राज्य स्थापन करायचो आणि माझे बाकीचे मावळे येत पर्यंत बाजी प्रभुंच्या दिमाखात खिंड लढ्वायचो । इंच इंच भूमि लढवणे म्हणजे काय याचा प्रत्यय सवाई लाच येतो। आणि माझे साथीदार येताच होणारया आनंदाची तुलना "शिवाजीना सिंहगडावर तानाजीच्या सैन्याने दागलेल्या तोपा बघून जो झाला असेल" त्या आनंदाशीच होऊ शकते।

हे सगळ या वर्षी मी मिस करणार। अर्थात ज्यासाठी सवाई आयोजित केला जातो तो सांगीतिक अनुभव पण मिस करणार। अजून मिस करणार ते बाहेरच्या स्टॉल वरचे मटर पोहे, डोसा, मोदक, वडा पाव, कॉफी वगेरे वगेरे।

बहुधा पुढल्या वर्षी मात्र मिस नाही करणार ।

तुम्हाला शक्य असल्यास नक्की जा, आधी पासून टिकिट काढून ठेवा आणि तुमचा या वर्षीचा सवाई चा अनुभव मला नक्की कळवा ।

Obama - Disappoints the first day after election

2008-11-10T06:27:00.002+05:30

No, the disappointment is not about his comment on Nancy Reagan.

Its about his comments on Iran.

During his first news conference after election, one journalist asked him a question about letter to him from Iran's President Ahmadinejad congratulating him for his win (and that this being the first such letter from Iran's president ever) and whether or not he has replied or going to reply.

Obama's answer was that, he has not replied the letter although he has a knowledge that such letter has been received (does that mean he hasn't read it,? Hows that possible? How can you resist not reading a letter you aren't expecting from one of the most important, though in a different way, person for the country? anyways ). The tone of comments that followed after that was again the same that US (and Bush) had for last many years.
Obama re-iterated the same thing that "Iran's nuclear program is unacceptable" and "he will rally international pressure on Iran to stop that".
Do you really need this at this point of time? Isn't it a time to sort out the issues (thats what we expected from Obama.)? Why would you want to start your term on this note?
I just hope that Obama doesn't repeat the same mistake that Bush has done, by not engaging in talks with even the so called enemies of the country. What we want from this new administration is to win friends and not to add enemies. What we need is diplomacy which does not believe in talking only to friends but also believes in talking to enemies.
World does not want to see USA continue its hypocritical attitude.
Event though Iran's nuclear program may be unacceptable to you, but you don't want to close all the avenues of the diplomatic discussions.
I just hope that Obama does not think the Bushs' way with respect to Iran and that answer was more of a diplomatic answer as he is not president yet and he doesn't want to conflict with current president's policies.

Go OBAMA

2008-11-07T01:16:00.009+05:30

I think the withdrawal symptoms will go on for some time in my case. Having followed the election so closely for last couple of months, having watched all presidential, vice-presidential debates, having being glued to news programs, fake news programs, talk shows, late night shows, youtube videos...all with one theme - Next US President, it seems reasonable.

The election was interesting in so many ways to follow. It was like watching a long Cricket world cup series, almost knowing who is going to be the winner, but still not discounting the possibility of "bad day".

Charismatic personality, intelligence (the dude was first in his Harvard Law School class), demeanor, communication, popularity - everything meant Obama was a clear winner.
But one was never sure for many reasons - racial angle, voters turnout, republican's negative campaigning, one bad story on last day - anything could have or had potential to change the picture. Fortunately it didn't.

Mccain tried hard. But he just wasn't meant to be. Many of his plans just did not work for him. May it be negative campaign, Palin factor, over advertising his POW credentials - nothing helped. He looked so helpless at all places. He must now be breaking his head remembering the day he chose Palin as his running mate. Not that the result would have been different otherwise, but he would have at least not made a fool of himself.

Sarah Palin was an interesting fun chapter in the entire process, butt of all jokes, all tv shows. She kept the mood light for the voters in this tough campaign :-)

Bush's failed policy for last 8 years had kind of created a ground for Democratic win and hardship for republicans this time, but that should not take away any credit from Obama. He deserved to be President on any day. Had Hillary been running against McCain, it might have gone McCain's way.

McCain didn't look like presidential material at all. (Now one would argue siting Bush's example. But Bush kind of deserve a special place in American Presidential history and he should not always be referred as an exception to prove any rule).
He is too old to be a President. Some people would argue that age doesnt matter. But I think it matters, at least to some extent.
His choice of Sarah Palin was blunder. I guess he realized that was a mistake a some point after choosing her, but probably it was too late to take any corrective actions. And there after he just had to justify his wrong doings which kind of looked lame. Although, its really amazing to think why would it take so long for Republicans or McCain to realize their mistake of choosing Palin. But then what would you expect from people who made mistake of choosing her in the first place.
Then his entire campaign was based on smear attacks or at least the most of it. Instead of giving solutions to the problems lying ahead for the country he would either blow his trumpet of how a great war hero is he Or attack Obama for everything and anything. Well, that's not such a good idea if you want to earn rational voters.
The tone was extremely condescending against democrats and Obama in particular.

Where as you see Obama campaign. It was just perfect. I think if there is anyone who really deserves the credit of this win other than Obama, it has to be the campaign manager (who ever that is). It was run to just perfection. Running campaign for two years, without making a single mistake, without reacting, going as per plan is a great achievement. I must say Obama is definitely surrounded by very capable and smart people. That really is a qualification for a President. There was no negative campaigning, maintaining dignity while attacking opponents, no smear attacks, reaching out to people, talking about real issues and doing that amidst all the smear tactics from opposition coming your way is creditable.

I wish the bad days of American politics are over now. Obama should really bring the change he promised and I am sure he will. He is the right person America needed at this time. One who is intelligent, balanced, with mass appeal, who is willing to talk to enemies (even Iran), who has ideas about how he wants to take this country forward.
His win is special, being the first African-American president of the country.
Some people say, although his black - he is not black enough, as his mother was white. So he actually is a first non-white president. Whatever that is, its at least a step ahead in right direction.
The emotions that was flowing everywhere (and in most cases through eyes) after his win was really touching. Many people in this country who had been through the period of civil rights movement had not even imagined that they would see this day in their lifetime. But they did.
I was listening to some of Martin Luther King's speeches on youtube and I was really surprised to see the similarity between the style of making speech between Obama and MLK. Same style, same conviction, same emotion.

Anyways, the election is over. There are still two and half months of Bush's regime (:sob) remaining. Once that is over, lets hope for not just better America but better world.
Go Obama Go!!

A few good quotes

2008-03-05T21:41:00.002+05:30

Came across a few good quotes on teacher. Here are a few

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. ~Thomas Carruthers

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework. ~Lily Tomlin as "Edith Ann

What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches. ~Karl Menninger

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops. ~Henry Brooks Adams

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. ~William Arthur Ward

A teacher's purpose is not to create students in his own image, but to develop students who can create their own image. ~Author Unknown

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition. ~Jacques Barzun

When you teach your son, you teach your son's son. ~The Talmud

Who dares to teach must never cease to learn. ~John Cotton Dana

A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power. ~Thomas Szaz

The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book. ~Author Unknown

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself. ~Edward Bulwer-Lytton

What do Thackereys eat?

2008-02-12T19:23:00.002+05:30

I suspect following menu does not appear in any of the Thackereys meals: Chole-bhature, Alu paratha, lassi, maakke-di-roti, sarso da saag, tanduri roti. The reason is quite simple. These are all part of north-indian culture and being a true marathi manoos, they simply cant eat it. I just wonder, how tough would it be for some rabri devi or some mayawati to learn to cook puran poli, if they plan to live in Maharashtra.

What a test!!!

2008-01-08T19:42:00.000+05:30

And I am not talking about the controversies surrounding it.
Never thought test match can be so exciting... unsure of the outcome till the last minute. It was race against time (not loosing wickets before time for Indians and getting all wickets before time for OZs).
Aus 134/6 on the first day, then some excellent batting from OZ lower order to take them to 463. Then Indian middle order with making mark, centuries from VVS and SRT and in-form Ganguly, and support from lower order as well, helped India take a 69 runs lead. The last two days also were exciting, with all three results possible. But then Australia didn't slip it away from their hands and gave a total which India was never going to achieve. Although, the match was still very much ON with India fighting for draw and Australia going for kill. It went literally till last minute, and India finally couldn't survive the race against setting sun.

The match was not only talked about for the above mentioned excitement. It was being discussed starting day 1 till today for all sorts of controversies.

The first one is about Umpiring decisions:
Surely, India suffered the most from the wrong decisions. Australia too were at the receiving end. But India got the most of them and had to pay for it. Australia were lucky enough not to have to pay for those decisions in terms of loosing the match.
My take is that, it is not the first time this thing has happened. Agreed that it did influence the match's outcome, but it would be stupid to say that India had the strong chances against Australia to win the match. Everyone knows the standing of India and Australia in test and on any day ausies stand a chance against India.
No one stopped India to take Symond's wicket again after he was unluckily given not-out. No one can deny that Australia played brilliantly despite all the controversies. So, I would not make such a hue and cry about this against Australia. India should have just complained about umpires and moved on.

The second one about the spirit in which the game was played.
Anil Kumble was visibly upset when he made a comment that only one team played in the spirit of the game. I would not quite agree with that. Surely, australia didn't play in the spirit by ignoring the decisions which they knew were wrong and against India. But what about Indians? Sending Ishant Sharma with both gloves of one hand, Irfan Khan strolling with ease while providing the missing glove to Ishant Sharma, and similar deliberate attempts to pass the time and avoid facing all the remaining overs...are people fool not to see that? Sure, you can say it was tit for tat. But then don't complain about the "tat".

The third one is the racism:
That is silliest of all.
Harbhajan calling Symond a monkey and Symond being offended by that. (BTW, has anybody bothered to care how offended the monkey itself might be by that:).
Like Wasim Akram said, Australians really acted like cry-babies here. The master of sledgers complaining about being called a "monkey" is ridiculous and equally ridiculous is the argument by Indians that calling monkey is not offensive since we worship monkey:)
The main issue here is that, ICC should review its code of conduct guideline. What could offend a person is very relative and subject to the culture if belongs. Cricket is a global game with all kinds of cultures playing against each other. It would be really difficult to list down what could be offensive to whom? Asking "how do you do?" can count as using sexually offensive language for some one:). Instead of distinguishing what can count as racism or mental disintegration they should just
ban the sledging and punish whosoever does it.

Anyways, its been a interesting week, during the test and thereafter..and still continuing.

Taare Zamin Par (TZP) Review

2008-01-02T15:03:00.001+05:30

TZP...

An impressive directorial debut from Amir Khan. Film lived up to the expectation of it's and the director's name.I liked the movie for the subject and its treatment. Very important and relevant subject, effectively put forth.The value of direction lies in keeping the focus on the subject, not being hijacked by Amir's presence and good acting from the child artist. The focus on the subject is right on through out the movie. Although, there have been instances where the reinforcement of the subject drifted in the realm of repetitiveness. The first half is bit slow and repetitive.

Nice and situational songs. Amir is impressive as usual in his acting. Lot of sensitive stuff here and there (In the second half, I had my wife crying on my right side and some girl crying on the left side:)
No time spent in fillers of romance of any sort. Total honesty with the subject by director and producers.

Amir is courageous and has shown that.

Go and watch the movie.

Happy new year 2008

2008-01-02T14:58:00.000+05:30

Wish you all a great 2008 ahead.

A few things that I will try to bring focus back on this year

1) blogging:)
2) reading...lot of pending books
3) fitness. I have been regular for last 1/1.5 months. Would like to continue on that.
4) Travel

The focus had been drifted from these things for a while. (Looks like, it is directly related to me getting married:). But now will try hard to get back on these tracks.

Do you have anything you lost focus last year and will like to bring it on this year?

Book review: Kolhatyacha por

2007-09-15T09:48:00.001+05:30

Author: Kishore Shantabai Kale.

Its an auto-biographical book by an author who also is a doctor by profession. This book tells the story of his life from childhood to becoming a doctor. So, whats so unusual about this story?
He did not have a normal childhood. Everything was unusual just like his name. Yes, you guessed it right. He put his mother's name as his middle name instead of father.
That is because he was born to a woman from Kolhati caste. Woman from these community are Tamasha (marathi folk form of dance) dancers and sometimes even turn to prostitution. Author was born to one such woman, and was not aware of his father. The book tells the story of how this child fought against all odds, fought against his own people, and ultimately became Doctor, where other children in his community could barely cross high school.

The book describes the tough lives of woman in kolhati caste. How men in the society dont do anything and force women (their wifes, daughters, sisters) to such occupation and live on their earnings. How rich people in society live with them for fun (physical) and then leave them in despair. These woman are then left to nothing but to go back to dancing and/or prostitution. So, its really a surprise how a boy from this background could even graduate, forget about becoming a doctor. I am sure its an inspiring tale for all those children who are also living in such situation.

The book is not so good on literary counts. Its not well structured, lacks flow. Some paragraphs come out of no where and goes back into nowhere. But despite all that, the book does make an effect simply because its a true and honest story and that honesty is reflected in the story telling.

Funniest joke heard recently

2007-08-13T19:06:00.001+05:30

Ek bachha paida hote hi, nurse ko bolta hai "Mujhe jara tumhala cell phone dena"
Nurse puchhti hai "kyo?"
Bachha bolta hai "Bhagwan ko miss call dena hai ki mai pahoch gaya".

< english-translation-not-so-good >
Baby, after immediately being born, asks the nurse to give him her cellphone.
Nurse with amusement asks why?
The baby boy, who is just born says "I need to give miss call to God to tell him that I reached here"
< english-translation-not-so-good />

The Great Indian Reality tamasha

2007-06-18T23:20:00.001+05:30

They are all over the television! On every channel, all the time and even news channel are not distant to them. I am talking about the new fad in Indian television. Its called as reality show. Indian reality shows have come a long way since "Meri Awaaj Suno" and has gone for worse.
Today we have reality shows for all possible talents(?). There are about a dozen shows on music, two dozens for comedians, half a dozen on dance, quiz shows etc, couple of big-bosses sorts(biggest losers etc)... There are a couple of good exceptions (Great Indian laughter challenge, Marathi Sa re ga ma pa, On the lots). But these exceptions are very few in numbers.
What you actually see on most of these "reality shows" is nothing but well-staged drama. Every show follows the same template. They have contestants selected from different cities across India, then they have auditions which is also telecasted on TV to create the buzz, then there are a bunch of losers judges who may or may not deserve to judge what they are judging but definitely not averse to publicity, then there are eliminations, judges humiliating candidates, people sending millions and millions of SMSes - as if they dont have any other way of draining their money, then there are results, some crying, some very well scripted fights between judges...
This is so common across all the shows that is looks like there is some kind of template for these shows and producer just need to adjust it a bit here and there and voila - the show is ready.
The funniest part is the comments made by judges.
E.g. On Star voice of india, the regular comments are - "kuch maza naahi aaya". Dude, there are not here to give you maza. Go elsewhere if you need that;)
The biggest tamasha is on Zee sa re ga ma pa challenge 2007. The worst pannel of all among all the reality shows. There is Bappi lahiri, Himesss reshmiya, ismaail darbaar and two jokers whose name I dont even know). Each of these mentors (LOL) of different gharana (LMAO) give their comments about how to sing...(ROTFLMAO)
Another commonality on these show is the humiliation by judges of the candidates. But the worse part is whom it is coming from. These humiliating words come from people who themselves know nothing about what they are talking.

Comedy shows seems hit amongst all channels. You could see these shows running at least on one channel all the time. Even at prime time you could see them on News channel (most likely start or aaj tak). I remember the days of DD when at 9 pm we used to get entire day's news. What we get now is just a mimicry. News channels are so out of news now a days, even with all the sting operations and sansani etc that they have to go after such shows.

Wonder where the television will go from here..

Current most favorite advertisement

2007-06-06T15:35:00.000+05:30

Hutch GPRS search is my current most favorite ad. See it for yourself

My alltime favorite ad is still the happydent one. Look at it, absolutely fabulous

Patriotism redefined

2007-04-16T17:01:00.000+05:30

Suddenly there is a fresh wave of patriotism across the country, mostly in politicians. That started after a casual remark made by Infosys chairman Narayan Murthy.
The prospective resident of "Rashtrapati bhavan" has a few lessons to learn, especially talking in public/media. What he said was a very casual remark which was taken not so causally by politicians and pseudo-patriots. I personally find nothing wrong in it (that "it would have been embarrassing for employees from foreign origin while other people sang national anthem"). Even if we agree for a moment that it was a wrong comment, can we not just forget it considering it as a mistake on his part? Have people become so intolerable that they cannot even excuse a simple mistake made by a human being, no matter how high-profile the person is. After all he also is a human being, and he surely can have a bad day, especially in front of new-hungry media asking all sorts of irrelevant questions. Does he not have a right to make mistake (caused unintentionally, since he apologised after that)?
The funny thing is - people who are shouting their guts out, do they ask a question to themselves, that what kind of patriotic act they have done in their lives? (apart from burst of patriotism that they show on 15th aug and 26th jan). At least this fellow Murthy has contributed immensely to the country in many ways which a very few people have.
Politicians who are cursing him for his disrespect towards national anthem, do they do introspection themselves? How many of these crying politicians can confidently answer, "which color is at the top in national flag?", "how many spokes are there in the ashok chakra?", "which is our "nation anthem and which our national song?", who wrote "vande mataram, jana gana man, sare jaha se achcha?" A survey made by a news channel on one 15th august outside parliament showed that a large population of our representatives don't know the answers to these simple elementary questions. Isn't this then the real disrespect of your nation? How does these people gather courage to curse others is something I have always failed to understand.
I personally don't believe in displaying patriotism by singing national anthem, or shouting slogans. But even if those people who believe this, should show some level of tolerance for others mistake. Isn't that the philosophy or our nation i.e. to be tolerant?

Black Friday - the book.

2007-04-10T16:41:00.000+05:30

Read "Black Friday" S. Hussain Zaidi's book on historical Bombay blast in 93 recently.
Again I took a wrong path this time, watching movie first and then reading the book the movie was based on. I had watched the movie long time back on CD (before even it was released in theater). I didn't find movie that attractive at first. It was pretty good for the first hour or so but then was dragging at the end. But lately I heard that, that's not how it was released in theater (when it was given green signal to be released). Seems like Anurag Kashyap did some rework before releasing it in theater.

Anyways, some comments about the book.
The books gives an in-depth account of the details related to bomb blasts. Author tries to trace the cause of the bomb blast to the demolition of "controversial" mosque in ayodhya. He gives the account of how that incidence and the riots after that instigated the need to take revenge amongst some section of Muslims. How tiger and dawood memon did the planning, how they organized the entire operation and how it got executed. Book gives details of how the trainings happened, how the meetings happened, what was discussed in meeting, how the smuggling happened and how the youths were inspired for this act. The details to which all these things are described is really thrilling to the point of being unbelievable.

Then came the Black Friday. He describes very beautifully (probably the word is very wrong in this context), the sequence of events on that day, from the point of view of authorities. It shows how hopeless was the situation and how helpless were the authorities who were mere following the blasts one after another.

The investigation is wrote in very much detail and thats probably is the most engrossing part of the book. How the teams were formed, how they got the lead, how they traced the missing link...everything is just mesmerizing.

It also exposed the corruption in police department, political involvement which were the main reasons such kind of sinister plan could actually execute in here from some one who was coordinating from Dubai. It also gives details of the involvement of Pakistan in the serial blast.

Some of these are already known to everyone, but the information is presented and detailed manner in which it is presented in the book is what makes it special and worth reading.

The book is very well organized and co-ordinates different aspects in a very nice manner.
Full marks to author for his work on gathering all the details to such granularity. It shows the amount of efforts he might have put in to compile this. According to author, he mostly used the official police documents and newspaper records to gather the information. This is really commendable since, to come up with a book of 300 pages from thousands and thousands of official documents is not an easy job.

The only thing I didnt like about this, and this must probably be only me, is that reading it sometimes gave me an impression that deep down author was sympathizing with people involved (at least few of them). No matter how they were dragged into it, a culprit is a culprit and should not be shown any mercy if the act committed is of this scale, so that it acts a deterrent to others. Agreed that, there are circumstances under which a normal human being become terrorist, but I wont have any sympathy with anyone who was involved in this cowardly act no matter what the circumstances are.

Reading the last chapter, " life after death" which describes how the lives of the families of the innocent victims were shattered due to this, made my feeling strong that, no matter what the circumstances were, anyone who was knowingly/unknowingly involved in this should be punished.

Happening Cricket world cup

2007-04-03T18:39:00.000+05:30

Never thought this would be such a exciting as well as boring world cup at the same time.
Exciting for all non-cricketing reasons and boring for India and Pak not qualifying for super-8. which BTW where two teams I had my money on. Now my money is on New Zealand. I am sure its gonna be Aus and NZ final on 28th.

I don't need to write a single line for India's world cup debacle. So much has already been discussed and still being discussed to the point of irritation. But I am in total agreement with Dravid over his comment that India did not deserve to go forward. It did not look the formidable team as others like aus, nz, Sa, srilanka, which i guess will reach semis. Some of the open questions I have from our experiment in WC are
- why did srisanth kept out of the playing 11 for all the matches where as he was our strike bowler for last so many series.?
- why was not kumble picked up in match against SL?
- why did we not play with 5 bowlers?

Anyways, there are 1 billion people who have so many questions over it and also so many opinions that I need not go into it. Media it seems is enjoying it fully with hours of programs daily just discussing that. And many former players who did not even play at world cup are giving their "Expert opinions". I dont know what would happen, whether Graig chappel would stay or go (most likely he would go, so that administration would make people realise that they are doing something), whether dravid would remain captain or not (I still think Dravid was probably the only senior players who deserved the place in team). That remains to be seen.

But I liked what Imran khan said. He said, a coach can help only as much. Coach cannot transform things. Its the cricking system in country that needs to be looked into.

Then there was noise about selectors not doing job well, and we should have more selectors. Ian chappel said very right thing about it. He said, selectors does not find talent. Its the system that finds talent. Our domestic cricking system should be such that talents should automatically come up and selectors would just need to do the job picking 11 from those talents and approve it. Selectors don't need to run across the country and find the talents.

Coming back to current state at WC, Australia looks unbeatable so does NZ. SL's looks formidable if their batting clicks. Semis would really be exiciting to watch.

Cricket Bonanza

2007-03-13T20:14:00.000+05:30

One and half month of cricket bonanza starts today in West indies. Its the cricket world cup time where the cricketing nations play for the pride.

Unfortunately the fever is not set yet as it should have been. That's probably because of the boring group stage matches schedule. The group stages matches are for all practical purpose the practice matches for the top 8 teams which we already know who they are.

The real fun would start on march 27th when the super eight matches would begin. Till then its just the ritual.

Fortunately the competition is evenly poised this time. Just before the world cup, all the major team regained their lost form, except Australia who lost their form so as to come even with other teams. So, who is gonna be "the team" this time?
Is it gonna be "no brainer to guess" Australia? Or is it gonna be "the chokers" south Africa or is it gonna be "West indies" breaking the jinx of host countries not being able to win the cup?

My votes go to the following three teams
- Pakistan
- Australia
- India

ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 Match Schedule

Group Stage - Match Schedule

Date	Teams	Venues
Tue 13 Mar	West Indies v Pakistan	Sabina Park, Jamaica
Wed 14 Mar	Australia v Scotland	Warner Park Stadium, St Kitts & Nevis
	Canada v Kenya	Beausejour Stadium, St Lucia
Thu 15 Mar	Bermuda v Sri Lanka	Queens Park Oval, Trinidad & Tobago
	Ireland v Zimbabwe	Sabina Park, Jamaica
Fri 16 Mar	Netherlands v South Africa	Warner Park Stadium, St Kitts & Nevis
	England v New Zealand	Beausejour Stadium, St Lucia
Sat 17 Mar	Bangladesh v India	Queens Park Oval, Trinidad & Tobago
	Ireland v Pakistan	Sabina Park, Jamaica
Sun 18 Mar	Australia v Netherlands	Warner Park Stadium, St Kitts & Nevis
	Canada v England	Beausejour Stadium, St. Lucia
Mon 19 Mar	Bermuda v India	Queens Park Oval, Trinidad & Tobago
	West Indies v Zimbabwe	Sabina Park, Jamaica
Tue 20 Mar	Scotland v South Africa	Warner Park Stadium, St Kitts & Nevis
	Kenya v New Zealand	Beausejour Stadium, St Lucia
Wed 21 Mar	Bangladesh v Sri Lanka	Queens Park Oval, Trinidad & Tobago
	Pakistan v Zimbabwe	Sabina Park, Jamaica
Thu 22 Mar	Netherlands v Scotland	Warner Park Stadium, St Kitts & Nevis
	Canada v New Zealand	Beausejour Stadium, St Lucia
Fri 23 Mar	India v Sri Lanka	Queens Park Oval, Trinidad & Tobago
	Ireland v West Indies	Sabina Park, Jamaica
Sat 24 Mar	Australia v South Africa	Warner Park Stadium, St Kitts & Nevis
	England v Kenya	Beausejour Stadium, St Lucia
Sun 25 Mar	Bangladesh v Bermuda	Queens Park Oval, Trinidad & Tobago

Second Stage - Super Eight Match Schedule

Date	Teams	Venues
Tue 27 Mar	D2 v A1	Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua & Barbuda
Wed 28 Mar	A2 v B1	Providence Stadium, Guyana
Thu 29 Mar	D2 v C1	Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua & Barbuda
Fri 30 Mar	D1 v C2	Providence Stadium, Guyana
Sat 31 Mar	A1 v B2	Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua & Barbuda
Sun 01 Apr	D2 v B1	Providence Stadium, Guyana
Mon 02 Apr	B2 v C1	Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua & Barbuda
Tue 03 Apr	D1 v A2	Providence Stadium, Guyana
Wed 04 Apr	C2 v B1	Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua & Barbuda
Sat 07 Apr	B2 v A2	Providence Stadium, Guyana
Sun 08 Apr	A1 v C2	Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua & Barbuda
Mon 09 Apr	D1 v C1	Providence Stadium, Guyana
Tue 10 Apr	D2 v A2	Queen's Park, Grenada
Wed 11 Apr	C2 v B2	Kensington Oval, Barbados
Thu 12 Apr	B1 v C1	Queen's Park, Grenada
Fri 13 Apr	A1 v D1	Kensington Oval, Barbados
Sat 14 Apr	A2 v C1	Queen's Park, Grenada
Sun 15 Apr	B2 v D1	Kensington Oval, Barbados
Mon 16 Apr	A1 v B1	Queen's Park, Grenada
Tue 17 Apr	A2 v C2	Kensington Oval, Barbados
Wed 18 Apr	D1 v B1	Queen's Park, Grenada
Thu 19 Apr	D2 v B2	Kensington Oval, Barbados
Fri 20 Apr	A1 v C1	Queen's Park, Grenada
Sat 21 Apr	D2 v C2	Kensington Oval, Barbados

Semi–Finals - Match Schedule

	Semi Final 1	Semi Final 2	Venue
Tue 24 Apr	2nd Vs. 3rd		Sabina Park, Jamaica
Wed 25 Apr		1st Vs. 4th	Beausejour Stadium, St Lucia

ICC World Cup Final - Match Schedule

	Final	Venue
Sat 28 Apr	Semi-Finalist 1 Vs. 2	Kensington Oval, Barbados

PMT online

2007-02-07T13:05:00.000+05:30

At least one area where one can commend PMT, and that is the latest website launched by PMT.
The URL for the site is http://pmtpune.org/
At the outset I feel very proud to mention that the site is developed by my company "Persistent Systems Pvt Ltd".
The site is extremely useful and most importantly unlike other Indian government websites its very fast and usable. You can search for routes, see maps of the routes, schedules, check the fares etc. It reminded me of the valley transport authorities websites in bay area California (http://www.vta.org).
You can find information about pune darshan buses, how to get passes, online form for the passes and most importantly you can lodge a complaint online (which I intend to use quite often).

I just wish, they also improve their quality of service on the road. Hope that we see more and more websites for other public services soon.

Worse traffic than pune

2007-02-07T12:53:00.000+05:30

I thought pune has the worst traffic among the cities I have been, and then I visited Hyderabad....

Been to Hyderabad over last weekend on the official visit and was disappointed to see the traffic condition in the city. Despite having wide roads, in good condition the state of the traffic was pathetic. Actually we landed Hyderabad late night at about 11 pm. But still at that late hours, the traffic from airport to hotel was bad in few locations. People driving the way they wanted, wanting to get ahead and in the process creating deadlocks... It was a total chaos. But that was just precursor what I saw in the next two days. Whenever I had to go out on roads in those two days, the situation was bad, no matter what time of the day/night it was. It took me 1 hr and 10 minutes to reach the goalkona fort which was about 9-10 km far from the hotel. People do no drive there in lane, they honk excessively and there are too many people doing this. And they drive so dangerously that you fear for your life when you sit in an autorikshaw. One of the main reasons is that the shops in hyderabad are open till 10:30-11 at night, which means lot of people on the road. The first thing hyderabad officials do is to close the shops by 8 so that at least people can travel peacefully at night. I really admire the patience of the hyderabadi people with whiche they drive on the road...
And yes, hyderabadi biryani rocks. A friend of mine had suggested a place called "fishland" where I ate the egg biryani and it was just delicious.
Also, the Goalkonda fort is very nice although the famous light and sound show is bit overrated. I did find it amusing.

Guru : The review

2007-01-29T10:38:00.000+05:30

Had a very good Republic Day weekend and also got a chance to see Mani Ratnam movie "Guru". This is probably my first movie that I have seen in Nagpur for long long time (may be 5-6 years).

My fiancee had already warned me of not giving any of my "expert" comments during and after the movie:). But then that's what the blogs are for. So here are my comments on the movie.

Story and Direction:
There is no question about the fact that the movie is based on the life of a great business tycoon of India "Dhirubai Ambani", despite the message at the start of the movie that the "story is fictional and any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental".

Movie starts in a Mani's favorite flashback style, Gurukant Desai aka Gurubhai (rhyming so well with Dhirubai) standing in a football stadium and taking you back to where he started from. The story is about a journey of a matric failed, young, confident and ambitious boy, son of a village school master from a small village in Gujarat, who ultimately becomes one of the biggest business tycoon in India and makes his company the biggest company in India.
The story takes you through his days in Istanbul (in Turky) where he worked with the Shell company as a regular, small time worker, and how he works hard to reach the position of supervisor in no time. His ambition makes him refuse to take further ladders in the Shell company and he returns to India wanting to do something on his own. Despite the opposition from his father he decides to start the business. He is joined by his wife (Sujata played by Aishwarya) whom he marries for dowry so as to get capital for his business. Then, he, his wife and his brother in law (Jignesh) move to Mumbai where he works hard, gets into the business of Kela silk, work in stock exchange, makes profit, expands his business, starts one business after another, sets up factories after factories. He and his companies grow at an astonishing and unbelievable growth. Then he is confronted with his friend and owner of a newspaper "Swantantra" or "Independence", Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborthy). Nanaji, along with his young editor (R. Madhavan) publishes series after series of articles about many wrong practices carried out by Shakti group (Name of Gurubhai's group of companies) to make profits, to evade taxes and to gather capital from public. A commission is then setup to probe into it. Meanwhile Gurubhai suffers a paralytic attack but recovers. The commission finds him guilty on certain charges, but most other charges are cancelled.

The story is very real. Incidences shown in Gurubhai's life are almost real and draw a ditto parallel with the life of Dhirubai, almost at every stage. Son of School master, starting in middle eastern country (Istanbul vs Aden), working for Shell company, starting with textile business, rivalry with old friend (Nanaji is inspired by Ramnath Goenka, owner of Indian express group), assault by friend's news paper (Swantra vs. Indian Express), some of the loops holes in government policies that were exploits (ex-im policy, etc), rivalry with traditional business man who has been in textile business for 150 years and is jealous of his growth (the famous battle with polished parsi Nusli Wadia of Bombay dying group is being shown here as rivalry with another parsi businessman Mr. Contractor), the enquiry commission, links with politician and so many. So as far as showing the reality goes, Mani Ratnam has done a very good job.

But since the canvass was so huge, he could barely touch them in details, except the rivalry with Nanaji. Lot of things just happened within a flash without realising how it happened. Lot of details were overlooked and were just touched superficially. E.g. his initial struggle in mumbai was hardly shown and it looked as if it was a cake walk for him to make profits in business. Dhirubhai was a king of stock market, but none of that was shown in the movie as to how he changed the Indian stock market. Having an inherent big canvass cannot be an excuse since he could have avoided time spent in lot of useless details. E.g. the role and focus on Vidya Balan is questionable. The character and therefore time spent on it could have been avoided. The enquiry commission scenes were unnecessary prolonged and over dramatised. I would have loved if he had avoided showing such events of less importance (including birth of two girls) and spent more time on showing how cunning, smart and talented was he in business. It would have been more fun than just watching events pass by. It looked as if you are watching a photo album where you see things just happened but don't know how exactly they happened. So, IMO Mani failed to capture lot of exciting things which he could have and would have made the movie more entertaining.

Acting:
Aishwarya: Not worth commenting

Abhishek: Does a good job till the interval. But after that, falls for imitating dhirubai and ends up doing overacting. Credit to him for putting on weight so as to look old, but does not do that well in acting as old dhirubai. After the paralytic stroke, in some of the scenes he even forgets about the stroke and speaks normally. And in the next scene goes back to being paralytic:) But he does remind you of Dhirubai when he laughs at AGM's of Shakti group. His full body laugh, with his shoulders, back and stomach shaking, does imitate Dhirubai' mischievous laugh nicely.

Mithun: Amazing acting. Plays the character of Ramnath Goenka to the core. Wearing a crisp white dhoti with a crisp authoritative voice plays the old fox very well.

Music:
Simply Great. 'Mahiya mahiya' tops my list. A Gujarati touch in almost all the songs (except "ee hairate ashiquee). Although, personally I didnt like the "prose" in between the "mahiya mahiya song" ..which goes something like "aghosh me leke saaye,....". Rahemaan does that quite often, but I think it takes away the tempo of the song. But overall very good music, as expected from A.R. Raheman. I liked "dum tara" also very much.

Rating: *** (3 out of 5 stars)

Et tu Brutus?

2007-01-23T23:26:00.000+05:30

"ब्रुट्स तु सुद्धा ?" हा पर्श्न िवचार्ण्याची वेळ आली आहे ह्ल्ली "झी म्राठी" वर सुरु अस्लेला "सा रे ग म प" हा कार्य़्क्र्म बघून.
खरं म्ह्न्जे हा कार्य़्क्र्म मला तसा आवडतो. चांगला आवाज असणर्या, गोड गळ्याच्य़ा युवा गायकांचा हा टलेंट शो. शेवट्च्या १० म्धे आलेल्य़ा कलाकारांचा आवाज ख्रच छान आहे. शेवट्च्या ५ मधे आलेले तर थोड्या फार फारकाने सग्ळेच चांगले आहेत. आिण सगळ्यात आवडणारी गोष्ट म्हण्जे सार्य़ान्ची गाण्याची नीवड.
मला स्र्वात जास्त आवड्लेली कलाकार म्हन्जे मुम्बै ची अन्घा ढोमसे.
दुसरी एक आव्डलेली बाब म्ह्ण्जे एलीमीनेश्न प्रोसेस. प्रेक्श्कान्च्या एस्मेस व्र भ्र न देता, पहीले १० फ़्क्त परीक्षानी सीलेक्ट केलेले. त्यामुळे फेअर. अंतीम िनवड जरी प्रेक्श्क कर्णार अस्तील त्री, प्रीक्श्कान्च मत, अंतीम-पुर्व फेरी पर्यंत असणार आहे. त्यामुळे लास्की अस्लेला/ली च स्प्र्ध्क जींक्णार आहे. आणी परीक्ष्क देखील लाय़्कीचे आहेत (अवधूत गुप्ते चा परमनंट आणी महेश मांजरेकर चा टेंपररी अप्वाद वग्ळुन)
आता हया झाल्य़ा आवड्णर्य़ा बाबी. मग "ब्रुट्स तु सुद्धा ?" असे म्ह्णण्यची वेळ का यावी?
त्याच कारण आहे प्रीक्श्कांचा अती चीकीत्सक पणा. सुर्वातीला ते ठीक वाटायचं कारण तेव्हा त्यंचे कौमेंट्स संयुक्तीक असाय्चे. पण आता त्याची अतीशयोक्ती व्हायला लाग्ली आहे, जेव्हा की सग्ळेच गाणारे चांगले आहेत. तुम्च्या हाती माइक दीला आणी तुम्चे मत वीचारले याचा अर्थ हा नाही की क्रीटीसाइझ क्राय्लाच ह्वे. माझे असे म्ह्णणे नाही की तुम्हाला सगळ्यांच गाण आवडायलाच हवं. पण याचा अर्थ हा पण नाही की तुम्ही काहीही करुन गायका मधे खोट काढलीच पाहीजे. जर खरच रीलेव्हंट कोमेंट्स असतील तर ठीक आहे, पण तसे होत नाही. क्धी म्ह्णतील "तु नुस्ता सुरात गाय्ला, भाव नाही उमटले". आणी जर, भावपुर्ण कुणी गायल तर म्ह्णतील, "नुसत भाव येउन काही होत नाही, सुर येऊ देत". कूणी प्र्फौर्म्न्स चांग्ला दीला त्र म्ह्णतील "प्र्फौर्म्न्स कडॆ लक्ष नको, डोळे बंद क्रुन गा". आणी कुणी डोळॆ बंद क्रून गायलं त्र म्ह्णतील "प्र्फौर्म्न्स कडॆ लक्ष हवं". कुणी एखादे गाणे अगदी ओरीजीनल गाण्या सारखे जसे च्या तसे गायले तर म्ह्णतील "कौपी का करतोस, स्व्ताह्ची काही आय्डेन्टीटी नाही का", आणी कुणी जर स्व्ताह्च्या काही जागा घेतल्य़ातर म्ह्णतील, "स्व्ताह्च का घालतॊ, मुळ गाण बसवणारे काय मुर्ख आहेत का ते न घालायला?".

हा म्ह्णजे, क्रीटीसाइझ कराय्च म्ह्णुन करायचं असा ऐटीट्युड दीसून येतो. आणी देवकी पन्डीत कडुन याची अपेक्शा न्व्ह्ती. (अवधूत बद्दल न बोललेलेच बरे).

Donning the KBC Hat

2007-01-23T07:58:00.000+05:30

The much awaited and much hyped KBC returned yesterday with King Khan as the host. (Sounds like a Ekta Kapoor serial, everything starts with K:).
And as expected, Don failed to the achieve the bar set by Shahenshah.
At the outset, KK put a disclaimer that he would not be copying the style set by Big B. E.g. he would not be talking in pure hindi as Mr B did, he would not be using the phrase "Lock kar diya jaye". Then he made a cheap joke about "I can wear any kind of coat you want, including a petticoat" and it kind of summarized the level of the new KBC.
Whatever standard were set by Big B, the persona of a host created by him was completely degraded by SRKs behavior. Though, at the start of program he kind of explicitly made clear that he would not be having pressure of copying big B and would be creating a style of his own, but throughout the program it seemed the entire effort was on "not copying" AB, which made evident that he was under that pressure. He was not calling computer "computer jee" but was calling "compac Da" or "computer gogu(not sure if thats the right word)" depending on the mother tongue of the person sitting in front. He was not asking questions like "sure, confident" but asking childish "kachha kachha, pakka pakka?". Then he would allow a person to say "I Quit" but would ask him to say "Mai aapse gale milna chahta hu" which would mean i want to take an exit now. (Although he cant resist copying the Ab's style of rubbing him palms during the show and he can also not avoid the same mannerism/tone with which AB using to make announcements :) His style was not that effective. And giving hi-fives in between was very irritating and same was his regular hugs to participants.
To be honest, I was disappointed. Although I dont like SRK as an actor, I agree that he has a persona, his own style and has a charisma. But that charisma was not seen on small screen yesterday. The regal way with which AB carried the show, didnt seem possible for SRK and I didnt find much difference between him and Aman Verma. Even participants and their family members didnt look so exuberant talking to SRK as they did while talking to Mr Bachhan....in complete awe.
Will it prove a wrong move on King Khans part to come back to TV and spoil is charismatic image? Only time will tell.

Small things of GOD

2007-01-14T23:34:00.000+05:30

This God and religion thing amazes me. There is always so much fight (at smaller level or at a very high level) going on around, which boils down to saying "how my religion or God is better than yours". Now my theory is that, religious people or God believers can never fight over this issue. Only people who could fight over it are "atheists". (But what we observe is exact opposite to it: atheists never fight and religious people fight).
Almost every religion claims that there is only one GOD and that is its own GOD. Only one religion explains everything and that is its own religion.
So, if according to every religious person, there is only one God and GOD is universal, then it logically proves that they all are referring to the same person (or GOD). It doesn't make sense saying God of these 1000 people is different that those 2000 people, since God is universal and is the ultimate creator according to each of them. Which means God is only one but somehow He met these different people at different times and may be gave each of them some fake names (like Christ, Mohammad, Vishnu, or whatever...). But these innocent people didn't know this and believed their own version (perception) of 'that' GOD person as the true GOD. So, fooled by Him, everyone started fighting, claiming whom they met was the real GOD, not knowing that they are fighting over the same person.
So, very fact that each of these people believe that there is only GOD should be enough for them to realise that they all are of the same faith, but just fooled by names.
Since, atheists believe no such thing as God, they have all reasons to fight, but they don't.
So, does this mean God believers are not really true God believers???