2008... for better or worse...

Picking up from where muddu has left off, i thought i would do some research as to why it has been such an ominous year. According to the chineese astrology, this year is termed as the rat year. It is an animal associated with aggression, wealth, charm, and order, yet also associated with death, war, the occult, pestilence, and atrocities. While i have seen nothing regarding the wealth and order(and not even charm, except for few good looking girls i have seen at Forum :P)... this year has been a true representation of aggression, death, war, occult, pestilence and atrocities. While most of the other predictions that i have stumbled upon in the internet for the year 2008 have been proved to be fallacious, it is certainly an year to think about, rather than just forgetting and moving forward. 2008 has seen some disastrous events like the economic slump, the market blood bath, terrorist attacks. People have reacted to the atrocities. A great leader emerged in the americas, few more were duly elected in india. Let conscience prevail and bring positive changes...


Let us also pray in these last moments of one of the disastrous years... so that peace and prosperity is restored everywhere.

So.. i propose a toast to a better year and a better world...

Happy and prosperous new year 2009

My mom's physics

Are you better than your mom in applying physics and its concepts? I am certainly not.

Here are two such incidents that occurred to me....

1) After coming to bangalore, i started cooking and my mom gave me instructions that when cooking daal , add salt after the dal is cooked. I have been wondering why. But it occured to me that the boiling point of water is increased when we add impurities, especially salt. I googled and found out that the boiling point of sea water is 103 odd degrees. My mom never knew this but she knew that adding salt delays the cooking of daal. Howdy hell i didnt know that... and i claim that i got 120 out of 120 in phyiscs in my 12th(and 30/30 in practicals :P).

2) This incident made me think that my mom(or her mom, or her grand mom) discovered things that newton proclaimed to have discovered. Whenever i had some hot water in a bucket, my mom insisted me to add some cold water to it immediately. I asked her why and she said that because of this the hot remains hot for a longer time , even if you left the hot water just like that. Years later i read that newton's law of cooling is exactly the same. It says that the rate of cooling of a body is directly proportional to the difference between the temperature of the body and its surroundings.


You have the answer now, are you still better than your mom in application??

Journey into the dark... in Balram halwai's cab

Aravind adiga's first brainchild 'White tiger' is, as many would concur, a roller-coaster ride into the darkness of india. Let me first make it clear that it does not have a great story. But, the way the author narrated the story of a driver and his ambitions to become a 'social entrepreneur' is truly commendable. Balram halwai , the protoganist of the book comes from a remote village in Bihar with not many dreams but ends up as an owner of an enterprise. His journey from the school, where he is bestowed upon with the title 'White Tiger', through the tea shop in dhanbad, the driver of Mr. Ashok, and finally a successul owner in Bangalore, is truly amazing.

Balram, the driver of one Mr.Ashok is portrayed to be a highly intoverted person. I really loved the way the author described subtle things in the life of a driver and his encounters with the other workers in his owner's apartment. I am presently reading the author's second book, 'Between the assassinations'... will soon post the review of it here.

This Forrest ain't running anywhere...

The first thing that comes to mind, if u hear about Forrest gump is "Run, forrest, Run". Tom Hanks' exemplary action in the movie makes it even more memorable. I happened to go to Landmark few weeks back and Lo and behold, Forrest gump, Washington press book was on sale. I instantly made up my mind to buy the same.

People who have seen the movie sure would remember dialogs like, "Run, Forrest, Run", "Seat's taken!", "Life is a box full of chocolates, you never know which one you are gonna get!". This book ain't got any catchy dialogs like that, but it sure has few things the movie doesn't have.

The story plot is a whole bunch different from what you see in the movie. Here in this book, forrest is a chess champion, ping pong champion, an actor, an astronaut, a wrestler, a musician, and successful shrimp business owner and much more.... winston groom's great narration keeps you sticked to the book right till the end of the book.

There is Bubba, there is lieutenant Dan, and there is the poor old mama, but all of them have roles very different from what they are in the movie. Jenny curran, the love of forrest's life does not die of a disease at the end of the book, rather she marries another guy and that is one of the sad parts of the story.

There are many characters that you haven't seen or heard in the movie like the ape Sue which is one of the best friends of Forrest.

It is a good reliving experience after watching the movie... and a very good read.

how sirish gouda went to see a match, saw sachin, and got caught on camera :)

10th october 9:40 pm: Had dinner, ready to sleep as the next day was one of the most important days of my life.

10th october 11:30 pm: was still playing fifa'08 on my laptop...

10th october 2:20 pm: still playing fifa'08 ( lost 6 straight matches to bolton, and wanted to take revenge,,, kya karooo ... i am addicted to this game).. AT 2:30 finally beat bolton, and slept.

11th october 6:00 am : Woke up... i mean, hardly woke up to switch the alarm off... err... infact just snoozed it...

6:30 am : Dilip woke me up( FACT 1: Dilip, my roomie... a big fan of sachin and cricket... didnt sleep the whole night unable to contain his excitement) ... made me realise how important that day was....

7:30 am: had breakfast, started for the stadium at 8:00 am

8:30 am: venue : chinnaswamy stadium, bangalore. people were ecstatic, all kinds of people in a frenzy, everybody wants to get in the stadium as soon as possible, ( FACT 2: it rained in the last session on the last day and the play was supposed to start earlier today)

9:10 pm: finally entered the stadium... the very first sight of the stadium introduced sachin ramesh tendulkar in flesh to my eyes... was it a scintillating sight??? i bet my life it is.

Looks like you people are getting bored reading my diary with the most minutest details of the day... so i will cut it short..


The stadium was awesome, the crowd even better...( i think you got my point :P)... My day at the stadium started with the sight of sachin and saurav playing in the nets. India started of the day with 68 for no loss... and it started off the day very bad. Lost wickets in quick session. FACT 3: Actually to say the truth... we were equally culpable for india's bad performance...


It was the saga of the placards. We wanted to be famous by getting caught on the camera showing placards saying Thank you neo sports and blah blah.... !!!

But instead we thought of two very interesting quotes. The first one was after gambhir got out and dravid was on the field. We thought of writing " Don't break the wall, god (sachin) is behind it". Unfortunately sehwag got out before we even wrote the half of it. So we had to customise the quote as " Don't break the wall, prince is behind it" ( What customization, why don't i think like this in my mock cats :P)....

So there was sachin and dravid on the field.... we tried very hard to get captured ... but unfortunately we didnt get caught. So, we tried something else.... write a quote about sachin.. a very good one...

Saying .. " There is sachin, there is daylight and then there is the rest". As far as my memory goes, Tony grieg said this in one of the test matches against australia. It was a good quote ,.. u know... to get caught on camera... Again thunder struck on us... sachin got out... phew... i lost interest in the match...


So .. i slept to compensate for the last day's sleep... i mean i tried to sleep... amidst the loud crowd. Woke up just before lunch... when ganguly and dravid were trying to just get set in the game. The game after the tea was very interesting. ganguly got out , so did dravid. and it was harbhajan singh and Zaheer khan on the crease. they were taking it on the aussie bowlers and they were helpless... unconventional shots and some very good drives... brought the half century of harbhajan singh,,, and the very next moment we were on tv.... the crowd went bizarre... we were doing mexican waves... every next minute... and it was never so lively in the first two sessions...

After tea was amazing... and it rained afterwards and so match had to end soon... due to bad light.

That's the day from my perspective... much more to write abt the day.. but... no patience... :P

wall-E loves Eve...But do we love our earth ???

Disney and Pixar come up with yet another animation movie that has made its place into the imdb top 250. Atypical of a conventional animation movie, wall-E is a love story based movie with a beautiful message encrypted in its story. With a touch of humor, wall-E happens to be one of the very touching love stories i have ever seen.

The story goes around two robots wall-E and eve who meet each other on the earth some 700 years after the man kind left earth and settled in a space craft called the 'AXIOM' light years away from our galaxy. The wall-E's pursuit of eve happens to be the most touching part of the story.

The movie also puts before us a question which we all need to ponder about. It puts forward before us a virtual scenario where you have to abscond the earth and go live miles away from this galaxy, all because of the mess that we have created. we had to flee because of ...Pollution, war, terror and Deforestation and due to many other reasons...There is more to learn from this movie.. than what i can explain... I would go with 4 out of 5 for this movie

Watch it... and take a moment .... to think about our future...

It was a saturday when i saw "A Wednesday"

"Common man is resilient by force, not by choice"-
says Nasiruddin shah who played the anonymous common man character in the movie "A wednesday". The movie has many more great dialogues like the one above and an unparalleled plot with exemplary performances by anupam kher and nasiruddin shah. One should not forget the gravity brought about to the film by jimmy shergil and aamir bashir. The story is about a common man who is all set to take action on the atrocities that happen to the common junta of india. I would not reveal the actual plot of the movie as it would let down your feel of the movie when you watch it.

The story however puts forward an unconventional and belligerent approach to counter all the terrorist attacks. It also makes the government or the police force to brood over the issue of how serious the action against terrorists should be. I hope the public absorb the message in a positive way that will help the country move forward to state of eternal peace.


all in all for the performances and for the message delivered by the movie i would rate it 4/5. A must watch.

All is fair in Love and cricket...

"the Zoya factor" is one of the recent books i have read and is one of the funny narrations i have ever read. I did not read any reviews of this book earlier though, but had an urge to take it as soon as i saw it in Landmark, The Forum mall, Bangalore. Luckily, i got my money's worth after i read this book. The author, Anuja chauhan, whose brain child were ads like "oye bubbly", "mera number kab aayega" of pepsi, happens to say that this was her first effort in writing which lasted for more than sixty seconds.

The book is about a chubby, funny, crazy and fuzzy girl from Karol bagh named Zoya and here super - natural powers. She happens to be born on the very same day when India won world cup on 25th june, 1983 and precisely at the very same time when west indies' last wicket fell down. She is blessed with this divine power of making any team win , if only they had breakfast with her.

The indian team happens to find this out and send her to an all expenses paid tour to australia where india plays for the world cup in 2011. The indian skipper, the other protagonist in the book happens to be all macho, (potryaed to be similar to Dhoni), does not believe in luck and believes only in the talent of his team. Eventually this talented captain falls in love with the chubby Zoya.

The book is full of humorous incidents, bloated ego pool side conversations, whacky ad descriptions, interesting romantic situations and much more. Though the book is slighlty bigger than what it shud have been, Anua chauhan was successful in creating a funny character and decently good book.

I would rate this book 3.5 out of 5 and say that it's worth reading...

the much hyped..

iPhone comes to india ... but at what cost ?


the all awaited iphone hits the indian market this august 22nd. the price for the phone has been decided to be 709 $ roughly equivalent to 31000 indian bucks. It is my conviction that i phone is highly overpriced for the features available and as per the indian market, price is one thing which is very important. Many players which provide high end phones like htc, o2 etc., have brought in exceptionally good mobile phones at reasonably low price and it seems like iphone will have to cut down its prices to compete with these players.

All this on one side, there are customers who are ready to invest more than what iphone deserves for the apple brand. apple has been satisfying it's customers and one thing they bank on is customer's brand loyalty. Will iphone gain it's loyalty in india ? ... only time shall answer the question.

why so serious?

The dark Knight unarguably one of the best movies i have ever seen on the big screen. Though the movie was very lengthy, to be precise 2 hours 32 minutes, never would anyone feel bored or let down. Though the story is about batman which is played by the talented Christian bale, It was the magnificent and dark role done by the joker( Heath Ledger) that has brought accolades to the movie. It is my strong conviction that Heath ledger will be awarded the posthumous academy award for his unparalleled performance in the movie. The movie is on rank 2 of the 250 best movies of all time on IMDB (Internet Movie database) only after shawshank redemption with a rating of 9.2.

The movie's storyline revolves around three main characters Batman, The joker and harvey dent, the district attorney of Gotham city played by Aaron Eckhart. The movie has excellent action sequences and mind boggling dialogs like " Why so serious ? " , " Do i look like a man with a plan?", " You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a villain". Maggie Gyllenhall has done equal justice to the role of Rachel Dawes which was played by the gorgeous Katie holmes in the previous batman movie , " The Batman Begins". The protean Morgan Freeman and Micheal Caine supported Christian Bale in his fight against crime in the movie.

All in all... I would rate 5 out of 5 for the movie which has unprecedented performances.

Lazy lamhe....

For the past few days i am expecting anything but surprises...

Work at Office is almost at halt ... I am literally on bench for the past 3 weeks...

No wonder i must have gained some good weight considering my lackadaisical moments both at home and at work...

The last time i really worked upon my billi prep was a long time ago... and it is reflecting very much in my ridicules(find another word for this u will understand what it is)...

So i thought i would at least put some effort and push this lazy arse ... and write a few lines my blog...

I still maintain my status.. by abruptly.. ending...

Don't expect much from me.... I am tired :P

Maximum city...

I have started reading this book called... maximum city... by suketu mehta. I have just completed 50 pages but started loving the book. It is either because of the prowess of the author, the way he describes the "maximum city", Mumbai ...or the fact that I have this special connection with Maharashtra that makes this particular book a special one.

Will talk more about the book soon... Till then... a small quote from the book...


Sau me ek sau ek beimaan,
Phir bhi mera Bharat hein Mahaan.

In English :

101 out of 100 people are dishonest,
Still my India is the best.

another interesting quote

"Life is like a narrow beam over an endless chasm, a beam we have to walk blindfolded. It's bad,

but not bad enough. Sometimes, we also get pushed....."

Stephen King,(The Library Policeman)

interesting quote

Shoot for the moon and if you miss you'll still be among the stars... :)

thak gaya yaar....aur kitna daudoo...

i saw.... i registered... i ran...

Hi folks...

I was talking about the sunfeast 10k run that was held on 18th may i.e, two days back. I have participated in the majja run(5.7 km) and i have successfully completed the run in 35 min...

The run was great entertainment... apart from the scorching heat...( my legs are still sore though) there was more than one reason to ... contemplate and complete the run... kingfisher (courtesy : vijay mallya) provided unparalleled entertainment all thru the run and the day before that too... (i guess you people know what i am talking about)

There were more than 5000 participants all round and it was surely a moment i would cherish all throughout my life that i had participated in the richest 10k run on the planet( Hey!!! i didn't say that... the publicity guys said that...). One of my friends, Uma Shankar also participated with me..... thanks to him... for waiting for me... to complete the race with him...

One thing we noticed was... we were surely unfit... for a 10k run or more... we needed more stamina....to do that...


All in all... great experience... money's worth... and much more...


Next time something like this happens.... we decided that we would go for the 10k for sure...

Cheers to sunfeast and Cheers to kingfisher especially...

we hate each other... and love more than that...

My previous post has been long back in february while i was reading the book inspite of the gods...
and it was about an atrocious act in Godhra in 2002. But those atrocious acts come into the lime light and not the incidents which make india such a great country...

Recently i started reading a book called Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts and ... i stumbled upon a strange statement...

"What would happen if as many French or American people as the number of Indians were allowed to stay in a place as small as India. They would kill each other ..for space..."

It is only the love for each other in Indians that allows them to live in a place like India. The author describes an incident where he travels in a local train in Mumbai which is as crowded as it can be and to his bewilderment nobody actually complains. If you have been ever to Mumbai ...
you would know how much you have to adjust to travel in a second class compartment in the local train.


I have just completed some 100 pages out of the 900 odd page book... and i am loving it like hell...

Keep watching... more to come on this book.

a blood stain on the virtue called humanity...

It was more than just a lump in my throat when i read the article about the mass killings in gujarat in 2002 . This gross act was an exhibition of demonic behavior at the highest level. People were killed(many infact were burned to death), treated grossly, and were left homeless.

I know that most of us are aware of this gruesome act and it has been almost 6 years now that it has happened, but it makes me feel how cruel the world around me is.

I was discussing this with one of my friends and she says that ... this is a phase in the process of civilization of mankind and it was evident that incidents like these happen in a multi religious nation like India. If this was true... then the very meaning of civilization is defied. Man is progressively becoming a beast.

A wise man once man said that religion is a belief on the basis of which you live your life. Fortunately for him he is not alive to see these atrocious human acts....