RDB=RDX+Bhangra

na koi padhne wala na koi sikhne wala
apni toh paathshala masti ki paathshala

5 rebels let loose….by the society..by ther parents..searching around for a purpose to lead ther life for….booze…bike…fun…rebel…

hai liye hathiyaar dushman taak mein baitha udhar
aur hum taiyyaar hain seena liye apna idhar

5 rebels let loose….simmering wit anger…angry wit the world…angry abt their country’s pathetic state..ready to weed out evil..

Rang De Basanti– the movie everyone was waiting for especially Aamir Khan’s earlier dud at the box office, The Rising. And trust me, its worth the wait. It teaches one patriotism without the jingoisms usually associated with it. Bet ppl of our generation wud hve learnt more abt Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad & Co. through this movie than the earlier attempts at glorifying them(three movies i think and all were flops). You laugh out loud when DJ realises that Sue can understand and even speak hindi. You cry when Sonia learns about Ajay‘s(a pilot) death due to a plane crash. You rise from ur seat with anger when the defence minister says that it was the pilot Ajay’s mistake. You can feel the goose pimples when Sonia says “Maar Daalo” to her friends.

Rebels turn revolutionaries. All thanks to Sue’s plan to shoot a movie about the revolutionaries who challenged the British might and woke up a nation. A nation that was the jewel in the crown of the “Empire”. A nation whose people let themselves be looted without even caring to raise a voice. As they shoot the movie, the rebels realise that India hasnt changed much. Here is where the director’s ploy has to be lauded. Instead of going overboard with long speeches about brastaachar and parampara, he underplays and let the script do the talking. The correlation between the Old and the New order is just perfect. India has not changed much, the rebels realise. The nation is sleeping once again and to wake them up, they resort to the same method. The result??well, that only the future can tell….

The king is back….Rahman’s music is not only refreshing but also has been cleverly placed in the movie. Be it bhangra or rap or blues or plain melody, he scores. About the cast: Aamir(DJ) is his usual cherub self. The character can be described as a cross between Mangal pandey in The Rising and Akash in Dil Chahta Hai. Atul Kulkarni(Laxman) as the Hindu fundamentalist realises that you need not be a Hindu to be a Ram and politics based on religion does not go beyond vote bank. Kunal Kapoor(Aslam) is the restrained muslim youth who cannot understand why on earth is he expected to hate a Hindu. Sharman Joshi(Sukhi) is the happy-go-lucky guy who cant live without his friends and is ready to give his life for them. Soha(Sonia) acts so well tat i am sure her brother Saif can learn a thing or two from her. Alice Patten(Sue) first hindi dialogue is “teri maa ki…” 😀 Till the end she carries the movie but then is sidelined and she remains a mute spectator to metamorphosis from rebel to revolutionary. Maddy(Ajay) is like the godfather who makes the rebels realise that therez no use in sulking as long as they cant take up the matter in ther hands. His is a cameo and he plays it without much of a fuss.

Then comes my favorite, Sidharth aka Karan. Guess he represents the Generation-Y more than anyone else. He is like how Amitabh wud hve been before his angry young man image. Totally restrained. Lost and looking hopeless. In search of some purpose. He steals the thunder from Aamir especially at the climax. The retro look with a 70’s ishtyle Ray Ban and a cigarrete throughout the movie suits him to a T. The way he lets out his anger at the maligning of Ajay’s name and his handling of the climax shows how much he has matured as an actor. Though one hopes he is not typecast in similar roles and suffer the same fate as Madhavan after RUN.

Overall, a movie that should be a casestudy for other directors in Bollywood. Especially those who ape Western movies and think that shouting profanities or melodrama is wat we people luv wotching.

Statutory Warning:
This review is for those people who have wotchd this movie already. So do not complain that I have revealed the story and all other stuff 😀

Tsunami in Calicut

NIT-CALICUT:

RED ALERT……..

MAY DAY MAY DAY MAY DAY!!!!!!!

SOS…SOS…..

Calicut,friday the 20th:
On wednesday, the 18th, the wireless link b/w the prod. engg dept and the F hostel in NIT Calicut failed. Since then there has no internet in the F hostel. For people’s information, F hostel is the final year hostel out here and is the only one with 24hrs(!) internet connection at present. The timing tho was perfect:just three days before the sessionals. For some it was God sent. The administrator told me that the Inet in NIT Calicut stands for Intelligent Net since the connection somehow fails just before the exams.
However some felt otherwise. Sample quotes:
“man i surf for relaxin in between studies…no net…. n its all drivin me crazy :O”
“hostel is so lifeless without the net :(( “
“Wheres ma oxygen…?:X”
“F**k…Damn…..Screw it…Bull S**t…”
The inmates are so despo that the F hostel Janda is on half mast now. Also, a statue of Lord Vinayaga(the e-God!) has been erected and the special Cybera Yagna has been started.(Its the cyber world Aswamedha Yagna…a virus has been let loose and the admin has to chase it :D) Also for support measures, students from other colleges are rushing in with extra bandwidth to save the life of the inmates. And to top it all, a bug(Aloha Kirkaldy) has been spotted in the Campus Networking Centre. This has resulted in erratic connection to even the Computer Centres located in the various departments in the college. And this has resulted in frequent black outs in the whole college. Latest reports indicate that it would take atleast 2 or 3 days for the connection to be bak to normal. Till then, students have been asked to bear wit the authorities and not to resort to any means of violence(!).
———————————————————————————————————————————-
PPL, I have my internals from tomorrow. So all the visitors do remember me whenever u pray to God :)(I know u do but then just 2 remind all) Next weekend,I wud be visiting Coimbatore to meet my skool buds and then to NIT Trichy to participate in the Techfest there. Then from Trichy to Salem, for my friend Bala’s sister’s wedding and wud be back in Calicut by 3rd of february. So doubt whether it wud be possible for me to drop in a post till then..Kindly do bear with me 🙂
Also, i am getting into a lot of blog debts lately…cant really help it…the net sucks and it takes ages for me to post my comments…shall clear my debts when I come back 😀
Till then…ciao and bye…..Have a gr8 time 🙂

O Presario

Diamond knocked over the candle on Newton’s desk, starting a fire that destroyed records of many years’ research. Legend has it that Newton, viewing the destruction, said only, “O Diamond, Diamond, thou little knowest the damage thou hast done.”

Monday 16th January 2006:
Time 6:30 AM
I had slept early the previous night(1 30..by my standards!)….had a pretty disturbed sleep…calicut seems hotter at night time. I had set an alarm in my cell phone for 6 30 and it did its duty and rang. With no intention to wake up but just to switch it off, i got up. Before i did so, i looked at ma computer. I never switch it off and so looked if i had got any new mail or scrap. To my horror, I was not staring at the usual Tarzan2 sleep wallpaper. Instead there was some message being displayed. Having wotchd a rerun of the matrix trilogy a week ago, I thought Morpheous had finally found me.Yessss….I knew it……. I am the ONE….wow!!! 😎 I cudn believe my eyes and so rubbed them and looked again….my happiness was shortlived and as i read the contents on ma screen, my face turned pale:

chainloader error
(hd0,0)
Error no: 13: Unspecified format. blah….blah….blah….

Wait a nimite…..This aint anywhere similar to wat I had expected:
Do you want to know wat the matrix is, Vivek?

So at 6 30 on a monday morning, I learnt my comp was knocked out…wat a start to the week!!!

Such a knock down is a usual thing in a computer. And being a CSE student, I knew there was no need to panic. But the real horror hit me when I learnt tat my entire C drive was wiped out(it contained 4 GB of data) and the worst part was when I realised that the 4 GB contained also contained the only copy of the tech paper and its references which I had finished a week back. I had sent the paper to a tech symposium a week back but it was not selected and was hoping to send it to other techfests. Usually I have backups in my various inbox(u never know which Mail is gonna konk out) ,my friends comp,etc. But this time, I had not done anything of tat sort and had lost the only copy of my precious(!) paper.

I reinstalled Windows XP Pro….it gets installed in a jiffy and my comp is bak alive and kicking. However all I cud do was to stare at ma computer and say:
“O Presario, Presario, thou little knowest the damage thou hast done.”

May his soul RIP

I had sent one of my stories, “Did it rain…” to blogchaat and they have accepted my entry…do check the site out 🙂

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I was once chatting wit a gal from USA.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Me:Hi
Her:hii
Me:A/s/l??(age/sex/location)
Her:18/f/Virginia u??
Me:19/m/India
Her:India??????
Me: Yeah..y??
Her:I just love India
Me:Oh..tas so nice
Her: I have two friends who are Indian
Me: good…so wassup??
Her: Are you a hindu?
Me: Yes I am.
Her: Do u mind if I ask u somethin?
Me:nope..go ahead…
Her: Err…you have lotsa Gods rite?
Me: lotsa Gods?
Her: I have seen in my friends house…they worship lots of Gods and some of them are animals in fact…why do u worship them?
Me: who…the Gods or the animals?
Her: The animals…y do u worship animals ?? 🙂
(The answer was like a response to stimuli…I don even know if its true or not)
Me:Hmm…ppl then were like barbarians..they used to kill any animal for food…
Her:Then?
Me:In the olden ages..n they vr illiterates..so it was not an easy task to convince them about such stuff..so the priests told them that each animal is a God and strung together a story to convince them that they should not kill all animals 🙂
Her: like?
Me:for instance, we worship the cow. we call her kamadhenu..in fact we even hold festivals for Her and pray for our welfare. we have lotsa stories
Her: like fables?
Me: Yeah like fables…epics,etc…wat about u?
Her:I am a good natured Christian.
Me: 🙂
Her: I visit the church every sunday..a good goody gal 🙂
Me: oh yeah?
Her: 🙂 …U know wat the priest was telling us during our previous Mass..??
Me:wat?
Her: He told us abt our president
Me:oh bush?
Her: yeah…hes done so much for us…u know wat, hes gonna save the world from doom..for instance 9/11..wat all good he has done…
Me:hmm..
Her: Ii will b eligible for voting durin the coming elections and I am gonna vote for him..wat do u think??
Me: Dunno much abt US politics…so cant say much 😉
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
“Like it or not, faith in the Apocalypse is a powerful driving force in modern American politics. In the 2000 election, the Christian right cast at least 15 million votes, or about 30 percent of those that propelled Bush into the presidency. And there’s no doubt that arch-conservative Christians will be just as crucial in the coming election: GOP political strategist Karl Rove hopes to mobilize 20 million fundamentalist voters to help sweep Bush back into office on Nov. 2 and to maintain a Republican majority in Congress, says Joan Bokaer, director of Theocracy Watch, a project of the Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy at Cornell University.”

Neat rite???…. 🙂

PS:
No offence meant to anyone 🙂

From Beverly Hills to

I had forgotten to include my favorite songs of in my new year post…well the list is pretty lengthy rite from suprabatham(yeah!) to Greenday’s Boulevard of broken dreams. But theres one song which will always remain in my memory..kinda perfect song: good lyrics, well picturised and soul stirring music…its from the OST of the movie“Notting Hill”. The song is “Aint no sunshine” by Bill Withers.
The situation is: Julia Roberts is an actress who falls in love with a bookstore owner in Notting Hill, Hugh Grant. They break up due 2 a difference of opinion and the hero is left heart broken. The song comes in the background as the hero walks thro the streets of Notting Hill. Time keeps moving, weather keeps changing and a year later, its spring again. The hero realises that its for the good of his own self n the people around him if he forgets the whole matter as the sun comes out blazing 🙂

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
It’s not warm when she’s away
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
and she’s always gone too long
Anytime she goes away

Wonder this time where she’s gone
Wonder if she’s gonna stay
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
and this house just ain’t no home
anytime she goes away

And I know, I know…

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
Only darkness everyday

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone
and this house just ain’t no home
anytime she goes away

The movie also has another hit song as its OST “When you say nothing at all” by Ronan Keating
Also, this was one of the major hits of the year 1999 and will forever b remembered for what 15million paid actress tells a divorced bookstore owner @ the climax ” After all… I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her. “

Mera Number kab Aayega

I had always luved the rebel tag. It allowed me to be regularly irregular, lazy n carefree. At one point or the other, I knew tat I wud hve to shed the rebel tag n assume the one of a ordinary guy ready to join the millions of people in leading an ordinary life:without any purpose or issue. We have to keep moving in a circle trying to hold our heads higher than the neigbhouring person never realising that one is standing besides a midget.
So I decided on December 31st of 2005 that I would try out all the cliches. Become a stereotype :O
First cliche was the new year resolution. Still cannot understand why people take new year resolutions. “Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.“, Oscar Wilde stated once. Not my favorite author still, I accepted wat he said. But I had to change. So I said no thanks to Mr. Oscar and looked around for a resolution. After a brainstorming session that lasted for more than a day, I found one:”Never to settle for the second best..“Hmmm..last year, I had to settle for the second best many times.
First off was food. Some eat to live. I live to eat(atleast till I joined college). What the heck..why do u wanna earn so much money if u cant have good food? First thing that I checked out in col during ma first year was the food. I had heard enuff abt REC food. My cousin once found a dead cockroach in his dinner plate. So I had 2 ready myself for anything. But I wasnt ready. Cmon, I had luvd food all my life. Had fought wit ppl who din like good food(yes there r few ppl like tat). So wit gr8 trepidation, I tasted REC food. It wasnt as bad as my cuz had told me. Still, it tasted aweful. When we met our seniors for the first time, the first question that I asked them was whether the food is always bad. They all broke into laughter(cmon ppl, I am serious). As years progressed it only got worse and the previous sem was the worst of all. Aweful food in all the mess. Then a new mess was opened in the E hostel. North Indian ishtyle. Gr8 and awesome food. I had never been there n as per my new year resolution, I decided to join this mess.
So I walked into the mess on sunday evening. If I had joined then, I wud hve had 2 pay for sunday also. So, I told the mess guy tat I wud join the next day n hav dinner as a guest to a frnd of mine. He said no problem and I had a sumptuous dinner. I usually skip the breakfast. But the fee for this mess was very high n so I had no chance but to b regular(sob! sob!)
I walked in to the mess on monday noon n the mess guy politely told me that the mess was full n I cannot join n wud hve to get permission from the steward. The issue was that all the other mess in the college were run by a single contractor and this one by a different person. As usual politics had raised its head and so the contractors fixed a limit of 250 per mess so that E doesn hve a monopoly. I met the steward and he asked me to meet some higher authority. I had seen lots of such things n knew that this wudn get anywhere. Some ppl got the higher official to sign a notice that the first 250 who gave the mess card wud b allowed to join the mess. Mess card is given if one has no dues(wit regards to the previous months’ mess bill). I duly got one(regular me :)) and gave it to the mess guy. He warned me that if the ppl who had signed up b4 me gave the mess card, I wud hve to go. I thought others wudnt and so enjoyed the food without any worry.
Today mornin, I got up early and trudged to the mess for breakfast. The mess guy grinned and I knew there was somethin wrong. He told me tat others had given the card and I had no option but to exit. He asked me to hve breakfast there and then leave.Hummph!!!So much for being regular 😦 I had the breakfast(which was good) n resigned to the fate that I wud hve to join another mess. I then went to the F hostel mess n signed up there 😦

Fate has this subtle way of dealing with people’s mind. It shows us that one cannot have an instant change. Instead, it gradually allows us to change. Of course with pain n happiness in equal measure so that we remember each step we took upon the path of change and never commit the same mistake. I have to accept it and go on and be patient. But bad food :(( Mera Khana Kab Aayega :O

Buh Byee 2005

2005..Itsnt a year I wud forget for a long time to come..so thot of putting up a post …inspired by Trinity’s post on the same.
Moments of the year:
1. When I was selected as the placement rep for my class
1. When I got placed in Infosys
2. When I wrote my first poem 🙂

Week of the year:
1. October 1 to October 8: Was successful in bringing Intel, Google, Yahoo, HP STSG and McAfee to our campus. Its a week I would b proud of for years to come 🙂

Bleaky days of the year:
1. October 7: Was selected for HP STSG interview but screwed it big time…first question was a routine quiz question(the interviewer had spotted quizzing in my resume) n i answer it wrong..next moment, i knew then that the job was down the drain.
2. November 1: Worst diwali in my college life…Was the first person in my college to hve booked tickets for chennai but the floods ruined it…then thot of leaving for cbe but an upcoming project submission ruined tat :X…ended up sleeping n wotching “Dil Chahta Hai” on divali.

Days of the year:
1. July 13: when I got placed in Infy
2. Dec 31: started the day wit a darshan of The Almighty at Guruvayoor temple. Met every1 I knew someway or the other. Had a gr8 dinner at Mezbaan(A star hotel in calicut) and roamed around on the beach.

My Gadget of the year:
1. My nokia 1108. Da best mobile for Indian conditions..cant imagine how I wud hve spent this year without tat..thnx mate 🙂
2. My new digicam(yashica!).haven tinkered with it yt but its a sleeky thing n gonna max it nxt year
3. Apple Ipod..Haven bought it yet but shall b buying it tis year..top on my wish list.

Addictions:
1.Orkut.. started in september…1280 scraps n counting… 😉
2.Blog world..tho i started bloggin in my first year..tis is te first time i hv been blogging for so long.
3.Total Club Manager 2004 By far, the best computer game I have played all my life
4.Fifa2005: second best 😉
5.English Premier League on Espn Star
6.Movies..must have wotchd more than 100 easily 🙂

Books of the year:
1. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand(yet to finish reading it but every page is a lesson learnt)
3. “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” by J.K. Rowling(bcos its sorta groundwork for a fitting finale for the HP saga)

Been Awed By:
1. Google‘s pre placement talk and interacting wit their employees when they visited our campus.
2. The fact tat the world has shrunk so much.
3. Chelsea FC ‘s awesome display in 2005.
4. Mother Nature(Tsunami last year n floods, earthquakes and wat not all over the place…gues She was very ‘piss’ed off :O)
5. Kasi Viswanathan Temple at Thenkasi.

Dumbest Quote of the year:
1. “Yahoo and Google are not competitors…Yahoo leads Google in search engine domain” 😀
2. “I can tell you that the evidence for global warming is weaker than its proponents would ever admit“-Micheal Crichton

Movie of the year:
1. Schindler’s List: never has a movie affected me so much as this one did.
2. Memento
3. Snatch
4. HP4: best HP movie till date
5. Finding Neverland
6. Chandramukhi-Thalaivar bak in form n a movie for all ages in tamil after a very long time.
Nicknames:
PRrr, Crazzy, Freakkk, Peter Pandi, Geekio, Pressure Cooker, Vetti Officer lol 😀

Lastly, I wud never forget this year bcos
1. I met unbelievably large no: of people 🙂
2. My technical skills vr at an all time low :((
3. My memory is becoming very ‘leaky’ nowadays :O
4. I can TALK 😀
5. Have found a reason to look forward for the new year with lotsa hope,optimism,vigour and warmth 😉

WISHING ALL THE VISITORS A VERY VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR n A ROCKING 2006!!!!