We’ve been mugging up from childhood the famous proverb that Time and tide wait for none. So it’s proven once again. The year 2008 has come to an end in no time. In some parts of the world, the celebrations might already have begun.
2008 has not been just another year for me. It’s something different because:
• This is the year when I’ve made a lot of good friends on the Bloggerville, some whom I call brothers and sisters.
• This is the year where I’ve learnt a lot of things in professional life, particularly people management. The main lesson among these professional things is: don’t ever let your superiors think that you are at your disposal, anytime.
• This is the year when I met some wonderful people in the real world.
• This is the year when my little sister got married.
• This is the year when I saw happiness in some helpless eyes when they are helped.
• This is the year which helped me realize that there’s nothing called “mine”.
And coming to the “personal” front,
• This is the year in which I’ve learnt some cooking.
• This is the year when I first watched an F1 race.
• This is the year when I first rode a jet-ski.
• This is the year in which I’ve bought some real cool gadgets(Guys are guys na?)
Well, I end this year here. I wish you all an extremely prosperous, recession-controlled, financially-stable, job secure, debt-free, investment-profiting, promotion-assured, hike-replete, war-free, air/water/rail/road-safe, earthquake free, terrorist-free, friends-filled, romance-blooming, healthy, joyous and cheerful New Year 2009.
Note: Those wishes are lifted from some mail. Don't think too big about my creative brain. It's too small.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Ghajini Rocked
The wait is over. The most awaited movie of the year(at least for me), Ghajini, is released. Being a die-hard fan of Aamir Khan and also to the original flick(?) in Tamil, I was eager to see the movie ASAP and I was lucky enough to watch the premier show last night.
The verdict is out. The movie rocked. I already saw both the Tamil and Telugu versions on the big screen and was a bit doubtful about the Hindi flick. Surya was absolutely awesome in the South Indian version and even though, Aamir developed the required physique and all, there was a small doubt somewhere in me. But all my doubts are cleared.
I won't write anything about the plot, except that the makers struck to the original storyline, almost. Performance-wise, Aamir Khan outperformed himself and did complete justice to the role. Asin did a marvelous job, even though she did just what she did in the original flick. Jian Khan is OK in a small role. The villain, Pradeep Rawat, was good(but not as good as the Tamil flick).
Coming to the technical aspects, the narration of the movie was awesome and free-flowing. The way the flashback unfolds was very neatly done(something novel). The director, A R Murugadoss, did a splendid job. The camera work was very well done by Ravi K Chandran.
But you should give a bow to the maestro, A R Rahman, for his music. As you all know, the songs were a big hit with the people. The background score was awesome. Something which cannot be expressed in my words.
Overall, the movie has a big BLOCKBUSTER written all over it. My rating will be 4 out 5.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Atrocities on females
I don’t know how many of you know what Mahatma Gandhi has told about Independence. His words were something like – India will get its true independence only when a woman(or girl) can walk alone freely at midnight on the roads.. Does anyone agree with this? I, myself, strongly agree with it. Independence is not just for individuals but it’s the same for the whole nation(humankind).
Now, let’s talk a little about LOVE. I know that it’s tough to talk just a little about it, but let’s try to do so. LOVE is between two hearts and it can’t just be confined to one heart. It’s not meaningful to say either that one should do anything to gain success in life or that one should do anything nasty to cover up his/her failure in love. I am bringing up these issues to show the increasing crime rate in my home state(or the whole world) just showing failure in love as the main motive.
About a week or ten days back, an incident happened in the town of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh, India. Two final year engineering students(Swapnika and Praneetha) are attacked by some people who threw acid on them. Both the girls are seriously injured. Swapnika’s condition is still said to be critical. Police somehow caught the three assailants out of whom one Mr Srinivas was harassing Swapnika on the lines love for quite sometime. It’s another irrelevant story that these three guys were shot dead in an “encounter” by the police.
In another horrific incident, again in Andhra Pradesh, one guy attacked a married lady after she rejected a request of intimate relation by him. He cut her hands and neck.
And just yesterday, a budding actress was said to be murdered by her husband(her parents disagree that their daughter was married). The guy, after killing her, died by consuming poison. The motive was found in a letter that the girl started ignoring him after she started getting more chances in the film industry.
And one good friend of mine was a bit dull while we were chatting some days back. When I asked her for the reason, she said that she was in love this colleague of her for the past one year and when the matter was put in front of their parents, his parents didn’t agree for the marriage. And now, the guy was telling her that their relation can’t continue as his parents didn’t like her.
Com’on guys, why do we play with lives? I know it’s not just the guys who play the tricks always. I heard about some girls too. But, the majority of these issues are blamed(!) on guys. Let’s be an example to the other guys out there.
I don’t exactly know what I want to say with this post. But I hope you got the whole idea behind it.
Now, let’s talk a little about LOVE. I know that it’s tough to talk just a little about it, but let’s try to do so. LOVE is between two hearts and it can’t just be confined to one heart. It’s not meaningful to say either that one should do anything to gain success in life or that one should do anything nasty to cover up his/her failure in love. I am bringing up these issues to show the increasing crime rate in my home state(or the whole world) just showing failure in love as the main motive.
About a week or ten days back, an incident happened in the town of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh, India. Two final year engineering students(Swapnika and Praneetha) are attacked by some people who threw acid on them. Both the girls are seriously injured. Swapnika’s condition is still said to be critical. Police somehow caught the three assailants out of whom one Mr Srinivas was harassing Swapnika on the lines love for quite sometime. It’s another irrelevant story that these three guys were shot dead in an “encounter” by the police.
In another horrific incident, again in Andhra Pradesh, one guy attacked a married lady after she rejected a request of intimate relation by him. He cut her hands and neck.
And just yesterday, a budding actress was said to be murdered by her husband(her parents disagree that their daughter was married). The guy, after killing her, died by consuming poison. The motive was found in a letter that the girl started ignoring him after she started getting more chances in the film industry.
And one good friend of mine was a bit dull while we were chatting some days back. When I asked her for the reason, she said that she was in love this colleague of her for the past one year and when the matter was put in front of their parents, his parents didn’t agree for the marriage. And now, the guy was telling her that their relation can’t continue as his parents didn’t like her.
Com’on guys, why do we play with lives? I know it’s not just the guys who play the tricks always. I heard about some girls too. But, the majority of these issues are blamed(!) on guys. Let’s be an example to the other guys out there.
I don’t exactly know what I want to say with this post. But I hope you got the whole idea behind it.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
A real longggggg weekend
Hi folks, my sincere apologies for being away for the past 10 days or so. We got a real looonggggg weekend of 6 days here - a couple of days for the weekend and 4 days for the Eid-Al-Adha(also called Bakrid back home in India). I thought of making this weekend an Internet-free one and never checked even my office mail, except when I went to office for a couple of hours during these 6 days.
Well, a lot of things happened during this weekend, including a Bachelor party and some unwanted shopping and lot of sleeping. I played cricket a couple of times and my weakness for fuller straight balls showed up yet again. I was bowled both the times and the last occasion, I sprained my shoulder while fielding. Now, it almost healed.
Coming to the bachelor party, guys from the Telugu community here wanted to host a bachelor party for quite some time. Don’t assume that all those guys were bachelors. Out of the total 16 people who attended the party, only 3 of us were bachelors and a couple of forced bachelors were also present. The party was held at my flat as it was the only bachelor flat around which can hold so many people. We hired a cook for the cooking and I had to clean the flat all by myself because most of my friends had office the day before the party. Believe me, I never thought that my flat had so many items(I saw some crockery which I never saw before)!!!! Anyways, I was too tired after all the cleaning as it’s been a long while since we cleaned the whole flat. I cleaned a whole 4 kilos of prawns while helping the cook(I never even touched a raw prawn before).
The day of the party has finally arrived. The age groups of the guests varied from 25 to 62. The eldest guy had a son who’s older than me. The menu was long but all the items were prepared at home itself. The menu included chicken 65, mutton sukka, pepper prawns, chicken curry, fried fish, onion pakodas, fried rice and carrot curry. The beverage list included Chivas Regal, Fosters and Grants. A total of three and half bottles of whisky made its way down the throats of attendees along with a couple of crates of beer. Another interesting aspect in the party was the rummy game which I played with a huge group after a real long time. I lost money in almost all the games except the last game in which I made some profit too(the stakes were higher in this one). The party finally finished at 4 45 AM the next day(it was the time when I bid adieu to the last of the guests).
So far, everything looked fine. But, our troubles started the next day when we had to do the cleaning of utensils, glasses and the whole flat all over again. The cook, who promised to visit us the next day, was nowhere to be seen and again all my friends had to go to office. It took us(me) almost two days to clean the whole mess one-by-one(we made plans to finish everything off in phases). Now, we are almost back to normal(hey, where’s my tiny aquarium which used to be right next to my laptop?).
Next big thing during these holidays was my unwanted shopping. My stupid shopping list included a 256 GB external hard disk, a 10.1 mega pixel CASIO digital camera, an electronic shaver(all are on discounted prices) etc. The main reason why this shopping is called unwanted is because I don’t really need any of these items and the second reason is this shopping was done when I was really running low on cash.
And yesterday, it was the Indian night at the Nation’s Art Festival here in Bahrain. I was very much depressed with that program because out of some 15 events during the night, only 5 or 6 really depicted the true Indian culture. Only Andhra Pradesh and Assam did their part well in depicting their culture. All other events are Bollywood based dances. But believe me, it was too hard to hold a handycam steady for long with the cold wind blowing hard at you.
Well folks, this is what happened during my absence from the Bloggerville. Will be around from now on.
Well, a lot of things happened during this weekend, including a Bachelor party and some unwanted shopping and lot of sleeping. I played cricket a couple of times and my weakness for fuller straight balls showed up yet again. I was bowled both the times and the last occasion, I sprained my shoulder while fielding. Now, it almost healed.
Coming to the bachelor party, guys from the Telugu community here wanted to host a bachelor party for quite some time. Don’t assume that all those guys were bachelors. Out of the total 16 people who attended the party, only 3 of us were bachelors and a couple of forced bachelors were also present. The party was held at my flat as it was the only bachelor flat around which can hold so many people. We hired a cook for the cooking and I had to clean the flat all by myself because most of my friends had office the day before the party. Believe me, I never thought that my flat had so many items(I saw some crockery which I never saw before)!!!! Anyways, I was too tired after all the cleaning as it’s been a long while since we cleaned the whole flat. I cleaned a whole 4 kilos of prawns while helping the cook(I never even touched a raw prawn before).
The day of the party has finally arrived. The age groups of the guests varied from 25 to 62. The eldest guy had a son who’s older than me. The menu was long but all the items were prepared at home itself. The menu included chicken 65, mutton sukka, pepper prawns, chicken curry, fried fish, onion pakodas, fried rice and carrot curry. The beverage list included Chivas Regal, Fosters and Grants. A total of three and half bottles of whisky made its way down the throats of attendees along with a couple of crates of beer. Another interesting aspect in the party was the rummy game which I played with a huge group after a real long time. I lost money in almost all the games except the last game in which I made some profit too(the stakes were higher in this one). The party finally finished at 4 45 AM the next day(it was the time when I bid adieu to the last of the guests).
So far, everything looked fine. But, our troubles started the next day when we had to do the cleaning of utensils, glasses and the whole flat all over again. The cook, who promised to visit us the next day, was nowhere to be seen and again all my friends had to go to office. It took us(me) almost two days to clean the whole mess one-by-one(we made plans to finish everything off in phases). Now, we are almost back to normal(hey, where’s my tiny aquarium which used to be right next to my laptop?).
Next big thing during these holidays was my unwanted shopping. My stupid shopping list included a 256 GB external hard disk, a 10.1 mega pixel CASIO digital camera, an electronic shaver(all are on discounted prices) etc. The main reason why this shopping is called unwanted is because I don’t really need any of these items and the second reason is this shopping was done when I was really running low on cash.
And yesterday, it was the Indian night at the Nation’s Art Festival here in Bahrain. I was very much depressed with that program because out of some 15 events during the night, only 5 or 6 really depicted the true Indian culture. Only Andhra Pradesh and Assam did their part well in depicting their culture. All other events are Bollywood based dances. But believe me, it was too hard to hold a handycam steady for long with the cold wind blowing hard at you.
Well folks, this is what happened during my absence from the Bloggerville. Will be around from now on.
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