Independence Day

India is celebrating it's 64th Independence Day. Good. Congratulations. But to whom should my wishes be addressed to? Surely, I can't address all the Indians. It's not that I can't, it's because I shouldn't. While browsing casually, I came upon this wonderful pictorial which depicted how different India is for each of its citizens.

Before we plan to celebrate this so-called auspicious day, give it a moment to think about what have we achieved as citizens in this largest democratic country of the world.

• Even after these many years, no female can dare to walk alone on the streets of our capital(even during day time!).
• An old man fighting for a change in the constitution cannot fast for more than three days at a particular place. Ridiculous!!! What's more funny is that he's given permission to take only 5000 supporters into his protest.
• People from a part of a state(mine, sadly) want the other people from other part of the same state to move their asses out of their place. Confusing, right? This is what is called Telangana issue. Imagine, they even started a movement called "Quit Telangana" on the same day this year, when our freedom fighters started "Quit India" movement.
• While Hockey is considered as our national game, no one knows who's the captain of the team. I wonder if at least 10% of the people know how many players are there in a hockey team.
• Aha, how can I miss this? Indian Cricket Team lost their recent test series to England and subsequently the Numero Uno ranking. We lost the No. 1 rank and the media is making a frenzy as if we lost our Independence yet again!!! Come on guys, it's just matter of a few months.
• Now, this one I read somewhere. You can buy and finish off a liquor bottle in broad daylight, but you have to think twice before buying a Valentine's Day greeting card. You don't know which Sena might be waiting for you round the corner.
• US has faced some issues with its economy and the whole world went into turmoil. Because of this, the Indian Rupee went weak!!!! Took a good while for me to analyze and understand this. Are we economically independent?

It is of no surprise that thinking of Independence Day, even though I'm proud of my country and I love my country, all that I remember is those sweet laddoos they used to distribute on this day in my school.

Why did I?

Why did I miss watching "Delhi Belly" in theater?
Why did I hate my career these days?
Why did I stop playing games on my Play Station?
Why did I never think of investing in Gold earlier?
Why did I resort to calling my dearest friends very rarely?
Why did I skip eating breakfast all these days?
Why did I try earlier for my driving license?


And Finally,
Why did I leave this wonderful place called "Bloggerville" for the past few months?

Some questions are better left unanswered than coming up with lame answers.

THOR - just what the audience needed

When I nervously waited for the end credits of the movie "Iron Man 2" to finish, I don't even have a clue of what they are going to show on the screen(as a spoiler for the future MARVEL movies). Even after they showed a desert and a hammer and some plain-clothed policemen(!), I didn't understand what's all this about.

Then I googled "hammer" and "marvel" and found that the hammer is in fact the power source or something of that sort of Thor, the God of Thunder. To hell with it, was my instant reaction as I never heard of him.

But what unfolded on the big 3D screen in front of me last week, blew a few things out of my brain. This guy(character) Thor earned himself a place next to Spiderman, Ironman and Superman in my all-time favorite list of superheroes.

Thor is a simple movie, enough for a movie buff like me to be amused. Thor and Loki are the sons of the Odin, the king of Asgard(a far-away Galaxy, for me it felt like heaven after watching on screen). Odin defeats the Frost Giants long long back and brings with him the power source of the Frost Giants, the Casket of Ancient Winters. Now, both the sons grow up and Thor is supposed to be crowned the king of Asgard when the Frost Giants sneak into the palace for the power source. An enraged Thor wants to finish off the Frost Giant race and travels to Jotunheim(the world of Frost Giants) along with a few friends, against his father's instructions.

Odin gets to know about this and brings the bunch of Asgardian warriors back to their world and banishes Thor to earth after stripping off his Godly powers. Thor's hammer, Mjolnir(courtesy Wikipedia), is also sent to Earth, but protected with a spell that allows only a worthy person to wield it.

Thor is crash-lands in Mexico where he is hit by the vehicle of a scientist, Jane Foster, who is studying the mysterious lightning patterns in the sky. The story moves on how Thor gets mingled with the earthly humans, while back in Asgard, Odin falls ill and a tale of double-cross takes place.

The rest of the story is about how Thor finds love, responsibilities and brings back peace to the world.

The plot is well supported by all the actors. Chris Hemsworth(this is the first movie I saw of this hunk), was awesome. The way he showed various emotions was worth lot of applause - be it when he says "Can I come back home?" to Loki when the latter visits him in jail or how he flashes the mischievous grin while trying to retrieve his hammer from S.H.E.I.L.D. Tom Hiddleston as Loki was absolutely fantastic. Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins lived up-to the expectations.

To be frank, it is the way Asgard is shown that draws immediate attention of an casual movie-goer. After AVATAR, I loved this alternate world. The visual effects were awesome and will enough to make the audience believe in the existence of such world.

There might be minor drawbacks here and there, like it would have been much nicer if Thor gets to show off a few of his elite skills on Earth(before Jane), but the movie, as a whole is an enjoyable one and is a decent family flick. My rating for this latest flick from Marvel stable will be 3.75 out of 5.

Same old title, I'm back

It's been more than a month since I dropped by. Main reason - blogging's blocked in office. Other Reasons - Been busy, Watching World Cup cricket, blah blah.

Just popped in yesterday to see what other Blogger pals are doing and found that most of the places are same like mine - seldom updated. Felt bad and thought of coming back with full fledged blog posts(as usual).

Anyways, since my last post, a lot of things happened. Let us give a small look at a few of them.

1. India won the cricket world cup! Was shouting with joy when Dhoni hit the winning sixer. That day was my first wedding anniversary too. It would have been more good if Sachin too made a few runs.
2. Anna Hazaare went on fasting for the approval of Jan Lokpal bill and he succeeded in it(almost, as of now). What was more joyful was the way how the common people of India showed their support for this cause. Long live, democracy.
3. Sachin Tendulkar scored a century in the 20-20 format! That too with the agility of a person half his age. Till date, in this season of IPL, he was not out on all the occasions that he played.
4. Bahrain was declared to be under military rule for an indefinite period as of now. Felt bad to see the peaceful little island engulfed in riots. Let's hope that everything will be back to normal soon. I know many expats who sent their families back and who are planning to shift somewhere else soon.
5. Wifey saw an English movie for the first time in a theater. She was excited and I'm happy.
6. At last the big thing(at least for me). My bestest friend, who was struggling to get his parents' approval for his love affair for quite a few years, decided to call it a day and married his sweetheart in a filmi fashion. Didn't meet the couple yet, but looking forward to it.

Well, will b back very very soon. Till then, adeos n take care.

A thriller

Well well well, if you are a cricket buff and if you missed last night's World Cup match between India and England, you missed something really spectacular. So far, most of the matches in the tourney are one-sided (almost every match was predictable) and people were losing interest in the complete event itself. Even I was satisfied with seeing the live scores on the Internet rather than watching the match on TV. I read somewhere that ICC gave a press release saying something like "this tourney is an acid test for the One Day International (ODI) cricket". And then, yesterday happened. This match provided the necessary kick to the tournament and to ODI format.

For those of you who missed the match, let me tell you what exactly happened. India scored a mammoth total of 338 thanks to the masterful century by the Little Master, Sachin Tendulkar, himself. The innings of the master was masterful because of the way he paced his innings. When Sehwag was around, he just played on without much authority. Once Sehwag was out and Gambhir was settled, the master unleashed a fierce attack on the English bowlers. Greame Swann, considered as the best among the current spinners on the world, was hit for two successive sixers.

Indians would've scored more if it was not for the mad tumble of 5 wickets in the last couple of overs. However, 338 on Indian tracks is considered to be a tough score to chase and thanks to the recent form of English batsmen in ODI, everyone thought that this will be a cakewalk for the Indian bowlers. But the English captain had some other thoughts.

Strauss and Pietersen started things off very well in a classy way, fetching easy runs off the harmless Indian bowling. It needed a special bit of fielding from Munaf Patel to break this partnership. Then one more wicket fell and things looked OK for a few minutes. Then the pair of Strauss and Bell played calmly and the tide shifted slowly but gradually towards the English side. Strauss deserved an huge applause for his first century in World Cup and his career best score of 158.

With just a few runs to score that too with 8 wickets in hand, the English win seemed inevitable. Then Zaheer struck with two wickets in two balls to change the course of events and now the scales pointed towards India. Even though few more wickets fell and the bowling and fielding departments of India increased their momentum, the lower-order batsmen of England held their nerve and hit a few lusty blows in the end. After two sixes in the penultimate over and one more in the last over, the English team were left to score with 5 runs in 3 balls. A bye came in the first ball and couple in the second.

The match got tied after the batsmen had to settle for a single off the final ball.

After all, it was ODI cricket which won the last night's encounter. An epic match to bring the focus back on ODIs. I hope we get to see many more thrillers like this in the tourney.

Nirvana

Another set of wonderful moments passed by, as I finished my short trip to India last month and returned to Bahrain. As this was my first trip after marriage, most of my time was spent by visiting the relatives with my wifey. Counted the number of times I boarded a train, and the result came as 6 times in 20 days. Interesting. But hey, please don't ask about the number of buses I've boarded!!!

Coming back to reality, this vacation was sort of an eye-opener for me. Let's say I attained NIRVANA during this trip. Felt like I was missing out something in life by staying in Bahrain. I desperately felt the need for a change of a job, or even career. I just looked at the past few years of my career and found that I seem a bit back dated in this competent world. Even though I've enough workload to keep myself busy and the pay packet is OK, I feel that I'm doing the same routine work and there's nothing new to learn and develop myself. Seems like I've to clean the dust off my MBA dreams and seriously consider this option.

Taking such a decision might be a gamble now, as I am married recently and have to look after someone who looks after me. But I am sure that this gamble might be worth it.

Well, other than this, life is all OK. During my 3 week trip to India, I had the privilege of spending max time with my new-born niece who's now almost 2 months old. She's such a darling that I couldn't give her to anyone else from my arms.

As promised earlier, I look forward for posting lots and lots of quality posts this year and revive my blog. Last month, I couldn't do much as I was too busy in India. With the Cricket World Cup just a couple of weeks ahead, expect some decent cricketing posts too.

Et cetera

The year is coming to an end and it has been a very busy year indeed. First of all, I got married and started experiencing new roles and responsibilities.

Also, my sister gave birth to a cute little girl very recently and made me an uncle, officially. Earlier, I used to bribe a few kids to stop them from calling me "uncle". But now, I can't do that anymore. So one more new role. I'm desperately longing to see my niece ASAP.

Office has been more n more tiring with a lot of stress these days. People are squeezing me like a lemon there. But no matter whatever they do, they surely can't get more juice out of me than what I've in me.

One big surprise for most of my oldest friends out here is that I stopped drinking(not permanently, at least). After WD came to live with me, I never even thought of having that glass of nectar... ;)

Life has been going smooth as of now. WD is visiting India this week and this will be the first time in six months that I'll stay without her.

I'll be back to my usual posting about politics, sports and movies from my next post. BTW, talking about sports, GOD has just scored a 50th century in Test Cricket. And soon after that the other GODS cried with joy and it rained. What a coincidence!!!!

A disaster filled week

Hi friends, I am back here after a real loooonggg time and everytime I'm here I promise to come back soon, which rarely happens. But this time, I'm here to stay.

Life took a lot of turns and twists these days, but all for good. But this week has been disaster till now. To summarize, these are the so called disasters.

1. My Internet connection has been disconnected due to non-payment of the dues... :( But got it back after a day.
2. My mobile connection validity has expired and I didn't realize it for one whole day as the incoming calls kept on coming(grace period). I realized this when I tried to call a friend to accompany to the Internet office.
3. I went to the Traffic directorate to pick up a test date and the lady there, saw my driving details book and asked me about an application which I forgot at office. She said that it's not possible to give a test date "without looking at it".
4. Again, I went to the same office in the evening and this time, a dude was sitting there. He checked my Learner's License(LL) and informed that it expires in 3 and a half months and they have no test dates for 4 months.
5. So, I rushed to another office and got my LL renewed for an year. This time, I got the test date but its after 4 months and 4 days.

Waiting for driving test for more than 4 months is a stupid thing to do even for a stupid person like me, but this should happen for somebody who was lazy enough to ignore this for the past 4 years. But imagine failing in the test(which is quite common here) and waiting for another 4 months to get the next test. May GOD help me.

Well, this is how my week is passing. But there's some sunshine as the weekend is approaching fast and I don't have much committments. I hope to spend some quality time with WD. See you all next week.

PS: As the Internet policy in my office allows me to access blogs only for 10 minutes at a time, all that I've typed from the point 3 above got lost and I had to retype the entire post. Well, can't really blame anybody for this, except my stars.

Is the END near?

Well, don't back-off thinking that I'm late in seeing the catastrophic disaster movie "2012". This post is just about the recent climatic disasters and some stupid ramblings.

First in line is the cloudburst and its subsequent landslides and flash floods in Leh, India. In August 2010, a little less than 200 persons were killed in Leh because of the aforesaid climatic conditions. You might ask "What's so special about this?". Well, according to Wikipedia, The average annual rainfall in Leh is only 90 mm (three and a half inches). So, obviously, the cloudburst is quite surprising. And to add to my confusion, there's this article on the internet.

Second is what happened in Guatemala in June. There were volcanic eruptions, a powerful tropical storm, floods and landslides, and a frightening sinkhole. I think it's better if you watch it than me describing about what hell the people went through there. This is the link


The rest of the disasters are as below:

Floods in Pakistan

Russian Wildfires

Floods in Europe

Landslide in Pakistan earlier this year

Most of the above events are of surprising occurrence. Well, looking at all these, I can say one thing. We, humans, have messed with the environment in a big way. Looks like the end is pretty near. All we can do is to try to prolong it by contributing towards the greenery.

A historic decision

Today, I was happy. Not for any personal reason but for the announcement of Mr President, Barack Obama of the United States of America. The announcement deals with the decommissioning of the combat troops of US of A in Iraq.

In Mr President's words, "Tonight, I'd like to talk to you about the end of our combat mission in Iraq, the ongoing security challenges we face, and the need to rebuild our nation here at home.". This is exactly what I was thinking for the past few years. For a country plagued by recession and unemployment and a huge social uproar against the war, is it really necessary to wage a war against someone?

After watching a huge list of movies that deal with the war and its aftermath like the critically acclaimed "Hurt Locker", "Home of the Brave", "Dear John" etc, I felt bad for the soldiers of USA than the people of Iraq. How long can one wage a battle for something which they are not sure of? To add to that, I saw these images in one of my favorite website which deals with current world issues.

I read somewhere that some 50,000 American troops will stay in Iraq for support and counter-terrorism training, and the last forces are not due to leave until the end of 2011 at the latest. But still, it's a huge sigh of relief for the families of all those brave soldiers.

Long live humanity. And for those of you, who want to read the complete transcript of the speech of the POTUS, the link is here.

Can't think of a title

I know that I'm writing this post almost a good 3 months after my last post. Well, all I can say is I was a bit busy.

Life's good. So far at least. Everything that has been bothering me for quite a few days got resolved. A small brief about some important things out of them:

WD's here, at last. The great Passport officials at Visakhapatnam kept her passport pending as she has a twin sister. They thought that "how can there be two passports with same DOB n same address?". Well, they should have seen the names instead. Anyways, they kept the passport application pending for six weeks before WD went there and all this while, the status is shown in the web as "Police Report yet to be received"!!!

A server upgrade that was on the cards for more than 6 months has been completed. And that too, during WD's absence. Thank God, she would have killed me if I was in office for more than 10 hours a day and that too for 29 days in a month!!!

Life's not the same from now on and I hope it's not hard enough for me and WD.

I'm back

Here I am, after having a confusing transformation from a bachelor to husband. I used the word 'confusing ' willingly, because I'm still not aware of my roles and responsibilities, even though I was married a good 50 days back. My mind refuses to come to reality and act completely as an adult. As WD is having some issues with her passport, she's still back home in India and I returned to my workplace 3 weeks back. I expect her to be here by this month end. Meanwhile, I'm passing time mostly on my PS2 and a new project lined up for the next two months.

Oops, looks like I didn't mention what WD stands for. It's Wifey Dear. Thank you God, for giving me a spouse like WD. She's good, understanding, caring, blah blah blah. The only problem with her is she expects me to be an adult at all times. But she is manageable, at least for now.

Wish me all the best in this new job that pays me well with loads of love and affection. I'll be a regular in Bloggerville from now on. I know that it's a short post compared to the huge change in my life, but I've lost someone so dear quite recently and cannot write much now. I'll write about it in my next post.

Wedding Invitation

Hi folks, I am no longer a lone traveler in the journey of life. A life-long companion is going to accompany me in this journey. As some of you know, her name is Sravanthi and our marriage is scheduled to take place in 15 days time, on 2nd April, 2010.

I, along with Sravanthi, request your gracious presence at our marriage in Penugonda, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, India. The invitation is as below:
For those of you who are planning to come to the wedding, the maps showing the way from a couple of nearest towns to the venue are as below:
Routes: The town of Penugonda is about 35kms from Tadepalligudem station, 15 kms from Tanaku station, 15 kms from Palakollu station, 30 kms from Nidadavole station and 50 kms from Rajahmundry station.

There are government-run buses from Tanuku, Bhimavaram, Tadepalligudem and Rajahmundry to reach Penugonda. There are trains from Chennai (Chennai-Howrah Mail, Circar Express) Vijayawada (Ratnachal Express), Hyderabad (Gowthami Express, East Coast Express, Godavari Express, Konark Express, Visakha Express) Bangalore (Prasanthi Express) and Tirupati (Tirumala Express, Howrah Express) that pass through Tadepalligudem or Tanuku that are nearby stations to Penugonda. After getting down at either of these places, you can take a bus or taxi.

The nearest airport is located in Rajamundry, but I strongly advice you to travel by train/bus as the scenic beauty of all those lush green fields(on the way) come second to none.

The venue for the marriage reception is The Daspalla Hotel, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. You can easily reach the coastal city of Visakhapatnam from anywhere as it is well connected with many other places of India. There are a number of flights, trains and buses from the other cities of South India. Please google them for the exact information.

For those of you who cannot be present at either our marriage or our reception, I humbly request you to shower us with your choicest blessings for both of us to lead a very happy married life. My contact number in India will be +91-9704159560. This number will be active from 26th March, 2010.

At this moment, I wish to thank my parents in helping me choose Sravanthi as my life partner. All those great friends of mine who were with me through all the ups and downs of my life, here comes another friend whom you would love to have in our group.

A biggg U turn in life

I was enjoying the benefits of being single for almost all my life except for a few greenish patches scattered here and there. And suddenly, everything went haywire during my last vacation to India in November 2009. My parents are quite busy for the past few months in searching a girl for me. And on November 28th 2009, I saw Sravanthi as part of girl-looking process. This meet was arranged in so much haste that I don't even have a proper formal dress to wear. Somehow, it all went fine and we liked each other.

She is the first girl I saw in the marriage proposal stuff. As my parents liked her and her family, to be frank, I said yes to this proposal. It was like "what the hell stuff" for me. I was sure that I can live with anybody. But the next day, after I got up, I was confused. I don't know whether the entire thing that happened on the previous night was true or just a dream. It all went so fast for me to realize the reality.

But, once we started our conversations over phone and a couple of quick dates(these too are hasty) later, we realized that we are the perfect matches for each other(OK, at least I felt so). She also has almost the same interests as me, same view of life as me etc. Sadly, my stay in India was only for a few days and I have to come back before we can meet much more frequently.

Our marriage was fixed to take place on April 2nd 2010(early hours of April 3rd). Yep, I have only 3 weeks of bachelorhood left for me, and this too I'm busy with office and furnishing my flat kind-of-stuff. I had a bad sprain on my left shoulder, thanks to those cricket matches where I've been faring much better these days. Frankly speaking, I don't even have time for bachelor parties. But I have to hold a couple of those soon enough.

Back to reality, I don't want to hide anything from Sravanthi and I'm answering all her queries about my personal life. She hadn't asked about the most personal stuff till a couple of nights back.

• She asked whether I had any affairs earlier and I had to bluff this one time and I partially answered that all those crushes are it-happened-kind-of-stuff and I was single for a really long long time.

• She asked whether I drink and I told her that I'm a social drinker but not a drunkard. Well, some of you may have some doubts on this and I can assure you that this is what is happening for more than a year.

I think she took the affair thing casual as it's common to have crushes now and then. But looks like she felt bad for the drinks stuff. I have to assure her that I'll quit alcohol if it really bothers her. But still, this kept bugging her and I feel as if I did the wrong thing by telling the truth. I had to take a word from her not to tell anything of this to my parents or her parents.

Now folks, did I do a right thing by telling all the truth about me? I know that we are meant to share our whole life together and there shouldn't be any secrets between us, but should there be some secrets that make our married life more prosperous? Like, life would be better if those are not revealed?

Time is the only thing that answers all these questions. Meanwhile, let me enjoy what's left in my bachelor life and you too enjoy your life. You'll receive a formal invitation soon for my marriage at this very same place.

The moment

I was away from Bloggerville for quite sometime, as this place is never the same as it was a few months back. Most of my Blogger friends have left the place and it was as if I was almost alone here. But what happened today made me jump back to this place. After all, this is my place, a place where I jump in joy and cry in pain and people join me whatever the reason is.

It was today, the 24th of February 2010, that History was rewritten. In fact, it can better be termed as "History is written" on this very day. This was the moment that the entire mankind has been waiting for, for the past 39 years and in simpler terms, for 2961 ODIs.



To cut short, it was today when the Demigod of Indian cricket made the first Double Century in One Day Internationals(ODIs). The milestone which slipped away from many greats couldn't escape from the Little Master. He conquered the last record which he wasn't able to lay his hands upon. And this came at a time when he was on top of his form. He made 5 International Centuries in the past 50 days. A milestone which scares anyone who tries to get it.

As I'm jotting this down, South Africa is losing quick wickets, but I'm not bothered about the win. In fact, it's not just me who's feeling the same but there are billions around the world who just can't even speak, out of joy. It'll be only like an icing on the cake, if India wins.

Sorry folks, I'm so happy that I can't even write anything here. But I promise to return back soon and share a lot more.

Poor Vaishnavi

It was said that demons used to exist in the past when none of us were born, not us, not our fathers, not even our great-grandfathers. It was also documented that GOD used to take some or the other form to keep things in control and save humankind from these demons. But day-after-day this is proven wrong, again and again. Yesterday, I was sure that the demons are still alive.

Most of you might have heard about the kidnap of a cute little kid, Vaishnavi about 3 or 4 days back. Reports say that this girl, aged 10 years, was traveling in a car with her brother and a driver, when some masked miscreants attacked their vehicle. The driver who tried to tackle them was brutally stabbed and the girl's brother managed to run away. Then the kidnappers took the girl in the same car and deserted the car somewhere far. Everybody, including me, was hoping that the girl will be left alone once they kidnappers get their ransom or some shitty demands. But no demands are made and yesterday, the unthinkable happened. The girl was found dead, in fact her charred body was found.

Sad news is that her father got heart attack twice after hearing the news of his daughter's death yesterday evening and he died today morning.

Reports say that the persons behind this kidnapping are the brothers of the first wife of the kid's father. It was said that they paid 5 million INR to the kidnappers for this brutal deal. Now tell me, are the demons dead? Or they started living in human form? Or is it us who are making ourselves demons for silly issues?

GOD bless the girl's soul. Btw, with all these incidents, I am planning to take up the daring topic of "why should Indian judiciary system change" for my B2 speech in Toastmasters.

2009 or 2010 - we'll never change

Folks, I hope you all had a great New Year Eve. My celebrations were at tKs where I was the only single guy and the rest of the gathering were families. But still, it was fun.

Till 10 PM last night, I wanted to write this post about my icebreaker speech yesterday in Toastmasters club. But after 10 PM, my ideas changed and what I saw on NDTV, shocked me.

Those guys were airing some footage of a rural background where somebody was wounded. I got some interest and started watching it and as I came to know of the whole story, I broke into tears. The story goes on like this:

A sub-inspector(SI) was going to his police station on a two wheeler and suddenly, he was attacked by some miscreants with some crude bombs and sickles. Their plan is to hack him to death, but suddenly they saw that a convoy was approaching them and left the man wounded. The convoy belongs to a couple of ministers of the Tamilnadu state(one was Minister of Health, I suppose) and even a District Collector was with them at that time.

The police who were with the convoy try to chase down the attackers, but they managed to slip away by hurling bombs at the police. The real pathetic story starts from here. This SI who was wounded was literally crying and pleading for help and nobody even went near him. According to the news channel, the District Collector got down from his car after 8 minutes and called for an ambulance. The honorable ministers got down from their vehicles after 20 minutes and did nothing. An ambulance reached the place after some time and on its way to the nearest hospital, the SI succumbed to the injuries. He was crying and pleading the passerby's to help him for about 30 minutes.

The saddest part is that, after basic investigation, the police has stated that this is a case of mistaken identity and as the SI was wearing a helmet, the attackers mistook him for another cop whom they wanted to kill.

After seeing all this, I was wondering why the news channel crew was filming the whole incident without helping the dying man. But promptly, there was a scrolling showing that this video was shot by a freelancer. Let's hope so!

What is the need for us to celebrate a change in calendar, when there's no change in the mindsets of the people? May God bless the dead man's family with its choicest blessings and may people inculcate that helping nature in themselves.

Wicked Whisper: I think that all the people who are present there are as responsible for the man's death as are the attackers. Should we prosecute all of them?

You can click here and here for a couple of videos showing the incident, but beware, they are not for the faint-hearted.
Video courtesy: Times of India.

Happy New Year 2010

Dear friends, this has been a wonderful year, both in and out of Bloggerville. Life will never be the same in 2010. Yes, life is not going to be the same. I got engaged to Sravanthi and the marriage is scheduled to take place in April, 2010. I'll share more on this in the coming posts. For now, I am writing this post just to wish you all a very happy new year.

Let's hope for the below in the new year:

1. All(if not, a few) of our wishes come true.
2. There will no be any more disasters natural calamities like floods, tsunamis, hurricanes etc.
3. The terrorists change themselves and let others live peacefully.
4. India will stay on top of the world(in cricket, though).
5. We look at some more technically brilliant movies like "Avatar" and feel-good movies like "3 Idiots".
6. May Telangana issue be solved in Andhra Pradesh.
7. Last but not the least, let us all pray that my salary increases at least 25%.

Simply speaking, I hope All iz well in 2009 and All will be well in 2010.

My return to Bloggerville on a wonderful day

Folks, first of all, I regret being away from such a wonderful place, Bloggerville. The reasons for my long absence(more than two months) from here are:

1. There was a fund-raiser organized by TKS in the third week of November. Thank God, all iz well.
2. I was on vacation to India for about a month, right after the above said fund raiser. Here too, all iz well.

I've been waiting for some proper time to return back to Bloggerville and there it was yesterday. Actually, I started this post yesterday but couldn't finish it off then. Anyways, yesterday has been an awesome day for me for the below reasons:

1. It was sister's b'day yesterday. All iz well.
2. India won the tournament against Sri Lanka yesterday. All iz well.
3. It was raining out here in Bahrain yesterday. Loved the climate. All iz well.
4. I was awarded a certificate of appreciation and a Gold coin by my company here for assisting in the successful completion of a major project. All iz well indeed.
5. The day ended fittingly well, when I went for the late night show of the highly anticipated "3 Idiots". Believe me, the movie was simply awesome. Just like most of the sites reviewed the movie, all iz very, very, very, very well indeed.

With this, I end this post and promise you that I'll be back soon with a lot of news as there are many things happening around me right now and I need to tell you all those.

A couple of feel-good movies

Folks, sorry for being away for quite a few days. I was a bit busy with work both in & out of office(TKS). My vacation is due in about 4 weeks for now and still I have some departmental objectives to be finished before year end. The only time pass that's keeping me in senses is a few movies here n there.

Recently, I saw a couple of movies which are worth mentioning. One is "Wake Up Sid"(WUS). I was not interested to watch this one until my adamant friend, Deepak, wanted to watch it. I went into the theater with half mind expecting the worst. The movie opened well with an interesting scene of how our protagonist, Sid, is preparing for his boards. From then on, there was no looking back. As soon as the movie finished, I was thinking of watching it again.

WUS is a perfect example of how to keep things simple and achieve the desired result. The director did a good job in that aspect. The sentimental scenes are handled well, the comic timing was perfect, the emotions are up to the mark. There are some scenes which I liked well:

1. The scene in which Ranbir makes fun of Konkana by pouring water on her and then he asks her in an innocent way, whether she felt bad.
2. The confused look on Konkana's face when Ranbir asks her out for a walk on their first meeting.
3. The scene where they both sit at the beach and Ranbir explains to Konkana about how the ocean looks at the times of monsoon(felt like I was standing in rain after this scene).

The above are only a few scenes out of a whole set. If I write all those that I liked and why I liked them, this post will be as big as a novel. As a whole WUS is a wonderful feel-good movie which reminds us of our college life(if you are not one of those nerdy types). Ranbir is now the new addition to my list of actors to watch out for.

The other movie I liked is the "The Proposal". I picked this one from the DVD store just because I can't find anything interesting there. In fact, I kept even this one pending for a few days before watching it. But when I saw it, I was really impressed. It's been quite a few days since I watched a decent romantic comedy and this one perfectly filled the bill.

The story is simple. An immigrant, yet sort-of-nuts boss, perfectly portrayed by Sandra Bullock, has been issued notice that she'll be deported after her work-visa is not renewed. She immediately puts up an act that she's going to marry her sub-ordinate, a wonderful Ryan Reynolds, and hence can stay in the US of A. Both of mutually agree to help each other provided that he'll marry her(and then divorce her), while she promotes him to a higher position in office. But before that she had to spend a week at his parents house. Everything seems to go well inline with the plan, until they both really start falling in love with each other.

Both these movies are worth a watch over the weekend and gives you a break from the usual pot-boiler masala movies. Happy weekend, folks.