Earth iss Flat

DIY: How to make a Gaga Video

2011-09-04T23:10:00.002+05:30

Going by the innumerable hits Lady Gaga is getting for her 'creative' videos I thought this was long overdue.

Making a Lady Gaga video is simple. No seriously.

You will need an ugly singer who cant act, sexy co stars and minimal clothes to begin with. Dont forget the really long heels too. You will also have to come up with a sick idea to go with video. Getting erotic with a guy in his death bed or making out with a dead body should do ( those ideas are completely original ). A dance only in lingeries is mandatory. The bottom line is make it as gross as possible.

A really good song with it and its done. Rest will be taken care of by citizens of the world who go drooling over sick and malnourished bitches, and I presume there are many.

The dillemma of an Indian Voter

2011-04-11T23:06:00.003+05:30

The blaring loudspeakers near here have stopped. the atmosphere has become tranquil. Today was obviously the last day for campaigning. The next two days are left for the voter to decide whom should he vote.

Now that is a very difficult task. Being an Indian, the task becomes all the more difficult. How do you vote? By looking at each parties priorities? Well, the parties here have interesting priorities. One goes on promising laptops and mixer grinders to everybody if they are voted to power. Another promises the Ram temple, right in Ayodhya. Yet another one promises to destroy all computers and take the state back to the old ages. But as I said, they are promises, and most of them are never delivered upon. Here is, anyhow, a dekko at the three major parties of India.

On the one side is the grand Old Congress. no more the might they were once, they have to stitch up an alliance with at least half a dozen other parties before they could come up with a majority. By that time they would have lost crores of rupees and lot of ministerial berths. However their biggest failure is the sycophancy surrounding the Gandhi family. When the whole Gandhi family dies, then only can Congress escape the crisis

The Communist Party of India is an another front. Prakash Karat, the general secretary of the politburo, has a surprisingly big mouth, even though his party has a mass support only in Kerala and West Bengal. Has led his party from one defeat to another and is also facing the prospects of being ousted from West Bengal, where it had been ruling for decades. All thanks to the vision of the man called Prakash Karat. The day he is kicked from that post, and placed a real socialist, like Budhadeb Bhatacharjee or so, at the helm, will the communist prosper.

Then there is the Bharatiya Janata Party. Has a cadre based party system, and would have been my choice any day except for their stand on secularism. Long known for its pro Hindu and anti minority stand, they have come to become only the second party to have a pan India presence. RSS, the godfather of the party is another one reason I wont vote for BJP.

All of them have a striking similarity. They have failed India.

The worse part is that two of the above parties had started out with good intentions and had achieved success initially. However, over time, corruption overtook idealism, and the rot became systemic. The rise in politics is directly linked to money power, and hence the honest people are left out from the democratic process. While doing all this, India, as a country, has become the main casualty.

So this time around, I have decided to vote for smaller parties or maybe even independents. Some of you might think that I am wasting my vote. So be it. Till that time when there is a button, on the machine that says 'none of the above', I will keep up with my own kind of protest.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: My Review

2010-09-26T20:00:00.001+05:30

Heard about this book, the first time, when I read an article from an English Tabloid saying that Daniel Craig was offered the lead role in the English adaptation of the book. After doing a bit of researching, found that this is a book, written by a Swedish, named Stieg Larsson and was one among the three books of the Millennium series. However the author didn't live to see the success of his books. The books were published posthumously and became an instant hit. All the three books were adapted into three Swedish movies, which also made it big at the box office.

That was enough for me to buy this book , and that too, online, from the site Flipkart. Since my current residential place isnt very popular, and since nobody would be their when the courier comes, I decided to give my official address, as the address, to which the book be delivered. The book was delivered on the third business day, as promised.

However since the book had a titillating cover, and since my office has a fair share of aged and conservative keralites, I decided to hide the book, by all means. It also helped that the book came covered, in a thick cardboard box.

Read the book in three days flat ( its a big deal considering that I have a twelve hour schedule at office on weekdays, and also have to work six hours on a saturday). Its basically a whodunit story. The two main characters, Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander, are engaged to find the mystery behind the disappearance of Hariet Vanger, a member of the powerful Vanger family, and the darling of Henrik Vanger, the former MD of the Vanger Corporation, forty years ago. The book also elaborates on the troublesome life , and also on the talent that is Lisbeth Salander. It also involves a sub plot involving Blomkvist trying to expose the Industrialist, Hans-Erik Wennerström.

Overall, the book is very engaging, even though the characterization of Lisbeth Salander, went a bit too far. Also, that Blomkvist, is able to solve the mystery, which couldnt be solved, for such long time, needs a bit of digesting.

And being myself, I also downloaded the movie adaptation, dubbed into English. The movie is pathetic compared to the book. Lisbeth Salander in the movie looked less female, and terrible, but then that is how the character is described in the book. But these are places where the Director has to exercise his directorial discretion, and cast a sexy, beautiful girl, in the lead. And the book had so much detail, which the movie had understandably skipped.

The book was worth my purchase (atleast with the discount that i got from Flipkart) and I would recommend all my friends to buy this. And don't fall for the cover, coz there is no front shot inside the book. And as far as sex is concerned, you needn't buy this book for that. Just buy one of those Chetan Bhagat's books for that :P

the Ailing Blogger

2010-07-18T19:33:00.000+05:30

The blogger in me, is suffering. From acute temporal shortage a.k.a timelessness and of course nice things to write about. I love the blogger in me. Will try hard to keep it alive. And forgive me for the tweet of a blog :)

Why I Hate Trains

2010-02-11T22:00:00.001+05:30

Yea. Well I know almost everybody would hate travelling in a train. But actually I dont mind it tat much. Provided I have good company*.

I had traveled to Pune only last week. I then prayed, and that too, not for the interview that I was going to attend. I prayed, please at least this time, give me some good company so that I dont get bored. Give me some nice, cute, good looking, young chics in my cubicle in the train. Then I thought I was asking too much. but it happened. A nice pretty girl came and sat in my cubicle. I was already thanking and singing praises to God for hearing my prayers. A few minutes later, however I knew god was teasing me. The girl realized she was in the wrong compartment and left, leaving with me a bunch of middle aged idiots. I was heartbroken, and I was pissed off. The story was no different when I returned.

But then situations change, and you again start believing in God. Well the situation was that I had to go to Bangalore and that meant I will have to travel in a train again. I once again became the devout.

The day came. I was alone in my cubicle. I saw a family with people well past their prime, in the other cubicle and thanked myself and God, that I am not in that cubicle. I thought I would take a nap, and receive my lovely company after that.

I slept. And then I woke up. I couldn't believe my eyes, what I saw. I was in a cubicle full of RSS party workers. ALL MALE. They were going to Bangalore to attend a meeting honoured by 'Sri' Mohan Bhagwat. I thought, 'Great. The perfect company I could ever ask for'. Now, the other cubicle felt like heaven. At least they would be talking things which could interest me.

Then on, I decided I will never travel by train ( as if there were other options ). Or at least wont pray for a good company. May be that will help. May be God didn't like I being opportunistic.

* a 'good company' is my way of saying a good looking cute chic.

The Euler Technique

2010-01-26T21:56:00.000+05:30

It had been very busy months to the run up of CAT. Been studying hard for CAT, travelling to Ernakulam regularly for preparations of CAT and all. But within only two months since CAT was over, I have realized that I am forgetting what I had learned. I realized that I was also forgetting a nice technique I had mastered while preparing for CAT. If I had to write an MBA exam again, I hope this post would be helpful to me to recollect the technique, and if in the process if it could help anybody out there, nothing like that.

The technique is basically Euler's theorem, which I learnt myself, with generous help from Wikipedia and friends. So here it goes.

a^φ(n) ≡ 1(mod n) here a and n should be co primes to each other.

φ(n) is called the totient of n and equals

φ(n) = n (1-1/n₁)(1-1/n₂)… where n₁, n₂ are the distinct prime divisors of n.

Hence for a prime number, its totient always equals 1 less than the prime number itself.

φ(n) = n-1; where n is a prime number

Now what the above theorem basically states is, if you divide a number, raised to a power which is the totient (or its multiple) of the denominator, then the remainder is always 1, irrespective of what the number is. For example

x⁶/ 7 leaves a remainder 1 as long as x is not a multiple of 7 itself.

x⁴ /10 leaves a remainder 1 when x is co prime to 10.

Now to the practical applications of the above theorem.

Find the remainder of 10⁹⁸/ 7?

a) 1 b) 2 c) 3 d) 4

How to solve this? There are several ways to solve this, but I am going to solve it in the Euler way. Since 7 is a prime, 7 and 10 are co primes to each other. Now if the power of 10 that is 98, been a multiple of 6, which is the totient of 7, the remainder would be 1. since it is not, we say that 10⁹⁸/7 is equivalent to 10^98-16*6/7 ie

10⁹⁸/7 ≡ 10²/7

which is quite easier to find. So what the theorem does is it simplifies a seemingly impossible problem to a doable one, even though not necessarily solve it.

The unit’s digit of 1⁴ + 2⁴ + 3⁴ + 4⁴ …. + 81⁴ is

a) 1 b) 2 c) 3 d) 0

Now this is equivalent to dividing the sum by 10. Now since 10 has two prime numbers, 2 and 5, lets try dividing it separately by each of those numbers. First lets divide the sum by 5.

The totient of 5 is 4 ( since 5 is a prime number) and since each number is raised to the power 4, and since 5 is a prime number, we know that the remainder is equivalent to (1 + 1+1 + 1 .. (81 times ) - 16 ) mod 5 which is equal to 1. ( -16 is included because there are 16 numbers which have a remainder 0 when divided by 5 and since we have assumed 1, we must subtract those)

(1⁴ + 2⁴ + 3⁴ + 4⁴ …. + 81⁴) mod 5 = 0

The totient of 2 is 1. So by the same process above we get

(1⁴ + 2⁴ + 3⁴ + 4⁴ …. + 81⁴) mod 2 = 0

so from the options we have to find a number which when divided by 5 gives a remainder 0 and when divide by 2 also gives a remainder 0. only option ‘d’ fits in.

The remainder of 1^1!+ 2^2! + 3^3! +4^4! … + 81^81! when it is divided by 5 is

a) 1 b) 2 c) 3 d) 4

The problem above is almost similar to the previous one. However this was given to emphasize one more thing.

Once again the totient of 5 is 4. And we notice one more thing. That every number after 3^3! has a power which is divisible by 4. So the reminder is equal to

(1^1!+ 2^2! + 3^3! + 1 + 1 + 1 .. 78 times – 16) mod 5 which is equal to 1.

Now it might seem intimidating to learn this, but believe me, learning this does help you simplify a set of problems in Numbers with ease, provided you master in it. It took me two months to completely understand the theorem, but it was worth it.

ps: forgive me for any mistakes, if at all committed.

Between Now and Then

2010-01-05T16:51:00.004+05:30

2010 has finally dawned upon us and it it that time when we look back to the year just passed and give it, its due tribute. The year 2009 had its fair share of moments (this time, for a change, I am keeping my personal life to myself ).

If I started writing about all those important events, my post would become unbearably large (I even considered splitting it into two, but I resisted). A complete recap should have definitely included about 'Slumdog Millionaire' - a largely Indian movie sweeping the Oscars, the collapse of the Copenhagen Summit, and of course about Tiger Woods sexual overtures.

Now to the real deal. Have written about a few events which were still in my head. Forgive me for prominent omissions.

Then: It was Jan 2009
Now: it is Jan 2010

Then: This is the year, everybody will remember as the year after recession began. Many countries were doling out stimulus packages worth billions of dollars (because Keynes told so), and sitting back nervously expecting it to be working. Banks were failing as usual, but then it had become a norm.

Now: India has escaped the wrath fairly unscathed, even though important stats went on the negative for a while. Job market remained tight, but on the overall it fared much better than other countries.

Then: BJP was riding high, and the self proclaimed Iron Man was already feeling the warmth of the PM nest, as it looked like they were poised to win the 2009 Indian general elections. Communists had parted ways with the Congress and were tying up an 'everybody else' alliance under the leadership of the star strategist Mr. Prakash Karat. During the same time, Varun Gandhi claimed a huge airtime by deliberately making a very communal speech. And in the meantime, the Congress with Rahul Brigade were trying hard to put up a decent fight.

Now: BJP lost the elections with a huge margin. They also lost the the subsequent Assembly Elections in several states. The BJP was beaten down. L K advani came under tremendous pressure to retire. The party leadership fell into disarray and once again it took the RSS to put BJP's house in order.

Then: K Chandrashekhar Rao aka KCR was just another nice ordinary party leader, with a rather inflated nose.

Now: After the 11 day fast, for a seperate statehood for Telengana, he became the saviour of sorts, for the Telanganese people. Congress stood up and took notice.

Then: Google and Facebook seemed to overpower the whole of internet. People rarely wandered beyond these two behemoths and the guys behind it knew it and secretly enjoyed the supremacy and the monopoly.

Now: And then came Twitter. It gained immense popularity in 2009, and the guys at Google and Facebook were scrambling about what went wrong. Google realizing the potential, immediately made a bid, which was, ofcourse, turned down, politely. Even though they are yet to make a revenue model around Twitter, it is here to stay.

And another not so popular innovation, but still worthy of being in my post is the Chrome Browser. Even though it made a quite entry, Google is currently going all out promoting it ( even the ad free google homepage had to give way for a Chrome ad). It promised a stable, really fast, and a nice browsing experience (its a different thing that its not working properly on my windows computer). And there is Google wave which I am not well placed to talk since I haven't used it myself. But getting a wave invite had become a pride of sorts for a while.

Then: Michael Jackson, Y S R Reddy, Murali, were alive and kickin'.

Now: They are no more.

The Cat and Mouse Story

2009-12-14T13:02:00.011+05:30

This was the year when the CAT or the Common Admission Test went online, and incidentally also the year when I decided to take it seriously. Prometric, the leaders in online examination system (so they say), were entrusted with the job.

At the outset, it all looked very promising. Huge cost cuttings for the IIM's, huge saving on resources, minimal errors, saving on a lots of trees, and also maintain the standard, that CAT exam have achieved ever since it started. When we heard that biometrics will be used for verification and all, i was like wow.

However that lasted only until registration for the exam. The guys at Prometric had assured a smooth registration process, which was not to be. Any small software company would know that one should do an error correction routine before a page is submitted. However the smart guys from Prometric decided against it and never checked whether the details were entered properly in the form. And one could not even edit their details once submitted. Those who didn't fill it properly at the first time had to shell out another 1500 bucks and do the same.

The better part was the way they gave centres to the candidates. Instead of asking the student for a set of suitable cities ( which I thought was the best way, since it was the first time they were going online), they asked us to select a city from a list they had prepared. Thanks to that few of my friends had to write the exam at least a thousand kilometres away from their intended place. Without having a clue about how many would be writing from a particular place, they gave a set of cities of their own, arbitrarily.

And of course the best part, is the way they conducted the exam. Even though my exam went fine, I have to say there are cases where tremendous unfairness has occurred. Hanging computers became a norm, and the guys taking the exam even took that into account while building their strategy. After the whole mess was done with, it was reported that at least 20,000 students faced glitches . And an another lot of people who took or got an advantage thanks to the glitches ( which of course wouldn't be reported). The interface for the exam was pathetic, to say the least. An example is the 'next' button (to move to the next question) being placed next to the 'submit' button ( clicking which, the exam is over).

In all, the first online experiment of CAT failed big time, and has become a big embarrassment for the IIM's. As for Prometric, they knew this was unavoidable because of the haphazard preparation for the exam. And IIM's should see to it that they don't conduct the exam next year and put all of us candidates, again to unnecessary troubles.

Since it has been announced that their will be no retest, all we can do is wait for the results. and hope Prometric doesn't mess that up too ( the best messing up they can do is producing a second list of results and declaring the first one null and void :P ; that would be real fun).

Next time, I believe IIM's should forget about even conducting CAT. Give away seats, if after scratching your voucher, it says IIM :). At least it would be more fair.

Wedding Regulars

2009-11-02T22:46:00.005+05:30

Last week, attended a marriage of one of my friend's brother. Even though my D day was approaching, decided to go for it, so that I don't look like a big shot who hasn't got a few hours to spare. Saw some of my friends, whom I haven't seen for a long time. But for the first time I realized that this time around, I had a lesser comfort level while talking to my friends. Didn't feel like talking to anybody at all. Anyhow I spent a few hours at the wedding. trying to socialize with my friends. Didn't even care to notice any chics at the function.

Anyways, after the function, decided to go to our classmates place nearby. while returning from there, bonkers offered me to drop me at Aluva. When I realized he and she were also coming together in the car, I decided to jostle for the front seat(her sitting with me is such a bad idea, coz i am such a boring guy), much to the elation of him though( even though he acted confused; he is such a pathetic actor :P ) . So there starts our trip to Aluva.

He was one of the 'popular' guys among the the girls. Has got more steel plates in him than he has got bones. And has this uncanny habit of acting mandan. And had been a good friend of mine throughout my college life.

I am not at a good position to talk about her, coz, frankly i don't know her much. Anyways gossips had that she was the paro of devd's life. but to my surprise, she herself admitted that there was a time when devd would spend 200 bucks a day, calling her over STD ( well for a comparison, i spend less than 100 bucks a month on my phone).

Bonkers would occasionally chip in with some of his comments, and I was also forced to comment on his rather plain slapstick, and barely managed to laugh. By then we reached Aluva. Bidding farewell to my friends, I returned home. The same night, I got a call for another wedding, the coming weekend, putting me and my plans in limbo.

looking back at the day, I realized how much I have changed. Having no friends for one whole year, does take a toll. Once I would complain that my friends have got new friends and forgotten there old ones conveniently. But then, life has moved on for most of them. Unluckily for me, I have been stuck in the past. All I want to, now, is to break away from the past.

The Laughter Medicine

2009-09-28T23:43:00.004+05:30

last year being a pretty boring one, the only thing which made me laugh my heart out was while reading the comic strip 'Calvin and Hobbes'. Thanks to my brother who brought the whole collection home 1 day. ever since, i have wanted to write this blog, so that more of my pals start reading it and 'spread the fun around'.

Wiki page on 'Calvin and Hobbes' describes the strip as following 'the humorous antics of Calvin, an imaginative six-year old boy, and Hobbes, his energetic and sardonic stuffed tiger.' Written and illustrated by Bill Watterson, the strip went on to be published in over 2400 dailies in the world. the strip was first published in 1986 and was stopped in the year 1995 and as somebody said, it left "a hole in the comics page that no strip has been able to fill."

now about the strip.

Calvin is a six year old spoilt kid, who has low grades in school but is exceptionally intelligent and imaginative. His best friend is Hobbes, which is a stuffed tiger for us people, but is a ferocious tiger for Calvin. The imaginative Hobbes is a notch more intelligent than Calvin, and is the only friend of Calvin. The other main characters of the strip are, his neighbour and classmate, Susie Derkins, his parents, Moe the bully, the teacher and the baby sitter.

Calvin's imagination knows no bounds. and the illustrator exploits it to the maximum. He changes momentarily into Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stupendous man, spaceman spiff and what not.

His greatest fears are the 'monsters under the bed', his teacher and his regular and daring babysitter.

And winter too plays a special role. Its when he creates awesome snowman from the snow and its when Santa comes calling.

Its high time you read the strip. You can get a feed of the strip here, which I too am following.

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes

And since i don't think i have done justice to 'Calvin and Hobbes' strip with this 60 minute write up, this is the wiki page for the strip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_hobbes

Rithu: My Review

2009-08-15T21:17:00.011+05:30

This week there was spate of releases and I was finding it difficult, to decide for which movie should I go. I saw the trailer of a few movies and decided to go for a malayalam movie 'Rithu'. The director was Shyam Prasad, who tends to make different, unconventional movies. The only previous movie I recollect of his is 'Ore Kadal' which too I wanted to see, but could never make it. Anyways me and my friends decided to go for the movie, thanks to my coaxing.

The punchline of the movie goes 'Seasons change, do we?'. It in iteself sounded exciting. The story is about three childhood friends, Sharat, Sunny and Varsha and about time changing their lives and relationships. The three characters have been portrayed by three very promising actors. For that matter, the movie has only new comers, I believe, and hence shows some inexperience and immaturity.

The movie is not enjoyable at all. And the director can be solely blamed for that. It has some serious troubles with the script. The movie attempts to go into several issues at the same time, and doesnt do justice to any of those issues properly. For example, the details about Sarath's communist family was unnecessary. So was the story about the guy whos land was forcibly taken for the Internet City. There were several other drags too, which could have been excluded from the movie.

There are several attempts to make the movie as realistic as possible. But I think he was overdoing it a bit. He has got a good cameraman on his side, and hence has got a fresh take of the movie. The advertising company also is very good. Because it was the posters of the movie which made me see it. Now I realize that ShyamPrasad has a tendency to create different, unconventional and FLOP movies.

The movie deserves only two out of five. And two only because of his attempt to take a more realistic movie. And a thumbs up for the three new actors potraying the main characters. However when I asked my friends, there were a few of them, who have actually liked it. So maybe now I wonder, the nature of my friends( with whom I saw the movie) and the cynical environment of the movie, might have affected my thought process.

Get Pack Release Self

2009-07-14T18:41:00.001+05:30

Last week was when I got my first job. Got a small job in a company in Kochi. Had to move to a small accomodation near to my workplace.

The Job gets over in the evening. Rest of the evening is usually boring having nothing to do(i now really regret not having a girlfriend :D). And to top it all, no internet at the place. Initially it looked like a concentration cell or something.

Then one day, somebody told me about an
Internet pack of vodafone with free browsing for a month. I recieved it with a bit of salt, because of my previous pathetic experience. However considering that meddling with the phone is a good timepass, I decided to use it.
The experience, this time around was much better. Downloaded a gmail application, which runs very smoothly. Configured my RSS reader which also turned out to be very useful. Also downloaded Opera Mini which didnt impress me. Was just a tad better than my inbuilt browser. The most fascinating thing of it all was that I was able to stream Youtube videos on my phone(with some glitches though). Another interesting application was Google Maps, which gave a gps like service on my phone.

Thanks to it, I have been reconnected to the online world. Tweeting has never been so fun, because unlike earlier, its tweeting on the go. Those with big phone screens should definitely give it a try.

PS: a testimony to what I have written above, is this post, which has been drafted and published completely from my phone. And those who are still wondering, what my blog title meant, it is my pathetic version of the expansion of GPRS(Ok. Sorry. Wont commit that mistake again :) ).

Dev D: My Review

2009-06-04T16:12:00.005+05:30

The movie is a contemporary take on the book Devdas, which has already got two movies to its name. To say the movie is an adaptation of the book, would be wrong, because there are many deviations, at least from the story of the Sanjay Leela Bhansali version.

Most important change I felt is that he doesn't die in the end of the movie, doesn't even come close to it, and actually has a happy ending. through out the movie, only twice does it look that he has a disease, once when he dips his head in water and blood comes comes off, and another during a song, where in he coughs heavily.

The movie scores in that it doesn't have much of a negativity in it. His family, especially his dad, had a negative shade, in the previous version, however in this movie, he is a better guy and helps his son in all his needs.

The lead character is played by Abhay Deol, who gives a stunning performance as the drunkard Dev. He doesn't have much to act except being drunk but, there are certain scenes which shows he was the best for the role. Then the biggest find actually are the two lead heroines Mahie Gill as Paro and Kalki Koechlin as Chanda, who give really strong performances.

Paro's role gets over pretty much after the first half. She is more wild, and passionate this time. Remember the scene where she gets a bed in to a sugarcane farm, so that she can have a 'good time' with Dev or the scene where she beats up a guy for telling ridiculous lies about her to Dev. She is a promising actor, and we sure can expect her in more movies.

Chandramukhi aka Chanda's role has got more flesh in it this time around. The movie explores the background and situation of Chanda which led to her becoming a call girl, seeing which I was wondering what happened to the girl, who was at the centre of the MMS scandal, a few years back.The gorgeous actor, gives a sterling performance as Chanda. I liked the scene, where in when she leaves her home, she immediately folds up her skirt along the belt, inside, so that the skirt actually became small, and she looked sexier. or the scene, moments later when she smiles, when two guys go past whistling at her.

However the real star of the movie is Anurag Kashyap himself. He has got such an immense talent, even a normal being like myself could see. The scene where the camera goes all over( when he gets drunk) is an idea Danny Boyle gave himself, and what an effect it is. Then there is this very often mixing of song with the movie, which itself gives a different feel. There is also a select few scenes, far apart, where three guys wearing coats and hats appear, and in a particular song, also dance amazingly. Wonder who they are.

The songs of the movie is too good. Many wont agree but I like the rock version of 'Emosanal Atyachaar' the most. Then there is 'Pardesi' and a punjabi number 'Hiknaal' which are also very good.

I will give 3 out of 5 for Dev D. Only because he has directed it amazingly, because there is nothing much he did with the story. And also request Anurag Kashyap to select scripts more wisely, as movies like 'No Smoking' and 'Gulaal' seems to be suggesting.

Demise of the Phone

2009-05-21T13:28:00.008+05:30

Yesterday night, I went to bed early, trying my best to sleep. I tossed on my bed and checked my mobile, to see what time it was. It was only 10:30 pm. I got up and logged on for a while. Then immediately went to bed.

Since I was really not sleepy, my brain started wandering. For the last year I have really not engaged myself to anything, so basically, what I think in the night is usually still about my college life, how I ruined my real life and once in a while, also about my path breaking idea. I once again checked the time. 10:50 pm. I suddenly realized my mobile has become my alarm piece. It doesn't serve any other purpose these days. I just checked my phone for the last forward I had sent. It was back in January. Checked when was the last call I made. That was two weeks ago, that to, to my home.

Wondering about my phone, I remember how I got hold of my first phone. It was in the first year. Dad had an old phone with him, which he wasn't using, and gladly gave it to me. Me and my brother went and bought my sim, the one I am still using. It is now over 4 years and 3 operators(BPL Mobile, Hutch and now Vodafone) old. But still serving the purpose. There after my brother bought me two phones, one got expired, and the other one, which I am still using.

I never was a good talker, so the use of the phone was limited. However for some of my friends, it was no less than water.

I remember, friends standing in the dark corners of the hostel and talking to their beloved ones, for hours into the night, away from the hustle and bustle of the hostel. You wouldn't know, they are their until they let you know. Third year hostel had only 2 such special corners, and hence was always crowded, one being next to my room. However in the fourth year, the hostel being a big one, the third floor, was full of such beings. I had always wondered who the person at the other end was, because I was sure it was from our college and could have been one among my friends also. But I never interfered. however, some would say, they call them only because they are 'good friends'. Talk to a guy that long, would you? Of course not. So clearly I disagree. I remember, one of my friends was made fun of, for many days later, only because he once talked to a guy, for over an hour :P.

Guys outnumbered girls, and so, I am sure, most of the ladies would be up in the night as well. I have heard that girls even took classes through phones. I have known guys who do all this, and are also among the toppers of the class.

By the end of the fourth year, 'miss you' and 'wont forget you' forwards and missed calls had become the norm. Fourth year passed, and many of my friends became busy. Then my brother's wedding came, and only a few turned up, following which there were some angry exchanges over phone.

I had always been free, and would ring up many of my friends, regularly every week, even though they did not respond the same way. I would ring up my friends who were working then at Mumbai and Bangalore, least concerned that I was calling STD and I was not the one earning.

After months passed this way, one day I resolved that I wouldn't call anybody who are earning, not because I am jealous or something, but because they are the ones earning and they can afford STD calls. Since then there hasn't been much of talking on phones and sms'ing. I don't blame any body, because those who are working have moved on, and have got a different friend circle to maintain. Anybody would have done that. It is just that I feel very lonely. Daily sitting on the computer, chatting, blogging; life has become pretty much boring. And this wasn't what I was looking forward to, when I had passed out. Anyway, life seems to be teaching me in a very cruel way. Not that some body calling me would do any help at all.

Its been weeks since I have made a call on my phone, partly because I am no more interested, and partly because I don't have any talk time on my phone. I am not planning to recharge any time sooner, as long as I keep getting incoming calls.

There are of course some who still call me and make me feel better, even though such calls are far apart. It is such a good feeling when you know there are people who care for you, and pray for you, so that something good comes your way. And somewhere in between, with that good feeling, I slept.

Happy Budday!!

2009-05-15T11:15:00.001+05:30

Well this blog is already dash years dash months and dash days old and , the reason we are celebrating, 50 POSTS OLD. Well it has really been a long time and writing 50 post is no joke. It really needs a lot of patience and time ( well that i had in plenty ) . Its been a long and patient journey, and over the period, i have realised my writing style has changed, my english has matured, and have written on variuos subjects ranging from my college life and how I thought about politics.

For those who have known about this blog only recently, this was my first blog. :D

So Tweet

2009-04-30T09:00:00.004+05:30

The year was 2004. Google launched Orkut and it went on to become a trendsetter. It became an instant hit in the US and slowly other countries started picking up and gradually other social networking sites came in.

A few years before that, Blogger was launched by a lesser known Pyra Labs ( well, at least i don't know ) co founded by a guy named Evan Williams. That too became a big hit. Every person worth his salt started his own blog. So did I. Politicians started asking for votes, and movie celebrities started bitching and biting all through blogs. It was said to be the then trendsetter. It too was bought by Google.

A few years later, after launching Blogger, the same guy goes on to launch the next trendsetter, Twitter. Though it has become such a popular thing abroad, it is yet to catch up in India.

Twitter can be described as the concise version of a blog. What do we do here? in their own words we 'communicate and stay connected'. Here in we 'tweet', which is something of a micro blogging. We can write about anything at all, and the most important thing, it should be only 140 characters long. Short and sweet is the mantra. This actually made TinyURL popular (which is a service which shortens long links).

Well here are the few popular twitterers on the net right now.

http://twitter.com/aplusk The popular Hollywood actor

http://twitter.com/cnnbrk CNN Breaking News

http://twitter.com/britneyspears Britney on the twitter

http://twitter.com/twitter Twitter Themselves

http://twitter.com/BarackObama and the american Prez. Barack Obama

http://twitter.com/dipoled and well, me ( dont allege surrogate ad :P)

Well these have been lifted from this particularly helpful site TwitterCounter. The above twitterers are the people with the highest followings ( don't search the last one in it, it ain't there yet).

And the most loved part of twitter is that it has so many applications, widgets and sites dedicated for tweeting. Two of those which are advertised on the site are StockTwits and Tweetdeck. And few of the applications for twitter are listed here.

The reason Twitter is still in its infancy is that you cant tweet on the go, for free, yet. ( because 3G is yet to be popular in India). But there is still a costlier way to tweet, that is through SMS. Vodafone supports it, however have no idea how much they are charging for it. However the good thing is that you can receive your updates on phone for free. Anyway its time India logged onto twitter, and most importantly started following me :P.

To Kill a Mocking Bird: My Review

2009-04-20T21:18:00.020+05:30

I just cant tell how glad I am, to write this post. Why, because its been such a long time since I have read book (or rather completed one).

How Starbucks Saved My Life
Bourne Identity
Stay Hungry Stay Foolish
and one more book whose name i don't remember

Well those are some of the books, which I started off, recently but none of which I completed. Excepting Bourne Identity, everything else were really boring. The problem with Bourne Identity, was that it had so many characters, I just couldn't keep track of them. I had started reading it, twice, but stopped midways both the time.

Well the book I finally completed was Lee Harper's Pulitzer Winning book 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' published in the year 1960 ( which i just knew). I started reading the book only because it was only 300 pages long, and also because the book won a Pulitzer. I actually never expected to complete the book, because i once had started with 'The Argumentative Indian' (another award winning book) and i remember i couldn't stand a page. I thought a similar fate awaited this book too, but surprisingly this book kept me engaged.

The story is set in the late 1930's. It is a recollection of a particular event in the life of our protagonist when she was around seven, describing which, takes us through a gamut of other events. Narration is through the eyes of a 7 year old girl which in itself is lovely. The perspective of a seven year old, on issues, as simple as school and as complex as rape and racial discrimination, is very interesting.

Though I didn't like the story in itself very much, but what kept me going was its narration. It is so sweet, and do has some humour ( humour only because its narrated from a young girl's point of view ). The story basically narrates about her family, friends and her neighbourhood. It also describes in length about their ever elusive neighbour, and their failed attempts to see him. It also describes about a case her father defends for a black, he being a lawyer, and eventually loses. It also describes about her friend, with whom she and her brother, spent their summer together.

I didn't get bored reading it, and completed it in less than three days. It wont bore you either, am sure, but why it got a Pulitzer, I still don't know. Maybe it has something more to it, that i didn't understand :P.

The Race Called Election

2009-04-06T09:17:00.004+05:30

The race has begun. And the way it is unveiling, it sure is going to be a very nasty race. Well we are talking about the Race called General Elections 2009, which will be played out in coming few months. The groundwork has already begun. And the outcome would be really interesting.

The favourites of the race are

United Progressive Alliance ( UPA) lead by the Congress,

National Democratic Alliance (NDA) lead by the BJP and

The Third Front lead by nobody :P.

The prime ministerial candidate for the Congress lead UPA is Manmohan Singh, often accused by the BJP as a weak Prime Minister. I really support the UPA, because of some of their leaders, and more importantly because of its secular stand.

The Prime Ministerial candidate of the BJP led NDA is Mr. L K Advani. Often made fun of, calling him as the "PM in waiting, always". Had a very communal stand, however in recent times, trying to dilute that hardliner stand. For example, when they said that, after building the Ram Temple, at Ayodhya, they will build a Mosque too, nearby. Guess they will be busy building temples and mosques, for the next five years, if ever voted to power. I really hate the BJP because of its Hindutva stand, and also because they do nasty things to garner votes in the name of Hindutva. If BJP ever comes to power, then India has no future. Less than a years rule in Karnataka, and see what they have made out of it. Incidents of communal violence have increased. And have successfully polarized the society, classic example being Mangalore. I have no idea how they could justify beating up girls. With NDA at the helm, they will make sure, more Mangalores and Godhras are created.

And, well for the third front, they have no Prime Ministerial candidates as of now. The prime Ministerial candidate would be chosen, post elections. Imagine, if ever the third front gets the majority. Everybody would be vying for the PM post. It is only to fulfill those dreams that every party is joining the third front. I have no idea, what they were thinking while forming this front, because, there are many equally powerful parties in it.

The General Election 2009 promises to be different, because of the high percentage of first time voters. It is said that there are at least 100 million first time voters this time, that too, in the age group of 18 - 24 years.

Every party is setting new lows this time around. BJP for one, has stooped too low. At one end, they try to be secular, and at the other end, they let loose, elements like Varun Gandhi, and even stand by him. When, some say, the future is in the hands of the youth, and if the youth comprises the likes of Varun Gandhi, I would rather stick to oldies. And then there is JMM who have named only, criminals with serious charges, this time around for elections.

Election 2009 is also different in that Internet has become a very important tool. Every party has put up a website, and tried to maintain it. Leading the pack is BJP, which is even advertising heavily online. And there are also several websites put up by NGO's and news channels, detailing the profile of every MP contesting this time. You can find the list of such websites here.

Well, so this is the time for change. Hope election 2009 goes down in history where the youth makes a difference and beats the communal and the criminal. Every vote matters. Don't just sit at home. Go vote.

Slumdog Millionaire: My Review

2009-03-17T23:00:00.001+05:30

Let me get it straight from the beginning. Slumdog is one of most over hyped movie I have ever seen. I still don't understand what made it click with the Oscar jury.

But the movie does have its share of moments. And which movie doesn't.

The 'youngest Jamaal' is the real scene stealer. He gives in such a good performance, your heart goes out for him. However I was surprised, that all the credits went to Frieda and Dev. Irfan Khan and Anil Kapoor also gave in some good performances. Then those shots in slums and in railway station, i wonder how they took it. Because I know difficult it would have been. And really good shots they are. And sound mixing ( if it is what i think it is) was also awesome. no wonder pookkutty got an Oscar for it.

However, still it does not qualify to win 8 Oscars. Come on, Gladiator got only 5. The movie overall is pretty average. Even the music is pretty average too. Rehman has scored better music than this before. It is also not as if it is miles ahead than our current Bollywood movies. The only difference was that it was directed by a white director, and hence the movie was included in the mainstream category, rather than the foreign film category, into which the usual Indian movies are placed.

This post also reminds me of the review of the movie by Arindam Choudhary ( yeah the same guy with the pony tail, who runs full page ads for his institute IIPM). He was equating giving away Oscars to Slumdog, as imperialism. Oh god, now how could that be. Well he does support it with some interesting arguments. In the 90's, he claims that when the big brands of cosmetics wanted to enter India in a big way, they pulled some strings and made three Indians win the coveted Miss Universe. Similarly, when the big film production companies like Warner Brothers, are planning to enter India in a big way, they too pull some strings and give away 8 Oscars to a largely Indian movie. Well don't know about the authenticity of his arguments but it did give me some insights.

Not more than 3 on 5 from me for the movie. And, for the organizers for the Oscars, please put some strong hearted fellows on the jury, who don't give in, seeing slums and poverty.

Follow Me

2009-03-09T19:11:00.009+05:30

Well guys is been a long time since i have started writing blogs. But look at my patheticity^#( if you wondered what this word meant follow the #) that I have got only few followers. So friends if there are anybody who just glance through my blog once in a while, then there is one better way of keeping track of my blog. There is a section called 'followers' towards the left of me. Click on the button 'follow" button and follow the simple instructions and voila whenever i post a blog, it already in Google reader. And if you don't use it, still follow me, because it makes me feel better ( and I am sure like making me feel better).

^# The least I could do to our old English vocabulary is to add a word to it. so today i proudly have already announced the word and it is 'Patheticity'. But guess what when i googled it, i found the word in Urban Dictionary. Damn. Anyways, this word had popped in my head, and nobody else gets the recognition other than me.

Patheticity: puh-thet-i-sit-ee

1. The pure and utter state of being pathetic.

2. Measure of how pathetic something is.

Compilation Error

2009-02-20T22:00:00.000+05:30

Back in the year 2004, when I had just completed my 12th, I had to start prepare immediately for an equally important exam, the engineering entrance exam. Engineering then was the ' in ' thing. Everybody tried hard to get into an engineeing college. And those who couldnt, paid lakhs and got into one.

The exam went fine. and a few months later, the results came and I had something in it to be happy about. Since I loved computers when I was young, I always wanted to study something related to computers ( put it this way - I always wanted to learn how to hack and thus the interest ). I came to know that I could get computer science stream, the one I was looking for, in one of the better colleges of Kerala. I joined the college and thus begins the chapter of MACE.

When I passed 12th, I was this confident self respecting guy, who had the guts to take on any difficulties coming my way. I had been like that during my school days. Scoldings from my teachers and parents didnt affect me, coz i believed in myself. I thought that I can always tide over the difficulties quite smoothly.

Four years have breezed past. And I am not the same guy at all. I have changed for the worse. I dont have that confidence In myself. I have been deprived emotionally and mentally. The last four years have helped stub the intensity in me. The revengeful attitude towards my academics have died down. I have started taking failures into my strides. All because I performed poorly in my graduation, consistently. Life, as they say, had been truly cruel with me. There were many a moments in my college life, when I had been on the verge of tears, and reasons being purely academic ( girlfriends were never a reason, I assure).

However I was and am unapologetic. I curse the University for all the misfortunes. And I still do so. And its not like ' everybody does it' kind of thing. I really think the University is at fault, and I wonder how many such people they have ruined till date.

And now I am sitting at home, writing this damn blog, because I have nothing else to do. Watching movies and playing online is the routine when smarter guys are minting money. Now all I can do is think about doing some higher studies, and god knows what would be in store for me there.

After going through all this, at this very juncture, I am wondering, did I commit a mistake, then, four years back, by going for engineering?? Only the future has the answer for it.

Wanted: My Review

2009-02-15T14:34:00.003+05:30

Its not proper for me to review this movie, coz i am a big fan of Angelina Jolie, for all the reasons. So when a few of my friends told that the movie wasnt any good to spend your money on, that didnt dampen my spirits. How could you resist watching the movie, when you have Angelina in a stylish movie, at her ravishing best.

So coming back to the movie, the reason my friends dumped the movie, mainly was the concept of bullets taking to non linear motion. As far as I am concerned, I dont mind that. As long as it is taken stylishly, and to a certain extent, believably. You have the rest of the movie to cheer upon. There is amazing action, and a decent plot. What more do you want.

So actually speaking I liked the movie, even though I hated the lead male actor. I would rate it three out of five. And if you havent watched, you sure have missed a good movie. And dont forget to see the Climax. That is true entertainment :)

The Uncrowned Emperor

2009-02-02T21:26:00.004+05:30

Last night I was in for disappointment. Federer Lost to Nadal again. This time at the Australian Open.

With Australian open beginning, my hopes had raised, seeing Federer. He had become leaner and fitter. I thought this time nobody could beat him. And the way Nadal struggled to his country man Fernando Verdasco, I even hoped maybe Federer may not have to face Nadal at all. He not only faced Nadal, but he also lost. Though I am not disappointed at his performance, coz its not easy to face a player who has defeated you when you were at your best.

But when Federer broke down at the award ceremony, my eyes welled with tears. Because of the realization that, a person who is immortalized by many a fans across the world, is after all a human being.

He is such an awesome player and a personality that I just cant switch loyalties to Nadal. I wish him best of luck next time, when he meets Nadal.

One Night At the Theatre

2009-01-31T15:00:00.000+05:30

It was the time when 'Dasavathaaram' had been released in a theatre nearby. All the Kamalhaasan fans( read paandis) around were running around saying that the movie was going to be a hit.

So during one of those boring classes in the college, our gang decided to go for the movie that night. We reached the theatre at around 8 pm. However due to the undying hype of the movie, we could not manage to buy the tickets that night. As we were about to return dejectedly, one of us suggested to see another movie ' The Amazing Girls '. Most of us didn't even know such a movie had been released at all ;) . Once I saw the posters, I knew the guy who suggested the movie had definitely seen the posters, to say the least. The poster of the movie, gave the impression that it was a B Grade movie ( however I assure you, the movie was no B Grade, and was released in one of the respected theatres. Had it been one, I would have accepted it, gladly, without qualms) . While taking the tickets, I was afraid whether I would see recognizable faces, but then, seeing somebody would be an embarrassment for them as well. After sweating it out in the theatre( literally) , we came back to our den and slept. Everything was fine till then.

The next day, as usual, we went to the college. As it was among the last days of our college, almost everyday our friends used to get together somewhere and spend the evening talking. That day too, me and some of my friends ( two girls actually ) met and in the meantime went to a nearby Ice Cream parlour. One of them suddenly asked, "How was yesterday's movie?". Feigning innocence, I told, due to the terrible rush we couldn't manage the tickets for the movie. To that she replied" No. I am talking about the other movie you finally saw. 'The Amazing girls'. How was it??". I was like stumped. This was supposed to be a secret. Who the hell told her that we after all saw such a movie??I cant imagine how I looked then. They might have laughed the whole night, seeing the look on my face. I tried my best to duck the question saying, "yeah, the movie was okay". But stopped short of recommending it.

Later in the evening after coming back to my hostel, I told about the thing to my friends. Some of my friends laughed at me hearing about it. I was at least glad that most of my hostel mates were there with the day before. And some of them, being the class toppers. So I alone, need not take the plunge in the image ratings. :D

Writing about it almost six months later, I guess this would one of the most embarrassing things I will remember my whole life.

Single Number a.k.a Su Do Ku

2008-12-25T22:00:00.001+05:30

It was in 'The Hindu' that I first saw it. The rather difficult game which became a craze among the readers. I am talking about Sudoku. I too liked playing, however it took me hours before I completed one( if I ever completed). But when I heard that my friend, used to solve the hard Sudoku in less than ten minutes, I stopped playing it. Then I realized that even my brother too did it quite fast. When I asked him, he told that there were many sites explaining about the techniques to solve it ( and I was expecting to solve it, with the method explained in the newspaper, duh). However still, even after getting the techniques, I wasn't very enthusiastic about solving it, due to tedious process in solving it.

So being a programmer by blood, I decided to create a program for it :) . First came the CPP version of the program. It took me around four days to come up with the program. The program solved easy and medium Sudoku every time successfully ( at least with the examples I gave ).However, it still left, certain fields blank in the hard Sudoku ( well do it as a homework ). Then, in a bid challenge myself, I decided to build the Java version of it. And that was the reason it took three months to publish this post. I was stuck at bug which of course, I couldn't solve. After asking many friends of mine about the error, I still couldn't find the problem.

Then one fine day, I decided to prepare for 'Sun Certified Java Professional' certification and after studying it for a while, voila, I realize my error. I install NetBeans into my computer, ( because in between I bought a new one ) get my program going, the same day. That is today. On the Christmas day.

So with full satisfaction, I am uploading my files. As for running those program, you gotta patiently type in the numbers in the correct position, and those which are blank, please type in '0' as in zero in there. I have left the code, open, for you guys to admire my head :D .

You can find the CPP version of it here.

And the Java version here.

in an attempt to challenge myself again, I have decided to create a multi threaded version of it, along with a GUI. ( yea, the above one's don't have them simply because it isn't easy ) . And I can assure you that it will be out before the 100'th post of this blog. ( well you can guess my intention with the time frame allotted )

There are bound to be several bugs in there because I dint have the patience to test it heavily. So if you find any bugs, no points for you, and, this one is important, don't comment about the bug. There are several other good things in the world about which you can write in there. And by the way, Merry Christmas.

A Tribute to the Joker

2008-12-08T19:55:00.012+05:30

I was surprised when one of my friend asked where did u get your orkut profile pic from (the pic. was one among the slew of posters released for the promotion of the movie 'The Dark Knight'). So the least I can do is to inspire them to watch that tremendous movie. As a beginning I think it would be enough to put some of the main dialogues of the movie. So here I go.

Why so serious?

I use a knife because guns are too quick. Otherwise, you can't savor all the emotions. You know who people are in their last moments.

I am like the dog chasing cars. I would not know what to do if I caught one. I just do.

its all about sending the message across.

Good evening ladies n gentlemen...............we are tonight's Entertainment.

there are a lot of schemers in this world ..am not a schemer .. I do things wen everybody keep scheming.

This Town needs a better Class of criminals.... i will provide them with it.

Dont hit the criminal on head..he goes all fuzzy...then he cant feel a thing...(bale nails his hand).. (pause)... see??..

you complete me!

this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

Madness is like gravity..it just needs a little push.

lets put a smile in that face.

ha ha he ha.. and i thought my jokes were bad....

when you know you are good at something, never do it for free!

Do I look like a guy with a plan?

You know, you remind of my father... I HATED MY FATHER!!

Kill you? I don't wanna kill you... What would I do without you? You complete me.

You truly are incorruptible aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness, and I won't kill you, because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever."

You look nervous. Is it the scars? You want to know how I got them? Come here. Hey, look at me. So I had a wife, beautiful; like you. Who tells me, I worry too much. Who tells me, I ought to smile more. Who gambles, and gets in deep with sharks. One day they carve her face. We have no money for surgeries. She can't take it! I just want to see her smile again. I just want her to know that I don't care about the scars. So I stick a razor in my mouth and do this...

Wanna know how I got these scars? My father was....a drinker. And a fiend. And one night he goes off crazier than usual. Mommy gets the kitchen knife to defend herself. He doesn't like that. Not. One. Bit. So, me watching, he takes the knife to her, laughing while he does it. Turns to me and he says "Why so serious?" Comes at me with the knife,"Why so serious?" He sticks the blade in my mouth. "Lets put a smile on that face!"

Let's turn the clocks back. A year ago, these cops and lawyers wouldn't dare cross any of you. I mean, what happened? Did your - did your balls drop off? Hmm?

Either you die a Hero...or you live long enough to see yourself turn into a villain.

See, I'm a man of simple tastes. I like gunpowder...and dynamite...and gasoline! Do you know what all of these things have in common? They're cheap!

And if you still cant appreciate the movie, do see the movie and the context in which these dialogs are used. Then I am sure you will appreciate it. Also see this link below

The Dark Knight

And the man who did it all.

Heath Ledger

And please dont forget; the movie is about Batman, not Joker. :D

Believe It or Not

2008-11-24T22:00:00.000+05:30

While sitting during a sermon by a priest, I couldn't help but think " why on earth am I sitting here ?".

This is the feeling I have, every time I go to the church. Then, since it is very bad to say such things in the society, I oblige by my parents, whenever they ask me to go to the church.

When I say such things, friends of mine doubt whether I am an atheist. Come on. I do believe in God. But I just don't agree with the frills that faith comes with. One of my friends jokingly asked that the next time i might be entering a church would be on my marriage. That is very unlikely. Of course there would be a lot of marraiges in between :) .

And moreover I have seen priest very closely. And I can surely say that they are not worth the position they are holding in the society.

What makes you think that going to church every Sunday and taking 50 days of lent, makes u a more faithful person. I believe a person with a pure and sincere heart is closer to God than anybody else is, irrespective of the faith he believes in.

In my home are two starkly different characters, my mom and my dad. Mom is the typical faithful. Takes lent regularly, goes to church regularly and prays every night for all of us. Dad doesn't go to church regularly, cant help non vegetarian and prays occasionally only. But I know, he is as faithful as mom is. He knows vastly about the Bible, much better than mom does, and lot of other things.

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart"

So all you need, to be heard by God is a pure heart, good conscience and a sincere faith. (sincerely speaking had a tough time searching for such a verse. Even google didnt help much).

Testimonials I Wrote

2008-11-16T22:00:00.002+05:30

Since there wasnt much to write about, I thought why not show you guys what I have written about my friends in orkut as testimonials.

Merin : bubbliest, energetic est girl i hav ever seen.. still remember the moment when u danced to the tunes of pokkiri pongal during our s7 tour... u r simply amazing...

Dileep : is an amazing guy with an amazing sound... one of those guys who has changed the mst since we joined college... makes me laugh wen i see at his first year pics... but am sure girls will fall for him seeing his current pics... i would vote for him for the mst stylish guy of our college... nd mst of all, PC (tats wat we call him) u hav been an amzing frend of mine... wish all the success of life.. nd also wish u luck fr the nxt ISS prelims

Manu : One of those first guys to bring a camera phone, laptop etc etc to our college courtesy his aliyan at America.. great fan of Toshiba.. am still wondering why??... but one thing am sure of is that he is a great friend to hav... has tis nice personality, sense of humour and the spl skill to make fun of ppl... no wonder girls of our class , college and Thodupuzha alike are falling for him....

George : look at his about me...athil thanne und avande svabhaavam... : JAADA ..... carries it with much pride pakshe aalu oru paavam aa.... very gud friend of mine..pakshe avan ente arike athiyam jaada erikiyaal appo ennikke deshyam... He has tis spl ability to get onto one's nerve.... Anyways he is a gud guy and an amazin personality

Anaswara : till now i thought i was the person with attitude (jaada) .....but this girl has beaten the hell out of me...she has tis ability to make me invisible when i'm standin right in front of her .... anyways she is good at heart and a sweet gal to talk to..... and i love talkin to her (the only few minutes i hav talked ) ...alengil njaan okke epozhe ente pani nokki poyenne

Vineeth : a smart looking cool guy, and a complete computer geek.....his personality draws everybody closer to him. And also has an immense fan following among gals.......god......plz forgive me for all the lies i have just told...

Watson : What can i say abt him.....he is a kind hearted fellow and a good friend of mine...and girls are his weakness ( especially the juniors :D )

Tarun : dynamism and unpredictability are the two best words to sum up Tarun...a techie to the core and and a good friend of mine...

Bhavani : a very dynamic girl she is...me and our class is greatful to have u in our class :D ..... "On Thy Note, We All Survive" (book of paul 15:33)

Saleesh : tis guy is a real mystery....looks will decieve you into thinking tat he is a brainy, bookworm kinda guy....believe me he is not only tat....couldnt believe when he told me that he had proposed a girl from our class.....a gutsy thing by his standards...and also great friend to have (especially as a room mate coz he always bring something to eat ;) )

Janith : my roommate for almost 2 years and i think i hav discovered a bit...one of my best pals...has a very big head( not literally ) and has the most sharpest view of evrything.....very well read, so if u r abt to argue with him, hav ur homework done.....most of all, u rock man.

Jeffie : cant believe nisha chechi describing Jeffie as a witty guy....he is the king of challis :D...well wat to expect from Nisha chechi ( she is one herself !!!)....He is equally brainy i shud say...gud to be associated with u but i dont want to talk to u ( u will kill me with ur chalees tats y..)

Arun : one of my best frenz in college and one of best guys to be associated with (girls watch out for him !!! )

Arun Jose : one of the super genius and multi talented guy seen by me. He is as gud at studying as in playing football.

There are many more friends who are really worth a testimonial from me, (see a testimonial from me is a big thing ;) ) , however I believe in writing a testimonial personally rather copying others testimonial.

Monsoon Wedding, Almost

2008-10-29T23:10:00.005+05:30

So its finally official. My brother is no more single. Quite painfully changed his relationship status today morning :)

The few days before the marriage, the atmosphere at home was tense. Basically because rain gods seemed to be angry with us. The week before the wedding, there were huge downpours and we thought that rain might just spoil our plans. And exactly that happened, on the day before. There was heavy rains and we had difficulty managing the event. And we expected the next day to be not very different. My mom also jokingly said 'tomorrow its going to be a monsoon wedding '.

But by god's grace, on the next day, the sun shone bright. The wedding ceremonies began in a haste, and that put my dad in a tight corner. Otherwise everything else went perfectly fine. Everybody invited had turned up, though most of my friends didn't. By evening all the formalities of the day had been completed and I was cozily lying on the bed.

Four Corners of a Circle

2008-09-19T08:59:00.027+05:30

College life was the best part of my life, and as you can see I never get tired writing about it. Any description about my college life would be incomplete if I don't write anything about my roommates. Because they have a significant role too, in what I am today.

First year, I lived in a private hostel with a bunch of college mates. My first roommate, 'harry' was an NRI. He was a cool guy and had a very bad humour sense ;) . Birthday celebrations were fun, and we had taken many a memorable pictures together. We had also gone for a small trip from our hostel to places nearby. Before we could enjoy much, exams approached, and soon first year came to an end.

Even though life at the private hostel was fun, I didn't like the hostel itself, because it was far away and moreover there were nobody from my class there. So I decided to move to the college hostel. By the end of the first year, I began scouting for roommates. I was very afraid of myself going haywire, if I had a bad company, so I was particular that my roommates be studious guys, so that I never went the wrong way.

And I just got that. My roommates thereafter, 'alpha', 'beta' and 'gamma' were all studious as well as fun loving guys. They were studious in the sense that they always managed to figure in the top five boys of our class, and hence had a tremendous rapport with our teachers. Fun loving in the sense that they were there for every events, parties, tours and even for movies.

'alpha' was the topper of the class, although he never seemed to study. He was obviously listening to all those lectures properly , when we were busy playing tic tac toe. He is also very well read, and kept himself abreast of all the developments in politics and business. 'beta' was good at almost everything. He had also this very strong local accent which was funny in a way that, his accent changes every time, while watching a movie or while talking over the phone, and that too almost unconsciously. And most of all he was the butt of all our jokes. 'gamma' was a computer geek in the true sense. And is tremendously good at programming. This guy especially was crazy about talking and chatting to girls, whom he meets over the chat rooms.

However we being friends never meant that we never had arguments. We four although loved each other's company, never have agreed unanimously on a single matter. Four of us had a mobile connection each from a different operator, and none of us wasted a single moment to praise their own operators, however bad it was. Then there was this usual Nokia Vs. Sony Ericcson war which we fought relentlessly, however this time as a team. 'gamma' would side with me and sound our trumpets to the rather weak enemy comprising 'alpha' and 'beta'. We also engaged ourselves in the ' my city is better than your city' argument, when actually neither of the cities, could qualify as one.

Well, arguments apart, 'alpha', 'beta' and 'gamma' have a considerable part in making my life at college memorable. They have also helped me tremendously in my studies, although it didn't show in my marks. They have helped me out from all the mess I have put myself into. Then of course there are many other friends in my hostel, without whom my hostel life would have been lot difficult and boring. Although that goes unsaid here.

Bangalore Diaries

2008-09-11T15:15:00.012+05:30

Recently I had been to Bangalore to do a reconnaissance on my chances of bagging a job there. Many of my friends were skeptical about the plan, saying that it is difficult to land a job just by going to Bangalore. So, then onwards, I started saying that it was just a joy trip to my brother's place.

I had been planning this trip for weeks, but anyhow the trip always got delayed. One day my brother told me that he would be out of station for a month, and chances of my trip to Bangalore after that was almost nill. So I decided to go before he left, even though he would be there only for a few days. He had assured me that there was TV and and a play station to keep me busy and I wont regret coming to Bangalore ( what a brother !!). And moreover the place is Bangalore. There are places to go and kill time.

My brother left me, a week after I reached there. And I had not stepped outside my nest. Stayed there the whole day and night. In the first week the net connection too was down ( although it was restored soon). But anyhow I managed to stay indoor watching movies, and playing games. The reason I didnt go outside was that it was very difficult to navigate through the city, courtesy the kannada bus boards, and most of all I am very bad at maps. Anyhow after my brother left, encouraged by the friends of my brother, I decided to go places. I went as far as Shivaji Nagar and also went to some of my friends places. Soon after that, I was on my way back, home.

However it would be unfair to say that I didnt enjoy my stay there. Atleast it was better than say had I been at home. The garden city, full of gardens, and gardens full of people. And moreover the people at my brother's place were very friendly. And I virtually lived on their expenses, becuase they wouldnt allow me to.

During the very unveventful and unfruitful trip to bangalore, I learnt three things.

First, it is not easy to get a job at Bangalore, atleast in these trying times. After two weeks of toiling, all I could manage was a single interview, for which I couldn't go.

Second, I realized that I was very short in cullinary skills. Even my brother turned out to be a better cook. in the morning and in the night, while cooking, I was left helpless and embarrassed just looking on, when everybody else were busy either cutting vegetables or shredding the coconut. Now since I have lived here for over two weeks, I sure have gained some experience, unfortunately, about which I can't write in my resume.

Third that the garden city is becoming a mess. Inner Bangalore is a complete mess. I had been there only once, and decided not to go again. Traffic jams and potholed roads have become a part of the city. Although I lived in a residential area, which is in outer Bangalore, and which I believe is in a better part of the city, that place too was very crowded.

The Last..hic..

2008-08-20T08:28:00.005+05:30

Last day at the college was a very painful day. So was the last night.

Many of the guys from our class decided to celebrate it at a bar near our college. Like always, I too decided to go with them. The last two times i had hanged out with my freinds at the bar, the party ended up at hospitals, because some of our friends met with accidents, and me trying hard to keep myself awake in the middle of the night. This time I prayed that no untoward incidents happened the night. God thankfully heard me.

it was always fun, spending my time with them, even though i didn't drink. Many have tried their best to force me drink. But none were successful. Only a few have asked me never to start drinking. One of those, the 'drunk' said to me one day, showing me a glass of whiskey, 'Dude. This is no Bliss'. The 'drunk' too was like me, one year back.

On the last day too I was forced. However, that night i came really close to be officially called a drunkard. Had I been forced a little harder, I might just have picked up a drink. Thankfully I controlled my myself.

That day the 'bunny' had three beers, and it was way too much for him. It was fun seeing him behaving that day. He couldnt control his emotions. That day, he said to me 'She said bye. Just like that. How could she do this to me', referring to his girlfriend, And some time later, being the good guy he is, would say justifying her act, 'For her, parents came first, and she just could not defy them'. He was heart broken that day.

Some time later, he started saying, 'What will I do without u guys. Tomorrow onwards everything is over. No more drinking. No more tours. Will miss u guys dearly.' Any stranger would have thought we were a bunch of gays, but then only we knew how it feels. Four years of togetherness coming to an end suddenly. The '' and the 'breakable' would try to console him, saying we will meet again and again. Also laid out a plan to go for a tour shortly.

Many of my friends were busy on phones, and in the most cases, the other person, usually a girl, didn't even know that this person is drunk. These guys. Will never straighten up. As if they didn't get a better place to ring up their girlfriends.

As it got later, and when most of us, had lost their better self, we decided to move back to our resting place. As I left, however, I could not help thinking that this might just be my last outing with my friends at a bar.

Jago India Jago

2008-08-14T08:51:00.001+05:30

So something which I believed and have written about, in a blog has finally materialized. Here comes a party which aims to be an ideal party, with people selected only on the basis of their merits and their interest for serving the country.

Here comes the Jago Party.

Their manifesto seems all crap though. Its like the same old manifesto, where in everybody is treated as illiterate and ignorant. Making tall claims, and which have the slimmest chance of ever being implemented.

However, If they ever make it onto the voting machine I am about to vote, then without any doubt I would go for them, because I would definitely give them a chance. So guys at Jago Party, please do give some weight to my vote, when I vote. For the time being, what u guys can do is pay me, becuase I am giving you much required publicity to the millions of readers of my blog ;) .

The Legend

2008-08-08T12:13:00.001+05:30

Saw an interesting write up dropped by my friend in my scrap book. Thought it was appropriate to put it up here.

Here I am, in an old bikez store wit worn limbs. My eyes r swollen wit da bangs my previous rider gave me, and my body is smattered wit da various dents tht my riders have given me over da passage of time. Half of me is dead and rusted, I am not attractive and shiny as I used to be ? but I have one thing tht no other machine has ? the undying spirit and da cruel intention to set da roads on fiery mirth. I was both handsome and beautiful once. The true heartthrob of every Indian youth ? My very roar eclipses da thought of buying another make ? if power, speed and reliability are what you are looking for. Riders who know how to ride me have enjoyed lasting companionships. I am a machine that embeds with man like no other. Stretch me to my limits and break them every time u ride me. Tht is wht I was made for, tht is wht I love doing. Riding me is all abt a precise balance between speed n control. Desire more for any one of these and u will find yourself on your back.I possess the courage to break free from your grip if you do not deserve to hold me between your legs. I will crown u da sole king of the road ? for no one else will dare to compete. Throw me into any corner, and I will come out like a swooping eagle. Ride me into traffic, and I will lead out of it like a slithering snake. Accelerate me on da highway ? I promise you the power of bulls and speed of horses. Give me all da good drink I need, I am an addicted drunkard ? and I will deliver da fastest spinning rear wheel u have ever seen. Save all your care for da girl you hooked on to from your college, showing off riding me ? I need hardly little of it. Here I am, in an old bikes store. I am on the way to the metal scrap unit ? yet I possess da legendary fame that no Indian bike has enjoyed ever. My roar will always continue to be da heartbeat of the true biker ?. I have no death, for I will always live in da hearts and mind of the true Indian biker ? I belong to the YAMAHA RX- league.

What They Said

2008-07-30T21:23:00.001+05:30

My friends had a tough time guessing the characters of my previous posts. And sadly to say, none came close to it. Well I am secretly happy too, because that shows my writing skills, if I can say that.

Received some interesting comments from friends. However all of them are not in the comment sections because there were offlines, and instant messages. I had also sent the link to the protagonists of the post, to know how they felt about it, and have got quite satisfactory replies.

Some of my friends, thinking it to be fictitious, have also asked me to put up another post telling that our 'loser' has finally got the 'flower' of his life. Well I have said nothing about it, to him. Situations will decide.

And most of all, the style of writing, for which many,I believe, liked the post, has been 'inspired' from another blogger, to say the truth. Loved this style of writing, because it keeps the identity of the protagonists hidden, but those who know them closely, will clearly know who I am referring to. However that has not been true, in the case of my previous post.

Love's Labour Lost

2008-07-19T21:10:00.009+05:30

In the last four years of college life I have seen many love stories sprout in our campus. Some survived the grueling years, and some other didn't. Not surprisingly, one of my close friends, the 'loser' too was also influenced by love. The closest he came to love was in the final year. That sure has changed his life in ways more than one.

The 'loser' being from a very orthodox family had never thought about love. He never spoke to girls, forget about falling in love with one of them. But then, as they say, love comes uninvited. It happened during our final year project. They, that is, the 'loser's batch and the 'flower's batch along with our batch coincidentally joined the same institution for studying the project language. They started talking to each other, started eating out together, of course with us, friends. There onwards there was no looking back. They became good friends and the project became a backdrop for the 'loser' to get closer to the 'flower'.

Getting closer was not as easy as it sounded. It was a Himalayan task, as far as he was concerned. he being such an awful character, had nothing to talk about, with her. He was never talkative, so was very difficult to open up. I would ask him to give her a call. He had her phone number, but would never call her, at least not for casual talk, considering what she would think of him, calling her for no reason. That, was an another problem. Thinking too much about one's image.

Final semester had began. Seeing 'loser's new found friendship with 'flower', gossips started making rounds. Friends would occasionally make fun of them, and they braved them all. By then he was deeply in love with her and had mustered the guts to propose her. According to me, proposing was the easiest thing to do. Things there after, if ever been accepted, like getting his parents and her parents to accept the relation are tasks far difficult. Anyway, at one point of time, he had decided to go ahead with it. But then he thought why should he risk his reputation, and tried to know how she felt about him, and then do the thing.

'Loser' was in for disappointment. Heard that she only considered him as a friend and nothing more. But then I actually believed that falling in love with your best friend is the best thing to happen. Practically thinking, her accepting him, would be a blunder on her part. She, a studious, brilliant and beautiful, and the 'loser', (please don't mind it OK) , half as studious or brilliant, would have been an unlikely pair. So he, with utter sorrow, decided not to propose to her. I was there at the time. It was a difficult decision to make. He would say to me 'my head says no, but kya karen , heart still says yes'. Finally he decided to stop all the proceedings in the relationship. Keep it as it is. Friend. And never tell how he felt for her. The decision was conscious, because severing all the relation with her will only hurt him.

Some days later, into the tragic love story, comes a new character, the 'thorn'. 'Flower' finds a best friend in the 'thorn'. Unlike a villain happens to be, the 'thorn' was handsome, glamorous, popular, outspoken and well versed; (much like me) by every means a better guy. And I thought, there he goes with my friend's 'flower'. However 'loser' would claim, he had no problems as he had already made up his mind. Although I believe that the 'thorn' did affect their friendship. They talked less. Saw each other lesser. Once my another friend, the 'show man' jokingly said to her 'when you want to avoid a person, avoid him slowly, not drastically' clearly indicating the 'loser', which I thought was very true. Then on, their relationship never got better.

Final days approached. The sorrow of leaving the college and friends, combined with the sorrow of leaving her, without even telling how he had felt about her, was overwhelming. He was also very angry with her over the way she treated him. But then he tried hard to part with her on a good note. Would put up an artificial smile whenever she was around. He also took a picture with the 'flower' and the 'thorn' to just tell her that he had no issues with them.

And on the last day, trying best to control his emotions, we left everybody behind. He didn't even look back to her to bid a final adieu.

*******************************************************************

Writing this blog was the most laborious, because I had to be careful not to hurt anybody. It was fun too. Recounting all those events was a difficult task. Had written down some important ones which were supposed to be included in the blog. But due to the increasing length of my blog, had to cut down on many. Choosing alias names was also fun, and hope my friends (who had been given the names) would take it in a lighter sense. Some may not agree with what I have written, but then what I have written is the way I thought, and also the way he thought, I can safely say that.

Recently I happened to see the movie 'Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Naa' and was surprised to see some shades of similarity in the movie and in the 'loser's life. Hope that all characters were fictitous.

This blog is a memoir of a chapter of love, in the 'loser's life. This blog is not meant to hurt anybody. Alias names have been chosen only to hide their identity and is not symbolic to how I or he feels about them. The 'flower' and the 'thorn' still mean very much to me and the 'loser' and will remain so throughout life. Finally, according to him, this chapter has been closed and hopes would never be opened again.

Jaane Tu.. Ya Jaane Naa : My Review

2008-07-16T20:43:00.004+05:30

My friend, the 'techie', one day called and asked me to come to Ernakulam to see the new movie ' Jaane Tu.. Yaa Jaane Naa'. Even though Ernakulam is a good two hour, 50 bucks, journey from my place, I didn’t think twice while saying yes. Well there are reasons. It had been some time since I have seen my friends, and second more important reason was that the movie was at Sridhar. I have seen how chicks come in hordes to see movies along with their boyfriends.

Everybody might have thought i was crazy to go to Ernakulam, to see a movie, but then, I have never denied. Together with us was the 'critic', best friend of the 'techie'. Had a great time at Ernakulam and also burnt a hole in our pockets.

Well talking about the movie, 'Jaane Tu.. Ya Jaane Naa' is quite an entertaining movie. The movie has this college guys characters in it played well by Imran Khan, Genelia and other debutants.

The introduction scene of Imran Khan in the movie is brilliantly shot, which has a guy on a horse running about in a dessert, though the scene doesn’t have much to do with the movie.

The story is about Ratz and Meow, who are two good friends, who ultimately know that they are in love with each other. Ratz is a poor guy, who has a rich ancestral past. Nasseerudin Shah plays his father from within a frame. Meow is a rich girl, who has a nasty brother. They also have a gang of friends who are together always. Everybody in college think they have an affair with each other, so they end up finding a partner for each other. Ultimately they realize that they are made for each other. That’s it. The whole movie in a nutshell.

If it is not enough, there are some more interesting characters played out by some notable actors. The corrupt and nasty cop played by Paresh Rawal to perfection. Then there are the roles of Arbaaz Khan and some other brother of Khan, who create much fun in the movie. Their roles may seem useless; however their roles are justified at the end. Its interesting to see how the director connects all those crap of Ratz ancestry with the actual story.

I will go with six out of ten for the movie. The movie has some refreshing actors who will make it big in the future. College guys. Go see the movie, because u might have this feeling that something of this sort has happened with our friends too.

Left is not Right

2008-07-10T20:52:00.000+05:30

Four years of the eventful marriage of the UPA with the CPI has finally ended. UPA has never been happier it seems, in ending the tumultuous relation with CPI. They were like the bad husband we see in movies. Does all the talking, and makes your wife do all the job. Also subjects the wife to utter humiliation and embarrassment.

Jokes apart, CPI had shown a very bad example of coalition politics. Not allowing the government to function is no way to show your support. It seemed that tat old guys at the CPI were the only one concerned about the welfare of the country.

As far as the Nuclear Deal is concerned, I fully support our PM. Not because I understand the intricacies of the deal, but because it has been handled by our PM directly. He may not be a great politician, but definitely is a great economist and a technocrat who will do things only for the good of the country. I would rather believe the PM, than the CPI who would do anything for money and Marxism. If the deal had been with China, CPI would have no qualms.

Now that the innings with the CPI is over, the UPA government, as long as it is ruling, can work on its agenda with out much pressure.I wish the Government, much needed luck as the innings with the SP wouldn't be much different.

Maadambi : My Review

2008-07-07T12:55:00.009+05:30

Sunday was the day when one of my friend's decided to watch the latest flick of Mohanlal, 'Maadambi'. It had been only three days since the movie has been released and knowing how difficult it is to get a ticket, I was unwilling. However since it had been time I had seen this friend of mine, I agreed reluctantly.

I took my bike as usual, and tried parking it in front of the theatre, but due to the rush for the movie, the parking lot was jam packed. Anyhow I parked my vehicle quite awkwardly and started searching for my friend in the queue. The queue had become quite long and serpentine, and people were standing outside the theatre. I was admiring the people standing at the back, at their sheer hope, of getting the ticket. People with black tickets were doing brisk business, with each ticket going for double the rate. In between I finally found my friend. Standing at the near end of the queue. Among the people whom I was admiring.

The ticket counters started working and tickets were sold out before we even could see the counter. Dejected, we came outside and stood in front of the theatre planning our next move. Then comes a gentleman, who asked us whether we were for the movie. I was about to tell him that there is no point going in the theatre when he offered the tickets for the movie at the same rate. He told that he had booked the ticket for his family, and for some unforeseen reasons could not bring them along with him. Without question, we guys were delighted, and accepted the tickets and also paid for the same.

That was memorable experience I experienced while buying the tickets for the movie. Now about the Movie.

The movie revolves around the character 'Puthiyaveetil Gopalakrishnan Pillai' who is a moneylender, in the local slang 'blade', acted out by our beloved Mohanlal. The character initially has some negative shades, but which are cleared clean at the end of the movie, as is the case with all Mohanlal movies.

The director has tried hard to portray Mohanlal as a commoner. He drives an Ambassador, rather than the Scorpio or the Pajero he is usually seen with in other movies. Wears plain shirts and a 'Mundu'. That went down well with me. However the director couldn't help himself anymore, and gave us a character who is the saviour, the philosopher, the wrestler and the Einstein all packed into one.

However the movie never makes you bored, except for those action sequences where the character beats the hell out of the villain again and again and again. What is the point in showing the same action sequences, the same props laid around, the same stunt boys jumping into glasses, unless there are some special, creative sequences which need to be shown. A small fight should have been enough, just indicating that the hero overpowered the villain. Sitting over there and watching those action scenes really got me bored.

The movie has real good, powerful dialogues, which I loved. Credits to Scriptwriter. There was this special dialogue which got my attention. ' Ente thalleke meethe oru paranthum parakilla' a clear indication to the soon to be released Mammotty movie 'Parinthu', which is also based on a moneylender.

The climax of the movie was really terrible. Could not believe they had to end the movie like this. At the end, every thing comes into order. All problems solved.

The character was played out by Mohanlal with complete ease It some times feels sad that such a talented actor had to agree to such menial movies. Also couldn't help but notice that Mohanlal was terribly out of shape. He should be doing something for that.

On a scale of ten I would rate this movie five. Rating does not mean that the movie should not be watched. Every Mohanlal fan should watch this movie. It does have its share of glorious moments.

Sony Ericsson W580i : My Review

2008-06-24T21:47:00.012+05:30

Finally I have got my hands on the Sony Ericsson W580i. This was the phone I had decided upon, after weeks of surfing the web. After a few weeks of usage, I am at a pretty good position to review the Sony Ericsson W580i.

The Sony Ericsson W580i is a pretty decent phone conforming well to all my requirements. The very first requirement for my phone was that it should be a Sony Ericsson. The reason being that I liked the software of Sony Ericsson very much. A newbie could easily navigate through the menu to reach whatever functions required, unlike the Nokia phones, which have a complicated menu (at least according to me). The second one was that it should have a sliding form factor and the third is that it should have killer looks. Searching for such a phone was easy and had resulted in a very small set of phones, one being our own Sony Ericsson W580i.

On the performance side, the phone runs pretty well. Rarely had I restarted my phone, because it getting stuck. The one problem i noticed was that the phone isn't very keen to run Java applications. Almost all the applications I am currently using had to be removed due to performance issues ( read 'hanging'). Even the games pre installed in the phone have the same problems.

The menu had pretty much the same thing which I had in my previous phone Sony Ericsson K700i, except for the fitness option newly introduced in the Sony Ericsson W580i. The option uses a technology which senses motion and which is also used to change tracks in the walkman mode.The fitness option is pretty much useless for me, as I am not much of a fitness freak. However the technology implemented is cool, as I felt that it calculates the distance and speed pretty much correctly.

The address book is the same as in the previous phones, as is the problems. Whenever the birthday of a contact is entered, it is saved as a appointment which is a very bad of doing it. Because then we are supposed to enter the time and all, when a birthday is supposed to be a whole day event. They have done nothing to correct it. Maybe the problem has gone unnoticed, or worse, they might have thought the current way was the better way.

The Sony Ericsson W580i has got a decent 2mp camera. However it lacks a flash. But then it was supposed to be a walkman phone, so they have cut down on the camera features.

Music is pretty good. Library is fine, but managing the library would become cumbersome, if large number of MP3's is going to be loaded. Radio software is amazing and helps you switch between stations easily. Headphone are also amazing, but maybe a pain for some.

And one more thing. All those who thought that you need to pres the walkman button in order to change the music, well think again. Ask me if you want to know .

Now finally, how do I rate my phone?

First I would like to tell how I felt about about my previous phones, also taking cost into consideration. On a scale of ten, my Sony Ericsson K700i would be rated six. And the Nokia 1100 would be rated eight. In the end, I would rate Sony Ericsson W580i seven out of ten and would encourage all newbies to buy this one for music, looks and convenience.

Happy Days.....

2008-04-06T13:05:00.008+05:30

It is that time of the college when final year students realize that the college life will soon come to an end and they have to make way for the juniors. It is that time when guys cut classes in large numbers and go for tours and for other getaways. Because then this might be their last outing together. Soon after, everybody would go their way, joining the frenetic pace of professional life. We suddenly realize that we are going to be the old guys of which alumni is all about.

Don't know why, but the college days wil be the most memorable days for me. I cant imagine the sadness i will be in, when my college will be over. I started feeling the pinch at the beginning of the seventh semester itself.Everyday i would say to myself "After this year everything is over". Now it is just about time.

Emotional factors has also increased tremendously this time around. The last time, when i left school, it wasnt that painful. Maybe its because I had been ther for only two years. Or maybe because, at college, most of the time i had been there itself.

I now only hope that when my friends at college see me somewhere else after passing out, they do show a sign of recognition.

This line from Matrix now seems very true - "Everything that has a beginning has an end".

Kangaroo Mischiefs

2008-01-11T10:08:00.000+05:30

After a pathetic loss in the first test match, i was not really interested to see the second test between Australia and India. The match however went on to be the most talked about test ever.
Ricky Ponting stooped too low to get his record going. That is it. If it had been any other day he would not be so keen to get them out. In one ball, the bowler was appealing for lbw but our captain was appealing for catch (which he had grounded). How could he, at the same time, ground the ball and claim a catch? The appeal was turned down though. However, there were many other such instances in the match, in which the decision favoured the Aussies. The match which India could have won, went the Aussies way, not because they were were terrific at the field, but because they were nasty in the field.

ICC may not believe it, but their sacred cows(the umpires) might have been bought out, or they are simply too old to make a decision. Make a bold and a sensible decision, before the game itself looses out.

MTV's Bad Girl

2007-12-10T20:55:00.000+05:30

What should a channel do when its TRP's starts falling....bring in a new host who wears only revealing skirts and bikinis, talks crap( who cares), and tries hard to be sexy. And also launch a slew of shows with much hype, introducing this host. Thats exactly what MTV did.

VJ Mia is the host I am talking about. She has been brought in only to increase the oomph factor of MTV. Channel [V] is also adopting a similar strategy.That is to score high on the oomph factor. [V] Girls were there for some time now. Now more such shows will come, and soon skin shows will become the norm of the day.

Mia is beautiful, glamorous and sexy. I love seeing her. But 'VJ Mia' sucks big time. No doubt about that. I hate the way she goes on in shows ( comparing with the likes of Cyrus Sahukar, Nikhil Chinnapa, Purab, Sarah Jane ). MTV, fire her, because you guys are wasting your money. Get somebody who can talk.

Yours Technically

2007-10-24T20:46:00.001+05:30

Being an engineering student, the fact that I haven't blogged anything technical, pinched me. This piece has finally satisfied me :D.

It was the usual boring classes in my college. The teacher was teaching something, half the class had no clue about. Most of them were busy doing their assignments, preparing for seminar, thinking about the main project and those who didn't have anything to do slept. It was during these hours 'the techie' was thinking, about an algorithm in order to improve the efficiency of the computer. He being one of my roommates, also told us, and my roommates being bhuji's, discussed about it. Here is that idea let loose.

Roomies, pardon me if there is anything wrong. Software biggies wanting to implement this idea, just contact me at my email so that we can discuss about the royalties among other things ;) . Visitors, if you have any suggestions, please do drop a comment. And finally a disclosure, this theory being very simple, we have no idea whether this is feasible at all, or has been implemented :D .

The basic assumption in this theory is that 'page faults are time consuming'. Our solution hence is to reduce the number of page faults that occur while a program starts up and begins execution. How can this be achieved? The solution can be found out by examining the reason for page faults. Here is a screen shot of my computer's task manager, though not clear, the sixth column showing the number of page faults happening.

Page Faults are the OS calls that are executed when the processor finds that the required pages(of the program) are not in the main memory. So when a page fault occurs the OS is required to load the required page to the main memory. Page faults occur due to two reasons i) the last instruction in the current page has been executed and the following page is not in the memory ii) a jump or call instruction has been executed which requires the control to be transferred to another page, once again not in the main memory. Our solution to reduce the page faults is to introduce a system service named 'crawler' (in his words) which should predict the most probable set of pages to which a control transfer can take place from a particular page, and load those pages into the memory whenever the control is transferred to that particular page.

The most difficult part is the implementation of the 'crawler'. One of the suggestions which came up was to build a table corresponding to each program installed in the system, during installation itself.The crawler should analyze the whole program for jump and call instructions, and build the table accordingly. Now when the program is executed, the 'crawler' will look up the table for the corresponding program and load the required pages statically. The efficacy of this algorithm depends on the trade off between the number of times the 'crawler' is called and the number of pages loaded, once the crawler is called. Definitely the 'crawler' should be called only occasionally at regular intervals.

This we suppose should bring down the number of page faults and save the precious CPU time and utilize it for other important jobs, rather than calling the page fault handler.

Cup Of Life

2007-10-05T22:13:00.001+05:30

Cheers to the Team India for such an entertaining and sparkling performance in the maiden twenty20 world cup. It was a perfect meal for a country weaned away of a world Cup for two decades.

The Festival Called Independence

2007-08-21T10:55:00.000+05:30

As the Independence Day of our country was approaching, every TV channel was gearing up with shows in order to get some eyeballs and thereby increase their TRP's. In one such attempt by CNN IBN, prominent people (mainly actors) were asked how you feel about your country. Most of them told the same boring thing one after the other “Our culture is diverse, our history is great, our country is blah blah blah ". However Madhavan (Tamil actor) had something different to say which I frankly didn’t understand. It would be interesting what Sanjay Dutt would have to say about our country.
Are there any reasons other than our independence that we should be celebrating for. Well there are none. First let us begin with the political scenario of our country. While one party cries foul about Hindutva other follows minority appeasement. Another party thinks that people criticising Islam should be beaten up, worse murdered. There are no political parties exhibiting secularism. Religious intolerance is at its peak and yet we are celebrating. Then there are some parties which always pull back the country from development. In their words, they are just saving the 'workers'. For instance the Government of Kerala (GoK) is trying to bring in legislations to prevent Reliance Fresh to open shops in Kerala because they would harm the workers. But they don’t care about the million common people who would be benefiting from them. We people are at the mercy of these vegetable vendors who provide substandard vegetables at high cost. GoK wants us to be at their mercy.
Another problem is corruption. It is said that the biggest threat to the country's security is corruption. I was surprised to know how easy it is to obtain a driving license in some states. All you have to do is pay. The only time you would have to go to office is to take the photograph. It was odd to know that the same day I was drafting this blog, CNN IBN, in a show Citizen X, conducted a sting operation which showed 'touts' getting Driving license for Rs. 2500 and Birth Certificate for Rs. 3000. In order to root out corruption, it is we who have change. We should resist from taking the easier way out. Whenever a traffic cop nets you, there are two ways out. First is the easier one - pay him 50 bucks, the cop forgets you. The second one - the cop registers a fine (usually a higher amount) against you which you have to pay at the office. It is the choice of these which can help fight corruption.
2007 doesn’t have enough reasons to celebrate. Hope 2017 has.

The Whole Six Yards

2007-05-15T18:53:00.000+05:30

One of the reasons why I watch CNBC TV 18 more than any other channel is its gorgeous TV Anchor Miss Mitali Mukherjee. Since she is into the business' business, she is required to be in the formal executive attire. And she looks amazing in those. But once as I was surfing through the channels, I stopped byCNBC TV 18, and sadly found out tat there was this boring Mutual Funds Awards Night going on. The SBI Chief was walking over to the stage to receive some award. AS the SBI chief helped himself to the stage, I saw a terrific female in the stage who was supposedly hosting the show. It was none other than Miss Mitali Mukherjee. She was hosting the function draped in a SAREE. Well never had I thought that a saree could make somebody look so gorgeous.

Another female which reminds me of a saree is Miss Sushmita Sen. Remember the movie 'Main Hoon Naa' in which she characterizes a Professor, though she never looked like one. She wears saree throughout the movie, no wonder 'students' (for those who haven't seen 'Main HoonNaa, I meant Shahrukh Khan) fell for her.

Until recently in Kerala, the saree market was dominated by the 'Kalyan Sarees' who promoted the old, bland and very boring 'Kasavu' sarees and the 'Pattu' sarees. Onset of new companies like Pulimootil' and 'Jayalakshmi' has however changed the trend for the good I suppose. These companies are crying out loud that "Pattu and Kasavu are 'out' and funky colours are 'in'". At least advertisements seem to. 'Pulimootil' ads are a real treat to the eyeballs :D .

The most interesting thing in a saree is its sheer simplicity. After all it’s a piece of cloth, a long one though. Wearing one is very difficult and is an art in itself. I could imagine the helplessness of those who want to wear one but doesn’t know how to. I was just recollecting how difficult it was for me to wear a 'mundu' on the Onam occasion in our college, it being a far simpler one. The interesting thing in the 'wearing' part is that there are many ways in which a saree can be worn. I have even heard of a book titled '900 ways of wearing a saree'.

Though Saree is supposed to be a very Indian attire, it has an international appeal. India's Flagship Carriers 'The Indian Airlines' and 'Indian' requires their air hostess' to be draped in saree. Certain people like Mandira Bedi have also managed to create a controversy over it. A saree even represents India's culture. Ever thought a saree is capable of all this.

my friends @ orkut

2007-02-22T12:33:00.000+05:30

I had always been awed at the simplicity of the site Orkut. Instead I had always felt similarily in all those Google product for instance Google Earth,Blogger or Gmail. I wondered how these guys survived as their are no ads in these sites (except for communities) . More over I had found many long lost friends through Orkut, a great thing to have happened.

Ofcourse somethings in Orkut had intrigued me too.One of this is the 'my friends' space in the Orkut page which reorders itself in a particular fashion. Many would believe it is reordering only on the basis of the members checking in, but I have believed their were more criteria. Although the reordering of the 'Communities' never had a logical one, I believe.

Initially I too thought it was a simple queue, however I had noticed that occasionally people from the middle or the end of the queue jumped to the front of the queue. So I thought that maybe jumps occurred whenever people peeped into your profile. That is the queue has two criteria

1. Person signing in will be added to the beginning of the queue

2. Persons peeping into your profile is also placed at the beginning of the queue

I thought this was a reasonable explanation to the 'my friends' problem. So one day, when I saw my friend 'the vivacious girl' jumping similarly to the front of the queue from bottom to the top, I enquired about it, and asked what she did recently ( to get an idea of what operation triggered it ). Obviously it was a dumb question to ask. I had to do some disaster recovery for that. However the damage had been done and it had been quite an embarrassment for me. Of course I made her promise not to tell this to anybody :) . And in the end I understood that maybe the second criteria was not correct.

So friends of mine, please tell me how is this thing working.....

Be My Valentine

2007-02-22T12:08:00.000+05:30

Couldn't muster the guts to propose this time, so dream girl watch out for the next valentines day ;) .

( my brother would be thinking ' so u kept a secret to me hmmm ' the truth, only i know )

The Ultimate Privatisation

2006-12-30T19:28:00.000+05:30

Its was almost going to be a new year when i finally remembered that i have a blog in my name. Since I am having 'holidays' these days i thought this is the best time to embark on a new session of blog writing. So when the whole world is crying foul over the execution of our dear Saddam, i started writing this small thought of mine.

Indian politics have always interested me because of its sheer inefficiency.When i was young I thought that all the parties except CPI were useless. When I had come back to Kerala after a long time, i thought it would be a far developed state when compared to others because the Communists have ruled over here for a long time. But like every other party,they also talked too much. So after a long time it sunk over me that no party can take India forward. In order to improve the situation we are presently in, we need visionary leaders. Thankfully we have one as our prime minister but having only one wont solve the problem. We need a whole battalion of them.I also noticed that the political population of India had greyed. What we require is young blood. Though some parties have understood the importance of young people, the parties deal with them as if they are backbenchers, not giving them any important position in the party.

So i thought we needed a party of ourselves, a party which go for rallies, fight elections, sit in the opposition like every parties does but with a touch of professionalism. The party president should be like a CEO of the company. There should be a general body meeting every six months, to discuss about the improvements required and actions taken. There should also be monthly phone in programs so that the party can interact with the 'aam aadmi' and discuss what their problems are.

Selection of members should also change. Members will be selected through an interview only. Moreover people above 40 need only be screened.And there should be an upper limit for the members also. People above 60 should retire voluntarily. the person should be educated and patriotic enough because we are not here to earn. We are here for a change, for a change in our country's future.

This project should be carried out first in small, developed and an educated cities.Campaigning should be through the mass media. Educate the people about what they are going to gain. Give full page ads in newspapers and in tv's as well. We should make sure that we get elected the first time itself. Once elected, i think it should be cakewalk. Weed out the corruption which is very much prevalent in our country.Ensure transparency in every government institution. Be public of whatever u do so that people no that we are here for a change.

Now the catches. First one being the finance. We would require a strong financier who wouldn't mind shelling out a few lakhs, and i seriously don't think that this would be that difficult. Second, we need very patriotic people for this because they are not going to earn much ( our financier wouldn't be generous enough to shell out our salaries too :D ). they should be rich so that they can live a decent life even if the person doesn't earn from that point of time in his life. Third, we should get elected in the first time itself. There is just no second chances. Half the Indian population is below 25.I believe this is the time to strike.

Lage Raho.....Munnabhai

2006-09-30T22:55:00.000+05:30

Was expecting the release of Munnabhai 2 for quite sometime. Now when it was released i find that it is being released only in Ernakulam. So i decided to watch the movie right at Ekm. But things didn't turn in the right direction and a fortnight later the movie was released in a theatre near our college and i was glad. Saw the second show of the movie (for the first time) along with my friends. And what a movie it was.

Lage Raho is not a laughter riot like the first one but it will sure keep u giggling throughout the movie. It is 'everything in one' kinda movie.It has got romance, comedy, patriotism and whatever Else u can imagine. Amazing performances by Sanjay Dutt and Arshad Warsi. Vidya Balan looked stunning in the movie. But the role of Boman Irani was not great considering that the first part was the movie which catapulted him to the top. Songs are also good.Another noticeable thing was that it had almost all the characters from the first part. I would love to see the movie once again.

So third part is confirmed. Lage Raho....Munnabhai.

Consultancy Blues

2006-09-09T11:21:00.000+05:30

It had been such a busy month, the last one. Semester exams came to an end, also returned from a short visit from Indore, but in between forgot about my small little blog surviving in this digital world.

Recently I saw an article saying that there was a consultancy services company (i don't remember its name ) that had given a report to the Government Of India about how to increase the government's revenues and increasing its income tax collections. They said that they will bear all the initial investment required for the project. They had said that the project needed heavy computerization so investment was bound to be high. They had predicted a huge % rise in the income tax collections. Now the catch: In return for all this being done they required a small payment "ONE % OF THE INCOME TAX COLLECTIONS" and that too for a whole one year i guess (not sure). The company claimed that the GOI wouldn't have any problem at all because after the completion of the project the GOI will be earning huge revenues than ever thought and giving one % of its revenues wouldn't be a problem at all. The then GOI couldn't even think of giving up a whole percentage of its tax collection (as expected) and rejected the offer.

I then thought may be the offer wasn't that bad at all. After all they had claimed that after completion of the project the amount wouldn't be a problem. Anyway that project has been shelved. No questions asked.

A better way to do would be to ask an Indian company like TCS or some other to make a study keeping in mind all the social impact and also ask something more reasonable in return. Let the project begin with a small state like Goa or Kerala for a start. Study the results of the experiment and if it is fruitful also try the model in other states. Because consultation is one thing which the GOI or the state governments cannot avoid as the 'brainy guys' in the government cant think beyond the sky (that's also too much). A free hand should be given for the company to execute its plans. Or still better enter into a tie up with a consultancy group for a period of years and consult with it for every projects for improvements which can make the project more viable and efficient. I had always felt that Kerala Government will definitely benefit from it as half the projects they launch never end up. Initially the government wont see any benefits but i am sure after 3 or 4 years it will start yielding results.All it requires is a visionary leader.

Hope it will become true in the future. Metro rail has already come to India. Maybe this will also happen.

Superman Vs Spiderman

2006-08-02T22:35:00.000+05:30

There is no questioning who the winner is but still I thought both the movies though superhero stories had completely different characterization of the the superhero and hence cannot be compared with each other. In one the superhero was a kryptonite having amazing super powers and hardly could any body defeat him, and in the other the superhero was just an another teenager with some special powers but he is still mortal to a bullet. (remember the superman ad) .

Superheroes movies are the safest bet for producers but still the producer of Superman would be thinking otherwise. Well he has to be blamed because though he spent 200 million dollars for the film, I couldn't see how he spent it. Movie wasn't that bad actually. Instead I loved it, maybe because I haven't seen any of the previous superman movies. I don't see why Brandon Routh was blamed for the poor performance of the movie at the theatres because I thought he had given a good performance (anyway superman doesn't have to act much !!). It was actually the story and the character that had the problems. Nowadays people are more matured and want to see superheroes who also have their own lives, have there own share of problems (spiderman). Usually in superhero stories the villain would also be very strong but Superman also lacked that. The villain was a dumb humane guy in the movie.

On the other side is our neighbourhood friend, the spiderman who is as mortal as any other guy but has got some special powers like spinning a web and spidersense etc. His normal life and his superhero life is shown with such sincerity. And tobey maguire is really amazing in that movie. However I hate the actress very much because she isn't pretty enough, atleast in some shot (remember the scene when she asks our hero to kiss her !! She looked very ugly ).

Anther place where spiderman scores heavily is the characterization of the villains. Take for instance Mr. Doc Ock. He was just amazing with those metal limbs. Green Goblin was also amazing in the first part. The villain was equally powerful (or should I say more powerful ) as our superhero was, and that gave some amazing action for us viewers.

No wonder I am eagerly awaiting the release of the spidey 3 ( promos are already on air ) and maybe if superman 2 ever comes then maybe I will also see that :)

Our New Right

2006-07-07T14:30:00.000+05:30

The Government of India had passed a very important act in October last year 'the right to information act'. Through this the common man can question the working of the government and the government owned subsidiaries. However not much has been heard since the act has been passed and the majority of the people aren't even aware of it. Those who have heard of it don't know how to use it. So inorder to remove the confusion regarding the act, an NGO (or is it NDTV ?) has put up a website stating clearly what the procedures are inorder to find information and what the fees are. This right if used properly will help us fight corruption (that is what they ). Please do check it out.

My Reservations On Reservations

2006-06-18T16:03:00.000+05:30

Reservation issue has now become a topic of national debate. I would say that the issue has been blown out of proportions and of course the government is responsible for it. If you ask me whether i am anti or pro reservations many would have guessed that i am anti, but actually i myself dont know but i think i am more anti than pro. The issue has become so polarized, thanx to the media that you are either pro or anti. There is no place for anything else.

I was very dissapointed with government, the way they handled the anti reservation demonstrations. I was sad to see the students being manhandled and beaten up just for demonstrations which i think were peaceful. The government has no data as to what the present population of the backward caste is. They dont have any data which could support their claim of requiring 50% reservations. When i was in Bangalore recently the guys from 'Youth For Equality' handed over to me a pamphlet which had some startling facts ( I dont guarantee its truthness). It said that though there were 23% seats reserved in the IIM's, some seats always remained vacant. Imagine what would happen if 50% is reserved. There were situations in which many of them dropped out in between their course because they were not able to follow what the teachers taught ( Most of the proffessors taught in English ). This is because they were never taught english properly in their schools.

Then there was this article in Outlook by our very own editor, Vinod Mehta who came in for full support of the reservations. He has been always seen as the 'congress ka chamcha' by we readers and the article came in without surprise. He began with neutral atitude but by the end he was allout against anti reservations protestors.He was saying that there were 900 million people who fell into the OBC category and inorder to uplift them there needed some kind of a reservation. I agree but first let me get it right. I am sure that of the 900 million not even a lakh people will be eligible for writing the IIM exam. Why is it so ? Because to be eligible for writing the exam you got to pass the schools and eventually graduate. Since India doesnt have enough number of schools in the backward regions of india, most of the children from the obc category remain uneducated. So instead of building thousands of schools, government has found an easy way out by just reserving some seats for them. If the primary schools system in India is strengthened i am sure 50% of the seats will be occupied by the students from the backward category even without reservations.

As for today, I would suggest the Government to leave the issue as it is and tackle the issue of education system. Also open atleast a dozens of IIT's and IIM's so that many more students get into these famed institutions. And please dont drag politics into this which is already a big mess. The decision will affect the future of our country so act sensebly.

Comments Plz

2006-05-21T12:14:00.000+05:30

This will be the for the first time anybody will be asking for comments. Had i been a girl it would have been even more funny.So long i have been blogging in this space. I have made my blog public in two groups and stil my numbers arent very impressive actually its far from impressive. The important part is that i dont have any comments at all. I thought it may be because my subjects arent very interesting but now i think differently because my bro writes in something in his blog and gets many comments. So i ask everybody reading this blog to write a comment. It will be quite encouraging for me as well.

The Argumentative Mallu

2006-05-03T23:26:00.000+05:30

I have been thinking for this post long back and was compiling all the thoughts in order to prove my point. Now i think I have compiled enough and its your turn to read and to analyze whether the things I have said is correct and whether you also fall in this category.

After living in Kerala for this long i think i have observed many mallus. I think I have enough experience to describe what a mallu in general thinks, how he will react to a particular situation and mind you this is a typical mallu behaviour.

Every dumb mallu in Kerala is very much involved in one or another political party.I am saying 'In Kerala' because once outside the state they behave very much differently. Most of the people in Kerala dont have anything to do it seems. Because whenever there is a small campaigning by an XYZ on any given day there are many people swarming around the candidate. Even students studying in schools are also very much involved in politics. Ask any third std student in which school he studying and u may or may not gert an answer but ask him which party he is inclined to and you get an immediate answer. How can one otherwise explain the huge number of unions you can find here.

Then there is the Mascot of Kerala 'Strike'.Say strike and i am reminded of Kerala.It has earned the reputation of the state with most number of days wasted as strikes. It was quite amusing when i was in school because u got many holidays only because of strikes. But now its become a pain. It has become difficult for me to return to college after I land home. I have felt may be thats why Kerala isnt developing as it should have done. Ever have the parties thought of the inconvenience they create to the common people. I remember the strike called when a girl committed suicide due to the high capitation fees in the private college she was studying in. Then everybody was blaming the government for allowing colleges to have capitation fees. It was surprising nobody said anything about the girl. How come a girl with such a poor background even think of joining a college paying capitation fees( WE are financially well off, still my dad had told me 'No free seats, No further studies'). And these parties created a whole lot of fuss, and damaged many a public properties for this silly reason. Had she been very good at studies then there was a reason worth fighting for . But this girl was a duffer or else she could have managed a free seat for herself. Companies are afraid to set up their offices in Kerala because only god knows how many days they are going to work in Kerala.Still some companies have setup their offices i dont know what they have on their mind.

The worst kind of politics in my opinion is played in Kerala.If one government does something good (it does so rarely), then the opposition feels that they are losing out their credibility and has to make some noise inorder to make themselves felt. Alliances are made among starkly opposite parties.Two parties may play mudslinging politics with each other and when the election time comes they may align together to fight the so called 'bigger enemy'.

Another characteristic of the 'mallu' is that they idolise actors who are atleast 50 years old. Any lesser and they will consider him as a kid.(Never mind TN .They are the worst in this matter).But i must agree that these actors they idolise are truly good actors however not getting to do good films these days.

Mallus are very obsesive about gold and sarees ( Once again TN takes away the honours in this matter. Everybody will agree).Never before had i seen this many number of gold shops in a city. In Trissur there is even a street dedicated for them the 'palace road'.There are atleast a dozen of them in this street. Also in a typical mallu wedding you can see the bride loaded with kgs of gold. It seems her parents are selling her off to the groom. If you just want to show off your assets i personally dont think you ought to do it in this manner. You can do that in various different ways like buying the groom one merc or a buying him a villa. Somebody would say gold is a secure investment and blah blah. For those people i would say, buy gold, give gold, but why wear gold or atleast why the whole of them.Never mind, mallus wont ever change.

The newspapers companies make a killing here. Because mallus love reading news.( here is where 100% literacy is a problem! ) So newspaper companies print what the readers want to read. A small rape case happens and it comes to the full limelight because the next day the news paper reads ' abc rape case min. xyz suspected '.And guess what, the newspaper sales reaches record volumes. They even modify the news for making the article more interesting. What happens when there is an another newspaper company competing ? the newspaper articles become more interesting ;) I have never heard newspapers being sold this costly. When i was in North India quality newspapers like HT and TOI used to be sold for 2 rs.The time i was leaving for Kerala it had fallen to 1 re a paper.

M for Movies

2006-04-09T14:54:00.000+05:30

Sitting idle for the last two weeks today I thought I should write something on my blog. Actually I had posted a forward which I recieved from my friend. It described the attrition rates of many famous companies.The forward had ridiculed many companies so my brother warned me and told me to delete the post. So i thought i would write on things which i am best at. Movies. Basically i am a mallu still i love waching bollywood moies than any other type of movies. I thoroughly enjoy seeing movies that i sometimes think why the hell did i go for B Tech Instead i should have gone for a course in cinemas .

Actually i am not an avid news paper reader but whenever there is something about movies in it then I definitely read it.In one such article i read that the bollywood industry is going to invest around 300 crores in remakes and sequels. Some of the remakes and sequels are very interesting. Take for instance the remake of 'Don' which will have SRK in the lead role and is directed by our own Farhan Akhtar.I cannot even imagine SRK replacing the ' angry young man' in the older version of 'Don'. Heard that SRK wont be like the local don but an international don of the stature of James Bond (though they do not fall in the same league , 'The Hindu' wrote like tat ).

Then there is the sequel of the superhit movie 'Koi Mil Gaya' named 'Krishh'.Saw the promos of the movie and cant say a bit more than okay. Actually i am a great fan of Hrithik Roshan because he has that talent in him which most of the other actors dont.I think in 'Krishh' the story revolves around the son of the the KMG pair.He is kind of a superhero in the movie and i guess the whole movie has been shot in foriegn locales. The stunts have also been done nicely but how those amazing stunts sequences fits into the story has to be watched for after the release of the movie.Then there is the sequel to the hit Dhoom. It is featuring Hrithik and Aishwarya Rai both of them being my favourite actors.

One director Mr. Priyadarshan is now famous for slapstick comedy movies.He directed movies like Hulchul, Hera Pheri, Garam Masala and the more recent Maalamaal weekly.Many of the north indians wont believe but Priya is a mallu and the above mentioned movies all are remakes of his own movies which were box office hits down here in this part of the country.Anyway he has brains and is now making a lot of money.Now he is also planning a sequel to the hit 'Hera Pheri' named 'Phir Hera Pheri' which also should be a remake.

I dont actually watch much of Hollywood movies but still some movies interest me such as the movie 'V for Vendetta'.The story and screenplay is done by the famous Wachowski Brothers. The promos are superb and dialogues powerful.I saw only a 30 second promo of it.Then i also watched the trailers of MI-3. That was also cool.

I think i have written enough about movies and it is time I stopped or u guys mite get bored reading my blog.Take damn good care of yourselves and let me start thinking a topic for my next blog ;)

Personality Development

2006-03-18T19:50:00.000+05:30

Last week was the most boring week of my life.Had exams which didnt go well and had my b'day which went unnoticed in my class and still had to waste a lot of bucks for treat. Now when i am back at home after two weeks i am down with fever.Later when i look into my bro's blog (Glob) i see a hit counter which has more than thousand hits and i hav only 40 hits on my blog. However i am taking solace in tat my blog is only two months old and his is around six months old but still i dont think in the next four months i can improve much.

Since i dont have anything special tis week to write i thought of writing about an event that took place in our college. One day our group tutor came to our class and told us tat there was a 'personality development' class the next day and was meant for improving our confidence and personality.The next day came and me with my friends headed for the seminar hall. This was where the class was supposed to take place.As usual there was a fight for the back benches. Anyhow i managed one for myself. But there was my friend named Janith who couldnt manage one. So he had to sit in the front row. Since he was sitting in the front row that too alone i thought i should give him some company.The class was taken by Mr C V Venkatraman, an eminent professor from some college (I dont remember the exact details). The class began normally but as the day passed it became unbearable especially for me. The sir started addressing me as Dhoni (coz i had long hair then ) .He tried to make the class as involving as possible and even conducted some activities.

And in one of those activities he was teaching us how to talk to complete strangers. He asked me to talk to the girl sitting besides me (Her name is Treesa) as if we were sitting in a train.So i started talking to her and asked her the normal questions tat one asks to a stranger while travelling in a train. Since the whole class were looking at both of us and since she wasnt talking so inorder to keep the conversation going i kept on firing questions on her. In the end she complained tat is guy was asking too many questions. Now tat was the most embarassing moment of my life. The sir started explaining how to talk to complete strangers with which i completely diagreed.He was saying tat we should say 'Its a good climate, isnt it' and such filmi things.

Later in the day the sir held his hand out and asked me to hold his hand as if i am holding a girls hand.Now i didnt no there was any special way of holding a girls hand. I held his hand like i normally held others. He said tat it wasnt the right way to hold the hand.Instead he said u should hold a girls hand the same way as Di Caprio held Kate Winslet's hand in the movie Titanic. I still dont agree with his views.Its seems so foren. Di Caprio even kisses her hands so should i also do the same. I will get a slap for free from the girl. Any way the class was very entertaining ( Even i entertained the class making fun of myself) .And i also learnt a very important lesson. Beware of the first bench.

Long lost friends

2006-03-05T15:58:00.000+05:30

This post is dedicated to my friends Piyush and Rajini.Piyush's been my friend when i was in Noida.He is the only proof that i was ultra neat in Noida (Even neater than wat i am now!) and that i lived in Noida as well.We talked over phone for a long time.We also talked about each others crush.He was the speaker and me was just a listener in that case.We were actually very close friends.There were 2 others as well Praveen and Bhupendar.However i dont have there email ids.Then he gave me one girls y id.Her name is Rajini.She had also studied together till 10th with me in Noida.I just had a fine idea who she was.Anyway i added her id into my messenger list and she promptly replied to me as well.We chatted for a while and later she also gave me a ring.We talked for a while over the phone.Then i came to no tat she studied in NIFD where my another friend Karthika was also studying.I must say that it feels very good when you talk to your very old friends after a very long time.

any way you know what there are some guys in my college who even doubt that i ever lived in Noida. Nobody agrees when i say that Noida is a great city and i used to live there. That was when i lived there 4 years ago.Now its even better i had heard.

Recently i plugged everybody's mouth who said that. Coz there was a Personality Improvement class taken by an eminent professor ( tats a different case tat he embarassed me in front of the whole class more than once) who said that u should live in metro cities like Delhi,Bangalore & NOIDA.My room mate who was sitting just beside me was staring into me at that word.ME HAD LIVED THERE FOR MORE THAN 8 YEARS. Now he truly believes tat Noida is a great city.But has started to doubt my stay over there.

And it was a vry special week for my blog page as well cos i made my blog page public.Gave the url to some yahoo groups.And got an immense response from my friends.Some of my friends appreciated my attempt and sum even criticised me and made me look dumb.

Next week my exams will start and as a result i wont be coming home for the weekend and consequently i wont be writing a post next weekend.Hope the exams goes well.

Ruined Weekend

2006-02-26T12:03:00.000+05:30

Its been a long time since i hav written my last scrap.Its been very exciting fortnight last week but anyway it ended very badly.Last week some friends of mine told me tat there was a tecnical festival in nit calicut and tat they were going for the event this weekend.Actually i hadnt even attended any technical festival other than ours.So i decided to go with them this weekend.The ad of the event as all over in our college then suddenly i discovered tat alomst every one were going for the event.Even girls from our class were going.So came the issues of accomadations and foodings.I thought it wouldnt be a problem coz two of our roommates were from calicut.Its a real issue for me coz i dont like to stay at places where my friends do not want me.

My friends had also told me tat the famous pakistani band 'strings' were performing for the event.Then there was this indian group 'Parikrama'.This was a band formed by four iitians who wanted to live thier life.I had heard tat they were even contesting elections in Maharashtra. Then there was this guy called Balabhaskar who is an instrumental genius literally.This guy can play any musical instrument given to hime with utter perfection.Then there are those events which are staple to technical fests I am not going into its details.

Then suddenly i felt like not going for the event. I dont know why but for the moment i decided tat i was not going for the event Actually i do have my reasons.Any way after two days that is on thursday i felt like going for the event.(i know how fickle minded i can become somrtimes) But by then the tickets for the events were sold out.Actually i didnt know tat there anything such as tickets which were being sold.Anyway then i made up my mind that i was not going for the event.However when my frends were leaving for calicut,i knew how much i wanted to be among them. Anyway that was not to happen.They left for calicut and i headed for my home.I still regret not have gone to Calicut with my friends.

More Movies

2006-02-01T23:25:00.000+05:30

Its been a long time since i hav written sumthing on tis.Actually i was having a two weeks of holidays err study holidays and one of those exams were over recently.so i am back home and writing one of those posts. So u can assume wat i was doing in the holidays.Of course i was studying !!!!!! .Anyway there is one more exam to go.

Last week it was kinda shyamalan week on star movies .All those masterpieces of his was shown at primetime .Movies like unbreakable ,signs ,6th sense and the most recent movie Village which i however cudnt watch.I watched al the other even spiderman 2 which came on friday nite.Some people say shyamalans movies are just too slow but anyway i like his kind of narration.I should say the best of them was signs.It was also coupled with marvellous perfomances from Mel Gibson and those litle kids.I especially loved the girl child.She was so cute and charming and chubby in the movie.The story was marvellous as well.

Then there was tis serial which is still running on national geographics Megacities

The Movie

2006-01-18T23:36:00.000+05:30

Recently i happened to watch 'Italian Job' and seriously i loved the movie as much as i loved Charlize Theron.I had heard a lot about her but this was the first time i was watching her movie.The movie was itself very good and had all kind of actions which i required of a movie.Even the cars were real cool i suppose it is a Swift.Unfortunately i could nt see the whole movie coz my mom was getting angry (had an exam the day after) .Hope to see the movie once again.Later the next day i started searching for Charlize Theron's photos and also happened to visit her official webpage and came to know that she was right now working for the sequel of 'The Italian Job' titled 'The Brazilian Job' and i bet those who have watched the first movie will definitely watch the second as well.

As for Charlize Theron she looked mind blowing in the movie. She also acted perfectly for the role. Those who havent watched it yet ,take a dvd a watch it . Its worth it.

My intro

2006-01-17T20:47:00.001+05:30

So this is my first try on blogging. Had a tough time getting myself a blog address. I tried all sorts of id but had to contend with "Earth is Flat", and also understood tat the blogging community is really huge than i had imagined.

And now abt myself.19 years of age male and am studying for Btech in Mar Athanasius College, Kerala, India. I hav a brother also writing a blog.He was the one who inspired me to write one myself.Then there was this classmate of mine called Vijay who also started a blog of his recently.So i decided that it was ripe time for me to start one myself.

I am typically a critic but have a love for my own country. A love such as that depicted by Mohan Bhargav in the movie 'Swades' , and also hope to do something for my country after i become something of myself.

I love cricket ( every indian loves it) . I also love watching hindi movies. i luv swimming and skating. love eating cholle bhature and vellapam . love to spend time watching tv and with my frenz. Tats all about my introduction.