Its been a long time since I blogged… Its been so long that now I can type without looking at the keyboard… After all this time one thing is for sure, I am sick and tired of studying/college… PhD is definitely postponed.

Well I did get placed in a highly reputed company and I am looking forward to working again even though I had sworn off the corporate.. Financial needs are gonna keep me away from my dream(teaching) for a few more years.. At least I am finishing my post-graduation(M.Tech.) in this pursuit. Feels good But then, MBA is a post grad course too……..

One thought that does keep recurring is that I am getting old! touching silver jubilee and haven’t achieved a single damn thing… That doesn’t mean I am not proud of what I am but still, to an observer I am still a nobody really.. Must change that as soon as possible. In that regard, my friends have more confidence that I will achieve something than I have in myself… Come to think of it, I guess that itself is kinda like an achievement.. That’s good.

In this time I have found a couple of good friends in Manjunath(yet another ) and Aloknath. The old ones persist in Naveen and Rashmi. My everyday adda has changed though, its still the same happy people The only thing is lacking is this stupid pocket money Started taking tuitions a few months back thinking I will get some pocket money and also some experience in teaching but then I guess there can never be enough pocket money!

Also the responsibility of tutoring a bunch of kids has fallen collectively on us friends and what a pain that has been! I’ve had to teach things like the alphabet, multiplication tables, spelling, stupid STUPID “poems” in these English text books and whatnot! I wish I could say something positive about these kids I am just hoping (almost against hope) that these kids will get decent grades and our names will remain undamaged….. Next academic year they are gonna have to go somewhere else as we will all start working some place or the other.

Coming back to the silver jubilee thing, I think its time to start writing that bucket list… The dreams are all there…. Travel the world, try some adventure sports stuff, try different cuisines, make friends in as many countries as possible, learn some foreign languages, get a real bike, build a dream home, etc., etc. I am calling this my bucket list because marriage is unavoidable and its gonna happen soon in a very few years and that’s gonna be the end of everything else..:P

I was in a solemn mood when i started writing this…. But now that I look back and forth, life looks good… I have no real complaints… Its good to be me!

I am gonna end this with a song. That’s because I like the last few lines in this one

Who in the world do I think that I am
I guess it depends on who I believe

Thanks for reading my useless gibberish

A prologue to that conversation would be to answer why we talked about that particular thing… So Alice met a guy a few weeks back.. They got into talking and he somehow let slip that he was single and looking.. Alice was single and not looking so she was just talking and being nice to the guy.. They exchanged very few SMSs after their meeting, 4-5 per week mostly.. So yesterday Alice gets a call from his number and a girl talks and she claims to be his girlfriend and he had just dumped her for Alice… So that girl was all tears and asking Alice to stay away from the guy…

Alice comes and talks to me about it and has some questions which she would like answered.. I am a liberalist and I give my views on her questions one basic question nagging her is why did the guy lie… Here it goes,

Alice: Is it a shame if we have a boyfriend or girlfriend?? Why people hesitate or don’t feel like tellin d truth? Or is it a cheap thing to have one?

Me: It can be many reasons… They might not be sure themselves.. They might be just doing “time-pass”.. They might not be happy with it… etc etc..

Al: Hmmm.. I’m seein only time-pass here.. In many cases.. If they’re not happy with it then why cant they talk and go their ways.. Cheating someone like dat is killin dat person.. He did dat with her!

Me: Hey come on nobody knows how a relationship will be before they enter it.. It might turn sour for any reason.. And especially nobody knows how to end it…

Al: So you start a relationship, if u don’t like it in d middle, jus ‘keep’ it aside without doin anythin or solving d problem n start searchin for a new one hoping that it’l work out.. If not repeat d cycle.. Is that it? Wat’l happen of d other one who still believes her or him..?

Me: The problem is that we don’t understand the concept of dating… First of all neither party should take it too seriously.. First you meet, you date for a while to see if you’re compatible then you can break up amicably if you can’t continue seeing each other.. If you like it, then you commit to become boyfriend-girlfriend… Here its directly boyfriend-girlfriend and then marriage or death…

Me: Some things we should learn from the west … Marriages are as sacred there as here, but nobody cares there… At least we could learn from them how to get in..

Al: People get bored of each other after some days or years or decades.. thats d point here..

Me: Well that is obviously true.. So do you want to BLAME the guy or the gal or both  for that?

Al: Both or girl or boy.. I don’t agree with your western thing..

Me: So you think the first person you “fall in love” is your perfect match? There are millions of ppl in the world, so what are the odds of finding your match in your first attempt…? If anybody can be that sure  they can win lottery any time… Do the math.. Nobody even buys the 1st underwear  they see..

Al: So is it d same thing as selecting your clothes..? If you don’t find d right fit then wil u go on searchin for it  until you die..? U’l stay nude forver.. U have to adjust with somethin.. No couple’s a perfect couple..:) nobody can be happy with only one person throughout his life, that I know… Still trying so many’s not a good idea…

Me: I’m not talking about perfect matches… There has to be some degree of match… How will i get to know if a girl is for me if i don’t spend some time with ger.. That spending time together to get to know each other is what is called dating and that doesn’t exist here…

Al: Yes but jus for example why do people get divorced in west..? I don’t understand.. When they date, they would’ve chosen d right one right? then why do they think of breakin their marriages? Everything’s in us..

Me: Well that’s where they went wrong.. We should learn from their mistake there… A marriage is sacred institution and it should not be desecrated.. One precaution we can take is to marry only when we are sure, instead of the first girl/guy who says I love you… I’m not saying love at first sight doesn’t exist, that’s an extreme case which also involves some dating thingy.. All I’m saying is that commitment should come after getting to know each other instead of the other way round… Of course after commitment there is no way out without a lot of pain…

Al: Who’l think like us..? Who’l let me choose?? I’l have 3 or 4 options given by my parents! I’l have to choose in that.. This topic’s good for discussion but not practical.. V have to go with d life how it goes..

Me: Well its a slow process my dear… Same case here.. The least you can do is to give to your children what you wanted from your parents…

That’s that… Just to give the issue some closure from my side I will continue talking a little longer..

We still live in our past glory as a civilization and tend to be uptight about social practices and traditions.. We need to loosen up a little for the better.. I can argue that I have stayed single only because I am scared of what will happen if I genuinely want to get out of a relationship.. Most of us get too emotional right away and that leads to grief eventually.. Knowing that neither party is too serious about what might happen in the future, you can be a little more open and develop something.. Here the only way to start dating is by saying “I love you” otherwise you will be just friends and then its more awkward to move up to boyfriend-girlfriend from just friends..

I am not saying date tonnes and have sex with all of ‘em like what might happen in the west… That I have to make very clear.. Adopt the good parts… Grow up.. Don’t cry your heart out or get depressed after a break up.. Be glad it did break up, cos otherwise you might have committed yourself in a bad marriage or something.. Be glad it ended before something serious happened.. At the same time you have to be aware of some monkeys trying to take you for a ride… Such monkeys exist even now… At least the way I am suggesting will keep you less attached to the monkey when you eventually break up and lesser grief..

Be cautious, tread slow and mainly- don’t jump into anything!

P.S.: As always I have a postscript, simply because I love bringing in the essence of a handwritten letter into whatever I write and P.S. I Love You is one of my favorite movies…:) Well the point I want to make here is this – i have typed the conversations verbatim from my phone in-box and so please ignore the grammar or spelling mistakes in them… I think the language is way better than what we might have seen from some ppl using all sorts of short forms for everything.. My request to them is to not kill the language… Peace.. Looking for your comments

Mr. Suresh Kalmadi is gonna get some $!^*&$@#%%^&^$%%&*(**)%$@!  I guess India can never host anything but cricket matches! What a shame this has been for our country. They could have simply privatized the whole this. At least then somebody could have been held accountable. Now everybody just passes the buck and finally the buck will disappear just like the Black Buck. Nobody will do anything.. The feature about this whole act that has to be noticed is that we now have an answer to India’s forgettable performances in these kind of events all over the world.. India doesn’t have the international standard facilities to produce international standard athletes. You can simply wonder why everything has to be built now… Why didn’t we have all this before? India is hosting the cricket world cup next year and everything required has already been here for years.. Maybe they just require some revamping.. But bring Commonwealth Games and everything has to be built now.. Roads, buses, stadiums, apartments, training facilities, EVERYTHING!! We have to build even ROADS for the event!! PATHETIC!

Even if we go way back in history, we can see that sports has never been important for the Indians.. It was just for fun always and never competitive.. Some people may give examples of garadi and kabaddi  and some other stuff but those arguments are simply flimsy.. Parents never support if their kid wants to be an athlete.. Not even a cricketer.. This is a nerd factory! All that India can do is produce more Engineers and Managers.. Its become kinda one-dimensional.. Education is the new (and old) business.. Even that is not competitive because of all the reservations involved..

And now for some personal stuff..

Oh man time flies.. Its been so long already since my last post here that I had forgotten about my blog until about a few days back.. This stupid company Mphasis hires so many people and they all want information. I don’t mind giving information so keep the questions coming.. Just make sure you have read all the comments before asking any question, I don’t wanna repeat myself when its right there. Since its been a long time I am going to follow the same format as before.

January: Broke in with the team. 6 people in the team after i joined and then it increased to 8 in a week with 2 more joining. It was a nice little team of 4 seniors and 4 juniors. I started working in the first shift, 6am-3pm. It was good cos i had a LOT of free time after work This was also the time when we got project specific training. It was more like doing some dry runs and understanding how the software works and how the test cases are executed. It was fun cos everything was so new!

Feb-Mar: By the end of March we had completed 2 phases of testing and I was doing pretty good. Got good feedback from my team lead and my manager. I knew almost all the test cases by then and had raised around 20 issues which is pretty good for a fresher. My batch mate also was doing equally good. The seniors wanted to leave the project cos they were looking for a change after working on it for almost 2 years so we were expected to learn fast and fill in their shoes It was exciting!

Apr-Jun: The software was completely changed in the end of testing phase and we had to re test everything! But we could do a better job this time cos we knew what to expect.. Earlier it was a team of 4 seniors and 4 freshers but now it was a team of 8 people who knew the software and the test cases with different levels of detail. We all found so many issues/bugs that I started to wonder whether high-school kids were doing the development! But on a serious note, the product was simply too important to take lightly. Because of the changes in the software the schedule had gone haywire and everybody had to work extra to make it. Some time during this period I changed my shift to 2pm-11pm.. Ruined my personal life though… Tried to change back but it was simply not possible in that state of the project. I was disgruntled. No personal life, not enough salary, lots of work and too much responsibility. It was not even my domain so I was unhappy that I hadn’t seen a single line of code in almost 7 months. Deep inside my heart I always knew I wanted to teach and the moment came when I had to decide whether to continue working there (dissatisfied) or to leave and disembark on a new journey. The last nail on the coffin was when my team lead got an increment of 500rs per month!!! I decided that the company had no respect for employees (They are engineers for God’s sake!! ). Around the same time applications for PGCET opened and I applied. Decided to leave a few days before the entrance test so that I can study a bit.

July-Aug: Stopped going to work on the 2nd. Don’t be alarmed! I finished all my responsibilities as a member of that team. I waited till the current release was complete. I taught my junior everything I had learned so that she could handle everything. I was the second senior most person in the team when I left. Next in line to become the team lead, cos my team lead was about to resign as he had got a better job. I felt it would be too much responsibility on me too soon.. So I left immediately. He had to work a couple of months extra cos of me but he is a good friend and he understands Then started studying. On the day before the test I realized I was very far behind the required amount of study! I thought “what the hell!” and wrote the test anyway! I cleared GATE 2009 without studying for a single day and what was this! Finally I did get a good rank – 944 Test got over on July 18th and I had a 1000 hours exactly before the counseling began!! Man that was frustrating.. I had not been free for almost 10 months and then this period was very very frustrating.. I selected to do MTech in Software Engineering in PESIT (again!!) I was excited to go back

September: My friends Naveen and Rashmi also had written PGCET and they too got good results! Naveen selected to do his MTech in Structural Engineering in UVCE and Rashmi selected to do hers in VLSI in JSSATE.. Back to college life.. But this college life is not anything like before.. Only 18 people in the class and difficult to make friends at this point.. The class gets a little boring now and then.. Its difficult to use the phone in class cos of so less people, the professor can see everybody very clearly! Fortunately or unfortunately I was the only one who had some sort of industry experience so all the professors expect more from me. Especially having been a student there before!! Sometime I wonder whether I made the right choice to go with this college again…. Nothing against the college but for the reasons mentioned above…

Trying to have fun now.. Some subjects are good and some are not.. Have a lot of free time on hand and the syllabus is not too difficult.. So the teachers are expecting projects in all subjects.. Its gonna be difficult.. Somebody has gotta tell them that! I’m just hoping it will not be me.. Its optional according to the university syllabus but college is trying to make it compulsory!! Just not fair, when all other MTech students in all other colleges are enjoying the reduced pressure.. Its the first week of college for God’s sake! If anybody wants to do a project they will voluntarily do it.. There is no need to define everything in a rule-book!

Finance is the only problem.. Its gonna cost around a lakh an year and I dunno who to ask.. I guess banks flourish because of people like me.. Going to the bank this week to ask for a loan again (already have borrowed some for the B.E.), they won’t refuse cos they are the ones who get the profit out of it.. But still I have my fingers crossed.. I guess I will simply have to pay them back over the next 10 years with all that interest and interest on interest…

I guess its worth it to chase my dream of teaching and becoming the “absent-minded professor” some day…:)

Thanks for reading

April: We probably finished the nth version of our project

May: Enhancements to the project is my guess…

June: Exams which went pretty good. Project was the best part!

July-September: Man those were tough times… Did almost nothing!

September 20th is where it starts I went to Mangalore to start my training in the Mphasis Learning Academy. It was the first time ever I left home to be completely alone. I didn’t know a single person as I reported on the 21st in the Academy hostel. What an adventure it would be! I’m a very silent and introverted guy by nature so it was a difficult time for me. Never had I “made” friends with anybody… I have been bestowed with great friends But there I was in a new city with all new people around me and I was to be there for 3 months. After the training the chances of getting posted to Bangalore was 1/11. First time hostel too

Training starts…

1 week of soft skills. Stuff like handshakes, visiting cards, communication skills.. Went pretty good.. I already knew most of the things so I just kept to myself… Had begun talking to a few guys, mostly guys from my roommate’s college. I was still hesitant. But the first weekend which was a long one most people went back to their homes and very few were left in the hostel. 4 of us went to the Penambur beach which was pretty awesome God the bus drivers in Mangalore are crazy! The ride back was like a roller coaster! Awesome!

In the middle of the first week we were split into 4 streams. 25, including me, were put into HP-ODC. I had not spoken to even one of them so far.  Turned out the stream training included modules on C, Unix and Testing.

The first module was C. I had my reservations about it cos I myself have taught C more than once. I thought I would be bored to death. But the trainer we got was this awesome dude… He was like a ball of energy bouncing around in the room.. It was like me and him had this connection. most of the sessions were like discussions between me and him! Our ways of teaching were so similar it was like we got it from the same place. He was also spiritual trying to spread a certain message about knowledge and light and stuff. Exactly the same views as me! We were finishing each other’s sentences when we were discussing anything. If only it was a she… A bad end to the module cos only 7 people cleared the test. We all thought there was something fishy… But life goes on and we started the next module.

It was soft skills again. More focused on communication skills than anything else. We had extempore, presentations, email writing, working in teams, grammar, etc. We had two trainers for this module. Both were very good. This dude was blind and still he was so confident in his teaching. It was inspiring to see him teaching. By the end of the module almost everyone had improved leaps and bounds. Everybody got good results on this module I guess.. We had more soft skills sessions, one every week to ensure continued improvement. Though it was annoying at time to do prepositions and sentence corrections and everything else the outcome was pretty good.

Then we had this next trainer dude who sucked… He taught Manual Testing and Automated Testing and UNIX. He taught wrong things… His definitions were wrong, abbreviations were wrong, examples were wrong and he had this huge ego problem.. No questions were accepted. If anybody did question he would get pissed and shout at them.. It was mostly me and Anoop…… It’s difficult to sit silent when something is going wrong..  We learnt our lessons and decided keep our pie-holes shut. We sang through his sessions… Literally! Me and Anoop sang old Hindi songs in all of his sessions. Thank God for old Hindi songs… Only thing was he didn’t fail anyone badly. Finally everybody was happy.

The last weekend in Mangalore my 2 best friends Naveen and Rashmi came down to meet me and see the city of Mangalore. We went to Mangaladevi temple and Sultan Battery. Had lunch in this superb restaurant called Aroma on M G Road. End of the day we had ice cream in Ideals and I put them on the train back

Our next module, HP-ODC, was supposed to be in Bangalore! Ain’t I lucky??:) I booked train tickets for all 24 of us together on the Mangalore-Bangalore day train which was supposed to be awesome. It was better than that All of had a blast! The Western Ghats is the most beautiful place I have seen so far! Man what a journey it was… Singing shouting talking everything was superb! I had made 23 new friends

Last module of training in Bangalore. There are 5 or 6 locations in Bangalore where Mphasis is based. Since I am the lucky guy our location was Global Village Technological Park, which is 4 km from my home The training we got here was the real training.. Everything else was a waste of time…. People who are working in live projects explaining technology is the best training you can get We had 3 tests here and everybody made up the averages to the cut off specified… Everybody getting graduated was awesome I was the MLA topper of the whole batch with 93% final average..

So after these 3 months of an adventure I am richer by around 30 friends and countless new connections Couldn’t be happier Everybody got assigned into projects.. Have started working live now.. Still breaking ice with team members.. I think I will make good speed

It feels good to be working!

Second day of the second internals unfolded quite early because of the newspaper guy’s noisy entry. The day was expected to be quite grim given my preparation or the lack of it for the test. But I canceled the imminent alarm and went back to sleep to get up early enough to reach college on time.

I get on to the BMTC bus numbered 502 which goes directly to my college and which I never get from my stop. Got a seat too! Thought this was my lucky day. I’ve heard ppl say traveling in city buses burns a hole in your pocket if you don’t have a pass. Today I realized it is all about being sharp. The bus was quite full by Nayandahalli which 2 stops from college but not full enough considering it was peak time. One guy was standing on the last step, one on the second and all others were off the steps and inside, so you can imagine the fullness. I was  not bothered as I was reading for the test and periodically checking my hair in the reflection off my cell. Got a new hairstyle you see….. Anyways, I pack up and get off my seat and try to get to the door when the bus was one stop away. The two guys on the steps looked at me and came up the steps making way for me which I thought was quite thoughtful of them. Then suddenly I realized I was being ambushed between 3 guys. Those 2 in front of me blocking the steps pushing me back in and another behind me pushing towards them. Thanks to Sharath, my dear friend, I knew in an instant what was happening. It was a team of pickpockets trying to pick my cell. I saw the cell slowly being lifted from my back pocket by the professional hands of the guy who was pushing me. I immediately caught hold of my cell but missed the guy’s hand. Then I got down in my stop, started shouting at the guy who also got down n we had a heated argument in which he was of course using all the “samskruta” he knew and I in my usual style using strong words. then I realized if he could understand my words he wouldn’t have been a pickpocket and hence I left disgruntled and he went thanking all gods that he didn’t get a public beating. I regret that I missed his hand but I’m glad that I didn’t miss the phone. Punishment or not he would have got back to doing the same thing but I wouldn’t have got my precious cell back. It is a Sony Ericsson W910i, for those who didn’t know, which I bought with my own hard-earned money during my internship at Microsoft. My friend Sharath who I mentioned above is the reason that it was saved cos he told me exactly how he lost his cell, picked in a similar fashion. Thank you Sharath!! For those who are curious about the title, you can read the first part here.

Well before you too decide that its my lucky day, let me give out some more info on what happened after that.

After all this hulla-bulla I enter the campus forgetting to put my cell on silent mode(cellphones are banned in VTU colleges) which I realized much later. I’m prepared for 2-3 questions for the NM paper which is quite bad. Two out of those questions come in part A where I can attempt only one question. So screwed here by Network Management. I didn’t even bother to open the textbook for the second paper as I had decided to write NM. After 30 mins I realized about the phone and finshed what I had to write and left. Then I reach the place in tech park where I usually study and the phone rings when nobody is around, I’m saved… You think I’m lucky now? wait.. there’s still to come. Since first paper got screwed I decided to attempt the second: Cryptography and Network Security. Read 16 out of 20 questions given in the question bank, had heard that questions mostly will come only from that. I left out questions on 2 topics which I had not listed to in the class. Then I went to write the test and see that 4 questions from those 2 topics have appeared, 2 each in part B and C where we have to answer 2 out of 3 questions. So I knew 1 question each in parts B and C and both in part A where I can write only 1. So I attempted 3 questions which can give me a max of 15 on 25 which sucks. Fed up I leave the campus and there’s a bus immediately which again rarely happens. My public life ends once I reach my home so I stop at this point.

Please leave your comments here with a rating of my luck on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being luckiest.

Thank you. Have a nice day.

PS: Thank you Sharath.

PPS: Sympathy is welcome and expected.

PPPS: A tip to all public transport commuters. If you are being pushed around in the bus/train something is going from your pocket to somebody’s hands. Be sharp, especially when getting on and off. Good luck to all commuters. And test writers.

The better part of eighth semester is that classes are only three days per week. Only four subjects and one of them is inky-pinky-ponky… I’ve been made Teaching Assistant for our network management lecturer and I’m still waiting for her to give me some work. It’s a first time for me and kinda gives a nice feeling… Though the major event so far has been my placement in Mphasis. Second day of college and first company of the semester and I got the job! Everybody expected me to get it so there was some pressure. I have heard and read that its a very good company and I’m very happy… Personally no more news. 

when it comes to the happenings around me it hurts to see the behaviour of the so-called “Hindutva” brigade. Girls getting thrashed cos they went to a pub when investigation shows that they were just celebrating a friend’s birthday and no alcohol was being served. Another girl getting thrashed cos she was talking to a Muslim boy and the boy beaten more. Associating the term “policing” with this kind of goondaism demeans the term itself. I wonder what the fuss was about Valentine’s day… The Sri Rama Sene guy Pramod Mutalik said women are akin to mothers – “Mathru devo bhava” and so valentine’s day should not be celebrated. If everybody is our mother who are we going to marry??? And it’s not like guys go propose every girl they see that day…. Mostly it is one guy and one girl who have known each other for a while or who will get to know each other in the coming days. If they don’t have a problem there’s no point in others having a problem.

Guys and girls go to pubs, cafes and restaurants everyday so does stopping them on one day gonna achieve anything? They will meet anywhere if they want to meet not caring about anybody who has any sort of problem. Everything that the Sri Rama Sene did is clearly a political gimmick. They even told in an interview that they might enter the elections this time. So the whole act was just to get noticed and get the attention of people who think like them of which there is no dearth. Now they can contest the elections and easily win a couple of seats. They claim they are not politically motivated by indicating that they are not related to any political party. That is because they want start their own political party. LOL! I’m not a fool to fall for that but in a state of more than 5 crore there’s no dearth of fools. I’m disgusted at the thought of such people being our representatives. If Taliban is 10/10 in “Talibanisation”, promoting these kind of elements will lead to a 6-7/10 in “Talibanisation” which is equally bad. In a democracy majority is suppose to win but in the Indian democracy only the minority wins. Reservation is another proof for that. A bunch of hooligans go hurt a couple of people claiming moral policing and instead of the public confronting it, it splits into two groups and argue over it. And the arguments from the goonda side is always comical…

I read a lot of negative things about M F Hussain which appear to be true if you see the insulting paintings of his which are auctioned for millions…. I would be grateful if any of you could give me more information about that guy and his paintings…. I don’t want to post about it without proper information.

Going to watch Dev D tomorrow and might review it here..  I hope I didn’t bore you with my boring life..

Deep down, India is the place of mystique. You’ll find anything and everything in India. Well almost. We know it and believe it and are ready to fight for it. I joined this interestingly named group called “India is NOT a third world country you retards” on Facebook. I suggest you read the posts on its wall. Just go to Facebook and search for it. What goes on there is a never ending argument whether India is third world or not. If you’re wondering let me make it clear that I seriously want to believe what the group name suggests. But put the question to yourselves. What is the definition of a third world country? Is India really above it? Ah, maybe you’ll find that India is way above in terms of percentages of population being above “Luxury” line and percentages related to development and so on… I read somewhere that 26% of the Indian population is below poverty line. You think its good? 26% is pretty small don’t you think… That is more than 270,000,000 people below poverty line. Are you sure that you really want to say that “The glass is half full” here? I’m not ready to do that. Like a mother who doesn’t see her son’s wrongs we are not ready to say that India is not really a great place. We are happy to see a few metropolitan cities growing exponentially and we are satisfied. India wins ONE gold medal at the Olympics and we say “India has arrived”. ONE of our company stock goes on the NYSE and we create a big hoopla. One AMERICAN-Indian goes to space and we are proud of her. In Kannada I would call us “Alpasukhigalu”. This is one end of the spectrum. Let’s go to the other end.

Sigh! It hurts to see a movie like Slumdog Millionaire. I know I know please let me finish first. I agree A R Rahman should have gotten the Golden Globe for his music but I’ve heard better music from him. A wonderful movie by all means but I’m hurt to see how our India has been portrayed in it. Dharavi being Asia’s largest slum is no matter of pride. A boy jumping into a shit-hole is no matter to be proud. Neither is a small girl being shown as a sex worker. A small boy goes shooting with his gun and stealing with his even younger brother. We see the bunch of guys who pull out kids’ eyes to beg on the streets for them. In the police station we see an innocent 18 year old being given electric shocks. Our constable is FAT. The host of the .. Millionaire show is no better. He tried to guide our protagonist in the wrong direction and then he gets him arrested for knowing the answers. And all that the movie makers want us to see is the LOVE in the movie.
Let me also tell you why this movie is getting such great reviews outside India. “The director is English. He was so courageous that he came to India to shoot a movie in the slums.” Get the point? The great reviews are because he was courageous. He says i an interview “Everyday we used to step in shit atleast ten times during the shooting.” Do we want him saying that? He came to make a movie and now he is making money out of it and he really doesn’t care about anything else. Its just a co-incidence that the Indian actors did such a great job. I wonder if it would have got the same response if it was some Indian director. Closing our eyes won’t take darkness away. Everyone in the movie gets 7+ out of 10. But the movie is worth 0. I’m sorry if you think otherwise.

Now you must be wondering what is the point I’m trying to make here. I’ll tell you what. We should stop cerebrating for the wrong reasons. We should look at the whole picture before being satisfied. I hope I got it across to you.

My friend Sudheender has clearly mentioned the lack of creativity in Gandhinagar (as Mumbai is to Bollywood). Not only are the writers pathetic so are our so-called actors and the editors and the sound engineers(if indeed there are engineers involved) and the music directors and whatnot. The worst part of the movie is the dubbing. You often don’t find connection between the lip movement and the words you are hearing. Our movie makers seem to have forgotten that a movie is made twice – once on the sets and once in the dubbing studio. Our actors are not capable of delivering a dialogue twice in the same tone. Well the female actors are not CAPABLE of dubbing because they don’t know the language or their voice is not as “beautiful” as they look. I quote beautiful because I don’t seem to have an eye for such “beauty”.
Let’s move on to original cinema. Less said the better. The only things you see in original movies are violence and crude comedy. The violence portrayed in our movies(including other regional stuff) is not with any purpose(neither patriotic nor necessary). Our protagonists are hooligans who fall in love with our heroines who other hooligans also “love”. And hence the fight between the two sets of hooligans. I only wish the action directors would do a better job. But i know it will stay a wish for a long time. You would laugh as soon as you see one of our comedians. The joke is not in the dialogue or the context but rather the behavior and the appearance of the “comedy actor”. It seems that there is a mentality that all comedy actors should be ugly, bad mannered, badly dressed and foolish. No intelligent comedy but pathetic attempts to make the audience laugh. The jokes are never in the plot. Change-the-scene-make-a-joke-resume-the-scene is the formula adopted by our directors and producers. Since I do not promote cursing/swearing I will skip choreography.
Now that I have finished most of the negative points of Sandalwood let me mention the only positive point (which is also the reason why this kinda cinema persists). These films make big money. I’m lost if I try to find out why.
I wonder when I will be able to walk out of a theater after watching a Kannada movie without the fear of embarrassment.
( I did see Mast Maja Maadi)

I do not believe in any religion but I do believe that there is a Supreme power. Therefore I thank the Supreme Lord for what he has given me and I pray for the wellness of everyone. Hatred will not lead us anywhere. Ignorance is not the path to your goal. Material goals do not matter in the end. Realizing the Truth is the ultimate goal. Let us work towards That goal.

I hope and wish everybody has a very good 2009.

Question: Where did the money go? Money is a bit like energy. Even though it can be created it cannot be destroyed. It only changes hands. So if so many people are losing so many billions of money, where is it going? Is someone burning it?

I don’t think so. I would like to know your opinions about it. Do you have a solution? I think I might just have one. It is possible only in our imaginations, so start imagining now.

Apparently the whole world is in recession. Developed countries are most affected. Developing countries like India are in a better position. Countries below poverty line are not at all affected. Is this the time to mourn for the biggies? Why do we have to be the tails of these “dogs”? I think its time for us to act! Its time for us Indians to come forward and put some breath into the dying markets by investing wisely and stabilize the Indian market. This is our chance to overtake the countries which are considered world economic powers. Because they are hurt bad. Do you want to help the wounded and stay behind them or do you want to use the opportunity and take a lead? If the Indian market is stabilized now even as the world market goes down, we will be in a position of power once the world market starts bouncing back. At least we can reduce the difference between us and the developed countries which have trillions of money and of which they are losing. Is the Indian investor thinking or not? Should he go down a well if his leader goes down? I don’t think so. This is the time to be proactive. Why not turn back and go as far away from the well as possible?
Where is money to invest you say? What are our leaders going to do with their money apparently stored in Swiss banks? I say apparently because it is safer for them to keep their money close. Why don’t they save the market by investing heavily and bring up the market? They will make a bounty on the profits made. What are the big companies rooted in India going to do? Why not produce for the Indian consumer?
Why should they always export? Just because foreign exchange gives them better profit does not mean they should not care about their own country. Our defense system tries best to protect us from the external physical forces only because they want to protect our country. They are patriots. Are we not patriots? Isn’t anyone responsible of protecting our country from external economic forces? If there is no FII inflow why don’t we invest? The Indians should be responsible for India. Not some guy running the USA or UK or some place like that. The USA is forcing its authority on the world. It is so subtle that it looks like everyone is following USA but I see that we are made to follow quietly. The US is doing slowly what Hitler did in his Blitzkrieg. Why isn’t anybody noticing? Or does everybody want the US to lead? It goes ahead and destroys a couple of countries claiming WMD and shows nothing in the end. I think what it is doing is telling everyone “See what I can do? Better be careful with me.” Now nobody questions the US of A. The US secretary comes to India a week after 26/11 and says what the Indians have been saying for a really long time and now the news is on the international TV. Does that mean Indians have no credibility? Who gave the US of A the authority to insult us.
The US army is going to Iraq to kill Saddam let’s send our soldiers with them. The US army is going to Afghanistan lets send some more soldiers in there. The US market i going down let’s send our market down as well. Cut this bullshit!
Japan was nothing after the world war II ended. Other participants were also hurt bad. In thirty years it was one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Did they follow anybody? I don’t think so. They took the initiative.

It is time to take control and to lead.
Is anybody listening?