Nostalgia...

Sometime in 2001, on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Pilani, I wandered in the hostel corridors and landed in my friend’s room. The rain outside had made that day very special in that part of the country, which is known for its arid weather. Me and my friend decided to watch a movie and started sifting through the CD’s that were around. My friend picked up a movie CD with a weird name “Shawshank Redemption” (well, if you removed the ‘w’ in the first word of the title, it became the name of many kannada folks in our college J ). Once the movie started, we were able to confirm the fact that the first word was definitely not a typo error on the CD cover. Little did I know of the impact that the great movie featuring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman would have on me. Though some of my friends didn’t like the slow pace of the movie and actually “missed” the ending(!), I watched it couple of times for the sheer performance of the crew and the powerful dialogues.

Fast forward to 2009. A rainy Sunday afternoon in the silicon valley of India, which is quite common in the second half of the year. After a great lunch, me and my wife decided that it was time for a good movie and just when we switched on the television, “Shawshank Redemption” had just started on one of the channels! The movie still had the same charm, even though I had seen it many times during my college days. I highly recommend this movie to anyone asking me for a movie recommendation! It is very hard to pick a best scene from this movie. One of my favorites has to be this:

Andy (Tim Robbins) is just out of 1 month in solitary confinement, after playing Mozart in the public sound system inside the prison. During lunch time, an interesting conversation happens between Andy and Red (Morgan Freeman):

 

Someone: How did you manage a month?

Andy: I had Mr. Mozart to keep me company...[points and taps his head.] It was in here. [gestures over his heart] And in here. That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you. Haven't you ever felt that way about music?

Red: Well... I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it, though. Didn't make too much sense in here.

Andy: No, here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget.

Red: Forget?

Andy: That there are places in the world that aren't made out of stone. That there's... there's something inside that they can't get to; that they can't touch. It's yours.

Red: What are you talking about?

Andy: Hope.

 

It just struck me that Chetan Bhagat has a liking for having numbers on his book title, notice the pattern

· Five point someone (movie version: 3 Idiots)

· One night at the call center

· Three mistakes of my life

· Two states

So can we expect “four” in his next book title?

Note: I just finished reading “Two States” (a typical CB style, bollywood oriented book). I could empathize with CB on a lot of aspects mentioned in the story, though I (or rather we) didn’t have to struggle that hard for our marriageJ

I am an R2D2!

Yesterday, just before noon, I started losing my voice! Yes, due to the severe cold I had last week, my voice gradually started becoming a whisper and finally it was reduced to just some whistles, whoosh sounds and cough. All through the day I had great difficulty communicating with my wife, using just whistles, nods, hand gestures and whoosh sounds. Somehow, It reminded me of R2D2 speak!  Today, my condition is slightly better, but I got used to communicating like R2D2 J

I discovered that this condition was called Laryngitis. Hopefully, I get better by tomorrow, right on time for conducting the training at my office!

 

Wake up!

I watched “Wake up Sid” in theater last weekend. The movie goes at such a slow pace, that gives the Sony TV mega serials a run for their money! After the movie got over, one can see the multiplex owners giving a wakeup call to the audience, most of whom were in deep slumber. Except for some good performance by Ranbir, excellent music and cinematography, there is nothing worthy to talk about in the movie.

P.S: Had they shown Ranbir using a Canon instead of Nikon, I might have considered writing one or two good points about this movie ;)

 

An eventful journey

Of late, my journey to my hometown is becoming  very interesting. Almost every trip to my hometown in the last six months has provided me with some remarkable experience. During the last trip, as we were waiting in the lounge, we happened to see a eve teaser in action. Of all the women in the hall, he chose to tease a women police officer in mufti! The rest, as they say, was history. We witnessed some of the finest action scenes by the police officer, bringing back memories of Vijayashanthi movies of the 90’s. But this time, me and my wife had an equally exciting train journey.

 

It all started when a group of eunuchs entered the train and started asking for money. Having experienced this situation before, during my college days, near Nagpur and Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway stations, I was unperturbed. But after sometime, the eunuch’s turned violent and started hitting the passengers! My wife, who didn’t expect this situation in train, got scared and forced me to give a 10 rupee note to a eunuch so that they leave the place. After the incident, we thought we can sleep in peace, but we didn’t know that the worst was yet to come!

 

A man entered the coach, with forehead full of holy ash(vibuthi), with a briefcase in one hand and a bottle of liquor on the other! He kept his briefcase on a seat, opened it and took out a black coat. Only then we realized that he was the Train Ticket Examiner for our Coach! He struggled to stand steady (even while the train was stationary) and was uttering “philosophy” of life, as expected from a person in high ‘spirits’. He even misbehaved with a woman in the train, but the strangest thing was that the woman didn’t react. It seems that the TTE was her boss in the office (possible she was also a railway employee) and he has promised her a free travel to Chennai. Once his nuisance in the form of words and actions became unbearable, everyone realized something had to be done. Myself and another passenger started looking for a Railway protection force (RPF) constable, but to our utter dismay, we didn’t find even a single police after searching through about 5 compartments within the train. Luckily, we happened to catch hold of another TTE and explained him the situation. He rushed to our compartment, but by then, another infuriated passenger had called up the police, MLA and city DCP and was demanding justice to the Kannadigas! He warned the drunk TTE that the Railway station was in his constituency and if required he can fire him for his conduct. A round of talks happened between the passengers and the new TTE and he promised to check the other tickets. By then, our old TTE had reached the state of Nirvana and was fast asleep. By then, I looked at my watch. It was 2.30 AM in the morning and I hadn’t slept a bit!

 

Just as I was about to sleep, a cold breeze entered the train and I started shivering. As I got up to see the reason behind this sudden drop in temperature, I noticed that there were a group of hooligans, who have opened the train door for want of some fresh air. Me and another passenger in the coach, went up to them, and told them that we badly needed a sleep after seeing so many events till that time in that journey. They finally agreed to close the door and after that I got back to sleep.

 

Next day, as the train touched the outskirts of my hometown, I was glad to see heavy rain. I got down and went to the rest room to freshen up. As I opened the rest room door, there was smoke all over. I then realized that someone, who had been inside the rest room before me, must have smoked couple of cigarettes. I closed the door and did the ‘needful’. As I opened the door to come out, I saw a RPF constable waiting outside! He asked me for my ID card and ticket. When asked for the reason, he promptly told me that smoking inside the train was offence and I had used the restroom for smoking! I denied the allegation, but the constable wasn’t satisfied. He said that I have to take a nicotine test to prove myself. I told that if that’s the only way, I am ready for that. He immediately called up someone over phone to tell about his ‘catch’. Once he put down his phone, I started laughing loudly! He asked for the reason and I told that the journey was proving to be very interesting as the time progressed and I can’t wait to see it end. Luckily, my wife just looked behind from her seat, to see me having a ‘casual chat’ with the policeman J She came over near the train door and asked about the situation. The policeman enquired if I am really saying the truth that I don’t smoke. She glanced at me with a “I got your ear” look, and then confirmed that I am indeed a non-smoker. The policeman then let me off and then called up his buddy to tell this: “Hello, Andha marwadi paiyan pogai pidikka maatanam, adhanala vittuten” [“That Marwari guy doesn’t smoke it seems, so I let him off”].

 

On hearing that statement, I couldn’t stop laughing! After reaching home, I headed towards the mirror just to verify if I really looked like a Marwari J

Training day

Sometimes, it really surprises me how the so called “professionals” don’t prepare enough before the delivery of their services. Recently, I happened to attend a soft skills training. The instructor, who is supposed to have about 10 years training experience, came with absolutely no preparation!  To begin with, he didn’t even have an agenda for the day. All the participants were left wondering what is gonna come up all through the day. The workshop didn’t even have a case study or a role play, which is commonly found in other soft skills training sessions. The presentation slides were so poorly made; being a big fan of Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte, my blood boiled seeing the way the presentation was made. In fact, most of the material for the training came from a popular management book (to hell with copyrights!). Finally, the instructor’s intention was clear when he announced that the training was over at sharp 5.30 PM. The participants were left wondering why they attended this training at all!

 

 

Update post

My last blog entry was during my B-school term break (after fourth term) and here comes the next post during the fifth term break. Sometimes, blogging appears to be too difficult. Between last term break and this term break, a lot of things have happened. I have moved to my own house, did a lot of shopping/planning for the movement to new house, completed my first set of electives at B-school, experimented with some new technology at work, managed to read 2 books and watch couple of movies! I have also stopped jogging, photography (doing typical “home function” shoots), listening to music (I used to carry my Zen player all the time earlier) and of course, blogging J! But this time, I am going to attribute my lack of blogging to BSNL folks, who haven’t shifted my connection from my old home to new home.

 

Let me see how it goes this time. Just like I have a Google reader panel in this blog, where you can view some of the interesting things I find on the net, I might add a “Twitter” panel in which I can tweet my “bulb” thoughts. I just hope I get better at time management!

A Perfect Holiday!

After a really long time, I had a wonderful weekend! Me and my wife spent last two days at my relatives place in Sagara, which was far far away from the fast pace of the city life…surrounded by thick forest and farmlands…No Internet, No mobile phone, Not even an English Newspaper…Where the main highway was about 2kms, reachable only by a narrow mud lane...I thoroughly enjoyed the time there, with lots of fun, chat, long walks and good food J…I also got to do some photography(well, a lot in fact, clicked about 400 odd snaps) in the gardens and forest, learnt something new about the trees/plants in forest, got to see different flowers…Above all, had a nice time with my relatives. Even though we don’t know each other’s language perfectly, we were able to communicate a lot, with my broken kannada! Last year, I visited the same place as a tourist and visited the same house as a guest (well, my wife was a friend then and we were just getting to know each other better)…But this time, it was a wonderful homely feeling…Missing the place already!

Snippets

Done with my last assignment for the coursework, at last completed my first year B-school classes! Phew!

Am I really going to study Kotler, before the quiz on the opening day, next term???

 

Watched 3 movies in the last 2 days, “Twelve angry men” is a must watch movie! Also, for the first time in my life, I watched a kannada movie completely J

 

Why does it rain every evening, especially when I am returning back from work? It is OK if it rains on weekends, especially during afternoons…

 

I had subscribed to lot of blogs which I don’t follow anymore, so I am on an “unsubscribing” spree…

 

I have started listening to books, instead of reading them (yeah, audiobooks!)…Currently listening to “Freakanomics” (which was in my to read list in 2005!)

 

I just realized I haven’t touched my camera for more than a month…Will get a chance to shoot this weekend…

 

Lot of promises to fulfill (some are pending for over 4 months)…Need to see how many I can knock off from that list…

Caught!

Today evening, me and my wife were out for shopping. We entered a footwear shop and my wife started looking at all available models and was trying to decide what to buy. Here is our conversation:

Me(with a tired look): So found something?
Wife: Yeah, trying to figure out which one looks good
Me: Oh ok, how about the 3rd one in the second rack?
Wife: Nope, that's awful
Me: Hmmm, i know. I can easily figure out which one looks bad, but i cant figure out which one is good (easy way to escape)
Wife: Good. Tell me dear,(pointing at a footwear in the rack), doesn't this look bad?
Me: Yeah, it looks ugly and bad, don't know who wears such crap
Wife: Huh! Its the same model that i am wearing now. When i purchased it at the same shop, you told me that it was wonderful and it was a really nice choice!
Me: He he he...

:)