Are we truly Republic?

Yesterday we celebrated our 60th Republic day. But there has been a few incidents that mar this celebration. A day before the republic day celebration we witnessed another incident of uncivilised hooligans taking law into their hands. The place was a pub in Mangalore. These hooligans calling themselves Sri Ram Sena, went about beating the ladies in the pub, abusing them, calling all sort of names and even physically abusing them, all this in the name of religion and ethics. I mean who gives them the right to do these sort of things. Didnt we already have an MNS and Shiv Sainiks. Its such a shame, when we think that we are moving to be one of the superpowers and on the other hand we are unable to provide basic security to our women folks. We are country of free men and women, who have all the rights in the world to do whatever they feel like doing and no one should have the right to act as moral police. Government has been late to act on this, they have not yet taken any action against the outfit, even when the top leaders of this ‘gang’ has been giving sound-bytes praising the Ram Sainiks for their heinous act and even justifying them.
As if this was not enough we then had the MNS people vandalising a school in Pune, just because it was dominated by North Indians and had a bhojpuri song playing. What a reason for acting the way they did. I think we have had enough of Raj Thackeray and should put the man behind the bars.
Its high time that we act quick and decisively to stop such kind of hooliganism and provide a safe and civilised society to our countrymen. Happy Republic Day...

The Tale of Two Restaurants...

The weekend was eventful with two movies and two new restaurant visits and a very satisfying experience at both the places. Slumdog Millionaire and Raaz 2 were good, infact Slumdog makes one sit and think and carry home the memories of a brilliantly made movie.
The first restaurant was Mandarin Trail in The Great India Place, Noida. A good restaurant doubled with equally good ambience. As the name suggests it’s a Chinese restaurant, with good Chinese food, with variety of seafood. Rajesh and me, thought to try the place out. Both being very fond of Chinese food headed right into the restaurant on Saturday to have our lunch. The food was good, especially the soup that we ordered, Chicken Wanton and Lemon Coriander Soups. Next we ordered for a rice bowl, which is a combination of rice and dish, we ordered for chicken. We also ordered prawn and it turned out to be good too. One special mention for the seafood lovers, the food is really good. Those who are going to check the food out, do check out the prawn dish. The pomfret was also delicious, we had ordered for a braised pomfret in black pepper sauce. Probably the dessert menu was not competent enough with few choices. There’s no bar for those who love hold their drinks alongwith the food. However the non-alcoholic drink menu is decent enough. All in all its a good place to have food, after loads of shopping, if you are a Chinese foodie. Lunch for two – Rs. 1100/-.
The second visit was Bonsai Restaurant, Connaught Place. It’s in the inner circle. We (me and Mia) were thinking to visit a new restaurant in CP. So after moving round and round we found that there is this place called Bonsai, which both have never been to and that’s when we decided that we need to visit the place. The very first thing that you notice when you enter the restaurant is the romantic ambience, candle-lit tables and white interiors. It’s a place where you would take your girlfriend to propose her and be sure that she would not say no. I mean candle-lit dinner right next to a water fountain, light music in the background, what else you need. The menu has a great ensemble of Chinese and Japanese food with Indian grilled items. It has a lot of prawn, chicken and pork items. For the veggies also the menu seems to be quite tempting, with all those stir fried veg delights and also Cantonese food which seems to be prepared very well, though I haven’t tried it myself. The food was good. Do try the special soup, Bonsai Laksa Soup (Veg/Non Veg) it’s simply awesome. We had noodles, chicken and prawn. I loved the food and the ambience. The weather was good and it allowed to sit in the open. It also has a indoor sitting facility for those who like to have their food under a roof. Food for two would cost around Rs. 1500/-. Want to try out something; do visit this place.

The long weekend...

So the Jim Corbett plan is off for the time being. I mean it is postponed for now. So there we were all interested and excited for the Republic day weekend, when we were to get on bus/train/tempo or for that matter any mode of transport and head towards Jim Corbett, but now it’s all passe. So here is the weekend and no where to go. It started with two movies, Slumdog Millionaire and RAAZ 2, both good movies. Friday was at Rajesh’s place. I bought a laptop on Saturday, Sunday was again the same old badminton story. This time Navneet also joined us after a long long time. We had HCF and BB Mutton Burger after a long time. I mean after a game of badminton you definitely need something to replenish all that you have lost.
Bikash was shifting house, so I had to be there to help him out in setting his new place. So I was there on Monday at Noida. It’s a cool new place that he has taken up, in sec 19 in Noida. A park right infront of the house and a girls’ hostel at the end of the lane, what better place to take room. He would be putting up at the place alongwith a friend of his. In the evening I was to meet Mia at CP so I left Noida early and was home in time. Evening was a bit of shopping and dinner at this new place called Bonsai. The food was good and ambience even better. By the time I returned home it was really late, I was tired and crashed in the bed. The weekend was actually longggg... and when I say that it means that I have had enough of roaming around, playing and watching movies, in simple words I was bored at the end, too much of holiday at times is a killjoy...

My New Lappie... Yippiee!!!

At last I got it, I mean my new laptop. Its a Sony Vaio and I give all the credit to Maa and Satyam. I mean at the time when everyone is cursing Satyam, I owe my new possesion to Mr Raju’s now infamous organisation. Maa coz she was the one who told me to invest some in the Satyam’s share, actually she even said that she woild cover my losses if i had to incur any, and as they say MERE PASS MAA KA ASHIRWAD THA and thats how I made some money outta Satyam’s share and I got this lappie. It has a core 2 duo processor, 250 gb hard drive, 2 GB RAM and 1 GB cache. All in all quite loaded for the things that I do. I was thnking to buy a laptop for a long time. I mean with all those blogging needs and the surfing stuffs and my desktop not looking a very good shape, i decided to buy a laptop and thats hw this new baby came into existence. Now I think there’s gonna be more sleepless nights ala MBA days, with this new found toy.

Slumdog Millionaire

I saw SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and when you see such kinda movie you are always stuck by the fact that why can’t an Indian make such a movie. I mean you have a Namesake made by Mira Nair, NRI. And now this one made by a rank outsider, Danny Boyle. Brilliant movie no doubt, and not only that this movie also celebrates all those things that probably we think to be mundane.
The movie makes you take a look at those slums and underbelly of India which you look thru the tinted glasses of your air conditioned car. But not in anyway de-meaning it, always celebrating the simplicity of life. The movie has its light moments and showcases some of brilliant portrayed scenes where a person feels completely helpless.
They young Jamal (the main protagonist) does a brilliant act. The screenplay is a winner it goes happy grime way and that makes us laugh and think at the same time. The time when the young Jamal takes foreign tourists on a ride(pun intended) as a fake guide, it makes you laugh and fall off your chairs. And then you have a scene when Salim (Jamal’s elder brother) beds a young Latika (Jamal’s love interest) infront of a Jamal by weidling a gun and you can very well feel the helplessness in the eyes of the young boy. These are the high points of the movie, I mean you just cannot take your eyes off the way every single nuances that has been handled. Dev Patel pitches in with a good performance, Freida Pinto looks gud and Anil Kapoor & Irrfan Khan are good at the roles that they have been entrusted it with.
But once you see the movie you understand that this not a movie that is made by the characters but by the story and the way it has been told. So all the kudos goes to Danny Boyle. I mean in no way could this movie have been the way it is had it been any other director. This very well justifies that there has been no nomination for actors in the movie. Music is brilliant and that goes without saying that A.R.Rahman is a man to reckon with on International scene now.
A brilliant movie that celebrates everything that’s Indian and gives you hope at the end. A brilliant movie and no doubt a must watch for all.

One wedding, two great souls and a big reunion...

15th Jan '09 - First Wedding of the Year

Last week I had been to Bhubaneswar. It was Jini and Saurav’s wedding. We have been friends for a long time. It was during the engineering time when the two fell in love and after seven years they decided to take the step ahead. I mean its such a great experience when you see your friends getting married. I was ofcourse happy for both of them. The wedding was a good excuse for a class re-union. It was like revisiting the days of engineering. Some have changed some have not but when the friends meet it like house on fire. They all are still the same old guys and gals, laughing at those silly jokes and making fun of each other, Anurag, Lucky, DJ and all the rest who made it to the party were really happy not only for the reason that they were attending the wedding but also for the reason that we all were meeting after such a long time. DJ actually surprised us all with his last minute entry, I mean he was not decided to reach the for the wedding, rather thats what he told us. But then the day of wedding he made it and thats what was a wonderful surprise.
So a two days of complete masti with friends and family and that’s the whole reason to attend a friend’s wedding. I mean you are not getting married which means the liscence to fun is still there and you dont need to go thru those tiring rituals all day long infront of the fire, in short you are having the fun at the cost of the buy who is having a trial by the fire.
Saurav and Jini, here’s winning you two a wonderfully married life and life full of happiness and success, may God be with you and loads of love for two of you. May god bless you!!!
It was a good break and great time to be home. I was not there on 1st Jan, for the first time in the entire of my life and thats why I was dying to be home. Though I hardly got anytime to be home. I mean home was like a place to sleep and thats it. Maa was complaining all the time for not spending any time with her. All the same it was awesome and now that I am back to Delhi, its work and monotony back to life...

Virtual - Reality

Its been a long time since I wrote and that’s actually nt feeling right. Something new on my side too. I got myself registered on facebook. Thinking about the irony of life I at times think about people like me who add people sitting next to them on their social networking list. I mean what the F, u r sitting rite next to this person. Everyday u gotta meet and still u want to make that person virtual. I mean the need to make every real thing virtual is a hep thing. It started with mails going electronic. U have ur profile and customized self on nets, ala ur social network profiles and pix. We spend more time infront of PCs than we see a human face. I think machine are quickly replacing human sentiments and human are soon becoming mechanical… visit a chat site and u mi8 end up hearing something like: aaargh!!!, lol, ha ha haha. Where are the real human emotions, even these have been mechanized. I know even I am part of this bloody race that calls itself tech-savvy and I also think the day of machines ruling the world is not far.

I pray for those days when Green meant nature and not Green Card, when Fresh meant fresh air and not a cup of coffee, when song meant chirping of birds and not tuning into the ipod, when chatting meant having adda with friends and few cups of tea, samosa and not logging into g-talk, when games meant late evenings in the playground and not x-box or play stations, when a quarrel meant fighting with ur friends and not ignoring them on social sites. The Gold Old days…

The Year That Was...

The New Year’s Eve party was reminiscent of the year bygone. It started off with a lot of promises. As friends started to pour in we had fun and we are were all rocking. The party went on well past the midnight. The crowd was also good and food was awesome. As Tee and myself held our plates and watched our mocktails, we found Konda, Cinthol and Mia Down and out. So again the same rituals of carrying them home, getting a happy new year wish and scolding at the same time from Mia’s caretaker.
Year 2008 was similar in many ways. As a friend of mine and me were discussing, we found that the year has been of broken promises. The beginning seemed to be very promising and at times giving us a lot but then things have not ended very well. Putting it in her words “The dream Barbie doll was right their and as I stretched my hands it just vanished”. They say all’s well that end’s well and this has certainly not been a happy ending. As far as I am concerned, the year has been of great awakenings. A few personal losses, not much of professional achievements (barring the completion of Segments on the last day of the year) and many promises unfulfilled. I was tensed when Baba had collapsed and thank God he is doing well now.
This was a year of weddings. It started with Megha’s wedding. By the way I did the ‘kanyadaan’ for Swati’s wedding. So we had a filmi style elope-and-marry also. Praneesh got married, and it ended with Sudhanshu and Monika getting solemnized as couples. Wow what a year.
It was a year of long travels. I mean HeroHonda project mademe travel a lot and then we had some trips planned like the impromptu Mumbai trip, which was decided hours before I boarded the flight. The trip to Bajaj’s place and of course the Amritsar trip.
All the rosy pictures shown is not the way the year lasted all thru, I had some downs too. A few relationships gone sour and a few friends departing for career and family purposes to abroad and a few also returning from abroad to settle down here. Meeting some wonderful people and making friends with some lovely ones. New teams, new team members, new TLs and great times at work. Got to know a few people better.
It was a year of good movies also, I mean I watched a lot of movies, which I usually do but then this time I saw some good French, Iraqi and Chinese movies. And of course I learnt a lot about movies from AV of course.
One thing I can say is that the year has helped me learnt a lot about myself and people around, can’t say whether I have grown strong or not but then one thing I know is I have learnt about myself a lot more than before.
The year was not too great for me but it was not very bad either and as a few wisely thought ‘more importantly we lived through this year and people still love us for the way we are’.