SlishaCrazy

Snow and Spring!

2012-02-21T01:30:00.000+05:30

A header for my first snow !!!

Calendars and Women!

2012-02-21T00:22:00.000+05:30

A very persistent woman asked me to review her book. It was hard to ignore her ( :) ) and even harder to ignore the book once you have started it.

A Calendar Too Crowded, a collection of short sketches, attempts to capture the spirit (or the lack of it) of the various "days" set aside in the global calendars for recognition of the women kind and the social evils suppressing them. A very strong theme but a theme that has many faces to it.

Each sketch brings to light a different problem faced by women. Not all external, not all the cliched atrocities against women. At every step, a women's decision is questioned, if not, her powerlessness against a decision.

Sagarika Chakraborty (the author) brought out a great many faces to a women. However, there are many more and that's how it will always be. Nevertheless, Sagarika tried to show the world the strength and weakness of a woman.

The language and the narrative changes from story to story. Sometimes it seems like there was more than one author. While some rely on the description others rely on the story. While some take their time to unfold, others can't wait till the plot is out. While some bring out the point subtly in a woven story, others are outright preachy. You may not like all. But there will be a voice you will connect to, and there will also be a voice you wish you would never be.

Some of my fav's: When the Ganges Ran Dry, Selling a Body to Gain a Mind, Sister's by Choice and Not by Chance. Especially, When the Ganges Ran Dry. There was something about the story that kept going on even after it's over.

All the best to a budding author !

Brand Wars spilling Ink

2012-02-12T21:39:00.000+05:30

Lots of blogs have written about this and everyone seems to have two cents to spare. So here I go, two pennies.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, and two pens are war, there is bound to be blotches all over.
To put things in perspective. The Times of India came up with campaign directly hitting at The Hindu

Wake up to the Times of India:

And as a reply to that The Hindu came up with an ad campaign and lots of mudslinging.

Stay ahead of the Times:

To which yet again Times of India replied with the following print ad.

The funny thing is that all the ads are telling you the same thing.

The Times of India wants to position itself as a very fun newspaper with all its interesting news bites and attracts the young to stay young.
The Hindu wants to position itself as a very serious newspaper that encourages the young to stay informed about current affairs.

Living in the south, even as a schoolgirl I knew The Hindu's perspective was serious while that of other newspapers like The New Indian Express. And TOI has entered the latter space. The target markets are different. I am surprised to see the The Hindu would react in a manner so direct. However, it was a reaction. And TOI waiting for the right moment came out with the witty ad about competition waking up as well.

What puts the balance out of focus is the latest print ad by TOI:

Right. So true, that Aishwarya's baby is no less important than the Vice-President of India, (or me?) . However, information is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom. True as well, so no matter how much information The Hindu provides the reader with, (s)he will not be knowledgeable and even if (s)he were (s)he would not be any wiser than if (s)he read the TOI. In other words, TOI agrees, their readers are unwise but disagrees that reading The Hindu instead can make them any wiser, however, anyone who reads the TOI can feel more human.

Err... calling your reader stupid is not really smart is it ?

The Secret Retold: Har Har Mahadev!

2012-01-30T05:34:00.001+05:30

The Immortals of Mehula had touched me and a lot of others and the Shiva Trilogy continues. So I waited ernestly for the sequel The Secret of the Nagas. I had this pic as my background for ages, in fact it still is.

I pre-booked it on Flipkart and it reached my house two days after I left for London. So my mom read it but I had to wait till I went to India a couple of weeks ago and spent my first two days simply reading it and staying at home.
I liked it but I not loved it. Shiva in the first book was rough raw and normal. Just a man with responsibilities. In the second book he was Neelkanth. He accepted his destiny, demanded his respect and worked with it. But nevertheless, Shiva is Shiva as ever. Striving to be better than himself.

A couple of interesting revelations and new twists. Some moments emotional, some that make you think again, some that bring out new things to come around. Especially, the moment of truth, the reason behind his blue throat and how his destiny was written when he was a child by his uncle.
I wait to see his connection with Lord Rudra, the Vasudevs, the Vayuputras and of course who his uncle is. But I also wait to see if Amish includes little stories like why Karthikeyan is popular in the south, how Goddess Ganga fits into the whole story, how Bhagirath's story comes alive and how a snake coils his throat! When's the next book coming up??!!

And I put up two pics, I could put up more if they made more pics. I mean honestly, he does look like Shiva doesn't he ? The dreadlocked strongwilled scarred Tibetian!

In the City...

2012-01-02T23:36:00.000+05:30

A new header for a new year !

2011: The Year That Was

2012-01-01T06:21:00.001+05:30

I just read the last year's post and definitely it seems like I have done more last year even though technically I have done more this year !

Jan: I began the year with my from Joka friends at a beach resort in Bengal. And watched a bunch of stupid fun movies with friends while I directed my play.

Feb: I directed a play, and truthfully proud of it. My wing, All the Jazz bought a cricket team in ICPL, the joka version of IPL. And I completed my education.

Mar: I went for a family vacation to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand.

Apr: India won the World Cup and I attended by Convocation receiving my MBA.

Jun: I was home reading books and watching movies. I also started blogging about NGOs as a part of Blog This!

Jul: I was still at home doing the same thing but I also got involved with BlogAdda, by receiving free books to review.

Aug: I moved to the UK and lived out of a suitcase from hostel to hostel. I wrote my FSA exams.

Sep: I moved into my flat and awesome fun with all my collegues from across the world during the training month.

Oct: I started my new (and my first) job on the desk. And celebrated Diwali.

Nov: Went around London at a slower pace, seeing things I hadn't seen and trying to fit in.

Dec: I stayed back to work during the holiday season and watched at the world thinned down. I got a glimpse, just a glimpse of snow. I spent Christmas alone at home. And here I am, at home, writing this post on New Years Eve and posting it in the New Year. Sad there wasn't even much to capture it! Nevertheless, bless for more.

Happy New Year everyone! And if this is the last new year we will ever see, let us party on 21st of Dec 2012.

Christmas in London

2011-12-29T05:14:00.001+05:30

I decided to stay back in London and not take a vacation in the holiday season but later. So i worked on Friday and my Christmas break began late Friday afternoon. Actually not, on Friday Santa came to office and everyone brought their kids along. They were few people reporting and more kids running around. Too much fun it was.

Had lunch on Friday afternoon with a friend from work and retired home lazily. On Saturday, i went far out to zone 6 to meet family i have never met and their family i have never met. A lot of new faces.
Christmas day itself since everything was shut down i didn't plan on doing much. But heard bricklane was opened so headed there for dinner with a friend from work. And met a couple of friends on boxing day. Oh and did i mention no shopping ? Well i was too scared to face the boxing day crowds and went on the next day but it was still too crowded for peace of mind.

And so my Christmas break melted before my eyes. And new years eve is fast approaching. No plans yet. Any ideas anyone ?

Chocolate and Unicorn

2011-12-24T04:18:00.000+05:30

Two weekends ago a couple of friends and I decided to go to the chocolate festival on Southbank. Southbank is a lovely place. It is probably my best hangout. It has the waters, the view of the other side and lots of festivity be it Summer or Winter. So we turned up there and got sucked into the Christmas market and its crowds. After a while we realised we were supposed to be elsewhere. So we went looking for the chocolate festival and then we ran into the Theatre of Animation. It's absolutely awesome if you are a child and if you are not, well you can still have a lot of fun.

They had puppets that stand next to you with strings to pull at your level (and when I say your I mean a 6 year old). They had peepshows where you can watch animation that you run, like you being a monster scaring an entire city or you simply turning a knob to make your horse cycle around the countryside. They had a scared dog that would shiver everytime you clap. They had a doll that would laugh everytime you walk past it. They had a unicorn that you could puppet around and move its limbs, tail and head, only thing is it looked more like a donkey with a horn rather than a horse.

Here is my favourite. There was projector with 3 or 4 shots of a running horse and a horseman. The projector was placed on a rotating disc. So the projector kept showing the few static shots of the running horse with its horseman fast enough and rotating on its axis. So it looks like your horse and the horseman were running around the room in circles. Very well executed.

Then we did eventually go to the chocolate festival but it was quite boring compared to animation. There was nothing animated about chocolate. You go around stalls and taste chocolate but can't really make out any difference and wonder why you have to pay a premium when its not better than Dairy Milk or Lindt. So just get a Belgium Dark Chocolate Crepe and go :)

And then we walked across the Waterloo Bridge for a beautiful view of Thames with St Pauls and the moon looker over it; it was also lunar eclipse in other parts of the world.
I have a picture but mind you it is from my mobile phone.

Museums

2011-11-28T04:49:00.001+05:30

The Natural History Museum was amazing.

They had birds, new old extinct endangered eggs claws beaks. They had dinos, bones, skulls, moving models, fun stuff. And plants and insects and animals all models. It's not a zoo. But it was fun ! They had earth and earthquakes ! Museums are awesome !
And given the number of museums in London, I guess I can spend all of December going to one every weekend. Even on Christmas which I would be mostly spending alone. Or not, with some nice paintings. Ah! miss boston and isabella gardner and moa.

Mortal Immortal !

2011-11-28T04:27:00.001+05:30

A nice 3D movie with Greek warriors, Greek Gods, Titans, a "much needed" hero, a bad bad villain challenging gods, virgin Oracles, devoted monks, a magical weapon, anything and everything that should be there in a Greek mythical movie.
But that's exactly what it is, too many things in one movie. There is no building up of the story or any character at all because there is no time to tell things slowly. The virgin Oracle predicts one but one vision which does not come true. The villain captures the virgin oracles and no one knows how even when people are ready to kill themselves to keep the women safe. There are nearly three wars in the movie one being just a few seconds. I have no idea what power the magical weapon Hercules' Bow gave our dear hero. No idea why the villain wanted to release the Titans. No idea why the Titans who were captive till that day had to be killed by Zeus suddenly even though he killed Thor himself and Athena died already. And many more questions to which I have no answers.

Yet, Greek heroes, Greek Gods, magical weapons in 3D makes for a lovely movie ! :)
A lazy weekend afternoon's perfect answer.

Mayor's Show

2011-11-28T04:22:00.001+05:30

After talking about it a lot I thought I did have to put up a post about it even though there isn't anything to talk about.
It was short. the wait was long.
It was crowded the fireworks not so much.
But I did take a few bad pics.

One goes here

Gen Next

2011-11-16T04:17:00.001+05:30

The book has any amazing feel to it. Just like every other of his books, it grabs you with an awe factor. Though there is no one long winding conspiracy theory or one underlying story line, there are many small stories in parallel that add up together. But even if they didn't it would be alright.
It takes you to a futuristic world and it stays futuristic until you read the author's note or the bibliography.
The shocking thing is how much of it is true. The bibliography is the freak part. If so much is true then it won't be long before every part of our body is patented and we walk around with 'stolen property'.
I can't speak more about the plot without the spoilers. But there is a smart ape, an abusive orang and a talking calculating bird!!!
Now read it NEXT.

Fireworks Again!

2011-11-07T04:09:00.000+05:30

It's amazing how many fireworks displays London has.
I was really excited about the Thames Festival since it ended in a fireworks display.
It was good.

Then I went all the way to Neasden just to watch fireworks on Diwali and it was well worth it.

This Saturday was Guy Fawkes Day. Basically a guy called Guy Fawkes wanted to blow up the Parliament House. He did not succeed. Every year the city celebrates the occasion by bursting firecrackers. Each council organises its own fireworks display simultaneously I guess. So the entire city lights up, even the suburbs, even households. It's like their Diwali or 4th of July. May be not that big because all households do not do it.

I went a couple of miles away to watch it.
Spectacle is the word. Beats the Neasden any day.

But, I wait for next Saturday, Lord Mayor's Show. They have fireworks again. This time it's just one place and on Thames again, after the Mayor's procession.

Fireworks, fireworks, fireworks!

Diwali in London

2011-10-27T17:56:00.001+05:30

Slept late the previous night and woke up early on the day. I just knew i wanted to do something. Just didn't know what. After the day of work and spending forever on tubes and special service bus I reached a temple ground. Chat and crowds, Indian crowds. And then the spectacle. Fireworks. For half hour. In mythology they say gods pour down petals from the sky. Seemed like it was happening. Beautiful. A diwali i didn't expect.

Two Months in London

2011-10-15T20:44:00.000+05:30

Image courtesy: www.oldlondonmaps.com

I haven't really blogged since I have been to London. I chose not to blog till I find a house for myself and then I did not have internet connectivity for a while. By the time I was fully connected it was too late to catch up. But you need to fill your back log once in a while.

I hear is a painful process anywhere in this world. More so if you want to live alone. The first three weeks were basically about hoping from one hostel to another, so house hunting and hostel hunting at the same time. Finally one fine Monday I saw this beautiful flat I wanted and on the Sunday I moved in. A beautiful place all for myself over looking a canal, close to office.

What followed was a period of training with work hours that make you wonder what to do at the end of the day's work. But given the many people in for training were actually based abroad there were things to do and people to hang out with all the time. One thing about London, you can never run out of things to do. But if you are lazy then there isn't much to be done.

A month passed by in training and then I moved on to my desk, where I start working for real. two weeks passed by and I am still in a settling in period. Everyone on training left today. And my best friend from my school days did too. The cold is approaching even though today is wonderfully sunny. I can only imagine how life would pan out soon enough.

Two months in London and I feel settled only a bit. Another month would bring me another experience. Yet another and yet another. With this I start my new blog label, London Logs.

A Second Chance - New Life

2011-08-13T20:02:00.001+05:30

New Life was registered as a non-profit organisation in the year 1993 as it was felt by the philanthropist professionals drawn from fields of Agriculture, Rural Development, Information Technology, and Medicine. The mission of New Life is to help raise the socio-economic status of women and children belonging to the weaker sections of society and thus enabling them to become productive members of society

Activity: Counseling of families of the prison inmates, home for poor children, rehabilitation of child labour, supporting primary education, microfinance to poorwomen, microinsurance, vocational training for the youth, social security to terminally ill & consultancy.
Support: Education, Health, Livelihood, Rights & Social Issues, Financial & support services.
Note: http://samhita.org/ngos/new-life/small_ngo_projects/list

| This post is a part of BlogAdda's Bloggers Social Responsibility (BSR) initiative. I am exercising my BSR. You can too with three simple steps. Visit http://www.blogadda.com/bsr/ and support the NGO's. |

The Long Break

2011-08-13T19:53:00.000+05:30

So one fine that that India won the World Cup in cricket, yes, in cricket, I know it's hard to believe now when you look at them playing in England. Where was I ? Yes, so basically I got my ~~degree~~ diploma actually. And I flew back to Hyderabad. My joining was about 4.5 months later and I wondered what I would do for such a long time and tried a lot of avenues to find an internship.

But I must say it turned out quite fine to just laze around at home and then laze some more watching movies from ~~morning~~ noon to night. But I did other things as well.

I read a lot of books.

I watched a few movies.
I took a couple of trips.

I wrote for an NGO called Samhita.

I worked on a project with a professor in IIMCal.

I received free books to review from BlogAdda.

I took up BSR with the help of BlogAdda and Samhita.

All in all fun and eventful enough for a vacation.
And now I head out to start working for the first time in my life. Excitement!
London! Here I come!
Also, I shall begin a new label for London. What should I call it ?

My Rant on Chanakya's Chant

2011-08-07T13:03:00.011+05:30

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com Participate now to get free books!

Chanakya's Chant by Ashwin Sanghi

Westland Publishers (2010) | Rs 195

The idea of the story is brilliant. To try and integrate Chanakya's teachings in today's world of politics. Times have changed but rarely do people change. And through out the book you see distinct traits of people that continue through generations. I do not know if the chant actually refers to the Shakti mantra but here is the trailer and the mantra

Adi Shakti Namo Namah! Sarva Shakti Namo Namah!
Prathama Bhagavati Namo Namah!
Kundalini Mata Shakti! Mata Shakti Namo Namah!

The story line alternating between today and 2300 years ago follows similar patterns and similar devious ideas that are used to manipulate people with their greed without giving away a clear comparison thus making it an incredible read. It's about slowly controlling kingdoms by taking over or forming a truce which is more likely in today's world.

The plot however is not that thick and if I had one advice for Ashwin Sanghi it would be to pay attention to detail. The story is indeed about small actions and small results leading up to a bigger picture. But the small deeds also need to be taken care of quite neatly. Many a times I also wondered if no one else was smart enough to outbeat Gangasar. And these great men seemed to foresee the future. Rarely did they need any back up plan because they could exactly see what the enemy would do and the enemy did just that. It's like playing chess when you make a move. It was a brilliant idea to use one liners from many famous personalities. But Chanakya gives so many one liners (and many one might have heard before) that it doesn't feel like he is actually thinking. He is only trying to be a wise quip. Also not many one liners have a context which could possibly not fit into the story. And by context I mean not just the story but the era and cultural background.

In this book there are two characters, Chanakya and Pandit Gangasagar Misra. And I thought that Chanakya not just wanted to unite Bharat but also wanted to find and groom an able leader Chandragupta. However, this book lacks any other character because everyone else gets crushed under one big mass of stupidity. I even found Chandragupta and Chandini Gupta to be stupid the way they keep asking questions and questions and questions, and never trying for once to understand their mentors thoughts and complete the thought. At the end of the book, I was left wondering how these two could actually rule India if they could not pick up even some of the smart thinking of Chanakya. Also I wondered if no one can strike back but a few did and they too were smart people. Thankfully, yes there can be other smart people in today's world. And at times, the author did glorify the street smartness of Ikram and Chandini.

Another trait of the book that stood out to me the language used. It seemed to me a couple of times that some of the characters were very uncomfortable with swearing and yet they did. Basically, they swore out of place and out of cultural context. Not that I have anything against swearing characters, just those who did not want to swear yet did. It basically translates back to the point that it needs detail. But the research is enormous and can be clearly seen through out the book. At times one would wonder what a mighty task that author had taken upon himself.

The cover page is absolutely fantastic. I haven't seen such a smart cover page in a while and I wanted to credit the artist but couldn't find his name. The bringing together of ancient coins with current coins speaking clearly the idea of the book, bringing together of two eras with the help of one idea.

To sum it up, I bow to Sanghi for taking on a herculean task and a very noble one in deed. He has produced it into a page turner adventure book that would aide in bringing in youth of this country closer to home. It helps people relate to our country with its glorious past and brings forward the hope that one man may rise to build a leader for the nation. A dream one wishes would come true!

Not Just A Dot

2011-08-06T00:30:00.001+05:30

"The ‘decimal’ is simply a dot wihin a number. Its position within a number determines what the number means to us. Just a shift to the right or left changes its meaning exponentially. This is our hope at Decimal. We envision small meaningful interventions, that will change the value of life exponentially, for those touched by us."

The DECIMAL FOUNDATION

Activity: 1. Public health improvement (preventive and primary), in both urban and rural areas.
2. Creating a safe working and living environment for marginalized populations.
3. Environmental sustainability.
4. Communicable and tropical disease prevention.
5. Women empowerment and employment generation.
6. Childcare.

At Decimal they believe in helping those in need with simple but sustainable solutions. Each solution has an objective of social welfare and a robust business plan backing it. Each project, along with benefiting the target population, is sustainable.

Decimal Foundation works on projects from multiple fields, be it Health, child care, women empowerment and employment generation or the environment. What remains constant in all these projects is the spirit of Decimal.

Each project is linked with finance and marketing teams, in order to bring in self sustainability which is key in all their projects.
Support:

Public health improvement (preventive and primary).
Livelihood for marginalized populations.
Environmental sustainability.
Communicable and tropical disease prevention.
Women empowerment and employment generation.
Childcare.

Note: Maid in India (MII) is aimed at organizing domestic helps into a formal labor force. With MII, all maids receive a set of benefits; including healthcare, insurance, training and standard jobs, utilizing the existing infrastructure. MII plans to create a single channel that will assist households with hiring and providing standardized services. This mutually beneficial system will help alleviate the poor standard of living and lack of recognition for the domestic helps, and provide households with the ease of finding and replacing house helps and fulfilling their social responsibility towards them.

"This project is different from others as we donate attempt to recreate the wheel. We simply create an easy channel to obtain what is rightfully theirs. What we also do differently is creating a revenue flow to make our project financially self-sustaining, enabling us to generate enough resources to expand and reach out to a larger population."

MII has two ongoing pilots to test different models, thus creating jobs for the unemployed, providing healthcare, training and a new social order.

Cost per Unit/Beneficiary: Rs. 1000.

| This post is a part of BlogAdda's Bloggers Social Responsibility (BSR) initiative. I am exercising my BSR. You can too with three simple steps. Visit and support the NGO's. |

Photograph and the Shoe

2011-08-01T02:03:00.000+05:30

She says she has a photographic memory. But that is not to imply that her memory is very good. It is good indeed but not as good as a photographic memory. Nevertheless, she uses the word because she feels it fits her aptly. She remembers incidents like a movie made of a thousand photographs. But then she also imagines with photographs in her head. So, the claim of a photographic memory is wrong. She is just influenced into looking at the world through a lens!

So one not so fine night an idea popped in her head and evidence of it was that she had an imagine in her imagination. So to her it was time she wrote about it. She opened her blog and clicked on "new post". Before she typed anything, she went to look for a picture. She found none. She found many. Yet she found none. She did not find the perfect picture of a delicate foot in a light shimmering pink home-sewn ballet shoe posed in the air just about to touch the cold stone floor with the base of her big toe.

So she went on without a photograph to describe that posed foot.

She lifted her foot off the cold stone floor. It was almost a relief for her muscle that she did not notice. The cold had permeated through the sole of the cloth shoe, and the cloth of her sock to her bare foot. But in the air it released just for a fraction of a second before the muscle was taut again. Taut with nervousness and anxiety. She knew that in some countries they had a name for this "problem" and could be treated with drugs. In her country though, if a loved squeezed your arm it worked like magic, but you could deal with it yourself if you took a deep breathe. That's what she did. She took a deep breathe in and exhaled it out, releasing the muscle for the second time in the short fraction of a sec. She let a moment pass when she remembered all the steps she took before in toughness and pain, not to scare her but to calm her and give her the will and intent. She let the fraction of a second pass as well. She looked down at her foot. The pink color was so subtle it could look like her own skin except for the shimmer it had. Specially stitched for her own little foot. The little lace bow made her smile. And that's how she smiled in the last fraction of a second before she put her foot lightly on the cold stone floor. All it took was one second!

Do YouSee ?

2011-07-29T14:48:00.001+05:30

Activity: UCDS funds and hand holds NGO's in specific projects. Its projects include:
a) Free health services -Chennai.Partner- SSHT.
b) Project for rag-pickers-Indore -partner IGS.
c) Sponsoring IT education for destitute girl children- Bhubhaneshwar-partner PUSS.

UCDS likes to morph its approach along the learning curve. Currently they are interested in taking up projects which adopt Integrated development models for providing services to urban poor. They firmly believe that integrated approach has the potential to sustain the out comes of the development projects in the long term.

Support: Primary, literacy for adults, vocational and technical education, hospitals and health care centers, medical research, primary health care, environmental education, pollution control, training & capacity buildings, livelihood promotion.

Note: UCDS promotes a unique funding model for Social development financing. They call this Post-paid donations. UC provides its donors an opportunity to evaluate results of social development projects before they want to make a donation. In this way, potential donors are donating for results and not in anticipation of them!! To put it in simple words UC knocks away the guess work in the process of donation by giving the donor a choice to assess the results and figure out if it is worth donating for this cause.

| This post is a part of BlogAdda's Bloggers Social Responsibility (BSR) initiative. |
| I am exercising my BSR. You can too with three simple steps. Visit and support the NGO's. |

Stay! Stay with me!

2011-07-28T23:21:00.001+05:30

Is he going to die?

I know I am not supposed to move him!

You came back? Would like something to eat? Shut up Olive!

Mrs Letham had the bluest eyes!

The greatest artist of the 19th century!

Stay with me!

A thriller like I have never seen before. Get inside the head of a guy going through the guilt and trauma of killing his parents, turning him suicidal till everyone who could help him are too late. A movie that makes you think more than Shutter Island or Inception. A movie that makes you think and question reality!

Lame Brand Wars!

2011-07-24T21:55:00.000+05:30

They say no one fought like Coca Cola and Pespi.

A long time ago when Pepsi came out with this commercial:

And then Sprite came out with this commercial:

Then I was a teenager and it seemed silly but funny and anyway the brand positioning was silly and funny and had teenagers it seemed fine and in good spirit.

And a few years later, these two commercials came up:

Honestly!
It sounds so stupid for grown up people to be hitting it out at each other like this.
It makes Dhoni look like a snobbish teenager and makes UB Group look like its run by a bunch of sour losers including the big man himself !

Or may be I just grew up!

Lend A Hand - Mentor Together !

2011-07-22T20:11:00.000+05:30

Join and help someone in the right direction.

Activity: According to the Confederation of Indian Industry, about 69 percent of unemployed Indians are educated but lack skills. Thus, the formal education program alone is not imparting employability skills. These problems are only compounded for the large segment of the youth who come from underserved communities, because they do not have the socio-economic partnerships to mitigate these circumstances.
Mentortogether runs structured mentoring programs, with curriculum for soft and hard skill development, which also utilise the knowledge and experiences of carefully selected volunteer mentors, and provides a channel of empowerment to underserved youth.

Mentoring Program:

Targets improved written English and basic computer skills via online mentoring platforms.
Targets greater interpersonal and social skills via face-to-face mentoring.
Aims to broaden mentee knowledge with respect to academic and career opportunites by matching mentors to mentees based on shared academic and career interests.
Aims to achieve the goals of Education for Sustainable Development by encouraging mentees to think about the relationship between their families, their local community and their country, and also their role as a future empowered citizens.
Aims to engender knowledge and experience sharing in the mentor pool, and institutionalise a mentoring culture amongst volunteers.

Mentortogether ran a pilot program from November 2009 to April 2010 in Bangalore with 20 high-school students of a private school for the urban poor. They are currently running our first full-length year-long mentoring program with 21 girls of a Government Home in Mysore.

Support: Primary, Secondary, Higher Education, Remedial and Special Education, Computer Literacy

Note: Primary, Secondary, higher education, remedial and special education, computer literacy

| This post is a part of BlogAdda's Bloggers Social Responsibility (BSR) initiative. |
| I am exercising my BSR. You can too with three simple steps. Visit and support the NGO's. |

9kms turn 24

2011-07-21T19:56:00.000+05:30

image courtesy: http://rockincakes.blogspot.com

The last year I practically went underground for my birthday in spite of being around people. I removed it from Facebook LinkedIn Orkut Extranet and any other site. So only my family and a few (read 5 or 6) friends who remembered it from the good old days of no birthday reminders wished me.

This year however, I was out of station with no internet or even a mobile phone.

I travelled by train with my family all night and woke up on my birthday in Tirupati. And we walked up the 9kms of the hill up to an extremely crowded temple and out. Ate lots of laddus, tired and beat I feel asleep. Another day later I came back home to god knows how many facebook wishes it made me remember a birthday in IIT days when I was so enthu to read wishes on my orkut account.

It was nice to know so many ppl wished. I thank all of you. I also thank all those who sent me emails and fb msges :)

Bhumi - for under 30 vols

2011-07-16T01:03:00.001+05:30

Activity: Bhumi is one of India's largest independent youth volunteer non-profit organisation. The volunteers work amongst orphaned and underprivileged children in Chennai, Thiruvallur, Bengaluru and Chandigarh with the aim of providing children with quality education and enable them to become responsible and productive citizens of the future. The efforts of the volunteer force consisting of over 300 students and young professionals under the age of 30 benefit over 2,500 children every year.

Details: Kanini Computer literacy programme involving teaching of basic and advanced concepts based on the children's aptitude levels.

Support: Education, Children, Environmental Conservation, Mentorship

Note: Bhumi is an under-30 youth volunteer organisation, and to be able to reach out to more children, they need volunteers (like you) who can spend 2 hours every weekend to teach at an orphanage near your residence. Check it out.

|This post is a part of BlogAdda's Bloggers Social Responsibility (BSR) initiative. | | I am exercising my BSR. You can too with three simple steps. Visit and support. |

Blog This!

2011-07-12T01:50:00.001+05:30

Blog This! : Communicate - Google Chrome Help

This chrome extension is making life too easy!

Now you can count on increased blogging speed :)

Gifted!

2011-07-10T03:18:00.000+05:30

Primetime Television Trips!

2011-07-09T23:40:00.001+05:30

This review is a part of the Book Reviews Program at BlogAdda.com. Participate now to get free books! It's actually pretty fun. BlogAdda sends you a free signed copy along with a nice little note!

The 6pm Slot by Naomi Datta

Published by Random House India in 2011

Pages: 294 | Price: Rs199

I completed reading the book within 24 hours of receiving it. This is mostly because I am jobless and do nothing all day but surf the net and watch TV. But the idea of this statement is to imply that though it is not a book that you cannot put down (it’s not exactly a suspense thriller now, is it?), it definitely is a book that you don’t feel like putting down.

Her writing style is easy and flowing and twisting and turning (not the plot but the words). The comic essence of this book can nearly be defined as brilliant. The sarcasm and play of words showcase the author's grip on the English language and her sense of humor. May be one just accumulates this sense of humor over years of exposure to the goof-ups described in this book and also the interaction with the various characters. Sometimes evident and at other times subtle, the comic relief stays as an undertone throughout the book, even when the situation is a serious one.

Plot

I like the way the book begins and I love the way it ends. I did love the twist in the tale of Jassi. Though not unexpected, it definitely adds a touch of class. But overall, the plot is rather sketchy. There actually isn't a strong one at all. But then, the book is less about a story with a plot line, a beginning and a climax, and more about the life one leads in the industry. It's like a television serial that goes on and on about the life of its central character and the last chapter might as well be the first chapter of another book, the difference being that this book never touches 'boring'. At times, the story seems ridiculous but not unreal. Oh and did I mention funny?

The introduction of the characters was fun. It's almost like a Bollywood rom-com. "Zoom into a handsome SRK playing basketball. Freeze. Voice Over: Yeh hai Rahul, college ka sabse popular student." type of intros. So the book begins with our Rahul (though not the protagonist), and about how he makes the most beautiful PPTs (at this point I think, is there no industry that doesn't use PPTs?). I almost laughed out. But then, unlike the Bollywood rom-coms, the book flows into the story smooth and slow and you would not have realized the transition.

The Characters

The character portrayal of Harish was amazing. It is the most hilarious and easily imaginable character, the short, plump sweaty 'yes man' of Rahul (the MD).

Rahul, too was portrayed as a smart handsome man who doesn't really know what he is doing but charming enough to get whatever done.

The character of Tania seemed too hazy and difficult to picture, most importantly because the book seemed to indicate that she is probably the only smart and hardworking individual in the firm while the rest of them are either stupid people or smart people who don't care about work. She seemed too out of place, maybe she was meant to, I don't know.

Aditya on the other had come off well as a witty guy who doesn't work but knows how to give you the impression that he does.

Bose came off exactly as described, the creative genius who learnt how to fake a brooding soul searching angst well, except he didn't seem attractive (but then the protagonist is not attracted to him so it works fine).

Rajneesh was beautiful done with his "I am the nation" attitude.

Vrushali Salve: OMG! Really? Do people talk like that and get to host talk shows? This is probably the craziest character in the book, almost the antagonist and worse than Charlie Angel (no, not Charlie's Angels, this one is a character in this book)! I must appreciate the author for being able to pull of such a character and make her speak such bad English. If she really does come across a lot of people like that, I pity her.

The rest were just passing characters and the author didn't lay too much stress on the others, except for maybe the romance of Biplab and Neha!

Honestly, it really is a not a book to be analyzed. If you want to, you’ll just end up looking up YouTube videos of Persian cats saying “Mi-a-ow” and Googling up the different kinds of black, like ebony-black and grungy black .It simply is a book to be read. Isn’t that what books are supposed to be?

To conclude, I would say it’s an absolutely enjoyable book. It is a perfect read if you are a big shot consultant bad mouthing your client inside your head while you put on your picture perfect plaster smile and are taking a flight long enough to read a 300 page novel. Why? Because it will remind you that it's not just your job that's shitty. Also because it will make you smile, chuckle and may be even laugh out loud, making you forget all your worries.

PS: From the title of the blogpost [Trip (v): to make fun of, to laugh at something]

Add Color to Lives !

2011-07-08T23:10:00.002+05:30

Yet another Friday and yet another NGO I bring to you!

Colorss Foundation

Activity: Colorss is working with disadvantaged children focusing on education and to integrate marginalized population into mainstream through various programs like martial-creative arts, vocational training and psychological and social guidance.

Support: Children, Disabled, Youth, Urban Poor, Rural Poor.

Projects:

Project Enhance uses sport and the arts as tools to promote physical well-being while improving mental health.

Project Urja - igniting the fire within is our first vocational training program started in Baroda, Gujarat. The project aims at the empowerment of women.

Project 'Colors of Life' looks to provide an answer to one of our nation's most troubling problems, dropping out of school.

Note: Check out their Blog, Youtube Channel and Facebook page.

| This post is a part of BlogAdda's Bloggers Social Responsibility (BSR) initiative. |

| I am exercising my BSR. You can too with three simple steps. Visit http://www.blogadda.com/bsr/ and support the NGO's. |

Like vs +1

2011-07-05T21:13:00.005+05:30

Plusone ? What was Google thinking ? Whoever says "I plusone it"? It only reminds me of a plus one for a party. That makes me an extra. Bad wording!

But that's beside the point! This post is just another meek attempt to try and compare Facebook and GooglePlus.

Facebook was just like any other social networking website when it came. (Sure, it had the Harvard tag but I didn't know it then and neither did I know Harvard much then). I moved from Orkut to Facebook much like everyone else because it developed over the years to become better everyday. To begin with it did not have the features it has today. Simple things like the horizontal tab with thumbnails of tagged pictures on one's profile. Today, it is clean and understandable and gives us a good amount of control on our information.

Google is an innovative firm with amazing products and we all love Google. We waited in anticipation and expressed frustration when an invite got delayed. Basically, everyone just want to try GooglePlus because it was Google product. But whatever happened to Orkut ? Why would Google need GooglePlus when it already has a social networking website. Oh yes, Orkut died because it couldn't evolve as fast as Facebook that kept up with the pace of generations. So Google conveniently kicked Orkut out and launched a new website called GooglePlus with whatever Orkut couldn't have, Facebook's interface!

What does + have over fb?

CIRCLES: Well FB has it's groups but circles are more convenient to keep the feeds in different tabs. Though I have yet figured out how to juggle with the different tabs of feed. Aaaand you can share separately to each circle you want to ! Freedom !

Hangout: Is slow given my internet speed. Otherwise a good idea.

Sparks: Why do we need Sparks when we have Google Reader ?

Posts: which is like a wall but not a wall. But why do I need it when I already have Buzz? Oh wait, why am I repeating myself?

FRIENDS IN CIRCLES: This is the single most important thing that is PLUS for PLUS. You do not know in what circles you are of your friends. Dying to know? Well don't, because they don't know about your circles either. Also, if someone adds you to their circle, you need not feel obliged to add them to yours! This is complete control of information !!!

What does fb have over +?

Playdom! You can throw sheep, have your own mafia, dress yourself up and bitch slap other non sisters, build your little city, play poker, all this with real friends in virtual locations!!! And you can make stupid quizzes and throw them around!

I think this beats + totally and I don't see the larger global audience shifting to + anytime soon.

Basically, I like Facebook better than GooglePlus as of now. But I still hope that one day all my friends shift to a Google Social Network (dunno if it will be Plus) simply because I would like to consolidate my virtual life. I use every Google product that works in India (without monetary transactions) so it would make my life a lot easier if I used a Google Social Network !

A Car has 4 Wheels !

2011-07-01T21:07:00.004+05:30

It is interesting what three women can do!

Activity: Three women with a passion for learning, understanding and working for economic, social and human devetlopment decided to enter the exciting world of entrepreneurship with their initiative of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) consultancy firm and research cell called 'The 4th wheel'. The name signifies the business sector in addition to the other three integral wheels. the state, civil society and non-governmental organizations, and international development organizations required and capable of driving the "car" of development.

Check out their blog and the photo stream

Support: Research, Advocacy and Consulting in Corporate Social Responsibility.

Note:

1) Help spread awareness about CSR

2) Highlight the socially responsible projects by Corporates

3) Share best case practices

4) Sensitive the youth towards social issues

| This post is a part of BlogAdda's Bloggers Social Responsibility (BSR) initiative. |

| I am exercising my BSR. You can too with three simple steps. Visit http://www.blogadda.com/bsr/ and support the NGO's. |

Crash!

2011-06-28T23:53:00.002+05:30

Crash is an incredibly beautiful movie on racism told in simple characters and simple incidents that connect them together sometimes as the culprit, other times as the victim.

What begins as stereotyping looks like ruthless racism turns out to be just another human quality. It works to show how racism works for and against people and how some take advantage of it and the other just fall victims.

I thought I must write down one or two scenes from the movie as the most touching ones, but I really can't stick to one or two. Every single scene is shot with a purpose, with intent and with beauty. But I will jot down one which might touch your heart and turn you to watch the movie.

A Hispanic man gives his 5 year old daughter an 'invisible impenetrable cloak' to comfort her after the sound of a bullet shot scares. Much later in the film when a racially victimized Persian shoots at this Hispanic man just to find someone to blame, the little girl races to protect her father as he gave away his cloak to her. The Persian fires and yet, the little girl miraculously lives. I scene is shot so beautifully, I am almost grateful that I got to watch this movie!

(How she lives you would know a couple of scenes later if you watch carefully)

Clap 5 Times !

2011-06-25T01:32:00.006+05:30

Happy Birthday Slisha Crazy ! It's been good 5 years !!!

CELEBRATE: To celebrate I have a new theme, with a new background and a new header.

The header image is the set of the play that I directed. I believe it was photographed by a cast member is also the head of the photography club!

SHARE: I also added the "share" button and now you can share on whatever social networking sites you use. A comment had once suggested I do that but I never got around.

COMMENT: I have also put in a word verification for the comments. I did not want to but then I do not want to unlock iPhone 4 or visit a spooky language I doesn't know.

Thank you for all the support!

Joy of Reading: Pratham Books

2011-06-24T22:16:00.004+05:30

It's Friday, friday! And time for the weekly dose of BSR. Today I bring to you a wonderful organization whos main aim is to ensure that all kids can read and actually read. It's absolutely delightful to just browse through their books.

Activity: Pratham Books was set up in 2004, as part of the Read India movement, a nation- wide campaign to promote reading among children. Pratham Books is a not-for-profit organization that publishes quality books for children in multiple Indian languages. The mission is to see "a book in every child's hand" and democratize the joy of reading.

In the last 6 years they have published over 200 titles in upto 11 languages and have spread the joy of reading to over 12 million children!

Details: Read about our why they use Creative Commons here.

Support: reading, literacy, education, kidlit, children's literature, publishing

Note: They have put a lot of our content under the Creative Commons framework and have begun to see success with this. Which means that they make their stories and illustrations available under an open license model and the larger community can then repurpose our content to create something completely new and thus contribute to the cause of a book in every child's hand. Their books have been adapted by our community into a range of new creations from audio and Braille books for the print-impaired, to iPad and iPhone applications - all to reach every child in India.

They hope that many more people can come forward and help translate/remix/re-purpose/distribute our Creative Commons licensed content. So go ahead and see what you can do.

| This post is a part of BlogAdda's Bloggers Social Responsibility (BSR) initiative. |

| I am exercising my BSR. You can too with three simple steps. Visit http://www.blogadda.com/bsr/ and support the NGO's. |

Assamese Women

2011-06-24T16:54:00.005+05:30

I recently read yet another book of short stories about (not all by) Assamese women. It was titled "Woman: a collection of Assamese short stories". I am sorry that I can't even provide you with a reasonable link. The only one I could find was this. But it is not very helpful.

It had about 20 odd short stories. All about the sorry state of women and their fate. Not many about the happiness or courage or survival. Of course there are some who stood against the whole world and succeeded and some who was trampled on by the evilness of fate. It had some good writing and some bad writing. May be translations have their way of killing the spirit of the story. I wouldn't know. I can't read Assamese. It wasn't very different from the Iranian collection. It's all the same. The plight of women in this world. I found a sample online. It was one of the stories in this collection. I thought it was OK. Better than Amrita Pritam's work.

I think I m done with all these short stories on women and from authors I know not. I should pick up a novel by a writer I have read and liked before. And I should do it soon before I lose faith in the art of writing that I very much love and enjoy.

If I ever write a collection of short stories, I would prefer to write about the beauty, the riches, legends and little lives. I would like to write about the wonderful world that we may have or I will write about a short story which has a moral in it. I would not want to write about a story that is sad or a story that asks for pity or a story that requires you to feel like crying and call myself successful if you cry. I would rather want to make you smile. Smile for now, once.

image courtesy: www.indianart.in

Ding Dong! Bell Bajao !

2011-06-17T23:24:00.003+05:30

Activity: Bell Bajao is a high profile national campaign using innovative media outreach throughout India. With the support of the Ministry of Women and Child Development and campaign ambassador and popular film star Boman Irani, the campaign was launched in August 2008. Bell Bajao! was created pro bono by Ogilvy & Mather.

In all its 360 degree media campaigns, Breakthrough uses innovative tools to engage youth and create a culture of human rights. Here are a few ways that Breakthrough spreads the Bell Bajao! message throughout the country:

Television, Radio and Press: Thirty two million people have seen and heard the message of Bell Bajao! through television, radio and press. Television advertisements depict men and boys who hear domestic violence and take a minute out their everyday lives to intervene and stop the violence.

Video Vans: Mobile vans have been on the road for 150 days, traveling 80,000 kilometers across six districts in Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Maharashtra and have exposed 2.7 million people to this burning issue. Innovative and interactive, the van built audience-participation through games, street theater, audio visual tools and quizzes.

Interactive, dedicated website: Breakthrough's ground-breaking blog on www.bellbajao.org provides a platform previously nonexistent in India to dialogue about domestic violence. To date, witnesses, victims and advocates have all had an open space for personal testimony and reflection.

Leadership Training: Our Rights Advocates program embodies on-the-ground youth and community leadership training to reaffirm the message of Bell Bajao! and help Indian youth recognize and fight domestic violence in their own communities. The trainings develop the capacity and life skills of the trainers on a variety of complex like human rights, gender based violence and reproductive health. In 2008, the program trained over 100,000 people and aims to double its reach in 2009.

Support: Human rights; violence against women

Note: Breakthrough is always looking out for delightful opportunities to partner with organizations, both media and grassroots, on cross sectional interest areas of human rights, women's issues, sexuality, HIV/AIDS, gender issues, issues of race/minority etc. for public advocacy, media campaigns, trainings, community level work and pop culture/art events.

As a non-profit, they also engage donors/funders from various sections of society, whether UN bodies, corporate agencies or key individuals, in our causes, campaigns and community work. The contributions never fail to positively impact their campaigns and deliver measurable changes.

Check out award winning ads:

| This post is a part of BlogAdda's Bloggers Social Responsibility (BSR) initiative. |

| I am exercising my BSR. You can too with three simple steps. Visit http://www.blogadda.com/bsr/ and support the NGO's. |

Mayrig's Paradis

2011-06-13T01:12:00.004+05:30

I usually do not like watching old color films that have this old-ish feeling and people dress funny, even though it might be a great movie. And not very fond of non English films that look like that when I haven't heard of the name of the movie. So I usually avoid MGM as a channel.

Yet, one day I found myself randomly browsing past the channel when I paused for a second. A handsome man grayed at the temples was deep in thought. He remembered a small incident in his childhood when he was invited to a tea party at his friend Alexander's house. Alexander was not his friend, and was very rich, while this little boy was not very well to do. He did not know though why he was invited. When the day arrived when he should be taken to the palace of a house, his family struggles hard to make him presentable. His mother waits outside the house while he goes in and gets humiliated before coming back to her. Never did he let her know that he was humiliated.

The scene was played out so beautifully that I went on to see the rest of the movie without missing a scene after. It's a French film by the name of 588 rue Paradis. Since the wiki page does not have any detail I shall give a brief of the plot.

Plot:

This little boy was Armenian and his family migrated to Marseille, France to escape the genocide. His mother or Mayrig struggled very hard as a seamstress to bring him. He grew up to be a famous playwright but not before he moved to Paris and changed his name from Azad Zacharian to Pierre Zacharia to sound more French. He married a French publisher and lived a rich lavish life with his daughter and son whose second name was Zacharia. The movie is about bringing to him to terms with the fact that he is indeed an Armenian. He remembers little events from his childhood, meets his father who suffers an attack due to the distance between his son and the family making Azad feel accountable. He then dedicates himself to providing his mother with a wonderful life. He changes his name back. His children begin to identify themselves as being Armenian and his French wife leaves him. He then dedicates more of himself to Armenian culture and fulfilling Mayrig's dream of restoring the family to the their prior glory Turkey before they fled Turkey. Hence, he buys her a place of a house on the same street and bigger than that of Alexander's. The address of the house is 588 Rue Paradis.

The character Mayrig and her husband acted so beautifully, I think that made all the difference. Sadly though, I felt that his French wife was shown in bad light unfairly. She reacted how almost any wife would have reacted when her husband paid more attention to his mother. It did not seem that she had much of a problem with the Armenian culture. or may be it was just bad direction/acting of the character. Nevertheless, a beautiful beautiful movie.

Apparently, this movie is a sequel to Mayrig which talks about the migration and the struggle. Also, both the films are semi-autobiographical in nature, Azad Zacharian being Ashod Malakian which was later changed to Henri Verneuil to sound French.

Protsahan: Encouragement

2011-06-10T21:52:00.005+05:30

The Protsahan India Foundation has a unique idea bringing out colors and using story telling to bring about a change and help underprivileged children.

Activity: "Encouraging Creative Arts & Functional Literacy as a Medium of Expression to help the underprivileged create opportunities for a better future"

A few young Indians have got together and built this initiative of social change in Delhi. They use youtube, colors, art of stories to bring tremendous change in the lives of marginalized. Check out their work on the Facebook page or read about it on their blog. Even better, visit the site.

Support: girl child education, women empowerment

Note: Funds, Volunteers, Furniture in the school

| This post is a part of BlogAdda's Bloggers Social Responsibility (BSR) initiative. |

| I am exercising my BSR. You can too with three simple steps. Visit http://www.blogadda.com/bsr/ and support the NGO's.

Weekend Hyd Out

2011-06-06T23:48:00.006+05:30

Last week was World Environment Day and India played global host.

Read all about it here, here and here.

The weekend before that was when a good friend of mine, Qurious Quester came over to Hyderabad to meet me, Dee another friend from IIT days and see the city!

I picked her up from the airport and headed to my house and spent a while chilling out in air conditioned environment (yes, Hyd is hot). Then we headed out to Lumbini Park where we met Dee and went up to the statue in Hussain Sagar, spent some lazy time and returned home.

On Saturday we saw Charminar, shopped for bangles, walked along Laad Bazar to Chowmahalla Palace.

The palace was vast and beautiful. We admired it for a while, then settled down under a tree for a picnic lunch. After lunch we realized we actually did not complete our tour. It was much bigger than we imagined. We caught sight of a few vintage vehicles as well. By now we were tired. Though the sun was not beating down on us it was still dehydrating. So what best up a CCD from where we could see Charminar. We spent a good couple of hours there before we decided to leave old city.

We directly went to Prasadz and the first stop was the 4D show. After that we went to Scary House. Now there is a little background to remember. Qurious Quester and I had been to a scare house in Pittsburgh when I visited her last September. That day we got really scared. Like shit scared! And she was almost in tears (see, I didn't say she cried)! So today when the three of us walked in, the two of us were already scared with anticipation. But it was dark, almost pitch black! Sort of no reason to get scared. Once I realized we were being followed and suddenly it occurred to me that it's been a while but the darkness stopped us from figuring out. But we screamed nevertheless, for fun! We came out screaming and laughing and out of breathe. When we recovered, our throats hurt with all the screaming and our stomachs with the laughter. Then we went into Mirror Maze. Sadly we were too smart and figured it out too quickly, finding our way out!

We went over to Dee's house to watch two chick flicks back to back while I put mehendi (designs from the web) for all of us. We then crashed off peacefully. Next morning we woke up and it was dun to cook by ourselves from coffee to breakfast to lunch. And then push off to the airport.

After a send off to Qurious Quester, Dee and I headed over to Abids for the Sunday Book Bazaar. We spent a lot of time in the hot sun and the only thing I finally got was The Witch of Portobello. Mom is reading it. Will give a review after I am done.

Finally, a great weekend in Hyderabad!

post feels like it's out of wiki.

Capt Jack Sparrow on the Big Screen

2011-06-06T00:46:00.004+05:30

This is a post long due!

I watched the Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides nearly 10 days ago.

And some how everytime I wanted to write this post I had something to do or my laptop gave up on me.

So I'll make it brief.

I liked the movie. I love Jack Sparrow. I do not remember the earlier pictures. This one did not have any grossness (really black beard looked human). I loved the mermaids that kill you :P

It was my first Imax 3D experience and that is why I liked the movie. It really seemed like the mermaids were jumping all over :)

So that's it.

Shiva, The Mahadev

2011-05-20T00:06:00.003+05:30

I cannot express ever how much I truly adore the Hindu God Shiva. For his almighty power, his emotions, his great dance, his attitude towards his woman, his simplicity and simple ways of living and everything else that he represents. He seemed different to me, from the rest of the gods. He is raw and close to the nature.

I also strongly believe that many of our Hindu gods were actually men who were glorified to Godliness after great deeds for the common good. I also believe that the "asuras" and other lowly non-Aryans weren't evil and just that they were not Aryans and were very different from them. And somehow more or less all these interpretations are not my own and I believe there are many like that. Amish Tripathi is too. And so is his wonderful book a reflection of that.

No wonder I loved the book The Immortals of Meluha. To beautiful writing and to a great idea, I bow to the author. It does not seem like a debut. He struggled very hard to raise publicity, innovating using a youtube video.

And the way he describes Shiva! The warrior who would come, who would not be from the Saptha-Sindhu, whose throat will turn blue when the Somras touches it, he who is Neelakantha would be the destroyer of evil!

The book so well receives the mythical stories and ties them with human nature. To me it felt like the Suryavanshi was a socialist communist state and the Chrandravanshi kingdom was a democratic capitalistic state and Nagas, just people who have been subjugated because they look bad. Oh there are many more interpretations and I can go on forever. I think I can have a detailed version once I read all of Amish's books.

So talent is the author, I hope he goes on well to not be gobbled up with the attention and continue to write for the sake of Shiva, the story and the art of writing, to produce his second and third books in the Shiva Trilogy.

Innocence!!!

2011-05-19T23:29:00.004+05:30

Fusun, I like the name!

I read The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk.

I love it. And I hate it. May be that's why Orhan wins a prize!! For the love-hate relationship he inspires.

I can't believe I actually read it. Really! It's long, boring and is pages filled with bad writing. Writing so bad that it amazes me that this man could win an Nobel. But then, the concepts are beautifully presented. His passion, love and obsession (in that very order) comes out so well. Probably the translation was pathetic.

And apparently they are actually gonna build a museum. Waste of resources, I would say.

It really is difficult to read the book. Unless you are a hard core enthusiast for the knowledge of the days of Turkey int he backdrop of pathetic tale of obsession you wouldn't want to read it. Actually their society is so much like India. In fact, it being written for the western audience was sort of painful for me that the author tries to explain each hypocritical piece of custom. To me it felt it was so obvious that it needs no explanation. Yet, it is a beautiful piece of ideas put together.

The story is from Kemal's perspective. Kemal is a wealthy businessman in Turkey, about to be engaged to this wonderful woman Sibel who truly loved him beyond doubt and for years together. Such love that only a woman can bestow upon a man, Sibel did on Kemal. And Kemal finds a young pretty thing and has an affair with her. The young pretty thing is Fusun. The thing is that she is not a thing. She is a strongly independent woman who knows and appreciates her beauty and wants to be somebody in this world rather than just a poor parents' daughter.

Fusun falls in love with Kemal. Kemal is living a dream with two wonderful women in his life. Then Fusun walks out when she realizes Kemal wouldn't leave Sibel. Kemal suffers. Sibel bears. Kemal suffers. Sibel bears. Kemal suffers. Sibel pains. Kemal suffers. Sibel leaves. Kemal suffers. Kemal suffers. Fusun is a happily married woman. Kemal suffers. Kemal tries for Fusun. Kemal suffers. Kemal tries for Fusun. Kemal suffers. Fusun divorcers her husband and agrees to marrying Kemal. Kemal is almost out of misery. Kemal is happy. Kemal hurts Fusun (let me emphasize "again"). Fusun dies. Kemal suffers. Kemal wants to build a museum. Kemal suffers. Kemal wants Orhan to write his story. Kemal suffers. Sibel is happily married with children. Kemal dies. A museum is built. A book is written. The book says Kemal lived a happy life.

It was little like Devdas. Actually more like DevD. Rich and arrogant Kemal, you can't like him. What kept me going through the book is the simple need to know the Kemal suffered deeply! And to make sure that he suffered till the end. It beats me how he betrays Fusun's trust once again at the end of the book. The last line of the book indicating his happiness is what brought the book a beautiful ending. But I would say Kemal suffered. Rightfully so for hurting a wonderful woman like Sibel and for ensuring that Fusun never had a moment of happiness by stalking her and destroying even a speck of happiness in her life. But then, she always knew what she was getting into.

Kemal suffered, rightfully so. Sibel had a happy life, rightfully so. Fusun, poor Fusun, I guess rightfully so.

Short Stories: Iran and Women

2011-05-15T18:55:00.002+05:30

I just completed reading a book called Afsaneh: Short Stories by Iranian Women. I picked it up from the library (my mom got a membership at the Hyderabad City Grandhalay Samstha ie Government Public Library) in the hope of getting to know the life of Iranian women through a collection of short stories. But I must say, I‘m disappointed.

The compiler Kaveh Basmenji did not do a good job at compiling. I almost found a repetitive fashion. There were a couple of stories that had young women being married off to older men, or old widowed women having no place to go since none of their children could have them in their house, or of little girls not liking the way their loved ones not being able to be there for them, or of having to sell a house, or of having to live a lonely life, or of having to deal with the cold with their poverty. Yes, the compiler did not do a good job because each of the stories has its own essence and its own life.

There were some good and some bad because some women wrote well and some not so much. There were some which were written to express a feeling and there were some that were written for the western audience. There were some that told you a story and some that were too abstract. There were some that gave you a picture of the life there and some that were too abstract. There were some that were poetic and beautiful and some too abstract. But most of them always had a sad sad sad tinge to it, even if it needn’t be, like The Stain.

The ones that I did not like were the ones that were too abstract. I did not feel that the abstractness was poetic or deeply meaningful. Instead I felt they were abstract because the readers must feel they are poetic since they did not understand anything. Those were bad, almost annoying, like Crystal Pendants.

The ones the I liked were those with simplicity explaining a feeling or even a story with abstractness but with simplicity like Mana, Kind Mana. That along with The Shermin Bus and The Little Secret were probably my favourite. I also liked Khorramshahr-Tehran, Midnight Drum and Like a Well were nice as well.

Gibson's War Movies

2011-05-15T18:53:00.001+05:30

Having seen Braveheart, somehow every time I saw an advertisement for The Patriot, I assumed I had watched it until one day my mom said something about it and I had no idea. So the next time it was on TV, I watched it. And now, I do not remember Braveheart either so I cannot compare. As is, The Patriot was a nicely made movie.

It was supposed to be a really touching movie. But I cried (yes I cried) only once through the movie. The scene when his youngest daughter (who refused to talk to him) calls out to him when he is leaving and says she will talk as much as he wants and whatever he wants if that means he would stay and not leave for battle. That scene was beautifully captured all the emotions of a family sending away their men to war across the world.

Apart from that I have nothing else to write about it.

Sometimes, Some Stories

2011-05-12T12:04:00.000+05:30

For some reason I landed up with a book of short stories by Amrita Pritam.

Their Signature, Exiled and one more that I do not remember.

I swear to God I shall never read another story by her.

Don't get me wrong. She wrote things that are relevant, just not for this decade and just not for me.

Foreign Lands and Langs

2011-05-12T12:02:00.000+05:30

This post is long overdue. Written on my iPod during my short vacation this May, I haven’t had a chance to post it yet.

Once when a friend tried to (jokingly) impose on everyone the language Hindi saying that we must all respect our culture and refrain from speaking in English, I replied to him that I was a native English speaker and to me Hindi is a foreign language.

My mother tongue being Telugu have having lived by first 18 years in the same state (and the same city), I speak Telugu fluently and naturally speak only Telugu when I speak to strangers in my state. When I speak to people who do not belong to my state (either because I am out of it or because they are in it) I tend to speak in English in order to communicate. When I went to Jamshedpur in 2008, for that first time I had to speak Hindi. It was weird. Not because I didn’t speak very well (in my defense, the gender concept of inanimate objects is very confusing) but because I have never been to a place where I had to and it almost felt foreign. I thought it was only the lack of my experience.

On my short trip to the South East Asia our first stop was Singapore where people could communicate in two Indian languages: English and Tamil. Yet, most of us tended to speak in Hindi because we felt we were in a foreign country and hence must speak in a foreign language (here we does not include me). See how we (again not me) feel that English is very much our language (notice how I referred to it as an Indian language) and Hindi is a ‘foreign’ language?

This post is not to look down upon Hindi or to disrespect my Hindi speaking friends (who form a large percentage of my friends circle). This post is only to indicate to some of my friends who are ignorant enough to believe that the whole of India runs on Hindi and to some of my other friends who have recently left the country and suddenly found a new love for Hindi that no matter what language you used all your life, Hindi is indeed very foreign to many people in the country since it is not their mother tongue and neither is it a language of convenience.

And most importantly, the language you speak in does not matter as long as you are able to communicate. For example, (my mother might get upset to read this but she knows it well enough that) even though my mother tongue is Telugu, I m more fluent, write poetry, speak really fast especially when I am angry in English. Oh and did I forget, I actually think in English too. So as far as I am concerned, English is my native language, Telugu is my mother tongue and Hindi is the foreign language I am most comfortable in. To each her own!

Son of Odin!

2011-05-10T18:32:00.003+05:30

It was the usual story. Out of the world God(dess) falls to the earth and meets the adorable(brave) lady(warrior) thus, falling in love. Oh did I forget the “save the day” part? Yeah, they save the world together. In most stories the immortal one leaves that gift to stay on earth and live together. There can be versions where the mortal one attains immortality and if a producer is looking for a sequel, they stay separated, but just for now (wait for part two). All you gults will remember the legendary movie we grew up watching, Jagadeeka Veerudu - Atiloka Sundari.

Thor (if you remember the guy that Thursday was named after, the one who plays with thunder) falls out of the sky in front of our lady (literally in front of her SUV). Betrayed by his brother Loki (some god who is sometimes good and sometimes bad) he goes out to save his father and his kingdom and even the people of the enemy kingdom having gained the power of soul thanks to the undying love from his lady on earth. (And people praised J K Rowling for wonderfully spinning stories.)

The best part of the movie was that this new Australian chap looked like (quoting a friend) the younger hunkier (end of quote) long lost twin of Brad Pitt (remember Achilles in Troy). And Natalie Portman looked nothing like the psychotic woman who at times drove me nuts in Black Swan. On the contrary, she looked like a beautiful damsel in distress (the distress being that years of research was snatched away by men in black suits claiming to be nobody).

The 3D and the fights were absolutely awesome. These are the kind that needs to be made in 3D, not haunted.

You must must watch. It is complete entertainment like a fairytale on 3D.

The Hungry Tide!

2011-04-20T13:24:00.001+05:30

If I had to describe this book in one word, PASSION would be it.

A beautifully written book, it takes you away into a real but fantastic land. I am young and haven’t read many books, but it is one of the best pieces of prose I have read. Poetically interwoven with little stories, traveling back and forth in time, and describing a new phenomenon or event in every chapter, with such passion, it is a delight to read it.

As I kept reading it, I wondered how much Amitav Ghosh must love the Sunderbans. He describes it with great passion like a poet might of a lover. He describes with such wide-eyed wonder, its ecosystem and inhabitants. He describes with such great pride, its dangers both living and the nature.

I fell in love with it when I was on page 6. To quote the exact words that created magic:

“In our legends it is send that the Goddess Ganga’s descent from the heavens would have split the earth had Lord Shiva not tamed her torrent by tying it into his ash smeared locks” … “there is a point where the braid comes undone; where Lord Shiva’s matted hair is washed apart into a vast knotted tangle. Once past that point the river throws off its bindings and separates into hundreds, maybe thousands, of tangled strands” … “The islands are the trailing threads of India’s fabric, the ragged fringe of her sari, the anchol that follows her, half wetted by the sea.”

I could go on.

“When these channels meet, it is often in clusters of four, five, or even six: at these confluences, the water stretches into the far edges of the landscape and the forest dwindles into a distant rumor of land echoing back from the horizon. In the language of the place, such a confluence is spoken of as a mohona – a strangely seductive word, wrapped in many layers of beguilement.”

Now you know what I mean.

The main character of the story is the Tide Country itself. It is about the elements that make it what it is. It talks about the history of the country, the locals and their beliefs and lifestyles and folklore, and the main human characters just live it. It is not about the human characters but about the country. It seems like these characters exist so that they can tell us the story of the country as they discover it.

It talks of an old school teacher who sees himself as a failed radical communist and how this land has both helped him and hurt him. It talks about a young woman in search of a rare species of dolphins and comes into this ecosystem and discovers its hidden wonders. It talks about the life of a young illiterate fisherman who is at peace and is one with the country.

It talks beautifully about love; most of them unspoken but all beautiful; Moyna fiercely protecting her love, or Horen confessing his, or Nirmal’s pursuit for his muse. (If there is one that was not told so beautifully it was of Kanai and Piya. I could not see it develop through the story. Maybe it was meant to be that way.)

It peaks in both literary style and imagination. It has a un-put-down-able story and yet it is almost philosophical. It is a piece of fiction, sprinkled well with facts, with such fertile imagination, that the plot grows into a beautiful creation and the reader grows with it.

Go ahead, pick up a copy and discover the magic!

Muscle of Mumbai

2011-04-20T13:22:00.002+05:30

I have watched, yet again on the plane, two movies about Mumbai, both about the muscle of Mumbai. One is about the immigrants who form a large part of the society and are the muscle of Mumbai. And the other is about the conflicts of men in mafia (supposed based on true story). One is an art film with outstanding actors produced by the National Film Development Corporation of India. And the other is a mainstream Bollywood Boxoffice hit produced by a rich daughter of an old time Bollywood actor.

Disha has Nana Patekar moving to Mumbai as an immigrant, living in terrible conditions, always wanting to go back to the village and yet stays on after he loses his wife’s loyalty. Om Puri plays a man who would never give up hope and sticks to the village in spite of terrible finances, proving that hard work and dedication will prevail in the end. Shabana Azmi plays a nagging wife, who acts tired of Om Puri’s never giving up attitude but loves him deeply and is proud of the same attitude. The plot unfolds delicately with the actors’ abilities rather than dialogues. It talks of the simple village life, its struggles, its malicious nature as well as protective nature and the male ego. A beautifully made movie! Yet, I would say it is only a onetime watch. But it stays with you for a while.

Once Upon A Time in Mumbai has all the glitz and glamour of a mainstream Bollywood movie. It talks about the rise of a good-hearted, helper of the poor, mafia don played by Ajay Devagan who is shot dead by a dark character played by Emraan Hashmi whose main goal since childhood was to get the power, money and fame that comes from being a mafia don. The movie was well made keeping up to pace and makes for a good watch. Except that I do not like bad endings, this one is almost lame. But some say it is about some true story and I am not aware of it so I still feel it is a lame ending. Also, I thought both of the love stories were randomly put and sort of stupid. Everyone has to agree with me that Ajay Devagan and Kangana Raunat’s romance was outright nonsense. And Prachi Desai’s role was more like made for an award and all that. She apparently won a lot of Supporting Role awards even though I do not see how her role is in anyway supporting the film. Remove her from the movie and the story will not suffer. However, remove Emraan’s father, the sub-inspector and the narrative will suffer. He played his role perfectly. All in all it’s a onetime watch.

I WISH I hadn't Watched it

2011-04-12T13:23:00.003+05:30

I did not know it was a Sanjay Leela Bhansali production till I completed watching it. Had I known I would never have bothered with it, like I did with Black.

So, whatever my review is goes for all of his films.

Guzarish was made to be ‘wowed’. Picked up a sympathical (quiddaled) controversial (to allow or not) topic (euthanasia), added a lot of jazz (world’s best magician) and glamour (Aishwarya Rai) to it, tagged at all sort of sentiments (the ‘I understand’ girlfriend, the ‘I am Sorry’ enemy, the ‘sir, sir’ apprenhentice) and some crazy story of sadness and battle (Project Ethanasia) sprinkled with emotionally stirring scenes (letting the air through his hair in the car or his mothers support and her subsequent death or the scene when the roof leaks and no one takes care of him) and lots of close up shots on the eyes that show deep deep deep deep deep rooted pain and of course the love story (the abusive husband and the further ‘Mrs Mascerehnas’ scene and the dialogue of ‘walk to me’ thing) and there you have it – a complete wanna-be great movie, made by a movie maker who wants to get the Oscar! The movie, and all his movies, amplify all kinds of feelings to a point of no return deeming them simply unrealistic and a show, forgetting the realism in movies. Kabhi Kushi Kabhi Ghum is a better movie. At least you expect all that drama.

Guzarish consistently reminded me deeply of a movie called ‘My Left Foot’, an ~~Italian~~ Irish low budget film that won the Oscar in 1989 (also known as the year that Oscars got it right). The only difference is that My Left Foot was a brilliant movie while Guzarish is just a bad movie inspired out of it.

Colorful Imaginations!

2011-04-12T13:10:00.002+05:30

This book my Ranjit Lal that I read had three short stories: Big Neem, Red Jaguar and Mrs. Samson’s Lammergeir. That was the title of the book as well. They are about strange incidents that happen to a young boy called Anirudh over summer vacations. I mean different summer vacations, so keeps growing up.

Big Neem is a tree that talks to him and is in the cemetery next to his house. Now really, how creative! And there are ghosts and other animals in the cemetery talk to him as well.

Red Jaguar is a ghost car driven by a ghost who drives it to protect his daughter and the good. Now, the only human who gets to drive it is Anirudh.

Mrs. Samson’s Lammergeir is a spirit trapped inside a Lammergeir and rescues Anirudh and his friend from death, also visible only to a select few.

Amazingly imaginative are the stories that took me back to my childhood summer vacations when a friend of mine and I construed stories about ghosts, spirits, conspiracies, aliens, etc all attributed to an empty old house that we referred to as the Bhoot Bungalow !

I simply loved it. It inspires me to write a few of that kind myself.

Another New Header: Vacation

2011-04-11T18:09:00.003+05:30

Like I promised. A new header in a couple of days. :) And a new theme

Convo Header

2011-04-10T19:11:00.001+05:30

I know I am overdoing it. I promise this header will stay for less than a week.

Vacation and Work

2011-04-09T12:01:00.002+05:30

Two Sundays after we left home, we reached home. And with us we have tiny little replicas of the Merlion, the Twin Towers, Buddha and some shopping, and of course, my black cap and a PGDM certificate. And did I forget to mention, that India won the World Cup? Again, All Hail SBI!

The minute we came home we had to head to gather supplies for the next morning. The next day was Ugadi, the New Year according to the Telugu calendar. And hence the festivities continue and everything goes back to normal once you are back home.

Or so you think. I didn’t feel like I came home, I just felt like I left home and sort of lost. Not that I was utterly in love with Joka or Kolkata (though I love them both), but of the fact that I have stayed in a college campus for six years now that it feels weird not to.

And now I have 4.5 months at home. Even to think of it freaks me out on how to spend my time. I have already begun looking for options like internships. If anyone feels like doing something fun this summer drop a line.

About Internships:

If anyone would like me to write for them, that would be great.

If anyone would help me get an internship with a magazine, that would be awesome.

If anyone would want to keep me busy my giving me some work and getting some work off your back, let me know it just might be what I am looking for.

Of Calcutta and Climaxes!

2011-04-09T12:00:00.003+05:30

It was a climax in many ways. And forgive for the length of the post. But trust me, it has it’s drama.

So we got off at Calcutta, my parents headed to Ranchi to visit family and I had to stay on reach Calcutta. I was on a train while the Ind-Pak World Cup Semi Final was going on. Oh, what fun it was! The pain of not being able to watch it, the anticipation of trying to figure out what’s happening when people in the train start shouting through all the noise thanks to their 3G sim cards and broadband service providers! It was not that Pakistan would win, because in my memory we always one (I know there are statistics and I don’t care for them). It was just the fact that I was missing the match. But I reached my hotel room with 30mins left of the match. And I did get to see the lovely part of the match. And then I headed out from my hotel to Joka. The rejoicing crowds on the streets went crazy. By the way, there were two men in black with a black dog sniffing up and down the entire train and my cab along with all cabs was stopped by police and questioned on the way to Joka. Security on a high!

I reached Joka in time for a party and woke up next day in time for rehearsals for the PGP 2009-11 batch named the Golden Whistle (owing to the fact that this was the Golden Jubilee year and whistle best left unexplained ; also I thought it was a lame name for a batch).

Now for the last lap:

On April 2^nd, we put on robes and posed for pictures while India and Srilanka tossed for the World Cup finals. We marched on the procession into the auditorium already packed with family and friends to watch up in my black robes, purples sashes and funnily, our black caps. Also slowly as the news poured in of each wicket, each boundary and every ten runs, we heard the speeches and walked up to the stage to pick up a certificate. I walked hesitantly, aware that my dad was filming it, hoping I don’t stumbled over my pink saree and held that pose with the certificate that stands as proof of my successful completion of PGDM at IIM Calcutta. And then there was a rather honest and inspiring speech by our chief guest, the former SEBI chief, Mr Damodaran.

If you think it ended there, well you don’t because you know what happened afterwards. After introductions, pleasantries and photographs, we all went for the dinner where there was live streaming of the match. Soon professors left, parents left and all was left was staff and students. We all found television sets here and there and stuck on to them.

We were all cramped for space at different places, yet together, and as one entity, not just one entity called India, but also the one entity called IIM Calcutta for the last time and the last few hours, we watched history being made. We sat together and watched Dhoni slam that sixer and Team India raise that cup that was last touched in 1983 and teased us in 2003. We jumped up in joy and rejoiced and our last night in Joka resonated with the sound of victory, just like every other part of the nation, except it was rather special for us. On the day of our convocation, Team India renamed the PGP 2009-11 batch as the “World Cup Batch”.

And though I hope memories will help me revisit this label, here is to the official last entry of Joka Days from an Alumnus, IIM Calcutta (World Cup Batch)! Cheers!

Thailand, Naturally!

2011-04-09T11:59:00.005+05:30

We reached Bangkok and drove directly to a tourist city called Pattaya. We watched the enchanting and quick changing sets of Al Cazar and its wonderfully perfect transsexual performers. More than the changing of sets and the sets themselves, what was fascinating was the way the performers took your attention away while the set changed, right under your nose and yet you wouldn’t have noticed.

The next morning I did para-sailing, to tick it off on my list of 30 things to do before I turn 30! And the best part, so did my father! And other people who accompanied us on the trip! And then we reached Coral Islands. Beautiful they were, clear sky, green islands, white sands, crystal clear waters. Except for the occasional sound of the motor boat, the atmosphere seemed natural. It was touristy enough, yet natural. We just lazed on the sands till our speed boat took us back to the hotel and to Nungnooch garden with dancing elephants and then back to Bangkok.

All we got to see in Bangkok were two temples but astonishing they were. It was not just the main idols of the huge Reclining Buddha (that reminded my dad of the lying pose of Vishnu)

or the Golden Buddha under the serpent hood (that again reminded my dad of Vishnu and his Adisesha).

The temple exterior, the temple decorations, the sculptures, the external idols, all of it was just amazing, even too much to soak in. A couple of things that caught my eye: a dragon snake thingy, the Chinese roofs of course, and a line of Buddha statues painted with gold. Breathtakingly beautiful! If I traveled to Thailand alone, I probably would have spent days hopping from one temple to another.

We also went on a river cruise, though there was nothing much to see except a few bridges that refused to succumb to my camera in the night because of their gaudy lights, the speed of the boat and the gaudier lights of the boat.

It was a pleasant trip as we took from Bangkok to land in Kolkata and like I mentioned, the best part is always the climax.

Malaysia, err, Truly Asia

2011-04-09T11:58:00.005+05:30

It sort of comprises of the most boring part of the trip (the best is always the climax). There is a bridge that connects the two countries and the bridge being no-man’s-land.

The first place we were taken to were the highest limestone caves in the world, with stalactites and stalagmites all around and a temple inside and a huge Kartikeyan idol outside. And then we went to Genting Highlands.

To reach Genting Highlands we take a rope way for 3 kms. Pretty Cool. And then it’s an amusement park, indoor and outdoor and a Casino. So the outdoor was more fun than the indoor, ye the ‘thrill’ rides didn’t really scare it, except may be one called the cyclone or something. But that was a little feeling of scare that thrilled me only a little. But the best part of Genting Highlands and its amusement park was the 4D Motion show about some Pirates. It was awesome. I loved it.

And then we went to Kuala Lumpur. We saw some monuments, a cricket field called the Independence Square, went up (just) 41 floors to the bridge between the Petronas twin towers, came down, when to Putrajaya the new capital with all its manmade lakes where we had a huge mug of real good tea and some annoying bridges each in a different style, one Sydney types, one paris types, etc and then the next day we went up the tower to get a better view of the city.

And then headed out of Malaysia

Singapura!

2011-04-09T11:55:00.007+05:30

In Chennai we caught a flight to Singapore, my mother’s first international trip. And then we headed out to see the city of Singapore. We drove around the city here and there looking at building and other building like buildings and then we went to China Town. Cute it was to see an eastern China Town. It was more authentic and had a lot more lamps than in the west. Later we went on a trip down the river looking at the lovely bridges, Clark Quay and the tiny eating places on the river bank that reminded a little of Camden Town (London).

The next day we headed out to the Jurong Bird Park. I was absolutely amazed to see the bird show, thrilled like a child. I loved the penguins and the flamingoes and had a fun time at the cage where bird climb on to you. Next stop was Sentosa.

I heard a lot about it but was not really impressed. First we went to the Merlion which I thought would have a wonderful myth. Sadly, it was a rather stupid story. Singapore decided it needed a symbol and paid respects to the Lion from where it derived its name (some kind was a cub when he found the island) and to the sea for having sustained the business at the ports and thus was formed the Merlion. Really! No story about spotting a lion that could swim or a fish that looked like a lion or whatever that gave rise to a mythical creature that protects the island, like the Lochness Monster ? Very disappointed.

After that we went up a space something tower or something from where we get a good view and then we went to the Underwater Oceanarium. The first thing I was an octopus in a little little space, the size of the boxes that Paul would choose. I wondered how its eight tentacles squeezed into that little space. But apart from that the Oceanarium was fascinating. It had such atiny fish that you had look through a magnifying glass. It had lovely jelly fish. It had a small tank where you could touch the fish. It had tank where you could feed the fish. It had the tube like aquarium where you feel like you are in the aquarium. And the best thing, Stingray! All kinds of them and I love them.

The day ended wonderfully though, with the “Song of the Sea” performance that was lovely. The best part I liked was when the water gives you the effect of lava and there are bursts of fire everywhere. That was the best part because if you minus that, Shaastra Laser Show was way more enchanting with the mist and the laser light right above your head.

Oh! And did I mention we are all to shop at Mustafa! Really!

Then we head out to Malaysia.

Vacation, After a Long Time

2011-04-09T11:51:00.003+05:30

I can’t remember the last time I took a vacation. Sure, I did have fun in New York when I went to study in Boston and traveled to Ediburgh when I went to work in London. But I am talking about a real vacation, like those during summer holidays when you have free time and you travel with family and see you places or when you catch with your relatives and spend weeks together and have no connection to the outside world except say once in three days or something.

On the night of Holi, I took off on a tiny little Jet Konnect to Chennai for a two week long trip that included three countries and was planned to end very eventfully (it did) with my parents on my last eligible vacation my dad could take me on. Aboard the flight, the non-Indian pilot Ryan was kind enough to point it out to everyone that to our left, the moon was rising in the horizon. It was the biggest, brightest, rounded, rising yellow moon I have ever seen, crystal clear through the heavenly skies. But they do say that about Holi, that is it the brightest full moon of the year.

Image courtesy: stargazing.net (sadly, I didn't have my camera)

Now what follows is a series of blogposts about the trip. Oh, and All Hail SBI!

Joka Days Ending

2011-03-12T11:48:00.002+05:30

Time comes to close another label, but not before convocation on April 2nd.

A couple of things I needed to blog about

Farewell Party:

Pretty pretty it was with the dress code of women in evening wear and men in business casuals (which later became smart casuals and then finally no dress code, men!). A very eventful farewell party where for one last time I sang on stage as a member of JBS Baro C, music band. Cranberries Zombie. I like cranberries and the juice.

Jobbers Party:

This happens on the day everyone gets placed. So it is a crazy party. Everyone happy to have a job, happy to leave Joka, and just happy. We got a DJ to play.

Today:

Well, nothing about today, just that I have my bags packed. My boxes have been sent home already. I have a cab to take in a while and a plane to catch in a few hours. yes, it takes a few hours to get to the airport. But I will be back in about 20 days for convocation. And that's when my label closes.

Bye Bye Speech:

Bye Bye. And thanks for everything !

The Peculiar Joka Day

2011-02-28T06:50:00.004+05:30

I have a fascination with dates.

I remember them, for sentimental reasons, or plain memories.

Like November 14th 2001.

It was Children's Day and Diwali together. What more could a little girl want in India want? Now really, Holi can't be on the same day. But it was the first time I heard of the children in Sivakasi and couldn't imagine burning those crackers on Children's Day. So I boycotted Diwali that year. And I stayed back in my house when my family went out. But my sister came back after a while. She got burnt a little.

See? I remember. I can't seem to forget even if I want to. As a good friend of mine puts it, I suck at the memory part.

Anyway. Back to the original point of discussion.

I just wanted to note down today's date to be remembered years later.

28th February 2011. The day I stopped being a student, stopped studying. I can never stop learning though. And all this unless I decide to do a PhD or something. (Psst. There is a prediction that I would)

Other notable things: As I type this , I have two exams to go and the Academy Awards ceremony is happening on the other side of the world while some people are still talking about the edge-of-the-seat IND-ENG World cup match that happened half a day ago ending in a draw and cursing how it was supposed to happen in Eden, Kol and got shifted to Bang.

Espesal Engazement Party

2011-02-21T16:37:00.002+05:30

So a friend and wingie got engaged. Her boyfriend (now fiancée) came down and the party was on the eve of VDay. The party had a theme. We were all meant to be in any of:

1. Mr. India
2. Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander (skimpy white shorts, anyone?)
3. Shah Rukh Khan oeuvre: KKHH, KHKN, K3G
4. Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro
5. Gol Maal

We girls decided to dress up as Sridevi from Mr. India. And we had fun shopping and stuff. We had a couple of Mr. Indias. A couple of school kids from jo Jeeta , even a model school cycler. A bunch of SRKs around. An Amol Parikar from Golmaal and the trippest ever, a lash !

Fun way to spend a VDay!

Trading and its Trophies

2011-02-21T16:34:00.003+05:30

So I participated in an event called Trader's Trophy.

No I did not win a trophy or anything.

But the game was fun as hell and I learnt a lot.

The game not just simulated trading but the setup also tried to simulate the environment.

The only thing it was short of was the screams and shouts and abuses on a real trading floor.

The simulation demo is still up on the site. Check it out.

ICPL - Mumbai

2011-02-15T14:58:00.002+05:30

So the ICPL concluded a couple of nights ago.

We made it through the qualifiers to super sixes.

But didn't make it to 1 2 or 3.

But we played 6 matches in all.

It was fun :)

IIM Calcutta Premier League

2011-02-03T16:12:00.003+05:30

So... Like IPL, a bunch of students at IIMC decided to form the ICPL last year.

It went well with players bidding.

This time they decided to go ahead and put the teams for sale.

We girls of All the Jazz, bored in our final term, decided to buy a team. Just for the fun of it. Honestly, we didn't really know or care much for the game. It was just for the fun of it.

Well we did buy a team.

Go Mumbai Chargers !

First match is on Friday 9.00pm.

Here is our teaser.

We shall come out with a promo soon...

Carpe 2011

2011-02-01T08:32:00.003+05:30

Carpe Diem is the annual cultural festival of IIM Calcutta and this year it was from Jan 28th - 30th. It started for me the moment my play began.

Here are the rest of the things that I could catch.

Pehla Kadam

This is an NGO event in collaboration with Community Human Welfare Organization. About 300 kids from around Joka area came up to IIM Calcutta for a day of fun. There were performances by them and us. I would like to write about each and every but its too long and I don't remember half the Bengali names. Just to mention one, there was a mime show by kids who have a hearing impairment. I have never seen such a brilliant performance enacting through amazing gestures and emotions.

Armageddon

This is our rock band competition. And I got to see some really good performances. Many of them were semi-pro.

Higher On Maiden

The official tribute band to Iron Maiden there were even dressed similar. Fear of the Dark being the highlight, the show had to stop a couple of songs short for the rain playing spoilsport.

My last culfest. Fun and Frolic !

couple of things I have missed is a spic-macay event and a nayatheatre production. I was sleeping.

Playful !

2011-02-01T08:20:00.003+05:30

5 male actors, 2 female, 1 co-director.

a bunch of people at the production end, lights, music, set, set design, a poster, an aircon, a pair of french windows, a cyclorama that didn't work out, a spot light that went bust 12 hours pre, a bunch of ups, a bunch of downs, scenes that I was sure would turn out bad, scenes that amazed me when they didn't, actors I loved and knew would do a wonderful job.

All ends up in one beautiful play.

Thank you all for the support and all the hardwork !

Update: I missed out! I would also thank the mosquito-bitten president whose biggest job was to supply mosquito coils. I apologize for forgetting to mention him earlier and I am also sorry that I left him alone with no one but mosquitoes for company for nights together.

Secure Celebrations

2011-01-26T22:06:00.004+05:30

I picked up today's newspaper to read about the soon to be republic day celebrations. But what caught my attention was two other pieces of news.

One was about how security was tightened in light of the republic day celebrations. It is a necessary and needed of course. But it saddens me that it is required. That we live in a world where we cannot celebrate a national holiday proudly where the head is held high without fear!

The second piece was the killing of an assistant collection in a fight against corruption drawing parallel with Manjunath Shanmugham and Satyendra Dubey.

Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries)

2011-01-22T21:47:00.003+05:30

It was beautifully shot. Almost poetic.

When I watched the movie, I thought it had three main characters: Munna, Shia and Arun. But after looking at the poster, now I feel there are five characters adding Yasmeen and the city of Mumbai.

Munna was the most striking character. A washer boy in Dhobi Ghat, Prateik played his role so perfectly, it is hard to tell he was not picked up from the ghat. Every emotion so clearly spelt. His open admiration and unsure love for Shia spoke volumes about his talent as an actor.

Shia was irritating I thought when the movie began, but as the movie progressed she gained momentum and different angles to her character. An "investment banking consultant" on sabatical, she is Mumbai to do what I did not understand but basically take photographs of Dhobi Ghat and stalk Arun.

Arun, the divorcee painter, played by Aamir Khan was almost boring. As a usual reclusive, chain smoker, always drinking painter, Aamir Khan portrayed below average acting skills. At some key moments he was almost pathetic.

Yasmeen: Almost perfect. Her character. Her action. The idea of her character. It amazes me. This character is what made this movie poetic. A brilliant piece of art.

Mumbai: It's alive and it runs through the script. Omnipresent and engulfing. Mumbai.

I "heart" Caneda

2011-01-22T21:39:00.003+05:30

Like the poster, if it is load, full of fun and comic.

It trips on itself, Punjabis, Bollywood cinema and this family.

Its basically a tripfest for a bunch of friends and a hall full of young people.

Well, we were not as lucky but we did have some young people and a good bunch of friends...

Man those ManGames

2011-01-17T21:08:00.003+05:30

As part of the curriculum at IIM Cal the entire batch plays a strategy game called “management games”. It’s interesting. We play it once in Term I as novices and once in Term VI before we graduate. I guess the idea is to understand what we learn over the two years. I am not so sure what happened though. Common sense prevails every time J

Btw, one of hostels has something called the ManGames Puja. All its inmates going for the presentation that year are adorned with a mala and tilak wishing them luck and congratulating them on success.

The industry is oil and gas and we play a few quarters spread over a few days (this time it was nights) and then we present our “strategy” on how to go about it. There are also some interesting external factors like we started with a regulated environment which then became deregulated and there were forced expansions and planned expansions. But nothing beats the fun of presenting it. To present you need to understand what happened and how you explain it in “management jargon”.

And finally the presentation by the profs: knowledgable and witty.

Epilogue: There was this extremely cute video that we girls put up proposing the winner of the Man of the ManGames for marriage :P

Intaglio

2011-01-17T21:05:00.002+05:30

This is our annual “international” business meet organized by my institute.

Sure it’s good. We have awesome speakers, awesome competitions and well in general nice.

I did not really do much but felt good to just have it.

I was too busy sleepy most of the times. I wish I could have attended more talks.

We also had a performance by Kunal Ganjawala. It was a big hit though I could not connect to the songs he was singing. But it was fun.

Breathless ! In Bombay !!!

2011-01-13T02:33:00.001+05:30

I wondered how come all the books I read claimed to be best sellers and wondered if there would be any good books that are not best sellers. Well, this is one. It is a good book. But it is not a best seller. And now I know the difference. It is a beautiful piece yet the style of writing is not that captivating. The idea was brilliant, the stories good, the writing not so much.

Yet, it captivated me.

It is a collection of short stories about different kinds of people in Mumbai by a man passionate about Mumbai called Murzban F. Shroff.

It talks about how the city breaks the ethics of a Victoriawala and how it slaps a taxiwala in the face making him face his own unethicalness and how it makes a Parsi woman trust a Bihari labourer and how it traps a woman in an abusive relationship with schizophrenic.

The title story talks about a man who rises from the slums to become rich and hit page 3 and yet he finds his peace out of the attention and finds love from a social worker.

It’s a beautiful piece, Breathless in Bombay.

2010: The Year That Was

2011-01-04T19:59:00.006+05:30

This year has been very eventful for me.

January: Had a boring new year's party and felt bad about not being able to vote.

February: Err. I acted in a play and walked down the ramp at the culfest.

March: I read a lot of books. I almost read like a book a day during my wait for my UK visa.

April: I went to Mumbai, stayed in Colaba and worked in Nariman for about 25 days which is almost like a dream come true ! (I promised a post and never wrote it)

May: I went to the City of London, stayed at Tower Hill and worked on Liverpool Street which was way beyond my dreams ! This was also my first trip abroad.

June: I went to Scotland. I got a job ! Followed FIFA from start to end for the first time (London inspired me).

July: Nothing happened, including my birthday. I got my US visa.

August: I went to Boston, MA to stay for the next 3 months. I enrolled in an all girls college which I have never done ! I heard I failed a course back at IIMCal.

September: I went to my sister's house in Seattle, WA and visited Kurt Cobain's hometown. I took a retest for my failed course half way around the world.

Between Sept/ Oct: I went to Niagara Falls, NY.

October: I went to Pittsburgh,PA to visit my friend in CMU. I passed the course. I donated my hair to little children who can't have hair. I came up with a business idea and pitched for it in a contest.

November: I went to New York, NY. I went to New Jersey. I taught children whatever I could at MIT, including making complete foreigners sing in Telugu.

December: I taught my friends 'Bollywood Dancing'. I got the most wonderful farewell. I realized I made some friends for a lifetime. I wrote my 500th blogpost. I attended my best friend's wedding. I took my first trip out of the city with my friends ever, including undergrad.

I was trying to see if I could cut out anything. Seems like I can't.

Very eventful indeed.

But ~~2001~~ 2011, is full of promises too...

I love my life !!!

New Header for the New Year

2011-01-04T19:54:00.002+05:30

I realized that I have had a lot of different headers but none for the city of Kolkata. So here goes !!

New Year's Eve 2011

2011-01-04T19:41:00.004+05:30

I really can't remember what I did for NYE last year. So I looked up my blog. Last year was by far the worst NYE of my life and this year the best !!!

31st Dec 2010

I woke up to pack my bags and run to class. An interesting class it was.

We were 5 girls + 7 boys.

Then we all picked our bags and stuffed into two cars and left for Mandarmani.

One car with 4 (+1) left earlier.

Our sumo with 9(+1) left at about 7.00pm

It's about 166km from Joka.

It took us forever.

We made through half the way well and then we got stuck in (guess what?) fog !!!

I have never seen so much fog. The visibility was like some 10 feet !!!

So we drove, slow and steady. Once we caught a bus and sped up behind it and then we lost it at a toll booth so we were back to slow and steady. No, we did not win the race.

The other car reached the resort at 11.50pm right in time for new years.

We put in a count down and screamed and wished each other right in the 10 people stuffed sumo !!!

1st Jan 2011

We reached about 12.45 am and started our party !

We had a lot of fun. But we had to wait for day light before we could go to the beach.

Go we did and dunked each other in the sea. The motor-able beach was fun.

We came back to the resort, bathed and crashed.

I remember waking up for lunch at 3pm. By now we were 7 girls + 6 boys.

We walked on the beach. Played with the crabs and generally chilled out. A few of us went for boat trips into the sea.

Played volley ball. Played LIFE. Played cards.

Had a party again in the night around the bonfire, singing and talking.

Then we went to bed and none of could sleep and all the girls sat in and talked for hours before me decided to crash.

2nd Jan 2011

We woke up for breakfast and packed up and left Mandarmani.

We stopped by a dhaba (that does not look like a dhaba) for lunch in its entire crowdedness.

We got stuck in real bad traffic.

It took us aout 9 hours for the whole journey what took us about 6 hours in spite of the fog on our earlier journey.

And we made it back in one piece.

But it was by far the best party ever !

Happy New Year everyone !!!

Christmas RED

2011-01-04T19:36:00.005+05:30

Came back to Joka on a weekend. But our entire wing was not back yet.

So a few days later, on a nice Wednesday we had a wing party.

H1 top : All That Jazz.

To Jazz it up we got lights: red green and purple.

To make it fun we got a theme: Christmas

To make a theme we got a dress code: Girls in RED and boys in white.

People did not stick to it.

Yet it was fun !!!

And then there was Christmas which coincides with Reminiscence always.

Reminiscence is an alumni meet where in the batch that graduated 25 years ago is invited. Any alumnus is always welcome of course. The 20th batch that came up was a lot of fun. The 45th batch that graduated this year also found their way to Joka and made it a lot more fun.

So Christmas was fun in spite of having nothing to do with Christmas.

Oh wait! our mess had two little trees and the cutest tiny Santa Claus put up. !!!

The Assignment 3

2011-01-04T19:36:00.001+05:30

Didn't happen !

btw, thats Joka for you !

The Assignment 2

2011-01-03T11:23:00.002+05:30

There is a competition called The Assignment.

I made through round 1 which was basically situational questions.

Round 2 has two parts

Round 2 Part 1: I have already talked about

Round 2 part 2: We were each given one episode and asked to analyse the episode of The Assignment, the show on Bloomberg UTV. This was the episode alloted: Episode 12 and this was my Analysis.

Happy New Year !!! Will come back with a recap on my activities during the moments this weekend and last !!!

The Assignment 1

2010-12-31T13:54:00.003+05:30

There is a competition called The Assignment.

I made through round 1 which was basically situational questions.

Round 2 has two parts

Round 2 Part 1: Please like this video and help me go to the next round: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150352494270533&oid=123381121063055&comments

Will update regarding part 2.

For, Now Happy New Year !!! Will come back next Year !!!

Joka and the Times

2010-12-29T05:06:00.001+05:30

Back in Joka!

With a bunch of changes. Oh! A lot has changed. A lot is changing, A lot will change.

I am back on my schedule, up at till 5 am !

chatting talking making friends and wondering if i ever will get a few minutes to myself.

Here I am, a few minutes to myself, blogging.

Apart from sure travels to Mandarmani, hopeful travels to bangkok and other stuff.

Wondering will detours occur in life. Wondering if there ever do. Trying to make them happen. Hoping they do. Unhopeful some don't. Wondering my life is so complicated. Yet answering a question to my definition of complex as simple.

I m just leaving my final days at Joka.

Growing Up !

2010-12-29T04:56:00.002+05:30

There hasn't been much of a blogpost after I returned from NY, has there ? Except for a few hangover posts !

So much has changed and so much will still.

I returned from US to my house in Hyderabad (shall still just call it a house), to spend a few days before I take a detour to my hometown for a friend's wedding. Or should I say my best friend's wedding. We had so much in common and now so little.

I was really excited to attend the wedding. I never attended a friend's wedding before. I was really busy every time there was one.

Only two days younger to me, she is married now and leading a happily married life. It made me wonder and made me think. Have I really grown up?

The moment I saw her all dressed like a bride and nervous and yet smiling at us. I wondered, have we all really grown up ?

And then of course, there as another school friend of mine who came to the wedding with her husband and her 11 month old son. She was screaming with him, playing with him, chastising him and drowning him in her love. Have we really grown up already ?

And then I have my best friend of all times, who is in US now married for a few years, with a two year old daughter and pregnant with the second. She did not come for the wedding. Again, have we all really grown up ?

I asked my friend this question. Another from the now-and-then pack, best friend of all times, have we grown up ?

She is studying to be a doctor and there is a long long way to go. She said, all I do is attend weddings, give advice on contraceptives, attend baby showers when they don't follow her advice and smile at all functions. Because, she will be a doctor and there is a long long way to go. And she tells me, you will go high up and there is a long long way up.

LOL! I will go high up! But will I ever grow up ?

Lahiri. She Writes.

2010-12-18T09:50:00.002+05:30

When I went to Seattle, I had with me “Unaccustomed Earth” without which the delay at Logan Airport (caused not by Logan but my ill-fated proximity to JFK, the flight being that which needed to arrive from JFK but was delayed as usual. Sometimes it seems to me that nothing goes off or on time in JFK) would have driven me crazy.

When I went to Pittsburgh, I had with “Interpreter of Maladies” which made my travel pleasant and enduring (not to mention that I was darn well excited about meeting the qurious quester more than a year later).

I like her books, because they are a collection of short stories and not novels with a plot.

I like her books, because she talks primarily about people in Boston and mostly about those you came from Calcutta and about those who had a short stay in London. And what else could I relate to more, this year.

She writes with a plot simply and characteristic. She writes of second generation Indian Americans. She writes up people trying to grasp anything they can grab that reminds them of their far away lands. She writes about women and she writes about men and she writes about parents and she writes about children. And the young, the old and the middle aged. She writes about love, duty, responsibility, helplessness, need for community and compassion.

She writes about the lives of people.

And she writes beautifully.

VIRUS ATTACK

2010-12-11T11:24:00.002+05:30

JIAGUU.EXE

If anyone knows what to do about please let me know!
IMMEDIATELY!!!

Google doesn't seem to have any useful info. :(

UPDATE: Looks like I solved it, at least for now !

City Girl!

2010-12-11T04:30:00.000+05:30

I fell in love with Bombay in 3 weeks, London in 4 weeks and New York in 3 weekends and half a week.

I came back from London all romantic about it which wore off in time but I do still like the city a lot. I am currently still romantic about New York and will have to wait and watch if it will wear off. Boston is cute and nice and peaceful which I like but not at the moment designed for me. But Bombay …

My heart leaps up every time I am to land/take off from Bombay at night time. I love it when I am landing in Boston during the day when you feel you are landing on water and just when you thought you would, the runway appears out of nowhere. No such airport stories about London and NY looks nice during the day with the Atlantic and everything but not half as wow-ing.

Inspiring! That’s the word for NY though. London shows you memories of empires that stood through thick and thin for generations together. New York shows you empires that were built from scratch over a single lifetime. Bombay shows me (don’t know about you), the empires to be built. Bombay shows me dreams.

In Dec 2007, not so long ago, I thought that I would be honored to work in Nariman a few years from then and that was my dream! This summer, it did come true even if it’s for a few weeks. Now I need a new dream and it looks like I have one!

New York and beyond: MY 500

2010-12-11T04:29:00.004+05:30

My last few days spent in New York were fun, fast and fascinating.

I ceased being a tourist and then, I fell in love with New York; its city lights, noisy crowds, dirty streets, obnoxious people and vibrant environment.

Walked on the chilly streets of Manhattan, stared at the high rise empires built from scratch for inspiration, visited a Vegan restaurant, saw a few upper end (read, out-of-my-league) cars in real life, stopped by at Hoboken to view NY on the left and NJ on the right over the Hudson, drove past Edison Township, made more friends, submitted a final paper due for a course at Simmons, all in the middle of a ticket fiasco.

On Wednesday morning, I left to the airport (without a ticket). A few airlines, few counters and few explanations later I got my ticket and hung around a bit before I got on my 14 hour flight to Delhi. On reaching Delhi, my India phone began to work and I had to make two phone calls and send two emails to let people know that I arrived safely (mind you, I had to notify all of them just before I sat on the plane too). I spent the next 20 hours with less than 5 sentences off my mouth before I landed safe and sound and with a stamp on my visa, in Hyderabad.

Home. Sweet, Home.

Psst: Here ends 'Exchange Dairies' and is my 500th post!!!

Update: This also happens to be my 100th post of my 5th year in Blogging :)

Diwali in December and Ticket fiasco

2010-12-07T05:42:00.004+05:30

If I may call it that!

I took a bus on the afternoon of Saturday to reach NY in the evening.

Funny, the wifi was working. The last time it worked on a bus for me was when I first arrived at Boston from NY by bus.

On arriving at my friends place in Brooklyn they took me to this Diwali party hosted by people from the college that my friends are on exchange with. Well, Diwali is long gone. Yet it was a party and there was Bollywood music and Indian food. It was so long since I had good Indian food. It was a nice party

Here is the ticket fiasco part.

Err. it's too complicated to explain. Basically I thought I had a ticket but it looks like it is stuck in some pipeline and I can't seem to be able to push it through. But believing that I will come back to India I believe that it will somehow get resolved. Not on it's own though. I need to drop in some offices and refuse to move till I get a ticket. Or fly by some insanely complicated way. Hope it doesn't have to come to that.

Friday, the last Real Day

2010-12-04T11:32:00.003+05:30

Sarah was wonderful.

Not only did she pick the card for me, she threw open her place for a party in my honor and a lovely cake that said "We will miss you, Pranava". How sweet can she be and how CAN i not LOVE her!!!

I love all the girls who came today and danced Bollywood with me and salsa and Chinese and some random stuff and had like ridiculous fun with me. I love you all !!!

So today is the absolute last day of my stay in Boston and it has not hit me yet.

I will probably cry on my bus to NY.

Love you all from Boston and love you Boston from making it my home for the past few months!!!

Economics and Dancing

2010-12-03T08:32:00.002+05:30

The header I made yesterday comes in the middle of a frustrated period when I was trying to finish up my presentation for a class within a few hours. It went well.So did today's morning economics class where we presented about the economies of US and Germany.

After that I had a sumptuous meal at Bartol's the canteen for the residential campus which is my latest hangout for cheap good food (great French Vanilla and Ice-cream) along with Ivo.

Then we had a stupid session by me for Bollywood dancing, where I made my friends (who were dancing great) for Bole Chudiyaan and I was a pathetic teacher. That's another thing I learnt, I can't break down dance into a 1-2 step process. Following me was a wonderful teacher of Greek dance my one of our classmates who is a second generation Greek. She taught us well and we learnt it well and all in all it was FUN!

This is the first session of a set of sessions that are to follow organized by Ivo for our co-herd to share everyone's talents. (No, Bollywood dancing is not my talent. For God's sake I had no idea there was something called Bollywood dancing till I came here).

Ivo, an 'asian'-phillic, complained often that we never walked on the streets of Chinatown. We did just that today, walked a bit. Then we got home and Ivo helped me pack.

So I am basically packed, well mostly, except for a bit of laundry and the clothes I need to last me a week. No, I am packed :) I am. And it's only sinking in now. That I am leaving Boston in a couple of days!

Boston Blues

2010-12-01T23:06:00.001+05:30

A new header finally just before I am leaving Boston!

Photoshopped obviously.

Expressions!

2010-12-01T04:16:00.005+05:30

From all the lovely ladies at Simmons who I love and shall miss so much, I received:

NY and NJ and Chocolate

2010-11-30T08:57:00.003+05:30

I went to New York again. But little I have to say this time.

I landed to run around shops on Black Friday.

Saturday morning I had hot chocolate with marshmallows melting in them at the Max Brenner with Roomie (my roommate for two years and wingie for the next two years of my IITian life). She was sweet enough to book us a table there where people stand in every inch of space for the smell of chocolate. We then went to Jersey Gardens (New Jersey) for shopping. So I crossed state, bought some stuff and got them all to Boston. Now I need to figure out how to pack everything.

And that's all there is for my NY trip.

Highlights:

1. I got to meet Roomie

2. I got to have chocolate

3. I got some nice cheap boots that I know will not last but nevertheless I love them

4. We drove and I always thought that traffic sucks in Manhattan when I walked it, but it wasn't bad at all

5. Ivo and I got the same sweater

Beacon Hill and Thanksgiving

2010-11-30T05:27:00.006+05:30

After my wonderful teaching experience and a great rating for a presentation in one of my classes the Thanksgiving break was up.

Wednesday through Monday was my break.

On Wednesday we (Ivo and I) walked again. We walked Beacon Hill. It was so freaking cold that we froze over and had to stop at every starbucks we found. But it was beautiful. Boston is a weird city. It's all college stuff everywhere and like a little town in between the college stuff. We saw places owned by some of the prominent Bostoners of the 1800s. It's all cute and nice. Like living out of the old times. All the architecture was 18th and 19th century. Some houses had so many creepers on them and there were hidden gardens too.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. We (my Chinese undergrad friend, Ivo and I) had lunch at the school for Thanksgiving and we have Turkey and corn bread and mash potates with new people. It was all in my Chinese friend's dorm's living room. After that we went with another Chinese friend (grad school) and her Chinese friend to a professor's house which was in a suburb called Wellesley. It was nice. It was the (American)professor, her daughter with Polish roots, her daughter's friend, her daughter's friend's mother and father who is a professor too, her daughter's friend's father's undergrad student, her daughter's friend's dad's Russian student who is on exchange from Netherlands, a student who stays in the professors house who is a second generation Ukrainian, a dutch couple who were the professor's friends, my Chinese grad friend, my Chinese grad friend's friend, my Nicaraguan friend and my Indian self.

A truly international yet American Thanksgiving dinner complete with Turkey and Pumpkin pie.

Oh Lord! Thank you for this meal!

I Teach!

2010-11-22T02:26:00.006+05:30

MIT conducts every year a little (actually a really huge) event called Splash (and one over the spring called Spark).

During Splash, any grad/undergrad student can sign up to teach anything, absolutely anything. And who are the students? Middle school and high school students from all over, anywhere. It is up to the teacher to keep the students engages because there are walk-in seminars happening all the time and one could just walk out of a class into these seminars.

So what has it got to do with me? I TAUGHT !!!

What?

(well it was supposed to come off as "what did I teach?", but if you read it as "waht? I don't believe you!" I won't hold it against you.)

so I taught 5 classes of 3 courses.

Introduction to Telugu: language and alphabet (2 classes)
Incredible India: a crash course on Indian culture (2 classes)
Blog Your Way: Blogging 101 (1 class)

How was it?

AWESOME!

What did I learn about myself?

That I know more about Telugu than I thought and my handwriting is good. I know a lot about Indian culture, but I should probably learn more. I know almonds about blogging.

It was also amazing to see parents waiting for their kids, anxious to know what they learnt and elated to see them happy. There was this one lady who was looking through the glass of the door to see how her kid was doing. OK that was a little too much. But in general, I liked the atmosphere. I did not think American parents would care so much about their kids and their little wishes to learn about foreign language or modular origami or black-holes . How wrong I was! How wrong I was!

This is by far the best weekend in United States! (and I don't think the next two are going to beat it. Yes, two. Just two.)

Charlie and his Town

2010-11-22T02:26:00.005+05:30

So Ivo got a book from a friend about walking tours in Boston.

It had a lot of tours but there was one part of town we have never ever been to: Charles Town.

The freedom trail we walked was supposed to end in Charles Town but we stopped at the River Charles that day and we completed the trail now.

We started by taking a ferry from Long Wharf to Navy Yard, reading the book all along. Walked around the Navy Yard and the USS Constitution, reading up the history. We then went up to the Bunker Hill Monument (on Beacon Hill, Bunker Hill is somewhere around) with the statue of William Prescott. We saw the Harvard Mall where Harvard and another guy decided to name this place Cambridge and start a great college which later on came into being named Harvard (except he didn't live to see it). We also ran into a little pub where all great leaders met to talk about politics and the Red Coats and somebody's house and somebody else's garden and the City Square and the little Harvard street, etc.

The town was beautiful. It is possible the most beautiful part of Boston. You cross over in the ferry and you feel you crossed over the ocean all the way to England, to a little English town, full with little house, cobble stone pathways and tiny roundish cars! Finally we walked over the bridge to come back to the fast lanes of Boston leaving behind the beautiful peaceful and serene little town that lives by itself.

If you ever visit Boston, make sure you take time out to walk around Charles Town, especially during its' breathtaking fall.

Manhattan

2010-11-22T02:17:00.005+05:30

The whole trip to New York felt like a vacation you take when you are working and not a student, like working-people-taking-vacation.

I woke up on Thursday morning to run to a meeting for a project, followed by another meeting for another project followed by a rush to the bus station to catch a bus to NY. See what I mean by working-people-taking-vacation?

The journey to and fro sucks. Because Megabus sucks. I took my laptop with me just so I could use the wifi on Megabus to and fro and work on some stuff I needed to get done over the weekend and not really wanting to work during the weekend. Ultimately, I just carried 3 extra kgs of load to and fro with no use for it except a brief half hour to check mails check weather and register for courses at IIMC.

But Manhattan rocks.

My tour of New York started right from where I got off the bus. Madison Square and Times Square!

The next day began with a little walk around the Fina

ncial District: The New York Stock Exchange, The Bull and The Wall Street (see all my capital Ts in 'The's). We took a ferry to the Statue of Liberty (but since it was later in the day they did not take us to something else that they normal do and also they ran out of tickets for going to the crown. Not that I was upset. But it was funny; we had 'airport like security'. I am not making up the phrase; this is the phrase they used at the security check.

We went over to Ground Zero but it was all barricaded due to some construction work and the Metro stop underneath was also out of service (since 2002). We finished our tour for the day with a spectacular (extremely chilly) view from the Empire State Building.

The next day we woke up later than ever and by the time we had lunch it was nearing dusk. So we quickly wen to the beautiful Central Park and to Lego Land and Rockefeller center. We saw two ice rinks and walked around a lot in the lanes of West Village.

Sunday was just for waking up, grabbing a bite and the pathetic bus back to Boston.

The highlights of the trip:

Airport like security
The freezing view from Empire State
The soft flooring in the kids zone at Central Park. So that kids who fall don't get hurt. It was like styrofoam or something. It was absolutely awesome.
Big Big Bubble; at Central Park, there was this guy who had a bucket of soapy water and two sticks connected by a loop of string. So you could make like insanely lasrge bubbles, the size I have never seen before.
Lego store, Lego land was mindblowing. I could spend like days if I get locked up in Lego land!

New York, New York

2010-11-22T02:16:00.002+05:30

A new header and a new theme!

One hand in the air for the big city,

Street lights, big dreams all looking pretty,

no place in the World that can compare,
Put your lighters in the air, everybody say yeah
come on, come,
yeah,

New York!!!!
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
There's nothing you can’t do,
Now you're in New York!!!
These streets will make you feel brand new,
the lights will inspire you,
Let's hear it for New York, New York, New York

To do, To Blog

2010-11-11T03:20:00.006+05:30

After all the blogging I do, I always have more to blog about.

I am living life faster, everyday !

Here are a list of things to blog about ...

Books:

Unaccustomed Earth
Interpreter of Maladies
Breathless in Bombay (when I finish)

Movies:

Amelie
My Sister's Keeper (already blogged on another site)
NY I Love You (But I think I'll get a different perspective after going to NY this weekend :P )
The Day I Became a Woman
Rajneeti
Tum Milo To Sahi
Veronica Mars (it's actually a series)

Random things:

Like Boston and NY have a lot of rats
Like I am not worried about traveling by T after dark anymore because it gets dark by 4.30 now
Like how the fact that i finally know what day light savings is and how freaked out I got about it :P
Like how I had a discussion with a blogger who believes I am a different "type" and the weekend awakening conversation was not expected out of me and how I reacted very violently to it. (ah well, may be I won't blog about it).
Like how I called my long lost friend yesterday and felt great talking to her (we have been on fb for a while).
Like how I called my long lost friend today and was hesitant to tell her who I was.
Like how I made three new friends out of acquaintances.
Like how I realize I only have a month left and lots and lots and lots of stuff left to do!

(Image courtesy: AikoNagori)

Dream On

2010-11-09T10:24:00.005+05:30

In one of my courses last week, we had a guest lecture. The guest was this wonderful woman who in her 50s decided to start a nonprofit organization to help women to come away from violent homes.

During the course of her lecture, she made us write our "Dream Proposal".

Your dream proposal consisted of the your biggest dream, steps and goals to reach it and the estimated cost of the first step to reach the dream.The dream could be a picture including your life, you home, your car, the color of your curtains and so on.

As I put pen to paper I tried to recollect my dreams.

The first time I dreamed of doing something was when I was in class 3. I wanted to be the first Indian woman in space and when I was about 10 years old, Kalpana Chawla beat me to it so I tore up all my newspaper cuttings of articles about space, nasa research, meteor showers, etc and gave up that dream.

The first time I put pen on paper and wrote down a pictorial life style dream was about 9 years ago, in class 10. We had a woman who was an alumnus of our school come over to motivate us. She made us close us eyes, listen to soothing music and her harmonious voice and directed us to imagine 10 years hence and look at our lives, picture it and write it down.

I don't have the paper with me right now (it's in my memory box packed away in Kolkata), but I remember what I wrote. I wrote down a lifestyle. Today, I am living it !

(Image courtesy: p0rg)

And suddenly, I realized, I needed a new dream!

And then I realized, I have had a new dream since all these 9 years. And a newer dream since 7 years. And a much newer dream since 6 years and the newest dream since 3 years. I have many dreams ! so many many dreams :)