Friday, January 29, 2010

To hide or not to hide

There was a discussion on who is the best actor oops!! I meant who is the super star of the country.

One of them wrote “He is transparent in all his activities, people know that he Smokes, drinks.” He refers to the actor and I don’t wan’t to mention the name, since my post is not about the actor.

I just cracked up looking at this. From when did Smoking and drinking become an offensive activity which needs to be hidden?

I don’t smoke or drink, but I remember when I first started working, attended a project party (not company sponsored), this was some birthday party I think. When my team mates ordered drinks and cigarettes, I was quite shocked. Call me naïve, but I had never been to a restaurant which had both veg-nonveg, no bar attached. This was probably my first cultural shock.

As days passed by, these never bothered me, ofcourse I don’t like people smoking in front of me, so I request them and they oblidge. When I went onsite, when any of my teammates ordered for any of the alcoholic drinks, I used to promptly ask for an extra empty glass, and pour my glass of coke into it and cheers with them. My teammate always said “Arre yaar, humesha alcohol ka apmaan karti hai… uss glass mein coke kyon peeti ho”. What can I do if people give these drinks in nice glasses and give coke in a ordinary glass. Anyway, that was not the point.

I completely agree that smoking and drinking are injurious to health, well lot of things are like eating junk food etc etc, but are these something to be hidden. I know, lot of people who smoke or drink hide it from their parents, but lets says the family knows about it. It’s not something you would hide from the general public.

So does hiding or making it public, make any difference to anybody, except for your own health?

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Locked Up

New year has just passed by, and I remember the 1st new year party after joining the company.

We were in Mysore, and that was my first new year away from family. We had decided to have a girls night out. We borrowed speakers from friends, got some cake and chips and sodas.

We stayed in a 2BHK, with attached Bathrooms. It was around 10.30 PM, my friend/roomie went to restroom, and since I had to change, I locked the bathroom door from outside, changed and came out of the room. After 10 mins, we were wondering why my friend hadn’t returned. And, I look at my phone, it’s the same friend calling. “why was she calling me, when we are in the same house” was my first thought. I picked up the call and she was yelling “Open the door”. I rushed and opened the bathroom door. After this, all of us were laughing non-stop for 10-15 mins.

We kept teasing her, why she had to take her cellphone in the bathroom. So she said, that saved her, else we would have celebrated new year by locking her up.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Phir Mile Sur

Mile sur mera tumhara” – This is one song which most of us would have heard while growing up.

Yesterday, on republic day, Zoom TV in collaboration with Times Group aired the “Phir Mile Sur”. I was excited to see the new one. I couldn’t help but compare it to the old one. The video starts off with AR Rahman with a orange Keyboard (instrument) and green Kurta (the flag is suppose), and then the obvious Big B came up with “mile sur” in his voice. He sings one line and then makes it a prose. There was a mixture of musicians and bollywood personalities. In between, a few states were showcased. The song is too long, so I can’t mention every person in the song.

On the whole, this is my review:

Good points:

Good locales, scenic places
Girl education, women employment, showing the children with hearing and talking disabilities were shown
Other sports (esp. no cricket) were given importance. One of my friends said, atleast somebody ignored cricketers.

Not so good points:

Very long
Seemed like bollywood song or a film fraternity song
Overacting by some actors (SRK, Ash)
Voice didn’t match for many of them

Even if I don’t compare with the old one, I don’t see any national integration message here.

The old one made us feel that “Mile sur mera tumhara to sur bane humara” but this one has got too many surs, that the humara feel just doesn’t come.

It’s a nice effort, may be not be very good though.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Flower show

Saturday we had been to the LalBagh Flower show. This was my first time ever. I would say it was worth the visit...

Let the pics do the tallking














There are some more...but may be some other time :)

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Alone Alone!!

Alisha, could sleep anytime of the day, the moment her head touched the pillow. One day, her parents had to bring groceries, so they left her at home to watch TV, while they came back in half an hour. They wanted to lock the door from outside, but Alisha insisted that she will take care and lock the door from inside.

Alisha was enjoying the TV show, but slept off in between. Her parents came back home after half an hour and were knocking the door, rang the calling bell, called out for Alisha. But she slept like a kumbhakaran. No noise could even bring a change in her face or sleep. Finally they found a long stick outside, and tried to poke her from the window. Luckily, she woke up and opened the door for her parents. No guesses on how much scoldings she got. It took a long time for her parents to leave the house on her responsibility again.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Hide and Seek

“Hide and Seek”.. Wait!!! I am not talking about the yummy choc chip biscuits, I am talking about the game.



Hide and Seek used to be one of the must play games, esp. during summer vacations when all the cousins would come together and we could hide anywhere in the house. All the cupboards, under the tables, under the cots, bushes would be occupied.

I heard this song in the morning, “Kanna muche kaade goode”. I realized all of a sudden, we used to play hide and seek saying this too..

There were times when we would gang up against the youngest cousin or the innocent (read silent and the usual bakra), and make him/her the seeker. As soon as we knew the bakra is going near one person, rest of them would make sounds. We would add in new rules and change a few existing ones. We were a little cruel that way. Unless, we made one person cry out of frustration, there was no satisfaction.

We used to play this with neighborhood kids too. There was a lot of favoritism when this happened. Irrespective of who was out, the main of the game wasn’t hiding and seeking, it was to trouble the seeker :

Probably, we still play the game these days. In office we keep hiding from the seekers… if you know what I mean ;)

Monday, January 11, 2010

Movie Marathon

I know calling it a movie marathon is an understatement. But, considering the situation of obtaining tickets here in B’lore, I would surely term watching 2 movies in theatres on weekend as a marathon.

Yes, I watched the hyped Avatar (3D) and 3 Idiots.

Do they live up to the hype? I would say, pretty much yes.

Avatar:

If only I could watch Avatar in IMAX, it would have done complete justice to the movie. It was a simple story, told in the most magical way. The story was similar to any bollywood movie (mind u just the story). The whole new world was created. As everybody else said, it was a visual treat. The animals, the plants, the way the Navi’s connected to each other was just out of the world. When they prayed together, you could sense that their ancient gods actually listened to these prayers. I personally loved the floating mountains, magical tree, also their home tree, the hammock beds. Jake was really handsome (earth waala), I liked his Navi avatar too, but considering his long plait and the long tail, I would rather stick to the earthly Jake. He was the Hero, no doubt, esp with his big orange dragon. For a change, it was good to see that we were the Aliens, but the bad part was earthlings went to destroy their beautiful Pandora. Well, each and every point is worth a mention, and I don’t want to leave out anything. So, I better stop here… Go watch it.. if you haven’t…

Watching it in 3D was good, but I wouldn’t say it was outstanding. Either I watched a lot of 3D movies or it was because of not watching it in IMAX. I felt it was long for a English movie (considering no intervals). But, watch it in IMAX, to get a thrilling experience.

3I:

Aal is well… This is the mantra of the movie. Most of them including the baby go by this mantra. From Millimeter to Wangdu, from Chatur to Virus, I loved all the characters. What can I comment about Aamir. He can totally convince the audience, that he is just a college boy. The speech from Chatur had the audience in splits. Everytime Virus had an encounter with Rancho, we would expect something to happen, and something unusual did happen. Ofcourse, Madhavan and Sharman made it look like cake walk. It wasn’t boring in any part. Every small incident, seemed to bring atleast a smile on your face.

All this aside, the beauty of Shimla and Ladak were so beautifully captured. I am almost planning my next vacation there.

Only misfit according to me was Kareena. I don’t know why, but felt that she looked older than Aamir. But as they say Aal is well… Way to go all you IDIOTS.

Monday, January 04, 2010

Baarish kar de paison ki

When I heard this line for the first time - “Main Baarish Kardoon paison ki jot u hojaaye meri”, we were travelling in car. I turned to G and we had this conversation

Me: “Ab baarish kar tu paison ki, main to hoon ab teri”.

He: “Meri to tu kabse hai, ab kyon baarish karoon?”

Me: “Pehle pata hota to itni jaldi nahi mannti :)