trip to Sentosa ...

( Slightly longish one ....)

Sentosa island is a popular tourist resort in Singapore, its just about 2 km long but filled with beaches, various other popular tourist attractions and luxury hotels and golf courses.

Sentosa can be accessed by monorail, cable car as well as by bus. We took the monorail , the ticket included complimentary passes to a few major attractions on the island as well.

As the monorail coach passed thru a few bends n came close to the island , we were jolted from our admiration of the nearby docks and sea by shrieks of “merlion … merlion” by a small kid who was sitting near us in our coach .

Merlion is the symbol of Singapore, its what Eiffel tower is to Paris (atleast thts what I understand … maybe its like Burj incase of Dubai) . The actual Merlion is near Singapore river though, googling tells me there are 4 merlion statutes in Singapore . All said n done, this one is the biggest and is really grand sight!

We went further up to a place called Imbiah lookout from where we took a ride up ‘Calsberg’sky tower which is offers a terrific view of Sentosa and some parts of Singapore.

Then we visited the brilliantly done “Ïmages of Singapore “… This showcases the culture of Singapore and lets the visitor experience the journey/ evolution of Singapore through ages. It started off with a short movie about what makes the culture of Singapore so unique n spl , followed by a tour through the neatly done museum which captured the journey of Singapore through last 400 years. The concept is well done and everything is conveyed neatly, I would say it is a must visit for any tourist to understand Singapore , its culture , evolution and what makes it unique !

I particularly liked the initial 5 min experience in which tale of Singapore was narrated; to me it seemed straight out of pages of a Harry Potter book! (for those who have actually seen it .. I do have a wild imagination J )

Next came the ‘4-D’ experience, it was a short 3-D movie plus some features to make you really connect with the movie! Did not have time for the Luge and decided to check out Underwater park instead. There are basically 3-4 points in the island where attractions/adventures are present, you can travel around from one point to next either thru trams or buses. Buses take a shorter route, while trams take a much more scenic route. We took the bus and were lucky to get a double decker open top bus , as we were going from one end of the island to other end , we got a mini-island tour in the bus. Since it was already afternoon we decided to check the dolphin lagoon first and the journey through the island to the point where this place was lovely on the open-top bus.

Dolphin lagoon is a huge crowd puller , the place got full in no time and the dolphins were fantabulous (for want of better word !) . I got a big surprise when I saw them for the first time , they were pink !!! it was kinda unreal at first , heard or even imagined that there could be a pink animal …

But it was good and the show was wonderful and is a must see for visitors to Singapore , we then went to Underwaterworld which was located in another end of the island in a beach tram , which goes alongside the scenic beach .

Underwater world is a pretty good place too , the collections of marine animals from various parts of the world is awesome , but the highlight was the underwater tunnel . We pass through a transparent tunnel where we are surrounded by fishes on all sides; we actually look up at fishes moving above us! Got a greak kick outta watching sharks and other big fishes zooming over us ! Another interesting thing was the presence of RFID … the fishes had RFID tags whenever a fish passed near the display screen thanks to RFID reader , the screen would display info bout the fish which is closest to it… pretty neat usage of technology.

Finally there was Fort Siloso , which was a fort built by British in more than 100 yrs back to guard the harbour . It was equipped with a battery of big guns to thwart any attack on British Empire; the guns are a majestic sight even now. It is a sort of museum with ammo stores, barracks, tunnels, living quarters of soldiers with audio commentary and life size replicas of soldiers inside each place to give us an idea of how the fort operated. The big guns at various points in the fort are the highlight.

It was late in the evening and as we were too exhausted we decided to call it a day and returned back to mainland by cable car from Sentosa. Hope to be back some other time and cover few other wonderful attractions which we missed out this time !

Also observed tht the island was ruled by Coke … no Pepsi at all !!!

All in all I should say that these guys have done a fabulous job of developing(or rather marketing) a tiny little island into such a popular tourist destination ... just a quick glance at numbers from websites tell me what i suspected when i visited the place ... this tiny island attracted 5 million tourist last year compared to 4 million tourists visiting entire India !!!

There is actually nothing so great in this island when you compare it with the natural beauty and the kind of sights and sounds that a well packaged Indian tourism can provide ... but again the numbers quoted earlier tell us clearly what really happens !

the 'K'-factor

This is about our tinsel town .. but dont worry its not about the K-serials of eKtaa Kapoor !

saw OmShantiOm this Friday @ Dubai ... desi movies r nice to watch in a foriegn land .. though u can hardly call Dubai 'phoren' place .. given the fact that ppl from subcontinent seem to b the majority here ! a hall packed with ppl who speak ur language share same culture does seem to make even the most horrible movies digestible !

No, the movie in question OSO was'nt bad , it was pretty decent entertainer and was good in some parts esp the references and digs at the industry itself !

Another very interesting thing bout the movie was the K-factor , as in , you need a surname starting with K - Kapoor , Khan , Khanna etc to make it big in film industry ...
No , just changing your name wont do , u need to be born as son/daughter of a K

The movie had 2 SRKs ... a struggling actor without the 'K' name and a superstar-son who becomes what he is because of the 'K' surname ... there was also a funny filmfare award bit in which 4 real life star fathers come and pitch for their respective sons !

It makes a very valid statement , especially given the fact that it is coming from the man who many people believe is the last hope for people who dont have family connections and wish to make it big in bollywood ! When you think of it there is hardly anybody you can remember in last 15-20 years who made it really big without somebody in film industry other than the SRK ...

Another intriguing coincidence is the fact that this movie OSO , which highlights the 'star power' concept, actually released this Diwali against a movie which stars not one but two 'K'apoor kids in a ultra-lavish dream debut which ordinary mortals cannot even dream of !

Evolution & cellphones

No you read it right , the title is not evolution ‘of’ cellphones , its evolution and role played by cellphones in it.

From the time life originated on earth the process of evolution has been one straight forward yet rough and tough game. Only those who have something special and extra survive , there lot of terms for these like natural selection and survival of fittest which has ensured that all the species which are currently present on earth are there coz they have something which others don’t have. It could some characteristic like the neck of a giraffe or trunk of an elephant or hump of camel or the thick fur coats of animals in colder regions and various other unique qualities in all animals, which helps it in more ways than one and helps it prevail upon on competition. This kind of unique trait ensures that out of same animal family some species which are more developed survive and they hone these traits or features to the level of perfection.

Now you might be wondering how on earth is wildlife and evolution related to mobile phones ?

Well I give you two choices , either I have too much time to spare and love taking people for a ride ! Or that Im going to make an interesting point , I will let you decide which one of these two is correct.

So only the species which have evovled and adapted very well to the evironment has managed to survive , but who rules the earth ? Well , Homo Sapiens ( thats you and me) of course.

Next question would be how ?

I know the conventional answer would be that its because of that highly developed brain of ours and our ability to think or rather out think the competion that we have become masters of the earth.

Ofcourse that is correct , but I would say that this ability to innovate as in “make tools'' and harness energy and all , has actually made us the leader of the pack.

Over the years right from stones which were converted to some forms of crude weapons to the age of metals to much more recent tools like guns gave man a control over all other forces around him. Man got so much control that those forces around him stopped mattering that much. All these tools which made our life easier or helped us survive and overcome competition can be considered to be part of our evolution. The same way an animal which has to hunt faster prey develops and perfects attributes like stealth and precision , we developed things like automobiles and gadgets of precision to make ourselves safe and comfortable .Hence I consider these gadgets as part n parcel of our evolutionary growth.

Let’s get over with gadgets which helped us evolve further and develop as a race and come straight to the gadget which rules in 21st century , which is none other the ubiquitous mobile phone/cellphone ...

The word Cell some 10-15 years would have surely meant confines of a prison , but cell today is gadget for liberation !

Cellphone has truly helped us evolve in multiple senses ... This pocket size gadget has replaced lots of heavy weight gadgets and has captured the hearts ( nay shirt pockets) of millions ranging from Compnay CEOs to peons.It comes in various sizes ,shapes and forms from plain low-end phone to ultra cool i-phones to Blackberry phones , the cellphone market has something for everyone.

Now to substantiate my theory that mobiles have truly helped us evolve or make our lives better , I choose a few real life examples where people used this gadget in their day to day lives and succeded in their business . To drive home the point I choose the common man as focal point of all my examples.

Among the first stories of business growth driven by cellphones were that of fishermen in kerala .

Once cellphone era began these fishermen no longer had to sell fish in the local beaches; they were able to find out the exact price for fish in the various markets outside their home territory and were able to sell their catch at best possible prices.. Overall they ended up making more money and also resulted in the reduction of prices for the consumers as lesser fish were wasted ... more the fish less the price , simple economics...

Basically it eliminated geographical barriers for business and 'where' you were present no longer became a constraint provided you had a cellphone , let me elaborate with a few more common-man examples.

In my hometown , we have an electrician cum plumber who used to handle both house work and do repairs in his shop . As his work was good, he began getting more and more house calls. The only way to contact him was to go to his shop and tell his assistant the nature of the problem. Then we had to wait till he got back from his previous assignment and came to our house. Since he covered a wide area , more often than not if the person was not present in the shop , people would not prefer to wait they would rather go to some other person. Now with a mobile phone, he is just a call away and he immediately tells us where he is and how quickly he can come. This results in more business for him, less effort for us(his customers) also. Same with auto-drivers in, earlier they used to wait in the auto-stand and you had to go to the auto-stand to hail an auto or if you were lucky on the way you might get an auto. Today we just give a call to an auto-driver we know, he will come to our house to pick us up or call any of his friends who might be in the same area and ask them to pick us up !

I was travelling in the local bus in Bangalore 6 months back and a few construction workers were travelling with me and to my surprise I heard cell phone ringing in the pocket of a shabby looking guy next to me and it was a call from some contractor for some work in some other part of B’lore for him and his group. He told me after they got a cell phone they are never out of work. These are just a couple of examples I could remember off hand nowadays everyone from tailors to hairdressers are just a call away and mobile phone has simply changed the way business happens.

QED : Mobiles have become a necessity if you need to stay in the race these days or you get left behind and others march ahead of you.

( this is the first in a series of posts im planning on cellphones and their role in our life ... to be continued )

DCP - (D)mystified

... the word which is a rage in my class these days is 'DCP' ...

DCP for dummies expands to Desperate Class Participation and is quite a remarkable phenomenon/tendency/ in some circles even labeled as 'disease' which can b found in most 'b-schools'.

The basic defintion is "It is a (shameless) act of asking a question in the class to pickup marks for class participation or just to impress the professor"

This comes in various forms and though this article does not claim to exhaustively cover this phenomenon as newer variants keep cropping up every now and then ( just now got an update thru gtalk bout 2 new variants springing up in the neighbouring class), we do promise to keep you updated on the latest developements on this front.

coming back to the word in focus , DCP strikes in most lectures the most common and easily reconginable symptom is the raised hand which keeps pace with the movement of lecturer's eyes ...

the basic premise behind this is believed to be the good old proverb tht "in an mba course any publicity is good publicity" ... ooops was'nt the saying meant for politics! ... with so many questions being popped around in the class, brains of ordinary mortals like me are bound to get addled.

There are a few basic instances when DCP surfaces ... first and foremost is when the lecture gets a bit boring and some of the participants decide enough is enough and starts asking Questions .. no one really knows what these questions are and how they are related and so on ... Dont ask me any further details , i generally wake up during this time ... so pardon me for not noting the question or what exactly happened .. but more often than not the questions are met with an exasperated "so whats your point ? what are u exactly asking?" tone or with curt and abrupt to the point answers like the "that was the paper covered in last term ..." or "we are yet to discuss the relevence of that on krakotan economy ..." sorry some of us quietly doze off ...
Another is when partipant gets very enthusiastic and tries to really sink her/his teeth into it ..arrhhhhhhh ... more often than not these Q go much beyond scope of Phd in the subject !

Another funny variant is when person is despo type and feels bad tht she/he has not participated much and asks questions from the slide the lecturer is covering when point no:1 is discussed , the DCPer jumps to point 4 and asks some Q related to tht !

Somewhat harmless one is when a particpant suddenly wakes up after forty winks and more often than because Prof has seen her/him dozing ... When the mind is torn between annoyance in having to wake up and guilt in having missed what was discussed , she/he comes up a smart way to snap out this .. ask Q !

So the question that comes to our mind is tht why does this happen ? of course there are quite a few obvious explanations like someone out there who designed the course actually thought giving marks for participation was a good idea ( believe me lot of ppl r hunting for tht person , i assure u we will take proper care of her/him) , but during some really drab lectures I got some real interesting opinions/theories ... the best one was that DCP is perpetrated by a group aliens with a mission to destabilise planet earth and this is done thru contact with ppl who wil shape India of tomorrow .... This could easily explain why clever people yours truly avoid any class particpation to avoid any contact with these aliens .. we will outlast the aliens and Earth can count on us ...

now most of the profs are pretty smart folks and can easily see thru an attempted DCP .. now each one has their on style of dealing with it .. lenient/poor ones try to even answer it and get bogged down and have vacant looks on their faces as Q follow Q .. some just let it pass...
the best ones hav been a recent instance where the prof asks the participant to Repeat the Q ... this kinda puts many a DCPer to shame and the the subsequent Q would somewhat rephrased and more logical version of the first one .. some need repeated takes to get this right .. but ofcourse for all his noble intentions i feel there is a minor flaw in this approach keepin in mind the alien-infestation theory tht is doin rounds ... if such an approach is tried with an in-organic life form ,we could end up in endless loops of repeated Q till the alien or replicant or whatever it is runs out of gas/battery charge in its oxygen-methane convertor or some such thing ... ofcourse the fact tht such a thing has not happened in class has made many debunk the alien-invasion theory .. but the guys who proposed the theory assure me , they are working hard to find out more bout these alien life forms .

Another notable approach which is prety aggresive and is to take on dcp er and give some rubbish back and put her/him to shame . Sample this ... "this is like saying there is an ätomic power plant in Krygiztan "... "ok whats your point ?!!!" ...

On the whole however i wud admit tht whether the Q made sense or the ppl gained anything , for good or bad DCP has had an impact on our course and has certainly manged to infuse some life into even the most dullest of classes !

PS: As many of u have rightly guessed this was written in class !

First Impressions ...

Landed in Dubai on a hot summer day in the afternoon … right from the airport itself got accustomed to seeing things on a bigger or rather grander scale(compared to things back in India). We watched in awe as we moved across the huge airport . The moment we stepped out from airport and boarded the SPJCM pick up bus to hostel , we wherever we looked around the city it was just tall buildings n taller buildings emerging out of never ending miles of desert sand and amazing roads n flyovers full of dream cars zooming past us , the ‘wow’ factor continued. The city had set ‘lofty’ standards in our minds and upon arrival in the hostel was pleasantly surprised to see the lofty standards being maintained in the hostel too . The hostel is an entire apartment complex in International city on the outskirts of Dubai, it is just 20 min from college by Bus (arranged by college). We were all shown to our pre-allocated service apartments , which were much beyond what we had expected ! reminded me of the training days at a heaven called Mysore Infosys campus …

The college arranges transport from hostel to college in mornings and the buses leave on the dot , hence its quite a challenge for all of us to get ready in time to catch the bus …

The college is located in a place called academic city , which has lots of educational institutions in the middle of desert ! like most of the places in Dubai this place is also coming up fast and with huge sums of money being pumped in to develop world class infrastructure and things do happen here and happen fast . Its hard to imagine that the whole place was just a stretch of desert 3 yrs back !

All buildings are identical and after a long travel along numerous winding roads we finally reach the college building and after seeing the entire place and hostel , I was kind of thinking that the everything being excellent would be hard. So I thought initially that the college could be a letdown because we already had set very standards based on what we saw so far; I couldn’t be more mistaken … the first few hours itself changed whatever doubts I had about the place. The facilities , the kind of people , the classroom with beautiful amphitheatre like seating arrangement , with video recording of each lecture and the entire atmosphere convinced and reassured me that I had got a very good deal. We had a few ice breaker sessions for us to know each other (given that we were a batch of 150) better . then all the intricacies of the course was explained and we had a guest who was a VP in a reputed UAE based company telling us about life and business climate in middle east in general and Dubai in particular. We also had a couple of visits or rather sightseeing kinda tours arranged by college authorities to give us a feel of the city , mainly to get us adjusted to and feel the ‘global factor’, one of the main reasons for pursuing a MBA here in Dubai. The city visit was followed by a Dhow cruise followed by dinner on the dhow ( big boat) arranged by college as a welcome.

Having thus settled in at the ‘global’city of Dubai , we embarked on the business of learning or earning our stripes and the first week gave us enough indicator of what lies in store , people started adapting quickly to the frentic pace of life in a 1 yr course which almost covers most of the stuff taught in 2 yrs at SPJIMR. The excellent professors (mainly from SPJIMR along with a few resident faculty and guest lecturers from IIMs/XLRI) , the daily quizzes and assignments meant we had our hands full. Class full of people with work-ex ranging from 1-7 yrs of experience spread across all sectors meant rich and insightful classroom discussion/ interactions .In the first month itself we started getting an idea of business in UAE through a series of guest lecturers where people from various sectors in Dubai addressed us. Market research projects meant that all of us had to interact with businesses in Dubai and get to understand what it takes and how they do it ... mine was with a wonderful place called Wolfi's Bike shop .. we went there posing as customers and observed how they add value and how they do business in general ...

That’s just a month down … with 5 more months of learning to follow before heading off to Singapore…

Ps: i guess most of u mite hav already guessed from the wooden style tht this was written for college ! ;)

cat is out of the bag

Finally it is out ... those of us who had tried hard to bell it now know how or why we missed it ... Thanks again to RTI and efforts of ... , the 'process' of IIMB admissions are made public.

The disclosure was something which interested a lot of us who were part of the Cat brigade at sometime or other in our life , though it doesnt really matter now for most ...
Despite fact that the secrecy had lent some sort of aura to the whole process and even though it may not b same again , i think everyone wud defnitely prefer to know it ...

I was totally impressed with the kind of effort and dedication spent in refining and following up the admission process which is supposed to filter and get the best that there is ...


Having written the exam 4 times and having managed to walk across those gates only once for an interview , i know how tough it is ...


Lot of misnomers are cleared btw , about the percieved biases and patterns followed.

Also the odds seem to be stacked against ppl with not so good acads .. apparently CAT score is not the only factor as some coachin centers used to claim ...

Im not so good at summing up whats written in those 5 pages ...

so check this wonderful post by Rashmi which explains what this is all about ...

Dubai slices - Mall of Emirates

Since im spending 6 months here in the desert kingdom , thought of jotting down some of the experiences ...

If you look at Dubai city during daytime the first thing you will notice is zillions and zillions of cranes and buildings under construction , wherever you go and wherever you look you see more and more buildings springing up over the entire desert landscape ...

Another thing which is starkingly different cities back home is that in dubai its dificult to spot human beings/animals or birds outside during the day. But when sun goes down it all changes ... the Dubai skyline by night looks amazing the whole place (incl highways ) is always lit.

Though its a muslim country , unlike its neighbours or for that matter other emirates in the country , Dubai is not a conservative place. It is very comsopolitan mainly due to the huge number of outsiders and huge number of Europeans. So nightlife is pretty rocking here.

The malls are also amazing and you do get good bargains during the shopping festivals and summer sales. currently Dubai Summer Surprises is on .. it runs till end of this month and a huge number of Malls and shops are part of this , we had heard that they offer really amzing discounts , so thot of chking it out.

A few of us went to Mall of Emirates last week , the trip was pretty costly , we went by the offical cab and not the 'lift service' (which is unofficial cab , run by mallu drivers , more bout that later in nother blog) ... the cabbie was incidentally a Punjabi . Taxi drivers here are either Indians or Pakistanis or Bangladeshis ... interestingly when the cabbie heard that we were MBA students said he was an MBA student before , me n my friend Aswin were shell-shocked !
It seems he dropped out of some college bacck home and regrets it hugely and advised us to concentrate hard on our studies ! In midst of all this friendly chatter , the guy took us through roads with Salik toll' and when we finally reached the destination - Mall of emirates , our eye-balls popped out when we saw the meter ...
The attractions in the mall begins right at the parking lot , which is flocked by visitors with cameras :) ... u get to see the best n most flashy cars in the world there , people just wait for the owners/valet to park the car and then click their own pictures with the car !

The mall itself is huge , with many shops being part of Dubai Summer surprises , there were a lot of places where you could get good discounts. You really need a store map to get anywhere in the mall. For all Bangaloreans this mall is like 10-15 times the size of Forum .

The mall also houses a few movie screens and carrefour supermarket inside , this time as DSS was going on there were lot shows on makeshift stages in various parts of the mall , where Asian culture and diversity was on display.

Unfortunately like malls back home in India , on weekdays in this mall also most shops close by 10 , we went too late and by the time we had checked out most of the shops and had kind of identified the shops with best deals , they all started closing !
Finally lots n lots of options for food with starbucks , dunkin and donuts etc and lots coffee shops n fancy restaurants with cuisines across the world. Food court also has variety of options , but good veg food is not so easily available.

PS:
Plannin to drop another visit to the place when a good movie comes along and will add more details

Dubai Slices - meena bazaar

Like the name suggests its a place in Dubai dominated by Indian shops ...

Today we had a somewhat free day @ college , had a quiz in the morning and couple of lectures and a simple group assignment and by 2 in the noon we were free ! They say its difficult to get free time in this course and wanted to get most out of it , so hit the sack immediately to make up for lost sleep ... woke up @ 6 and then suddenly had an idea of going to city . friend of mine wanted to buy watches .. he has a small collection now .. anyways he also jumped at the proposal and got a third aimless, bored soul also and then booked an unofficial (and illegal ! ) 'Mallu' cab (which is an interesting concept and i will dedicate a separate post for that ) to go to Bur Dubai ...


Roads in Dubai are amazing , you can easily run up 100kmph + speeds ... i believe 120 is the limit , but ppl drive around /above that usually ... once u reach the city proper , many areas have nasty traffic snarls and u never miss good ol Bangalore or for that matter any big city in India :)

Went to this place called 'Al-Ain Centre' which is a mall full of electronic goods shops ... was hunting for a pen drive , found the prices dropping as we moved from store to store. After grabbing some food from a Mexican fast food joint there , stepped out into a hot n sweltering Dubai evening...

It was close to 8 pm still it was extremely humid, but by the time we walked a couple blocks all of us were drenched !

Checked out a few watch shops on the way and reached 'Meena Bazaar'. If you are blind folded and dropped suddenly into this place you would think you are in some city in India. for ppl from, B'lore the place resembles Commerical street ! all the streets in that area had Indian shops ... all the people we saw on the streets were Indians / South Asians ...

after futile attempts at watch shopping , we moved around aimlessly (apparently we had missed the street where u get the best deals !)...

This is the place where the average Indian , the ones who come to Dubai to earn a living and tranfers bulk of the money back home , shops - u find shops of all sizes n shapes selling virtually evrything ...
there were a few Indian restaurants / fast food places too ...
Then there was a supermarket where u get all ur 'desi' packaged food stuff , replenished our depleting stocks and jumped back into business of exploring the place , there is a 'temple' also somewhere there , didnt find it when we went around ... there was a lot more to explore , but since there was hungry guy n knowledge thirsty guy (wanted to prepare for nxt day's quiz at college) ... i was forced to return back and again got a 'mallu' cab and was back in the hostel by 10 ...

Sivaji @ sharjah !

there are some movies which cannot or should not be reviewed ,Rajni movies definitely fall in that category.Don't get me wrong here , the reason why we cant review it is , reviews dont matter , the story or ensemble cast doesnt matter , a Rajni movie is above all these things , its a phenomenon in itself. A lot of ppl who are not from south may not understand , but Ranjni is not an áctor' in Tamil Nadu (actually entire south ) he is THE 'Superstar'. He appears in only 1 movie in a couple of years and fans eagerly wait for his darshan. By fans its not just rural folk/lower class , but city folks too and a huge crowd of techies/software engineers who are spread all over the world.Blogosphere is full of blogs about how eagerly they are waiting for superstar's movie !
Though im not a big Rajni fan , i feel you just deny the fact the man has the charisma n appeal and is a phenomenon , movies with Rajni needs just Rajni , fans just want a darshan with typical style n mannerisms.So when i set out to watch the movie 'Sivaji' on a hot sultry evening in Dubai , i had my expectations (-> superstar + lots of style , action , some comedy and a cute girl with values as heroine) in the right place , which i believe is important while watching movie of any genre. it was a monday evening in Dubai and the movie hall we were going to had 300 seats , like in India , here also Rajni sells and we could not get tickets at all in Dubai ! So we headed out to nearby city of Sharjah in a cab from dubai ! When the movie had released , i was earlier amused when i heard tales of ppl from Chennai going to other cities to watch the movie and suprisingly here i was doing the same.getting there was in itself an interesting , movie like experience , getting cabbies and arranging the trip to shrajah for 8 of us and seeing a new city was memorable.
We saw lot of southindians out there and saw a shop called madras grocery , where some us bought pickles n such typical tam stuff and then we followed it up with an early dinner @ Saravana bhavan ! it never felt like we were in middle east , we sitting in a huge table and talkin in tamil and the whole place was full of south indians that really set the mood for the evening.
So lemme get straight to the movie , the recipe ( perfected for Rajni movies over years) was there , the ingredients were definetly there , ppl handling it were the best lot of tamil cinema ( shankar n his crew is the best u can think of ) but the final effect was not what i was really looking forward to ! it simply was not what i wanted , something was missing considering the hype , the potential of ppl involved the final effort was def not justified , but who cares , its a Rajni movie they say and he is there and i guess thats all counts for most !for ppl like me who were looking for a 'movie' along with superstar, there's bound to be some dissapointments.Having said that it was not all that bad i definetly though it was worth my dirhams !
Rajni was usual self and was in top form , supporting cast was adequate , Shriya was nice eye-candy and fitted the role , 'item-girl' Nayantara was wow ! Vivek was in top from with his one-liners n his terrific comic timing with Rajni had everyone in splits. The first half was just not what i had in mind , it was a let-down for me personally , a view shared by most ppl in my group. the story was typical Shankar stuff , one man taking on the system for the benefit of masses , it was fight against money laundering /black money in this particular case. But dialogues and pacing of songs ( though masterpieces by themselves ) was really bad !but i guess overall the movie must have addressed Ranji's fan base , it was for the masses, it had all the fantasies of tamil male viewer , there were references to MGR , sivaji and even Rajni's prev films , i liked the bit "enna koduma saravana"and ref to vadivelu during comedy scenes , all in all a movie for the fans ...but still felt that it as a movie lacked the punch we wud have expected ...
i read this one the movie reviews and when i saw the movie , i realised how true it was , there was scene were rajni while trying to woo shriya gets stuck on a track & is about to be run over by the train. the same was true for movie til then , it was bout to be run over by the expectations and if it proceed at that pace would have been smashed to bits n pieces. But shriya comes along waving here duppata n saves the hero and funnily after that point film also gets saved. The pace picks up , Rajni starts to kick ass and get into the role we are familiar with the trademark style satements , superhero stunts and dialogues all fall into place and it is an amzing journey after that. Most of our movies begin well and lose the fizz subsequently and endings are weak points in most of Indian movies , but here was a glorious exception , i absolutely loved the last 15 min , where Rajni transforms himself into MGR from Sivaji , his appearance n screen presence was terrific and the last 15 min made the movie for me ! The movie is supposed to have one of the highest budgets in Tamil Cinema , agreed the sets were grand n all , but still was wondering where all that money went , the final 5-10 min gave me an idea of how so much money was spent ;-)

A cat n mouse game !

Writing had always been first in the list of things i 'wanted' to do .. though i did make attempts at writing fiction, i never completed anything ; also sad part of bout my attempts was that none my stories packed the punch. As with most stories these days mine also had its moments but when it came to finishing i realised that i was pathetic. Though i kind of fixed that urge to write by coming up with this blog where i keep ranting bout lotsa usual stuff . Since i found myself outta work for some time , thought of makin another shot at fiction , starting another story
(disclaimer: it could b loong boring and may or may not make sense as i still havent figured out an ending )
i was sitting in my bus and was reading a book which i had picked up purely on whim one day from a bookstore , the name somehow appealed to me . im always good at pickin books which are gr8 reads . the book in Q was called "My name is red" written by a turkish author and it did turn out to a real good one , but thats not the point here. i was reading this particular book while i was travelling to my office as i was telling you , i happened to read a chapter which was bout a guy returning to a city where the person he loved lived after a gap of 12 yrs. She had married , but her husband was missing on warfront ... by fotuitous circumstance he happens to catch a glimpse of her one day . I closed the book and was thinkin that it had been 12 months since i last spoke to my ex-girl friend . Not that i was sad or anything , infact i was amazed at how i din feel bad at all considering that previously after break-ups i used to be such an emotional mess and would invariably jump into a realtionship witin a few months , but this time i hadnt wavered , and also for the first time i broke it off ( nothin to b proud of , but a first all the same ! )Now that i have set the tone , let me get back to my story , after closing the book , started walking to my office from the busstop , the whole campus is really huge and swarming with ppl , as i walking to my building i saw a familiar face , i saw her from distance , infact it was not my eyes that noticed her , i knew even before my eyes saw her that it was 'her' - 'she who must not be named'.we were still a sufficient distance apart and i was suddenly flustered as my eyes confirmed that i was indeed 'her and the red line of sindoor drawn on her forehead was clear "RED" signal for me. it wasnt the old her and only one word flashed before me 'Avoid' , i just wanted to get away , i quickly changed directions and moved into a buliding nearby , i realised that i cud hear my hearbeating and that i was feelin a little hot under collar !!!i still couldnt beleive my rotten luck for she used to work elsewhere in another part of the country !moreover i had resigned my job as i was takin up a new assigment and would be speding most of the time abroad.i just had a little more than a week left and i badlywanted leave that part of my past which involved her among many other things behind.I quicly went to my desk and realised i was early , i grabbed a cup of cofee and stood near the window watching the entrance to my building and to my relief foumdout that she wasnt in my bulding and hence not in my department. So there was hope yet , i just had to watch my step. with thousands of ppl around i was sure i could move around for another 10 days unnoticed !It was evening and a colleague asks my why im working so hard daily even though i have quit the job ! I quickly close the chat windows and mails/articles that i was reading and lean across my desk and shout back saying "i get so immersed in this that i never realise it!" ( boy i can shoot crap !). But anyways since most of frens r offline , i think its time to shut shop , so leave with her. we walk till the busstand , then i move to the terminus where buses heading to my directions come and i find that there are 3 buses which are about to start. There were around 50 odd buses starting in that 20 min period from that terminus and 3 to my place. I choose one ( thinkin bout the how narrow the odds were for another encounter with 'you know who' ) and i get in and i get this strange feelin again and there 'she' was sitting in the front row near door , she was talkin on phone but i was sure she saw me , i quicly moved in and took a seat in the back row, By now i kinda figued that she mite living in same area as me ( had to be !) Since the place i lived was at almost in the heart of the city , the we were always caught in traffic jams , so i thought of gettin down 1 stop before mine and i was sure that if i walked i will reach at the same time as the bus reached the stop. I crossed the road and walked to stop near my home and headed into a store nearby from there i watched the bus coming slowly past the traffic and people started disembarking and just as i thought she got down at the same stop ! To my relief she lived a few blocks away from my house and i slowly walked back to my house aware of the cat n mouse game that awaited me daily at my office.
(to be continued ...)
Ps: Thanks for all the comments , unfortunately had to hide the comments as you ppl commented before reading the full story , i do plan to complete it pretty soon , got held up lots of stuff after moving to Dubai , hence the delay !

Million Dollar Babies !

what do you think of it ? asked my friend while we were watching TV. Tv channels all of them were into "Team India" bashing mode then , the very media who projected them as heroes were now after them show after show , funnily in between these debates the ads featured had cricketers endorsing products ( initially !)... on tv we were flooded with images of fans going berserk ... majority demanding that the team come back right now and stop 'disgracing' us !
( where were these ppl n those who interviewed em when hockey team was playin or when any other intl sports meet where we took part was happenin .. i wonder ;-) )
well it was that time of the World Cup when a extremely cautious India was shocked by a carefree Bangaldesh. I had hopes of the team bouncing back then as i beleived (and continue to beleive that we are a good team) but it was not be. Ex-cricketers , who had given 'expert' opinions bout the greatness of current team and had rubbished Bangaldeshis before the match , suddenly discovered that the team was not good and were able to come up with a lot of flaws. More hilariously TV channels went around asking common men and funnily filmstars for advice on what was wrong with Indian cricket... comments were really hilarious ( some sick) to say the least. here are some i recollect ...universal conclusion was that it was ads which was responsoble for the 'spineless' capitulation ..."stop them from doing all these ads , then they will be better cricketers" they all quipped . They should stop doing all these ads and practise harder instead they all chimed . How easy is the life of an arm chair critic ! we are a nation of under achievers yet we expect our cricketers to do magical feats. Ads i thot meant safe n secure income and optimistic way of lookin at it wud mean that a cricketer who has a 5 yr contract wud not be very worried about getting out and can be free of pressure and hence can perform better which cud lead to more ads and more money .. translating to more motivation for ground breaking performances ! But whole country acc to media polls thinks otherwise ... Another enterprising gentleman had this formula , there some 10 point agenda to reform Indian cricket ! Another KPS Gill in making i guess :-) if they dont perform , dont pay them they thundered. ..
some ( inc TOI newspaper !) were of the view that cricketers should be given targets like sales executives ... " they should be set a target of say 40 runs ave .. to be maintained over a period of 10-15 ODIs , if u dont match it u r dropped, same for bowlers , they should have x economy rate and ave over a period of time or they r dropped".
Gosh .. how idiotic can ppl get ! now they want ppl to conc on the personal records instead of helping the team win. now if these ppl/media have their way u will have ATP style ranking system wherein the top 11 wud make it to the team and others wud work hard to earn points to make it to top 11 and enter the team ;-) one politician was quick to poune on this and demanded bannin cricket as solution to all our problems ... i guess a better solution wud be to ban all these politicians, who discuss cricket in Lok sabha instead on concentrating on graver issues n problems botherin the nation.
my answer to 'it' would be that we are a nation which is evolving fast yet some things like mindset dont change so fast. im sure we will in due course realise that our Cricketers are no heroes they are also humans like each one of us and are prone to failures like most of us !
Our society has changed/evolved a lot in last 25-30 yrs when watching sports / playing was considered criminal waste of time by most parents ... to healthy appreciation of both .. to current trend of coaching camps , tennis academies where 6-8 yr olds are dropped for coaching by ever eager parents... The cricket economy has grown at a much faster pace then the game itself in our country and hopefully sooner or later this gulf wud get bridged , this defeat i guess wud in that sense go a long way in correcting the perspectives of most and would actually do us a lot of good in the longer run ... Soon we will come terms with defeat and will realise as late Bob Woolmer said "it is after all a game" !

Bang on Target !

They have done it ... it is yet to sink in for the 2 heavyweights from subcontinent.
It was supposed to be a walk in the park for both , but suddenly both India and Pakistan find that the park has turned into a maze and they have totally lost their way. Pak has been booted out , but India still has a chance to make it . If they come out of the mental maze they have created for themselves . As expected newspapers and news channels are full of criticism for the players , which rite now is waste of time . When one team played like tigers and other team was bleating around like lost lambs it was an uneven contest ( i was initially tempted to call this post "Silence of lambs" and lambast Ind :-) ) . yes we all do feel bad that our team remained as tigers only in the pepsi commercial ! But simply shouting @ them / attacking thier houses is not the way out ... we need to back them to come back ... on the same note , while everyone were fretting about team's chance of bouncing back we are missing a huge phenomeon ... Cricket is slowly coming of age , liberated from clutches of the elitist club of 7 top nations and others can now swing their weight equally at world stage . Now isn't that something ...
Who would have expected all this a few days back !
This was the first time we had a World Cup with so many teams and there was this talk of 2 different WC contests , round one was to be fun with minnows and then the big ones get together to fight the real world cup in a round billed as super8 !
but i guess yesterday changed it all ! WC has seen its share of upsets and tales of underdogs pulling it off like that of Kenyans last time. But politics and hence teams forfeiting matches played a role then , which is the reason why the matches yesterday are so different.
Now cricket WC has started resembling Soccer WC a bit , we are not yet there , but looks like this could be a beginning for more exciting contests . Honestly i never believed it when ppl called this group D as 'group of death' , such things happen in Soccer maybe but not in cricket is what i believed , but Bangladesh has shown the spirit and has acheieved the impossible. But what Ireland has achieved is totally unbelievable esp for a team playing its first Cup , I cant beleive it is yet to be beaten in WC !!!
And to think of it most of the ppl were looking forward to "April 15 " ( when India was supposed to meet Pak in Super 8 !!! ) , guess we need to wait another 4 yrs for that !

The Sixth Sense

I do have this tendency to name my blogposts after movie titles/TV shows (!) but in most these cases its simply because they happen to be the most apt title. Sixth sense i something i totally believe in and every now and then I can see some proof of this phenomenal power of human mind.
I normally see this phenomenon coming handy when im leaving for office ( its actually rushing to catch the last bus) in the morning. I usually have a huge paraphrenalia which i carry to office with various assorted items like gym clothes , id card , cellphone , tie , wallet et all ..
I have noticed that whenever i miss something , there will be some voice inside me telling me "u have missed something" and during the frantic process of getting ready most often than not it manages to remind me the object i have missed also !

Yesterday i saw this mind thing happening again and boy Im really thankful for all those senses !
We had gone out yesterday on a team outing to Mysore Infy Campus and got back to Bangalore @ 10 at night , some of us had dinner and a couple of ladies had to be dropped at their homes , so after dropping the last person , i was walking to my place.
The street i live which incidentally is good representation of urban India , with big posh houeses and flats at one end of the street and small shops and cluster of shabby houses/huts at the other end. Typical 'two Indias' street . Importantly for this tale it also has a butcher's shop at one end so there are lots of stray dogs in the area. Banglore these days is famous for its street dog menace with growing no:of attacks on human population. In my area i had earlier seen packs roaming around at nights and occassionaly just for the kicks , giving a few bikers a chase! Enough has been said and written about what should be done to 'tackle' this problem and who is to blame for this , since i dont have anything significant to contribute on that note , i limit my comments on another interesting 'phenomenon' i observed during a brief encounter with the canines.

Coming back to my tale ,I was walking from the 'other' end of street and before i turned into my street , i remembered last time i had come through the area so late @ night . It was a month back with my cousin and we were coming back after watching a late night movie , he had suggested picking up a couple of stones with us so that if any dogs chase us, we have some ammo to reply back ! I had scoffed at his idea then , but then while i was walking i thought of that incident and picked up a couple stones without giving it much thought.
As i was walking and reached the 'dreaded' end of my street i got a call on my cellphone and was engrossed in it and didnt notice the fact that right in front of my were 4 stray dogs. After ending the call ( which was for some issues at office , requiring me to work on weekend) and ruing my bad luck and a weekend gone waste , i moved past a pack of dogs and suddenly i was greeted by a series of barks and couple of dogs came running towards me . Though reason dictated that i should not panic and should keep still , I found that reason and logic could not hold against 5 dogs who were very close to my legs.Suddenly in a split second i had thrown the couple of decent sized stones i had collected earlier at my attackers and which kept them at bay and then at the next instant before i knew it i had started running , though something told me it was wrong to run when there are dogs around , i ran for a few seconds at the max speed i could conjure up. Fear gives you wings they say and it was true within no time i was pretty near my house and i realised that there were a few ppl walking in the streets in front of me who were now watching this spectacle ! I slowed down and noticed that dogs were no longer chasing me , i seemed to have moved out of their territory , there were some dogs much further ahead , so concluded that i must moved to no-man's land ... oops no-dog's land ! Then a guy who was walking in opp dir came up to me and told me that you should never run when dogs bark and best thing to do is to move away slowly! But when 4 dogs come towards you barking , i guess logic takes a second seat to panic!!!
Anways i think if not for those stones which repulsed them for a second or two and helped me make my getaway ... i wud have been easy target for those dogs, given that i had comminted the blunder of running when they were barking at me ...
I for sure believe it was some kind of sixth sense which made me pickup those stones given the fact that i have travelled thorough that area a number of times before this late in the night and had never been chased by dogs .

A River Runs through it ...

Its a 100 yr old debate and just like other tussles over sharing of natural resources between states/nations this one also will never get solved. But on monday 5th Feb when Cauvery tribunal was abou to to give its verdict , a lot of people where waiting for the verdict with bated breath ... Among this lot were a lot of my colleagues at office ... now how does water sharing formula of a river which runs through 2 states and primarily affects the farmers would interest the crowd of techies was kinda puzzling to me initially. But then this is city of Bangalore in Karnataka and the waters of Cauvery is deeply linked with politics of the region.

Along with water tussle there is another big fight in the offing a similar yet diff kind of problem ... While flowing through two states the river also seems to dividing ppl from these two states , instead of finding means to solve their problems , ppl seem content to bicker from either side of the river. Everyone has their own share of problems and actions like violence against ppl from the other state will never help in bring a solution. River seems to run through 2 set of people and dividing ppl living in the city , the war has begun with cable operators firing the first salvo; all tamil TV channels have been blocked since the day the verdict came out ! Most of the bus services have been suspended between the states since then ...Stage seems to set for anti-Tamil movement .Though most people know such measures are hardly ever going to help .. things just happen . During such times voices of reason are seldom heard, it is these moments when reason fails that as an individual you feel totally helpless ...

Last time things came to this level was in '91 when after the verdict came things changed and people changed . .. it was a totally harrowing time for the sizeable tamil population in the cosmopolitan city fo B'lore .

Ofcourse I was not there , but knew a lot of close friends and family members who were here @ Bangalore ( city they call their home) . "...it was really a situation of riots brought to ur door...
u won't understand...no one who wasn't there will understand...
being tamils was a huge thing...u could get killed for that... " was what i got when i asked one of them why is there such a huge buildup to the Cauvery tribunal verdict which came out today ...

Now suddenly a lot of us have this slight feeling of insecurity which is suffered by majority of the minority groups all over the world ...

As usual politicians and small time leaders as is their wont , have begun fishing in troubled waters and if last week's riots in some parts after rally to protest execution of Suddam Hussein ( 1 month after the execution) was any indication , there is a huge danger of this issue escalating into another widespread riots. Now the latest news is that Bandh call which was made for Thursday earlier is now postponed to monday so that they can do adequate 'preparations' !