When i started the last post on same topic i took a slight detour while picturing the old classroom , the effort was solely to convey that very little has changed in the system. Its month of March tht means its Class X / Class XII board exam time again .. same old remember Hall ticket ... be in the exam venue on time , do not copy/interact with kid next to you , concentrate ,perform well in the all important exam , the same boring academic rigmarole the system imposes on us... This one test is supposed to determine where u end in life (atleast that's what the kids think or are made to think) that is the system most of us grew up in , some say we are good because of this sytem , maybe or maybe not ... i wud like to believe we made it despite the system !
So this post is my ramble on the current system as i compose this i realise i will make one more post after this !
As i read the newspaper i see stories about how certain kids forgot their hall-tickets and reached exam venues , a few other kids missed their train / got stuck in traffic etc and cudnt make it to exam hall on time . This time all these people called some 'Board Helpline' and informed the powers tht be of their miserable plight. Kids who cudnt make it were allowed to write in nearest centre , the ones who came late were granted extra time to finish their papers , the kids who misplaced their hall ticket were allowed inside !
Thts such a nice story for the newspaper ! But seriously why were the kids made to travel to a far-off centre , why cudnt they give it in a place close their home in first place ? Wud a Hall ticket be needed if the kid is writing exam in the same school itself or cudnt the examination Authorities collect the photo and signature of each candidate . Later along with Qn sheets given to the neutral invigilator at kids own school ,why cant they give a sheet containing Candidate name , photo , signature ?!!!
A poor 15 yr old kid already has the pressure of one exam which (acc to her/him ) will determine where she/he will end up in life ... it doesnt matter if he/she has aced the smaller tests , exams in Class X , it doesnt matter if he or she has topped from Class I to Class IX ... This one exam determines his worth ... at such a young age isnt tht a huge pressure you are putting them under ...
No i wont take talk like survival of fittest etc ! coz my point is this determination of academic worth after 10 yrs of schooling shuldnt be based on a single exam held on one particular day in the year .
Finally doing well in the exam is not just about ur academic worth , its about how well you are handling the stress , how thousand other external/internal factors co-odinate and cooperate with you plus some dollops of luck which determines how you perform in this system . Make no mistake about this -hardwork does pay most of the time .
But when you see external factors like simple forgetting to get ur pen box , vehicle breaking down , traffic jam and a 100 other things make a mess of quite an amount of hard work , you gotto feel for the poor kid being put under such extreme pressure !
So what do we DO about this ?
Proposal 1 :Cant a computerised test like SAT be conducted between say March 1 to March 31 be used instead of all this ! kids can choose their own order of computersied test , they can take their stronger subjects first or move from weak to strong , which ever suits them . Bottomline is technology needs to be used to make the scene better for the students end to end
Proposal 2 : Dont reduce exam to a single chance in an academic year .. give them an opportunity to bounce back from unexpected setbacks . Second chance based on predefined conditions - to be selected when applying for exam
Based on their previous scores / averages the kids can set a minimum and good score for an exam for eg if im strong in English and i expect to score 70 min .. i wud set
the range and if fail to score 70 or above , but at same time score above 50 { min target - 20 } then I can be given a retest chance
On the other hand if im sure of acing say Math and set my min score target as 90 then if i dont score 90+ but score above 70 { min - 20 , again helps to convince the Board tht u r a genuine 90+ type of guy } then u can be given a chance again
Now if u aim to score 70+ and score 42 then u dont get a second shot , same case u get nervous and screw up twice , then u had it coming kid !
[Note :Im just making up a few numbers here for illustrative purposes , but the aim of the exercise according to me is to reduce luck factor , wean away pressure and allow people a fair chance to make a mark]
Proposal 2.1 : Again computerised tests as mentioned earlier to be administered for all subjects , this will help kids with not so good handwriting (esp ppl who write like me ! ) , since no one writes anything by hand anymore , so why insist on result of such a huge exam dependent on someone's handwriting . These days computer corrects everyone's english spelling , so punishing kids for English spelling errors in manual papers doesnt make sense anymore IMO !
PS : Part 3 of this on the way ... now thts connected to education scene but in a totally different way !
PPS : In case you are wondering i did screw up my board exams , but managed to move on and do not so badly after tht but at the same time I did ace another Board exam , so i know how it feels to be on both the sides !
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Education system - when will the change come ?
I finished my school 10 years ago ; I changed 5 schools during the 14 yrs of schooling , we always had same kinda classrooms with desks and benches , playgrounds cramped with kids .We had textbooks in which the 'stuff to be learnt' was present , we got new textbooks every year and there was notebooks in which whatever learning happened in class was 'recorded' . Initially we wrote with pencil on notebooks ( with double lines , there was even something with squares , one with 4 lines in a group to improve your 'cursive' writing ) then gradually moved from pencil , eraser , sharpener era to ones with fountain pen , Brill/chelpark ink , ink filler , blotting paper/piece of cloth to counter a spillages etc to better pens , finally in my case it was a Hero pen which contained a flawless nib and u just had to put in the ink bottle and it would drink up necessary fuel :) ... then gradually towards the end started using ball-point/micro tip pens. Then there was that geometry box (isnt tht the name ? ) which contained protractor , divider (which was really a mystery device and was never really used ) and compass and a couple triangluar scale like things .. ofcourse in class we had blackboards with duster and white chalk ... there was teacher who was mostly strict , mostly carried a cane around and did not hesitate to use one if needed . Physical punishments i hear is not present tht much these days. Ofcourse there were homework , exams , midterm tests and other gory stuff which was balanced by games period , sports and other competitions in equal measure !
What i described must have been what most of us had in 'class room' the bare basic stuff ... my older cousins had the same , my parents also had the almost the same stuff ... my Grandmom who was a teacher would also say the same when asked to describe school ... i dont know how different is todays classroom in fancy schools in big cities , but rest of India would mention roughly the same on the topic of classroom and learning ... Oh I almost missed it ...there was something called Computer lab which was added to schools in mid 90s ...
Which brings me to the main point of writing this post , how has education system changed over last few decades ? Isnt the way we learn , the way we ' show' how much we learnt , kinda unchanged over last few decades .. but when you look at the outside world for which these kids are 'prepared' in school , there is a whole lot of difference in the kind of jobs and the way the jobs are performed . Todays workers are lot more smarter , more tech savy , tech oriented than the ones before , thats the way it has been always and that is how it will be. When you go to buy provisions , previously the guy at small store used to write something on piece of paper and total it and tell you the amount . But now we buy stuff from supermarkets where smart looking youngsters use bar code reader and determine product code and price and give you a consolidated printout of the bill and use cash register. This is just an example , any field of work for that matter, computers have found a way to make themselves useful. Cellphones have been accepted by people of all strata and have been put to good use to make their lives better. This is the age we live in , where entire population have started embracing technology to lead a better life.
But shouldn''t our education system also evolve much more in tune with the changing world ? im not saying it is exactly the same , whatever changes have happened are cosmetic ones. Im talking of Radical changes not just in select schools , in the whole system ...when we are living in an age where technology is available for masses , shouldn't the education system wean itself away from the traditional 'textbook - notebook' routine with 'board exams' which has existed for ages now ???
Now im not shooting in dark , i do have a few more thoughts inc the main reason for this post , will put it in part-2 of this post ... coming up sooooon
What i described must have been what most of us had in 'class room' the bare basic stuff ... my older cousins had the same , my parents also had the almost the same stuff ... my Grandmom who was a teacher would also say the same when asked to describe school ... i dont know how different is todays classroom in fancy schools in big cities , but rest of India would mention roughly the same on the topic of classroom and learning ... Oh I almost missed it ...there was something called Computer lab which was added to schools in mid 90s ...
Which brings me to the main point of writing this post , how has education system changed over last few decades ? Isnt the way we learn , the way we ' show' how much we learnt , kinda unchanged over last few decades .. but when you look at the outside world for which these kids are 'prepared' in school , there is a whole lot of difference in the kind of jobs and the way the jobs are performed . Todays workers are lot more smarter , more tech savy , tech oriented than the ones before , thats the way it has been always and that is how it will be. When you go to buy provisions , previously the guy at small store used to write something on piece of paper and total it and tell you the amount . But now we buy stuff from supermarkets where smart looking youngsters use bar code reader and determine product code and price and give you a consolidated printout of the bill and use cash register. This is just an example , any field of work for that matter, computers have found a way to make themselves useful. Cellphones have been accepted by people of all strata and have been put to good use to make their lives better. This is the age we live in , where entire population have started embracing technology to lead a better life.
But shouldn''t our education system also evolve much more in tune with the changing world ? im not saying it is exactly the same , whatever changes have happened are cosmetic ones. Im talking of Radical changes not just in select schools , in the whole system ...when we are living in an age where technology is available for masses , shouldn't the education system wean itself away from the traditional 'textbook - notebook' routine with 'board exams' which has existed for ages now ???
Now im not shooting in dark , i do have a few more thoughts inc the main reason for this post , will put it in part-2 of this post ... coming up sooooon
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Cinema paradiso - the week tht was - movie special
These days movies are my fav pastime , and basically watching movies is all i do in life these days. After a point decided to spice things up a little .... now now dont get any wrong ideas .... naughty naughty ... just tht decided to make last week a 'Foreign Movies' week - of course all English movies are foreign movies - but in reality English is not a foreign language at all to me thts the language i use almost all the time in Mumbai ; Im deviating , back to my movie watching - aim was to see non-hollywood movies
There are lot of these movies which dont get usual hype in media , don't get released in theaters here , are not shown in movie channels on TV ... so its a bit tough to even know about these movies , let alone catch them ... over the course of time through arduous downloading or collecting movies through office network and personal networks established with great effort , i managed to a get a decent set of foreign movies
All these movies are not only good , but offer you a non-american view of the world ... so thought of sharing little bit bout these movies with all
Persepolis - This was a movie in French - It was a cartoon/graphic kinda movie , set in Iran of 1980-1995 . It was tale of a woman from Iran ... her life right from childhood to teenage to adulthood , examines many events in the country which changed the lives of people forever .. it doesn't show the events like - revolution against Shah of Iran or entry of fundamentalists or communists .. it just focuses of lives of ordinary families (slightly rich family actually in this case) how these major events changed the way they live. A very good movie.
This was actually a graphic novel which was converted to a movie
Diving Bell and the Butterfly - again French - Set in France this time , it was real-life story of Elle magazine editor , who became paralyzed after a stroke and had visibility in one eye alone but whose brain was working and hearing was proper. The movie is about how he manages to communicate to the outside world (by blinking his eye) and how he helped to write a book about how a person with his condition views the world. This is a true story , he actually communicated enough to make a book ! good watch , the best part of the movie is that it is totally non-manipulative and just presents the story without trying to reach to audience or make u like the character ,win ur sympathy etc ..needs to be saluted for tht alone ... tht really works and makes it feel genuine
Pan's labyrinth : its a spanish movie - set in arnd 1944 in Franco's Spain which was ruled by fascists and there was a civil war going on. The facists had taken control and a few rebels were resisting them in countryside .. tht is where the story is set. Its a tale which blends fantasy and reality .... the protagonist is a 12yr old girl whose mother had re-married a captain of fascist forces who is hunting down these rebels in countryside. Tale is set in an almost abandoned village near the edge of forest - a brilliant setting for such a movie
Without giving anything away , the girl reads a lot of fairy tales n fantasy stories and she imagines herself to be in one ... this is shown parallel to the story of how her cruel step father is fighting the good natured rebels ... both the tracks go on and somewhere along the way the line between them blurs ... fusion of real life and fantasy making this one really memorable movie for me - performances are top notch and direction is too good - MUST WATCH - a movie like no other !
Machuca - Spanish movie - this is set in Chile - yet another country which has been ravaged by civil war/ revolutions etc ... Story of a couple of kids , one a rich boy and another living in slums outside city , Communist party gets power in Chile and the long standing class divide seems suddenly threatened ... poor/underprivileged people suddenly seem to be raising their heads and are demanding equal rights in society. A set of poor kids are allowed to join the finest school for free ... this is a story of friendship between the rich kid and a poor boy ... how they weather the cultural/ political storm of class divide. In Chile ,Pinochet came into power backed by upper class and did a huge cleansing of the lower classes after this ... movie shows all this in background , with focus being how lives of people change with the changing times/ ideologies ... it looks at class divide without taking sides or sermonising
Nuovo Cinema paradiso - Italian - Set in some obscure town in Italy - This is the story of a director who returns to his hometown after 30 yrs ... it traces his story as a kid who was mad about cinema , his friendship with guy in charge of projector at local cinema. More than anything this movie is a celebration of cinema ... captures how cinema touches people .. a story of pursuing dreams.
Brilliant in all aspects ... Ennio Morricone's music is the icing on the cake ! yet another Brilliant movie
No Man's land - Bosnian/Serbian - set in no-mans land between both countries , its about 2 soldiers from opposite camps who get stuck in the no-mans land and need to depend on each other to get out alive , the attitude and beliefs and actions of the two mirror the countries from which they hail ... brilliant plot setting ... great movie which succeeds in bringing out the futility and insanity of war .. questions the role of UN ... looks at people in the war .. Fantastic movie
Trivia : This is the movie that beat Lagaan and Amelie to Oscar in best foreign language film category in 2002 !
Malena : Italian movie - set during WW II in a small town in Italy , spans the period when Italy was at its peak fighting war with ally Germany against rest of the world , Italy had great pride in itself
Then everything comes crashing down after a humiliating defeat in the war , the post war years are very terrible for Italians. This movie focuses on a few adolescent boys in a remote town and the effect of a super haaawwwttt Malena (Monica Belluci ) on them and infact of whole town ... on imp thing i read before this movie was that Malena in the movie represents Italy .. what Malena goes through is infact a representation of how Italy was used and abused -> my perception of the movie changed after reading this - earlier felt it was semi-porn ! But actually its a very good movie
Rashomon - Japanese movie -
Why you must watch it : Akira Kurusowa - Need any more reasons to watch this one ???
Movie is about a murder and account of 5 different witness of the same. Their accounts of the same event is different in some ways and all of them claim they are telling truth
Kurosawa makes a lot of interesting points and analyses human tendency to delude themselves and questions whether somethign called truth is possible .. i stop here and let u judge what he says after you watch .. brilliant movie
thts it for now ... again the reason for lumping together these movies are tht they are foreign language movies and I happened to have them in my harddisk this month ... this is no best foreign movies / 5 movies to watch before u do anything else or any such shit !
There are lot of these movies which dont get usual hype in media , don't get released in theaters here , are not shown in movie channels on TV ... so its a bit tough to even know about these movies , let alone catch them ... over the course of time through arduous downloading or collecting movies through office network and personal networks established with great effort , i managed to a get a decent set of foreign movies
All these movies are not only good , but offer you a non-american view of the world ... so thought of sharing little bit bout these movies with all
Persepolis - This was a movie in French - It was a cartoon/graphic kinda movie , set in Iran of 1980-1995 . It was tale of a woman from Iran ... her life right from childhood to teenage to adulthood , examines many events in the country which changed the lives of people forever .. it doesn't show the events like - revolution against Shah of Iran or entry of fundamentalists or communists .. it just focuses of lives of ordinary families (slightly rich family actually in this case) how these major events changed the way they live. A very good movie.
This was actually a graphic novel which was converted to a movie
Diving Bell and the Butterfly - again French - Set in France this time , it was real-life story of Elle magazine editor , who became paralyzed after a stroke and had visibility in one eye alone but whose brain was working and hearing was proper. The movie is about how he manages to communicate to the outside world (by blinking his eye) and how he helped to write a book about how a person with his condition views the world. This is a true story , he actually communicated enough to make a book ! good watch , the best part of the movie is that it is totally non-manipulative and just presents the story without trying to reach to audience or make u like the character ,win ur sympathy etc ..needs to be saluted for tht alone ... tht really works and makes it feel genuine
Pan's labyrinth : its a spanish movie - set in arnd 1944 in Franco's Spain which was ruled by fascists and there was a civil war going on. The facists had taken control and a few rebels were resisting them in countryside .. tht is where the story is set. Its a tale which blends fantasy and reality .... the protagonist is a 12yr old girl whose mother had re-married a captain of fascist forces who is hunting down these rebels in countryside. Tale is set in an almost abandoned village near the edge of forest - a brilliant setting for such a movie
Without giving anything away , the girl reads a lot of fairy tales n fantasy stories and she imagines herself to be in one ... this is shown parallel to the story of how her cruel step father is fighting the good natured rebels ... both the tracks go on and somewhere along the way the line between them blurs ... fusion of real life and fantasy making this one really memorable movie for me - performances are top notch and direction is too good - MUST WATCH - a movie like no other !
Machuca - Spanish movie - this is set in Chile - yet another country which has been ravaged by civil war/ revolutions etc ... Story of a couple of kids , one a rich boy and another living in slums outside city , Communist party gets power in Chile and the long standing class divide seems suddenly threatened ... poor/underprivileged people suddenly seem to be raising their heads and are demanding equal rights in society. A set of poor kids are allowed to join the finest school for free ... this is a story of friendship between the rich kid and a poor boy ... how they weather the cultural/ political storm of class divide. In Chile ,Pinochet came into power backed by upper class and did a huge cleansing of the lower classes after this ... movie shows all this in background , with focus being how lives of people change with the changing times/ ideologies ... it looks at class divide without taking sides or sermonising
Nuovo Cinema paradiso - Italian - Set in some obscure town in Italy - This is the story of a director who returns to his hometown after 30 yrs ... it traces his story as a kid who was mad about cinema , his friendship with guy in charge of projector at local cinema. More than anything this movie is a celebration of cinema ... captures how cinema touches people .. a story of pursuing dreams.
Brilliant in all aspects ... Ennio Morricone's music is the icing on the cake ! yet another Brilliant movie
No Man's land - Bosnian/Serbian - set in no-mans land between both countries , its about 2 soldiers from opposite camps who get stuck in the no-mans land and need to depend on each other to get out alive , the attitude and beliefs and actions of the two mirror the countries from which they hail ... brilliant plot setting ... great movie which succeeds in bringing out the futility and insanity of war .. questions the role of UN ... looks at people in the war .. Fantastic movie
Trivia : This is the movie that beat Lagaan and Amelie to Oscar in best foreign language film category in 2002 !
Malena : Italian movie - set during WW II in a small town in Italy , spans the period when Italy was at its peak fighting war with ally Germany against rest of the world , Italy had great pride in itself
Then everything comes crashing down after a humiliating defeat in the war , the post war years are very terrible for Italians. This movie focuses on a few adolescent boys in a remote town and the effect of a super haaawwwttt Malena (Monica Belluci ) on them and infact of whole town ... on imp thing i read before this movie was that Malena in the movie represents Italy .. what Malena goes through is infact a representation of how Italy was used and abused -> my perception of the movie changed after reading this - earlier felt it was semi-porn ! But actually its a very good movie
Rashomon - Japanese movie -
Why you must watch it : Akira Kurusowa - Need any more reasons to watch this one ???
Movie is about a murder and account of 5 different witness of the same. Their accounts of the same event is different in some ways and all of them claim they are telling truth
Kurosawa makes a lot of interesting points and analyses human tendency to delude themselves and questions whether somethign called truth is possible .. i stop here and let u judge what he says after you watch .. brilliant movie
thts it for now ... again the reason for lumping together these movies are tht they are foreign language movies and I happened to have them in my harddisk this month ... this is no best foreign movies / 5 movies to watch before u do anything else or any such shit !
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Tour de malaysia - Day 4 KL
Reached KL Sentral (the railway station of malaysian capital) by morning ...
Headed to our hotel which was in the heart of the city .. the name of the place was 'Serai Inn' .. regular bed and breakfast types place to cater to budget tourists .. the place was fully booked , luckily we had booked online. we checked in .. since there was 8 of us we had taken thr 8 bed dormintory which was damn cheap .. even by indian standards !
Then we headed for local sight seeing .. roamed around the city a bit .. most of the prominent landmarks were near from our hotel ... then headed to Batu caves
they are pretty old (4.5 million yrs acc to wikipedia) .. apparently the temple was built by a local businessman some 150 yrs back and its a famous shrine with a huge number of pilgrims visiting every year .. its got a pretty imposing Murugan statue about 150 feet tall!
there is a steep climb up to temple which is in a cave , there are about 300 steps !
we wanted to watch the qualifiers of the Race - which btw was the main reason of Malaysia trip !
so headed back by bus to KL and reached KL sentral station and found buses for as less as Rm 10 (about Rs.120) for a trip to Sepang track which was near the Airport .. it was really far away about 50 Km .. but the roads were fantastic and on the way we saw townships of CyberJaya and Putrajaya (new administative capital) getting constructed .. they are superbly planned and executed on a mammoth scale and will come up in a few years
The atmosphere at Sepang international circuit was like tht of a carnival with people from different nationalities , supporting different teams decked up in diff colors , waving flags of their nations / teams .. the Ferrari flag was most prominent and red attire was the most common one ... there were stalls put up by the teams selling official merchandise
Lot of buying/reselling of tickets were also happening unofficially outside ticket counter and was being carried out by Europeans not locals !
There was a huge European crowd , but lot of support for the local team one which local company Petronas was sponsoring ... it was called Sauber Petronas earlier .. now its just BMW Sauber .. but after Ferrari the local team had maxmim fans .. then came McLaren ... with a huge number of people sporting Hamilton caps ... then finally a sizeable contigent was decked in blue cheering for Alonso and Renault team !
we had hillside stand and since it was qualifiers the place was not fully packed ... we settled down and eagerly waited for cars to begin practice laps before qualifiers start ... the pure joy from live action .. seeing the Formula one car coming roaring in and pass right infront of your eye is somethiign which has to be experienced and no words can do justice to the sheer delight in this experience ... from where we were sitting we could view a straight sectiona and 2 corners ... the whole atmosphere and the sound of the cars made it an unbelievable experience ... the feel of the track is something u never get while watching it on TV
In the evening we went to Petronas towers , the building was simply brilliant with lights at night ... same for KL tower .. but petronas towers was something else
Finally headed to Chinatown and after roaming around quite a bit managed to locate a shop which sold F1 T-shirts cheap ... since there were frequent raids the guy took us to backside of the shop and displayed the merchandise and packed it and asked us not to open it till we were out of the place ! we were getting it for 10% of the price of Original T-shirts and they looked the same !!!
Headed to our hotel which was in the heart of the city .. the name of the place was 'Serai Inn' .. regular bed and breakfast types place to cater to budget tourists .. the place was fully booked , luckily we had booked online. we checked in .. since there was 8 of us we had taken thr 8 bed dormintory which was damn cheap .. even by indian standards !
Then we headed for local sight seeing .. roamed around the city a bit .. most of the prominent landmarks were near from our hotel ... then headed to Batu caves
they are pretty old (4.5 million yrs acc to wikipedia) .. apparently the temple was built by a local businessman some 150 yrs back and its a famous shrine with a huge number of pilgrims visiting every year .. its got a pretty imposing Murugan statue about 150 feet tall!there is a steep climb up to temple which is in a cave , there are about 300 steps !
we wanted to watch the qualifiers of the Race - which btw was the main reason of Malaysia trip !
so headed back by bus to KL and reached KL sentral station and found buses for as less as Rm 10 (about Rs.120) for a trip to Sepang track which was near the Airport .. it was really far away about 50 Km .. but the roads were fantastic and on the way we saw townships of CyberJaya and Putrajaya (new administative capital) getting constructed .. they are superbly planned and executed on a mammoth scale and will come up in a few years
The atmosphere at Sepang international circuit was like tht of a carnival with people from different nationalities , supporting different teams decked up in diff colors , waving flags of their nations / teams .. the Ferrari flag was most prominent and red attire was the most common one ... there were stalls put up by the teams selling official merchandise
Lot of buying/reselling of tickets were also happening unofficially outside ticket counter and was being carried out by Europeans not locals !
There was a huge European crowd , but lot of support for the local team one which local company Petronas was sponsoring ... it was called Sauber Petronas earlier .. now its just BMW Sauber .. but after Ferrari the local team had maxmim fans .. then came McLaren ... with a huge number of people sporting Hamilton caps ... then finally a sizeable contigent was decked in blue cheering for Alonso and Renault team !
we had hillside stand and since it was qualifiers the place was not fully packed ... we settled down and eagerly waited for cars to begin practice laps before qualifiers start ... the pure joy from live action .. seeing the Formula one car coming roaring in and pass right infront of your eye is somethiign which has to be experienced and no words can do justice to the sheer delight in this experience ... from where we were sitting we could view a straight sectiona and 2 corners ... the whole atmosphere and the sound of the cars made it an unbelievable experience ... the feel of the track is something u never get while watching it on TVIn the evening we went to Petronas towers , the building was simply brilliant with lights at night ... same for KL tower .. but petronas towers was something else
Finally headed to Chinatown and after roaming around quite a bit managed to locate a shop which sold F1 T-shirts cheap ... since there were frequent raids the guy took us to backside of the shop and displayed the merchandise and packed it and asked us not to open it till we were out of the place ! we were getting it for 10% of the price of Original T-shirts and they looked the same !!!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Tour De Malaysia - day 3 langkawi
We decided to go on 'island hopping' tour , there were lot of private boats which were available , since we were a group of 8 we got a boat of our own - (Refer pics) strapped on the life jackets and embraced ourselves for a heck of ride through seas !
We were taken to a couple of islands after 30 min high speed journey through the sea ... waters were relatively placid still since the boat was an open one and with the winds blowing fine spray of water against faces it was good fun ride ..
We docked at the first island whose name totally escapes me ! the place was supposed to be famous for watersports n stuff ... unfortunately we went on a local holiday and all the shops were closed.
Then we headed to another island after another 10 min ride through sea ... this one was another smallish island but had a freshwater lake in it !!!
the lake was on top of a small hill ... there were lot of monkeys all over tht place .. after trekking up the hill we reached the lake .. boating facilities were there .. u cud rent a canoe or pedal boat and go across the lake
Once tht was done we moved out of the island after 5 mins we reached a point between a set of uninhabited islands ... this was the place for 'eagle feeding' ... ppl toss food in tht place and eagles come in great numbers , swoop in and grab a bite !after watching it for 10 mins we headed back to the main island .. the whole trip took about 3 hrs
By now we were running out of time .. there were lot more stuff to explore like the Bridge where the Hindi movie 'Don' was shot and a waterfall and couple of places like an island which had a marine park and another one famous for scuba diving ... since we were running out of time we drove around a bit ... had food and returned our rental cars and hung out near Eagle park and took the Ferry back to mainland Malaysia , from where we had to catch an evening train back to Kuala lampur
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tour De Malaysia - day 2 - Langkawi
We had planned to reach Langkawi through train and ferry instead of flying direct(which on hindsight was a better option ! ) Train was till a place called Alor Setor (they called it something like 'alor star' ) , we reached Alor Setor at 8:30 in the morning with a slight delay of 30 min , which was pretty common in Malaysia as a fellow traveller informed us. "Our Railways aren't as efficient as the Indian Railways" he added leaving us shocked , proud and at some level amused also !
We had to take a 15 min taxi ride to the ferry terminal at a place called .... There was a ferry every 30 min or so , but breakfast was a problem for us finding veg food anywhere in southeast Asia is a harrowing experience. But this was a small town and we had given up hope of finding food when we stumbled upon a 7-eleven store and managed to find cheese sandwiches ( thts about the only food vegetarians can get at that place as even ready to eat noodles are all non-veg)
We caught the ferry at 10:30 am and the boat ride went slightly below expectations for me. I had really looked forward to this 45 minute ride over sea as it would be the longest sea cruise for me.
we were seated inside the boat and the seating was just like a bus/flight and through the closed glass windows u look at the sea outside. Not being able to feel the sea breeze/smell the air was a dissapointment. However it was great looking outside and seeing just water all around and the sea was pretty placid and the journey was very pleasant.
We reached Langkawi islands at 11:45 , situated on Andaman sea Langkawi is an archipelago of about 100 islands mostly small ones and a few big ones , the main one biggest of the lot is called Pulau Langkawi ( i know it sounds like a food item for us ! ) and is reachable through sea and has an airport. The island dotted with trees is a proper desktop wallpaper material. A prominent landmark near the boat jetty is the big Eagle statue. Langkawi means land of Eagles.
We had booked rooms in a place called Eagle Bay resort , which was pretty close to Eagle square We had done booking over internet and rooms were just like the pics we saw online , good comfortable rooms and easy on our pocket also.
The first task after checking into the hotel and freshening up was to find a good restaurant which served Veg food.We talked to the hotel staff and got directions to an Indian restarant nearby.
There is no public transport on the island , cabs were available but werent tht cheap. The best way too move around on the sufficiently big island town was to hire cabs/bikes. Since it was very sunny and rains are always a possiblity in tropics we decided to get a car for 4 of us.All we needed to show was a valid license (even Indian one wud do !) and pay a deposit of 100 Ringgit (Rs.1100) and we took the car on rent for a day ; We took a Hyundai Accent and had to shell out just 70 for one day. We were given a map of the island , there sign boards at most places , the
roads were very good. The map however wasnt tht easy to follow as the locals had warned. But there are only 3-4 main roads in the island its not really possible however hard u try to get lost on the island. After 3-4 wrong turns we managed to locate an Indian eatery. It turned out to be a South Indian one much to delight of many of us(6 out of 8 guys in our touring party were from South India) It was our first Indian meal in 2 days and hence seemed to be pretty good despite the fact tht it was a low end restaurant. There was a Pakistani food joint also in the vicinity. We headed to the gas station next and filled the car with petrol. It was a Petronas outlet and was a self serivce one , the cost for 1 litre of Petrol in malaysia then was just Rs.18 for 1 litre when it cost more than Rs.50 in India !
We saw the list of attractions in the island and their location on the map and decided to tackle the White sand beach and black sand beach first as it was already late afternoon (3:30 pm ) . Both of these were located near each other on the North eastern side of the island and we were on the South east side. The whole strech of road was wonderful with trees and vegetation on either side we reached the entrance to White sand beach where public entry was from one end of the beach and the majority of the beachfront was occupied by a Star hotel/resort full of foreigners. The beach was almost empty but for tourists from the hotel facing the beach. There were a few shops selling trinkets and Tshirts outside the entrance to beach , but no local or hawker was present anywhere on the beach. A few small islands were visible and a few them seemed very close by from the beautiful white sand beach. We saw a group of European tourists wading theough the somewhat placid sea towards an island some half a kilometer into the sea and decided to follow the suit. Tht was one the best experiences on langkawi the walk to the island through sea with water at waist/chest level most of the time and occasionally reaching neck level( I didnt know swimming ) . So it was an exciting trip walking to the island through bluish green water.
Around 6 pm much against our wishes we decided to move out of the beach and head to the blacksand beach which was just a few minutes drive from there. But the few minutes drive became a really long one as we got lost and kept missing the entrance to the beach repeatedly and only when we drove extremely slowly we managed to find the beach. It was somewhat secluded and there was nothing around the place to suggest it had such a beautiful beach. There was absolutely nothing there no vehicles. people or shops selling touristy stuff etc.
Unfortunately sun was setting and the there was lovely pier and a lot of fishing boats on one corner of the beach and the other side had gigantic rocks and was simply beautiful. After clicking a few pics in the fading light we moved to their Pier and had a look at boats , there was a fishing community near the boats and there were a few houses with local fishermen.
After a quick shower to get the seawater and beach sand out of our bodies we headed towards Pantai Cenang Beach which was the more commercial beach supposed to teem with people and shops. This was supposed to be a popular hangout spot for all tourists and was supposed to provide best in shopping and food. After finishing our dinner we made up plans for 'Island Hopping' tour next morning
We had to take a 15 min taxi ride to the ferry terminal at a place called .... There was a ferry every 30 min or so , but breakfast was a problem for us finding veg food anywhere in southeast Asia is a harrowing experience. But this was a small town and we had given up hope of finding food when we stumbled upon a 7-eleven store and managed to find cheese sandwiches ( thts about the only food vegetarians can get at that place as even ready to eat noodles are all non-veg)
We caught the ferry at 10:30 am and the boat ride went slightly below expectations for me. I had really looked forward to this 45 minute ride over sea as it would be the longest sea cruise for me.
we were seated inside the boat and the seating was just like a bus/flight and through the closed glass windows u look at the sea outside. Not being able to feel the sea breeze/smell the air was a dissapointment. However it was great looking outside and seeing just water all around and the sea was pretty placid and the journey was very pleasant.
We reached Langkawi islands at 11:45 , situated on Andaman sea Langkawi is an archipelago of about 100 islands mostly small ones and a few big ones , the main one biggest of the lot is called Pulau Langkawi ( i know it sounds like a food item for us ! ) and is reachable through sea and has an airport. The island dotted with trees is a proper desktop wallpaper material. A prominent landmark near the boat jetty is the big Eagle statue. Langkawi means land of Eagles.
We had booked rooms in a place called Eagle Bay resort , which was pretty close to Eagle square We had done booking over internet and rooms were just like the pics we saw online , good comfortable rooms and easy on our pocket also.
The first task after checking into the hotel and freshening up was to find a good restaurant which served Veg food.We talked to the hotel staff and got directions to an Indian restarant nearby.
There is no public transport on the island , cabs were available but werent tht cheap. The best way too move around on the sufficiently big island town was to hire cabs/bikes. Since it was very sunny and rains are always a possiblity in tropics we decided to get a car for 4 of us.All we needed to show was a valid license (even Indian one wud do !) and pay a deposit of 100 Ringgit (Rs.1100) and we took the car on rent for a day ; We took a Hyundai Accent and had to shell out just 70 for one day. We were given a map of the island , there sign boards at most places , the
roads were very good. The map however wasnt tht easy to follow as the locals had warned. But there are only 3-4 main roads in the island its not really possible however hard u try to get lost on the island. After 3-4 wrong turns we managed to locate an Indian eatery. It turned out to be a South Indian one much to delight of many of us(6 out of 8 guys in our touring party were from South India) It was our first Indian meal in 2 days and hence seemed to be pretty good despite the fact tht it was a low end restaurant. There was a Pakistani food joint also in the vicinity. We headed to the gas station next and filled the car with petrol. It was a Petronas outlet and was a self serivce one , the cost for 1 litre of Petrol in malaysia then was just Rs.18 for 1 litre when it cost more than Rs.50 in India !
We saw the list of attractions in the island and their location on the map and decided to tackle the White sand beach and black sand beach first as it was already late afternoon (3:30 pm ) . Both of these were located near each other on the North eastern side of the island and we were on the South east side. The whole strech of road was wonderful with trees and vegetation on either side we reached the entrance to White sand beach where public entry was from one end of the beach and the majority of the beachfront was occupied by a Star hotel/resort full of foreigners. The beach was almost empty but for tourists from the hotel facing the beach. There were a few shops selling trinkets and Tshirts outside the entrance to beach , but no local or hawker was present anywhere on the beach. A few small islands were visible and a few them seemed very close by from the beautiful white sand beach. We saw a group of European tourists wading theough the somewhat placid sea towards an island some half a kilometer into the sea and decided to follow the suit. Tht was one the best experiences on langkawi the walk to the island through sea with water at waist/chest level most of the time and occasionally reaching neck level( I didnt know swimming ) . So it was an exciting trip walking to the island through bluish green water.
Around 6 pm much against our wishes we decided to move out of the beach and head to the blacksand beach which was just a few minutes drive from there. But the few minutes drive became a really long one as we got lost and kept missing the entrance to the beach repeatedly and only when we drove extremely slowly we managed to find the beach. It was somewhat secluded and there was nothing around the place to suggest it had such a beautiful beach. There was absolutely nothing there no vehicles. people or shops selling touristy stuff etc.
Unfortunately sun was setting and the there was lovely pier and a lot of fishing boats on one corner of the beach and the other side had gigantic rocks and was simply beautiful. After clicking a few pics in the fading light we moved to their Pier and had a look at boats , there was a fishing community near the boats and there were a few houses with local fishermen.
After a quick shower to get the seawater and beach sand out of our bodies we headed towards Pantai Cenang Beach which was the more commercial beach supposed to teem with people and shops. This was supposed to be a popular hangout spot for all tourists and was supposed to provide best in shopping and food. After finishing our dinner we made up plans for 'Island Hopping' tour next morning
Friday, June 27, 2008
Dasavtaram - adding a whole new dimension
Kamal Hassan's grand movie 'Dasavtaram' opened in June atlast after a looong delay , the most anticipated movie left most of us confused too about the intent of the filmmaker as it was neither a full fledged comedy or light movie nor was it a very serious movie inspite of issues it endorsed.
" So how did you find the movie ?" ... this was the only common question in all conversation i had with my Tam friends across the country or rather world ( read Infy onsite ).
Many of my friends and lots of guys in Orkut communities etc thrashed the movie as dumb and just an excuse for Kamal to play 10 roles. But some thought otherwise , I reluctantly joined the latter group, which comprised mostly of guys brought up mostly on a diet of Tamil movies, who felt it was ok types and definitely worth a ' one-time' watch.
" People don't see movies for what they are " quipped another buddy of mine when i was talking to him about how Kamal's latest magnum opus was being soundly criticized for being very dumb. I noticed in a couple of blog posts on same topic where lots of people pointed out that this was kind of movie where you take something from what was on screen , your interpreation was what mattered. The movie has something for different classes of audience.
For almost a week most of the conversation with buddies would involve a question on what they thought bout the movie , a lot of people (again most of the guys living/raised in TN) were for the movie and a lot of people were against ( majority of these were from outside TN) . I may be wrong in generalising given the number of people i spoke to is very small ... but I guess its fairly straight forward why the movie was made the way it was ... It was meant to appeal to masses in TN and was made almost like a Rajni movie with the ' Universal hero' being the centre or rather everything in the package.
Whether it has fully succeeded or not Box-Office is not very clear , but so far it doesnt look like the film has bombed or suffered the fate of intelligent and critically acclaimed Kamal movies like Hey Ram , Anbe Sivam etc
My own take would be that a man who made movies like the above mentioned ones would be incapable of making stupid movies and whatever we saw on screen was result of toning down the film to make it palatable for masses. Come to think of it , the film had a lot of things which arent tht common in Tamil/regional cinema or i should say Indian cinema.
Movie had lots of themes like Atheism , religions conflicts , chaos theory , Biological weapons , role of America. It also touched upon the kind of impact man has on earth by highlighting sand quarrying etc. and con
At another level our Regional cinema (and Bollywood also) is very different from Hollywood where intelligent movies (atleast some of them) make it big in Box office , but it must be said that as they are made in Englsih they have a much bigger market than these regional Indian movies. Even in Hindi many good movies categorised as 'off-beat' or multiplex movies do find an audience and do well. But i guess if you spend 100 odd crores to make a movie which covers such a huge number of issued and has an actor who can pull of a stupendous 10 roles then obviously any filmmaker would try to ensure that the movie reaches the maximum possible people.
Make no mistake this is a movie for Kamal as an actor to showcase his ability to pull of such a wide variety of roles and hence its no-wonder that the movie had to 'dumbed down' to cater to masses. Once you get tht firmly entrenched in the mind , the movie pans out differenty and there is a quite a lot of enjoyable fare ! While playing 10 roles Kamal was also trying to reach all segments of audience with a film which essentially was a cocktail of lot of things.
One among the many postives of this movie is that it invovled a lot of issues of global interest which is very rare in regional cinema is our country. We usually see this kind of movies i Hollywood only where the entire world is under threat due to some strange weapon/alien or any such thing and am American steps in to save the day. But now a Tamilian has taken on the mantle to save the world and thts an interesting shift !
Perhaps it might lead to more movies involving global theme of Indians asserting their influence on the world , whether it leads to good cinema or not Im not too sure ... but the prospect sounds exciting. I just dont understand why we are always getting movies with college kids or people running around trees or in foreign locales. Perhaps the restricted environs of our movie themes had prevented some radical stories from turning into movies. But with movies getting slicker ( Billa , Sivaji et all ) and budgets getting better we should see more variety from Tamil cinema . So if this movie clicks then probably we would see lots of stories espousing different issues in a commercial format thus reaching a much wider global audience and with Projects like 'Robot' lined up future does seem bright and interesting !
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