Its morning , im jogging ... its taken some time to get adjusted to life here in a new city - Mumbai ... everything about this life/new job is so different ... My interests/activities has also changed a lot over the years , sometimes I wonder if i have changed totally as a person as i hardly feel a connect with the kind of life i was leading a few years back ... earlier i used to read a lot after getting back from work ... these days im always online chatting/reading blogs , watching movies/TV series on laptop ... for sometime i thought there was no connect with the life i used to lead and i had moved into some other dimension altogether like in the plots of some of my favourite Superhero cartoons or like Neo at start of Matrix Revolutions. That was until i started my early morning jog ...
These days i go for a jog in the morning in a park nearby and mostly i am all alone early in the morning and while running alone my thoughts get sucked into a nostalgic whirlpool , my mind wanders off into the past ... My memory jogs back to the days when two young lads in Coimbatore had finished their engineering college and decided that they needed some exercise as months of sitting at home and awaiting for joining letter/job was taking its toll .. the Two of us used to go to a huge ground/stadium in an University near our place ... we used to jog in the athletics track in the stadium which was empty during summer ... i can still vividly remember the cry of peacocks and sights of the hills in the backdrop of the stadium , athletes training in one corner , while we do the rounds cracking occasional jokes , discussing cricket sitting in the shade of a tree after jogging ... i keep running while looking at my watch , there is still no one here in this park today.
Its early morning in Bangalore and 2 super energetic roomies drag their thin roomie out of bed and i reluctantly trudge along and we go for morning jog in the parks of JP Nagar ... the air is so fresh and pure , the place is full of people doing exercise, jogging , oldies out for a walk and catching up with old friends in park benches , laughter therapy sessions ... the place is so full of energy and activity early in the morning as i keep running trying to catch up with my roomies ... Occasionally a sound of Lorry passing by or car honking reminds me that im still jogging alone here in this park , i look at the time just 10 mins up ... i spot an old man wearing t-shirt and formal trousers with sports shoe doing brisk walk ... i keep running
Three of us at office decide to hit the gym and all of us being lazy bones - we call each other early in the morning over phone to ensure we all turn up in the gym and we ensure that the one who misses gym is taunted the whole day . Its morning at Infy Bangalore and three friends are running on the treadmill ... we trade an occasional joke in the middle of it and pass comments on the latest chick to hit the gym , we compare notes on the exercises we are gonna perform that day and how much of 'muscle building' has happened ... i keep running the sun has come up and its getting really sweaty , even mornings in Mumbai are hot ! no wonder there are only a few people in this park ... I keep running its been 20 mins , there is a strange sound somewhere nearby , i stretch my arms ...
The two young lads are again running in Coimbatore in the same picturesque university ground ... they are back jogging together here after 5 long years , but little seems to have changed , the track looks the same , there are athletes practicing in a corner, the peacocks are still abundant , the lads still share the same camaraderie , crack the same old jokes ,talk about the same old stuff and run ... I slow down , the hot Mumbai sun has emerged and is making its presence felt, im sweating a lot , again i hear a strange sound ,look around don't see anything , i stretch my arms .
I start slowing down and shift to brisk walking , the well paved concrete path in the part that im running on seems so familiar , as i walk around the park , my thoughts deposit me somewhere esle , the scenery changes , im wading through the neat concrete pavement however around me there are blocks of similar looking apartments ... its hot and i continue walking the scenery has changed im a road which seems to be placed in Shire and not in this world , its so green and there is grass all around on one side of the road is a slope full of grass leading to dense growth of trees and on the other side and huge and beautiful houses, i half expect to meet hobbits ... im on Canterbury Road in Singapore , i slow down in my walk
Im covered with sweat ... i hear some strange sound near my ears ... did i overdo my workout ? Whats going on ? whats the strange sound , now its getting real louder , its so close by ...
I wake up in a pool of sweat , the power seems to have gone for quite a while . Its so hot inside the room ... i realize my cellphone alarm had been snoozed a couple of times ... damn i didn't get up early to go for a run in the park like i have been planning to ... i again slowly drift into sleep , before finally getting up when the never tiring alarm tries yet again to wake me up !
PS: I finally managed to defeat the tendency to press the snooze button and keep on sleeping and im actually going for morning jogs (atleast i did it 3 times last couple of weeks ! )
Friday, April 17, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Broken Spell !
Right from ancient times , when human beings learned to communicate with each other , spelling was very important to the language. It was one of those vital things which ensured we communicated what we wanted to communicate correctly. We have always given utmost importance to getting this part right . Right from early stages of education in schools a huge stress has been given to spelling , in my school the teachers used to punish spelling mistakes by docking 0.5 marks for each error. An answer sheet with all words spelled correctly was the sign of an intelligent and well educated kid who will achieve something in life !
The main reason why i started writing this is because of a few things i noticed over last few months. In office we had to write a letter in normal paper with pen for some purpose and a friend of mine started writing and he couldnt write a single sentence without making spelling mistake ! "I always type on MS-Word dude", he told me , "it always corrects my spelling mistakes , i just need to supply the alphabets in somewhat correct order".
This was bound to happen to most of us who were working with computers for quite a while , only when he spelled it out i realized it !
I was surprised by his remark but still felt that such things wont happen people like me who were very good in English language since school days. However recently a friend of mine spotted 2-3 spelling mistakes in a mail i sent to him ( i don't run spell check on personal mails as we use words from Indian languages in it ! ) and then i realized that this spell-check dependency had affected me too !
Now this guy has a really good command over the language still i could spot a mistake in the mail he wrote me informing me about my spelling errors (these were not typos as they got repeated couple of times ) . Now i realise a lot of us will not able to spell 100% accurately like how we
used to do 6-7 yrs back when we did not use computers.
But the more i think about it , more i realize that knowing the exact spelling is no longer required in today's world , the computer is here to help you with it ! I guess the brain has realized this and no longer cares too much about getting the proper spelling of all the words typed !!!
The language purists will surely disagree and the schooling system will not drop its attitude towards getting spelling right , which i think is fair. But deep inside me im kinda convinced just like how my brain/subconscious mind felt while typing .. it no longer matters :)
The other day when Spelling Bee contest was getting aired on the TV , i simply changed the channel ... i really don't see the point of remembering such complicated spell(ing)s ... after all we are just Muggles !
The main reason why i started writing this is because of a few things i noticed over last few months. In office we had to write a letter in normal paper with pen for some purpose and a friend of mine started writing and he couldnt write a single sentence without making spelling mistake ! "I always type on MS-Word dude", he told me , "it always corrects my spelling mistakes , i just need to supply the alphabets in somewhat correct order".
This was bound to happen to most of us who were working with computers for quite a while , only when he spelled it out i realized it !
I was surprised by his remark but still felt that such things wont happen people like me who were very good in English language since school days. However recently a friend of mine spotted 2-3 spelling mistakes in a mail i sent to him ( i don't run spell check on personal mails as we use words from Indian languages in it ! ) and then i realized that this spell-check dependency had affected me too !
Now this guy has a really good command over the language still i could spot a mistake in the mail he wrote me informing me about my spelling errors (these were not typos as they got repeated couple of times ) . Now i realise a lot of us will not able to spell 100% accurately like how we
used to do 6-7 yrs back when we did not use computers.
But the more i think about it , more i realize that knowing the exact spelling is no longer required in today's world , the computer is here to help you with it ! I guess the brain has realized this and no longer cares too much about getting the proper spelling of all the words typed !!!
The language purists will surely disagree and the schooling system will not drop its attitude towards getting spelling right , which i think is fair. But deep inside me im kinda convinced just like how my brain/subconscious mind felt while typing .. it no longer matters :)
The other day when Spelling Bee contest was getting aired on the TV , i simply changed the channel ... i really don't see the point of remembering such complicated spell(ing)s ... after all we are just Muggles !
Saturday, March 28, 2009
education-system-when-will-change-come - part 3 : This is how !
I started thinking about the education system when i saw this :
Xo laptop - the $100 laptop developed for school children in third world countries
There is a non-profit arm of the company i work for and they are responsible for spreading OLPC movement in India
Now this is not a plug for my company/OLPC movement .. though i admire both for their efforts.
It was quite an interesting experience to know that children in a school in remote area in Maharashtra were doing their learning in school with laptops and were doing pretty well and enjoying it !
This is about the idea of each school going child owning a laptop and doing his/her work on it ... wont it totally revolutionize the education scene in the country ?
We all agree current education system is not enough , there are 2 main problems currently as i see it.
First is the spread of education and access to it. Second one is the quality of the education provided. Usage of technology would be the solution which would address both these problems.
Once education system embraces technology , it could provide a much better education to children and also would widen its reach.
The whole concept of education will change with laptops/internet entering and digitizing classrooms , the current model of a single person imparting knowledge to 60-70 students in a cramped room, students not getting enough attention , students losing interest/dropping out etc can be significantly reduced.
Schools will once again become places which encourage 'learning' , the teacher becomes more of a facilitator or a mentor who helps the children explore the world through computer and influences their interpretation of what they see/read about.
Since our future is a result of what happens in today's classrooms , its time we stopped making incremental changes to system and take a quantum leap.
If we can build Rs. 1 lac car then cheap and effective laptops will not be difficult for our nation and dream of every school child learning through a low-cost laptop doesn't seem such a wild idea
In case you have doubts whether the children in rural areas/lower strata will learn how to use computers , take a look at OLPC site or at the famous Hole in a Wall project - which gave the idea to writer of the book which became the famous 'Slumdog Millionaire' movie !
Xo laptop - the $100 laptop developed for school children in third world countries
There is a non-profit arm of the company i work for and they are responsible for spreading OLPC movement in India
Now this is not a plug for my company/OLPC movement .. though i admire both for their efforts.
It was quite an interesting experience to know that children in a school in remote area in Maharashtra were doing their learning in school with laptops and were doing pretty well and enjoying it !
This is about the idea of each school going child owning a laptop and doing his/her work on it ... wont it totally revolutionize the education scene in the country ?
We all agree current education system is not enough , there are 2 main problems currently as i see it.
First is the spread of education and access to it. Second one is the quality of the education provided. Usage of technology would be the solution which would address both these problems.
Once education system embraces technology , it could provide a much better education to children and also would widen its reach.
The whole concept of education will change with laptops/internet entering and digitizing classrooms , the current model of a single person imparting knowledge to 60-70 students in a cramped room, students not getting enough attention , students losing interest/dropping out etc can be significantly reduced.
Schools will once again become places which encourage 'learning' , the teacher becomes more of a facilitator or a mentor who helps the children explore the world through computer and influences their interpretation of what they see/read about.
Since our future is a result of what happens in today's classrooms , its time we stopped making incremental changes to system and take a quantum leap.
If we can build Rs. 1 lac car then cheap and effective laptops will not be difficult for our nation and dream of every school child learning through a low-cost laptop doesn't seem such a wild idea
In case you have doubts whether the children in rural areas/lower strata will learn how to use computers , take a look at OLPC site or at the famous Hole in a Wall project - which gave the idea to writer of the book which became the famous 'Slumdog Millionaire' movie !
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Education system - When will the change come ? Part 2
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 !
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 !
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 !!!
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