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I had been intending to ask this…why do I sometimes wake up just a minute before alarm would shout ?

Answer is here.

I used to consider myself a good reader of people. This belief has taken a great beating in terms of guessing which path the person I think I know would take in terms of his/her marriage.

The person I think would go for arranged marriage would end up in love marriage. And vice-versa.

Strange people. Or my strange conclusions

These days I started feeling a kind of void (not the first time!) and felt that I am not utilising my time in a proper way. To console myself I have applied to a Masters Degree via correspondence. My further plans are still unknown.
The course provided lot of electives. I always find making a choice difficult. I have experienced that enough during the selection of electives in Engineering. Though this time I made it easier for myself. I sent out a mail to my buddies like Sriram, Sripathi ,Sathish and guidance from Pradeep. They know my strengths/weakness or likes/dislikes and my current area of work and future prospects. I asked them to suggest.

Once their replies came it was easy for me. I had no problem when their suggestion matched each other’s. (The replies were so similar that both of them ended up saying “After all this I might have ended up confusing you more” !!!) I simply selected that subject. I did not even look at the syllabus. When it was a tie, I had a problem. I consented other people, it was again a tie. Finally I chose considering that there is an oppurtunity to learn one more subject overseeing the advantage of the other subject in regards of marks or ease of topics.

This was the criterion that I (or rather we few) used in Eng too and at the end of the sem, we would regret making the choice as others would score better marks. But the satisfaction laid with us that we know more and better. Of course all this never counted for the job (in general) and all that mattered were marks (of others) is a different issue.

For me next year looks quite active. More on this later when plans materialise.

Saw The Myth by Jackie Chan and Mallika Sherawat. Saw the movie on original DVD in Chinese! The film is usual Chan flick with breath-taking stunts as usual. And, if you are watching movie for the obvious curious reason you would want to watch it for, you would be disappointed.

The story goes like this: There is an young man who gets strange dreams as if he is present in King’s era, as a soldier and he protects/likes the queen. He also fights wars. After each dream the man wakes up disturbed and sets out find out the mystery about his dreams. This brings him to India (that part was shot in Hampi) and a girl here saves him from the local people. Local people were after him because he stole a sword. While saving himself and her from the furious people, is a *fantastic* fight sequence.

He then sets out for one final mission (don’t ask me what it is) and then meets his yester-life’s queen. Then a flying fight sequence ends the movie.

If I have given wrong information or if it has sounded too meaningless, my ignorance of Chinese language is the reason. So excuse. And MS did look gorgeous in the red saree dance sequence.

The team outing which got postponed twice, got cancelled finally. I was initially very disappointed as I had postponed going home due to the picnic. But it turned out quite a good weekend anyways.

First I watched long pending Gladiator. “Never say die”.

Then it was a visit of a friend from college, a project mate. It was good meeting up with him and had a nice time..I hate shared attention and shared interaction that happens in regular get togethers and this was good but could have been better (if he did not bring along his friend and that if we spoke little more rather than watching the movie).
Then we went to see a movie. Sudden plans are always interesting. I watched Sivakasi Asin. It was not long ago that I saw her but before you start guessing, I am just hoping that she might make me learn Tamil faster. If megastar can do it for Megha to learn Telugu, why not for me?

On Sunday it was bloggers’ meet! Last time I was late by an hour and had hesitated to join …so this time I was well on time. Met lot of interesting people ! There were very knowledged people. There was Dr, there were IT industry people, there was teacher, students, active reader, inactive blog owners and so on(No, there was no Docs Dope physically but he was in everyone’s talk! Dont know who is docs dope? never mind!) . There were those who consciously avoided speaking to me, there was those to whom I could not speak. There were those to whom you could listen endlessly. And there were those who did not want to speak. Blogosphere too is, like the real world, combination of all people contrary to my expectation that it is only of outspoken and extrovert people.
Few cribs:
1. I got involved so much that I forgot I was carrying a camera.
2. A general intro did not happen and I think I missed out speaking to few people.
But it was a wonderful meet I should say, for it gave an oppurtunity to connect to different people from different fields. And, more blogs added to my blogroll! And expecting few more clicks on mine.

The picnic being cancelled, I thought I would have a sad weekend, on the contrary, it is over in a flash!

I had been searching for a single user CVS tool for personal usage from a long long time. Finally I seem to have got a just right kind of software for me.

Requirements : Single User CVS tool; For Windows; No client-server hassles; FREEWARE.

I met these in RCS Pro. I just installed it. Its easy to use though the usage is little different from the all powerful Clearcase that I use at work. There I checkout-edit-checkin, here I edit-checkin and checkout is required only if I have to undo the changes. Of course branching, graphical version tree are absent in RCS but that would be asking for too much for personal usage.

There is a good integration (menu item and differences) for Word,Excel etc!

Download Software

This was the play seen during the Diwali Offs, on Kannada Rajyothsava, to be precise, at Rangashankara. I am glad that directly or indirectly I was responsible for 13 people to visit the place and witness the play that day.

The program started with an introduction about the “Habba” - festival that was being celebrated to commemorate one year celebrations of RS. Introduction was by the very Arundathi Nag explaining about the various events planned and organised for the festival like workshops, platform plays and various plays written by eminent modern writers of different languages. Experiments also involved playing in other language than the one in which it is originally written.

The play finished much later than scheduled and hence customary character introduction was also skipped.

About the play:
It started with an old man (of low caste – Kuruba) complaining and explaining about the restrictions posed by the “Sharanas” and Basavanna. The restrictions would imply a stricter and nobler way of living and requires one to denounce bad habits like drinking, eating non-veg and womanizing.

Old man’s son and a priest’s daughter (high class - Brahman) are in love with each other. The son has recently become Sharana and is a devotee and follower of Basavanna. Girl is against the philosophies and ways of working of Sharana or Anna. The conflicts of idealisms lead to the quarrel leading to an unpleasant incident which causes communal riots and King is in a tricky position.

Basavanna is an adviser and a friend of King. But King himself is very just and knows the delicacy of the situation. He calls for both Basavanna and Priest to his court and listens to their complaints and defenses. He also calls for the girl.

After a long discussion with Basavanna and using his own ways of providing justice which is not only backed by sound reasoning but also supported by rich experience, King decides to visit the village and declare his verdict.

The performace by Sihikahi Chandru (King Bijjala) was outstanding mostly decorated by a near perfect dialogue delivery. Leading lady was also remarkable displaying control over her performance. And father (played by KSL Swamy Ravi) – I am not sure…) left a mark with screen presence.

Except for the first scene where the dialogues were rich with uncomfortable (and unnecessary) profanities, the dialogues were profound part of the play. It (especially during the classic argument between Basavanna and King) was too complicated and abstract to be followed ( by me…It was one of the few occassions when I have not been able to follow the parallel meaning completely). There was sparkles of humour here and there (mostly managed by mannerisms and timing of Sihikahi Chandru).

Sankranti is by P.Lankesh and it was directed by Prakash Belawadi. The audience had good number of cine/theater actors.

Overall, a strong script supported ably by good performances and direction resulted in a sensible play (heavy on thoughts but low on entertainment).

Earlier Posts on Plays

Every once in a while I feel so shocked and sad that I can hardly speak, think or do anything for a minute.
Even after that, when I think, I will find myself lost in a series of questions for which there are no answers.
Gaurav remembers Manju.
News Item
Satyendra Dubey

It was the Legend of Zorro on saturday and hugely popular Gajini on sunday.

Zorro (though I have not seen the first part) looked neat. Impressive action, pinch of comedy, little but good action, performances that are not complainable, a background music I liked and a feasible plot. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Antonio Banderas and the kid (Adrian Alonso) were impressive. Particularly I liked the kid. Though the movie could have done with little more action and little more pace, it was ok as the very predictable plot too looked fresh.

Gajini was a long pending one after listening to its songs almost 10 times a day (no, not by choice..but the radio keeps playing it non-stop and at my workplace radio singing is a must). I had known that the character has temporary memory loss and expected some Anniyan style of film. Even though I do not follow every word of Tamil, it was ok as I feel there were no great dialogues. Initially I enjoyed the movie till little after interval. But later I felt, it became not only predictable but it looked very hurriedly done to finish it off. The built up was ok but it did not live up to it. How I wish the voilence was a separate film and that of quite-romance-quite-comedy was turned into another movie. I enjoyed Asin and Surya in that part. How I wish Kalpana did not die (at least not in that manner). How I wish the villains looked believable and they were punished enough (and not just in one shoot sequence). And why was an abrubt inclusion of the twin villian - just for those matrix-like fighting sequences ?

For some reasons I seem to be liking these fairy tales like Zorro. In comparision of 2 movies (ok, I can not compare because they are not similar, but then) too I would pick Zorro..may be because there is a happy ending! May be because the movies in bollywood have totally run out of ideas. Any bollywood movie (particularly of romantic genre) seem to be pissing me off , for I can see their inspirations in many previous movies. Otherwise, Hindi movies will create a hype to which they fail to live upto. Or they lie at extremes. In other cases, I am plainly just not impressed.

In one of the reviews I read that “Garam masala is bad but If shadi no 1 is the alternative for Garam Masala, I would go for the latter”. This shows the state of affairs right now in many circles. There is no choice to pick up a good one. But a pale comparision and remaining one after eliminating among the bad candidates result in the winner. Similar to the story in elections.

My Diwali offs were somewhat good. Absolutely did not have time to log the activities. However an album is better than nothing.
Deepavali/Deepavali152.jpgDeepavali/Deepavali121.jpg
Deepavali/Deepavali147.jpg
Deepavali/Deepavali166.jpgDeepavali/Deepavali066.jpgDeepavali/Deepavali111.jpg

Here is my racing video, and here is the album of selected pics: Deepavali/

I write computer programs to create graphic images.

With an algorithmic goal in mind, I manipulate the work by finely crafting the semantics of each program.

This is too good. Head over to gallery.

Ps: Essay- Hackers and Painters