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Perhaps there is really no correlation between what we deserve and what we get. Perhaps that’s why the Gita advises us to let go of the fruits of our actions, for there is no direct equation. Faith and reason are the tools we use to understand life, and both fail us at such times. Perhaps Life is indeed completely random.

Am quite ashamed to quote it TOTALLY out of context from the original personal post here.

I would have liked to extend the above with my thoughts and put my perspective (and probably a context), but thats for another day.

I first read a hope from GreatBong well before the start of Twenty20 cricket:

If Dhoni can do a Tunbridge Wells, if Yuvraj steps into Mohinder Amarnath’s shoes, if Sreesanth can shake his ass like the generously endowed Roger Binny, if Rohit Sharma becomes a Yashpal Sharma, if Hayden leaves an outswinger that then swings in and takes off stump, if Gilchrist top-edges a pull to midwicket, if Pathan can regain his mo-jo and Sehwag can blast the ball past his beer gut then who knows—-those who have come to scoff may very well remain to pray.

Indian fans (the ones that actually care to follow the tournament) can take comfort in the fact that 24 years ago, another such inexperienced motley crew of bits-and-pieces no-hopers went to foreign shores sans any hype and expectations.

if GB wasn’t GB, he would have claimed to have known all things before hand due to his supreme powers and due to the placement of stars !

Not to forget, his post wasn’t just a wishful one , he had then went on to analyze what was missing and what was required very well.

He then followed it with another excellent post after India had reached certain stage:

And one of the reasons for these small miracles has been, no doubt, what I had referred to as the only positive for Dhoni’s men—-they had gone to South Africa unheralded, with no expectations and no accompanying hoopla. This was in sharp contrast to the team that went to West Indies earlier this year amidst the “Cup jeetke lao” and the “Blue Billion” corporate-fuelled hype and got hopelessly eliminated in the first round. While Dravid’s men played like zombies with the weight of expectations of the entire country weighing on their shoulders, looking increasingly forlorn, disconsolate and on the edge after each setback , the new Team India, no doubt because nothing was expected from them, has been free-spirited, uncluttered and fearless even when faced with enemy ships that have outsized and outgunned them.

in the glories of the last few days of cricket—-Yuvraj Singh with supreme arrogance flicking an express delivery from Lee for a 119 meter six, Rohit Sharma running out Kemp with an amazing diving throw, Kartik’s airborne catch to get rid of Smith, Stuart Broad’s red embarrassed “teenager with his first dirty magazine” expression as Yuvraj gets stuck into him, Sreesanth slapping the pitch with his hands like Hannibal Lecter in front of a fresh corpse as Hayden’s stumps lie in disarray and Dhoni’s simple nod of affirmation to Harbhajan after Bhajji rattles Symond’s Michael Clarke’s timber.

It has really been the most fun one can have with their clothes on.

And after the win again, he wrote an outstanding post:

Mr Dhoni we understand. It is not easy wicket keeping, strategizing, blasting deliveries to all corners of the park, praying that Joginder Sharma does not get hit for a six , hoping that Sreesanth does not slice a batsman with a pocket knife, while all the time carrying on your shoulders the weight of a million expectations.

See the smiling Pathan brothers there—-one of whom strangled your team’s progress in the middle overs and the other led a rousing charge on your opening bowler. Tell you what, they also belong to the “Muslims of the world” and yet are deliriously happy at your defeat . Why wouldn’t they be ? They caused it.

And whole of other things he has said over there ( Dear Flintoff, Dear Aussies, Dear Lankans,Kiwis and South Aftricans) is delightful to read !

**
Sidin’s open letter to Flintoff was another delight :

nce again proved without doubt that England should restrict itself to inventing games but not actually expect to win any of them. This is a small selection of such sports and games for your perusal:

- Football
- Cricket
- Tennis
- Hockey
- Rugby
- Badminton
- Anything that involves running (except running industry to ground), throwing (except throwing up outside pub) and jumping (except jumping on head of supporter of rival football team).

I know some Singhs who have two washing machines at home: one for washing clothes and the other for making Lassi.

Mr. Sidhu once had a minor tiff with another individual in a traffic-related situation. Now I am aware that Englishmen also get into traffic tiffs and then resolve it by hurling abuse at each other or a little pushing and shoving.

Mr. Sidhu, after due thought and introspection, killed the other man. Kaput. Khallas. Phineesh.

**
Gaurav feels bowlers will love Twenty20

Which is why, at the end of 2 weeks of cricket of quality and thrill levels not seen in the last 4 ODI world cups, it was the bowlers who made the difference. It was a bowler who got the man of the match in the final. It was a bowler (though the wrong bowler) who won the player of the series. Go through every match (except for, possibe the SA-WI run-fest) and it was bowling that tilted the scales.

**
Amit Varma thought it through :

Speaking of new stars, a big reason why this World Cup was so important for us was that it gave us a snapshot of the future. The decision by the Dravid-Tendulkar-Ganguly trio to withdraw from the tournament was a magnificent one for Indian cricket, as it gave us a chance to see what a young Indian team, without the baggage of the past, would look like. MS Dhoni’s team looked united, confident, devoid of politics and happy together.

That does not mean that we should discard the older players, for we need them in the season ahead, and should persist with them as long as they merit their place. But it does invalidate the argument that we should stick with our legends because the newcomers aren’t good enough. This tournament showed that we have eager, hungry young players waiting their turn, and any seniors who underperform should be shown the door—respectfully, but without regret.

***

Finally my few words about it. I saw some part of semis and nothing much of earlier matches (Sleep always dominated!). I followed the results keenly though.

I was stuck with work in office when all other cricket enthusiasts were glued to the TV for the finals. While coming by road, the road was empty and free flowing like no other day. Very frequently there were many groups in front of a showrooms which put the screen for the passing by crowd to watch There were loud cheers - for both dropping a catch and for taking a wicket - so it was very confusing for me as to which side the match was tilting. The cab driver got some updates on phone and by which I could guess it was a seesaw match. I came home just after it finished.

**
The fact is the trio-Dravid,Sachin,Ganguly- haven’t won the world cup for India despite having a strong team, despite being talented. The fact is the young team did it. But leave it at that. The conclusion based on these two facts can NOT be: the seniour players caused the team to loose or that their re-entry is not called for.

I am one of those few fellows, who despite had had disappointment over the way some players failed over and again, who would have been even more happier if the trio were part of the WorldCup winning team. I do not think their presence would have failed the team in any way. This Ponting talk of - it is unfortunate the winning team members should make way for seniours is CRAP. Now the failure would be tagged to the presence of seniours and the victory would be tagged to the world cup winning team’s “momentum”. Now I feel Rahul’s decision’s timing was very right, much before Dhoni’s team won the cup - if he had taken later/or if he had not resigned he would have had to face several other criticisms !

**
Despite the takl of “Chak De” movie reforming the game for the masses and media, after the Asia Cup win, not many covered it in bold. And this was to be highlighted and protested against at that very time. Now that saying “You are giving them and not giving us” sounds sad. Hope the media, govt and other companies (yesterday ToI carried an ad by Oil PSUs congratulating the heroes for winning the Asia Cup - is akin to giving a chocolate to a crying baby) will not repeat such bias in the future. I don’t accept that Asia Cup was smaller than cricket world cup - Asia Cup too had 11 playing teams and India did superlatively well - remaining unbeaten, defeated tough teams and setting few records.

**
Last few weeks Indian sports is doing better in almost all outings - billiards, chess,cricket, hockey, tennis. Here is a wishing and hope that the dream run continues.

# As said earlier, I am not daily-digest-posting my del.icio.us links on this blog. Instead I strongly beg-recommend-request-urge you to subscribe to this feed : http://feeds.feedburner.com/Lens/Convex - this will contain the google reader shared items and selected items from my notebook. Together now it is a complete link feed I could wish for. If you want to have a look at the page, it will be redirected from this easy url : http://rkblogs.net/blog/link-blog ,

# As is obvious, the email updates, from the blog will not include the links as was happening earlier. Feed readers request you to subscribe to above feed.

# Waiting for feedburner integration of Twitter daily digest and Reader link blog available under link splicer. How do I get heard ?

# The feed will be a mixture of all things that interest me - numerous blog posts from others, tech news, this and that and all. Be warned but do subscribe !

# Finally I can now use del.icio.us for what it is - bookmarking, instead of link blogging.

# Notebook (combined with this) is actually much more and I am possibly using it to full capability Just for the sake of completion here is my public page and here is the feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Lens/Window ( However, subscribing to Convex feed is enough, the notebook updates will be available there.)

# Not subscribed to Convex yet ? my last reminder, request - Do it now !

Its rare that I find myself agreeing to each and every point of a review by others. The review of Life in a Metro by B Rangan had me nod in agreement for almost everything (excluding perhaps Dharmendra part, which I did not think much about).
Excerpts to which I strongly agree:

[...] Go Bollywood!

There’s a lot about Metro that makes you want to get up and cheer. The story is a loose lattice of crisscrossing episodes about finding (and also losing) love – the film really should have been called Love in a Metro.

As with Shivani, there’s a refreshingly physical component to the love stories.

Shikha (Shilpa Shetty; [...] this is at least as good a performance, if not better – plus, she looks fantastic)

Kangana Ranaut, once again portraying a damaged-goods soul; she may be hitting the same notes in all her movies, but she does hit those notes extremely well

So you have adultery and betrayal and a lot of admittedly banal (in the sense that there’s not much you can’t predict) relationship drama, and it’s inevitable that Metro ends up resembling nothing more than a rather sophisticated soap – but no soap you’ve seen has had this kind of cast, these kinds of performances.

This is high-end ensemble acting, and I’d hate to single anyone out – but with a gun to my head, I’d probably admit to liking the story arc with Konkona Sen Sharma and Irrfan Khan the most. By now, it goes without saying that these two actors are terrific in whatever they do, but here they play that most heartwarming of rom-com staples: opposites who end up discovering that they may be destined for one another – and they’re just so good together. They’re funny and sad and confused and philosophical and they almost make you wish for an entire movie about their characters alone.

(There’s lot of rain in Metro, an indicator, perhaps, of the bad weather the relationships keep running into.)

Her umbrella is ruined in a gust of wind, and Akash uses a safety pin to fix it temporarily. And that’s the point, really. It – the fix with the safety pin, and the subsequent relationship with Akash – is only a temporary solution. The real issues still need to be tackled head-on. They won’t go away because you put a band-aid on them, and that’s as true of life in a metro as anywhere else.

Some my additional points :
1.The sad ending of Shika’s story is sad. Infact, I was disagreeing when she apologises itself. If in KANK, the adultery is justified by any weird logic, for Shilpa’s character it should have been a “right”, not even justification ! It was so easy to change the end, just make Kaykay enter the house after she has left (along with the child), because his return is the only “event” shown as a reason for her to stay back – apart from perhaps the child hugging her father – and not any other moral reasoning, which is why I feel that event could have been avoided. Even logistically, that climax would have made 2 people happy vs 1. But it looks like “compromise” is the theme – even Konkana’s character, Sharman Joshi’s character compromise.
2.The songs were finely blended in the movie and the lyrics too complimented so well that, dialogues and lyrics felt like extensions of each other. And with musicians appearing in the same frame as actors and through out the movie, songs were never this well a part of the movie !
3.Sharman Joshi looked/acted quite mature.
4.Dialogues sounded new. I was taken by surprise and clueless when Shiney Ahuja, on asking whether he left her or she left him, quite normally quips “Love left us”.

I was thinking of asking this question. How do you visualize time ? Somebody did it, so let me just use that post

Vivek asks

When you think about time, do you visualize it?

For example, when you think about an appointment that you have to keep, does the image of a wrist-watch or a clock present itself to you? Is it a digital display? When you think about months and years, do you mentally flip pages of a wall calendar? Or is it more like the inbuilt calendar of whatever Operating System you happen to be using?

This issue came up recently in a conversation. My friend thinks of time in closed loops, and I think of time in a strictly linear fashion. In my imagination, months proceed like this:

J–F–M–A–M–J–J–A–S–O–N–D

The year ends and a fresh line begins under this one. Within a month too, the dates are arranged in a straight line for me (not in groups of seven). The same hold for hours in a day - I count them from 1 to 24.

Not that I find it impossible to think of time in a closed loop, but the linear imagery comes naturally to me.

I wonder if it means something.

Which camp are you in? And are there other ways in which people visualize time?

As for me, the Jan to Jun goes like in the calendar on the wall — not the calendar where each page has one month. I get the picture of 3 months on a row, till june it is clear. After that it is not strictly 3 months per row. From June it goes in one coloumn below June till December.

Also when I think of a month, I get to see some dates marked with some importance like June 1st beginning of school, April 10th results, my birthday in March, exams in March and other close relatives/friends’ bdays, October holidays, Christmas, Rain in June-July (instantly reminds me of umbrellas), summer from March. April to June are lit brightly in my mind’s calendar probably because it is summer. Similarly Jan-Feb is little dark probably due to cold. July, August, September, November are not present on my mind’s calendar, only if I look for it, it would be visible in their appropriate places.

The days in the months are, obviously, visualized to be like in the calendar I mentioned. 7 days a week. Again Sunday reminds me of shoe-polish, hair cuts. Only Sunday gets marked as holiday in my mind. Saturday is half-day with white uniform. Wednesday - colour dress

Talking of numbers, 1 to 5 is in one line (left to right), in parallel to it (above it) is 6 to 10. After which it goes till 30 one next to another. After 30, 50 is marked somewhere like the end of 5th line in a table. After that only important numbers like 80, 90, 100 come to picture. After 100 it is again very sparse and like in a table only important numbers at the end of the coloumn - 1000. Anywhere above 20 to 25 and 80-100 are thought of as marks obtained. (As you can see only school related things are imprinted strongly on the mind. Engineering marks like 35-50 don’t have a place )

As is noted in that post’s comments,

Random Access View
Linear Alphabetical View
Meteorological View
GOTO Statement View
Dormitory View

some interesting views are possible. Tell me, how do _you_ visualize time.

Confused wrote about his own

That sunny day we were sitting in her car, behind India Gate, eating peanuts. When suddenly the mood hit me…..

and later did a meme. Was fun to read few posts, here I link’em.

Sakshi :

It was the kiss that ended my relationship with my boyfriend - And no, it was not because he was such a bad kisser and no, it was not the kiss that made me do it - well it was, except it was not his kiss. Now, before you all get the idea that I was cheating or randomly kissing other men, Let me back up and set the story up…

Sonya

We were alone. I was so nervous, I couldn’t have spelled my name at this point. He was there, I was there, and no one else was. Wow….

Born a Libran

Hero: Actually, I have never been… blissed before… I mean kissed before…

Experience: What? I dont think we are ready for that yet.

I have always enjoyed watching movies alone. Does not mean that I do not enjoy in groups, of course I enjoy in groups too. But when I say I went to watch it alone, people look at me as

• I am a big loser,
• I am a big anti-social guy
• I am a maniac/crazy about movies
• I have too much spare time on my hand.

I feel only one of the above is marginally true. I watch because I want to watch. Period.

Here is a post that thinks on the same lines as I do

Everytime I tell a friend that I watched a movie the previous day in one of the 21,000 malls beside my house in Gurgaon, the first question eventually is, “with whom?” If I manage to utter the unmentionable, that I watched it by myself, he looks at me like I watched the a rakhi sawant anchored “great indian laugher show” in loop six times.

I have always failed to understand our obsession with the society. The society must approve. The society must accompany. The society must not think you are crazy. I think this spirit has made us miss one of the greatest joys of the 21st century: watching a movie by yourself

He then analyses both the situations.

You want to watch a movie. You walk down to the nearest mall. You catch the movie. You appreciate it thoroughly, because the movie is now an experience between you and the movie-maker. You can connect with the soul of the movie, without popcorn or coke to ruin the experience. You finish in time for dinner. You get back home, eat and sleep peacefully. Its work the next day. 3 hours. Thats all it took.

You must try it sometime: A lot of fun

Many times, I feel so good when I read something that is so close to what I would have said otherwise. I will link to certain such items.

Last few days/months, I felt I am spending too much time online, and too much online-time is spent at Orkut, Chatting, Reader, Digg, del.icio.us, reddit, Desipundit, Blogbharti, Indianpad, putvote - you got it. My reader itself not only has too many feeds, but also too many updates. I feel guilty to mark it as read without reading it and to catch up would take enormous time. There are also days where I literally get fed up of catching up. After hours of spending on the net (browsing, chatting, orkutting), the net gain is so less and I feel I haven’t done anything all that time !

As Prof Sadagopan said,

Reading is deep, involves the brain and leads to learning. Browse can often be very shallow with very little learning.

Anyways, coming back to the topic, I have almost stopped orkutting and chatting. I can not stop reader - but will clean up the feeds to include only feeds of friends and important news. I am liking this utility which will combine many feeds into one so that I can mark “mark all as read” in one shot

Coming back to where I started, I liked this post, for it conveys what I wanted to say a lot better. Excerpts:

My next activity would be to do away with Orkut as well. I’ve been on it for 4 years, but all of a sudden I feel so sucked into it. Making new friends aren’t really worth it and I just will have to show my attitude. A stinking one at it, like one of the readers whom I’ve never met, told me on chat sometime ago. It helps. People come and they GO too. They say good things. They throw crap. They are opinionated. I do all that too. But then it will have to just stop someday. …

It is just a phase. Will life be more exciting if I’m away from Internet? Away from all the Information overload.

Of course one difference is that I am still not fed up with “my own” blog or blogging. I would let this continue and I have always seen that blogging does not interrupt my life.
I have to continue, because it is my ranting ground.

Wasn’t life simpler when I was way back in college? When mobile phones were a luxury. When surfing the internet would cost a bomb. When your needs were less. When you had more time to read and watch good TV shows. When you had more quality time with family and friends. When your life was within a circle that you ran around it oblivious to all the filth outside the circle. When the words “best friends” really meant something. When you just have ten bucks in your pocket, yet go and eat with your friends, order for one chilli parotta and share it, order one pepsi and fight for it. When long drives meant, riding a two-wheeler against the wind and feeling so accomplished. When branded clothes were just for commercials, while you can wear anything off the street that makes you look like super star. When library meant book library and not DVD library. When piggy bank meant saving up for summer holidays. When temple visits meant something divine and not a formality. When street cricket and seven stones were religious rituals in the evening, while Playstations and Xboxes were for the westerners. When treats for friends meant tea shops and bakeries. When the rains were the best time to sit and chat outside the classrooms, getting drenched, and staying home complaining of sickness. When the nights were meant for dreamless deep sleeps. When early to wake up and early to sleep was order of the day. When I wrote stories in college notebooks and not on computer. When I painted using oil paint and not Photoshop.

Life was much better, then. With little in life. With more happiness.

Little meant more. Amen.

Some excerpts of reviews :

Dhoom by Rangan:

THE censor’s certificate for Dhoom 2 has the number of reels as 16, which approximates to roughly two-and-a-half hours. But I’ll let you in on a little secret – the content, such as it is, barely fills up a couple of hours. So what’s with the extra thirty minutes, you ask? For the slow-motion shots, of course…..Heck, even Uday Chopra is allotted a quota of slow-motion.

I noticed that even basket ball is treated just like the stars, that it gets its time of glory in slow motion. The basket ball and the turn-by-turn bullet is slowest-crap!!

Oz in DT

I am in all awe of the screenwriter Vijay Krishna Acharya who accomplished such a difficult task of taking around 150 fashion photos of all Dhoom 2’s actors and writing a screenplay around it. And under Aditya Chopra’s tutelage has invented a new kind of screenplay. One that contains the portfolio of the film’s actors all striking a pose… and then with great pain he has to spoil the pictures by scribbling some dialogues over each of those pictures…

I don’t see Aditya Chopra being very happy as he saw Shri Vijay Krishna Acharya spoiling the 150 pictures by scribbling dialogues over them. If Chopra had it his way Dhoom 2 would be a motion picture of still photography where the 150 pics are held together and the right edge is quickly flicked through to give the impression of motion… in a picture.

There is this age old notion that many (if not most) people with eye popping physical beauty are actually “dumb”. Dhoom 2 stamps it’s signature on this notion… for the scenes have never looked so pretty, the actors so mindblowing handsome, the locales ever so gorgeous and an iota of intelligence - so absolutely invisible from the first to the sixteenth reel…..

If Chopra and Sanjay Gadhvi the director, had it their way, dialogue writers will be banned from Bollywood in the next few years. Stories will revolve around stunts, crashes, parachute jumps, wire stunt plays and ofcourse models… who enter in a scene with a background music that makes you lose your hair faster and upsets your stomach at cheetah speed.

And another movie review blog I hopped through and a good review of Dhoom could be found here.
********
As for me, have seen quite awful films like Apna Sapna Money Money, himse arasai(mostly bcoz i didnt understand it)..and good ones like Casino Royale. Haven’t had time or interest to review those. My blog is not being updated with anything other than reviews and that bothers me.

Also saw Dhoom2 and was disappointed in more ways than one. I guess Abhishek’s dialogue “Mujhe laga Kya pyaar hai, kya aadmi hai ..phir laga kya bhakwas hai” suits to movie like a T like this “pehle mujhe laga kaisa movie hoga, aise log hai…phir laga kya bhakwas hai”. With such a jaw dropping star cast and with such a superb foundation in the previous edition, so much could have been achieved if there was an intention to give a good movie. But alas, the intention itself was misplaced - as every other review will highlight- only to showcase the people. What an irony that the first part was a landmark in Abhi’s career, just hope that this does not turn the graph back in his career. He, Ash are so pathetic that I have no words. Second Bips(No clue why first Bips was removed and a sis was introduced ..and both of them didn’t have anything to do in the movie) and Uday compete with these fellows. Hrithik (for a part) and first Bips were ok to say the maximum. As far the implausibles, there is a huge list which is a waste of time to look into. But as Rangan says

Why all this fuss in a film that hired Bipasha Basu for the sole reason that she could put on a Baywatch-red swimsuit and jog… in slow motion?

***
Guru Music Review

Gaurav has translated Phu La Deshpande’s marathi essay “Mumbaikar, Punekar ..”. Makes an interesting and fun read. I loved these parts and I kept on nodding “Yes yes..I know people like this…”

Firstly, do not nurse the notion that you are inferior to anyone in any aspect of life. You are not. You are a superior being. Secondly, learn to express dissent on every issue possible. I mean seriously, stop thinking about minor things like who you are, how educated or uneducated you are, what your achievements are….. don’t think about any of these things and just express a contradictory opinion. Whatever the topic under discussion, your opinion needs to be strongly voiced, and it has to be contrarian. Even if the topic under discussion is “How to get the American economic machine back on track”, and you are just an employee of the Pune Municipal Corporation’s Rat Extermination Department, don’t let it stop you from holding forth.

Dissent is of primary importance. Logic is secondary.

RIGHT!

Phone mannerisms and that public speech is good too.

Tunak is a craze esp on youtube which has in excess of 350 videos on the same. I learnt about this mania via Vivek :

What is with the new craze about Tunak Tunak Tun?

First, you have to check out the Tunak Trailer.

Then, you should watch Tunak Tunak Brown.

But StarCraft Tunak-Tunak is not so good.

My favorite is Tunak Tunak Jesus. Get the link from here.

Rediff on Woh Lamhe

If there is one reason you need to watch Woh Lamhe, it is Kangana Ranaut. She is a brilliant, outstanding actress

Rangan on Woh Lamhe :

Kangana inhabits Sana wonderfully. At first, this seemed to be a reprise of the boozy moll she played in Gangster, and all I could think was that she’d better find herself a rom-com fast, or all this lacerating, baring-of-soul acting – the slurred shrieking, the eyes glistening with unshed tears, the drinking straight from a bottle while perched precariously at the edge of her first-floor verandah – is going to end up affecting her in real life. But I can’t imagine another heroine today who could have pulled this off and made Sana so compulsively watchable.

I too wish she gets out of this stuff otherwise she would be stereotyped and forgotten soon. There is not much I wanted to say about the movie apart from that - it is intense and full of pain and it drains emotionally. So much that the heart goes out for the characters and for their helplessness. Movie has some unwanted awful moments as well as some untied ends. It has soulful music and editing that cuts slack as well as allows for slow moments keep the movie going. And another point, that lady (Masumi Makhija) did scare me too much. 19 yr old actress, 25 yr old director and such movie - man, good times ahead for cinema.

Have not read such funny reviews recently. Check this from Khaled:

Our laadli Moushumi even plays a double role in Tanuja Chandra’s Zindaggi Rocks, which turns out to be the scariest screamer you’ve seen since The Exoricst and Omen.

He passed away, presumably because of overreading. Sad.

He he !

And 7 islands and a metro gets 4 stars!

From

The technical acronym for RSS is “Really Simple Syndication”, an XML format that was created to syndicate news, and be a means to share content on the web. Now, to geeks and techies that means something special, but to everyday folks like you and me, what comes to mind is, “Uh, I don’t get it?”

So, to make RSS much easier to understand, in Oprah speak, RSS stands for: I’m “Ready for Some Stories”. It is a way online for you to get a quick list of the latest story headlines from all your favorite websites and blogs all in one place. How cool is that? (Click on image for larger view)

[image]

Suppose you have 50 sites and blogs that you like to visit regularly. Going to visit each website and blog everyday could take you hours. With RSS, you can “subscribe” to a website or blog, and get “fed” all the new headlines from all of these 50 sites and blogs in one list, and see what’s going on in minutes instead of hours. What a time saver!

That one place where your RSS list is created is called an RSS Reader, and it gathers all the headlines from all the websites and blogs you have subscribed to. In a moment, I will describe how to get an RSS Reader.

Subscribing to RSS feeds
But first, to “subscribe” to a website or blog’s RSS feed simply means that you are telling that website or blog, “Yes please. Send me your story headlines.” It’s like subscribing to a magazine or newsletter. Instead of getting a magazine or email, you will just get a list of headlines sent to your RSS reader. If the headline looks interesting to you, all you have to do is click on the headline and you’ll be sent to the whole story.

In order to subscribe to a website or blog’s RSS, all you have to do is click on an RSS symbol like one of those shown in the diagram above, or a text link of the words “Subscribe to our RSS feed” on the website or blog. Typically, you can find these RSS symbols or text links in your browser window, on the sides of the website page, or on the bottom of the page. The publishers of the websites and blogs really want people to subscribe to their RSS, so they will make it very easy for you to find the subscription links.

Oh just our suffer, one Sara waitings
Sun sad comings, is giving man zeal of loves (Kiski Tea)

ae mere humsafar, ik zara intezaar
sun sadaayen, de rahi hain, man-zil pyaar ki

I am not in my own public transport.
Deal is somewhere and I am somwhere.
Coin a stop heart’s Hindi serial
The pickle is gone
ah ah aaa haaa aah (MisGuide)

apne hi bas mein nahin main
dil hain kahin aur hoon kahin main
koi-na roko dil ki Udaan ko
dil voh chala
ah ah aa haaa aah

My Daughter-In-Law is a moon, You are a bar in Mumbai
door is next to Daughter-In-Law, sridevi told (gvenum)

chaand mera dil, chandni ho tum
chaand se hai door, chandni kahaan

Such and more fun cometh here. A 30 word odd post of out-of-the-world creativity gets 174 comments. Anybody can beat that ?

Arun @ 70mm :

Pyar Ke Side/ Effects (PKSE) may have ventured into a familiar territory that was explored earlier by Nagesh Kukunoor in Hyderabad Blues -1 & 2 but it still smells oven fresh. Cynics may want to write it off as a wannabe Hollywood movie or the one trying to wander in the lanes of Meet the Parents, but its infectious charm is undeniable. Its like an old story narrated in a refreshingly funny way, ofcourse with the occasional cliches, keeping the contemporary world in mind.

Rangan on Dor

As the film unfolds, you see that, just as with Iqbal, Kukunoor seems to do his best work while walking on the middle of the road – not pandering especially to either commercial or art-house considerations. The impression I got with Dor was that of watching something like Majid Majidi’s Baran filtered through a Bollywood-lite sensibility. Like Iranian cinema, this is a heartwarmingly simple story, simply told, but with dialogues and music and melodrama taken from our cinema.
[...]
This dialogue-baazi is all us, but the thunder and lightning dramatics that you would assume would follow is missing. And that’s wonderful because there are a lot of us who don’t want to give up entirely our moviemaking conventions, but would also like, at times, to see our films transcend them. We want it both ways, and like Hrishikesh Mukherjee before him, Kukunoor seems to have hit upon the golden mean.

Chitra about Dor

For the contrast in the reaction/ response of the protagonists to the obstacles in their lives…….

For the breath-taking cinematography capturing the colours of Rajasthan and the locales of Himachal Pradesh…..

Oz on Desi train makes a strong request to watch and encourage new movies which are different, fresh. Just like few of the sentences above, I strongly agree with his statements.

It’s time to sit up and recognize the struggles and efforts this first generation of Bollywood writers in the 21st century are going through, just to bring out positive, meaningful cinema – cinema they believe in, you believe in, I believe in.

Jaideep Sahni, Anurag Kashyap, Abbas Tyrewala, Sriram Raghavan, Imtiaz Ali, Jahnu Barua, Nagesh Kukunoor, Anurag Basu, Sandeep Shrivastav and a few others that I may have missed in this Gen 21 that make you jump off your seat and do a Balle Balle.

Yet this Gen 21 may quickly disappear into the fast setting sun, if you and I don’t accept our responsibility as an audience. The responsibility to go out and support such positive cinema, so the producers can recover their money, thereby fortifying their trust in such scripts, such stories, and such cinema.

The period between 1984 to 1995 must have been the worst in Bollywood, in terms of quality. Whereas in this year of 2006, in about 9 months, there are at least 5 movies that have just been amazing, in the period between 1984 to 1995 there must have been hardly 5 - 10 movies that you would have bothered to give a nod to.

And we may soon move to that moronic phase if you don’t get up, walk out and drive to the nearest theater that is showing Khosla ka Ghosla and such amazing movies (I hear Dor is masterpiece, though it hasn’t released here in Los Angeles) that emits nothing but pure sincerity and meaning. Movies that tell a good story.
[...]
Southern California is about one third the size of the Indian state of Maharashtra. And Khosla ka Ghosla (as far as I know) is running in just one theater in the entire region. On Saturday at the 1pm show, there was a huge crowd (Telugu) at the theater to watch a Telugu movie (some Nagarjuna or Chiranjeevi movie). The screen where the Telugu movie was being shown was completely packed.

I stepped into Screen number 3, where KKG was being shown. We were three people in the entire hall watching the movie. Three supporters of a good movie in an area one third the size of Maharashtra. Three people. Me. And two others who found it hard to get off their cell phones while watching the movie (if I had a baseball bat they both would have been in the hospital by now). So that left just one person, who seriously watched the entire movie. One. Me.
[...]
A Minus. No gimmicks. No million dollar sets. No lavish song and dance sequences. No over the top emotional vomit. No special effects. No Swiss or New Zealand scenes. It’s just a pure story. Pulled right out of your life and mine. Simply said, funnily told. Khosla ka Ghosla is the golden needle that hits your heart. Right at that sweet spot.

He goes on to review Khosla ka ghosla which I have resisted to read.(Will do after watching, if possible)

You know whats saddening, that I am sitting and compiling this post rather than run and watch them myself first hand. Dor runs one show at an unheard of awful show timing (for a single show) at 3:30PM and the other two nowhere to be seen. Suddenly I feel I am in a different planet.
I do not like this.

This year has really been good for Bollywood both in terms of quality and box-office (Krish,Kank,Fanaa,Omkara,RDB,LRM to name a few) and as Oz says

The period between 1984 to 1995 must have been the worst in Bollywood, in terms of quality. Whereas in this year of 2006, in about 9 months, there are at least 5 movies that have just been amazing, in the period between 1984 to 1995 there must have been hardly 5 - 10 movies that you would have bothered to give a nod to.

Greatbong is rightly upset the way India is treated in foriegn media, and more so by the “Indians” themselves.

But what about Indians themselves ? Why do Indians, the moment they write for a foreign media outlet, start pandering to the stereotype rather than trying to puncture it? Why don’t they define their own vocabulary instead of talking in the language of condescension? Mind you, India has many problems and highlighting them is essential. A post about the power problem in India (a fair one, not suggesting that it is abysmal compared to other regions of the world) would be fine.

While at it, check out the comment space.

In a similar vein, Crystal blur is confirms that with worse situations, those people will too throw “order” out of the window.

It was nothing short of spectacular to see these 60-somethings dressed in gowns and suits trample over each to get to the shuttle. The queues quickly went from endangered to extinct. My advisor was appalled to say the least. I was just amused to see politeness tossed out of the window as chaos took charge to unleash blatant disregard to fellow passengers.

At the end of the day, we are all the same. They have their blonde jokes while we mock the sardarjis. We have our Bajrang Dal and they have their Bible thumpers.

Shruthi writes about the only known Indian ultra marathon runner Arun Kumar Bharadwaj and his comment (which was his bio and a list of achievements) :

Typical training: It varies but normally 160 - 200 km/week. I sleep 4 hours only i.e. 12 mid night to 4 am and one night sleepless per week.

Injury history: None relating to running. Have undergone four major surgeries of Parotid Tumor between 14 and 17 years of age. I was very weak from my childhood, from the age of 6 to 19 yrs, I was a victim of malaria every year in rainy season. My body weight was only 26 kg when I was 14 years of age and 35 kg at 17 yrs. I, always, was the weakest boy of the class in my school time.

Favourite ultra foods: Totally vegetarian & teetotaler. Honey, fruit juice, banana and sugar cane.

Things I like most about ultra: Traveling, getting to make new friends. It gives opportunity to explore the unknown inner world and give spiritual ecstasy. I like my tears most during my ultras, I love them.

His own experience is found here. His email id is a_runrunrun

Naksha

Turns out that pesky inner voice was right – for soon after, there’s a noisy dance number with Ms. Reddy in what looks like a sequined langot, as Mr. Oberoi goads from the sidelines: “Shake what your mama gave you!” Oh, the horror, the horror. And the scene that follows is worse. This performance was apparently for someone’s bachelor party; Sameera is revealed to be a friend of the fiancée, and she shook what her mama gave her simply to expose the groom-to-be as a skirt chaser. And when Viveik comments that she’s a strip dancer, she retorts, “Main yahaan strip karne aayi thi. Lekin mere kapde nahin. Sirf tumhare is plan ko.” With spectacle like this and with dialogue like that, I didn’t know whether to cover my eyes or my ears as the first hour went about its apparent task of desecrating every single movie memory of mine.

Times like these, I pity the professional movie reviewer’s job. He heh!

Munnabhai

IFRang De Basanti were to become a whimsical, fairy-dusted comedy, I guess it would look like Lage Raho Munnabhai. The Aamir Khan blockbuster told us that we’ve forgotten those who fought for our freedom, and this one zooms in on one particular man who fought for our freedom – it tells us that Gandhi-ism is such a thing of the past that adhering to his ideals today will get you branded a crackpot.

The similarities don’t end there. In both Rang De Basanti and Lage Raho Munnabhai, a key sequence involves the commandeering of a radio station, both films depict a reenactment of phases of our struggle for Independence (here, it’s satyagraha), and both coast along the messagey undercurrent that there is a way to draw today’s generation out of its cynical apathy. Only, Rang De Basanti went about it through shock treatment, while Lage Raho Munnabhai advocates a cuddly equivalent of the jadoo ki jhappi, this time rather cheekily labelled Gandhigiri.

Everywhere I went looking for passion, talent and excitement I found myself surrounded only by politics that would make a Roman Senator shrivel in fear, and programmers whose only goal in life was to make it from pay check to pay check. Design patterns- what are they? Extreme Programming what? You mean you actually write ‘tests’ in code? What’s a delegate? Why learn that version of the language – I don’t even know this one too well!!

But, by and large I found myself in the same situation over and over. I was like that female friend or relative that we all have that seems to continually find themselves in love with abusive partners. Over and over I’d be lambasted for being too passionate (a condition muppets refer to as arrogance). Time and again I’d find myself explaining basics of programming to people that should know better, people with years of experience under their belts, people that really didn’t care. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve taken abuse (real and faux-comedic) for being dedicated to the pursuit of beauty in code and technology.

A person removing MS from his career, life.

Here Too hilarious, if you have been following those bloggers’ blogs.
Samples :

Me: “I’ll be back guys. Gotta go pee.” Comes back in five minutes. “So did I miss anything?”

Bloggerb: “Umm.. not much. Megha got 18 more comments. Manish wrote four posts at UltraBrown, and made 3 releases of RocketPost. Amit made 11 posts on his blog, and wrote an article each for Cricinfo and the Wall Street Journal.”

Kiru: “If Himesh Reshammaiya can be the most popular music director in India, why can’t I be the number one blogger?”

Me: “Why are you guys here? Who invited you? Jai, is your DVD player broke or something? Chandrahas, don’t you have a book to review or a mattress to buy? Ammani, what about quick tale 156? Who’ll write it if you are here? Please leave.”

Unidentified Young Man: “This confusion arose because of the unfamiliarity of this gentleman with the word podcasting. Since he didn’t know the word, he assumed it meant something dirty.”

Me: “Dude, why do you keep stating the obvious all the time? Who are you?”

Unidentified Young Man: “My name is Patrix. I run Desipundit.”

Dilip: “What a thought provoking statement. That makes you a fine journalist.”

GreatBong: Clears throat.

Bloggerathruzandsomeothers: “Ha, Ha, Ha. Hilarious.”

GreatBong: “Shut up guys, this is serious stuff. So, Dilip, tell us how calling all men morons makes one a fine journalist?”

Dilip: “Oh a difficult question. How I wish this was my blog - I could’ve buried this one under a deluge of posts.”

GreatBong: “So ?”

Dilip: “Goodbye!”

And not to miss, Falstaff’s comment!

By Pleiades. Another post is also thought provoking.

Here is one of the purest of all love stories, and we are privileged to be alive to see it unfolding before our eyes, in air-conditioned multiplexes. Johar’s adoration of Shah Rukh, the way he lovingly places him at the centre of every frame and gives him God-like status, is truly marvelous to behold.

Jai elaborates

But I’m now convinced that KJ is in love with SRK. I don’t know what kind of love this is – platonic, sexual, unrequited, whatever – but there’s no mistaking it….Karan Johar’s last three films have been gorgeous love letters penned to SRK, even though at least two of them have been mediocre films. As studies of adulation, of the immortalizing of one person by another, they will live forever, longer perhaps than all those sonnets Shakespeare addressed to his Muse.

In a different post, he likens SRK to Godzilla

the principle of gradually revealing parts of SRK’s (leather-clad) anatomy while keeping his face out of sight, or shadowed. It was like those multi-part Godzilla trailers where you caught tantalizing glimpses of a giant eye or foot or tail, but never the whole lizard at once.

Check the posters of both (in the same post), I was in for a surprise!

Rangan on Kank

KARAN JOHAR’S plots can typically be summed up with a one-liner question: Will Shah Rukh Khan get together with X? Will Shah Rukh Khan get together with Kajol (in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai)? Will Shah Rukh Khan get together with his estranged family (in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham)? And so, as Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna – or KANK, as it’s come to be known – began to unfold, and I saw that its one-line plot is whether Shah Rukh Khan (playing Dev) will get together with Rani Mukerji (as Maya)

And finally we have, Greatbong, a fun review. Must read.
I burst out laughing after reading this second sentence

Not to speak of the ridiculous side-plot of the ‘Black Beast’—-a child-kidnapper who is introduced as someone who could be either a man or a woman. Which I presumed was the context for Karan Johar to make a guest appearance.

He later reviews Kabhi Aage …in Taran Adarsh’s style. Hilarious.

The title of this post was initially supposed to be “I do not have to know an answer“, a quote from Feynman, [from the video, link given below], a thought that has been with me for quite some time now. With the risk of sounding proud/immodest, let me say that it gives much pleasure to hear our own thoughts when it comes from others. And when it comes from the very Feynman, I am thrilled at myself :). Watch the video of approx 40 minutes - much to be learnt from it - like, more important is to know something than to know the name of something, then there is a mention about how people respect “positions”, about “doubt” and many others.

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

Finally, the video is available here.
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By now you might have heard about the BBC mix-up for the interview of a “Guy”. The video is here. Related stories here and here.
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Isn’t the following video wonderful ?
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Other interesting video from him is this.
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And I guess you have already seen this one. From the first Animusic DVD. Pipe Dream has been voted one of the 50 greatest animation projects ever (by 3D World magazine). A group of percussion instruments perform music by way of metal balls that fly out from pipes.
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This is a funny video of an computer using employee (am fed up of the word software engg…) in office. Have fun
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And this is absolutely fun. On cricket
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Here you find an interview of K K Mookhey founder of NII about how he left Engg to start off with his own business. He didn’t know “what” or “how” to do apart from that he was clear that he would be starting on his own. He did not have any business plan nor does he have now.
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Another interview from The Kamla Bhatt Show is of Amit Agarwal about his full time blogging at Digital Inspiration using which he earns more than he would have earned in his previous profession - Software Engineer. Given that most of his earning comes from Adsense, he is India’s own version of Problogger. A success story here and there but many Indian bloggers are of the opinion that Adsense would just provide for a meal or two a month.

Okay..this is blogmela post again. Hopefully this will be regular. The procastrination was only to make this not hog the main page but to get buried inside like the Linkblog. But due to various reasons, I have to wait for someone to come up with plugin/code that allows to hide more than one category posts on the main page and but to still allow it in the feed.

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Kiruba mentioned about cycling sometime back and I immediately pinged Guru. Discussion, planning, booking happened and right now they must be travelling on their cycles from Bangalore to Chennai. Am eager to hear their experiences. Guru mentioned that people were laughing at his adventure and when I spoke of it here, I too faced that. I did not really expect people not to appreciate people doing different things. One person said, they could just circle around a big ground number of times. I burst out laughing. I said you would also suggest that climbing up and down our terrace 1000 times is equivalent to climbing Mt.Everest. Of course I remembered this quote as well:

“Because it is there.” - George Mallory (1886-1924), answer to the question ‘Why do you want to climb Mt. Everest ?’.

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Dreamvendor quits blogging which is kinda sad. More so because he wrote some of the finest stories in Coffee and Stories. Mansi,Siddarth and coffee, I will dearly miss.
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Chitra was wondering about some confusions. I tried to share my views. The questions and comment is reproduced here. If any of you have questions, do ask me. But do not expect to get answers or to clear your confusions, you will plainly get *my* views.

After reading the following, if you agree/disagree do let me know.

Questions:

Companionship + comfort + support + mutual respect + chemistry = Friendship?

Friendship + desire = Love?

Love + commitment = Marriage?

The best compliment that can be paid to anything artificial is being compared to the real thing. What about the real thing?

A house built on compromise can never be a home?

What exactly is meant “striking the right balance” in life? Does it mean the right kind of compromise at the right time?

Too much of money is too bad, so say the rich?

Is honesty or hypocrisy the best policy?

Is there anything that’s more destructive than ego?

Do men deserve women?

Where does all the money paid in tax go?

Is vanity always the name of thy woman?

Is there an upper limit set for compromise?

Can we fall in love as and when we wish to?

Why do some people derive a perverse pleasure in causing pain to others?

What’s responsibility? Towards self……or towards your loved ones?

And what’s that which stops us from expressing ourself whole-heartedly? Fear of being ridiculed or fear of being rejected?

When we spend time with people whom we like, are we doing them a favour…or ourselves a favour?

My replies:
1) Might be one equation. It need not be the “only” one.

2) No. Much more or totally different.

3) Huh! Again very generic and acceptable definition for a short temporary moment of time.

4) Good question. A lame attempt at answering (I want to attempt all questions…never did it in school/college) Real thing gets its compliment from being useful. (again a narrow defn..but ..)

5) Can’t say. If just the belief can be percieved as truth the whole life without encountering/producing proofs to change the belief, anything on earth is possible.

6)Yes…very right…even you can relax the time axis.

7) Not quite an irony, for they have seen the other side of the grass which is supposed to be green.

Justify that hyprocrisy is best policy !

9) Yes. Jealousy. Hatred. Revenge.

10) The very first thought - do women deserve men ?
On more thoughts, men deserve women either as much as women deserve men or more than that.

11) Karmanye vaadhikaraste maa phaleshu kadachana

12) Dont know.

13)For the weak minded, no. For the strong willed, yes.

14) Immediate response - what crap….Thoughtfully, question is too general and subjective. And implementation specific ! But importantly, how do I know ??!

15)Dont know.

16)Self first. Which in most cases will in turn be towards loved ones. In case if not, no probs. [No, I was not like this. But it really is meaningless to be more responsible to others than to oneself]

17)Dont know, bcoz nothing stops me. I believe in say what you want to say, do waht you want to do, -those who matter dont mind and those who mind dont matter etc etc. Simply put, I hate keeping the ball in my court, I hit it back first and then worry if it was a good shot or it went out of court. But then, the act is already committed

18)Of course ourselves, bcoz the inverse relation is not specified in the question. (I mean, if those whom we like really didnt like us, then it is a pain they are enduring and it is never our favour to them.) On the same thoughts, when you spend time with those whom you dont like, will you do them a favour or will you do yourself a favour (by saying bye) ?

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70mm moves to 70mm.wordpress.com
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Bro shares his experience on that day of disturbance after Dr Raj’s death. I have never seen (*touchwood*) a mob or voilence and it must have been a scary-n-confused ordeal.

I passed quietly through the black smoke of burnt tyres.

I wished he had a camera though.
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Sripathi has an account of his trip to Madikeri and some previous posts had good pics of the same. Now, coorg has been one another most elusive picnic spots for me and incidentally in last one year all my friends have toured separately to that place and now I am left with no company