True Love – Is it really as complicated as it is made out to be?

Love can make a person’s world go round, love can drive a person to do things he / she wouldn’t normally do, love can change a person’s perspective about life, love can make / break a person’s life, love can make a person change his / her personality for the person they love, love can do so much and more. So what really is love? Why does it have the kind of effect which any other feeling or thing may not have in this wide world? Is it really as complicated as it sounds? Are love, infatuation and just liking a person, leaves of the same tree? Is there anything called love at first sight? Does the concept called true love exist?  I know all you guys out there have loads and loads of such questions running in your minds. Before you guys start wondering that I would give you some advice or something on love, please relax! I am not an agony aunt or something because I really don’t have the credentials to be one. I would just talk about love by taking myself as an example – You can say a LAB RAT .

In today’s world if someone likes, loves or just the fact that two people are always together and think about each other in a way more than friends, people start commenting that they are “going out” or in a “relationship” or “together”. No one says that they are in love even though they really may be in love, the reason being that its “not in fashion”. While I was at school, I used to wonder how can people get into and out of relationships like as if they change their t – shirts. It seemed really odd and weird.

As time went by, I did fall in “love”. Initially though, I thought it was some kind of infatuation, liking or little bit more than that. Slowly but surely, I got sucked into this feeling of love completely and ended up reaching a point of no return. A point where I had thought I would end up marrying the person, a point where I had told the person all my likes, dislikes and good things and bad things, a point where I had probably (I hope I don’t sound cheesy on saying this ) dedicated my entire life to that person, a point where I really felt I had found “TRUE LOVE”. But all good things do come to an end most of the time.

So what is this “TRUE LOVE”? Is it whatever I wrote earlier or something else? There really isn’t any definition of “TRUE LOVE”. Our parents say that this concept died many years back. But our movies even today show that such a concept does exist. Ten different people would surely have ten different views on this topic. But, I am a die – hard romantic and truly believe that “TRUE LOVE” does exist. It isn’t even a quarter as complicated as it is made out to be. And the most important thing is that it isn’t necessary that “TRUE LOVE” can happen only once. It can surely happen more than once. That doesn’t mean that I am trying to say that after marriage, a person falling in love again is fine. The fact is that, one relationship with a person gone awry doesn’t mean that the person cannot fall in love ever again. “TRUE LOVE” doesn’t come with a tag of lasting for days, months or years. It can even last for 1-2 years or go on for the entire lifetime of a person.

The four years were the most amazing times of my life. The feeling of knowing that there is someone who cares about you just lesser than your family, the feeling that there is someone around to pamper you, hug you, make you smile, make you happy even when you are sad, the feeling of knowing that there is one person in this world who will always be with you irrespective of anyone else in this entire universe made my world go round. And yes this I truly believe was “TRUE LOVE”. Fights, bad times, good times, angry times, funny times, stupid times everything all combine to make the complete picture.

Very few people find “TRUE LOVE” in this world not because its difficult to find but because they don’t believe in this concept called “TRUE LOVE” or don’t know how to recognize it when it comes knocking at their doorstep. “TRUE LOVE” is one of the most precious gifts of God. It should be cherished and nurtured always!

Vote for me now! Blogomania 2010 sponsored by Odyssey360 | The 24 hour online book store with 5 milion books to choose from.

 

Feb 09 – Feb 10: Reminiscing the times

For all those who are wondering, why I am writing an entry about what happened from Feb 09 – Feb 10 instead of Jan, its my birthday today, so this entry is based on that. First things first, finally I have crossed the adult barrier of 21. So finally by all means, there is no scope for anyone to call me small (age wise) . A hell lot of stuff has happened in my life, in India around the world everywhere in all possible fields. But I will stick to writing about stuff that’s happened in my life during the last 365 days. And believe me, there’s a hell lot of stuff thats happened. Get set for a lovely journey!!

Last year during this time, I was in the final lap of my life at VIT.  I was doing our stupid final year project in VIT with Ranjani (Ranju), Shahid and others in Karthikeyan sir’s lab. God! Those times were so good. Used to sleep at 3-4am and get up at 10-11am. I was always late and Ranju would end up yelling at me. But me being me, I never improved =P. I joined B.Tech Biotechnology because I was really interested. But as is the case, over the years it just became a mug and vomit and mug and vomit and mug game, though I did take part in quite a few paper presentations and other competitions. Even though we didn’t do something really useful in our project, I really loved whatever we did. But I guess then it was too late .

During this period I was also busy in my applications for different B – Schools for pursuing MBA. I had applied to so many colleges that I don’t even remember the total number. But had just got call from SP Jain that too on the basis of my profile. Sadly, neither  my CAT nor XAT score was anything to talk about. In the end, I did manage to clear the first round but got eliminated in the second. I think I did perform commendably though considering the fact that both were group interviews and in both the panels I was the only fresher. But as they say all’s well that ends well (or in today’s lingo all izzzz well!!), I had SIBM as the last option. I did apply after a lot of natak and nautanki over not wanting to be an NRI again and blah blah and got through. The rest as they say is history.

One of the best things to happen during this period was to “re – discover” my friendship with Yaamini Radhakrishnan (Mini). She was in my class in 9th and 10th but both us didn’t speak much then. By a stroke of luck when she sent me a message, we started chatting on gtalk and phone. And lo, I was wondering how could both of us not talk when we were in the same class. It felt like looooooooong lost friends talking to each other. Its really been an amazing journey since.

During this period at VIT, even though there was nothing to study or no classes to worry about, there were other things to think (or be frustrated as my friends call me “frustogi”) about. The biggest problem a person faces in life is when he / she has to distinguish between the person he / she loves and who is his / her friend. People have always had this problem of not wanting to disappoint both their friends and the person they love. But sadly they end up doing that. I was in a similar situation and it was seriously like a storm inside me. But thankfully I managed to come out of this unscathed.

May 15th – May 18th 2009 were the days when all of us parted from each other, some to work and others to study further in India and abroad. Parting from Ranju after ten yrs and also Padhee, Anish, Sruthi, Giri, Mohsin (MBL), Arun (ADG) and others felt really painful. The fact that Giri, MBL and ADG came to drop me all the way up to the airport was so touching that I would have cried if I had stayed outside the airport with them any longer after they had dropped me. Somewhere deep down I did wonder as to how would I survive without Ranju by my side. Signing t – shirts, diaries, books, hugs, tears, goodbyes, promises of meeting up again, staying in touch were all done.  And thus came to end my “Happy Days” at VIT University.

After a short visit to Muscat of about two weeks, I was back to SIBM Pune to begin the second and final innings of my educational career. Another friend who I “re-discovered” was Forum Parikh. She was in my class in 6th. But after that had lost touch only to meet her up in Pune after 9 years. Now that’s a looooong looooong time. I met her once before she left for a sojourn of US for 4 months. But we frequently chatted online and maan the way we chatted as is the case with Mini, it didn’t feel like we had been far away for so many years. Since coming back in October, she’s been my Pune tour guide too taking me around the city.

Before coming to SIBM Pune, I had heard so much ki MBA is this and MBA is that. But after a period of approximately one year, I really feel its been an amazing experience in terms of learning, activities and also meeting different kinds of people. There was a sense of apprehensiveness in me about the kind of people, studies and also whether I’ll be able to settle down fine because Mom & Dad didn’t come. They were like ” Beta tum bade ho gaye, we came to VIT..Now you go alone and get settled”. I was also wondering how it would be to share my room with someone considering the fact that I had become used to staying alone all my life. I did have early jitters considering the number of subjects we had (17 – 18 I think). But as time went by I did settle down.

Before coming to Pune, I had entirely lived in the South which is much more conservative and orthodox. Therefore, after coming here, it was an experience in itself to meet loads of people who were really “open” (“literally” & “figuratively”). especially the ones from Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication (SIMC) =P. Meeting people with work ex who were elder to me and learning different things from them was also an interesting experience.

Considering my itchiness to do stuff other than studies too as was the case at VIT, I did apply to the council teams as well as probably every other team possible =P. This system was completely different from that at VIT where for every fest or competition a different organizing team is there. At SIBM, each team handles a set of activities. Each candidate has to go through an interview to get selected. At one time, my roomie was like “U keep attending so many interviews. What do you really wanna join”. But when I joined Netspeak, I hadn’t realized that it would be my true calling. But as time went on, it opened a plethora of opportunities for me.

Netspeak is the Official Internet Communications and Blogging Channel of SIBM Pune. This team opened my doors to the world of Twitter, Blogging, Social Bookmarking, Podcasts and other Web 2.0 tools. This led me to my summer placement at Silicon India, made me start my own blog, led me to open my Twitter account and network with many people across the nation, learn to use the Web 2.0 tools to popularize my own blog, become involved with the online marketing of the South Asian Youth Camp and also a startup venture and also get the responsibility for all the Online Promotions related to Transcend ‘10 (SIBM Pune’s management and cultural fest).

Scoring 2.65 out of 4 in the final exams was like theek hai chalta hai especially after the number of hours I used to sleep before every exam. Maan I was so chilled out. At VIT, I used to be more tensed and worried and think about not wasting time. But here despite the fact that all the exams were continuous, I was really chill. One reason was the fact that the internals have 60% weightage which makes the finals much more easier.

The student research publication – Shodh, Prayaas, Netspeak, Organizer of Ecclesia – Literary Events of Transcend ‘10, Winner – Infosys Case Study Competition which was a cross cultural learning exercise between SIBM Pune and WP Carey School of Business Arizona, the online marketing team of a startup, online promotions of Transcend ‘10, paper presentation competition at BIM Trichy and much more – as usual I have been at work here in SIBM Pune. Haven’t been able to go to either Lucknow or Muscat since coming here and have really started believing that I am what everyone thinks “a workaholic”.

Its been a great 365 days with rediscovering my friendship with Mini and Forum and also experiencing life at a B – School. Even though I was sad at parting away with Ranju and my other VIT friends, God has given me the chance to rediscover my long lost friends. Some one has said it right that “Jab ek darwaaza band hota hai, tab bahut saare khul jaate hain”

Here’s hoping for a great year ahead!!!

 

CV – The two most important letters of a person’s life!

Curriculum Vitae (CV) for short is probably the most important document of a person’s life. Its a description of a person’s entire life in those two sheets of paper. The best part about the whole thing is the fact that all the people advise that the shorter the CV, the better it is for a person in terms of getting a job or helping a person get an idea about him / her. No one has time to go through sheets and sheets of paper to know more about a prospective candidate for a job.

A CV is like a passport to success for a person’s career. To bluntly state the fact, it can basically make or break a person’s life. Most of the companies for internships and placements at colleges or even those which take in applicants through direct applications go through the person’s CV to make the first round of eliminations. I am sure some may argue saying that a CV may not entirely be a true reflection of a person’s ability. But the fact is that in a country like ours with millions applying for only few hundred jobs a year, it does make sense to make the CV as the first round of elimination. People also make CVs for marriages especially in our country where girls are “shown” to the bridegrooms after he has gone through her CV.

That’s why whether we are at college or anywhere else, we are taught to make the CV in the best possible fashion. Even if we don’t have really good achievements or much to write about, whatever is written there should be amazing for a person to read; so amazing that he says “WOWWWWW!!! Maan we should take this guy..He is too good” even though one may not be as good as the person has projected to be. The distinguishing factors from some other candidate (like eg: working with an NGO) if highlighted properly would surely help a person stand in a good stead vis – a – vis another candidate. This is the reason many agencies and organizations and also online portals have come up which charge certain amounts to help a person make the right “eye – catching CV”. Its actually become a thriving and interesting business.

A person without a “good” CV is seriously like a fish without water. He / She maybe amazing in his / her communication skills or whatever stuff, but if he / she doesn’t have the kind of CV which makes the prospective employer interested in them, then that person is no good (to state it bluntly). So everyone’s success mantra today :-

Amazing CV = Amazing Job Opportunities = Amazing Money or = Amazing Marriages or where CVs are used

P.S. (CVs are not the be all and end all of everything though)

 

Indian Hockey – Can it rise like a phoenix from the ashes??

Can any of you(including me!!) reading this message tell the names of all the current players of the Indian Hockey team without looking out online? I doubt any of you would be able to name even 5-6 leave all. But similarly if I were to ask you the names of all the current players of the Indian Cricket team, I am sure each one of you will be able to rattle off all their names along with even the Ranji players name who may not have played even a single match for the country. So why is this happening? The problem lies on many counts.

To our generation, who haven’t seen the likes of Dhyan Chand and the glory of days of Moscow in 1980 when the country won 8 golds, its like a shock when one gets to hear such great things about a sport which is in shambles today. The politicisation of hockey is one of the worst reasons for its decline. The Indian Hockey Federation (IHF) now Hockey India (HI), has seen so much politics over the last two and a half decades that one’s starting to remember hockey in India for its politics rather than the players skills. KPS Gill has been the worst thing to happen to Indian Hockey ever. The politics he has played with a sport which is called the “National Sport of India” makes one disgusted to say the least.

The players complaints about poor food being served to the players and poor pay packages makes one feel really hurt. They are representing the nation on the world stage for god’s sake. The least the government can do is giving them proper food and money to sustain themselves. They are paid 25,000 for each tournament. Now that amounts to just a few thousand for each match. Compare that with lakhs cricketers earn with every four or six they hit. The irony is that the former is the NATIONAL SPORT. Is this the way one should treat a national sport?

You would wonder, how can a game where the country dominated the Olympics continously winning 6 Olympic Golds in a row from 1928 to 1956 see its present state? The basic fact lies at the grassroots level where cricket has such a great talent spotting and training structure which hockey lacks. Even in overall physical fitness and mental toughness the BCCI has done much more than the HI has. The Premier Hockey League (PHL) was started in 2005 to revive the viewer interest in this game. But seriously speaking has it managed to revive any interest in the game among the common public or the media (television and print)? I dont think so.

Since the time, KPS Gill was shown the door, India has performed creditably even winning the prestigious Azlan Shah Cup in 2009 and also winning the Asia Cup. But does it matter to anyone? They still lack the basic practice facilities, don’t get the credit for the performance from the media and over and above that aren’t even paid their basic salaries. Who would want to get into a game like this where a person cannot even earn enough money to sustain oneself.

The lesser said about the state of women’s hockey in India, the better. Even women’s cricket is in a better condition. Its an irony that despite not being able to give the salaries to the Indian players, AK Mattoo (President of Hockey India) has said that they will give the Indian team 1 crore each if they win the World Cup. So from where Mr Mattoo are you going to get that kind of money? Are you going to rob a bank? And above all this he has the guts to say that the players play for money and not the country. Dude get a life! Without money who will want to play. He drives Corollas and Mercedez and travels first class on flights but interestingly doesn’t have the money to pay the players. This happens only in Indian sports!

Some recommendations which a person called Anand Krishna has suggested which I agree with are listed here “http://anandkrishna.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/buck-de-india-say-our-hockey-players/”

HI can create a contract system so that players have a basic sense of financial security. This would at least make the players feel secure that they have something to look after their families. If raising funds is the problem, well, perhaps it is time to create an IPL for hockey, comprising players from India and the other main hockey playing nations like Germany, Australia, Spain, Pakistan, Holland, Malaysia, South Korea, New Zealand etc. Schedule it for a different period of time so that even TV channels are happy to cough up moolah for obtaining rights to live entertainment. And given that a hockey match takes less time than even a T20 match, one can have two matches every day.

Is anyone listening? Does HI have the will power to do such large scale changes? Thats a question only time will tell.

Perhaps even Bollywood did not think that they can spin a dream around the Indian men’s hockey team. Which is why the movie “Chak de India” celebrates the success of the Indian women’s hockey team.

 

Social Networking Sites – They have transformed the way we communicate!

Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, hi5, Friendster, MySpace…I am sure there must be very few of us who would not be having an account at the moment in any of these. The minority of you who don’t would surely feel embarrassed to say that in front of people. Its not a crime which you guys have done. But it’s just that “social networking sites” have become the buzzword today. Kids as young as in 6th and 7th std have started using them frequently. So did you ever wonder what are they how  did they start?

Social networks have become very famous especially over the last few years across the world because of their affordances and reach. They focus on building a social relationship among people who share interests and activities. A social network generally consists of a profile of the user, his/her social links and different kinds of additional services.

According to a recent survey, among the people who join a social network, more than 74% of them use it to message friends. A very high percentage of people also use social networks to upload photos as well listen to music. Uploading videos, installing applications, blogging, dating are some of the other activities which people engage in on social networking sites.

The first social network “SixDegrees.com” was launched in 1997. It allowed the users to create their own profiles, create their friend lists and subsequently surf the friend lists. These features existed separately much before in dating sites and other community sites like Classmates.com. AIM and ICQ support buddy lists of friends which were otherwise not visible to others. But SixDegrees.com was the first one to combine all these features into one.

SixDegrees.com attracted millions of users but it failed to be sustainable as a business.The problems which were identified with it included the fact that it was well ahead of its time and also that many users were uninterested in meeting strangers.

From 1997 to 2001, a number of community tools began supporting various combinations of profiles and friends. AsianAvenue, BlackPlanet, and MiGente allowed users to create personal, professional, and dating profiles.

The next wave of social networks began when Ryze was started in 2001 to help people leverage their business networks. The people behind Ryze, Tribe.net, LinkedIn, and Friendster were intertwined professionally and personally. In the end, only LinkedIn among them went on to become a very powerful business service. Friendster became one of the biggest disappointments in the Internet history. Orkut, Facebook, Ning, YouTube, Twitter and almost 20 other social networks were launched during the period from 2003-06.

Some facts about different social networking sites:

My Space was bought by News Corporation for US $500mn in July 2005. The 100^th millionth account was opened in 2006. A deal of US $900mn struck with Google Ads has helped it a long way in generating $2.17 per member per year from advertising that is spotlight ads and banners.

Tech Crunch is a group – edited blog of technology start – ups that is particularly the Web 2.0 sector. Its image advertisements generate US $12,000 per month while the job listings, sponsorships and advertising help bring in US $200,000. Tech Crunch is valued at US $100mn.

LinkedIn is the most famous professional networking site in the world and is valued at about US $1bn. Its revenue for 2008 was US $100mn. 1/4^th of its revenue comes from advertisements while rest comes from the freemium tiered model.

Flickr was bought by Yahoo for US 40mn in 2005. Most of its revenue comes from its freemium tiered model as well as revenue share for user – generated content. It is a site wherein users can share, exchange and put their photographs.

Facebook is the most visited social networking site in the world. It was started in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg. Its projected revenue for 2009 is US $550mn which includes earnings from brand ads, Facebook’s ad deal with Microsoft, sale of virtual goods, self-service ads and also the different apps created by developers on Facebook.

Twitter is one of the world’s fastest growing social networking sites. In 2009, it had a monthly growth rate of 1382%. It is a combined social network and micro-blogging service that enables users to send and receive messages known as tweets and due to this it is often called the “SMS of the Internet”. Twitter has received a funding of about US $62mn till now^.

The most famous social networking sites in India are surprisingly Orkut (84%), Ibibo (25%), Fropper (22%) Bigadda (Reliance owned 20%), Facebook (18%), Bharat Student (15%) and Linkedin (10%) in that order. This shows that even though Facebook and Twitter are the most famous across the world in terms of the number of members and monthly views, Orkut and other local networks hold sway in the country. This comes down to the basic point of how well they have been able to connect to the local audience.

The most important issue which the different social networking sites are facing today is the monetization of their businesses. The greatest revenue earner for them is advertising but its not yielding as much revenue as they would like to have. Therefore other methods like subscription, the freemium tiered model; virtual goods (like Facebook) and even affiliate model are used. The revenue of Facebook for 2009 is expected to be US$ 500 million but its valuation is in billions. Therefore Mark Zuckerberg has to sooner rather than later take measures to make Facebook realize this.

Most of the social networking sites such as Twitter, Orkut, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube etc are just a few years old. Their initial strategy has been to build a very large database of people which they have been very successful in doing. At present, they are in the phase of devising different strategies to increase their revenue. The way they are going I am sure they wouldn’t have a problem in making this a reality.

 

 

Movie Review – 3 Idiots

At the outset I would like to make one thing clear to the readers – I am a hard core fan of Chetan Bhagat…So those of you who wouldn’t like to hear any negativity against anyone who has maligned him in the last few days or months or whatever please stop here itself!!!

First of all I would like to thank Mr Chetan Bhagat for giving us a novel called “Five Point Someone (FPS)” which everyone in the present generation would surely identify with! Chetan,  You made India read like never before and I sincerely salute you for that!

What a start to the 2010!  Watched 3 Idiots (an adaptation of FPS) on 1st at E-Square finally. This is one movie which cannot be described in mere words or any special kinds of adjectives. Words like amazing, fantastic, stupendous, marvelous, too good and whatever fall short in telling us how good the movie really is. This isn’t merely a movie but an experience one would remember a long time after one has left the hall.

This movie is a journey, a journey of three friends, of what all they go through the four years at college be it love, ragging, fights, fun, drinking, flunking exams, taking the teachers cases everything. Though the movie has been changed from the book at many places, but the underlying theme remains the same.

Three students – Aamir Khan as Ranchoddass Shyamaldas Chanchad (Rancho), Sharman Joshi as Raju Rastogi and Madhavan as Farhan Qureishi embark on a journey of life. The film starts of with Farhan Querishi stopping an Air India plane by faking a heart attack because he wants to meet Rancho and Sharman going with him in just a shirt and no pants. The movie thus moves on with constantly moving between the present and a flashback of them as students at the Imperial Engineering College (ICE) – based on the present day IITs.

So many scenes and incidents like the speech scene, the ‘Joy Lobo’ character, the ‘Chatur Ramalingam (an award worthy performance by Omi Vaidya)’ character and his amazing speech (My god that scene is probably the funniest scene I have ever scene in Hindi cinema srsly!!! I laughed my guts out..so much that I almost ended up crying:P), the Viru Sahastrabudhhe aka Virus (another award worthy performance by Boman Irani) character, the scenes where Aamir Khan criticizes learning by rote, encourages learning something new by talking about “PreRajulization” and FarhanNitrate, how students are forced to take extreme measures such as suicide because of marks and the parents expectations, the heart – warming camaraderie and bond of friendship between Farhan, Rancho and Raju (Moh, Arun, Giri – It really reminded me of you guys…U ROCK!!!) and many more has given this movie a cult status.

The most amazing thing about this movie is the fact that even though it is about three college going students, the way it has depicted all the human emotions – be it love, hate, fun, sadness everything in such a beautiful way is what has touched a chord with the audience of this nation. From the word go, it promises entertainment and never does it stray from its path. What strikes a chord with me along with thousands of others across the nation is the fact that it talks about why the education system in this nation is in a mess today despite us having millions of great brains, good colleges, good teachers and whatever. The problem lies in the fact that learning by rote is encouraged with least importance given to understanding concepts. There is no link between the academia and the industry. Students end up mugging one night before the exam and vomiting the next day in the paper and forget everything the following day (I am in the same boat…After doing B.Tech Biotechnology, I really wonder whether I really know anything…cuz application of our technical knowledge in the practical world wasn’t ever taught). The way Aamir Khan explains this with the “PreRajulization” and “FarhanNitrate” concept is a treat to watch. The way the parents force their children to become engineers or doctors when they are born has been shown really well in the movie as it still happens even today. The students are put under so much pressure and stress that they end up taking their lives. While in VIT, over 4 years I had heard of many suicides. So I can only imagine what percentage of students in IITs would end their lives in such a way. Some of the famous phrases include “All izz Well” and “Kabil bano, success jhak maar ke peeche aa jayegi. Kareena is really good in the small role which she has in the movie. Her scene where she talks about the names of the different Gujarat food items is hilarious.

One of the greatest things I loved in this movie as well as the book was the friendship between the three. The way they make cunning plans to irritate teachers, care for each other so much so that they dared to go to Virus’s office just to get the question paper for Raju so that he could pass to support his family, their jokes, their discussion on stupid issues, their talk about the education system all in all their amazing camaraderie reminds me of my times at VIT. Though Giri, Moh, Arun and me were never like them in terms of doing daring stuff like this. But our friendship was something which surely defined my 4 years there. And this more than reminded me of them. YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST SRSLY!!! (I hope none of my other friends would take this in a wrong way cuz all you guys are sweet…Thanks soooo much…just dat this movie reminded me of them…)

The film’s soundtrack is composed by Shantanu Moitra with lyrics penned by Swanand Kirkire. The picturization of all the songs along with their placement in the movie is really good. My personal favourites are Behti Hawa, Give me Some Sunshine and Jaane Denge with Behti Hawa being the best. I used to love Behti Hawa even before watching the movie because the lyrics and the way Shantanu and Shaan sang, it really reminded me of my days at VIT. After watching the movie and the amazing picturization, I love it even more. The cinematography is brilliant to say the least. The stunning locales of Himachal and Ladakh have been spectacularly shown on the celluloid.

The recent credit controversy has brought a lot of unwanted or wanted publicity for the movie depending on how one looks at it. The supposed agreement between Chetan Bhagat and Vidhu Vinod Chopra was that in the rolling credits, his name would appear as “Based on a novel by Chetan Bhagat”. The problem arose when Chetan Bhagat found that the makers were claiming that the story is original which wasn’t right as many facts are based on the book. He was shocked to hear that. He wrote 3-4 blogs over the last 4 days over this issue on his website which attracted a plethora of comments over this whole issue. The main fact which I too don’t agree with is that how can the makers claim that the movie is just about 2-5% based on the book. Though I cant claim that the movie is 2% or 90% based on the book, the underlying theme that is the story of the three friends, the ragging incident, the main protagonist wanting to change the education system and him falling in love with the director’s daughter, the ragging theme, Raju’s family being poor, them studying at an engineering college and not a medical college or arts college and many more scenes are all based on the book. So it’s really difficult for me to comprehend as to how the makers of the movie can claim it to be an original story. This just resembles a plain case of intellectual property violation

Here I have put a comment on the Chetan Blog by a person named Prodigal Nemo who is somewhat of an IP expert

ProdigalNemo says:

January 2, 2010 at 1:52 pm

In UNITED STATES “Copyright confers the following constitutional “exclusive Right” of “Authors” to their works includes the rights “to do and to authorize any of the following”:
(1) reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords, as when a novelist authorizes a publisher to reproduce a book or composers authorize recordings of their musical compositions;
(2) create derivative works, such as a screenplay based on a preexisting magazine story;
(3) distribute copies of the work to the public, as when a software manufacturer authorizes a wholesaler to market floppy diskettes containing a copyrighted program;
(4) perform the work publicly, as when a playwright or songwriter authorizes a production of a play or the broadcast of a song;
(5) display the work publicly, as when a magazine authorizes displays of its copyrighted images on multiple computer screens;
(6) in the case of sound recordings, perform the work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission.” [COPYRIGHT LAW: A Practitioner's Guide;Release No. 8, September 2006; by Bruce P. Keller & Jeffrey P. Cunard]

Therefore based on point number (2) above, at MAX, they can produce derivative work such as adapted screenplay. However, in this case what they have done is (a) ‘coppied’ 70-80% of Chetan’s work from the book (which is fine if they wanted to adapt it to screenplay); (b) Write a ‘fresh’ story copying 70-80% from Chetan’s book which is credited to Abhijat Joshi and Rajkumar Hirani (this is grave crime);and (c) ‘creating a original screenplay’ based on point (b) which is credited to Abhijat Joshi and Vidhi Vinod Chopra (this is ‘crime de la crime’).

As as result, Chetan was not given his due credit as an original story writer, which they should have. At max Abhijat Joshi, Raju Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra could have been credited with ‘co-story writers’ (provided Chetan agrees to this too) and for ‘adapted screenplay’.

I m commenting on this in my capacity as I’m Intellectual Property professional.

Kudos to you Chetan. I read your book in Jan 2006 and it was so interesting that I read it in one go.

ProdigalNemo

And what the hell does bloody VIDHU VINOD CHOPRA think of himself??????? What the hell did he try to prove by shouting at the media person the other day?? This just shows his monstrous crappy behavior..Abhijit Joshi is I agree a good scriptwriter but how the hell can they call it is his original story???? Mr Aamir Khan has told Vidhu Chopra and Hirani to file a case against Bhagat for making false statements. How can he talk about this when he hasn’t even read the book? He’s seriously making a fool of himself by making such mindless, baseless and senseless statements.

YOU CAN FOOL SOME PEOPLE ALL THE TIME BUT NOT ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME

Indians are not fools. People may think that Chetan needs money and fame and is publicity hungry and what not. But tell me one thing, what does a guy who already is the greatest English language author in the history of the nation in terms of the number of books sold, writes columns in newspapers, is moving to movie script writing want in terms of publicity. I seriously don’t understand. Millions have read FPS and the truth is out that a lot of the movie is based on it and that’s it.

In the end I would like to say, in Taran Adarsh’s words “Do yourself and your family a favour – Go for 3 idiots!! It’s emotional, it’s entertaining, it’s enlightening. The film has tremendous youth appeal and feel-good factor”. It ranks up there as one of the bestest movies I have seen since I was born.

Rating – 5 / 5 (Yes it deserves that every bit!!)

 

Book Review – “A Cause Untrue”

“Combining the pace of Forbes, the action of Ludlum and the imagination of Forsyth…Blacker’s intoxicating thriller is a technical tour de force”. That’s one of the reviews at the back of this amazingly gripping novel written by David Blacker, an ex – Srilankan Army guy who has seen many combat operations with the Liberation Tamil Tigers Eelam during his stint with the army. I picked up this book randomly or you can say after seeing the cover which has different shades of green, brown and black and the fact that the name of the book had a line below it saying  “Sri Lanka’s Tigers take their war across the world…”. Till date I have always heard of non – fiction novels based on 9/11, 26/11 and other terror attacks (I am sure fiction must be there too…but never heard of it). So on seeing this, I felt really excited hoping the book would be a great read. And the book doesn’t disappoint one bit. Personally speaking its one of the most amazing novels I have ever read.

Blacker’s achievement lies in his ability to make what is essentially a Sri Lankan conflict into a thriller with global appeal. There is simply no comparable work of fiction by a Sri Lankan author. Writ against the backdrop of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka and terrorism, the book weaves a plot that ricochets from Sri Lankan battlefields to the autobahns of Germany, from clandestine meetings of terrorists in British pubs to suicide bombers on the rampage in Canada. The violence reachers a crescendo with an international hijacking and a horrific hostage crisis.

The way Blacker intertwines reality (yes there is reality to an extent) with fiction always keeps the reader interested. He doesn’t waste time talking about how the LTTE came about. But directly explains stuff like what really happened in those parts of Sri Lanka where they once ruled like in terms of their exploiting and recruiting people including women and children, mining the area, bringing about the idea of suicide bombing in modern day terrorism etc. The locales of the countryside especially the Jaffna Peninsula among others are splendidly described. He moves the story effortlessly between different places in Canada, Europe, America and Sri Lanka.

But the most important parts of the book are the action sequences be it the the hostage drama, the bomb attacks or even high speed chases. Blacker’s work is hugely believable due to the fact that he uses familiar names, incidents and locations. The amazing Lewis Hamilton like pace of this book makes one read on and on (basically once you get your hands on it, you surely cant leave it for anything and would get up once its completely over!). The talk about LTTE, the different special anti – terrorist units of different countries along with the names of different places in Sri Lanka keeps the thrill going along. This novel though is not for the faint – hearted as it contains a lot of graphic details of death and destruction which is a day – to – day thing for army units as well as terrorists.

Quite a lot of people may criticize the book or the author for the violence or probably the romanticization of the conflict or even painting a racist picture of the Sinhalese or the Tamils. But all in all “A Cause Untrue” makes for an undeniably great read.

And yeah this is one book which should be made into a movie…It should be a treat to watch

Rating – 4.5/5

 

The Indian Judicial System – What a joke!!!

39,55,224 – That’s the amazingly small or the humongously large number of cases depending on how you look at it lying in the Indian courts today as of September 2009. By now it would have surely risen by many thousand more. Bhopal Gas Tragedy, Babri Masjid demolition, 1993 Mumbai Blasts, the Coimbatore blasts in 1998, Godhra riots, the Black Buck killing by Salman Khan, Jessica Lall, Rizwanur Rahman, Madhu Koda and thousands of other politicians whose names I have forgotten over the years, Harshad Mehta scam, Abdul Karim Telgi, Arushi Talwar, Satyam, Kasab, Ruchika and millions more – This is not some names of random people or timeline of any incidents. It is the list of some of the most prominent cases of how the judiciary in our country has time and again done what it does best – Not catch the accused or even if they caught the accused, they would give them the most royale treatment probably better than they would get at their respective homes.

The Bhopal Gas Tragedy was an industrial catastrophe that took place at a Union Carbide pesticide plant at Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh on Dec 3, 1984. Around 12am, the plant released methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas and other toxins, resulting in the exposure of over 500,000 people. Thousands have died since from various gas – related diseases. Till date no one has been prosecuted related to the case though everyone knows what exactly happened that fateful day. Warren Anderson, the CEO of Union Carbide is sitting in his palatial house and living a life of luxury while the people affected by it directly or indirectly continue to suffer each day. It has become the biggest joke round that every year on Dec 3rd there are demonstrations on this issue by various human rights groups and then again the whole year no one except the affected people bothers and then again the same routine is repeated. Does anyone really care? This case has no hope left at all.

The Babri Masjid was demolished on 6th December 1992 when a rally by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) turned into a mob of thousands of kar sevaks who went on a rampage to completely rip apart the mosque. Everyone knew that leaders like Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Vinay Katiyar and others were involved in this horrendous act but it took Justice Liberhan 17 – Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, 17 looooong years to officially prove that. Ok the fact is that there were a very high number of delays due to the politicians and other issues obviously because the politicians didn’t want this to be proved and so on. But the point is what the hell was Liberhan doing for 17 years???????? Had he gone to sleep? Had he forgotten about the legal system as to how to punish someone or how to take a case forward? Had he taken money from the politicians to keep quiet all these years? Had he decided lets show the report after everyone’s forgotten about it so that no one will get punished? And in the end what does he come out with? A 1000 pg report full of what we call in a B – School as “PFAFF” because its all what we know about. And anyways what is the point of all this? Because as predicted, nothing has happened to the politicians and nothing really will in the future as well.

The Mumbai blasts that is the first one in memory (I know loads of them have occured over the years) which occurred on March 12, 1993 was the one where about 11 locations were attacked. More than 250 people died and thousands were injured. Even though its widely known that Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim were involved in them, the case ran till 2006 to find only certain people guilty with more than 100 conspirators missing. Even the guilty ones, especially the high profile ones like Sanjay Dutt were having such a fun life that you would surely wonder whether he was a being treated as a criminal or just leading a normal simple life. What is the point of only catching the people who helped in this act and not the other ones? For this though Pakistan is involved and they are the least I would expect from to do anything good for our nation.

Jessica Lall, Rizwanur Rahman, Ruchika, Madhu Koda, Ramalinga Rahu are all cases where you realise that if you are a big man and have a lot of power you can do anything in this nation. Manu Sharma shot Jessica in the bar and left because he didn’t get a drink, Rizwanur Rahman was driven to sucide by his father in law, the big industrialist Ashok Todi, Ruchika, a 14 year old budding tennis player was molested by the Haryana top cop SPS Rathore just because he wanted to satisfy his voyeuristic pleasures, Madhu Koda, the ex chief minister was charged with laundering money worth upto Rs 4000 crores, Ramalinga Raju took more than 50,000 employees at Satyam for a ride by being involved in a fraud of Rs 7000 crores probably one of the biggest in the history of modern India. In all the cases, the commonality was that the person who was involved in the crime was damn rich, had power to make the politicians, business leaders or the police dance to his tune and also finish a person’s life if he she wanted. Manu Sharma and Ramalinga Raju are living such an amazing life in jail that they would not want to leave the luxury of it. Ashok Todi was never caught because CBI could never prove (in India everything happens on the basis of proof) that Rizwanur Rahman was killed or driven to suicide because of him. N yes look at Madhu Koda’s daredevilry – he managed to dodge the notices of the Enforcement Directorate four times before being caught because he obviously knows that nothing will happen to him. Ruchika’s case was completely dead and buried until recently when a CBI court gave a 6 month sentence to Rathore who is even fighting that. All these years, he ripped apart the happiness of the Girhotra family. Can the media activism bring justice to them?

Arushi Talwar was found murdered in her house on May 16, 2008. It became a national news with the sensational coverage being given to it by the media. Sadly or probably for the good depending on how one takes it, it was telecast as breaking news. This kept the police on its toes to find the criminals. But in all this as has been the case the DIG made some horrendous statements about the character of Arushi as well as her having sexual relations with the servant or with the father. God!! In this world, I had thought there was some respect one needs to give to a person who has passed away. This was a complete character assassination of a simple family and a simple girl. With time people forgot about the case and no one has been prosecuted till date.

Kasab, the only terrorist caught alive from the 26/11 blasts has made a complete shame of our judicial system if there was any left. His was an open and shut case from the start. But the way it has gone, its like he is some normal criminal being treated in the best possible way. He asks for walks to refresh himself, biryani, newspapers in Urdu and what not? God what the hell!! He even has a pretty big Wikipedia page and has 503,000 search hits on the Google page. Wow! We have maintained our tradition of “Atithi Devo Bhave” for him truly. Off late he has retracted all his previous statements saying that he was confessed to confess under duress. God till when will this tamasha go on??

These are some of the few among the millions of cases which are reported. In this nation rapes, deaths, murders, terrorist attacks, suicides, thefts everything occur by the second. But sadly today the people in the khaki who we are supposed to trust have become the biggest criminals that people are scared to go and tell them anything. And the people know that even if they write an FIR, by the time the judiciary would come out with its verdict, their kids would have been born or maybe even become old.

And thats why the Indian Judicial System has become the biggest joke across the world!!!

 

Air India / Indian Airlines or “Indian” (Whatever the name) – It is the biggest disgrace to our nation ever!

Travelling from Lucknow to Delhi, the Indian Airlines flight literally fell from 30,000 feet to about 20,000 feet in 5 mins. This has been one of my biggest scares ever.

Air India was founded by JRD Tata in 1932 as Tata Airlines and it became a public listed company in 1946 under the name of Air India. In 1948, when the Government of India acquired a 49% stake in the company, it was allowed to operate international services. By 1953, it had a majority stake in the company. Indian Airlines was formed by the Government in 1953. It was decided that Air India would operate on international routes while Indian Airlines would target the domestic and regional ones.Indian Airlines was formed by integrating Deccan Airways, Airways India, Bharat Airways, Himalayan Aviation, Kalinga Airlines, Indian National Airways and Air Services of India.

For many years it was the one and only Indian airline operating in India as well as the money spinning Middle – Eastern region. But when liberalization came about in 1991, and slowly the “open skies policy” was introduced, private players like Jet, Sahara entered the market with better services, aircrafts as well as on time performance. The entry of low cost airlines like Deccan, Indigo, Spice Jet and luxury airlines like Kingfisher and Paramount airways continued to dent its business. Around 2006, Indian started showing heavy losses.

Air India went on expanding over the years across US, Europe and 0ther destinations across the world. A large number of Boeing 777s were bought especially for long haul flights. Sometimes this makes me wonder one thing – WHAT THE HELL does Indian Airlines or Air India think of us Indians? I mean the planes used to the Gulf or other regional destinations are so pathetic. They make noises which sometimes makes you wonder whether the plane will crash or something. Guys do observe this the next time you make the mistake of taking an Indian Airlines flight – When an Indian Airlines plane takes off, it makes an odd noise for sometime till the wheels go inside. Now this is because the landing gear is somehow getting stuck with the wheels. Scary isnt it? Neways this doesn’t mean that the planes they have to the West are amazing or something. More on that later. By 2006 – 2007 both Air India and Indian Airlines showed a combined loss of Rs 7.7 billion. After their merger to form “Indian” in March 2009, the losses went up to “JUST” Rs 72 billion.

There have been a number of reasons for the dismal fall – de – grace of our National Airline. But nothing can be worse than offering the most pathetic service, pathetic planes, pathetic crew who don’t even know how to behave with passengers, pathetic facilities basically everything “PATHETIC”. Even though the crew is old, they need to have basic etiquette’s while behaving with passengers. There have been many stories of hostesses or stewards shouting at passengers, asking them questions like “Tell me what do you want instead of What would you like to have sir” and not caring for them in any instance possible.

Most of the planes are literally like the government. Spoilt, centuries old (probably made in the previous century – though many of the new planes are pathetic because they are so defectively made as if the government was trying to save money), devoid of any servicing whatsoever (look at the Air India Regional formerly Alliance Air – its subsidiary’s planes lol…The way they are, it looks like they will break any time) and above all they all seem to have hundreds or thousands of problems. The incidents of a plane not taking off because of incidents like a rat being there on the plane or because of no water in the toilet are possible only on Indian. Failure in the hydraulic brake system, fire in any of the engines, pieces coming out of its wheels after take off and many more instances have happened over the years with amazing regularity that one has begin to wonder whether the government thinks that the people are dumb stupid fools.

The government has also a lot to be blamed for its failure. The big shots of the airline company could take their relatives for free for any number of days in a year on the airline. Even the ministers made so many trips without paying that one forgot whether it was a profit making airline or a “CHARITABLE” initiative. Everyone milked it as much as they could for their own uses. The increased slots and spots being given to the foreign airlines at our airports has also played a role in denting Indian’s financial prospects. And now the nail has been driven into the coffin with the decision to open the Middle East sector for private players (I am all for competition though). Here people would now prefer the private players because of better service and better planes rather than sitting in the world’s “SHITTIEST” flights of Indian.

The latest incident of Air India Express flight from Mumbai to Chennai being stranded for 7 hours in Mumbai with the passengers having to spend a horrendously large amount of time in the plane without even airconditioning confirms the fact that “Indian” is a disgrace to each and everything that is “INDIAN”.

 

Pyaar Impossible – Music Review

Pyaar Impossible has been directed by Jugal Hansraj (In case you forgot who he is..He has acted in Papa Kehte Hain, Mohabbatein and directed Roadside Romeo) and produced by Uday Chopra. Doesnt sound interesting surely..Does it? Especially considering the fact that Uday Chopra (who I really hate cuz I seriously feel that he looks like a monkey who hasn’t evolved properly into a homosapien) is acting in the movie. But one thing is for sure – the role he essays in the movie of a stupid, dumbo who falls in love with the amazingly hot “Priyanka Chopra” suits him to the T. Salim – Sulaiman are the music composers.  So lets see hows the music of the movie.

From the first song “Alisha” one gets an idea about the youth feel of the movie. Its been the first promo on television. The best thing about this song is Anushka Manchanda (of VIVA fame). Her husky rendition which brings a lot of attitude to the song is apt considering that Priyanka’s character in this film is supposed to be this hot-difficult to get kinda gal. She does a good job in the “Remix” version of this song as well. Her change of pitch as well as tone in this song deserves a thumbs up.  Salim Merchant also does a good job whenever he comes behind the mike. All in all a good start to the album.

Soon after, Dominique Cerejo along with Vishal Dadlani come up with the title song – “Pyaar Impossible”. This is yet another Westernized song confirming the theme of a rom-com musical. Dominique is as soothing as always in her beautiful voice as she takes the lead here. Vishal comes behind the mike intermittently throughout the whole song. The remix version is also really well done. Good!

Neha Bhasin and Benny Dayal do a good job with “You and Me”. Benny Dayal shows his versatility with this song after his “Kaise Mujhe Tu Mil Gayee”. This mushy love track would be there in any kind of urban love story. It has shades of some English songs (which I don’t sadly remember!). But nevertheless, this number has the potential to be played in clubs, lounges and parties across the nation.

However the best part of the song comes with “10 on 10″ where its firmly established that this a complete girlie album. Mahua Kamat and Anushka Manchanda bring amazing energy into the song with their tremendous rendition. For some reason this song reminds me of little Avril Lavigne in the beginning and the video kind of reminds me of the prom nights in English movies. The video also establishes Priyanka Chopra’s popular and difficult-to-get status in the movie. Naresh Kamath comes towards the end with a few lines. But eventually the girls take the cake in this song.

Finally comes “Ek thi Ladki” which is crooned by Rishika Sawant. It has a story telling setting to it and doesn’t disappoint at all. She tells this story of a girl meeting a guy who falls head over heels in love with her. Though its more of a situational song and would sound well when one watches the movie, the music sounds really nice.

All in a well the music of “Pyaar Impossible” sticks to its urban youth rom-com feel throughout. It delivers what it promises. Highly recommended for the youngsters! A job well done .

Rating – 3/5