"A very good movie" was my comment on SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, as I stepped out after watching it. A.R.Rahman, being my favourite, I could not resist giving the music and the background score, a 5 on 5. The background score was just too irresistably good. It's no big a surprise, this has been nominated for oscars. Good to hear that it has received 10 OSCAR nominations.
But,
Here is the other way of looking at this film.
The other side of the coin
On reading this, I had no words to comment.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Thursday, January 01, 2009
2009 - Ready, Steady, Get Set, Go....
Well,
As we finally step into the first dawn of this new-year 2009, we carry lots of desires with us, which we expect to get fulfilled as soon as possible, without even delving deep into its feasibility study. We expect a very high conversion rate.
I don’t mean to demean people having very high hopes and dreams in life. Infact, Dr. Abdul Kalam has requested the youth to DREAM, DREAM, DREAM. Basic physics says that, there’s some term called “work” which is involved in-between for an input to turn into an output, which quite a lot of people (like I) shirk, but expect quick and successful outcome.
Anyways, Like everyone, let me also complete my formal greetings first.
“Wish you all a very happy new year. May all your efforts bear fruit.”
As I started to type down this NEW YEAR POST, I had no ideas of penning the first few lines that I’ve typed right now. But as I started typing, I couldn’t resist doing it.
Well,
2008 – An year which had lots of bumps on its roads. An year which brought mixed emotions among people. There could have been lot of good times, (like Indian Space Research Organisation had quite a lot of successes in 2008), gay and gala aura in lot of places, but there was one word, that kept us all haunting right from the start of the year till its end, and will still follow its trail into the new year – TERRORISM.Frequent bomb-blasts that rocked India, developing friction between India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine Conflict, and lots of intra-nation conflicts and problems in various countries etc will all persist, unless some proper peace plan is accomplished. One more word that rose its head out towards the fag end of this year, which added fuel to the burning terror fright fire - RECESSION.
Let’s expect something different this new-year, from last year. Let’s hope for the things to get back into the track this year.
2009 - Ready, Steady, Get Set Go!!
As we finally step into the first dawn of this new-year 2009, we carry lots of desires with us, which we expect to get fulfilled as soon as possible, without even delving deep into its feasibility study. We expect a very high conversion rate.
I don’t mean to demean people having very high hopes and dreams in life. Infact, Dr. Abdul Kalam has requested the youth to DREAM, DREAM, DREAM. Basic physics says that, there’s some term called “work” which is involved in-between for an input to turn into an output, which quite a lot of people (like I) shirk, but expect quick and successful outcome.
Anyways, Like everyone, let me also complete my formal greetings first.
“Wish you all a very happy new year. May all your efforts bear fruit.”
As I started to type down this NEW YEAR POST, I had no ideas of penning the first few lines that I’ve typed right now. But as I started typing, I couldn’t resist doing it.
Well,
2008 – An year which had lots of bumps on its roads. An year which brought mixed emotions among people. There could have been lot of good times, (like Indian Space Research Organisation had quite a lot of successes in 2008), gay and gala aura in lot of places, but there was one word, that kept us all haunting right from the start of the year till its end, and will still follow its trail into the new year – TERRORISM.Frequent bomb-blasts that rocked India, developing friction between India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine Conflict, and lots of intra-nation conflicts and problems in various countries etc will all persist, unless some proper peace plan is accomplished. One more word that rose its head out towards the fag end of this year, which added fuel to the burning terror fright fire - RECESSION.
Let’s expect something different this new-year, from last year. Let’s hope for the things to get back into the track this year.
2009 - Ready, Steady, Get Set Go!!
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Looking back at the original people's car...
If there is one moment when India changed, when it decisively moved from one set of aspirations and mindset to another, it is when it first saw the Maruti 800. For it was virtually the first product available in India that one lusted for. I remember being transfixed when I saw my first Maruti (it wasn’t even the car, it was the van); I had never seen anything shinier,anything more radiant with bliss.Twenty-five years on, that seems difficult to believe so completely have our eyes been jaded by all the cars that clog up our roads now. But to a generation that grew up watching other people drive their Ambassadors or Fiats (Standard Herald for the less lucky ones), the dinky little bit of plastic, all shiny and red was an invitation to a new kind of paradise.
The Ambassador was the reigning deity till then. Its lines were inspired by a matron’s commodious petticoats and its interiors had the well-worn comfortable shabbiness of the Indian drawing room. It drove one with the laconic recalcitrance of the father, while offering you the familiar comfort of a mother’s lap. You sprawled inside the car when not carrying your entire brood of third cousins and their family friends to the railway station to receive or to see someone off. The car was large, solid and rounded. Nothing about its design acknowledged that it was an object designed to move.
The Ambassador squatted on the ground, embracing its own centre of gravity. It was a car that clearly believed that it was better to waddle than to race and moved with stolid disregard for one’s surroundings or one’s intent. The Ambassador was status quo on wheels, a car that allowed one to stand still even as one moved and do so with one’s entire way of life intact. It pointed nowhere and took us nowhere, which was where we wanted to be. The Fiat was a modern car in the way that a transistor was modern. It detached itself from the collective, being designed for a nuclear family and it had a shape that actually pointed somewhere. It was a car that moved, albeit with extreme self-awareness about its limitations. Like the educated Indian, mildly successful, and keen not to underline that success too much, this was a car that took a small step forward without taking us anywhere new. If the Ambassador was a pyjama, the Fiat was a pair of creased terrycot trousers worn with a nondescript shirt. The Maruti came as a plastic shock out of the blue. It was all electric compactness, bristling with impudent desire. It looked like it was made as a seamless whole by technology instead of being painstakingly riveted together by a combination of lathes and welding machines, as appeared to be the case with the older cars. If the Ambassador and the Fiat at best deigned to confer broad agreement on our travelling intentions, the Maruti leapt to our commands, converting even transient whims that barely crossed our minds into spittle-spraying feats of fierce manoeuvrability. We squeezed into our little dream machines and rocketed off to newer destinations on the road as well as in the mind.
It freed us from our life script. For most of us, who were born in the middle class only to die there, the car was a border we could not imagine crossing. Only the haves could dream of owning a car. For the rest, a Bajaj Chetak after 8 years of waiting period was the best one could hope for. The Maruti compressed the promise of consumerism in its appearance, performance and price. It flung the doors of aspiration wide open and made us believe for the first time we could escape the middle class, tyres screeching. In a larger sense, it made us experience the power of desire and the exhilaration of being in the driving seats of one’s life. We were able to tear ourselves away from a world which measured performance in terms of the thickness of gauge or in terms of hardiness of form. Mutability, flexibility and speed came to be valued as did the overtness of external appearance. We understood packaging even as we redefined the meaning of performance. Substance was no longer opposed to style, and price no longer extracted for performance.
Seen with today’s eyes, the Maruti 800 is a somewhat basic piece of machinery that seems oddly outdated. But if we have driven as far as we have from it, let us remember it was in the Maruti.
“Copyright © 2008, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved"
- SANTOSH DESAI,
The Times of India
The Ambassador was the reigning deity till then. Its lines were inspired by a matron’s commodious petticoats and its interiors had the well-worn comfortable shabbiness of the Indian drawing room. It drove one with the laconic recalcitrance of the father, while offering you the familiar comfort of a mother’s lap. You sprawled inside the car when not carrying your entire brood of third cousins and their family friends to the railway station to receive or to see someone off. The car was large, solid and rounded. Nothing about its design acknowledged that it was an object designed to move.
The Ambassador squatted on the ground, embracing its own centre of gravity. It was a car that clearly believed that it was better to waddle than to race and moved with stolid disregard for one’s surroundings or one’s intent. The Ambassador was status quo on wheels, a car that allowed one to stand still even as one moved and do so with one’s entire way of life intact. It pointed nowhere and took us nowhere, which was where we wanted to be. The Fiat was a modern car in the way that a transistor was modern. It detached itself from the collective, being designed for a nuclear family and it had a shape that actually pointed somewhere. It was a car that moved, albeit with extreme self-awareness about its limitations. Like the educated Indian, mildly successful, and keen not to underline that success too much, this was a car that took a small step forward without taking us anywhere new. If the Ambassador was a pyjama, the Fiat was a pair of creased terrycot trousers worn with a nondescript shirt. The Maruti came as a plastic shock out of the blue. It was all electric compactness, bristling with impudent desire. It looked like it was made as a seamless whole by technology instead of being painstakingly riveted together by a combination of lathes and welding machines, as appeared to be the case with the older cars. If the Ambassador and the Fiat at best deigned to confer broad agreement on our travelling intentions, the Maruti leapt to our commands, converting even transient whims that barely crossed our minds into spittle-spraying feats of fierce manoeuvrability. We squeezed into our little dream machines and rocketed off to newer destinations on the road as well as in the mind.
It freed us from our life script. For most of us, who were born in the middle class only to die there, the car was a border we could not imagine crossing. Only the haves could dream of owning a car. For the rest, a Bajaj Chetak after 8 years of waiting period was the best one could hope for. The Maruti compressed the promise of consumerism in its appearance, performance and price. It flung the doors of aspiration wide open and made us believe for the first time we could escape the middle class, tyres screeching. In a larger sense, it made us experience the power of desire and the exhilaration of being in the driving seats of one’s life. We were able to tear ourselves away from a world which measured performance in terms of the thickness of gauge or in terms of hardiness of form. Mutability, flexibility and speed came to be valued as did the overtness of external appearance. We understood packaging even as we redefined the meaning of performance. Substance was no longer opposed to style, and price no longer extracted for performance.
Seen with today’s eyes, the Maruti 800 is a somewhat basic piece of machinery that seems oddly outdated. But if we have driven as far as we have from it, let us remember it was in the Maruti.
“Copyright © 2008, Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd. All Rights Reserved"
- SANTOSH DESAI,
The Times of India
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Certain things in life are inevitable....
Sometimes, IN LIFE,
When you try, as hard as possible, to devote sometime for work over or do something you like/love, FATE wills it the other way.
The above statement could become contraversial sometimes, because, some people might argue that there's nothing called FATE. "It's you who must excise control over yourself". I neither agree, nor disagree to it.
Enough of babbling.
The crux of the whole post was to inform that I got myself disengaged from blogging, due to some physical and mental reasons ;)
Welcome back RAVI, to BLOGGER !!
When you try, as hard as possible, to devote sometime for work over or do something you like/love, FATE wills it the other way.
The above statement could become contraversial sometimes, because, some people might argue that there's nothing called FATE. "It's you who must excise control over yourself". I neither agree, nor disagree to it.
Enough of babbling.
The crux of the whole post was to inform that I got myself disengaged from blogging, due to some physical and mental reasons ;)
Welcome back RAVI, to BLOGGER !!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Master Power..
Mind is the master power that molds and makes,
And we are Mind, and evermore we take
The tool of thought, and shaping what we will,
Bring forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills.
We think in secret, and it comes to pass –
Our world is but our looking glass.
- James Allen
And we are Mind, and evermore we take
The tool of thought, and shaping what we will,
Bring forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills.
We think in secret, and it comes to pass –
Our world is but our looking glass.
- James Allen
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
What if?
What if your future is known to you?
What if you are aware of your means of death?
What if you know how long you'd thrive?
What if I resist my conscience?
What if I disagree my subconscience?
What if I meddle with my inner soul?
Where will I end up?
What if you are aware of your means of death?
What if you know how long you'd thrive?
What if I resist my conscience?
What if I disagree my subconscience?
What if I meddle with my inner soul?
Where will I end up?
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
TERRORIZING INDIA.....
Terrorism!!
The Topic itself is Self Explanatory!!
What's the solution for this ? ? ?
The Topic itself is Self Explanatory!!
What's the solution for this ? ? ?
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Kick off @ MARUTI SUZUKI...
Yup. It all started the way, it had to. For those of you who are still blinking, I am talking about training @ MARUTI SUZUKI, Gurgaon. It kicked off well on the 1st of July. You know what, it's a bit frustrating when the formalities completion goes on for two full working days. But, yes, voracious readers continued reading their favourite novels and other stuff during office hours to keep themselves engaged and people like me, day-dreamed the whole day.
Finally, from the 3rd of July, we have had an array of lectures for about 9 days. Department heads from various sections of the company came and addressed us. Few sessions were interesting and a few, as usual, were quiet soporific (esp. those that were held after Lunch).
Coming to the quality of food.. Coming from South India, I am not used to having Roti, Dal & Rice on all 7 days in a week. It's sometimes quiet frustrating to have the same type food on all days. But, it's all part of game and am getting used to it.
One good thing about MARUTI SUZUKI is the attire. Right from MD to Technicians, everyone wears uniform on all days. It brings in a sense of Pride and Uniformity.
Yet another good/bad thing about MARUTI SUZUKI is card punching system. One has to, at any cost, punch his/her card at or before 8:45 am, or else you better go back home and relax, because your half-day salary is already deducted. ;)
Overall, it has been a smooth start... Looking forward to the weeks ahead....
Finally, from the 3rd of July, we have had an array of lectures for about 9 days. Department heads from various sections of the company came and addressed us. Few sessions were interesting and a few, as usual, were quiet soporific (esp. those that were held after Lunch).
Coming to the quality of food.. Coming from South India, I am not used to having Roti, Dal & Rice on all 7 days in a week. It's sometimes quiet frustrating to have the same type food on all days. But, it's all part of game and am getting used to it.
One good thing about MARUTI SUZUKI is the attire. Right from MD to Technicians, everyone wears uniform on all days. It brings in a sense of Pride and Uniformity.
Yet another good/bad thing about MARUTI SUZUKI is card punching system. One has to, at any cost, punch his/her card at or before 8:45 am, or else you better go back home and relax, because your half-day salary is already deducted. ;)
Overall, it has been a smooth start... Looking forward to the weeks ahead....
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Page Cannot Be Displayed...
You know, its damn damn frustating and annoying, when you are not able to log on to your blog for about two months.
Yes! Don't know, what error it was. All I could see, when i type "j-ravi.blogspot.com" on the address bar was "The page cannot be displayed". Then, i deciphered that the problem was with my so-called "highly advanced" computer @ home.
Longing to meet all my blogger pals, once again.
Now, I've joined MARUTI SUZUKI, Gurgaon. So, I am at a new place now. Everything new. Getting settled slowly. The good news is BLOGGER works here! Looking forward to frequent blogging.
Yes! Don't know, what error it was. All I could see, when i type "j-ravi.blogspot.com" on the address bar was "The page cannot be displayed". Then, i deciphered that the problem was with my so-called "highly advanced" computer @ home.
Longing to meet all my blogger pals, once again.
Now, I've joined MARUTI SUZUKI, Gurgaon. So, I am at a new place now. Everything new. Getting settled slowly. The good news is BLOGGER works here! Looking forward to frequent blogging.
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