Jerry Maguire

I know I was supposed to write a review for The Bartimaeus Trilogy, but that'll take a while and I frankly am not in the mood to write a book review right now. In the past two days I've returned to what was once my habit, sleeping for just about 4 hours in a day! So as I approach my last subject exam in COEP; I suddenly have decided to write a review of one of my most favorite movies of all time - Jerry Maguire.
This movie is a must watch, brilliant performances by Tom Cruise as Jerry Maguire, Cuba Gooding Jr. as Rod Tidwell and Renée Zellweger as Dorothy Boyd [the only role I ever liked her in] and special mention for the amazing child actor Jonathan Lipnicki as Dorothy's son Ray [he's the same kid who was in Stuart Little]. Apart from this kid and Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, I have not seen a better performance from a child actor. Seriously! You just have to watch his scene in the car with Tom Cruise with his "Did you know..." dialogues. Amazing scene.

The movies story is pretty simple, Jerry is an agent for Sportsmen in a large firm, he has a moment of career-misjudgment and sends a memo to all employees of the company stating what ails the Sports Agencies in terms of policies and stuff. The result is he gets fired, loses all but 2 clients and has to leave. The only saving grace is Dorothy who comes along with him when he is kicked out, because she believes in his principle. The lift scene which has the famous line "You complete me." is brilliant.

The best part about the movie is Rod Tidwell, in a standout role, which got Cuba Gooding, Jr. an Oscar - he kicks ass in every scene. The movie has brilliant scenes and memorable, catchphrase style lines like

1. Show Me The Money
2. You are my ambassador of Kwan
3. Help me, help you [I love this line]
4. You had me at hello
5. You complete me [brilliantly delivered in the climax scene, more recently used by Heath Ledger as The Joker in the Interrogation scene with Batman in The Dark Knight]


Scenes -

You Complete Me [Jerry Maguire]


You Complete Me [The Joker]


It's no point just watching the scenes of this flick, watch the whole movie and I am quite positive you will like it! Great, clean, heart-touching movie with some memorable scenes peppered with intelligent dialogue.


A still from the famous "Show Me The Money" scene. Tom Cruise gave his best performance till date in this movie. The movie is shot in a very simplistic and natural style giving it a very realistic feel.


The kid is a scene-stealer. Period!

Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Rod Tidwell in the pre-climax scene where his antics on the field turn into a life-changing event for both Jerry and himself!


4/5 for this flick! Do watch it.

Engineering Story - SE Lectures

This happened in TY. The college had been renovated to a great extent, especially the seminar halls and large rooms like Room No. 6. Anyways we used to have Software Engg (SE) lectures in Room 6 and it was a joint, Comp+IT lecture. It was scheduled for 5.30 and somehow I always used to be hungry at that time, so i had made it a bit of a ritual to give some cash to any friend and ask him to get the following from the BC while I crossed over to Room No. 6 -

1. Appy
2. Samosa
3. Lays or any other snacks

This carried on for many weeks. It was nice fun, to have Prof. Kelkar [or some similar name] yap in IIT-Powai while I had my fill. The room was nice and comfy, I had setting with "the dude, who snooped around to catch people talk". Interestingly a guy from my class was once thrown out of the lecture for falling from his chair after he fell asleep :D
So now you know I wasn't the only one screwing around with the system during the lecture. There were such Draconian laws in place for that lecture, like, the only Textbooks you could open and read had to be SE books, or else you were shunted out. And not that getting thrown out of the lecture was such a big deal, it was the resultant loss of attendance which bound us to our chairs in that god-forsaken lecture. That Prof also used to crack some lame jokes, e.g. if he was explaining something and he had to give us an example, invariably he would take an example of "buying a saree for ur gf or wife" and his voice had some sinusoidal pattern where in his voice frequency [pitch] would rise and fall. It was hilarious at times!

Anyways back to the main story, so I had my routine set, I would walk in, sit with my friends and have my evening treat. Many times, the guy sitting next to me would be Bhushan. Now that day Bhushan and I were sitting as usual. Only I had a really large treat in store, I had the Appy, Samosa, Lays and a Sandwich. Only, that day Bhushan too brought some "chana" along for his eating pleasure. Now, A. P. Maam was in charge and she's not very nice, to say the least! I skillfully avoided her gaze and had my snack. Then she comes and settles down on the last row of the class. Bhushan has a hunger attack and starts nibbling on his chana. I notice A.P Maam looking on and give Bhushan the warning with my elbow. Too late. She caught him, red-handed with his mouth full of chana :D
He couldn't believe his luck, he was sitting next to a guy who had just eaten half the canteen's menu, while he got caught eating his first fistful of chana!!! That's what you call irony.
That was a fun time, the SE lectures. The tests out there in room 6 were a revelation. I got an EX in SE, one thing I am proud of, even if u wake me up at 4am and ask me to describe the blackbox and whitebox method of testing or the waterfall model, I will be able to tell you :P
Anyways, that didnt deter me or Bhushan from many more "in-lecture treats"!

Voracious Reading Back In Vogue

There was a time when I was known to be a voracious reader, reading works of Ayn Rand, John Grisham, Jeffrey Archer, J.K. Rowling, Salman Rushdie, Dominic Lapierre, Gregory David Roberts and J.R.R. Tolkien almost one after the other. But then since I entered Final Year, I literally gave up reading because I couldn't find time for it. And now I've come to realize I've got to make time for reading and now I have taken up a challenge for myself - to finish the entire Bartimaeus Trilogy within 1 week. I'll have to juggle my free time between watching the IPL and my end sem exams; but then it's high time I did some solid reading.

I swear to give a blog post with a review of all 3 books within a week.

The Aphrodisiacs of Today

Dammit, all this while I thought that one had to be sensitive, romantic, interesting, courteous etc etc to get a girl's attention, but how wrong I was! Damn this world of books and novels which are filled with hundreds of pages of how a man should struggle to win his damsel's heart. But all that was just trash, i.e. if advertisements are to be believed. Originally it was just AXE and other deodorants who were responsible for enlightening us about how spraying yourself could get you your dream chic. But now others are following suit.
Almost all bike ads now come with the same storyline, guy on the road with his new bike and abracadabra, women go crazy! Weirdest thing in the bike ads is how the girl sitting behind the guy starts causing the background music to change to sensual feminine moans and groans. Damn, and here people read books about technique and stuff to evoke such responses from women.

Then we have the usual, underwear ads; which nowadays are exploring the wild side of the "Bharatiya Nari" types of women, i.e. wearing sarees and stuff... and yes, moaning in the background music.

But the weirdest ad, the one which caused me to write this post was the new Panasonic ad with Ranbir Kapoor. The entire ad focuses on a stream of women entering the guy's house, apparently coz he has an awesome TV. Obviously the women make suggestive gestures and moves, but obviously that was because of the TV and not coz of Ranbir, thats bcoz at the end of the ad, a geeky version of Ranbir gets all the babes after he installs the same TV.

I'm waiting for the day Saffola oil starts asking us to buy their latest low cholestrol oil pack, so that men could get in bed with hot women.
The ad would go like this -

Two men enter a shopping mall, hot chic notices them, First Man buys Dhara or some other brand, woman gives him the thumbs down. Second Man walks and buys Saffola with low cholestrol. Woman smiles and makes suggestive gestures at him, they walk out together, woman looks at screen and says "I like my men with low cholestrol"... screen fades to black, obviously with moaning sounds in the background!

Anyways, the point is that ads are really getting dumber by the day. Aamir Khan's recent Tata Sky ad as an old Sardarji is a welcome change, such ads should be made more often. But marketing is about success, and the only reason that ads involving "moaning background sounds" are becoming the order of the day, is probably because they're more successful.

I'll carry on doing the usual, non-advert style methods of impressing women, i.e. until the day my imaginary Saffola ad is actually aired! That day i'll buy Axe, a new bike, VIP Frenchie, Panasonic TV and finish off with Saffola oil to seduce my chic!

Who is David Flabbergaster?

Who is David Flabbergaster and why should I read what he has to say?

David Flabbergaster, is a great engineer who like many great engineers, hasn't done anything you've heard of. And you should read what he has to say, because you are here out of choice, obviously, you have nothing better to do!


One day David Flabbergaster decided that he should spread his knowledge to his fellow engineers. He chose to do so in the form of random quotes, only people who are truly knowledgeable and smart can understand the depth of his sayings and teachings.

Here are a few of his quotes -

An engineer who has a girlfriend is truly happy, an engineer who doesn't have a girlfriend tries to fake it!

English is the best language to use while making out... somehow "chalo, dusrey kaksh par jaatey hain" doesn't sound as good as "lets move onto base two".


The real purpose, the final destination of life is to get rich, find a beautiful woman and stay happy... by taking up engineering, I diverged from the path that could lead to any of these.


I now know for sure, that most guys believe that the real purpose of dating a girl is so that one can put up a pic with her on their Orkut profile.

The day an engineer is free of frustration would be the day politics is free from corruption, so forget it!

The most unfortunate man in this world is the one who's beautiful girlfriend dumps him after just one day, and during that one day he didn't even have a camera!

Watching FTV will not help you in meeting hot women in real life.

Voting for a reality show is 2nd worst method of spending your money, the worst is voting for a poll on Aaj Tak!

If the hottest girl in class, looks at the geekiest guy in the class and starts talking to him; there can be only one meaning, she wants his assignments!

If you are in an engineering college and see a beautiful, stunning, gorgeous girl walk right upto you... you're definitely dreaming!

Dressing nicely for an interview wont help you if your resume sucks!

Men have to wear suits, blazers and tuxedos to impress women; women on the other hand have to wear nothing!

Before I hit puberty, my most visited website was Wikipedia, after that it became Chicipedia.

There was once a time when engineers were happy people, then App Mech was born!

Many more such quotes will follow, as and when David Flabbergaster decides to bestow his knowledge for the benefit of engineeringkind!

Dont bathe with your mobile

"Dont bathe with your mobile"

Firstly no offense to the guy who sent a mail to student@coep; obviously he has great concern for mobile users all over COEP. But this was too funny to ignore. The whole mail is filled with tips as shown under, but the weirdest tip given below is the one which says - "Dont bathe with your mobile".

I mean, seriously, who in the name of Sony Ericsson "bathes with a mobile"!

Anyways, I'll now blog more often about some gems sent on our COEP Mail, it's too irresistible. And please remember kids, as the wise man said - Dont bathe with your mobile!
Also remember, don't try and make phone calls with your soap! :D

Gold

I am 21 years old, in the past I've participated in a lot of contests, competitions, events etc. On many occasions I've won stuff like certificates, shirts, pen drives, cash awards [i love cash] and even a digi cam. But until the 27th of March 2009, I had never, ever won a Gold medal. On 26th and 27th at TRDDC, TCS' R&D wing, we had a project competition. My project came under the Systems Research Laboratory and was scheduled for demo on the 27th. The demo was complete days ago, and the PPT too was done by the 25th. But it was only on the 26th when I actually found out that there was a Gold-freaking-medal at stake, that i became serious about giving it a shot.

My friends Anshul and Poorva had already got Gold Medals on 26th for their amazing work and Shrirang, Andy and Bagga also got Bronze Medals. Their good wishes really did help my project group, so here's me thanking you all!

So there we were on the 27th, D-Day at TRDDC, on Gudi Padva. And from 1030 am till 1:15 pm we literally were giving our demo and ppt to different groups of people one after the other non-stop. It was a test of stamina, but is on such days that my ability of yapping non-stop comes to the fore.

Teachers from my school days who threatened me with the stick for talking in class, take that ;)

Anyways after the main show in front of the judges was over, which went off very well; we continued to give demos and the ppt for other groups as well. Finally at 4:30 pm we decided to pack up, since the official time was till 4 pm and we were all really exhausted.

After some TP [time pass] with other project groups and friends at TRDDC we were told to head off to the Auditorium for the Prize Distribution ceremony. Now let me tell you all one thing, no matter how well or badly one has performed in a competition, at the time of the Prize Distribution, everyone in their heart of hearts hopes that somehow they win something. It's a fact, everyone has that fantasy of their name being miraculously announced and the applause that follows.

Anyways, I loved the way the ceremony was conducted; it was a great mix of informal fun and the necessary "serious" element it should have. The medals were the really amazing bit. I was actually very impressed with the whole affair.

Once the 3rd and 2nd place awards were given, everyone was kind of tense, no COEP groups had won so far in the Systems Research category. I was also tense, though I didn't show it. I seriously wanted that Gold medal. Then came the final announcement. Our group had one the 1st prize. Mrunal and Akash were all smiles and I was laughing, laughing all the way to the podium. Even when I was given the medal I was laughing. I laughed out of various reasons, firstly coz I was really happy, secondly because my record of winning technical competitions of a serious nature remained intact, thirdly because I finally got a Gold medal and lastly I remembered all that had transpired since Third Year when groups were formed. Every single memory flashed through my mind and I laughed. I remembered those 3 nights in the last two months when i stayed up coding my brains out! I also remembered doing TP at the "katta" near TRDDC with my best friend. I remembered irritating the hell out of employees near my desk at TRDDC by talking and laughing all day with Akash and Mrunal. So many things happened at TRDDC in the past few months, the Gold Medal just went on to make them even more special memories.

I am glad things turned out the way they did. It's been an amazing experience.
The celebrations are still on, I owe quite a few people treats.

7 things I will remember about TRDDC

7 - The first night I coded like mad
6 - Watching Sachin Tendulkar bat while eating at the canteen
5 - The phone number incident
4 - The video Akash and I shot in the lawn
3 - The conversations at the katta
2 - The contest day
1 - The Gold medal

Now I'll conclude this retrospective post about my B Tech project at TRDDC. There's a lot more enjoyment left in these last few weeks of college life and this Gold medal thingy has just given me more reason to celebrate!

Thanks a lot everyone at TRDDC!

The Java Class aka The Laughing Incident

Ok, this post is a long awaited one, about the famed "Java Class" which was mostly attended by The Losers and from Comp it was just Ketan, Jai The Great and me. It was Akash's long overdue Orkut testimonial for me that triggered these fond memories. The Java class began at the end of our TY 2nd sem. It was mostly a defense mechanism for most of us, who thought ki yaar placement se pehle we gotta do some course at least. Thus began The Java Class. Now what I
remember of the Java class was most certainly the infamous LAUGHING INCIDENT; but I'll add a few details about the class for posterity.
There was this kind soul of a teacher from what i initially believed to be "Sun Java Education", but later found out she was a teacher from some STAR Classes or something. But then it wasnt that big a deal, the books we got were from Sun Java Education, so no harm done.

Now here's how the classes went about, Core Java started bang in the middle of the sem, so it couldn't be held for more than a few weeks. After that we had a break till the end of the sem. During the Core Java lectures, we [by that i mean Hasan, Sameer and Akash] used to be attentive and stuff for a fair amount of time, but once the sem ended we lost all our concentration powers.
In the holidays we were supposed to have the class, all day in our college lab. The maam used to land up at like 8 am or something, expecting our efficient college support staff to be prepared with the labs open and ready [hahaha]. She'd wait there, department locked and all. We students would walk in an hour or so late and chill. The halat was so bad that after some time, she even had to borrow laptops for connecting to the lab projector, one day the class didn't start
until someone with a laptop arrived :D
I was certain that by the end of the "Java Class", that maam would be seriously depressed!

Anyways, the classes suddenly changed hue from being a learning course to being an entertainment centre. Akash and i became good friends during the course of those days. I also met Abba [Abhinit] during the class, we soon realized we had a lot in common, a sense of humor and lukkhagiri instincts to be more precise ;)

Coming back to the point, The Losers and I would sit around, Jai couldn't stand Advanced Java for too long and left the course in true Jai style! Once the class started, for the first 20 mins we would all pretend to be attentive. Then Akash/Hasan and I would make eye contact and we'd suddenly start talking about something or the other which was always funny. Soon the class would go on and we'd keep laughing and talking.

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THE LAUGHING INCIDENT

This happened one day, towards to latter half of Advanced Java. In the afternoon, Hasan, I, Akash and Sameer [in seating order] sat in the front row and maam was teaching something about classes in advanced java. Now her slides had some really silly names for the classes, one slide had names like

Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
and so on.

The next slide had names like

January
February
March...

Somehow all 4 of us found this really stupid and funny. It started with me and Akash, both masters of the "silent laugh trick". I was blessed with the ability to hide myself under the cover of the monitor kept in front me by sitting low on my chair. We laughed for 5 straight minutes, it was contagious, soon Hasan and Sameer were laughing as well. Maam was oblivious to all this energetic laughter going on right in front of her. Then we all looked at each other and gave ourselves the "ab bas kar yaar" look and we all controlled our laughter. We all now realize that January February and Monday Tuesday arent exactly the funniest things on Earth, but that day they were.

Then maam changes the slide and the next slide had the dumbest set of Java class names ever

Dog
Cat
Monkey

That was it, we all lost control and started laughing, still we managed the silent laugh; but then, Hasan, let out that shrill laugh for a brief second, the one which manages to slip out. That pushed us all over the edge, we all started laughing hysterically, full volume. The rest of the class, sitting behind us started laughing too, just for the heck of it. Akash actually got off his chair and hid under the comp table ahead of us. No one knew why we were laughing, maam was stunned. She had no clue about what just happened.

She says - "Why are u all laughing?"
"Maam, the classes are named Dog, Cat and Monkey" - was what i would've said, but i was laughing too hard to say anything.

The best moment was when we shut up for a minute, then said a brief "sorry"; then one of us again burst out laughing. Maam was so helpless that she offered us a 5 minute break - "Maam we need at least 10 mins" was our reply.

That was one of the most unforgettable days of The Java Class. We still don't know why we laughed so much that day, but it was legendary. Ever mention The Java Class and that day is the first thing our minds go to.

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The Aftermath -

Hasan, Sameer and Ketan left for their respective summer Internships for a few weeks. That was when Akash and I abandoned the front rows and settled down at the far end of the lab, we just sat through laughing our heads off, joined on occasion by Abba. That was a really great way to spend the end sem holidays, and a great stress buster for the, then, upcoming Placement Week!

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Related stories -

We once used the projector to watch the Aus/SA unforgettable final. Really gr8 use of our college lab :D

Anshul, Poorva and maybe a few more people were the only ones who actually learnt anything during the Advanced Java days. One day Anshul sat next to me; Abba and Akash were there too. I wasn't aware that Anshul thought of me as a "Sajjan". So there we were, suddenly i came up with a funny non-veg joke. After the laughter settled down, Anshul said to me "Yaar, mujhe pata nahi thaa ki tu yeh sab baatein bhi karta hai". Well, Anshul learnt a lot about me then onwards and since then we have become friends too. So i ended up having a great time during those days, Akash and I literally used to come just to chill and crack jokes all day. In the end we got some Advanced Java books as well, which we may use in the future; a certificate which we got after giving a really random test, for which no one prepared and still got like 17/20 minimum. I made quite a few new and gr8 friends in the process and well I do know Advanced Java to a certain extent thanks to my BE project, so no harm done there! A great investment of time.


It was one of the most laughter filled months in our COEP life and it was truly unforgettable! Special thanks to Akash, Jai and Hasan, because of whom I joined The Java Class.


THE END

The College Mail

Our college mail is officially -

a> A spam exhibition centre

Seriously... people come up with such lame crap, that even after 2 years of having seen our college mail, one can still get surprised. People are stupid enough to sign up with Bharat Matrimony using student@coep as their email id, but they use their full name for signing up, resulting in mails being sent to student@coep saying "Dear, Shilpa XYZkar, thank you for signing up with blah blah blah"

Then we also have the endless set of links sent in mails by various people about sites and events which nobody on earth is interested in.

b> A lost and found announcement tool

This is a slightly new method of tormenting the average user of the college mail, we had people at one time saying stuff like "Lost!!! Lost!!! Lost!!! 2 GB pen drive" etc on the college domain. Now we have the other half of the irritating spectrum with people saying "I found a red colour sweat shirt" etc. It was fine upto a certain extent, but now we have at least 10 such mails per week. I'm now waiting for the circle of insanity to get completed by having mails sent saying - "Thank you, i had lost my pen drive, but i now have got it back", we may then have people sending a reply to that saying - "Dosti mein no sorry, no thank you" and then a reply to that saying "Yes you are right"... sorry, kinda lost control there. But you get the point. It's kinda crazy at times.

c> The central location where people vent their frustration against the college -

Every once in a while we get mails, mostly from anonymous senders like "coepstudentforfreedom@gmail" and then it starts off saying what all stuff sucks in COEP and how we must all "get together" to improve it. That itself is stupid enough, but then it's followed by a barrage of other people, non-anonymous, thankfully who start castigating the anonymous sender with fundas about morality and other philosophical crap. This third thing is actually kinda amusing, so I for one don't mind it as much as the other two things.

The Quest is complete

The Lord Of The Rings

It is my favorite book of all time, my favorite movie series of all time. I’ve read the book, an insane 17 times and would continue to do so once every year. Thanks to the crazy no. of times that I’ve read the book, I am capable of, at times, quoting lines from the book in real life situations. E.g. when a couple of years back there was this whole, “Sachin must retire” bullshit campaign after India lost a few matches, I wrote this blog post and quoted an LOTR favorite – “Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens”!

Fresh after one of my readings of the book series, I end up having a hangover of the old English style which JRR Tolkien has used in the books. There was this one instance when I irritated the hell out of a teacher in 12^th standard when she asked me some shit formula in Chem II which I had no idea about, so I said, “To this question… the answer… I know not”. She got so freaked out, she just asked me to sit down and carried on.

Anyways, I have to thank my brother’s friend PL Kashyap, it was he who introduced me to The Lord Of The Rings. Since then I’ve gone on to having finished all of Tolkien’s works. But I would say one thing, my fanatic love for this “trilogy” [Tolkien buffs will point out that it wasn’t a trilogy, but what the hell, I’ll call it a trilogy for simplicity], has its roots in the fantastic movie series directed by Peter Jackson. Each movie was a masterpiece of acting, direction, dialogues, action, drama, and exceptionally awesome special effects. The journey of The Ring-bearer and The Fellowship from Rivendell to Mordor has been shown so brilliantly that one can safely say that if Tolkien were to have directed this movie, he’d have made it exactly the same.

Other fantasy books off late which have been made into movies haven’t had the same success as The Lord Of The Rings, maybe because the creators of the movies aren’t exactly fans of the books. That explains why the Harry Potter movies haven’t been regarded as good enough movie versions of some great books. The Eragon book series isn’t exactly the greatest series to have been written, but the movie was definitely one of the worst movies to have been made. The kind of effort that must’ve gone into making LOTR as a movie series can only be imagined, but apart from the exceptionally good music score, or special effects; the one thing that sets LOTR apart is the amazing ensemble cast [which was acknowledged by an Oscar]. The casting and acting has been more than perfect. Gandalf played by Sir Ian Mckellen was according to me one of the best books-to-screen depictions of any fantasy character.

I am writing this post, fresh after completing my quest of watching all 3 extended DVD versions of the movies, consecutively. I had wanted to do this for a long time, and finally managed it in the fag end of my B Tech days. Another awesome memory to add to my engineering days.

Thank you, JRR Tolkien, Peter Jackson and unknown dude who burned the DVD’s for me!

For those who haven’t yet watched this masterpiece of film making, here are a few snapshots which may make you want to see it immediately.

Bhor Bhayi and Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

I'm not exactly an expert on Indian classical music, sadly, I'm quite the opposite. But this song from Delhi 6, called Bhor Bhayi reminded me of an amazing classical number called Laga Chunari Mein Daag. I heard that song a year ago and it totally blew me away, insanely awesome.
I somehow haven't had the time to hear classical music, but what little I have heard has made me promise myself that I'll definitely take out time in the future to hear a lot more of it.

Meanwhile check out the song I mentioned above, the last half of the song is mind blowing. I don't know how many of you will actually like it, but I love this track. Manna Dey, I salute thee.
Once again I salute A R Rahman for using such an old and forgotten track in Delhi 6, I also noticed how even Shreya Ghoshal struggles at a few notes in the song to match Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan.

Anyways, just thought of posting this to remind me in the future to come good on my promise; lest I forget.

Dil Gira Dafatan Lyrics - Delhi 6

Dil Gira Dafatan from the album Delhi 6, is my favorite song of the year so far. Prasoon Joshi has penned some amazing lyrics for this track. A R Rahman has filled this song with mesmerizing melody that only he is capable of creating. There are some songs which are made for the charts and then there are songs made for the heart. This one is a soul stirring song that is a must-hear.

Dil Gira Dafatan Lyrics

Dil mera dil mera dil mera
Dil mera…aaaaaaaaaaaaa
Dil mera dil mera…

Dil gira kahin par dafatan,
Dil gira kahin par dafatan,
Jaane magar yeh nayan,
Teri khamosh zulfon ki gehraaiyaan hai jahan,
Dil mera uljha hua hai wahin kho gaya,
Tu magar hai bekhabar, hai bekhabar,
Dil gira kahin par dafatan,
Kyu gunj rahi hai dhadkan,
Jaane magar yeh nayan..

Sipiyon ke honth se,
Moti chalak rahe hain,
Gazlon ki sohabat mein,
Geet bhi behek rahi hai,
Samunder lehron ki lehron ki,
Chadar odh ke so raha hai,
Par mein jaagu, ek khumari,
Ek nasha sa, ek nasha sa ho raha hai,
Tu magar hai bekhabar, hai bekhabar..
Dil gira kahin par dafatan,
Kyu gunj rahi hai dhadkan,
Jaane magar yeh nayan,
Khushbu mein lipte mausam,
Teri khamosh zulfon ki gehraaiyaan hai jahan,
Dil mera uljha hua hai wahin kho gaya,
Tu magar hai bekhabar, hai bekhabar,
Dil gira kahin par dafatan..


Movie: Delhi-6 (2009)
Music Director: A R Rahman
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Lyrics: Prasoon Joshi

One hopes that this is just the start of another great A R Rahman year.

Reco Letter

Right now there's this phase of life where a lot of my friends are collecting letters of recommendations from a lot of places, while they are individuals who are big achievers and highly skilled people, what if a guy/girl who has done nothing of significance in his/her life wants a letter of recommendation. What if he/she was a nightmare of a student? This is a sample Letter of Recommendation of such a person.

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To whom it may concern,

It is my immense pleasure to recommend Patrick Henry Jr. for your post-graduate program for the next coming academic year. Patrick outweighs every other student in his class and the fact that he still manages to travel by public transport is very impressive.

I came to know him in the autumn of 2005 while teaching his class. Both in class and outside he made a very strong impression. During the course of studies his partner's grades were very good and even though he sat next to him in every exam and still managed to get exceptionally low marks in those exams, I can certify that he is honest and definitely never cheated in any test.
He never took up any extra curricular activities, thus showing that he knew his limitations and excelled within them.
He has the ability to gather around him a team of peers who ensure that no matter how less an effort he puts in, he always completes his assignments on time and when he cannot he displays his profound ability to impress upon professors that time is a relative quantity and whether he gave his assignment on time or a few days late, it didn't matter as long as he eventually did complete it.
He is a very respectful student and always is a positive influence on his peers, he has the ability to see positives in everything and he is a very happy person, since he keeps laughing during most lectures. His antics during lectures always ensures a healthy attendance of students.

I would love it if he continued his higher education at your institute and not mine. You will be the happiest man alive when he walks out of the gates of your institute after he completes his higher studies, I assure you.

Sincerely,

David Flabbergaster

HOD Electical Engineering Dept

ICU Institute of Engineering

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Dev D Movie Review

Just one word – Fabulous!
I finally saw this movie on Sunday and thank God I waited to watch it in a theatre. One of the best Hindi movies I have seen. Anurag Kashyap and Amit Trivedi – take a bow!

Yes, there are those who didn’t like it, but I liked it and that’s all that counts. I don’t care who gave it 5 stars and who gave it 1 star; a movie like this is beyond ratings.
I really wish people would decide what kind of a movie they expect before they step into the theatre, that’s where I believe most people end up not liking movies. What one gets in Dev D, is some great acting, great direction and above all great… great music and lots of it, there’s little else that you can ask for.
What I liked about the movie was that even though you know it’s a Devdas remake, you still are surprised with the total angle change and twists in the story. I for one loved the role of Chanda, seriously well etched out. Paro was also fine, but the best acting performance was by Abhay Deol, from whom one now can just start expecting great performances and nothing less. I had also seen “Oye Lucky Lucky Oye!” a few weeks back and he did brilliantly in that too. While the movie is a serious one it has some great humor in it, the “Sattu” scene at the start, Emosanal Attyachar [Brass Band version] with those two hilarious singers and a host of other moments in the movie. The entire movie is intelligent and is entertaining. Some people have complained about the songs and stuff, but I didn’t really have an issue since I loved the album [which has been on my playlist since the last month] and the handling of the scenes, especially between Chanda and Dev is superb.
Chanda, played by Kalki is a revelation; her entire story arc starting from the MMS scandal to the last scene is amazing. One was really pleased the see the way the whole MMS issue was handled in a completely non-sleazy way in the film. One can only imagine what the directors of the 90’s and 80’s would’ve done with that kind of subject matter! I don’t know what people were saying when they complained about Chanda’s accent, she’s not playing a Bharatiya nari types as it is.
The strength of the movie lies in the depth the female characters are given. While it is true that in most Bollywood movies, female characters are just eye candy; Anurag Kashyap gives us Chanda who is not only eye candy, but also has a huge role to play in the movie itself. Even Paro did a great job in the movie.
What I was also glad to see was that the theatre had quite a decent crowd, even though the movie is relatively old now.
Now the music, enough has already been said about how awesome it is, but I think it’s necessary to mention how well it has been used in the movie. By far one of the best soundtracks to come out of the Hindi movie industry!
To finish this review, which is mostly a recommendation for this movie – one hopes that the Anurag Kashyaps of Bollywood prevail over the mindless trash made by the Nikhil Advanis and Aneez Bazmees of this world.

Good Times

Yeah, weekends in Feb have been great so far, especially weekends with some relation to St. Vincent’s. First was the amazing/random/weird/awesome time at school a couple of Saturdays back, followed by what happened on Sunday. I finally saw Dev D, with Akash and Srinivas; we all unanimously liked the movie, but to different degrees, I loved it. We had a great time during the movie as is the case each time a bunch of Vincentians go for a flick together, we either totally screw the movie and laugh over it or totally enjoy it if its good. This time it was the latter.
Then came the best part of the day, Vedo, Robert and Karl joined us after the movie and then we had non-stop narrations of hilarious incidents, I’m pretty sure we didn’t even finish 10% of all the incidents we all had in the past 4 years, but even then it was enough to spend an afternoon.
There’s something about your schoolmates that’s special and the nature of the friendship only gets better in time. A few of us may have met after 4 years, but it was almost like we had met yesterday. Some things don’t change that much, and thankfully they never will.