In the presence of Greatness

Pandit Birju Maharaj (72) and Ustad Zakir Hussain (57) are two living legends who performed together 12 years ago. Since then, there have been a lot of people who have unsuccessfully tried to get them together.

Deepak Vaze of Anant Vaze Sangeet Vidyalaya was successful in getting them together.
One of my relatives, was one of the main donors of this program and also part of the organizing committee.We were lucky enough to watch these legends together from close quarters . To top that ,we also got a chance to meet Pandit Birju Maharaj personally.

Pt Birju Maharaj (2nd from Left)

He loves kids

Pt Birju Maharaj (centre), Shasavati (near his feet) . She has been training under him for 40 years.

Ustad Zakir Hussain starts the show.

Pandit Birju Maharaj makes his appearance.

Jugalbandi

Madhuri Dixit, who has trained under Pt. Birji Maharaj graced the occasion

Sashavati performs as the multi-talented Pt Bhirju Maharaj performs on the tabla

and now on the Harmonium giving vocals to one of his own compositions. Truly a genius.

We were all mesmirized by the jugalbandi and spellbound by the performance. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Why Did BigB Slam Slumdog Millionaire ?

The much hyped Golden Globe winning Slumdog Millionaire was slammed by none other than Bollywood's most iconic personality Big B.(who claims never to have worked in movies showing reality because  again, he claims knows the crowds want fantasy not the reality) for showing Mumbai's seamier side.

Here are the actual reasons why he has slammed the movie :

1. Big B was the original host of Kaun Banega Crorepati (Desi version of Who wants to be millionaire?). Anil Kapoor who plays a similar host for a similar game show in the movie not only does a good job of emulating Big B but also does a better job of mocking the contestant. He almost matches the panache of Big B, but eventually breaks into a Lakhan-style tapori dance. Big B was mortified by the dance and felt he would danced better. He felt the role should have come to him as he would given a natural feel.

2. Big B, although an icon amongst generations in India has never been offered  any role beyond a beggar in any Hollywood movie. Even an unknown actor like Gaurav Chopra has done a cameo role in the Oscar Nominated movie Blood Diamond. Given the fact the movie does have a duplicate playing the role of Big B himself. Big B felt that atleast if not KBC host, he should have surely been offered this role where a kid covered full in shit runs into a crowd to touch the great bollywood legend and take his autograph.

3. Slumdog shows the plight of poverty and poverty in the slums of Mumbai. Big B has no problem with that really! The scene that has really ticked him off is the one where a car parked in a slum of Agra ( in Uttar Pradesh, his home state, where he used to own land by claiming to be a farmer) is robbed of its essentials like tyres, head lights amongst other things and driver calls the kid a robber, essentially calling all "such" people a robber.
Firstly as per Big B, there is no slum in UP and certainly given the fact it is the most progressive state, there are surely no robbers. "UP men hai dam, jurm hai kam" remember the ad?

Lately, Big B has reportedly said that he had been misquoted by the media again. My guess is that the only purpose of his blog is to say something which is borderline controversial. Knowing the Indian media, the borderline controversy would become real news(read controversy) and then Big B's next blog will say he was "misquoted" which will be another headline . Shit Happens!

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Book Reviews: Tigers, Lexus and more

The White Tiger: Arvind Adiga's first novel which landed him with the Booker Prize. Now i am not judge of the whether he deserves it or not nor am i judge of the novel's literary quotient. One thing for sure, its a hell of a novel. The novel portray's the dark side of India shining. It shows how people trapped in this "darkness" or "chicken coop" remain there forever; accept fate as it is. But this novel is more than that, its a story of those few "White Tigers" , who dream of the "light"; who want to move out of this "chicken coop" and eventually do breakout of it. That what makes this an interesting read. The unlikely rise of a entrepreneur, from being a normal taxi-driver in Delhi to owning an fleet of cars and running a taxi agency in Bangalore.
The style of writing is lucid and the pace is fast. The author describes the grim darkness very neatly, potraying the truth.
A lot of people have been turned off by this novel or say that its showing India in bad light; the reason they say so is because they haven't seen the "darkness" or witnessed someone fight out of this "darkness".
I won't go into the details of the story etc. Find out about it yourself.

The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Thoman Friedman's second book; a prequel to the world famous "The World is Flat" set in the pre-9/11 era. I picked up this book couple of times earlier, got bored; found it irrelevant and never went beyond a couple of chapters.
I picked this book again with an aim to finish it. The book suddenly turned out to be quite interesting, and very relevant in today's economic turmoil (Nope, doesn't give any insight into Raju's Books though) . This book tells us about how the foundation stones of current crisis were laid. Not only that it even predicts such a downturn as a possibility. If you want to know about Globalization; its roots; how it all began, then this is surely a good read. The stories and incidents that the author narrates are very interesting and fun to read. It talks about the pros, and cons of Globalization. Mostly pros though. Why some countries/people are against it or are even angry because of it. How most people in developing countries misunderstand "Globalization" for "Americanization" How companies/countries are adapting to it and so on. Sometimes though the book gets repetitive and boring; though overall the style of writing and his interactions with people world over make it worth a read.
Why the name, one might ask? The Lexus, Toyota's luxury brand denotes one end of the world where Globalization has been accepted while the Olive Tree represents the other extreme where people are fighting for gaining control over others' olive trees and protecting their own; where globalization treated as new word for US imperialism.

Q and A: Vikas Swarup, an Indian Diplomat's first novel. The story of an ordinary waiter who wins a million dollars on a KBC type quiz show. The producers think its a fraud. How can a waiter know the answers to tough General Knowledge questions. He says he just knows those answers. Not by luck, not by guessing. He just knew those answers. How did he know this answers, well thats what the book about. His life story; his experiences and his encounter with various type of people from which he came to know the answers to the GK questions. The book has similar undertones as the White Tiger about Dark India. What makes the book different is that ; although the certain description of people and places are life like, overall its pure fiction with twists and turns and a stunning ending. Yes, fit to be made into an movie.
The movie is already made. This book inspired the multi-award winning "Slumdog Millionaire" movie. The book again is fast paced and the style of writing easy. The author has focused on the characters and their emotions and less on the surrounding and the situation, making it a quick read.
Incase you are looking for some action on a lazy Sunday afternoon; chuck the TV and pick up this thriller.

Another pic from the trek

This is another great pic . Thats a Superman T-shirt inside.

Caption: Superman who needs to have a bath, needs to be shown directions to the treadmill and also some training from Frankflin Air hostess training institute.

Courtesy: Image: Pallavi, Caption: Chirag,Hemanth

National Himalayan Winter Trekking Expedition (Reaching Dalhousie)

We were part of the "National Himalayan Winter Trekking Expedition" starting at Dalhousie organized by Youth Hostel Association. Name sounds fancy? Well only the name does.
More on that later though.

There is a great saying, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Duh! Isn't it obvious?
But my first step was actually in the reverse direction i.e cancelling the trek as Leena fell sick. Hence she had to drop off the trek. Our original plan was to do the trek and bring in the new year in Himachal itself. But instead, i cut my trip short and decided to return after the trek while Leena took rest at her mother's place at Nasik.

I met the Gang (i.e Varun, Arun, Amit and Uttaran) at the New Delhi Railway Station.



Yeah, all of them are smiling(seems more like they are doped). Uttaran seems fit for the Center Shock Commercial. He is losing hair but claims to be in denial. He trying all sorts of Hair styles; wants to do a "Bucket List" of his hair before them falling. What does the hair think?
"I just want to fall off before freaking people out!"

Anyways, now we had a whole day to kill in Delhi. The train to Pathankot was in the night. So First Stop, was Karim's in Old Delhi near Jama Masjid. We took a tonga ride. tonga - horse driven cart for the uninitiated.


Oh wait! What about the after-effects of a 36+ hrs train journey from Bangalore to Delhi ?



Uttaran, the self proclaimed foodie and also the person who claims to have lived in Delhi for 4+ years gave the orders.
The food looks tasty and obviously unhealthy.

All satiated after the meal

Now, after the meal "normal" people would do some sight-seeing in Delhi. We headed to Connaught Place. Stood outside a cinema hall comtemplating whether to watch the [cough]horror[cough] movie, "Rab Ne Baani Di Jodi". I wished "Rab" would "rub" some wisdom into us. And guess what? Next Stop, TGIF !! Yayee, an overpriced pub. Now thats something you don't find in Bangalore.

Uttaran with his rusty knowledge then directed us to another pub which supposedly played decent rock music. The rock music playing club was now a sports bar with all TVs all over the place showing anything but the current "Test Match between Ind and Eng" and playing Disco songs with the singer going "OOww!" every now and then.
The rates were high, the happy hours freebies were quite sad. Hence after half-an-hour of free water and AC, we coolly walked out.

Next stop Barista!! Obviously. If you want have the best coffee its Delhi dude, not Bangalore!
After Ozzy and Arun showed off their out of tune guitar skills, Uttaran his writing-random-numbers-in-empty-boxes appearing-to-solve-sudoko skills and Varun his just-sit-and-stare-in-the-sky skills, we finally headed to Old Delhi Station.
Once the train started chugging along, I got to know Varun's entrepreneurial ventures during his college days which still funds his overexpensive wardrobe. We discussed everything under the sun including office gossip, emacs v/s vim and so on.
We reached foggy Pathankot next day morning. If you want to know, Pathankot is a dusty and dirty litttle town (just like any other town i guess) with a strong military presence.



We had breakfast (lovely parathas) and headed down to the bus stop.



Yeah, i know we look like two shady guys trying to sell dope to school kids. Alright, i don't but Varun surely does. and yes we seemed on a high.

After 4 hrs of travel, we reached Dalhousie. Dalhousie is a town with a old-world charm slowly giving way to tourism and everything that comes with it (tourists, garbage etc). Our base camp was just a 5 min walk from the bus stand. It had a building with beds to sleep, hot water to have bath, mobile charging points and also had free wifi access. Sadly we all work for a company where no one can afford a mobile with wifi capabilites.

Wait a sec! Building? Beds? Hot water? I thought this was a trek! and also wheres the snow?? I was roaming around in a half sleeves T-shirt . Was it winter, really?



Yeah, Coming back to the title "National Himalayan Winter Trekking Expedition" . Himalayan ..no snow! Winter no way. Trek? Wait and watch, things are going to get worse.

We got ourselves registered, dumped the luggage, cleaned up (in all sense) and headed down market place for some shopping. Rest of the gang, sans Anna reached the camp at night. We had our first encounter with a mountain goat a.k.a God father.



and then next day, we had another encounter with another [cough] mountain goat [cough] whose toothbrush had been used to clean everything except his teeth.

Take A closer look at the brush.


We had a early morning exercise where the leader caught Uttaran faking his exercise (You can fake that too) and called him a 60-year old man and also an insult to Bangalore in pure Kannada.
Then we headed to Panch Pula(Bhagat Singh's Uncle's memorial...yayee) for our acclimatization walk.
The great Anna, joined us for the acclimatization walk and complained. " Its not cold, lame trek, comparisons to Sar Pass and so on". I got to hear this till i found a cure, more on that later though.

We mostly walked on the road. What kind of acclimatization walk was this? I later realized, it was actually to get acclimatized to walk on the road with heavy shoes, heavy jacket and heavy bag because this is what we did exactly on the first day of the actual trek.

Yeah so no trek, just a hike for the first day atleast.

You can have a look at the Trek Pics
Stay tuned for part 2 .

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Three pics from the trek!

Here are 3 pics that at best describe my antics during the trek. A blog is surely in order. But for now..



Collecting Garbage.



Collecting Money.



Don't ask what i am doing to Hemanth.

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Similarities between Terrorists and MBAs !

1. A small bunch of them can create havoc in the entire country.
2. They are used to bringing down things.. Buildings, Companies, Economies.. You name it. MBA = Masters in Bringing down Anything.
3. Both go through extensive training from the top in the their field.
4. Their jobs are high risk.
5. For any project, their planning is extensive.
   
6. One is promised 74 virgins in heaven, other gets 7 figure salary.
7. No matter what they do, they can screw you and get away with it.
8. They will give a valid reason for all their actions (like bomb blasts, screwing finances) .

Any more suggestions folks? I'll append it to this list and give proper credits. :)

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Mindblowing advertisment by Baba Ramdev!

Courtesy: Tango!

A "jihadi" Thereom

Thereom : A "jihadi" goes to heaven for a righteous act (read suicide act) where there are 74 virgins waiting for him.

Corollary 1 : Once the "jihadi" reaches heaven, he finds the virgins are 74 of his "jahadi" brothers who died in the righteous act.

Corollary 2: If you die a virgin, you might get to make love to a dead jihadi

Corollary 3: No one dies a virgin, Life "screws" everyone.

Update: I forgot to thank prempanicker and vedang from twitter world from where i got inspired! So here it is guys...a big thanks !

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Definition Of Democracy.

India is the largest Democracy in the world. What does Democracy really mean?

Democracy means :

1. Anyone can shit/spit on the road.
2. There are no need whatsoever to follow traffic rules.
   
3. Anyone can protest on the roads and damage personal and public property.
4. Anyone can launch verbal/physical attacks on certain communities while the govt. sits and watches mutely.
5. Where arrests of "influential" individuals are more of a shenangian and their bailouts are faster than Shoaib Akthar's bowling.
6. Money can buy almost everything including votes and ministers.
7. Polticians use the British divide and rule policy to get vote banks.
   
8. Internal Enemies are more than external ones.
   
9. Cricrket/Bollywood/Politics gets more coverage than the "real" Heros who sacrifice their life for the Nation.
10. Where "potential" terrorists are arrested, then released on ground of "not enough evidence" who then certainly go on and cause terror
    
11. Anyone can enter  from land or sea and terrorize the entire nation.
12. The Police have to use Normal Revolvers against AK47s, grenades and top cops die needlessly.
    
13. Media can broadcast vital information about Marcos, NSG during their counterattack on terrorists, and the terrorists can watch TV and get live updates.
14. Media continuously broadcast the count of dead people and time since when the standoff is going  similar to live updates of cricket matches.
15. Media are allowed to cause panic because of anything from LHC Collider to bomb blasts.
16. Peoples' memory of bomb blasts is that of a goldfish and we shamelessly say Citizens spirit cannot be broken .
    
17. Government promise the sun and the moon, but not a zero tolerance to terrorism.

Definitions of democracy on the Web:

• the political orientation of those who favor government by the people or by their elected representatives
• a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them
• majority rule: the doctrine that the numerical majority of an organized group can make decisions binding on the whole group 

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Quantum Of Solace: Movie Review

Quantum of Solace is the latest flick from the James Bond Franchise.

Daniel Craig does certainly stand out from other actors who have portrayed the classic super spy over the years. His panache, cold blue eyes and personality stand out. Coupled with hand to hand combat, chasing criminals over rooptops sans the usual gadgets is what made Casino Royale (prequel) stand out. They could have really give the Bourne franchise a run for their movie. To some extent in the last part they achieved this.

But in Quantum of Solace they went overboard . To make matter worse, the movie lacks any story but has the usual hero sets out the avenge the death of loved ones, two timing villians etc .(very common in 90s' Bollywood movies) . This is where the movie falls flat and fails to impress.

The usual Bond fan expects 4 things ... Gadgets, Cars, Larger than Life villians and most importantly hot babes!

Unfortunately coupled with a bad bollywold style story lime and total lack of the above, means that almost everyone is disappointed.

Daniel Craig does anything but act. He runs, chases villains, drives bikes, cars, flies  planes, run agains, chases villains again and so on.
Also  You need to have seen the Casino Royale to get any link of what is going on.
The action sequences are good but not good enough to carry the film through.

Overall. i would say this movie is watchable only if you have nothing else to do, otherwise do yourself a favor and go see the Bourne Series or even the Transporter ones.

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Stress: Are you really stressed out?

I spoke about the above topic at my 2nd speech at Toastmasters'
I have expanded over my previous post

Good Afternoon to all,I am Chirag Jog.
My topic for today is "Are you really stressed out?"

Do we feel you all are really stressed? Too much work pressure, travelling in so much traffic, rash drivers, drivers
talking on their cells, etc

Do you feel life was easier, simpler in the past? And do you feel your life will be more stressful in the future?
Lets see if this common feeling is really justified.

My was talking to my father the other day. He was visibly irritated because a rash driver
speaking on his cell, carelessly overtook him. He said "Life has become so stressful."
So much traffic! complemented by bad drivers.

Once the Nano comes out, traffic condition will  worsen and we will be more stressed.

Life in general seems stressful. People say that competition has increased manifold.
Competiton for jobs, for education, for getting the right life-partner.
Along with that the inflation rate is high. Petrol has become costly.
The list is infinite. Things were so better in the past. Life was so simple.

Or were they really?

Lets move back in time a bit. Say 1980s. Was life less stressful then?
One would say, there was no rat race, no competition ! Yes thats true!
There were no jobs either! People today with just a degree can atleast hope to
work in a call centre if not anything else.
I remember when i was a kid i met a rickshaw driver who was a double graduate but couldn't find a job.

This surely would add stress to our life!

Lets talk about communication.
Life was so simple no cell phones, simple landlines

A parent wouldn't know when would she talk to her son who is working in another part of the coutry.
She also wouldn't know whether the letter she wrote will reach in time or would reach at all.

This surely also would add to stress. right?

Also the traffic then was so less. Not a lot of  vehicles on the road.
Well, yes thats true!
When you actually wanted to a buy Bajaj scooter, the waiting period was more than year.

Now the maximum you have to wait is 3 weeks.

Now this unnecessary waiting period would surely
to stress. No?

Lets move back in time even more.The prehistoric era.
Where humans lived in caves. Was there less stress then?
Man didn't know when his next meal would come from?
would it even come at all. Man didn't know which wild animal will he have face and when?

I am sure all these things surely did add stress to one's life!

I am surely all these examples are self explanatory.Stress is a negative human emotion just like anger,frustration,sadness etc.
The surroundings have nothing to do with it. It is something that is generated in our minds.And hence
it is can be controlled just like any other emotion! So just relax, and enjoy the pollution, traffic and
the fellow rash driver as much as you can!

Back to the toastmaster!

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KDE 4.1 or Gnome ?

I have been using KDE 4.1 for sometime now on Fedora 9. Prior to that, i have used both Kde and Gnome on Ubuntu.

So which is better? Which one wins the game? Well i am sure there would be a lot of blogs, articles etc abt kde vs gnome.

The applications/tools i use most often are:

1. mutt + getmail + postfix : For Sending/Receiving IMAP mails

2. Firefox : To Surf the Net

3. Amarok: Listen to Music

4. xchat-gnome : For IRC

5. Pidgin : Chat client for ST/gtalk/yahoo

6. IBM proprietary stuff like Notes, WECM etc

7. VLC Media Player: For watching movies.

8. For almost everything else, the Konsole, i.e the command line.


Over the past couple of (busy) months, i have realized it doesn't really matter which Desktop environment i use, as long as
these applications work fine for me; and these applications do work fine for me in either settings.

Yes, KDE 4.1 has the new jazzy plasma desktop and GNOME has its own Compiz-Beryl features. I have never used them
and surely do not need them. They are cool "candy-floss" features though, but surely not useful.

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This is what i felt after i got my Salary Hike !

This is how i felt after i got my salary hike ....if you can call it a hike!!!

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An Update for Oct 2008!

So no blogs in sometime. Thought i'd write about something. But i can't think of anything in particular.
Here are some updates in general :

• Planned a trek in December to Dalhousie
• Started using Twitter actively
• Enjoyed a trip to Goa in Diwali
• Improved my car driving skills
• Product Release Done...so jobless
• Improved Pool playing skills (have a pool table at work)
• F1 season over ! Nothing else worth seeing on TV except Friends and Seinfeld re-runs
• Haven't watched a movie for more than a month except re-runs of No Entry, Malamaal Weekly, Bhagan Bhag, Guru on TV
• Saw a bunch flats...planning to buy one
• Listened to every Tom,Dick and Harry's opinion about Economic Crisis, recession, stock market crash, real estate bubble bursting etc

Yeah thats all i can think of for now!

Children Of Heaven

Children Of Heaven is an Iranian Movie directed by Majid Majidi . It is about a brother who has lost his little sister's school shoes. The movie makes us realize who innocent kids really are.
All the actors have acted very naturally giving the movie the "real life" effect. Story is kept short and simple. The direction is very good.

The only focus of the movie is children and their innocence. Truly worth a watch.

As Mr Hemanth would say, "Do Yourself a Favor and see this movie!!"

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Internet Has Standards !

Yes this is true.
Next time you write a blog, article or anything that can be published over the Internet.

Remember this: Internet Has Standards

Else

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Successful Experiment

Whenever you come back from an outing say a trek or just a picnic, your mood will instantly turned of after seeing those dirty shoes. Sometimes it could be your sparkling white sports shoes that had to go under.
We suffered this emotion during our recent outing. Fear not,my dear friends i have a good solution to all such problems.

Just put those dirty shoes into the washing machine!
Yes you heard me right! Washing Machine !!

We had heard/read about washing the shoes in this machine. After being hesistant initially, we decided to take this chance.

The machine soaked, washed, rinsed and spinned the shoes. In the end, my shoes came out sparkling white!! OK not sparkling but pretty decent to repeat this experiment.

The washing machine also remained cleaned.

So go ahead and give your shoes the special treatment it deserves

This is the right time to change your job!

For all those in two minds about changing their jobs, this is the right time ! Don't think twice go for it .

Why is now a good time ? The U.S markets are not recovering. With recent bad news coming from both Lehmann Brothers and Merrill lynch, things are probably set to get worse. Although, not all sectors are affected yet. The fall in the US markets could very well trigger a chain reaction across all sectors and markets. In the coming 4-6 months things might just go from bad to worse. Companies will limit their spending . Hiring will freeze. Bargaining for a good pay packet will be tough.
Even if people are get a chance to switch jobs, the salary rise will not be as high as the usual (30-50 %) .

So, make up your mind now!

Have a great Day!

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