Slumdog Millionaire

Ring Ring Ringa Roses,
Pocket full of awards,
8 at the Oscars, 4 at the Globe,
1 for Rusel, 1 for Danny,
2 for Rahman,
"O sayaaaa (yeah) ", Jai Ho!!, Jai Ho!!

Too much for a little verse, Too little for the recognition that it has got, But why did i watch slumdog for almost 8 times !!

There are only few flicks that has gone through entirely infront of my eyes for more than a couple times, One of them being sarfarosh and off late, Slumdog Millionaire.

Whats so slummy about slum dog that made me stick to it ? Few scenes..

a). During the hindu/muslim riots, a person hits Jamal's mom on head and the way she lies dead in the pool of dirty clothes washed and the dialogue which follows... "If it was not for Allah and Ram, I still would have had my mother..." touching... isn't it ?

b). Our parents used to always scare us in our younger days that incase, if you were to loaf around, your eyes would be taken off and made to beg... This fear had almost ended, when it came up again in Slumdog and the scene sent a chill down my spine. How Inhuman were these guys.

C). When Salim leaves Latika's hand when she tries to reach for, while trying to escape, "Uska tho chal jayega..." makes us quite aware, how the world for a gal is.

D). Sometimes, silence is more than loud, so was the scene at the call centre, when Jamal tries to reach Salim and pauses when he says... "We are doing an upgrade for Friends and F A M I L Y". That pause was more than a 1000 words... frankly, I got goosebumps when i seen it for the first time.

E). Life teaches a lot, be it love, hate, trust, relation and so on. Thats exactly what made Jamaal chose Jack Hobbs over Ricky Ponting when Prem gives him the wrong answer. To all my fellow engineers, All your managers are Prem and Jack Hobbs and Ricky Ponting and the technologies that you work on.. :P

Few Negativity....

Few of my friends protested against the movie for the way it portrayed the image of mumbai, It wasn't any lies, nor any fiction. It all still exist. Why much, travel between Sion and Matunga and you can see much of it on the railway tracks itself. Reality Bites, "Sachaai Kadvi hoti hai... parr chup nahi sakti" so, i don't agree with my friends.

A little hitch in the entire movie was the author of the song "Darshan ddo gyansham". It wasn't written by Surdas, but by a poet called Gopal Singh Nepali. Mistakes do happen and i am happy that such a small one did not stop it from winning those awards.. :-)

Rahman, truly the king of indian music, has so much more potential than his work at Slumdog., Just that, it was never recognised. For eg. Roja, for me that was his masterpiece. Who does not have their heart beating to the beats of "Yeh Haseen Vadiyan..." "Pudu Vellai Mazhai..." in Tamil.

Mrs. Tandon, Pookutty, These are early days of everything including success... Expectation would be the same as England expects from KP all the time that he walks out to the field.
Between all the hypes, We got a sense of few more of a reality,

Rubina and Mohammed are from the slums and should be doing good enough to move out and the help offered by Slum dog crew to treat their sick parents and securing their future was a great move. I hope a little more of a humanity is done to kids who are still in the slum and i guess thats very much on Danny Boyle's mind.. Thank you sir!!

Smile Pinki.. has got the attention of the authorities to make another million Plikes to smile. Thanks to Oscar or they would have gone unnoticed.

All in all, India like never before, is beginning to put a thought to all these "NEVER TOUCHED" issues. Courtesy : Entertainment Industry. Last but the least, Little did ever Vikas Swarup know that his simple novel "Q & A" would be at such a peak.

If at all, i were to write without a stop, it indeed would grow long and long enough to spend my time writing till there is no end..

Thank you Slumdog Crew, Staff., Thanks to the oscar committee..

Lots of Luv, Dhinu!

A busy schedule off a non-busy schedule.

Just like you've to think a lot to even crack a PJ (Cracking a poor joke has to be given intense thought if it would live upto the expectation of a poor joke), it’s duely important to find importance of non-important time. Out of all the unimportant task that we do, the most important one is going through the daily newspaper. We techies, unusually have forgotten to read through the pages of books and have glued our eyes into the screens which reads various names like Samsung, LG, Viewsonic and so on at the bottom. Our fingers have been replaced with the scroll bar and the buttons on the mouse.

A much within this time, I made it a point to read the paper (not the e-paper) along with a cup of coffee/tea. This is rarely a time when you can be an observer, but few happenings in and around you, can't take away anything without being observed. Similar was the issue when a lady from my office sat infront of me to read the newspaper.

The time that i hopped on to read it today, did the lady stick on to "The Times of India", apart from this there were papers like "Deccan Herald" and "The Economic Times" left on the table. I wasn't a big time into finance and so let loose upon "Deccan Herald" half heartedly, While the lady (with embossed lipstick) already finished off the first page with "The Times of India". "Maybe, she'd already gone through the paper at home., only then quick to get onto the second page.." I thought.. I'd not even ended with the first big news of the day that she had turned a couple of more pages. By the time i was almost done with a couple of news, she'd done with almost 12-14 pages. (Her action of moving her hairs behind her ears seemed faster than moving the pages of the newspaper) Hmm... I thought she was already done with the headlines, city news, editorial, business too., so next would be the sports to come and then followed by the color pages, which is mostly useless. It would just have the parties which were on last night and the typical page 3 news.

God know if i was getting faster or she was getting any slower (I was talking about the newspaper), did i go through a couple of pages and hers not 1 did get over. She was still stuck on to the Sports main page and made me wonder whats the news for today on the sports main page ? Thats a huge compliment that more of a homely lady like hers was following the cricket and football news so closely and which of these gals dont like Machester United. There are way too many chocolate boys in there. By the way, why do i care about what she is reading ? After all, my requirement was "The Times of India", nothing more., She could have even read about yesterday's newspaper heroes in today's "Deccan Herald", they are usually a day late, that may be more because they publish it in the US.. LOL.

I started gathering pace and almost like went through the business headlines and sports section too... whereas she had just moved on to "Bangalore Times" (A very controlled smile was up on her face), I had a sense of urgency now, spending around 35-40 mins waiting for a newspaper was too boring... although, i was held with an unintresting newspaper. I could not hold nerves and put the newspaper on the desk and went off to my floor, where i caught eye with few of my earlier project mates working.

A "hi, hello" to them, exchanged few happenings from the last few days and a casual joke too made way for another 10 minutes. I'd almost forgotten that i'd still to read "The Times of India.." and happend to still pass by the place where i was sitting. I still found this lady, glued whole heartedly into "Bangalore Times" page 2 & 3. Maybe, she would be browsing through Cartoon Network's programs for her kids. But come on, its somewhere close to 30-35 mins that she had been stuck to the coloured papers of the day.

I was in no mood to give up, and wanted to anyhow set a start time from 1 hour to see, where she finishes, another 20 minutes gone and she put the papers down to stand up from the parking lot (the seat where she sat). For sure, I never wanted to occupy that seat for the warmth that it had and i was anyway warming some other seat. So then, as she rose,did i see a red tag (that means, she served our firm for more than 5 years in a stretch), Which should make her occupied with work all the time when compared to the jobless me.

I wasn't really interested in whats there on pages 2-3-4 of Bangalore times, but indeed admired a person for very religiously following it. For a moment, looking at her dedication to the colored papers, i now think, I should have titled this blog as "A busy task off a busy schedule.."

Luv, ME

When is this gonna end ?

When is this going to end ? "This" can be replaced with anything, be it the suffering, happiness, unhappiness, easiness, uneasiness, pain, worry and so on and so forth. But here, i am only referring to the goods and bad days that I am going through, hmm... just not me, but many like me :-)

Whats been happening latest in my life, for which i ask a question, "When is this gonna end ?". Hmm.. I have changed loyalty from the busy schedule of a project to the warmth of the Bench. Earlier on, I always wanted to be on the bench and warm it as much as i can, but now a days, beside the warmth of the bench, there's a little needle poised upward towards the asses of the rester.

Now, that its just been a couple of day (today being the 5th day), the needle hasn't really started poking up, but quite aware of one already present!. I've a friend from the admin department, who says, our company too would be starting to give off pink slips from April. Hopefully, they dont make a treat of the April fool's day. Not too early in the morning did i also read that my office is cutting down salary from 20-35%, which means, I am going back to what i was almost 3 years back!! I was wondering why a double figure percentage of pay cut, when they were crying out for a double digit pay rise.

Today's newpaper too carried some intresting images, an IT guy says, "Please give me a job, Even if the posting is somewhere in Africa", This was the same guy who denied a job offer at ITPL as he was finding it difficult to travel and wanted to remain at Koramanagala only. The bench however is quite intresting... The daily schedule as of now is something like this....

8.15/20 am - Logg in (Our driver has also taken part in Formula One).
8.30 am - Breakfast
9.am - Browse the net and study something (Tedious task)
10 am - Read Newspaper with a Tea (GK is not very general)
11 am - Meet some existing friends (They work the KSA time, hence reach only by 10.30 am)
11.30 am - Get Back to reading.
1 pm - TT board opens.
1.45 pm - Lunch (coz of these guys who loggs in late, have lunch too late these days)
2.30 pm - TT (the board is open till 3)
3.00 pm - Read my subject once again (If my eye lids are not meeting each other)
4.00 pm - Tea Time (Nothing can stop me from following time table)
4.30 pm - Blog time (Read/Write Blogs)
5.00 pm - (TT is keeping me busy, I wonder why do they open at 5 again)
6.00 pm - Another day is over, Life - 1 day.

Does anyone want a change from this schedule.. Nope, not me.., I dont want one, But wish to be on a project while doing all these and I can replace only the Reading/Study time dedicated to work... :P

Luv, Dhinu!

Mumbai - Quite a Change

The city of joy, hopes, dreams and the list of abstracts go on and on. How else can i define this city ? Talking about this city, gets me goosebums and moreover, i can't stand anyone talking against it. Be it comparing the safety of the city, when compared to a Metro city like Delhi or be it the food when comparing it with the foodie Bangalore or Chennai. So then, after a long time, 8 months were quite long to return to mumbai for about 2 weeks.

Unlike the last time, I had thought of a train journey, rather than taking a flight, Courtesy : Recession (The word seem to have become a part of all my latest blogs). So yes, I was in S6, Seat 72, Sharing an RAC berth with someone. This was just the second time that i was really sharing a seat, thank god, it was just the berth and not our lives... :P, After a lot of bye bye and ta ta's with my friends over the phone, I was about to board the train, when i started to get a insight of how my travel was going to be....., My bogie was filled with an outing returnees. Hmm.. They were from Somaiya College, Vidya Vihar, Mumbai and had been on an outing to Bangalore/Mysore. So, it was all young guns, all were B.Com students and trust me, the gals just did not quite seem to be B.com Students!!, They were quite living upto the hotness of a well matured lady, Wow, Treat for eyes, but on the otherside, had to be careful, can't just let my mouth open and let water ooze out from it, the reason, there were guys too accompanying them and it would have given them reasons to stretch their arms and flex their muscles.

Just half an hour into the journey, they were all getting settled, and those kiddos, asking few of the confirmed seat passengers to exchange berths to get their remaining collegues to the same bogie and few gals were sharing a light moment, few photographs and all the normal girly nakras. I on the other hand was virtually preparing a score card about which is a potential babe of them all, and how could they be rated on the scale of A++ to D., Tell you what, there were few non-investable grades too.

Journey was a good long 24 hours, Nothing memorable happend, Thanks to Lalu Prasad Yaadav, The train didn't de-rail. But, the food in the train pantry, would have made many tummies derail. I was aware of this and kept "SOLID" diet to the minimum, Depending more on juices and lassi and chaas to Tomato soups. Hours passed and was quite happy to read some boards in Marathi. We reached Solapur and thats where the hidden mumbaikar in me came out. Yes, I was urging to have a "Vada Paav". Hell with everything, This little indian burger (as we call) was so very tempting that i thought, My tummy can take it... :-) and followed it up with some pine-apple juice. Fair enough, Till we reached Pune, I had now decided that, i would not want to sleep at all for the next 2 1/2 hours, Thats because of the little Khandala Ghat which was present and also for the chikki's that i can sallow at Lonavala. All was great., And finally reached mumbai, a couple 10 minutes late than the usual reaching time.

The Local trains had the rush of the evening 6.20 pm, Just like it always is, always was. Luckily i was travelling the opposite side from the crowd. I found something strange, the local train that i got in, had a different finish, It was no more that boring maroon and yellow looking train, These trains were designed in a different way, It had a steel interior, the seats were different from the old ones, the train was painted purple and yellow with many a lot of ads stuck on to it and above all, I was surprised on the arrival of the next station when a lady spoke out, NEXT STATION "Thane", Pudcha stop... "Thane" and Agla Stop.... "Thane", Yes, all the 3 languages. Hmm... thats great., Now, I can sleep peacefully on a local train journey, atleast a lady is kind enough to keep telling me about all the stations as and when it arrives. :-), Laaluji... Tusi great ho!

Another Surprise was the buses, It had 2 camera, one at the entry point and the other at the exit and strangely, i was having a feeling that i was sitting in my office cafeteria in between the rushes of the bus., the reason, because there were these LCD TV's playing all of the citizen awareness ads (like Aids, use FOB to cross railway tracks etc) mixed with local advertisement. This seems to be quite a joy for pick pocketers, They would be in for gala time and can make a good treat.

The city was always developing, a lot of fly overs, some unnecessary ones too., and like the way mumbai had always been, the cutting chai was very famous along with the all time hit Vada Paav with a green chilli. The best that i like about mumbai is, the Chaat, I'd been away in different cities in the last 4 years (most of them were the south indian cities) and none of them had a single place, where they made good chaats., All the days that i had been there, I tried a combination of Dahi Puri, Ragda Pattice, Paani Puri, Sev Puri followed by Oosacha Ras (Sugar cane Juice). Each day, i used to feel so blessed after having it..., That should leave you with a question, How much has this moron put on?, Amazingly, just 200 gms, I was 69 when i left from Bangalore and 69.2 when i reached back.

The day before i started from there, I was struck by a board which read.... "Paav Bhaji", Now, thats something you get in Bangalore, but not as delicious as the ones in mumbai. Even with a half filled stomach, i hopped in for a Paav Bhaji :), I was meeting a very close friend of mine the next day and she asked me a riddle. "Hmm..., but give me the crankiest of answer", She asked me " If you were to get a Paav Bhaji for Rs.25, What would you get for Rs. 100..." I replied "4 Paav Bhaajis.....", She said, "Wrong.... You would get a Puri Bhaaji." I was stunned and asked her to explain. She explained... " Paav means Quarter, 4 Paav's make it Poori (Full) and hence, you would be getting a POORI BHAJI.... " I was stunned.... " Oh god... Why me..... You could have spared me for this..... "

So ya, Mumbai may change, But mumbaikars are truely that jolly, strong and exciting :-)

And as far as me goes..... "You can take a guy out of mumbai, But can't take Mumbai out of this guy...."

Luv, Dhinu!!