i'm back

Back to the blog world..

Things have changed; interests, family side and work side as well, so its worth updating my interests list.

Personal time is mostly spent with family, my dear kid taking up most of my non work time. Work too is quite hectic with calls taking up my evening time too, but I still have a long list of non work things to do. Here it goes..

1. Cycling [Dont ask me where did this come from? :-)]

2. Motorcycle maintenance [yeah restarting it big time]

3. Maps/cartography of himalayan and tibetian region [Nothing much done on this yet :-)]

4. Guitar [Plan to restart this!]

5. Hifi music

I need to prioritize my interests, current the focus is on Motorcycle maintenance.

Police, Rakshakara.. Bakshakara??

Consider this..

You & your wife are tired after driving for 7 hours and drop in by neighbourhood tender coconut stall for a refreshment. A cop stops in bike next to your car, watches it for a minute and corners you. With the foulest language possible he starts his interogation in the middle of a public road. He wants to find out if you are the thief whole stole chain last week or questions your relation with your wife, asks you to prove it. He threatens to come to your home and check with your parents.  Then finally he resorts to quizzing my wife about my initials, fathers name and cross checking with my driving license. Finally he is convinced that we are legally married, honest tax paying citizens.. he hardly apologizes for his behaviour.

 It just pissed us off.. do we need cops like this? We later learnt from Tender coconut guy that this guy has become a big nuisance, taking regular cut from their business, harassing unmarried couples, he has taken as much as 5000Rs from a couple recently.   

If he had done the same thing with a good language and attitude, we would have spent so bad! A great weekend ended badly!!

Noodi Swamy naviroode heege! [We are Like this only!!]

Most of the petrol bunk operators are corrupt in Bengaluru. But some petrol bunks are more notorious than others, but there are times we do end up going to these bunks, today I had to go to one bunk which I knew was bad. Nowadays there are two people operating together to cheat customers, one guy distracts you by telling something, another guy would have started pouring petrol with one litre 'lead' without you noticing it. One guy was telling me the price has increased, I was arguing that the change is from tommorow, nother guy was about to start pouring fuel with counter showing one litre instead of Zero. I caught this guys only because I have the habbit of closing the fuel tank opening with my fingers till I see a zero in the counter. But the thing I am talking about here, its all so common, this guys didnt even show a tinge of guilt!! I also didnt bother to fight with him, I filled my fuel and left the station. I guess I knew I wouldnt change anything even if I fought with him, so was glad that i was careful and left the place. This guy will go about cheating the innocent customers coming in.. Now now, are these customers really innocent, arent they corrupt? Talking about myself, before going to the bunk, I had paid 750/- to a driving school to get a duplicate of my lost driving license. I know this money will get distributed between police, RTO offcials as a bribe and a small amount into actual RTO charges, but still I took this route because I didnt have the time to run around. Am I really so buzy?? I guess no, but I just want it done easy!!! So its us who are corupting this system, no use cribbing about corrupt system. All we can do is be fair in things which we deliver/ have control of and then hope this will have some influence on others. We can start by treating people fairly irrespective of their race, mother tounge, occupation or whatever!! Ravi Belegere of Hai bangalore had written that people will cheat you only if you allow them to cheat by being negligent, careless. He had cited this petrol bunk example too along with cheating wives, husbands, etc. This is the approach I took today but I would have loved to take 'Shankars approach', Shankars movies Indian and Annian advocated severe punishment to all wrong doers, either big or small. If Kamal in Indian or Vikram in Annian had been in my position, he would have cut off the hands of that petrol bunk attendent, so that it sets an example for other people not to cheat. Wishful thinking!!!

Shame Shame DeviShetty Mahesh

Why are we like this!!!!!!!!!!!
Indians atlast found form in Australia, BCCI announced ODI team, dropping Ganguly and Dravid. That was fine, as people expected this, what people did not expect was Sharad Pawar giving a statement that Dhoni suggested Ganguly's exclusion. How do you expect the team to play as a unit when you are breaking the team unity in middle of a series. When do these babus in BCCI learn these small things.
Galipata had the biggest opening after Jogi in karnataka, the general review was ranging from decent to good. But then the largest selling news paper had to pull most promising director down, they had to show their invincibility and importance. After long time we have a talented director who is giving his best to give a whole some entertainer to kannada, instead of appreciating him, these guys pull him down in the worst possible way. People woke up on saturday seeing Devishetty mahesh of vijaya karnataka blasting Yograj Bhat in the front page of the the paper. The movie certainly deserved better comments, the article most conveyed the movie is a absolute dud. The same columnists had earlier written very appreciatively on Gaja, Anatharu. He has filled reams of paper praising rajnikanth and Shivaji, Galipata is no more a masala movie than Shivaji. This clearly shows biased views of the author, there are rumoursthat each paper had only one ticket sent to them on the premier show, this had provoked them to write such harsh review. Lankesh patrike too wrote pathetic reviews on the movie.
When do we have fair journalism, why dont these people try mould people's opinion on better creative things, instead of spreading negetivity.
crap...!!

Cheers
N

Galipata Movie Review

Location: Aparna Threatre, Majestic, Bangalore
Date: 18/01/2008
Show Time: 7:30 PM

Release day, 2nd Show.
Worst place to see a kannada movie on the first day of its release. I had to bargain with drunks and police for black tickets, finally got balcony for 150/-.
Review in one sentence: MOVIE IS GOOOOOOOD!!!!! :-))))
Now you know whats coming, Movie has almost lived up to huge expectations set by Mungaru male, surpassing it in few areas. Movie starts with dialogues in tandem with title card and the first visual you get is 'Akasha iste yaakideeyo' song. Its a foot tapping number picturised well, I hardly got to hear as half the theatre was shouting at their vocal limits. Next few scenes introduce the characters, Ganesh as a happy go lucky chap who sells credit card after MBA, Diganth who will be a doctor soon and Rajesh[Kitty] engineer whose 8 yr long love affair has just broken. Right from the word go, the film is filled with witty jokes, funny dialogues and enchanting visuals. Rangayana raghu acts as Ganesh's father.. this guy is just magic in whatever he does, he is a MLA from Mandya, with typical accent. Except for initial few minutes the story is mostly in mountain ranges, with greenery in all frames.
Ananthnag, looks aged in the movie, there is not much to talk about love interests of our heros, they do not have much scope. The story is pretty ordinary, three guys get three girls, after initial few hiccups two love stories go through easily, third one gets through in the climax. But the reason why you should see the movie is the 'PRESENTATION', its the best I have seen. The script, music, photography and ganesh's acting just takes you through the movie, its absolutely fresh, I bet you will be thinking about the dialogues and scenes even after a day or two after watching the movie.
Two things I would have liked changed in the movie is 'nadeem dina' song picturisation and the climax. The climax is too ordinary, things should have been a bit tighter there, a movie which keeps you laughing all through out the movie should get a drop of tear at the climax and finally a relieved feeling would be a perfect reciepe for success. 'nadeem dina' song is picturized with hell lot of Yakshagana dancers, yakashagana vesha[get up] is very colorful, a single character is enough to fill the frame with 100s of colors. But here you have your eye ball racing from 300 yakashagana characters, their Vesha, then you have the kodachadri scenery also competing for your eyeball, hey dont forget the hero heroine also dancing inbetween. I would say Yeshwant's yakshagana picturisation with white studio background was awesome, something Yograj Bhat can improve. Anyways other than these two you can hardly blame anything else, we have a competant director in Yograj Bhat, who has delievered, we sure will be getting many many more good movies from him.
Bottom line is.. If you are an average movie goer, who seek wholesome entertainment for 3 hours, dont miss Galipata, you are in for a treat!! But if you are one who want a story and a moral in all the movies you see, checkout E-TV's serial listing.

Cheers
N

Gaaaaalipata...

A bit late with my review of Galipata, the most awaited movie in recent times. Galipata songs are rocking, every time you hear it you will enjoy more and more. I first heard Galipata songs on its release day a month back in kannadaaudio.com, was disapointed immediately like most people, we were all expecting a MM repeat. But on second hearing or so.. the whole perception of the quality of the songs changed. That evening bought the music CD, this CD is now playing non stop everafter. Nowadays I have decided to buy CDs of good movies to encourage the industry even if I downloaded songs.
Well anyways the purpose of this mail is to talk about Galipata and here is my review of the songs.
Music Director: Harikrishna
1. Aakasha iste yaake [6/10], Kunal Ganjawala
Fast Peppy number which is a common place in most Ganesh's movies nowadays. Jayanth kaykini has penned the lyrics, good stuff, but you normally expect solid stuff[Not good stuff] from Kaykini.
2. Minchagi neenu baralu [8/10], Sonu Nigam
This is the 'Anisuthide' of Galipata. Most of instruments used are also the same. Your first thought will be 'Hey I have heard it before', but then the raaga is different and now people are saying this is better than 'anisuthide'. Sonu Nigam is as usual great with one or two pronounciation mistakes, Jayanth Kaykini is awesome. This song alone is good enough for you to shell out the CD money on. The picturization is out of the world in karavali's beaches and Bekal Fort, you can check them out in YouTube.
3. Nadeem dheen thana [5/10] Chitra KS A song which will resonate well with people blessed with classical touch [I miss out here :) ], Yograj Bhat fishes out the lyrics for the song. Yograj bhat was commenting on TV that he has used 300 yakshagana performers for the song, guess would be a visual treat.
4. Kavithe Kavithe [8/10] Vijay Prakash Wow, what a song, I just love this number. The song penned by Hrudaya Shiva starts out slow and suddenly speeds up its tempo for the last one minute. The lyrics are just out of the world, bass guitar riffs and trailing keyboard music are audible only when heard in a considerable volume adds quality to the song. TV trailors show the song picturization in Kodchadri in dull evening light, cant wait to see it on screen.
5. Jeeva Kaleva [7/10] Sonu Nigam Yograj Bhat has wrote the lyrics for the sad version of the 'Minchagi Neenu' song. IMHO the lyrics here is far superior than the kaykini one.
6. Aha bedurugombe [5/10] Udit Narayan This is a regualar song picturized on Diganth and neethu in a village setting, Udit Narayan voice is clearly a misfit here. But this song too grows on you as you listen to this more and more.
Overall the album scores 7/10, it is a must buy for every kannada film music lover.

Movie is releasing on 18/01, hope it lives up to the expectations. We need this movie to be a hit so that our directors try something new, if this and 'Soori's 'Indthi ninna preethiya' fails we will have directors like S Narayan churning out remakes of Tamil/Telugu movies like rat's litter. Galipata has to compete with few big releases this friday, there is Vikram's Bheema in Tamil, Balakrishna's '.. Mogadu' in Telugu, a Nagesh Kukunoor's movie in Hindi and Ratnjana's 'Honganasu' in kannada [this also seems to be a Good movie, hope both succeed!!].

Following link has few dialogues of Galipata, some are witty, Rangayana Raghu as usual rocks[heard he charges 1 lakh for a day].
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saefYLNRKVo


Inthi,
Nimmavanu

Vajreshwari/Poornima Combines

Annavara family productions ide eradu. Well I have been a fan of Annavaru/family movies, I try watch them even if they are half good. The topic of this blog is on the debut movies of Dr. Rajkumar's son.
Anand, Shivrajkumar was introduced to KFI from this movie, Sudharani also debuted along with this movie. The movie had a college rivallary as the background. Gurudatt and Balaraj too debuted with this movie, they acted as his friends in many more movies to come. Anand had some good songs and decent background music, guitar being the major instrument. Ofcourse it was a big hit, next two movies of Shivrajkumar, Rathasapthami and Manamechida hudugi were big hits too earning him the title Hatrick Hero.
Nanjundi Kalyana launched Raghvendra Rajkumar on silverscreen, this movie broke most of the previous record in kannada Film Industry, Raghvendra along with Malashri created magic to sustain the movie to run for a year or so. Malashri was absolute craze after the movie, songs/comedy scenes too were good. Raghvendra gave a back to back hit with Malashri in Gajapathi Garvabanga, Raghvendras career didnt exactly take off, but Malashri ruled the kannada film industry for years.
Appu, Puneet rajkumar needed no introduction to kannada film audience, he had acted in many films as a child artiste and had even got a national award for a film. This too was a college love story with Puneeth being a strong easy go lucky type of character. Raksitha debuted with Puneeth in this pukka commercial movie. As expected this movie too was a fantastic hit, movie had good songs, good comedy and great fights. Puneeth had tremendous screen prescence, everybody knew he was here to stay. His renumeration was the highest in the industry right after this movie till ofcourse Mungaru male happened.
All the heroines introduced with Dr. Rajkumar's sons went to be really succesful in their careers, they couldnt have asked for a better launchpad. Hope they cointinue to give good movies for entertainment starved kannada audience.

Beeda guru pataki!!!

There was a time when I used to zealously gaurd my share of crackers, ration them, burn the best of them on third day night. Then in a Diwali 12 years back, my dad gave me an option to have the money instead of crackers, whatever came on me, that day onwards I never burned crackers. Now looking back, I never ever repented the decision, it was just like a switch was turned off. Well the reason I boring you with story is that, if another few hundred of bangaloreans had this switch turned off in them, Benagaluru would have been a much cleaner and safer place. If you ride a two wheeler, you are always dodging bombs on Diwali day, if you want to relax of the holidays, you can be assured of insomnia and if you are a member of Avian population, you are in for the most frightning phase in your life. Air pollution adds to the tremendous amount of shivakasi scrap adorning the Bengaluru roads, try going for a walk on a Deepavali weekend, you would feel you are better off walking in volcanic crater.
Well there is no reason not to ban public fireworks, govt can organise Fireorks show like in the rest of the world, this would go a long way in improving the quality of life.

Yeah, a dumb blog!! Wanted to vent the frustation.

auto lorry hinde bariyovaru

Hullo, back after some time.. in a new company now..

I have great interest in reading the quotes painted on Autos in bangalore.. today morning i saw the following two..
Lovemadidre 'Romance'.. kaikottare 'Nimhans'
Love maade 'figure' andare... thogondu baa 'Pulsar' andalu
creative huh :)
Looks like there are quite lot of bagna premi auto drivers.. probably that explains their irrational driving..

cheers.. more later!

N

vadalaLa.. vadala aaLa ..

Saw a drama in Rangashankara on saturday titled ValalaLa with lead actress being Umashri. Well I had never been to a drama in recent past, this was a eye opener. This was their 98th show, though quite lot of actors have changed, Umashri being the essence of the show carries the whole show on her hunched shoulders with elan. The story revolves around a backward caste old village lady played by Umashri. The jist of script is " Umashri and her good for nothing sons live a miserable life in poverty, a cunning land lord is scheming for this lady's small peice of land, the police is also eating out of the land lords hands, Umashri loses her favourite Cock and in the climax finds out that the land lord has stolen the cock and fed it to the Police inspector.. beeli ne eddu hola meida haage". Well most of these dramas show the irony of the society we live in and thats it.. & let the people to change themselves and if possible change the society or just to shrug it off thinking it doesnt concern them.. Well there were other things which made the drama memorable, seeing pan water being spitted out from her mouth when was on her shouting & cursing ritual, then u realise wow how close u r to the character.. the introduction of all the characters in the end and the big applause for Umashri, Ranga shankara theatre is also awesome, with the walls having brick finish and a spacious seating facility.. I read somewehere that auto drivers who are Shankar Nag fans would not charge one and half auto charge for people returning home after a show in ranga shankara.. Rangashankara also houses a book stall which I did not have time to look at.. I hope i can read the biopgraphy of shankar nag written by ananthnag titled 'Shanaka' soon..more later fellas

Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan

a small piece on my fav. hollywood hero and heroine. I have seen Forest Gump umpteen number of times, shown the video to everybody and anybody who cared to watch a video at home, Tom hanks is just out of the world in the movie. This is my list of Tom hanks movies not to be missed. 1. Forest Gump
2. Terminal
3. Cast Away
4. Saving private Ryan
5. Road to Perdition
6. Sleepless in Seatle
7. You've got mail
8. Catch me if you can
Meg Ryan, what a bubbly smile, what a walking style[if you call it so].. attitude she potrays on screen is awesome, I might have watched all the reruns of 'you got mail' just to see her walk. Her characters portrays a carefree attitude which I have not seen in any other actresses, what a babe!!. Here is a list of my favorite movies of hers.
1. You've got mail
2. When Harry met Sally
3. Courage under fire
4. Top Gun
5. Sleepless in Seatle

Baghchi and Mindtree..

hullo again,
Most of the software techies in my generation have watched MindTree startup and grow from strength to gtrength. I used to read the Business World columns on 'Making of MindTree' every week when I was studying CDAC. I used to get all pepped up after reading those columns, till date I have great regards for the company and would want it to succeed. I came across two nice articles on the Making of Mindtree since its inception to 2004 from Subroto Baghchi. Spent the morning reading those two at the following link.

http://www.mindtree.com/about/mkmt.html

Some excerpts..

- Rostow Ravanan is one of the co-founder, his name was kept by his atheist grandfather who was also a freedom fighter, all his childern were named after anti-gods :-).
- People who demonstrate high emotional security build organizations.
- You do not manage culture, nobody likes his or her culture to be managed. You have to focus on building values and insist that people who work in MindTree, share those values. You leave culture alone as long as you have shared values. If people live the values, the culture can take care of itself.
- Peter Drucker once said, “many problems cannot be solved – they have to be survived.” He also said, “you do not solve problems, the only way to cope is to be ahead of them.”

"This is one is for Indian Entrepreneurs, Cheers!!!"
N

Moolah ....

I alternate between extremely opposite views on money/richness/wealth creation, one of them is a detached ascetic view on money and wealth and another is craving for financial secuirty, holidays, big fuel guzzling bike and other luxuries. One of these view set in based on my convenience ;-). I found a convincing speech from a Ann Ryan character in Atlas Shrugged on this topic, now I am a thorough capatalist out to rake in loads of moolah, excerpt of the speech.
Excerpt:
Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent.
Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices.
The complete speech can be found at
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826

Happy raking in the moolah..
N

Cricket craze or haze

Why does this happen to me & probably half the country..
I have loads of to-do tasks listed on the precious saturday even though I know there is a cricket match. Srilanka bat first, I watch the match on and off alternating between my other taks, then the guys in blue come on to bat.. there is no question of other tasks, Period!!
Its pure Nirvana when the our team is on a roll, Shewag was again coming good.. Robin Uttappa, new kid from Karnataka was smashing the ball all over the place.. me and my dad hoping from deepest our heart this guy does it good.. cheering with all our might when he gets his fifty.. this guy shows no signs of slowing down, god he is trying to hit all the balls.. we start advising this guy sitting in front of TV set.. "slow down mate".. then the inevitable strikes.. he gets caught...
then three quick wickets .. Indians were in a soup.. Ganguly and Yuvi steadied the ship.. once they settled.. we got to see raw power of these south paws.. Yuvi in form is out fo the world.. he just stands and delivers.. his sixes seem effort less... awesome show..
well, ofcourse we won the game.. I ofcourse didnt attend 3/4th of my to-do tasks.. spent rest of the saturday convincing my wife why I wasnt able to pick her up from office.. cricket is not as important as her.. but still a match can completely leave me in haze, etc, etc

chao, more later!

N

Lifted from Subroto Baghchi's speech

Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.


-Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting

Bird life in Wipro Campus

Most of the campuses in EC bangalore are blessed with wide open spaces and good garden. Wipro too has decent garden and a small pond with domesticated ducks[geese?] in them. Quite lot of birds frequent the campus, here is a list of them [DO not remember all of them].
Large Pied Wagtail
Swallows
Pied Bushchat
Jungle/Common Crows
Black Kite
Occasional Sparrow
Common Myna

kushi irali
Na

Parisarada kathegalu

Currently I am reading Poorna Chandra Tejaswi's 'Parisarada kathegalu'. Its a lovely book of short stories on people and environment near his farm in Mudigere. Teejaswi starts the first chapter with quoting other people making remarks comparing his father to himself liek "Enthovarige entha maga" , etc. I always thought Teejaswi and Ullas Karanth would have faced comparision with their father. But both are good in their own areas, Teejaswi continued his fathers love for nature with bird watchiong, photography, short novels on life in Malnad. wheras Ullas Karanth involved himself completely into tiger conservation, he will be remembered as the person to bring in scientific study of population of tiger to india with his camera trap techniques, he also did a comprehensive study on prey predator relationships
Ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poornachandra_Tejaswi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ullas_Karanth

kushi irali,
Na

sms 6260

hullo fellas,
I have put in a small part in a new kannada movie SMS 6260. The initial promos of the movie are at http://www.chitraloka.com/sms6260/.
My ex-colleague Sandeep Malani is directing the movie, promos look promising. He managed to get Parvatamma Rajkumar to release the audio, that was a coup alright.
The story is based on a real life love story from our ex-company, where the protogonists were a japanese guy and a nepali girl. Malani had helped them get married and elope [ :-) ], this couple are happily married and settled in Bengaluru nowadays.
Trailors are comoing Etv and Udaya itseams, gotta catch it sometime, probably pick up the audio too. The movie is slated to be released on Feb 14th, hoping the best for my friend.

kushi irali,
Na

blogs I watch

Here is a list of blogs I watch regularly..

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
http://ss.emergic.org/
http://yathin.livejournal.com/
http://anuragjain.blogspot.com/

Here are two forums for kannada movie talk..
http://viggy.com/forum/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=2
http://www.gandhadagudi.com/forum/

Haage summane

Hullo..
Welcome to my scrap book, I intend to type in anything that interests me. "Haage Summane" is lifted from a song of recent kannada movie "Mungarina Male", well it means "just like that". This blog would be just that, nothing important, but some timepass blogging..

I Like...

Chelsea FC
Tom Hanks
FOSS
Apache
Java
Google
Gmail
Calvin & Hobbes
Hamsalekha
Upendra
Royal Enfield
Elephants
Birds
and Greens

cheers !!!