'Arranged Marriage' goes hi-fi!

Note: The following is written in light vein. I have nothing against the process of arranged marriage. This is just a personal view of the modern transformation of the traditional arranged marriage.

I don't think your parents like it too much if you are single and happy and importantly, a girl at 24 . I mean, they do the best they can to pretend they are really ok with the situation and that they will give you "all the time in the world that you require" to deal with it... But in reality, they aren't ok and at best, "all the time in the world" is about 2 months before the topic is broached again.

I have had my share of 'putting it away', of making thesis the biggest burden that humanity saw, of claiming 'I dont have the time for all this 'nonsense''. I held on to this for quite sometime. My parents were really better off than many others I know. But they weren't really different. I dont know about the other communities, but if you TamBrahm, you are likely to know that 'The Hindu' Matrimony and tamilmatrimony are your sworn enemies with huge listings of all the eligible people in the required caste. Having done the procedure through and through for a close relative, I am very familiar with the 'chevvai doshams', and what nakshatram wont go with what and all other stuff, which I dont know why, people believe in. I guess its just a filter, an excuse to use, a weapon importantly. Instead of blatantly saying that your daughter didnt like their son's looks, you'd rather polishedly say -"Oh, with our astrologer, the horoscopes didnt match". That beats all reason. How.. how can 2 horoscopes produce different results with different astrologers? Where then is the credibility for the process??? Given a choice, I'd avert all this for sure! I mean, PLEASE!

Then comes the unavoidable close relative circle, the people you really like, your mamas-mamis, athais-athimbers, chithis-chitappas (ok u get the picture!) They're all oh-so-great, till you're a girl at 24 and unmarried! Then all you get is - "Eppo settle aaga pore?" - *(@$)&$)@*$_)@*_
If only we knew! Then back to your parents who get after you to create a 'profile' in tammatrimony... For the life of me, I am doing no such thing... This at the moment is a state-of-denial almost. But thats where it will be..

The whole process is just that - a process.. with so much propriety involved... 2 families involved - all their hopes on your 'alliance'. The steps in the process -
1) Email
2) Phone call
3) Webcam chat
4) Meet the boy/girl
5) One day later -- 'Enaku indha payyan/ponnu ok' - (*&^%^&$&_{(*_{)(&(@&

HOW?????????? Most people I know answer that question by the usual - "When your time comes, you will know". Thats sooo not helpful at all. I swear now, that when my 'time' comes and I 'know', I will publicize it to help the helpless like me! Lol!

30 Things I wouldnt trade for...ordered randomly.. EDITED!

1) My family n friends (am sure everyone thinks the same)
2) My picture collection (its huuuuuuuuuuge!!)
3) The smell of mud after the rain (one of the best smells ever!)
4) My dreams (free entertainment every night)
5) My soft toys
6) Chocolate (to die for!)
7) My pink cellphone (nokia 3100 - old now, still girly.. love it!)
8) My mom's sari that I sleep with
9) My dream car
10) My travel exploits (ones that I've done and once I'd die to do)
11) F-R-I-E-N-D-S
12) My Canon
13) Yapping...
14) AR.Rahman's music
15) Tea (Can hardly live without it)
16) Sleeeeeep
17) Shopping
18) Gmail
19) Watches ( I swear by time.. I'll be damned if I have ever been late to ANY place)
20) Cheap poetry (basic stuff kids write when they're like 10.... The basic rhymes!)
21) A walk in the rain
22) ICECREAM!
23) Shoes
24) Carnatic music
25) Water with ice
26) The ringtone that tells me who's calling
27) Mangoes'n'apples
28) A long drive (by myself - no sweethearts allowed!)
29) Yahoo! Messenger
30) Gossip!!

Ek lambisi love story :)

Fact: Everything I say here is true

Act 1 -- 645 Baldwin Hall, University of Cincinnati

I stared resolutely ahead willing myself to concentrate on what Dr.R was saying, forcing myself not to sneak a peek to my right. I could feel his gaze burn on my cheek. Against my better judgement I peered at him. There they were, his beautiful auburn eyes fixed on my face and an amused smile gracing his lips. I groaned inwardly. It had happened again. The last time it'd happened I'd promised myself to be more careful. Now all those oh-so-nothing smiles and inconsequential 'hi's' had been misinterpreted once again as a window to try and have a fling with me, if nothing less. I had to put an end to this.

His name was some Jaime 'Unpronounceable' and was from Spain. He was my classmate in the BioMEMS class and all through the quarter, we'd hardly exchanged more words than a 'Hi..' or 'How was your holiday?' But me being me, midway through the quarter I'd helped him with some homework and because he seemed shy, I'd coaxed him into a few conversations. He spoke very nice English and was one of those intellectual European men you kept hearing about, but seldom saw. And now, my normality had once again been misinrepreted. The guy probably thought I had a crush on him!

Well, I had to salvage whatever little pride I had! And right through class I mentally rehearsed what had to be told..."We'll pick up from here on Thursday." Dr R's voice interrupted my thoughts, signalling the end of class. The class started bustling with people waking up and strolling towards the door. As I thought he would, he lingered around and I waved Ashwin to leave too as I hung back too. In less than a minute, we were the only two left behind.
"Hi..." I began tentatively. He beamed at me.
"Finally, I have solved the puzzle." He said.
"Huh?"
"You look like the girl my Indian friend has a portrait of." He declared.
My rehearsed speech flew out of the window. This was the last thing I ever expected and words failed me.
"Your friend drew it or has it?" I asked as if the answer made any difference.
"I don't know... He was my roommate back in Madrid in my undergraduate study."
Unintentionally, my heart started racing.
"Where's he now? Are you in touch with him?"
"He's in San Francisco, I think.."

Act 2 -- Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco

The wind was chilly.. I pulled my jacket snugger around myself. My hair was going haywire. But I was supposed to meet Mr.X who made my portrait here. Jamie 'Unpronounceable' had been tardy with the details. He thought it would be romantic to set me up with the guy... And he just asked me to wait at the 5th girder of the golden gate bridge on this day. As I waited in hardly controllable excitement, a young, tall, langly black kid walked up to me and
"Are you Shaya?" I assumed that was the way he said Jaya.
"Yes?"
"Some dude asked me to give you this note.."

The note was vague -- TAKE THE ALCATRAZ CRUISE

What the hell? Here I was, all the way over to the west coast from where I lived, just to unravel this stupid mystery which was prolonging forever. I supposed the guy would meet me on the boat... Wrong again. I did the cruise by myself. As we rounded the Alcatraz, I was lost as to what was happening. The boat ride itself was a pleasure, the wind blowing us away almost... To top it all, they had these gypsies with caged parrots... I ambled over to the parrots which were talking happily (sounds that made no sense to them... words that did make sense to us!) One was a particularly beautiful and reminded of my own 'Pintu' who could say 'Pappi' (my nic). This one started screeching as I went near it... I backed up a little... But in crystal clear words, it looked me right in the eye and said "Go to MarieMont". And he repeated it like a mantra... It was unbelievable. The gypsy woman who trained the parrots looked at me in wonder.
"He's never said anything I havent taught him"
I was left speechless. What could this mean?? MarieMont was this beautiful locality back in Cincinnati... And this had to be a huge practical joke... Having lured me from one coast to the other, this stupid parrot was sending me back! With no sign of Mr.X, I had to go back anyways! Men Suck!

Act 3 -- MarieMont, Cincinnati

The place was just as I had remembered it. I knew of it from my busride to Milford. Its a quaint little town, content in itself... a tiny mall, a high school, a church, gardens, a fountain.. just perfect. I wandered aimlessly. The leaves rustled.. I found myself walking towards the beautiful fountain that formed the fountain square of MarieMont... It has a statue of this man and woman, of Greek times I assume, entwined amongst vines and frozen in a dance step... It was highly romantic... I groaned inwardly and closed my eyes... After everything, the guy was going to turn out to be a loser... If there weren't more steps in the 'guy-hunt'. I mean which sane guy had the time to plan such a rendezvous? And I didnt even know if I was right on track.. What if I'd misinterpreted the parrot as a clue? Surely, that was unplanned? I was a little more wary now... This was all sooo wrong...

Then I don't know why, I felt I had to look up... And I did... There he was, at a distance, walking from the far edge of the garden, towards fountain square...I stood up... This was it... And as if to make the moment significant, the church bells started chiming... They chimed n chimed... And wait a second.. was there something wrong?

Act 4 -- Riddle Road, Cincinnati

8.26 am... Tuesday Morning

Fanaa

Another movie review... Again unwarranted... This time, I must impress on all you folks that untill I saw the movie, the only thing I knew about it was its starcast! So, all the opinions formed are mine... And if I have anyone to blame for expecting too much, its my bro... who gave me high hopes by saying that Kajol looked stunning and it was her best performance to date... That Aamir was his usual self... That though the movie was slow, it was good. So, here goes..

The movie began at the pace that normal life goes... They could probably represent 24 hours as 24 hours which goes to say, yes, it was slow! And Kajol did look gorgeous and Aamir looked drunk (I mean we all know he's no longer the chocolate boy we drooled over) but the bags beneath his eyes suggested he'd aged 10 years in a day... (Aamir fans like me can relax - he looks better as the movie progresses)

The one major underlying thing I never understood was the romance between the two. They are both Kashmiri Muslims... And she's blind.. And her parents (rishi kapoor and Kiron Kher) are more liberal than the most modern of Indian parents (I mean which parent tells a blind daughter she better go to Delhi to find her Shehzada??) And well, the love itself.. How did it happen? He seems like a street tapori at start and the 'shayars' after a stage are unbearable and have the audience around ranting some of their own (believe me that makes it even more difficult on what seems to be a boring movie!) And in no time, they've hooked up... Three dates later, they've slept together! (India must be bleeding tears for its culture) And as in all movies - One time is once too many... Ofcourse she gets pregnant! Everytime there's a hint of a romance, you can hear ARR crooning 'SubhanAllah' in the backdrop and after a stage, we started singing 'SubhanAllah' when we thought it was romantic... Cruelly, it never featured onscreen!

Then comes the transformation... The Tapori becomes a Terrorist.. He stages his death to his blind girlfiend (who he thankfully gets operated for her blindness and eventually cured -- This makes you wonder if the affluent parents had adopted her, having not thought of surgery for their daugther themselves) And the long-locks Aamir (going by the character name Rehan - u hear soo much of it) gives way to a crewcut terrorist in Indian army uniform. The mission ofcourse has been tried and tested - a series of bombs that can explode lakhs of people, that can be triggered by 12 identical 'triggers'. Our hero (well, villain if you insist) is on the snow, dodging the many snipers and copters chasing one man. Ofcourse these actual 'army' men have been put to task by Tabu. What prompted her to take such a lame role is beyond my imagination. She's the officer-in-charge of the operation to chase down Rehan. If Rehan was for real, he'd make India proud at the Olympics with his sureshot.. with a single pistol and a single shot, he can gun down copters.. while the poor Indian army, equipped with machine guns just about manages to wound him slightly.

As Fate would have it, the wounded 'hero' in the snow blizzard seeks solace at a solitary wooden mansion amidst the snow... And who must open the door... SubhanAllah!

His now-seeing gf obviously doesnt recognize him (she must've gotten her ears operated as well coz she cant recognize his voice either!) Their kid, now 5, is also called Rehan.. He's a cutie most of the time but can get on your nerves some other... Progressing with the crawling story, finally Aamir confesses that he is Rehan and to cut a long story short, they get married. Shortly after, a news item on NDTV speaks of our terrorist and slaps the 'trigger' in possession with him as an identity. And guess who must come across the trigger in Rehan's jacket pocket (thats such an innovative place to hide such an important thing) but Rishi daddy! He conceals his knowledge just enough to drive Rehan to a fellow officer's house before confronting him. In a 2 minute sequence, before you can follow whats happening, Rishi falls off the cliff by accident! But this is what clinches it... By the time Aamir informs his fellow terrorists he is safe and so is the trigger and is back downhill home, Rishi's body travels in a glacier of ice and finds itself lodged right in his backyard where his daughter (Kajol) sees everything and pieces the story together!!! AMAZING!

The climax ofcourse is dramatic... Kajol tries to flee with her son from her terrorist hubby... And cutting a huge sequence down, begs him to surrender. When he refuses and walks towards his granddad (bada terrorist) to hand over the 'trigger', Kajol begs him once more and resolutely guns him down....

Phew!

Final verdict: 4/10 The story was soo confused... At times, they tried to make it an undying love story and at others, some patriotism-spangled affair... The end product is a confused mess, giving importance to neither... This is Kajol's comeback movie... She's not lost her touch and this performance will work for her... Why Aamir did this movie is questionable.. I guess SRK couldnt be a terrorist if he wanted to.. Tabu - what a waste of talent... Case rested.

Da Vinci Code -- decoded!

Disclaimer: Unknowingly there maybe some spoilers here.. If you have read the book or seen the movie, don't bother... If not, you can wait to read this one!

Ok.. here I am at last obliging the many requests to write a review about the most-anticipated movie of the year... Finally it was opening night on Friday and I was about to see the movie I'd waited for about an year.. I've never quite seen AMC this overflowing... we were a bunch of 8 and we couldnt find any seating together, however close to the screen.. And so we split up and sat where we could... Having heard the critics review at Cannes, I'd dipped my expectations of the movie to a rock-bottom and now all I wanted to do was enjoy the adaptation...

It began... At the outset, in the first 15 minutes of the movie, I can probably point out some 30 things that deviated from the book.. not trivial.. not major... but to the book's fan, a definite minus point, especially because one couldnt explain why Langdon would be a suspect to Fache if he was interrupted by Collet at the lecture around the time of the murder! Didn't make sense! Putting that behind you would be a smart idea and let you enjoy the rest of the movie..

For most part in the first half, things move real fast and as someone who'd read the book more than once, I didnt understand how people who hadnt read it would warm up to the pace in the movie... But I had more things to think about.. Tom Hanks is an awesome star, but looked a little bit too old even for Langdon's character who is about 40... And Audrey was a near-perfect fit for Sophie, who's also French... And it all gelled, except that as my roommate put it, the two stars were a bit too 'deadpan' in their expressions... But then, its no secret that both the book and the movie are all about the plot that unfolds and performances could be compromised for the events that were unravelling...

After Teabing (Ian McKellen - Gandalf in LOTR) came onscreen, no one else stood a chance.. The casting was sooo perfect and he was brilliant and totally stole the show.. It was captivating and the sequence that I got a little bored in the book (the Grail explanation to Sophie by Robert n Teabing) was shown far more interesting in the movie.. And the screenplay was good in particular... The way they decoded the 'Last Supper', the way they enlightened the blade n chalice.. And in general, the way the movie flashbacks abruptly in a newspaper print fashion was particularly brilliant...

The movie gained pace and before you knew it, they had the cryptex (which is pleasingly exactly what one would have imagined it to be -- no disappointments here). But they did eat away the dual cryptex concept and simplistically stuck to just one (The SOFIA thingie was ignored). As the plot thickened, what amazed me the most was the exact locations that the movie was shot at... Here credit is due to Dan Brown himself for having made lucid descriptions of all those churches and otherwise as they unfolded in 'flesh n blood' in the movie and were exactly as I had imagined... They were breathtaking...

Another amazing facet of the movie was the 'makeup'. Silas' bloodied back and punctured thigh (from the cilice) couldnt have been more perfect if he'd really punctured it! Bloody, yet brilliant! And the sudden attacks that he made was terriffic shock elements that startled almost everyone... You knew it was coming.. yet not the way it did! At this juncture I must mention that some facts felt twisted --
1) The connection between Fache n Aringarosa was revealed too early
2) Aringarosa was shown a bad guy
3) They overstretched the well-shaft incident for Langdon bringing in some Christ belief, etc...

After the 'APPLE' cryptex got open, someone like me would remember the book ending in a few chapters and 20 pages at the most. The movie however dragged one full half hour after that... I couldnt take it at that point.. It felt like it went on forever... There were some unnecessary scenes of Langdon enlightening Sophie at a basement library (which isnt there in the book)..

Here I must mention that the last scene, where Langdon realises where the sacrophagus of Mary Magdalene is, is one of the best shot scenes in any movie.. The way the camera takes you right to the bottom of the 2 pyramids of Louvre is absolutely breathtaking and leaves a feel-good feeling from the movie..

All in all, its surely not one of those movies that leaves you complaining every 5 seconds that it didnt match the book (well the story line didnt - here n there, but they pretty much stuck to most of the facts), the locations make the movie worth a watch and.. I am surely visiting the Louvre sometime in the future. :-)

The red shirt

"If something can go wrong, it will go wrong." - Murphy's Law

What better example than today? I begain today as my Thursday mornings go.. Group meeting in the morning.. I'd worn one of my favorite tees- a bright red one thats won me a lot of compliments, but in essence a simple red button-down t-shirt... I didnt think anything of it as I pulled it off the hanger from my closet this morning. Little did I know what the day had planned for it...

First sign - As I walked from my office in ERC to my lab in Rhodes, I pressed against the corridor to allow someone pushing a cart to pass. Alas! As I regained stride, my t-shirt pulled at a loose nail and ripped at the bottom.. I was bugged... But there was nothing that could be done now.. I called n awoke my sleeping roommate and asked her to bring me a spare. Till then I would have to manage with this one at the meeting... No biggie..

Second sign - People in close quarters with me will tell you that I do things very fast, almost as if I am in a hurry to finish everything. Thats not the case really.. but I do tend to speed up a li'l.. The best example is of my 'nathanaar' duties at my bro's wedding. Even while I watch the tape, it looks like my actions have been fastforwarded!! I guess all that adrenaline in me needs some outlet! Ok.. back to the meeting... We were having coffee, the one delightful part of the meeting.. Well, to cut a loooong story short, I spilt some over the front of my t-shirt and had to go to the washroom right away.

Third sign - Imagine my horror when I dabbed at the coffee stain with a napkin soaked in water, tiny, almost minuscule holes started appearing at random places on the t-shirt!! I was flabbergasted to say the minimal... But then I figured that I must've spilt some acid on the poor tee before and washing it in water seals the deal (remember how our chem labcoats used to become back in school??) Did u think my sob story was over? Not quite... Read on...

Sign of four - My roomie brings me this cheery candy pink t-shirt. One slight problem - I think its slightly transparent.. And today was the ONE awesome day I didnt bring any sweater or sweatshirt! How tragic can life get?? I actually had to go to the campus bookstore and buy one of their overpriced t-shirts on sale!

Reminders n requests: 1) Anyone who feels bad for me after this t-shirt fiasco and wants to buy me clothes - DON'T BUY ME RED (Have tooooo many of 'em - Any other colours are moooost welcome)
2) If each person I narrate this story to paid me a dollar, I would've looooong reimbursed the 18 bucks I spent on the bookstore one.

The chain story

continued from here

He ambled in past the 19 steps that it took from the gate to the front door. He fumbled in his pockets listening hard for the jingle of the keys. He faintly heard them as he glanced upward prompted by the low grumble of thunder. The bluish sky had turned a stormy grey and clouds had gathered out of nowhere. He found his keys and even as he heard the lock click open, the sky tore apart and the rain came crashing down.

He hurried inside. It was pretty dark and he groped around for the light switch and flicked it on. No change. There was no current. A tremendous flash of lightening accompanied by a clap of thunder eerily illuminated the large empty hall in front of him for half a second. He swallowed hard and reluctantly shut the door behind him, now enveloped by complete darkness. He went over to the coffee table and found his lighter next to the cigars. He used it to find the candles in the drawer of the TV cabinet. A gentle circle of light spread from the candle. He lit a few more and set them some distance apart from each other. The light calmed him and he sat back at the sofa and closed his eyes.

He must've dozed away because the next thing he heard was the splattering of a huge branch on the open front hall window. It was still dark.. the current wasnt back.. And he had no clue how the window had unlatched itself. He cursed the electricity board as he hurried over to shut the window. He reached out of the window to pull it back in when a shadow caught his eye in the almost completely faded twilight. His heart caught for a second before he realised it was a stray dog. What was with him today? Why was everything giving him the creeps. He shook himself off the reverie and latched the window securely. The house felt even more gloomy and silent. He spun around.. the candles had either burned out or their flames had been blown away. He stood there almost mesmerized for a second wondering what to do. Another flash of lightning... with a jolt, he realised he was not alone in the house.

Continued here..

Taste of Asia

Over the past week, I have been to a multitude of places and had a lot of fun... And yes, I did take into hibernation, more out of laziness and loyalty to my good old diary than anything else. This past week was a 'Global Village' kind of thing in UC where they showcase the variety of arts/crafts/food and essentially cultures from different places. We had this Chinese fest which was a short n sweet affair on a crisp Thursday night...

It was a festoon of color, costumes, music and pictures. To me, all the clothes seemed beautiful and authentic and the women, lithe and slim and the men, just as flexible and nimble.. It was a short n sweet portrayal of what seemed like the best portions of China. I went with the intent of sampling authentic Chinese cuisine (fat chance, given that I am veggie) and ended up being drawn by the performaces... really nice and new and a class apart from what I had seen. Most of all that struck me was that they started at 8 and ended at 9 -- unheard of in Desi functions!! It was sweet... And as expected at 9, there was nothing I could chew on, but my thoughts :)

And come Sunday, it was 'Taste of India'. It was an aptly coined name coz the food they gave was basically just enough to 'taste'.. Lol... But that apart, I think, the AID chapter @ UC deserves to be applauded for their continuing efforts as whatever they did... I was an active volunteer last year and have become a bit dormant.. having done enough for the ISA!

The above pic was not @ Taste of India.. was at Deepotsav.. and the basic idea is to give u a feel of the Desi touch @ UC.. And true to Indian standards, the fest itself lasted from 12-3, followed by a movie (RDB again) in the campus theatre... a day's events planned for people like me, who awaiting their stuff to arrive from the likes of Fisher-Sci had nothing better to do! Well, to keep the crowd entertained, our organizers played multilingual songs... And they seemed to have the same DVDs paavam as last year. In fact as I entered, I heard 'Poonkatrile' from 'Uyire' and I was pretty sure it was the same song that had played as I had entered the premises last year. And as for Tamil there are a million, seriously million wonderful songs and guess what was being played next? 'Oi.. enadi Kappakazhange' from 'Dhool'. To the westerners, Rima Sen probably came across as sleazy... what a showcase to India! But the stalls were nice - a lot of colorful mehendi and other merchandise being sold.. including some pretty baubles for women like me... After some food and some timepass, it was some performances. I donot speak ill of children who 'try to perform'. The key word surely here was 'try' because it certainly wasnt 'perform'! Lets just say, Lady Grace didnt grace us at all!

Soon it was tie for the movie... Rang de Basanti @ campus theatre. I expected no one but jobless souls like me to be there (my faithful comrades bade me goodbye coz they all had something better to do! Sob!) but was pleasantly surprised when I walked into an overflowing theatre! Lotsa forgeiners and ofcourse desi public. Having waded in alone, I was even more pleasantly surprised to find Aravind with an empty seat next to him.. I plonked next to him to enjoy the movie a second time.. And enjoyed it much more I must add...

The end of the movie brings me to the end of this blog.. Just a coupla quick thoughts as I conclude --

1) Its very easy to be critical. Having organized a bunch of programmes like this, I can tell you that when you do things, there are somethings that will always get screwed up -- Its Murphy's law. So, when you havent done any arrangements, atleast dont crib!

2) The spirit of a country is always underplayed when you belong to it -- That would explain why I enjoyed the Chinese function far more than the Indian one. The Indian function could never live up to what the 'spirit of India' is to me - I'm glad for that...

Jai Hind!

Yaaay! I m a grad student too!!

Yeah, I know the topic is weird... you'd think I'd know that I was a grad student for the past 2 years almost... But not quite... In my first year here, I was surrounded by the VLSI junta... who couldnt stop touting how difficult their course was... how many projects they had to complete... their deadlines... lack of sleep... lack of appetite... their weightloss... their cool (actually hot - that place was sweltering!) 800 Rhodes Lab nicknamed 'FishTank' blah blah...

Both my roomies were VLSI... Consequently, I saw little of them in the first year... They came home (if they did) at 3 am or so n though I am a self-proclaimed insomniac, I tried to sleep by then so I could be up and gone early.. Around the time I rose was midnight for them and none of our classes clashed etc, so I practically never saw anything more than their sleeping forms next to me! I am in MEMS and even with 4 classes a quarter, I seemed to have more time than them to do most stuff -- cooking, laundry, even steal a movie or two here n there... And I pitied them... Till not so long ago... The VLSI track basically drops after the first year when you have a ton of coursework from insanely high amount of work to practically nothing in the second year when all you have to do is research... As for my track, well, the first year was comparitively all dreamy n nice... with no great amounts of anything... from work to study.... To like a huuuge amount of time in the cleanroom and lab doing some form of research work..

Only the past few weeks, I've felt like a REAL grad student... living on coffee n cookies, sleeping practically in the lab... and up till 3-4 am writing abstracts n what not... And for a change, it actually felt nice! I know that sounds weird... but then atleast you know that something is happening in your research... hehe... And thats a totally different feeling... This past week, I have almost felt disjointed from myself... Theres been too much that I've done... And now that today is my deadline... I have NOTHING to do... Which consequently is reflected in the fact that I have written 2 blogs in one day!

Poor me..

I work in MEMS... So, I work with chemicals... The main chemical I work with is Hydrofluric Acid... It sounds innocent enough right? I mean, you would think that atmost it would be as harmful as say sulphuric acid?

Read on...
_____________________________________________________
Hazards Identification -- HF
Emergency Overview
POISON! DANGER! CORROSIVE. EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS LIQUID AND VAPOR. CAUSES SEVERE BURNS WHICH MAY NOT BE IMMEDIATELY PAINFUL OR VISIBLE. MAY BE FATAL IF SWALLOWED OR INHALED. LIQUID AND VAPOR CAN BURN SKIN, EYES AND RESPIRATORY TRACT. CAUSES BONE DAMAGE. REACTION WITH CERTAIN METALS GENERATES FLAMMABLE AND POTENTIALLY EXPLOSIVE HYDROGEN GAS.

Potential Health Effects
----------------------------------
Exposure to hydrofluoric acid can produce harmful health effects that may not be immediately apparent.
Inhalation: Severely corrosive to the respiratory tract. May cause sore throat, coughing, labored breathing and lung congestion/inflammation.
Ingestion: Corrosive. May cause sore throat, abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, severe burns of the digestive tract, and kidney dysfunction.
Skin Contact: Corrosive to the skin. Skin contact causes serious skin burns which may not be immediately apparent or painful. Symptoms may be delayed 8 hours or longer. The fluoride ion readily penetrates the skin causing destruction of deep tissue layers and even bone.
Eye Contact: Corrosive to the eyes. Symptoms of redness, pain, blurred vision, and permanent eye damage may occur. Chronic Exposure: Intake of more than 6 mg of fluorine per day may result in fluorosis, bone and joint damage. Hypocalcemia and hypomagnesemia can occur from absorption of fluoride ion into blood stream.
______________________________________________________

I rest my case... Poor me..

:O

Not quite it... But more advanced... But a similar concept!!

Check what google's going to do...
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ZDM/story?id=1901294

I'm amazed at my own clairvoyance!

D O O D L E

Disclaimer: The logos, images etc. that appear in this blog are copyrights of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or wherever else you may have seen them. The idea however is solely mine and should you see it materialize in future, whoever did it better pay me royalties.. n I ain't kidding!

While I was in class today, as usual, I'd zoned out and instead of sleeping, did the only other thing tuning out makes me do -- doodling on the margins of my notebook.. And when I doodle and then try to read what I've read, I'm always amazed at the wide wide spectrum of thoughts that run through my brain in quick succession. Today though, I wrote 'DOODLE' on my notes and looked at it for a long time, wondering why google didnt have a doodle.google.com. I found it strange and started imagining if there were to be a doodle.google.com, then what would it have.. What would the purpose of the site be?

And disbelievingly, I found myself basically making a webpage of sorts, all within the margins of my 'Biosensors' notes. I got more n more excited as time progressed (and I must mention here that practically everyone had dozed off or was on the verge of - it was the most boring class in history and now I know exactly why people draw those tiny tombs n crosses and inscribe - 'In memory of those who died waiting for the bell to ring'. It is THAT painful) and my margins were filled...

After class, as a ritual I head for lab.. Today though, since my prof hadnt reviewed the previous results that I'd given him, I was in no mood to pile up on his already Empire-state tall pile of work to do... I helped him more than me.. If I had more results, he would have more to review.. I hope that sounded ok.. because thats the excuse I see myself giving at the group meeting tomorrow. However, lets focus on Doodle...

So, back at my desk, I tried finding logole, the google logo maker... which was conroversial and no wonder, lifted off the net. But the Internet is like crack on glass.. Once it appears, its never gone away completely (aaha... thathuvam - copyright on this one too!) Pretty soon, I found a mirror site and made my logo and then put my ideas to Paint... And are you ready to see Doodle(TM)'s first version? Lo behold!

I encourage you to click on it to enlarge the image to see my genius in it.. Hehe...

Well, I admit Doodle's front page looks boring... But wait till you see what I did with it next... Now, whats the point of a Doodle page? You doodle! So, that white space in the center is where you'd ideally doodle... Whats the biggest pain in computer doodling???? Holding the left mouse button as you drew/wrote! I've eliminated that problem by providing a permanent left-click feature on the left frame. Once you've doodled whatever you wanted, if you hit the 'Doodle' button, I'd want this to happen -- Assume I doodled 'Bala', here's what I'd want doodle to give me....

Once again, do open up the image... Please notice how because I've signed in, my contacts window has opened up in the top left corner and because I hit 'Doodle' after scribbling 'Bala', it opened a conversation window with him (It would have opened a 'compose mail' window otherwise) And the right frame has the top search results from Google/Froogle/Scholar/Images etc... Isnt that coool???

If it were to materialize it would be one hell of a webpage and I hope the google studs took some clues from me.. and paid me for it... This would be an incredible amount of integration... And would be really cool... As for me, they say, an Idle mind is a devil's workshop... Well, here it seemed more of paintshop.. :D

AR Rahman's concert @ Dayton

Note: This blog is huuuuuuuuge.. Read only if you have the time!

After weeks of waiting... after fighting with Ali for the tickets... after coaxing people to come along, finally there I was at Trent Arena, the evening of 22nd April, certain I was going to witness a genius in action and nothing could go wrong... I was fully prepared for a musical treat and there was certainly no way I could be disappointed. This was a Rahman concert and I almost worshipped him and his genre of music was exactly my taste and I have heard practically every piece of music that he's composed and released to the public. Understandably, the adrenaline was high and the anticipation higher...

We wove our way to our seats which were at some 60 degree angle to the mainstage.. which wasnt so bad.. given that the audi was quite small and that the stage wasnt tooo far.. So all settled in, I couldnt wait for it all to unveil.. And sometime after 7.45pm, we saw the musicians file on stage.. Obviously Rahman was nowhere to be seen.. He had to make a dramatic entry after all...

It then started when this Amru babe held the mic and started crooning these Indian sounding tones... After a few moments, it descended on me when she sang -"mey pee yaya mey pee aaya.. mey puhrem puhyala pee aaya". It sounded to me like she wanted to pee.. And I wondered why she was announcing it in something like Hindi to the audience when it struck me... It was the Ramta Jogi beginning from Taal!!! I was amused and joined the rest of the audience in clapping... The song started and was entirely sung by a group of 100 kids standing in a bleacher kind of setting at the back of the stage... It was an even mix of girls n boys, desis n amrus n other nationalities I couldnt place.. And it sounded ok... I mean, they were giving these Miami university kids a chance to do some big-audience thing and it was nice to see n hear the whole song in an accent... I could handle it... The song was received with thunderous applause.. Then some dude came in and said a few things... none of which we could hear very clearly... But the last part was enough... "Without further ado, please welcome the musical genius, A.R.Rahman". This bought the entire crowd of 2000 odd to our feet as we cheered him on stage. He looked tiny n nice in a white Jodpuri as he took his natural place on centerstage and I was soo thrilled just to be there... He spoke a few soft undiscernable words and launched into kalbali from Rang de Basanti... Its not one of my favorites.. But then again, just hearing his voice out there in front of me was thrill enough and surely the rest of the evening remained for him to sing my favorite songs... Or so I thought...

If I launched into an in-depth narration of the exact sequence of songs that were 'played' (I will get to that) and the range of my emotions through each of them, I am sure Blogger will give me their version of the 'Orkut donut' n ask me to take a walk (in decent words) to waste much coveted webspace!! So, I am going to restrict myself to this critical review of what happened next.

Somewhere in the beginning, Vasundhara Das was introduced. I think she's quite talented, probably not the ranks of say Sadhana or Sunidhi... But surely Vasundhara was capable of a lot of variation(certainly not like Anuradha Sriram) which she could bring to the show. She came in, in a simple black salwar kameez and noticable a bottle of drinking water which she noticably kept bending down and placing in front of her and without fail picking it up while she walked out...

As the orchestra started tuning, we saw a bunch of girls walk in too and suddenly Dum dum dumaka dam dam damaka dum dum dumaka dum dum started and I found myself hoping it was Yaaro yarodi from Alaipayuthey rather than Chalka Chalka re from Saathiya. My wishes were answered... It was! Tamil rocks, man! And the song was okay except when the orchestra abruptly stopped, probably giving Vasundhara chance to go unplugged while she crooned.. She did croon.. but it was for the raaga more than out of aalapana! Hastily, the orchestra resumed and the song finished without incident! Still.. not bad, I thought and then next thing we saw was another western babe come in and do Aaa aaa aaa aaa aaaa.. Ok dont get scared.. That was the initial Aalapana in the Veerapandi kotayile from Thiruda Thiruda. Cool! This was another chorus sung song and the drums and other percussionists were particularly good. And the entire crowd enjoyed the song thoroughly.... I clapped whole-heartedly for this one... Just when I was under the impression that the variety was picking up, I was in for severe disappointment. Thee Thee from Thiruda Thiruda again...
Rasathi chorused by a bunch of girls (It wasnt bad.. but it wasnt great)
Taal Taal n more Taal...
And practically all of the songs of Rang de Basanti except Lukka Chupi (Thank God!!!) - This was maybe because Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra (director of the movie) was there... but so what yaar? I mean here are 1000s of people who've paid atleast $25 each to get in here and feel like we are listening to a CD of RDB. Thats not the worst part... The biggest letdown was yet to come -- THERE WERE CLOSE TO 6 SONGS IN KARAOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We did karoake in Deepotsav... But thats coz we didnt have access to such great musical talent... and musicians! Agreed, Rahman's music is practically irreproducable and the most heart wrenching thing was that Rahman himself sang Dil se re to a karaoke disc! The only thing I could think for the lack of variety was that they apparently had just 3 karaoke discs - Taal, Thiruda Thiruda n RDB!!! I cant tell you how disappointed I was...

There was an unplugged session between Srini ( a really talented guy with ARR) and Patrick ( an amazingly talented dude who can play virtually every instrument and sing the dinaka din tha as good if not better than us ) and evoked a "Ekdum desi hai sala" comment from Srini.. The unplugged session was short but nice... And then there was this violin (by Melissa-another supertalented babe) and base violin (by Sekhar - awesome... thats all I can say) and Tabla (by Patrick) jugalbandi which totally rocked...

Some points of the show have to be appreciated like the ones I mentioned above. For most part though, it was a huuge letdown... I mean Karaoke.. what was that? And they didnt mention that it wasnt ARR's band!! It was this band called Global Rhythm who were really good.. but not ARR! I missed Sivamani n the others in particular.. And this 150 stars jazz was royal crap.. It was a fundraiser which they conveniently screened under the ARR banner and 'fooled' public like us! :( And well honestly, we would enjoy the non-desi kids singing like 2/20 songs.. It feels nice... When its 17/20 songs, the humor is lost! The curtain to the show was one of the few nice things. Rahman sang Vande Mataram and everyone left with a feel-good contentness.. But thats about it.. In short, Rahman was wasted in such a concert!!!

I have been to many concerts in the past, noticably the ones at Saarang, IIT Madras, one with Shaan and one with Shankar Mahadevan, both of which totally rocked and brought the roof down! All in all, the next time they say ARR with blah blah.. I swear I ain't going... If its ARR n his band or anything close to the Unity of light show they had in Chennai, I am sure as hell there! And the show was called -Wake up?? Who were they kidding? As if we could sleep with all that sound anyways!

~Surprises~

Surprises... There's nothing more exciting than that.. Having thrown a million surprise parties for friends and having had none for myself, till yesterday, I could only imagine how it felt to walk into the room and see a sea of people you really like anticipating your arrival... But whats it like to walk into the room and find the one person who is soooo special in your life and sooo unexpected at that juncture? I can tell you...

I was having another typical evening in Cincinnati... watching the sun from 201 Morgens, where Sachin, Pushkar n Yogesh live (thats my evening hangout.... where we generally just have chai and guppa-maraofy). And my cell phone was inside and I didnt hear it ring. When I checked it later, it was an 859 code.. Something I didnt recognize and when I called back, it was someone I didnt know either. So, I left them a voicemail asking why they'd called.. twice. Meanwhile, Pushkar-Sachin n I were alighting the elevator when Priyanka called. She said she had to speak something important with me and if I was doing nothing, I had to come home as soon as was possible. Honestly doing nothing of merit, I left right away, all along wondering what it could be that was that urgent! And I went home in 20 min... And opened the door... And there was BALA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I screamed at the top of my voice.. I was seeing my bro after 8 months! And he was soooo unexpected... and to think that he had business with Cincinnati Bell! It was almost too good to be true... But there he was and my levels of adrenaline refused to come down and took a good amount of screaming and everything from me to pump out excess energy. Prinku deserved a coupla hugs too.. for the caper she pulled off with seriousness! :) I am sooo thrilled and soo very happy as must be obvious by now. To celebrate his just being there, he took us girls out for dinner to 'Lemon Grass'.. Yumm Thai food... And then he went back to his 'work'. Well well... all I have to do now is to await the afternoon and have loaads of FUN! Can't wait!

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.. slurp~!

Sinful! Absolutely sinful.. Anyone who's had the Turtle Sundae @ Graeters or the Steaming Brownie at CCD (Its Cafe Coffee Day.. I mean can you believe it? It was still Coffee Day when I came from India first. This time when I went, all people could talk about was which 'CCD' to meet at! :O) or the Chocolate volcano @ Don Pablos's or any other choco delight has got to agree with me. I consider myself this real mature adult.. but I know where I lose it... ICECREAM!

I am aware of the fact that I become less aware of my surroundings when my attention is completely taken by an icecream. But how much... I didnt realise till last summer when I went to California... There I met Dhwani, my roomie's good friend... And he n I chitchatted our way to Coldstone where I expressed my great love for icecreams... And he bought me some.. Yumm!! Then while I was slurping away, we walked back to his car. Next thing I know, we were heading to the carwash!!!! Apparently, he mentioned it.. I didnt even hear it! I was soooo preoccupied!! That bad!

In fact, I wish my love didnt transcend icecreams... but it had to be.. How could it not include chocolates? My exposure to chocolates from my childhood ahs been phenomenally high, thanks to Dad having been in the Gulf (and me too). So, we were exposed to all the Snickers/Twix/Toblerone/Lindt/blah blah eons before most others and it didnt do my sweet tooth any good.. Good Lors.. so much so that people know that the way to pataofy me is to buy me a Twix!

I know people who dont like either of these... Sometimes I envy them and sometimes I pity them.. Actually, whats life without chocolate? As I read on a professor's door -

Life without chocolate is too terrible to contemplate!

Munich - the movie

So, how many of you watched the movie in the first place? Second... how many of you knew it was inspired from a book (from real events but ultimately, the book?) Third... how many of you have read that book? Yipppeeeeee.. I qualify for all 3!!! My no good campus theatre aired 'Munich' in our MainStreet Cinema only recently. And so, I dragged Pushkar (he qualifies all categories too) and Sachin (not read book yet) along (as usual).

Pushkar was the one who in the first place gave me the book to read. And its more like a documentary with a lot of dates and events and not so much my kind of book.. But I am a total bookie and so pretty much any book qualifies. We sat and watched the movie in silence... I didnt even remember the main character's name (thats a pretty bad state, given that I remember practically every character in the gazillion books that I've read). Anyways, his name is Avner and its a good revenge story and the fact that Eric Bana played the role (and he's soo yummy) didnt hurt at all... The movie was what usually movies are - an unfaithful representation of the book and probably real events as Pushkar didnt fail to iterate a million times... Now, you know how I feel when I watch Harry Potter movies, Pushkar!!

The movie itself also felt like a documentary and everything happened quickly and even then the movie ran for 2hr and 44 min.. Thats huge for an English movie... And I wonder if people who didnt know of the events or read the book understood the flow. Eric Bana was predominantly good and faking an Israeli accent. He slipped up a couple of times where his natural accent took over.. but these were minor slips who people like me would only notice. As I sunk lower in my seat, I observed my companions -- Sachin was concentrating hard and understanding the movie... Pushkar was comparing the movie frame by frame with the book (he's read it 4 times and remembered every damn thing!) and turning up disappointed... As for me, I vaguely remembered things and associated them here n there.. The movie was decent I thought... But it made me remember one thing I always claimed -- No movie is ever going to be as good as its book... Its impossible! The media are soo different that nothing that a movie can make can match the imagination your mind did! And it amazes me...

All said n done, I am setting up myself for what could turn out to be another disappointment - 'Da Vinci Code' - releasing May 19...

~ Canon-izing photography ~

Warning: If you are not a digital photography freak, you needn't read further! Being one, I had to pay a tribute to my latest obsession!

I am alll excited!! I finally got my camera... Its an awesome Canon S2 IS, for which I was thavam-kadandhu waiting for deals. And finally, Dell heard my prayers and put up this deal which I grabbed. And so, the camera of my dreams arrived last week... brand new and I felt like a fairy princess who'd just been given her magic powers!

If you wanna read a techie n professional review about the camera, go here. Thats one of the famous reviews on this cam that prompted me to choose it for it. Well, this is one of the best cams around and with those specs and those looks (Its body, if it had been black would've offered a far more professional look, but I'm not complaining... its specs are to die for!) And for me, it was a humongous upgrade from my Sony-P30, against which I wont talk.. I still love that camera and it has helped me savour some of my very best memories..

Well, coming to my camera, I was eager to test out its abilities.. And I am one of those people who doesnt believe in reading instruction manuals... I am very happy in life, just fiddling with the equipment and finding out how its done.. But it being my camera and me having shelled out a lot of money, still didnt prompt me to open up the instructions... But when I was fiddling with it and could'nt fire the flash after multiple hits of the flash button, slaaaaaaaash, I tore open the instruction booklet! Damn! I had to go against my principle! And then I sat down with the different modes, etc and in my excitement, I decided to take the camera for a walk (ok.. its not my doggie... But I had to stretch its legs and realise its potential.. It was dying to be used!) And off I set!

Along my way, I clicked a bunch of photos.. And well, the camera has IS (Image Stabilization) but even with that, you do need steady hands to geta clear focused shot at 12x... Am dreading to think what would've happened if I had bought one without IS! The modes have been classically customized and each mode is true to its ability.. The colors are vibrant, quality crisp and amazing videos... The video is practically handycam quality and the only limitation I can think of is that it cant shoot vides > 1GB.. technically, who cares!!!

Another thing I was itching to try was its 'super-macro' mode. Which allowed you to get as close as 0cm to the object! That means, you place the lens ON the object and shoot!!! This would be immensely useful for my labwork (By the way, to all those who questioned my need for a camera right now, this was my standard answer -- Till now, I had a friend who's camera I could borrow.. but he was graduating soon... So , I had to equip myself to aid my research... Makes sense??) So, to test my 'super-macro' capabilities, I chose a friend and decided to capture his eye!

There are many many pics I have taken already and I am not going to sing their praises here. Indeed, one of my premier ideas is to start a photo blog and keep loading all my pics there... Until then... dont hold your breath.. you may not survive! Will start one anyday now... Keep checking!

While I was sleeping...

Disclaimer: This blog is written in light vein. I respect Dr.A immensely and will consider my life awesome if I am half the researcher he is!

Thursday!!! Well, its the day I have class and that means I get to sleep in full public view with no shame at all.. and the fact that class is in about an hour n a half from now is the motivation behind writing the blog in the first place! My prof is one of the hotshots of UC.. Am gonna call him Dr.A. Well, he's a superduper researcher.. but this class is new and leaves a lot to be desired for, like INTEREST!

Well, I have taken 2 of Dr.A's classes before and though I have managed to unceremoniously doze off in 1-2 classes here and there, none have been this bad! And Dr.A owing to his nationality, cannot pronounce my name for the life of him! Well, I understand that actually. Jayalakshmi Parasuraman is a nightmare for all non-Indians... I can't even begin to tell you the number of permutations and weird sounds I've heard in connotation to my name! Indeed, in the first class I took with Dr.A, he was handing out our tests scores... And usually when an instructor scrutinizes a paper real hard, thats my cue.. The paper turns out to be mine most of the time. I was on the edge of my seat to spring up. TO my surprise, Dr.A emitted a sound that was like - Sleellivason Langolomon. I was bewildered and I turned to look at Ashwin to see that his expression mirrored mine. And to my amazement, Srini (Srinivasan Raghuraman) was advancing towards the desk to pick his paper!!! I couldn't help cackling! And I dreaded to think what my name churned out from that mouth would be.. And a few papers later - Jayalaxkimi Palsulamon. Not so bad! He asked me kindly - 'Was that correct?' And I said its - Jayal'aksh'mi. He smiled at me n said - 'ok Jayalaxkimi'. Lost case!

Coming back to present day classes, well, most of the time I find myself tuned out and not listening.. making a list of Manirathnam movies.. or writing down my favorite raagas.. Or worse.. shamelessly sleeping (I have mastered the art of sleeping with my eyes open - Ashwin disagrees!!) The other day I was staring at Dr.A with glazed eyes and he stared back for 5 seconds before I realized that he'd asked me a question. I tried to look my intelligent best and tried my best to recollect the question. And suddenly it came to me... He'd asked me -'Why are genomics relatively easier than proteomics?' I knew the answer, but I had pull it out from the depths of my sleep. I mumbled something like -'There are only 4 genes and there are many proteins' Thats like the most elementary answer in the world. Coming from a Masters student, it was plain dumb! And I realised what I shouldve said - There were 4 building blocks for genes n various amino acids. Dr.A was kind n actually took that for an answer. I deflated in my chair and went into slumber shortly, convinced that my answering for the whole quarter was done. How wrong I was! Another question!!! This time a better answer! Eeeks.. What was happening!

Tuesdays n Thursdays... No matter how hard I try to think of something.. anything that would keep my eyes open (more often than not I think of those Tom'n'Jerry techniques - painting eyes on the back of eyelids or using toothpicks to hold them open.. !!!), nothing works! Its that amazing daze that falls over you only disturbed by Ashwin sleeping next to me or scribbling notes... And its not even like I am sleep deprived or anything.. quite the contrary as a matter of fact! Hehe... I guess I missed all this when I had no courses... Thats why I take solace in this one! :)

Jani

I donno why out of the blue, I was reminded of my building dog(back in India) , Jani. He was the dog me n my bro never had (yeah yeah... like all kids, me n my bro wanted a doggie... and like all families, we had Amma who made these cliche dialogues like 'Onnu naan irupen indha aathila.. illa nai irukum' - translated as 'Either I stay in the house or the dog does'. It was one of those choices which really wasnt one! It just sounded like one.. hehe.. not that i cud ever trade my mom for anything...) Coming back to Jani, out of fondness we used to call him 'Jon' or 'Janet'.. hehe.. And he was my partner-in-crime for the many things I've done (notably, he used to eat my lunch - which I could never eat by myself - I mean my mom n Patti used to pack 3 huge chapathis for lunch!)

Basically, how Jani came to live in our building is something none of us can place perfectly. But our previous watchman called Poongavanam (- funny name coz it translates into 'Garden' and there was the seductive Nirosha song called 'Oru poongavanam...') bought Jani alongwith him and since then theres been faithful feeders like us and importantly there were these Sri lankan folks who lived upstairs to us who practically adopted him... They fed him and looked after him and so he was almost their foster dog. Jani may have been a street dog, but he was definitely the most intelligent in their 'breed'. This Sri Lankan Patti used to go out every morning at some 8 am and get back around 4pm. Jani used to walk her to the bus stop... Thats not whats so great.. But what was was that he would walk to the bus stop at 4 to bring her back! It used to amaze me that he developed such loyalty in no time and that he knew to gauge time!!

Another time, when Appa, Bala and I went to Tirupathi. Jani bid us a cheerful goodbye. When we came back to our surprise, he barked his lungs out and didnt let us into the building! It took us a while to understand what was happening. Appa had gotten his head tonsured and Jani didnt recognize him!! The whole sight was soo funny that me n Bala were in ripples by the time we'd understood what was happening. Hilarious!

During Diwali, Jani gave us all this look of reproach and immense sadness. He hated crackers and the sudden sounds they produced and could be found curled up under the staircase his paws around his ears... Pitiful sight... But I love crackers and I couldnt help it! (Hehehe)

Eventually, about 4 years ago, the Sri Lankan family moved and they were soo attached to Jani, they took him along. Last I heard, he was happy and well-fed with the family he loved most. Not many street dogs get as lucky as Jani.. For example, we had this dog in my building in Bombay, 'Vrandavan', called Soni.. It had a pathetic life and when I was very young, my dad made me cry by telling me that Soni had been electrocuted by the municipality! I dont know what happened to Soni and sometimes, I dont want to.. Somethings are best left unknown....

Rang de Basanti

Alright alright... I know I am late and I know that a million people have seen the movie already and have their views all set about it and what I have to say about it probably won't matter.. But here goes anyways..

Well, to be honest I did expect the world of it... having had my friends rave all over the place about it. And Naresh couldn't speak of anything else to me for a week! (Well, he pestered me to buy the audio CD when I was on vacation n I didnt relent..hehe) All that done, I had a bunch of people who were hooting at me for having not seen it thus far.. And well, I honestly tried downloading it three times, each time just before my 4hr oncampus job shift started, hoping that te 700 odd MB would download by then (UC has a 100 Mbps LAN connection... but the damned site would download at 30Kbps!!!) In fact I once had Ali to keep moving the mouse of my laptop so that it didnt go off to sleep! And tragically, each time the connection would get reset! Talk about bad luck! And so while I was walking past 544 Baldwin on Friday evening, as usual purposeless, I heard the loud n clear 'Lose control' from within... That meant the ISA was playing the movie (I'm the treasurer.. well, I know thats hard to believe... but I am anyways and I had NO idea that they were going to play it else I wouldve definitely been there!) As luck would have it, next morning, as I was Krogering and sifting through a pile of capsicums (ok.. green peppers if you'd prefer!), I heard the familiar voices of Tejas and Niranjan(ISA President!) To cut a long story short, I was armed with RDB in DVD! My dinner movie was decided and no Veer-Zaara this time.. ha!

So, that night we played the movie at home and I remember in the first half, we were cackling from some Aamir antics and enjoying ourselves... though I had to tell myself this wasnt a sequence of F-R-I-E-N-D-S played at a stretch (though it had the essence of that.. all fun n no substance). The real movie began after the interval and there was a dramatic change of pace and tone and everything and in the end though many many people had told me that everyone important dies, seeing it happen in the movie was something else! I was saddened! The way Karan (Siddharth) and DJ (Aamir) went to their deaths really touched me.. And in someway, I felt that we the youngsters of India had to do something for our beloved country.. (I'll get to that in another post..hehe!) And in some ways the movie maybe, just maybe had misrepresented things... I am not even going to question the corruption in politics.. thats out there for everyone to see... But in a real-life scenario, would there be a shoot-at-sight order for 5 kids who'd owned up to their crime? What happened to the normal judicial procedure? That disturbed me... And I donno why...

Indeed that night's dream when I finally managed to doze off at 5am after thinking up an unbelievable amount of stuff that we, the people could do for our country was a rerun of Ajay Devgan's 'The Legend of Bhagat Singh'. At some level, I realised that RDB was a success, simply because it had provoked me to think.. instead of ignoring it as just-another-movie... Hmmm...