America Online

Interesting article in cnet.
Indian software engineers are going to help AOL keep them online. "It's America Online with code built where?" said one former Netscape manager. This sums up the opinions of most of the software people in USA, who are dumped by companies, which are starting up operations in India. This is an interesting blog by Sue who has written quite a few Java books. Check out the responses for her blog. Its really getting shabby out in the U.S. of A. There are a lot of questions to be asked and lots of answers to be answered. Whos the winner and whos the loser ?

Mood Indigo - 2 days of fun

The festival started with a play "Class of 84". This play takes you over to the lives of 8 people who passed out of St Xaviers during the year 84. Quite a funny play that takes place in a beach house of one of the friends, here you can witness the friends using the choicest of words and quite explicit about their extra marital affairs.

On sunday nite, i was lucky enough to attend two Classical concerts, the first one was Hindustani vocal by Mishra brothers, Rajan and Saajan mishra. This one was one of the best concerts i have attended taking into consideration the soulful music they rendered. The second concert was by Hariprasad Chaurasia, it was quite for the masses.

Monday, was a cool day. Happenned to watch the elimination round of the Vogue, fashion show. The judges of this competition included some models, budding actors (notable one was Meera Vasudevan) and mom of Dino. The show was quite colourful and with a lot of skin. The aspiring models performed really well. The sour point
of this show was the selection of all male IIT B crew.

The fusion nite, what an amazing nite, high energy, high volume one. Heard/Saw for the first time Shivmani juggling his various Percussion paraphernalias with quite ease. The other people in the troup were Vikku Vinayakram in Ghatam, Louis Banks in Keyboard and Siddiqui in Drums. I had a great time out there in Open Air Theatre that night.

Too bad i could not enjoy the rest of the festival, had to get back to work on Tuesday.

Kal Ho Naa Ho

Here is the hero, who talks of having all kinds of fun today, since his concept is "Kal Ho Naa Ho". And yet in the end, asks the supporting hero to just have/wed his lady love only in this janam, since he wants her to be his wife/everything in all the janams to come. To me, this concept is totally baseless and doesnt gel with the whole film. Taking the film back to the ages. And what about the supporting hero and the lady love, dont they have any say during the next janams. Common lets bring some sense into the movies please.

Last Place i want to be right now


Kalamazoo, Michigan, (yes there is a city called Kalamazoo). Just the thought of waking up to see my car closed up in snow, is sending me shivers. Imagine wiping of the snow from the wind-shield day in and day out.
Standing outside in sub zero wind chill conditions, and shoveling the snow off from your driveway. Boy im glad im not in Kalamazoo, the place where i enjoyed the Fall, Spring and Summer seasons, definitely not the winter. Im glad i m in Pune right now, and not have to wear layers and layers of clothing to whereever u go and dont have to wear gloves. Im so glad.

Samba down under for the chin music

What a performance the Indians are giving down under, absolutely delightful. This aussie bowling attack bereft off Mcgrath, Lee and Warne, look quite ordinary for the Indian batsmen. Hope they live up to this standards in the next two games. Cheers, India.

KILL BILL

Here is this lady who wants to kill Bill. But before she kills Bill, she has to kill 4 of his partners who belong to the Viper squad. A simple story ( divided into two parts), but well executed by the man who is making his fourth film - Quentin Torantino. Fans of Quentin would be a tap disappointed because of the lack of his usual dialogues, but the director subdues it with lots of action sequences and Japanimations. The second part of the movie is expected during Feb. For more reviews on this movie, check out imdb.com.

Victor

Yesterday, i got hold of my new bike, TVS Victor. This is the first bike that i have bought. Its a black color one with a golder sticker. Hope to maintain it well. Any personal inputs on this regard will be greatly appreciated.

Virumandi

Kamal Haasan's next movie Virumandi audio has been released. I happenned to listen to these songs online. Altogether it is a good listen. Kamal in his usual style have sang some songs. Maestro is at his best. Hope Kamal and Maestro combination works out some magic. Happy listening :).

Travelogue

Last weekend i went on a trip to see my sister who is in silvasa from pune. Some strange things happenned at the night when i was boarding the bus. My bus which was supposed to leave at 8:30 left at 8:00. The boarding point and the actual boarding point was not the same. Before i could find the actual boarding spot the bus left. Travel agents where quite arrogant and could not utter a sorry for their mistake. They somehow managed to say that i was at fault. Nobody takes any kind of responsibility. They all behave with their own whim. Somehow they got me seated in a third grade bus with no suspension. you can imagine my plight in the bus the whole night. The bus dropped me at an obscure place. From their i had to take autos and train to reach my sisters place.
The thought of seeing my sis took me all over to silvasa otherwise i would have cancelled the plans. Altogether it was a nice trip. Silvasa is a quiet sleepy town with lots of green veggies and fruits all over. For those who dont know, Silvasa is the capital of Dadra, Nagar and Haveli. Its on the border of Gujarat, home to lots of chemical industries. Didnt go as a pleasure travel, otherwise lots of places to visit closeby including some tiger safaris.

Some of the points that i learnt during this trip :-

• Find out about the type of bus you are traveling


• Find out about the boarding point


• If possible go before hand and check out the area where you are boarding from


• Try to see that the boarding point and the departing points for the bus are the same as yours


• Always keep atleast 2 hr leverage


• Travel buses are cancelled without any prior notices

Mea Culpa

There was an interesting blog by my friend Arun about Punctuality. I came across this song mea culpa "An acknowledgment of a personal error or fault" by enigma. Was just wondering how great it would be for the country if each one of us follow punctuality and this concept of mea culpa. All this talk that the nation going forward is great, but do we as an individual see ourselves as world class citizens without following the basic principles of life ?