Another Milestone :-)

Airborne Bike

kiron's treat.
Ivy Unwind Isand - Marthahalli
15 km from Pluto.
Return trip from the venue...
11PM
Initial 10km, we were slow (in 40's). It was chilling cold.
3 bikes.

Sho took a diversion to Silk Board.
Now, me-alex on one bike.
bin-jim on another.
racing started !
I reached 80-90 kmph
bin over took..
and soon slowed down..
I had no clue why he is slowing down....
But when my eyes got replanted on to the road....
There was no road !
Its all dust and mud..
bike still 70-80kph
crests and troughs..
In split second, the bike flew !
Taking along with it, the rider and pillion !
alex almost reached my shoulder level
bike went up almost half a metre
luckily, while in air...
i dint apply brake
neither front nor back
Had I done that, this blog would have taken a while to appear here.
(see the optimism)
:-)

A visual representation of what possibly had happened...


The treat was nice and good.
Well attended.
Except for Geo-Sha, all the others attended. Geo-Sha were out of station.

At the end of the trip, greeted Sand Soo for their Successful completion of the first milestone of being together - the first wedding anniversary (Jan21)
Long long life to both of you together, and happiness and goodness be with you always !

12.41 in the night.
Good night!

Highlights/Achievements of Y2k7

Inspired by vg and sk...

The year 2007 was special in so many ways. Personally, professionally, OPT-ially, MUA-lly..
So many ups and downs..
Downs ?
Nayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Not a single one that I can recollect :-)

Lemme jot down the "Best of 2007" before I forget (in no specific order)

1. I got into one of the best teams in the office. Today, it is a team, every body envy. Ppl pop into our cube, just to get some peace of mind, for a full 32-bit laugh, to relax their mind off :-D
(A little digression on this point, towards the end of the write-up)

2. Got promoting (this word is the maruti esteem effect) :-s

3. The only occasion I got onto stage for a performance in 2007 happened to be in January. And came out in flying colors. Got judged First! Interestingly, our customers who had come for a visit to Bangalore office were witness to all this...

4. Probably, the most memorable trips of all time - a bike trip to home! This was during Onam.

5. Went for flag hoisting ceremony in office with fellow Plutonians. Getting up early in the morning, on a holiday was a challenge, which we accomplished !

6. Another super good trip of all times - Tour De Kodai. This was a trip to Kodai from office. This was on July 26 and 27, 2007. (I remember the date so accurately, thanks to a video compilation that I had made on the trip. the video had the song 'Mungaru malheye' in the backdrop) :D

7. Bro n Bhabhi returned from Germany early this year. And I have somenoe to call on every weekend :)

8. Got locked up in office during odd time of the day !

9. Three weddings in our gang! Sand-Soo, Lee-Prasee and Geo-Shama. And it was also the year that witnessed my best friend's wedding. More weddings to come this year :)

10. OPT-ians went for a lot of movie. The married lot were sport and joined the lesser privileged gang(?) more often than not

11. MUA

12. Treats were aplenty. Both in office, and otherwise. Among the places visited are Atria, Filling Station, Angeethi, Yo! China, Nandini, Empire, India Gate, Transit, KFC, McD, Ivy Unwind Island, Barbeque Nation (the list is long!!!!)

13. My first Kannada movie - Mungaru Malhe. With the proj team :)

14. My first (full) Telugu movie - Bommarillu. With subtitles :)

15. My first Onam gift (outside the family). Thanks to V and Sush :)

16. An exclusive NICE trip !

17. Other trips included Hogenakkal and some local visits like Lumbini Park. Put aside the office kodai trip, wedding trips and the home trips, there is not much in the list!! Shocking!! Have to compensate for this. We've got one full year ahead :)

18. Thanks to the initiative from a friendly HR, we could be angels for a day!

19. My friendly pal, canon a95 went on strike for a few weeks. But came back in full swing :)

To sum up, an eventful year!
Par film abhi baaki haiii !!



Digression: Its very difficult to accept changes. And shifting my seat, from the cozy corner to the right-in-the-middle seat took some days to digest. But soon I felt at home, and helped the cube win the noisiest-cube-around ever-rolling-trophy for the first time :-D
My moving from old seat to the new one, just 7 metres away, had so much of other stories related to it. Those stories are better unsaid...
(Sounds curiously mysterious, huh? thatz deliberate)
:-))

The new Traffic Policy in Bangalore

News in The Hindu:
"The Traffic Police are thinking of introducing an “alternate day run” system for private vehicles wherein vehicles ending with even and odd registration numbers will be allowed to ply on alternate days on the city roads."

Whats the big deal... I'll buy two nano's!

Taare Zameen Par: Movie Review

Caution: If you havent seen the movie yet, STOP right here; bunk class/office, go watch the movie, come back, and then read :-) The write up may reveal some parts of the story...

____________________________________________________________________

Never before for a movie did I get so much of compulsion from around me to go and watch it. Go to office, the ladies and gentlemen there recommend the movie as must watch. Catch up with a classmate, she says 'best movie in this decade'. Log into a chat service, and here comes another recommendation 'too true to life movie'. Check emails, and there are 'Thank You' mails to Aamir Khan. I always get apprehensive of such a build up, coz it will ruin the party in the movie screen. Too high an expectation never gets you anywhere - when it comes to movies.

The first attempt was a failure. Paid 10 bucks parking fee to that guy at the entry, only to come out thru the exit 5 mins later, after realising the show is sold out. Well, if you go for a super hit movie ON-TIME for the start of the show, you cant expect a different outcome!

The 2nd day attempt saw light. Bin and I got the 4th row from the screen. A little close, but not as close as the 'Jab We Met' first time watch :-P

Prepared to the 'all the bests', 'have a nice times' and 'happy cryings', I sat there glued to the screen, barely giving any attention to the 'RC' ad or any other one. But yes, the 'dolby' piece did catch our attention :-)

The start of the movie was very pleasant, with a game of scrabble, but then the end of that 1-min clip would make anyone crazy - with the colors and words on the screen come and go at brisk space, accompanied with grilling background music. I guess, that was for the lazy sleepy people to get up and be attentive :)

The story of the movie is very simple and can be put into one line. How a kid with learning disability excels in the end! But the way the story unfolds, the flow and the pace was just too good. The emotional sequences and songs were very well stitched into the story. For a change, this is one movie, where we get to feel, there wasnt any song - for the sake of it!

The characters seemed too real. And no one looked like acting. The mom was very motherly, with all the routine tension that a normal housewife has - getting up the earliest, doing hotel service for 3-batches of breakfast, seeing off husband, preparing and sending the kids to school.. The dad is a typical serious face - a lil baldness added, representative of the tension and worries he has at office and back home. And elder son - bold, smart, outgoing and sportsperson. And the hero of the movie - Ishaan Awasti - not bothered about anything around him. In poetical words, and in Shankar Mahadevan's voice - "Yahaan Alag Andaaz Hai!". Yes, he lives in his own world, his own dreams.

Aamir Khan comes close to the intermission - he comes with a song, and the end of the song is the intermission. A mature actor he is (as though he needs my certificate for this!), he needs no heroine. He has lesser number of shots, compared to our Hero, Ishaan. But he is ubiquitous as the constant supportive inspiration for the kid.

The movie, sure is a must-watch for all young parents and the would-be parents. Well, the lesson of the story, all of us are aware of. But a reminder in the form of an entertaining 2.36 hr movie does no harm. Every parent wants their child to be among the top. This is not really selfishness. Dont know what to call it. But then, in the rat-race, we should not misjudge, misguide, misinterpret the kid, his learning pace, his tastes, his talent. There is a way out for every problem. The logical point in the movie, where the teacher says 'for some months, we'll take Ishaan's tests oral, and not written' was nothing but 'out of the box'. No teacher, no school would reckon or recommend or preach such a philosophy - he cant write well, so lets put him to oral tests.

Picking the fav scenes of the movie, not only of mine, but my friends too:
1. I liked Ishaan's dance - that he does, when he is expelled from the English class. He will give Hritik Roshan a run for his money :-))
2. Ishaan's brother, is probably the only inspiration Ishaan has, back home. Mom is loving and supporting, though. One fine day, Yohan returns from school and finds Ishaan assembling a scrambled Sun, and comments "Yeh to ban rahaa hai". That much of inspiration is enuff for young Ishaan. Another day, when Ishaan is playing with multi colored ink droplets, and again Yohan peeps in to say "Wow, whats this!". A truly supportive bro.
3. Another of my fav scene is when Ishaan runs furiously to the terrace, post a fight with a neighbor kid over fetching a cricketing ball. He comes to a halt in front of the camera, all fired up. This reminded me of a railway steam engine!
4. Ishaan's friends seem not to be from the homosapien species. He likes birds, nature. And the 2 dogs in his colony enjoy their time, sleeping on Ishaan's lap :-P
5. Among the emotional scenes, the boarding scene stands out. One can argue that this is the common first day sight at any boarding school. But I hardly recollect any such sequence captured in a movie before...
6. Bin's fav scene is, again, the boarding scene. While the touching song 'Maa' goes on, Ishaan is trying to get sleep in his cot. In the next scene, while the camera sweeps through the dorm walls, Ishaan is missing in his bed, and is seen crying his heart out in the wash room. Very emotional!
7. Sush liked the confrontation of the father and the teacher, when the father comes to school to boast off on what he and his wife had been doing over the past few days - research on internet on dyslexia. Aamir's words in reply, not a direct reply, but giving the message through a string of lines, leaves the dad dumbfound, and he quits the place full-eyes, not having the courage to face his son.
8. Sush and V unanimously voted for the 3x9 = 3 sequence. A good animation, which reveals that the kid is updated with the latest happenings (pluto out!) and with solar system config (he knows earth is third, saturn has rings and what not!). AB pitched in with the trivia that this concept is picked from CnH series, where Calvin does a similar 'calculation' to derive his mathematical finding!
9. V also liked the dialogue exchange between the dad and the mom in car, coming back from a meet with the principal. The mom had bid adieu to her job, career to sit at home and take care of her kids. Even after this the kid is not able to get any appreciation (leave alone marks) in school.
10. Sush and V also could relate to the early morning "for-loop" breakfast preparation circus of the mom :-))
11. Bin found the flip-book scene touching. Ishaan had drawn it out, and he picturises himself as being left out in the family of 4. The imagination and creativity of a 9-yr old is appreciable!
12. The character Rajan Damodaran was also good. He too is supportive of Ishaan.
13. V disliked the scale-hitting scene. She was of the opinion, that it should not have been shown. But then, this is what happens in all schools.. Also, the chalk-hit scene evoked an "Ohhhhh" sigh from the theatre..
14. Sush liked the sequence, where Aamir does a 'Find me' with Einstein. Ishaan, all the time, thought he was being referenced!
15. The pet name 'Enoo' sounded cute - particularly when his mom calls him.
16. And if you thought, Aamir spotted that Beckham hairstyle only in the first song, then you are wrong. He had this same hairdo - even while the climax Art Mela was in progress :-)
17. The climax was good too... Our hero wins the prize, beating his teacher. And he is all thanks to his teacher. No words, just a run and a tearful hug, says it all...

The character, Aamir's friend, played by Girija doesnt do anything big. But is adequate and apt. Had it been any other director, there would have been a "kya yeh mera pehla pehla pyaar hai" slow-mo song in the sunny desert, with the two of them running towards each other from the edges of the screen...

The rumours have it, that the movie was the brain child of Amole Gupta (now, sidelined as the Creative Director and Story-teller). The shooting started with Aamir Khan in the lead role. But Aamir dint like many a scene in the movie and suggested a looooot of modifications. Amole (fed up or otherwise) said 'Why dont you take up the movie'. And thats how the actor became the Director. Whatever this background story is, as long as the end product is nice, who cares !

With a lot of word of mouth publicity, and with the movie nominated for 17 award categories (the best child actor award, and best debutant director award are safe in their hands), it will go places, and get the recognition it deserves.

Tail:
1. For Bin, it was the 2nd time watching, but he too was equally interested.
2. For the fact, on our first attempt at the theatre, there were 2 tkts available. But those were in a more premium screen, charged at 200 a piece. We said Nayyyyyyy, and scooted.
3. Tata Elxsi is growing as a monopoly when it comes to Bollywood movie graphics! If I'm not wrong, Kal Ho Na Ho was by them too. Not to forget the stunning multi-cam graphics in the Boys song - Ale Ale
4. Google would have got a lot of hits with the keyword 'Dyslexia' by this time!
5. Rajeev Masand (the big mouthed stout cheeky guy) of CNN IBN had given 4 stars for this movie. A deserving rating, on a scale of 5. Not many like this person as a movie reviewer, because of the way he bashes at movies. But then, for the same reason, the program is a hot cake on the channel :-P
6. Heard that the name of the movie was suggested by Salman Khan. The source of this news is Bin. So I'm not sure :D
7. I still believe, it would have been nicer if there was a female company for watching this movie :)
8. Looking back, its ONE HUGE review :-S

Verdict:
Rating: Must Watch
(Must Watch/Average/Dont Go)

A Defining Moment

Captured on camera !






:-)

And I'm Back !

With tremendous growth opportunity, I had left for home.
And with gigantic growth (predominantly sideways), I'm back !

New Year wishes to everyone !

Hope you had a nice time in year 2007.
And let 2008 be nicer or equally nice !