Immortals of Meluha starcast

Recently I’ve dinished reading the first installment of the Shiva trilogy- The immortals of Meluha. It was a good read. The entire book seemed to me like a readymade script. So while I was reading the book I could visualize the film that it was going to be. According to me following are the actors who can do justice to the film:

Shiva - A character that demands swagger, shrewedness could be best portrayed by none other than the bollywood Greek god Hrithik Roshan. Ajay Devgn would be a close second.

Sati - A Beutiful warrior princess. Only Priyanka Chopra could bring life to such a wonderful character.

My first post from Samsung Galaxy S2

This is my first post from my awesome smartphone. This is a test post just to see how good this app is. Hoping for the best.

My first Bungee jump!

How does it feel to have no ground under your feet? I’m sure everyone would have had such kind of an experience in their dreams. But this was not a dream. It was reality.

If you watch the video closely, in the beginning you can see how nervous I was. When I was walking towards that platform, a lot of things were running in my mind viz., Will I survive? Do I have the guts to take that one extra step? Should I back out? What will happen if something goes wrong? My breath calmed down; heartbeat froze. But when I reached the edge of the platform, I asked one thing to myself: What is that one thing worth living for? Trust me, the answer to that question popped up in my mind instantly. It’s moments like these when your life is at stake you realize that the most precious thing in life is your life itself. You, your family, your friends, your memories – they are priceless.

I never thought what I shall be remembered for after my death. But it was that moment when I began to think about it: What I have achieved in my life, what I want to pursue. At that moment, I decided that I will not take things as they come to me., rather I’ll fight and give a shape to these things to fit in my life.

While all these thoughts were running in my mind, the instructor slowly whispered into my ear: “Free your hands, dear. Three.. Two.. One.. Jump”. What happened next can not be described in words. I was in the air. There was no ground under my feet. Everything that I could see was coming closer to me at a great speed. I was shouting my heart out; out of fear, out of anxiety, out of excitement. I was high on life. But before I could comprehend the notion of gravity, I was brought back to conscience by the life saver harness. Everything looked different from that point. I was hanging in between the land and the sky that too inverted. The world looks different from that position. There was a sudden change in my voice. Once I knew that I was alive and safe, I felt that death is the worse thing that could ever happen to anybody. I was really happy to be alive. Now I cried out a huge cry, it was the cry of joy, the cry of happiness. It was a victory over my fear of heights, my fear of death.

There is one thing that I have learnt from this jump: Certain things in life are beyond the comprehension of us, mere mortals. But things like these where you risk your life to overcome your fear will remind you of the celebration that your life has been till now. It will give you the inspiration to do what you have always wanted to do.

I wish to Bungy jump again in my life. And this time, I’ll jump with no fear in mind.

Once sincere advice: If you have not done it yet, please do. And post about it.

Art of the Start-up!

After a long time, I’ve felt like writing something on this blog. So now I’ve joined a start up and we work on hot shot technologies like developing Android and iPhone apps. There’s something really interesting that I’d like to tell about working in a start-up.

Lately, I’ve noticed that working in a start up is way better than working in an established company. I’d just like to mention a few reasons why is it so:

First of all, you don’t have to follow orders. You don’t have a manager. You have the freedom to make decisions. You have the freedom to make commitments and stand up to them. You have the responsibility of taking a task and carrying it out smoothly without extending the dead line.

Next, you get to meet new challenges everyday. You will learn something new everyday. You will work on hot shot technologies everyday. You will make things happen everyday. You’ll make some end user happy everyday. Now, the previous line is the heart of this post. I’ve started writing this post so that at some point I’d come to this particular line and describe it in detail. Well, prior to working in a start up, I’ve worked in an established company. Let me tell you no matter how much I’d work I was never satisfied because I did not know who is it that I’m working for. The end user always used to be a black box for us. But now we do know who our end user is and so we put our soul in making an application to make him happy.

Yet another great aspect of working in a start-up is you don’t get indulged in some boring meetings where all you do is just update your weekly status. If you have an idea, you just go ahead and make it happen. You don’t need to discuss it with “the wise guys” to know what you are doing is right or not? You’ll learn it anyways sans the unnecessary gyaan.

So that’s all I have to say about working in start ups. If you are looking for something to learn everyday and not for money, then start up is the thing for you. And then who knows, may be someday when your start up becomes a major hit, you might as well be sitting on a pile on currency notes

That said, the only thing I miss about working in an established company is “sweets at my desk”/”ooo” mails.

PS: Any good books that you have come across lately, junta? If yes, do recommend.

Yes, We Are The Champions!

There’s a feeling of awesomeness in the air, there’s a smile on every face I greet. This is such a wonderful feeling. I don’t remember of a last time when I came out of my home, hugged a random stranger and congratulated him/her for cheering up the spirits of team India. I feel like I’m on the top of the world. Thank you, Team India for uniting the whole nation. Religion has divided India many a times, but Cricket has united it and proved time and again that it is something beyond the understanding of a religion and Sachin is, undoubtedly, it’s God.

Having seen Sachin lift the cup, I can now die in peace.

IPL Auction – 2011

This year’s IPL auction has not only surprised everyone but it has also shown everyone how the things tend to change when big money is at stake.

I wonder what will happen if these people do not take the maestro Sachin Tendulkar in the next auction! People will eventually lose interest in the game. One of the most important reasons for watching IPL was that the short form of the game gave an opportunity to the older players, who have bid farewell to the game,  and for people like us a chance to watch our favorite players on the field.

And now that chance is gone! I am a little apprehensive that the IPL will lose it’s fame in the coming years. I am reminded of the Orwellian philosophy that anything that starts with a good spirit ends up in the greed of somebody.

Alas! Dada, I guess that was it for you. We’ll miss you, a lot!

Shantaram Quotes

Here’s a list of some of the best quotes I’ve come across in Gregory David Roberts’ “Shantaram”. I liked these lines very much and hence I’m trying to make a collection here so that I can refer to them whenever I want to.

• Sometimes even with the purest intentions, we make things worse when we do our best to make things better – Lin
• It is the mark of the age in which we live that the style becomes the attitude, instead of the attitude becoming the style – Didier
• That is how they manage to live together, a billion of them, in reasonable peace. They are not perfect, of course. They know how to fight and lie and cheat each other, and all the things that all of us do. But more than any other people in the world, the Indians know how to love one another – Didier
• It’s a fact of life on the run that you often love more people than you trust. For people in the safe world, of course, exactly the opposite is true – Lin
• If fate doesn’t make you laugh, then you just don’t get the joke – Karla (one of my all time favorite quotes )
• The worst thing about corruption as a system of governance is that it works so well – Didier
• There is no act of faith more beautiful than the generosity of the very poor – Abdullah
• Sometimes the lion must roar, just to remind the horse of his fear – Abdullah
• There is no believing in God. We either know God, or we don’t – Khader Bhai
• Shame gives exultation its purpose, and exultation gives shame its reward – Lin
• People do not understand the truly fantastic effort required in the corruption of a simple man. And the more simple the man, the more the effort it requires – Didier
• News tells you what people did. Gossip tells you how much they enjoyed it – Didier
• Only a wicked man can derive benefits from good works. A good man, on the other hand, would simply be worn out and bad tempered – Didier
• When we act, even with the best of our intentions, when we interfere with the world, we always risk a new disaster that mightn’t be our making, but that wouldn’t occur without our action – Lin
• Some of the worst wrongs were caused by people who tried to change things – Karla
• Fear and guilt are the dark angels that haunt rich men – Khader Bhai
• Despair and humiliation haunt the poor – Lin
• Trouble is the only property that poor people are allowed to own – Johnny Cigar
• Love seldom concerns itself with what we know or with what’s true – Lin
• The world is run by one million evil men, ten million stupid men, and a hundred million cowards – Abdul Ghani (how true!)
• Nations neglect no men more shamefully than the heroes of their wars – Abdul Ghani
• You are not a man until you give your love, truly and freely, to a child. And you are not a good man until you earn love, truly and freely, of a child in return – Khader Bhai
• Optimism is the first cousin of love, and it’s exactly like love in 3 ways: it’s pushy, it has no real sense of humor, and it turns up where you least expect it – Lin
• The sane man is simply a better liar than the insane man – Khader Bhai
• Fate has every power over us, but two. Fate cannot control our free will and fate cannot control lie. Men lie, to themselves more than to others, and others more often than they tell the truth. But fate doesn’t lie – Khader Bhai
• The truth is found more often in music, than it is in books of philosophy – Khader Bhai
• Good doctors have at least three things in common: they know how to observe, they know how to listen and they are very tired – Lin
• Suffering is the way we test our love, especially for God – Khader Bhai
• Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end that’s all there is: love and it’s duty, sorrow and it’s truth, In the end that’s all we have – Lin
• Friendship is also a kind of medicine, and the markets for it too are sometimes black – Lin
• There is no reason good enough to make us fight with each other – Qasim Ali
• Justice is a judgment that is both fair and forgiving. Justice is not done until everyone is satisfied, even those who offend us and must be punished by us. Justice is not the only way we punish those who do wrong. It is the way we try to save them – Qasim Ali
• Poverty and pride are devoted blood brothers until one, always and inevitably, kills the other – Lin
• Nothing grieves more deeply or pathetically than one half of a great love that isn’t meant to be – Didier
• One of the ironies of courage, and the reason why we prize it so highly, is that we find it easier to be brave for someone else than we do for ourselves alone- Lin
• There’s no meanness too spiteful or too cruel when we hate someone foe all the wrong reasons – Didier
• Any Indian man will tell you that although love might not have invented in India, it was certainly perfected there.
• We usually do, something worse than we can imagine is stalking us, and set to pounce. Fate’s way of beating us in a fair fight is to give us warnings that we hear, but never heed
• Mistakes are like bad loves, the more you learn from them, the more you wished they’d never happened – Karla
• Silence is the tortured man’s revenge – Lin
• Prisons are the temples where devils learn to pray – Lin
• In prisons, a man rations his smiles because predatory men see smiling as a weakness, weak men see it as an invitation, and prison guards see it as a provocation to some new torment – Lin
• Every virtuous act has some dark secret in its heart and every risk that we take contains a mystery that can’t be solved – Khader Bhai
• The only victory that counts in prison, is survival – Lin
• Guilt is the hilt of the knife that we use on ourselves, and love is often the blade; but its worry that keeps the knife sharp, and worry that gets most of us, in the end – Lin
• You can never tell how much badness is in a man until you see him smile (a very nice thought, indeed)
• Despotism despises nothing so much as righteousness in its victims – Lin
• If you turn your heart as a weapon, you always end up using it on yourself – Lin
• Gold fires the eyes with a different kind and color of greed. Money’s almost always just a means to an end; but, for many men, gold is an end in itself, and their love for it is the kind that can give love a bad name – Lin
• Happiness is a myth. It was invented to make us buy things – Karla
• Redemption’s climb is steepest if the good we did is soiled with secret shame
• The effect, no matter how skilfully achieved, is always born in the artist’s intuition. And intuition can’t be taught.
• We can deny the past, but we can’t escape the torment. The past is a speaking shadow that keeps pace with the truth of what we are, step for step, until we die – Lin
• It’s okay if we all learned what we should all learn, the first time round, we wouldn’t need love at all – Karla
• Pity is the one part of love that asks for nothing in return and because of that, every act of pity is an act of prayer – Lin
• Black money runs through the finger faster than the legal, hard-earned money. If we can’t respect the way we earn it, money has no value. If we can’t use it ti make life better for our families and loved ones, money has no purpose – Lin (again one of my fav quotes )
• I think wisdom is over-rated. Wisdom is just cleverness with all the guts kicked out of it. I’d rather be clever than wise, any day – Didier
• There’s a kind of luck that’s much more than being in the right place at the right time, a kind of inspiration that’s not much more that doing the right thing in the right way, and both only happen when you empty your heart of ambition, purpose and plan; when you give yourself, completely, to the golden, fate-filled moment.
• The soul has no culture. The soul has no nations. The soul has no color or accent or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has it’s moment of truth and sorrow, the soul can’t be stilled.
• One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek for it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow.
• The only force more ruthless and cynical than the business of big politics is the politics of big business – Didier.

These are some of the quotes that I have jotted down in my quote book while reading the book. However, there a few more quotes that I’ve highlighted in the book itself and I’d be writing them soon. Do comment if you like any of these quotes or come up with your own list of quotes from your fav book.

PS: I’ll be writing a review on Shantaram soon. It was an awesome read. And I urge everyone reading this post to read the book as well.

Guzaarish Review

Guzaarish :

Adolescence

I was eating paani-puri at a local thela when suddenly I got a call from an unknown number. I put down the saucer and attended the call. A strange voice asked me to come down to the police station as I had skipped a traffic signal in the city and I carried no license. I was shocked, how could someone call me for skipping a traffic signal? Everybody in the town does that. And even if they have noted down the vehicle number in the dim light of the night, the registration details drawn out of the database would clearly indicate my father’s mobile number and not mine. Then how in Devil’s name did someone get my number? And how did he know that I wasn’t carrying a license? I was completely at shock and started to apologize without even knowing whom I was speaking to. Then all of a sudden I heard a boisterous laugh burst out from the caller’s side. Somebody was making a fool our of me. I couldn’t recognize the voice. Later he confessed who he was and I laughed out with such an extreme joy that even the paani-poori guy was taken aback with my excitement.

It was an old friend of mine who was playing a prank on me. We’d studied in the same school till 10th standard. He asked me to come down to Delhiwala Sweet shop. It’s not a hangout place as such, but it is an important landmark in the city and everyone knows about it. I went to the shop to see what was he looking like, coz I hadn’t seen him in like 8 years. There he was, along with 2 more guys from my class. As soon as I approached the venue, they all started to make funny faces to tease me regarding that phone call. After a while, I too gave in and that short coincident get together turned out to be a memorable one as the school time scandals of Javed and Khalid started to unleash. I had almost forgotten everyone after going out of the school as I had other big plans in my mind and as there were no means of communication in those days to be in contact with the old guys. I’d lost all my contacts with school friends and now I truly regret that.

Those were some really sweet memories. We kept chatting for an hour or so about the whereabouts of other friends and then came the hottest topic of the day. It was about our Physics teacher.

Almost every one from my class had a teenage crush on her. Everyone tried their best to impress her in the class. Some of them by wishing her Good Mornings and Good Evenings every now and then and some others by staring at her continuously without blinking their eyes off. I, on the other hand, tried some sober techniques. I tried to get good grades in her subject; told her about the latest achievements and discoveries in physics; and pointed out her mistakes, at times, to make her know what kind of a perfection-lover guy I was. But none of them worked out. Alas! However, as I see it now, at least I made a nice attempt and I’m sure she loved me for my honesty and my dedication towards understanding physics as a young student and for my effort in the exams to stand out at the top of the class. But then one day we came to know that she was engaged to a NRI guy and was about to get married. Anarchy prevailed in the class and all the students were upset. After all, it was their first pseudo-break-up . Their first crush was getting married to a bloody NRI. There were even fights among some group of students who thought that thinking about the teacher was their own prerogative.

I mean, can you believe that? I had no notion about that but that little get together unveiled these facts and I couldn’t but resist myself from being awed at listening to these scandals.

A friend in that group maintains a database of all the scandals that had happened during and after the school time and starts narrating them whenever there is a company to hear to him. As usual, he started narrating the sexy school time scandals and my memory kept going back to those adolescent school days when I didn’t know what made women different from men, why is there an attraction between these two sexes and what drives the impulse to such an attraction. That was the time when I had no idea what I was going to do with my life;  no idea how to talk to the opposite sex(as I had studied in a boys school); and no idea, whatsoever, of what porn was.

Well that’s how I was, and I guess that’s how everyone at that age were like. But later on we have developed and we came to know of all these things and we too, like others, were thrown into the web of conscience to find our own way. And the happiness in being ignorant had lost; the happiness in being shy towards the opposite sex had vanished; the happiness in being adolescent had disappeared.

No matter how much I think about being adolescent again, I’d never have such an opportunity again. But given a chance, I’d definitely like to go sit in those classrooms with all those idiot friends of mine and attend the class of my physics teacher.

At the end of our conversation, I could see a happiness in everyone’s smiles but I could even see the numbness in their eyes. A numbness created by the nostalgia and a strong craving to re-attend the school. We promised each other to keep in touch and to organize a get together of the whole batch soon. After giving a tight hug, we parted our ways.

You too might have had an interesting time in your adolescent days, if so, do write a post of your own adolescent days and paste your link in the comments!

Shit Happens

I wrote a comment on an obscene video on facebook from my mom’s fb account. FML (