Blog moved away from blogger

Wordpress' features pulled me towards it and long before I moved to wordpress and forgot to update here. My personal blog is here. professional here, company blog here and I am guest author at techprone and desicritics.
Just updated in case you landed up here somehow. Sorry for any troubles it may have caused.

Cheers!

Abhinav

Where have you been Sahai ?

Its been quite a long time since I posted something here. I have been into writing movie reviews, narrating some life experiences, talking social, but I cant even remember when did I turn up to blogger last !
Why is it so ? Sahai has been no where since quite a long time now. He's not made any useful contribution to college activities, not been a part of Freed, not been to blogging, not playing cricket and not visiting sector 10 (my favorite timepass place) as well. It seems Sahai has taken a break, break from life. He's been getting calls from various places, for help, for support, for aish, but amazingly he's not answering any of those calls. All this is acceptable but whats worse is that if someone asks "why", he has no answer. That's what hurts me the most.
He's doing what he made his tag line. "Sleeping with open eyes". He never bears unjustice, cannot bear anything going wrong in his surroundings, but since a month, he's been doing exactly that. Yesterday for a change, he did something which made people think that this is HIM. Today I am writing on behalf of him, hope he recovers quickly. He has to become responsible again, starting taking up tasks and all in all fulfill his heart. Let's see how much time does he take to recover. Get well soon Sahai!

Beautiful direction can overcome a weak storyline

Before even entering the theater I knew what would I be feeling at the end of the movie and what would my friends be thinking. Quite obviously I was fascinated by the movie while my friends, barring one, were shouting like anything.That was primarily because of the pace of the movie rather than the movie as a whole.
Gandhi, My Father is a film showing the other side of Gandhi and thus endorsing the fact in which the gen-next believes, Gandhi was not a "mahatma".
The film is a great portrait of a fairly weak storyline which shows Gandhi's eldest son, Harilal, quite a foolish person who always got washed away in the people's rain and ended up making up his life a total failure and in the process losing his wife and kids to poverty.
Though the story has nothing much to be told about, the film deserves much applause for the way it has depicted the Gandhian period. The actors, especially the Gandhi husband and wife have throughout managed to look the age they are actually depicting, right from age 20 to the same number deducted from 100. I must mention the make up artistes have done a remarkably wonderful job. Full marks to them for making people look like they should be. While Anil Kapoor makes a significant debut in the film as a director, I would say it would be better if he'd continue as a director only in the industry.

Naya Daur.....really something's new !

If Lagaan had your heart beats rolling over then this one quite nearly does it again. Or in fact I should say this one did it much before than Lagaan did. If Lagaan showed an ambitious young lad not ready to pay unnecessary lagaan or part away with his land then Dilip Kumar refused to part away with his way of earning. Both the leads showed the Gaonwalahs to revolt against the suppressing, the British in one case and the cruel Jeevan, a shrewd businessman,in the older version.
Well the movie looks truly awesome in colour and if you have even little knowledge of how it is done, then I guess you can understand that it took 3 years and 3 crores of rupees to bring it into the present format of course it also includes the cost of converting the music it into the Dolby surround sound. I guess it might be the first color old movie which does not bear the tag line "In Eastman Colour" and having the caption in dolby digital surround sound. And since the songs were very good and never seem like getting old, it was worth spending 150 bucks and watching the movie with my parents.
Well the basic point made is that technology is being used in India, with some seriously good amount of hard work put in. Only thing is that it does not reap in the benefits it should earn. Let's see if it picks up sometime later. While I moved out of the theater I had only one question in mind, "What would be the next technology that we would see being implemented and then movies of our generation being re-produced with, maybe 3-d effects, who knows sometime 25 years from now I would be watching Dhoom-2 again with Hrithik in some 3-d stunts".

Do you wanna partner ??....Yes, I do want..

Well a David Dhawan movie after such a long time with his favourite Govinda and Salman meant it all the way that the film would be worth a watch atleast. And thats what iy proved to be. Though never had I thought that I would be shelling out and hundred and twenty bucks for a Govinda movie but I thought the other way round of doing it for the other two or infact 4 I should say, that includes David, Salman and the two beautiful ladies who have looked even more marvellous than ever before. Well after seeing Katrina in Namastey London I had thought that she can't look better than this, and yes she hasn't looked better but yes she's no less also. As far as the other lady is concerned I must say if anyone missed the Miss Universe paegent when she won then you have another chance of doing so. Yes Lara has looked as gorgeous as she looked at the title night. The best thing about her was that if she looked damn sexy in the western clothes then she looked a perfect dreamwife in the Indian outfits. I had always been admiring her beauty especially in the Indian clothes but recently day after day it seems she's grown even more amazing.
Well before I start sailing in her praise I must admit the movie is full of nonsense comedy, a thing which we've missed from some time now. It's for us to put our mind away and stop thinking and just laugh for a little over two hour movie. Though Govinda, as usual, has over-reacted in most scenes but I guess that's what he does best and so no complains about it. Salman is busy showing of his well toned body, probably he's done some extra exercises for this one but he manages to carry it of very well on his spanky cars and the bikes too. And one thing more one could note in him was his much improved dance, though he's thanked Govinda for it but yes it seems Salman has got away with those lazy dances and performed his steps very well. Rajpal Yadav, true to expectations, has done some idiotic stuff and well supported by the background music as well. I you remember the Fanaa kid, then there's news that he's done a cute job once again, helping both the men get their or as they said, "My love".
Getting back to ladies, since Bollywood includes them for the song and dance numbers most of the time, Katrina's been there for that only. Lara has been asked to show some of her acting skills, which ofcourse she's done to perfection. Don't forget to take a look at her expressions especially.
I think actions speek louder than words so its better to watch the movie for yourself rather than wasting your time reading this. Go, find your partner !!!

The ride of my life...courtesy Yo-Bikes

It was a bright sunny day and I was busy sleeping when Rahul gave me a wake up call and for the thrid sunday in a row promised to meet in the evening. The last two sundays he had kept me waiting on and on so this time I was in my usual ghar wala attire, calmly watching Guru, for the fifth time, with my parents when suddenly I heard the doorbell. It was five in the evening and I was almost shocked to see Rahul at my gate. The shock was because of two things, primarily because he was there, finally, and secondly because he was complete one hour before time. Anyways, I welcomed him with as much surprise as with happiness.
He even made a call to Maddy, who had to accompany us, from my house trying to prove that he should be on time at his place unless Amit, who was to meet us nearby, delayed us. After having tea etc when we thought of moving, you could hear cries of Oh Rahul......as he had lost the keys again, not a big deal for him as he was quite accustomed to it. Fortunately or unfortunately, he had left the keys in his bike itself, as we figured out later. I had the least of hints of which bike he had got. It was when we were searching for the keys then he told me that he had got a Yo-Bike. On enquiring, I was told that it was a battery operated two wheeler. "Yaar, fir ye to ye badi risky hai yar", was the first thing I uttered on hearing. Then he went on detailing its qualities, "it gets full charged in a night's span and then runs for 75 kilometres at a stretch, and in Kanpur you can't drive more than that in a day, so its good enough and not at all risky". "Hmm, in that case thik hai", I said. "Aur han tum daro mat kyonki main abhi bhi usse charge par laga kar aaya hu", he said proudly.
When I reached downstairs, I broke out into an ocean of laughter as I saw the bike. The manufacturers had forgot mentioning that it was meant for a single person only. I was still wondering how could it carry 160 kgs, as Rahul went on in continuation singing praises for the bike. He confirmed this as he told me that, he and his father had made a ride on it for quite a long distance the previous night, right from Panki to Barra, Kanpurites can figure the distance, crossing even a bridge. He asked me to sit to which I responded "Abe start to karo " and when he said "abe start hai, baitho", he had me in total amazement. There was absolutely no noise. Anyways as I sat, he pulled the accelerator and the bike infact the Yo-Bike moved, leaving me completely bedazzled. It attained a speed of 35 kph in no time but when its speed stopped increasing I put up the question up for Rahul and he emphatically answered "Are ye iski max speed hai". And all I could say was "Waaaaaaaaah".
Then we met Amit and I thought of moving onto his bike, a new Discover, but Rahul asked me to be with him instead. I fulfilled his wish and by the time we reached Maddy's place I said only one thing to him, "Rahul, ye bike lane ki himmat tum hi kar sakte ho", and I seriously meant that. We picked up Maddy from his place and then went to where Rahul had promised us to take, since a month, the Mascar Ghats. Maddy and Amit had never been there, so Rahul asked them to follow him, much to their embarassment. It was my second visit to the place, the first being on the previous night itself with Prateek and Yasharth, my school friends. We spent some time there and then planned to go to mall road, hardly 2 km from the ghats to have something, as Rahul was proudly said "maine tum logo ko apni placement treat nahi di hai to aaj wahi samjho", but I had never thought that it would take half an hour to travel such a petite distance.
As soon as we made our way back, at the first turn itself, the bike started to slow down. I got a hint straightaway and I started shouting on the road itself "Abe marva diya yaar". I asked him to switch the light off which increased the speed by a small but considerable amount. I straightaway started firing ....... on Rahul and he again made a proud statement "abe yar battery khatam bhi ho jaye to ye dus ki speed se chalti rehti hai", another false promise which he had made in the bike's praise. We asked Amit to reach the mall road and wait for us. Barely had we travelled one kilometer when I saw a cycle-wallah overtaking us and glaring us right from behind till the time he completely crossed us and in the mean time all I did was..... Laugh like hell. And Rahul, the proud driver had only one sentence on his mouth, "Abe Sahai mat haso be" and said it so sarcastically that anyone's heart could have melted. Then we had a race with a cycle rickshaw carrying three passengers, and you won't believe it, we won ! A little further and we started hearing voices which said, "There should be more battery, there should be more battery", coming from the bike itself. And then it happened, the rickshaw we had defeated earlier, was now overtaking us and this time the three guys travelling on it were laughing like hell. I accompanied them and this time even Rahul didn't have any other option but to ..... L.A.U.G.H. And we burst into a huge roar of laughter on the road itself.
The battery had virtually died when we reached phoolbagh and now I got off the bike and started walking along side Rahul, yeah he was driving and me walking. I guess you can understand at what rocket speed Rahul must be driving. He was doing for what he's well known in hostel, driving in SLOW MOTION (his nickname in hostel). We reached a restaurant, me reaching first, hehe, not because of his speed but because he had to wait at the red light where, I must appreciate the guy for his guts, he emphatically explanied the qualities of Yo-Byke to onlookers who couldn't resist asking him "yar tumhari bike me engine kahan hai ?".
We had a great treat from Rahul at the restaurant, the only good thing that had happened that evening. And then we decided to move. First it was decided to place his bike at a nearby place, Amit's relative's home, but on realizing the parking there did not have a charging point we had no option but to take it along. Rahul confidently said it would reach Maddy's place easily, another false statement Rahul had made that night. So it was decided that Rahul should leave with Amit and me and Maddy would drive his bike to Maddy's home. We were just being Rahul's good friend at that moment. While they left in a flash, it took us almost half an hour to cover a distance of just over a kilometre and reach bada chauraha. It was there we realized that it was counting its last breadths and refused to move. First we thought of charging it at some place but, as expected, no shopkeeper allowed us to do so, even at the cost of cold-drinks that too two in number. Then I recalled one more quality Rahul had banked upon. "Abe charging point, petrol pump se zyada asaan hota hai dhundna, har paan ki dukaan par hota hai", to which I had only replied in "abe paan wale kab se bijli ka bill bharne lage? welcome to Kanpur beta, yaha katiya se kaam chalta hai aur mujhe nahi lagta ki koi tumhe charge karne dega".
Now with no one allowing to do so, I made a call to a friend hoping to charge at his place, but later we realized that it wasn't a viable option either as there was no point in dragging the bike and then charging for merely half an hour, as it was already 9.30 by then. So first it was decided that I should leave while Maddy would himself drive as far it would go and then load it on a rickshaw to his place. But then suddenly his mood changed and he made a call to load it there itself. We booked a cycle rickshaw in twenty five rupees after some bargain and after explaining that the bike was actually not more than a cycle as it did not have an engine or petrol tank or anything of that sort. At first he laughed but then agreed to go. We loaded the immaculate Yo-Bike on the rickshaw and then both of us climbed on it from behind. People travelling by rickshaws must have imagined by now how the scene would be. On the way we were stared by many people crossing by which only led to Rahul getting all the abuses he deserved for his karnama that night, but it was when another rickshaw, carrying a couple of laughing guys passed, that Maddy uttered, "Abe has kya rahe ho, jab tumhara bhi Rahul Gupta jaisa koi dost hoga tab samjhoge".

The irony of using a broadband

When I packed my bags from Ghaziabad everyone put up the same question in front of me, “When are you coming back?” When I came home around a month back I was almost sure that I would be doing nothing in these two months time. With a dial up connection I was sure that I would be away from the world of spiders, I am talking about the World Wide Web or the internet as most people would call it. I knew it would be difficult to survive, because for a person who is so addicted to net that he changes his life cycle and lives it according to US standards, staying away from net for three complete months was going to be a huge in fact a Herculean task. I always knew that was impossible. The first day I was here, evening I was out at the café, no not the coffee one but the obvious one. Anyways, within a few days I thought that was it and with the help of my sister persuaded my father to shell out 1500 bucks and that too for just a month. My father spends money quite carefully, he simply said if that’s what you really need, then have it. I knew that it was not the ultimate requirement but to survive at home ….. just couldn’t help it too. I went to the sify distributor and came back happily that the next morning I would be back to normal business; little did I know that the coming month was going to be the biggest nightmare of my life.
Two people came to my house, one, the marketing guy and the second whom I assumed to be the technical person. The tech person took out an RJ45 connector from his bad put the wire in it and quite quickly I got the sign reading “Local Area Connection is now connected”. I was glad that this happened so quickly. Then as soon as the, so called technical person, sat on the computer chair and took the mouse in his hand I knew he was having even less knowledge than the girls of my college(not to hurt anyone’s sentiments if by chance you happen to be an RKGIT girl). Within a minute I asked him to move out and let me handle the system. I asked “what do want to do now?, you want to make a new connection ?” “Yes“, he said. And as soon as I opened the “make new connection wizard”, he had a question mark on his face. I knew this was no to be done. Then I came across a paper he was holding and when I saw that, I knew what was to be done. I opened the lan settings and entered the ip address and the dns settings. I said “yahi karna tha na?” happily he said, “haan haan”. Then he gave me a cd to install the sify broadband client. No problems with that. Then he said now you can connect. I connected to the internet but the internet explorer said, “Check your proxy settings” and then without asking him I put in the lan settings which he gave me and then retried. Same answer surprised me. I asked him why that was though I knew that it would be of no use, he said “Aap bhaiya ko call karlo”. He called him and fiddled with his bhaiya for 2 minutes before I took over the phone and told him what I had done and asked him that what port should I use for the proxy server, at first even he was baffled but then he showed great character and proudly said, “aap settings me jakar restore defaults kar dijiye”. Even he knows nothing, I understood in a flash. I tried to use the “direct connection to the internet” and thankfully for me it worked. Without saying anything more I hung up the phone, paid him the requisite amount and said goodbye to him as I was already late for a party, my placement party for my school friends. Hardly realized that this was the worst I made from my father’s money. Before leaving I even took his bhaiya’s number in case I have some problem. Giving me the number he said in a very confident manner, “waise aapko koi dikkat aaegi nahi”.
Later I returned that night and logged in, happily checked my mails, scraps and then went to bed. In the meanwhile I even clicked on to the gtalk icon but it didn’t respond and I said “forget it” and turned my system off.
The next couple of days I saw some operations malfunctioning but I never took it seriously until one day my system refused to start. I knew something was serious and that most probably it’s virus. Tried some ways but couldn’t help it. I tried everything but in the end was left with no other option than formatting my system, thus losing all my data…..really a great blow. Anyways I called the “bhaiya” and told him my misery citing the reason as his network for all the mess. He disagreed saying his network was perfectly fine and that my system was infected. No point in discussing with such people I reconnected and within some hours I found the virus again. That was it. I went to his shop and shouted about his problem. To my surprise he simply denied it again. Then I thought it was of no use, came back, installed Linux and thought that it might work. As expected, it didn’t work. I went to his shop again. This time the bhaiya was not there, a calm, cool looking black person was standing and said in a voice as if he was the owner of the shop, “bhaiya nahi hai kya kaam hai bolo”. Well, I said, can you tell me how to run the net on Linux? “kya”, “net chalana hai ? to ye kholo”, opened in a browser the page where the sify software download was available and pointed me to the line mentioning the client for windows. I said, “maine ye wala kiya hai”, pointing to the Linux client and the response he gave me was not shocking as I had expected this. He proudly said to me, “humne yaha dhai sau (250) connection diye hain, aajtak kisiko is wale ki zarurat nahi padi, aap anokhe ho kya?”. I said “aajtak kisine Linux use nahi kari hogi” , “liee-niks, ye kya hai, main yaha ka network sambhalta hu, sabka kaam is pehle wale se chal jata hai aapka bhi isise chalega”. Next moment I knew that it would my fault if I talked to him any further, so I opted for waiting for the owner, the bhaiya or the distributor. I put up the same question in front of him and as expected even he didn’t know it. But what he did was gave me assurance that he will find out and let me know soon. Its been 3 weeks since then but I haven’t fond the answer. Some people claiming to be sify technical team even had this question fired from me only to give me the same answer, “we’ll find out and let you know soon sir”.
The next problem I faced was within a couple of days only. My system started showing the network cable unplugged. I called him again and he sent his network engineer. First he tried to look for some problem in the system but when he couldn’t find any then he understood it was the connector that was troubling me. Within a few minutes he replaced it and we tried to connect. Then when I tried to connect it asked me to do install an anti virus. That was it. On asking he told me that his bhaiya had accepted that there was virus on his network and now he’s put an anti virus check for each system. My point was proved.
Since then there have been one problem which continues to haunt me apart from a single instance when I tried to login and the client gave the message, “you are already logged in”. Baring that instance, whenever I not online its because of the single problem that my system can’t connect to the gateway server. Too embarrassing, as the ping screen that shows “Request timed out” creates a desire in me to thrash the distributor, the bhaiya as whenever almost 90% of the times when that problem arose, his mobile is switched off and his shop closed. After 8 pm there’s no way I can contact him and more often than not that’s when the problem arises. Sometimes I’ve even tried to call the sify local customer care but they can’t help it either. The reason for the problem is the local network which is loaded with viruses.
All this makes me feel pity on the condition of the technical knowledge of these people. No one knows a single thing and claim that they are network engineers of technical team members. I think the Jagriti technical team which comprised mostly of second year students had more knowledge than these idiots. Forget the people who are using it because they even might not know the fact that the government of India has made it clear that a service can be called a broadband service only if they supply a speed of 256 k bps or more. While the connection I am using is being used by most people here and I guess none might know this clause. But they claim to be using BROADBAND service and are quite happy about it.
Its 15 today and my connection expires on 18. With the great services my distributor has provided I am in no mood to extend his worthy services for another month and spend half of the time abusing him rather than using the net. As far as the bhaiya and his network team is concerned, I had only I thing to say to them after which they could only keep their faces hanging down. I proudly said, “Pehli bar kisi engineer se tumhara pala pada hai”

A 2 day star or a real hero ??

Ever since we've heard that nasal "oooo......", the famous track from the movie Ashiq Banaya Aapne there's been no looking back for the man with the cap, Himesh Reshamiya. The immaculate success and his immense popularity has prompted me to write about him and start a sort of debate. Debate because I started to compare him with some of the other well known singers.
I was wondering how many people know Sonu Nigam or that he acted in a film? Yes and that bombed at the box office like anything. He did not dare to act again on screen. He even tried to be a pop singer, hip hop kind but didn't succeed in that either. His songs became famous especially the Deewana tracks but that fame died out. He got a few songs but as time passed on the quality of songs he has got has just gone down. Now no one knows recognizes that "this" song has been sung by sonu.
On the contrary, everyone recognizes Himesh's songs. Everywhere you can hear his songs, be it a passing car, a DJ party or a stationed house, he's everywhere. The latest testimony of the fact that he's a star is the phenomenal success of his movie. Its been declared a smash hit and box office collections have proved that it actually is a hit. What more to say, I wen to watch awarapan last sunday, I must say I wasn't surprised to see that forget awarapan, no tickets were available for the Himesh movie. Though everyone criticized his acting skills but the movie has done awesome business. Most of the people criticize him, saying he's a nasal singer but in the end it his him whom people listen to. So in the end its him as the winner. He has more fans anywhere in the country than anybody else, so isn't he the next star ?
I don't know how many are his critics but his fan following is awesome. I don't say I am a big fan of his but I don't deny that I like most of the songs sung by him. Great tracks and yes namastey london are my favourite. A star is born but let's see if he survives or fades in the dark like sonu nigam or abhijit sawant did .... Its time to say wait and watch....