Shantaram

Reading as a hobby has slowly and surely re-ignited in me. If I look back over past 1 year of my life - various circumstances have brought me closer to books. I enjoy reading them and even anticipate reading them. I often browse Amazon.com for interesting titles and came across this book. It attracted my attention specially thanks to its unique title. The book description said the book is about a foreigner's life in the streets of Mumbai. Mumbai still being my favorite city - this single fact was more than enough for me to order it. When I got the book in mail, I was kinda disappointed looking at its size. Its a huge huge book - almost 950 pages and as a I result I procrastinated reading it for a while. But finally I started reading it and once I started reading it - I never wanted to stop. Its a very intruiging book. Most important of all, the story has traced the current events of 1980s Mumbai and India vert effectively.

I am not writing a review on the book as I simply love this book and I don't think I can be objective about it. So all those who are reading this - all I can say - simply get hold of this one and read it from start to end. I promise you will love it and you might as well fall in love with Mumbai - all over again - like in my case :). 

A movie is in the making based on this movie. Johnny Depp has the rights and movie was slated for a 2009 release but its delayed due to ongoing economical crunch. Mira Nair was supposed to direct it but she is not any more. Amitabh Bacchan was slated to play a very important part but even that looks very unlikely at this juncture. But still, assuming that the movie is made on it - I am going to list the actors - according to me - who should play various characters in this movie. So here I go. Enjoy :)....

Lin - Johnny Depp or Christian Bale

Karla - Natalie Portman

Prabhakar - Irrfan Khan

Abdul Khader Khan - Boman Irani

Abdullah Taheri - Abhishek Bacchan

Vikram - Saif Ali Khan

Madam Zhou - Meryl Streep

Johnny Cigar - Rajpal Yadav

Nazeer - Sunil Shetty

Khaled Ansari - Paresh Rawal

Abdul Ghani - Gulshan Grover

Salman Mastaan - Rahul Bose

Sanjay - Jimmy Shergil

There are several other important characters but I haven't gone that far in my imagination. Looking forward to the real movieto come out soon.

Cheers!!!

Why do I love my country?

The question itself has the answer - my country - it is my country and I love it more than any other country in the world.

India has a lot of positives and may be some more negatives; but then every country in the world has those - some or other - more or less.
But I love the fact that we are growing.
- We have grown at a rate of 9% for past 5 years which has not happened for any other country in the world.
- Infrastructure in our cities is going under massive restructurings.
- Our literacy rate is better than ever and we are making progress.
- Our highway infrastructure is getting better.
- We think our politicians are still corrupt but at the same time we know that at least some of them are genuinely honest.

But at the same time 30-40 % of us live below poverty line - they may not be able to manage even 2 meals in a day.
- Our cities are flooding with more and more shopping malls and sky scrapers but at the same time number of slums is ever increasing as well.
- More and more people are migrating towards cities - which are more and more congested and polluted.
- Child labor is uncontrollable and beggars are sprawling all over.

There are many more similar challenges facing us and I am sure we will get there one day when this list of challenges will get smaller and smaller. So in spite of all these negatives, I still love my country - because it’s my country.

I consider that our biggest weakness - our ever growing population - has become our biggest strength in today's time. The outsourcing wave - be it IT, call centers or anything else has contributed significantly towards the nation's growth in past few years. As a result - indirectly - our spending power has increased many folds and as a result we are an ever growing market. This - I believe - is and going to be one of the fundamental reasons why the world cannot ignore us.

I am writing this just minutes after several bomb blasts have rocked our capital. Several people have been killed and many more been injured. I am deeply saddened because of this - specially having watched the movie Mumbai Meri Jaan very recently I can almost visualize the scenes in Delhi right now and my heart grieves. I pray to God with all the sincerity that there be an end to all these acts of heinous crimes. Hey dear God, please give the people affected by this blast strength to bear their losses and most important of all - please give our government some wise thoughts to take strong action for preventing such incidents in future and catch the ones behind these blasts.

Hollywood To Bollywood

I have watched so many movies in past 10 odd months - both American and Hindi. Every once in a while I stumble upon an American movie and I think I have seen a similar Hindi movie and vice-verse. In most of those(I can say all but will stick to most) cases, the Hindi movie is a copy/inspiration of the American movie. I am going to compile the list and add the tag Hollywood to Bollywood for all of them.

Here goes my first list:

Woodstock Villa(2008) - Vertigo(1958)
Anamika(2008) - Rebecca(1940)
Shaurya (2008) - A Few Good Men(1992)
Munnabhai M.B.B.S. - One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest(1975) (Yes, even I coudn't believe it)
Mann (1999) - An Affair To Remember(1954)
Akele Hum Akele Tum(1995) - Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)
Chori Chori Chupke Chupke(2001) - Pretty Woman(1990)
Aitraaz(2004) - Disclosure(1994)
Pyaar Ka Saaya(1991) - Ghost(1990)
Partner(2007) - Hitch(2005)
God Tussi Great Ho(2008) - Bruce Almighty(2003)
Mere Yaar Ki Shaadi Hain - My Best Friend's Wedding(1997)
Kaante(2002) - Reservoir Dogs(1992) and The Usual Suspects(1995)
Chocolate(2005) - The Usual Suspects(1995)
Musafir(2004) - U Turn(1997)

I am sure I will be able to add a lot to this list in future.

Open-source and Communism

Most of you reading this may want to ridicule me saying what an eerie thought!!! I ridiculed myself too and ended up deleting my draft post on this that I had started writing sometime last week. Finally, I decided to write about it.

Definition of communism: Communism is a socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of a classless, stateless society based on common ownership of the means of production and property in general.
Open-source is also similar. People work together towards building an open-source software and they get rewarded for the same. They use other open-source software and at the same time their software may be used by others. This way they have a common goal regardless of their individuality and they have a joint ownership of the software. The theory is that this collaborative process encourages innovation and decreases bugs by increasing the number of people with a stake in the project.

I consider open-source to be a fast developing, prominent, cost-effective and efficient force in today's world. Similar to any software project, adequate planning and management is essential for the success of any open-source project/product. Open-source promotes platform independence and decoupling.

Leading corporations including SAP and Microsoft have openly expressed their reservations against open-source movement. A CEO of a big corporation even went on to name open-source operating system Linux "a cancer". But companies like Red Hat, Sun and many others have not only benefited but made profits by being open-source companies. Many of us have already given up on IE and started using Firefox as their primary browser - which is again an open-source product.

I am no expert on communism and neither I am a communist nor I believe in communism more that democracy. Whether open-source is communism or not is very debatable topic; but at least they are comparable. They have similarities and share some of the fundamental principles. I currently work on an open-source project and that may have influenced my thought process. I am a firm believer of open-source and looking forward to use(and build) many more efficient open-source software in future.

Cheers !!!

Tu....... Meri Jaan Hai

I came across this video song - Tu Meri Jaan Hai - on youtube today and have watched it at least 15 times since then - that is in less then 5 hours. Somehow it stuck an instant connection. Everything is so good about this video song. Kailash Kher's voice is so divine - makes me want to listen to it again and again. The video is shot partly in Golden Temple, Amritsar and partly in Fatehpur Sikri. The whole story depicted in video song is beautiful. The song is a prayer to the Almighty from a lover's heart. Religious rituals are depicted nicely, specially the dhaga ritual that is done at Fatehpur Sikri dargah. I went back in the time when I visited Agra - Fatehpur Sikri with mummy-pappa - aahh. its been long time since then. I guess it was around sometime when I was in college - don't remember the exact date and time though.

Golden temple looks so beautiful. I was reading user comments under the video on youtube and someone had posted following comment - "The Golden Temple is still looking as beautiful as ever. The blessings of the Waheguru keep its structure timeless" - I second his or her thoughts - so true. I think its the spiritual me which is really enjoying this video. I guess reading Many Lives Many Masters has affected my thinking.

I watched 1976 Oscar winning movie called One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I was told about this movie by someone long back but I guess I was not too keen on watching such an old movie then. But after watching Casablanca other day; I decided to try it. Upon knowing that Jack Nicholson is the lead actor, I was looking forward to this movie. Its a great movie and I completely enjoyed watching it. However, I didn't like the end. I also watched Kramer Vs Kramer today. Its a 1979 movie and Aamir Khan starrer Akele Hum Akele Tum is a scene to scene copy of it. Also, another Aamir Khan starrer Mann is a scene to scene plus dialogue to dialogue copy of 1954 classic An Affair To Remember. I feel both originals are better than their respective copies. As I will be watching more and more american movies in future, I am sure many secrets of Indian movies shall be revealed to me. Looking forward to that.

Well, its a Sunday night and that means tomorrow is Monday - the get back to work day. So I will try and crawl into sleep now.

Cheers !!.

The Square Root of Three

I watched Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay today. There is this poem in this movie that I simply loved it and can't resist myself from posting it on my blog. Here it goes:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m sure that I will always be
A lonely number like root three

The three is all that’s good and right,
Why must my three keep out of sight
Beneath the vicious square root sign,
I wish instead I were a nine

For nine could thwart this evil trick,
with just some quick arithmetic

I know I’ll never see the sun, as 1.7321
Such is my reality, a sad irrationality

When hark! What is this I see,
Another square root of a three

As quietly co-waltzing by,
Together now we multiply
To form a number we prefer,
Rejoicing as an integer

We break free from our mortal bonds
With the wave of magic wands

Our square root signs become unglued
Your love for me has been renewed
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What do you think !! :).

Many Lives, Many Masters

I just completed this book called Many Lives Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient, and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives. Somehow I stumbled upon this title and ordered it from Amazon a couple of months back. However, I started reading it about 2 weeks back only. It generated such an interest that I completed half the book on my first reading. Its authored by Dr. Brian L. Weiss who is a practicing psychologist in Miami Beach, FL. In software language, the book is the narration of a PoC (Proof Of Concept) about past life and re-incarnations. It proves the Bhagavad Geeta's theory about soul. The soul never dies, it only takes different forms. As a result, one should not fear death and just try to live every moment as much truthfully as possible. Do the Karma, and leave the rest on The Almighty. After reading this book, I have started looking at life and death from a different perspective all together.

The book mentions that all life forms progress from one life to another - with positives and negatives. The good deeds pay off and help a person move ahead fast to the next level of life at the same tiem bad deeds are debts that every person has to pay off in future lives. With every life, all of us make progress - more or less - it varies from soul to soul and person to person but ultimately we all progress to the ultimate level which as per Hindu mythology is referred as 'Moksha'.

A group of same souls are also likely to be born again together with each other so that they can pay off their debts towards one another. You meet some people in life and instantly feel comfortable and friendly with; where as some people you might have known for long -but still you are not very comfortable with them.

Masters are mentioned as certain souls who have been through the initial cycles of life and death and matured to a higher level as compared to we normal souls who are still at the lower level. There are various levels of masters as well - the ultimate level being The Almighty himself into whom all the souls get merged as they progress to the higheest level.

Quite a spiritual thought provoking book. It makes me feel happy about my life and re-instates my believe in truth and honesty. Do your job well and everything else will be taken care of !!!

Cheers !!

Québec and Montreal

I think I am not keeping up to posting regular entries here. I guess I have traveled a lot during past one and half month and that seem to be contributing to less blog posts. But never mind, that should be arrite as there are not too many(read any) readers for my posts as of now :).

So, I want to write about my trip to Québec City and Montreal. I like to spell Québec in french and am ignoring the spelling error given to me by the software :). Let me put some introduction about Québec first. Québec is a province in the eastern Canada. A person named Champlain found Québec City about 400 years ago and its called new France also. French is the basic language; so you are more then likely to be greeted with a Bon Jour if you are in any part of Québec. I was very happy as I was actually able to make use of whatever little French I know. As you go north in the province of Québec; french influence seems to be getting bigger and stronger and you can notice that by broken English usually spoken there. If you are in Québec City; you will feel a combination of culture of Europe and North America - mainly more of Europe and less of North America. Let me start with Québec City - its a beautiful city; probably the most beautiful place I have visited till now in whole of North America. The old city specifically is very pretty in its architecture and cultural richness. Luckily, when we reached Québec, it was the 400th anniversary celebration and there was a lot of festiveness including great food, great music including concerts and live shows. The Chatau Frontanac, the painted wall, the citadel, statue of Champlain, narrow streets of old Québec city, churches and what not. It was a wonderful expirience, a true holiday - simply fun. Coming to Montreal, the old Montreal was also very beautiful and rich in culture just like Québec city. Visiting the 1976 Olympic stadium was a once in a lifetime experience. I would certainly mention the bridge connecting Montreal to AuT 20 and AuT 15 highways - north to Québec city and south to New York state respectively, was the most scary bridge I have ever driven on :) and I have no clue why they have made it so scary :). I think enough about my trip and expirience- may be time to talk something else.

Coming to my favorite topic of movies, watched some real good movies off late. The Others, The Game and Lucky Number Slevin to name a few. I also watched two horror blend of movies lately - namely American Psycho and Haute Tension(french movie dubbed in English) - both are highly graphic. All the above movies had twist endings and the later two just rose so many questoins in my minding about their genre of film making and entertainment. Those are the kind of films that leave the viewer in thinking mode - the movies with open endings and left to people what they want to deduce. But I believe I dont like such movies with very very open endings; I dont find them entertaining enough. They leave me puzzled and I end up spending a couple of hours reading about them on imdb. But I was glad to know that director and script writer of american psycho felt that they felt the biggest failure of the movie was that it failed to convey the truth to the audience. As per them, it was not intended. Now that's honest and I admire them.

I guess thats about it for today as I conclude this post with pledge to enjoy rest of my weekend. Cheers !!.

Reunion @ Lake George. NY

It was the time to meet some old friends. We had planned a reunion; four of us - myself, Margin, Omkar and Mitesh at Lake George, NY. Lake George gets its name from a huge lake of the same name in Adirondack area of upstate New York. A typical upstate NY location, full of water and greenery - wherever your eyes would stop. We had a lot more fun time then we expected. We stayed in cottages in woods; did campfires, played antakshari and damsharads and drank lots of beer. Weather Gods blessed us with a wonderful weather for most of our stay there. We did river rafting in Sagadanka river and jet skiing in Lake George. It was so much fun meeting old pals after such a long time. I met Margin after a period of at least 2 years, Mitesh and Bijal after probably 1.5 years and Omkar after at least 6 years and at least I cherished every moment of it.

Once I was back after the vacation, I was forced to take an extra day off on Tuesday thanks to fatigue and came to know that our release was extended by a month's time. I was kinda expecting it but still didnt feel good upon knowing this. At every major release of your project, you have this feeling - that we all shall we able to make this date and it usually gets extended - but when it does - you know it was going to be extended but still you dont like it. I know that was confusing but I know that whoever is reading this , gets the crux of it so we are good.

I read on Aamir Khan's blog other day that he has started smoking giving into the tense situation he is in thanks to the release of his home production Jaane Tu... I really admire Aamir for being so frank - specially on his blog and being able to communicate this with his fans - I am sure he has won several more fans. However, one piece of advice for Aamir, dont worry about Jaane tu.. ; the music rocks and the movie looks promising as well. Believe me Aamir, we are all set for a huge blockbuster in Jaane Tu... here. Talking about movies, I must mention the movie Aamir - really an inspiring piece of work. Great direction, acting and really a movie with a message. Only one word - Thumbs Up. I cant resist from describing one more movie which I watched recently; the name of the movie is The Illusionist - starring Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti and Jessica Biel. I really loved this movie and I can probably rate this one as the most interesting period movie I have ever seen. Its set in 19th century Vienna and the end simply makes me wonder - what a movie !!!! I remember Edward Norton as a great actor from the movie Fight Club and of course - Jessica Biel - do I need to say anything here :). Paul Giamatti is a great actor too and those of you have seen the Shaymalan movie - Lady in the Water - will agree. I am going to rate The Illusionist as one of the best thrillers I have ever seen.

I would like to conclude this post with celebration of US Presidential candidate Barack Obama. I have been reading his book - The Audacity of Hope and read more then 80 odd pages today -specially those on foreign policy - and feel that if I was able to vote - I would have voted for him. To me, he seems like the perfect president - the nation of US should have; the nation of US needs. All the Best Mr. Obama !!!!!

Football Fever and KRA

Bryan told me on Friday that he has started feeling confident about making our July 1st release date. I agreed with him then; but I didnt feel so until today when I got the S2S piece finally working to my satisfaction. During my past 4-5 months in KRA - S2S and Expenses are the 2 modules which had my full involvement. Of course they have connecting pieces like S2S engine and Budget Calculations which are developed by another person in the team. I feel S2S to be specially close to me because it was my first big module in the project and I feel this module is kinda heart of the entire project. I won't talk much about the nitty-gritties of the module here but I feel its a central piece and a very important one. It has several dependencies which delayed its completion. I was more then apprehensive at several points of time during past 3 months about the complete piece and today when I got it working as expected; I am happy and relieved. Expenses on the other hand has been a pretty complex piece and very important one as well. Thus, at this juncture when both of these modules are almost complete; I have started having kinda nostalgic feeling about this entire project - remembering how I started the project in Tempe, AZ and then moved to Ithaca. I have been through some tough times not only within the project; but in my life as well. This is going to be a period of my life which I will remember forever and certainly deserves a post in my blog.


Euro '08 has started in Austria and Switzerland. I believe football is the first game I started liking after cricket. I can say my liking towards football is because of my dad. When I first started watching football with my dad; it was at the time of Italia '98 football world cup. The football games then were being shown on doordarshan; most games would start at midnight because of the time difference. When I was talking with dad over the weekend, I did share this with him and he also fondly remembered the same. It again makes me feel nostalgic; remembering those old times. I used to play football as well when I was a kid and I have some fond memories of those days. Coming back to Euro '08; I believe the stage is set for a healthy tournament; specially after today's games when Romania held France for a draw and Netherlands crushed Italy. I think Italy is my favorite team; not because our dear Congress President is an ex-Italian - but because I think the '90 world cup was played in Italy and somehow when they lost in semi-finals against Argentina and the way home crowd got saddened; they became my favorite team. I still remember how the home crowd rooted for Germany in the final and were happy when Germans defeated Argentina. How can I forget the fan following Roberto Baggio got after he missed the penalty stroke in semi-finals. Hmmm.. Any similarities to Chak De India. :)

There is a corollary here that in 2006 Italians defeated France to become the world champions - the 2006 world cup was played in Germany :). I am hopeful that Italians fight back to win the Euro title and my pending work in KRA gets completed in time. I will conclude today's blog with this famous blackjack line from the movie 21 - "Winner Winner Chicken Dinner"!!! Cheeers !!!!

IPL and the Weekend

I was at work today when the first semi-final of Indian Premiere League was being played back home in Mumbai between Royals and Daredevils. I was following the match on cricinfo.com and I was disappointed the way the game went. It was a completely lopsided contest where daredevils were completely bent on their knees by royals. I would have appreciated a grueling contest honoring at least the name of semi-final.


I tend to look back over the T20 cricket played over past one and half months and I tend to think why has it been the case the team I always tend to favor seems to lose its way and end up nowhere. When the tournament started Knight Riders were my favorite team; Obvious reason being I am a big SRK fan(read AC) and I love dada as well. They actually started off very well but ended up nowhere; specially many of their losses were completely one-sided and kind of made me move away from them. I was really impressed with Sachin Tendulkar's Indians; not because they were doing so well but because they belong to my favorite city in the world. They started really bad with losing matches and then the Harbhajan controversy but managed to recover well. In the end they were just a tad unlucky. Then I tend moved over to Delhi as my favorite team. I really thought they were a good team; specially the top 3 coming really good in batting line up and with the likes of McGrath and Asif in bowling department; they were a team to reckon. Specially I like sehvag's captaincy; he may not be too good at post match speeches; but definately good on field as a captain. Remember that incident in Australia where he pushed Ishant for one extra over and rest is history. But my bad luck was bad once again and it went in vain today.

I think the teams that have done consistently well are till today in IPL are definately Royals and Kings XI and I would love to see 2 of them meet in final; provided final is a cracker of a contest. At least I am hoping so - final as well tomorrow's semi-final. Its a weekend now and I am very happy that its Friday evening. Its been a damn hectic week but a very satisfactory one as well. So many things have gotten done in project; I am really glad. So looking forward to live upto that famous saying - Work hard, party harder !!!

I was thinking about driving about 1200 miles to and from Detroit last weekend; finally I came to the conclusion that it was really worth it. Spending the time with most precious person in your life over a long-weekend is worth more than anything. I am thinking is it the idea for the new Master Card ad? he he he.. I feel when you live away from your most loved person(read wife/gf); you realize one's importance in life; you feel how lucky you are to have that special someone in your life; I do :).

Finally, I am looking forward to an uneventful lazy weekend filled with beer, cricket and movies. Looking forward to doing nothing.
Cheers!!

My First Blog

Hi,
Its 10:41 PM EDT and I have finally made up my mind to start blogging. I have always been curious about blogging but somehow before today never managed to create one of my own. I read a few posts on Aamir Khan's blog site recently and then a couple on Amitabh Bachhan's blog and I think it kinda ignited my interest in blogs and here I am writing my first one.

It was a very hectic day at work today as I was bombarded with a bunch of expense Jiras; However at the end of the day I consider myself proud having fixed several of them. I think I really enjoy working under pressure; may be the pressure brings out the best in me.

I think its time for me to embrace the sleep as I am likely to have another long day tomorrow.
Cheers!!