Tryst with life

Famous in an hour...

2011-09-19T15:48:00.002+05:30

Yeah, that's what happened to Vishal and me when we presented our thoughts on Python threads and GIL at PyCon India 2011 on Saturday 17 Sept.

After a very interactive, informative and well-received session on 'Python thread: Dive into GIL!', we went to BigBazaar mall at Kothrud Pune, miles away from where we had delivered our talk. We were doing some research on various types of Bakarwadi (Indian spring roll) available when a few college grads flocked us..Why?

Well, they were really inspired by our talk. They came, they congratulated us and just left.

Wow!! That was really cool! We had become famous in an hour :)

By the way here's the link to our slides..

I am against corruption…are you?

2011-04-08T15:56:00.003+05:30

10 things to know about Anna Hazare and Jan Lok Pal Bill:

1. Who is Anna Hazare?

An ex-army man. Fought 1965 Indo-Pak War

2. What's so special about him?

He built a village Ralegaon Siddhi in Ahamad Nagar district, Maharashtra

3. So what?

This village is a self-sustained model village. Energy is produced in the village itself from solar power, biofuel and wind mills.

In 1975, it used to be a poverty clad village. Now it is one of the richest village in India. It has become a model for self-sustained, eco-friendly & harmonic village.

4. Ok,...?

This guy, Anna Hazare was awarded Padma Bhushan and is a known figure for his social activities.

5. Really, what is he fighting for?

He is supporting a cause, the amendment of a law to curb corruption in India.

6. How that can be possible?

He is advocating for a Bil, The Jan Lokpal Bill (The Citizen Ombudsman Bill), that will form an autonomous authority who will make politicians (ministers), beurocrats (IAS/IPS) accountable for their deeds.

7. It's an entirely new thing right..?

In 1972, the bill was proposed by then Law minister Mr. Shanti Bhushan. Since then it has been neglected by the politicians and some are trying to change the bill to suit thier theft (corruption).

8. Oh.. He is going on a hunger strike for that whole thing of passing a Bill ! How can that be possible in such a short span of time?

The first thing he is asking for is: the government should come forward and announce that the bill is going to be passed.

Next, they make a joint committee to DRAFT the JAN LOKPAL BILL. 50% government participation and 50% public participation. Because you can’t trust the government entirely for making such a bill which does not suit them.

9. Fine, What will happen when this bill is passed?

A LokPal will be appointed at the centre. He will have an autonomous charge, say like the Election Commission of India. In each and every state, Lokayukta will be appointed. The job is to bring all alleged party to trial in case of corruptions within 1 year. Within 2 years, the guilty will be punished. Not like, Bofors scam or Bhopal Gas Tragedy case, that has been going for last 25 years without any result.

10. Is he alone? Who else is there in the fight with Anna Hazare?

Baba Ramdev, Ex. IPS Kiran Bedi, Social Activist Swami Agnivesh, RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal and many more.

Prominent personalities like Aamir Khan is supporting his cause.

-------------------------------------------------------

Ok, got it. What can I do?

At least we can spread the message. How?

Write in your blog, talk in orkut, face book, chat.

Putting status message, links, video, changing profile pics.

we can support Anna Hazare and the cause for uprooting corruption from India.

we can hope that his Hunger Strike does not go in vain.

we can pray for his good health.

Courtesy: received from a fwded email.

Google makes you smile

2010-11-17T16:46:00.005+05:30

Hmm... A personal blog after quite a while, but for a reason. Couldn't stop myself!

This time its for Google..
Google has made life easy for the whole world in a variety different ways. Be it gmail, google code, google docs, google blogs and what not. Few moments ago, I came across a feature in gmail that really makes life EASIER. It was so simple, yet so cool that it brought an "ear to ear" smile on my face. I felt, this is what we may call the "customer delight".

The feature:
Often it happens that we write the content and send the email only to realize later than we have sent the email without attaching the document or file that was meant to be attached. Gmail comes to your rescue with its cool feature. If your content says "find attached", while sending the email, Gmail checks if there really exists any attachment to your email.

The alert!

Mammoth MM

2010-07-22T23:40:00.004+05:30

Courtesy: http://www.guardian.co.uk

It was an emphatic moment for all cricket lovers! Muttiah Muralitharan or just Murali, took 800th wicket and the whole world errupted in joy! The most soft spoken crickter from SriLanka humbled the Indian Team as Srilankan team won the first tie of three match series in Galle.

True champion of his era, as Murali is, has gone through a lot of tough times. Be it being the Tamil player in Srilankan team or the incident when he accussed of chucking the cricket ball, Murali has encountered the tragedies with self belief and has come out of them smiling.

What a career and what a way to end it! Last ball, 800th wicket and retired!

We'll are happy for you Murali. The whole world salutes you! Indeed, a life less ordinary!

One cycle completes, another begins!

2010-06-01T18:34:00.005+05:30

It's been a long, rather a very long time, when I had last written something...No excuses, it's just that many other important things kept me occupied. But a very special reason has pulled me back!

Mumbai, Sunday, 23 May 2010, 0900: It was my nephew (Nachiket's) janeu (thread) ceremony. I along with my parents were at the venue quite early as we had to participate in preparations, after all it was a home function. I was about to reach the hall on the second floor, when a speeding Priyanka (my cousin) bumped into me. Before I could see anything, she ordered "Go and see if the caterers have arrived"..."oh man!", I said. I was already in the scheme of things. Nothing to worry though, my marriage had given me enough confidence that I could handle, and even take out, any sort of job, from anyone. Confidence paid and I could accomplish a few preparations only to see my sister happy about it.

Everything was ready and the pooja began. A big havan had converted an otherwise AC hall into a 45 deg. C boiling furnace. With everybody busy in either taking part in the ceremony or the preparations or gossiping, it looked as if the heat didn't matter to many. Or maybe, I am not used to such temparatures anymore!

Quite interestingly in whatever ceremony you talk, mama has to play a crucial role. Isn't it? It was my turn now, as Nachiket's mama. Didn't take much time to play my part in all the rituals but this made me realize one thing. And that was "One Cyle Completes, another begins!". Incidently, Nachiket's grandfather was my mama. I was with Nachiket performing all the rituals and could remember each and every single thing that my mama and mami had done for me. Things like going to Gurudev hotel to enjoy delectable idli-dosa, or taking me to films or giving me all the magzines for small kids and what not. It was really an emotional moment for me. It was, as if, I could almost see him in front of my eyes...

The function got over and I started for the airport. Sitting in the local train I wondered, life had now given me the chance to pass on all the love I had received from my mama-mami. I thought, would Nachiket remember us (his Chandani Mami and Chand Mama as he calls Deepti and me) when he is in my shoes? Will he remember me 20 years from now? Something struck me and I made a promise to myself; I will be there with him whenever he requires and give him all the love possible. That's a promise, I sincerely hope, I live upto.

10 suspense pact minutes…

2009-12-09T13:26:00.001+05:30

I was waiting…

He was sitting in the chair, perfectly hassle-free….
Just then, a dark, red-eyed and robust looking man arrived and splashed water on his face.
He then captured a blade and put under his chin…
Small droplets of blood came out…
For next few moments nothing happened…

Again a splash of water on the face and the barber moved away…
Man stood up as he was done with the shaving...

An action pact event: Reaching Suji’s reception!

2009-11-09T17:18:00.002+05:30

A day when everything went wrong….is what happened to Prithvi and me last evening. It was Suji’s wedding and reception day. It was a weekday and obviously it would have been difficult for both of us to have attended the wedding. So we decided on making it to the reception that was scheduled from 7-9 pm at Guru Narasimha hall, Bull Temple Road, Bangalore.

3:00 pm: Prithvi pings me on the gtalk to decide the itinerary. It was decided that Prithvi would start from his house at 6:30PM, pick me up from the office entrance, we would then go to the forum mall, buy a good gift for Suji and from then on would leave for the gathering. Sounded like a plan! I contemplated if 6:30 would have been late, but then felt even if the function time was 7 pm, such gatherings were always delayed for some good reason. :)

6:30 pm: Prithvi calls me to inform that he has started. It meant I leave as soon as possible because he would have taken lesser time and fuss to make it to the rendezvous.

Real excitement starts from here on! Fasten your seat belts!

6:32 pm: I start shutting down my system with no luck. This was nothing bizarre as I had installed an operating system on my machine that was produced by Microsoft Corporation and we all are aware of how Microsoft could help us while devastating us at the same time. :) First, I tried to fix the issue by going through all the tedious and weird error messages patiently, but it was already 6:40pm and I was getting late. The word endurance was thrown out of my dictionary and I decided to hit the help button by opting for a hard shutdown. Crude way of doing things, but they work! :) To hell with the laptop, I said, hoping that the machine could boot up the following day.

6:42 pm: I was at my office reception. Pressed the button of the lift for the ground floor. If you’re working in EGL Campus and Pine Valley building, you would very well know that the elevators here don’t follow any algorithms that they are supposedly designed for. :) I could hear 4-5 noises of elevator coming to 2nd floor but none actually did. Finally, one lift opened in front of me and it felt as if it was sent by some heavenly power because it came without making any announcement of it actually reaching the 2nd floor.

6:45 pm: I was out on the campus walking towards the road where I was supposed to meet Prithvi. What worse could have happened? Yes, it started raining. So typical of Bangalore! :) Instead of now walking briskly and enjoying the cool weather of namma(our) Bengaluru, I had actually started running. If that wasn’t enough, a call from the home made things clumsier and by the time I could finish talking to my parents, my mobile alerted me that Prithvi is calling me; it seemed he had already reach the meeting point.

Prithvi made me cognizant of our first real hurdle. There was a huge traffic jam on the intermediate ring road. Oh man!

7:15 pm: We were still stuck on the intermediate ring road. The worry of not reaching in time had started to just creep in to our thoughts; but we were content not to have thought about it as yet. Somewhere, on the back of our minds, we knew that once we reached Sony World junction of Kormangala, things wouldn’t be as gloomy. We had diverted our minds to other talks that related to work, life in Bangalore and as always on switching jobs and how to get a fatter pay. Typical software engineers! :)

7:35 pm: No more hiccups from the sony world junction ensured that we had reached forum mall. I took out my wallet to check my financial status only to find that I had one shining 5 rupee coin in my pocket. Shining, as if to tell me that your worth is not more than 5 rupees! I didn’t bother to think about it as saving time and taking out money from the ATM was the trade. I asked Prithvi to come to Nik-Nish shop where we were supposed to buy the gift for Suji, meanwhile, I thought of encashing my debit card. If everything would have gone well, I wouldn’t have thought of writing this blog! You must have guessed it by now, there was a long queue in front of HSBC ATM and Nik-Nish shop was closed. Damn! It took me around 20 minutes to withdraw the money. We then went to Landmark stores and started scouring for a nice gift. Gift? Thats really dificult to get, you know! Joke book? Nah! Cooking book? Nah! Child care? Forget it! :) Finally, god gave us some sense and we bought a lord Ganesha’s idol. Looked perfectly apt.

8:15 pm: It was getting really late now! We were on our way to the Bull Temple Road. Huge traffic near the Lalbaug made us wonder whether we would actually make it to the hall in time! Would any of our friends be there when we reach? we contemplated. Shwetha was our only hope. We called her to tell that we would be there at the gathering in the following 20 minutes or so and to tell her to wait near the gate and guide us through. On the contrary, she said she was on her way back and would have reached home pretty soon. :( Ggrrrrr! Traffic was really sickening us now.

8:45 pm: We finally reached the place, found Varsha, another friend of ours. She was a rel life saver. She guided us through out. We met Suji and Girish (Suji’s husband) at the stage, congratulated them, took the photograph as an evidence of our presence, gave the gift that we had purchased and had a nice delectable dinner. Who doesn't agree that we attend receptions for good food?! :)

Suji was really very happy; the smile on her face couldn’t stop a bit. Wishing her a happy married life!

If you are thinking this is the end, you are wrong, you are in store for some more.

9:45 pm: It was almost quarter to ten when we started our journey back. You must be thinking, what else could have happened now? It was the gas problem. Not that we had gas problem, but it was the auto that didn’t have gas to run on. We had to look out for some options of transportation and the journey thereafter was a smooth sail. :)

Phew! Quite an action packed journey it was. But we were really glad that we could attend the function, see the smile on Suji's face. It was worth it!

A male on Karbonn mobile turns female :)

2009-10-06T17:37:00.006+05:30

Now this is something really new!

It was fairly a wonderful and refreshing holiday in Mumbai last week; helping parents with their business, enjoying the home porch, the garden, the swing, act of breaking coconuts, meeting friends at the alumni meet and what not. Phew! Come Saturday and I realized I had to join office on Monday. Office? Truly boring after a joyful week, isn’t it? Anyway, quickly, I picked up the phone and called one of my colleagues, Harish, to check out what was going in the office. This would have prepared me, both mentally and physically, to resume the office. What happened next will definitely entertain you as much as it amused me. :-)

Saturday, 1910 hrs, Home, Mumbai
As I mentioned, I had called Harish. The phone rang and a soft, effeminate voice from the other end saying “Hello” bewildered me. Harish stays alone in Bangalore and unfortunately has no girl friends. :-) So it was kind of unexpected for me to hear a female voice. But you never know; anything can happen in seconds. Hey, that reminds me of TATA DOCOMO advertisement and the charming girls in it. :) As I said, life is full of surprises, so I continued, “Hello, can I speak to Harish?” On that, I got a response like, “Hey Chetan, this is Harish only. Didn’t you recognize my voice?” A bit of thinking made me conclude that this was some kind of trick on me. So I started laughing and said, “Please give the phone to Harish, I know this is some kind of ploy to annoy me”. The reply that I got, frankly irritated me. It said, “Tell me Chetan, this is Harish only”. I was really furious on Harish now, as I had called him for something important and his behavior was irritating me. I banged the phone and never called him again. I got his call twice but I was so livid that I didn’t bother to pick it up. This was on Saturday.

Cut2: Monday Morning 10 AM, Office Cafeteria, Bangalore
Our team’s custom or rather habit is to gather in cafeteria for a cup of coffee and then start working. The same happened yesterday. I reached the canteen and sat on the table where the team was chatting. I was unhappy with Harish and didn’t want to speak to him. Just then, Shirish, one of my teammates said, “Chetan do you know this cool feature in Harish’s phone?” Harish again, Oh man! I said to myself, but remained neutral and pretended to listen. Shirish was talking about Harish’s new phone that had the ‘Voice Modulation’ feature where in one could adjust the voice between ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ and whatever you speak would come out in that voice. So if one enables the ‘Voice Modulation’ feature in ‘Female’, irrespective of your sex, the voice would be converted into a female one. “Cool”, I said. Harish added that he had changed the mode of operation inadvertently and was using the handset for a week making a joke of this uncommon but fantastic feature. “Tiiinnnn” a bell rang in my head and I could relate what would have happened on Saturday. It was Harish who must have been talking but because of the phone setting I could hear an unfamiliar but a cute female voice!

Funny! Interesting! Whatever you say!

For people interested in technology:
This is a Karbon, K series mobile phone. Picture below.

Picture taken by Chetan Giridhar

Mumbai - Trip to the clouds - 3 July 2009

2009-07-13T10:42:00.007+05:30

The Built Up
It was almost 6 months ago when I had last been to Mumbai. People, who know me, would be really astonished with the time period. But that's the way it goes. Ostensibly, I was a bit too busy with other stuff that included a promotion at work and a perpetual grapple for a home loan from SBI. Having said that, handling 3 projects in a quarter is not everyone's cup of tea :) But, I guess, it was time to recuperate myself and enjoy the rains at Mumbai. My cousins Nimish and Bhairavi (from Nagpur) had also arrived for their vacation to Mumbai; aai had promised them a trip into the clouds. Believe me it’s possible, well almost. You would come to know how, but you need to read this blog throughout..he he he...

The trip
It was early morning on the 3rd of July and after having a filling breakfast, we started on Mumbai-Pune highway towards the hills. It was raining very heavily and supposedly, we had chosen a perfect day for a perfect monsoon trip. The milieu was fantastic; nice cool breeze, rain water trickling on your face and the coveted odor of the earth were all an integral part.

N.D. Studio
It was only around 8 kms that we had travelled, when we started discussing about the N.D.Studio that is built very near to the highway. My mother happened to tell us that "Jodha Akbar" movie was shot here and the sets were still standing and were pretty much visible from the outside. It was both, a bit of curiosity and interest; we turned to the studio. Coming so close, who would remain content with just a view? Few phone calls from my mother to the top officials made way to a guided tour of inside. Lucky we!! Slowly, almost all the sets, from the Jodha's palace, to the set where Akbar has a tussle with a mad elephant, to the Akbar's darbaar were captured in our cameras. We also got an opportunity to witness a Marathi serial being shot. It was based on Shivaji Maharaj and it was no surprise that they had chosen some sets of Jodha Akbar's to depict Auranzeb's abode in the serial. We could recognize some of the Marathi actors but were too shy to take their autographs; rather we didn’t want to disturb their work. As it was a guided tour, we were made aware of some of the technicalities of movie making from the directors themselves. We realized that movie making wasn't easy as it seemed. As I write this blog, radio mirchi is playing "Kehne ko jashne bahara hain...." a nice coincidence, isn't it?

The Hills
Cut2, we were on the highway again and a seemingly endless association with the rain began. Travelling further on the highway saw us at Khopoli, a town at the foot hills. We decided to have batata(potato) wadas from the famous Hotel Ramakant. For benefit of some, Hotel Ramakant was the most visited eatery on the Mumbai-Pune old highway as the food there served as a perfect fuel for the commuters to start ascending the ghaat. Expressway had dampened the business, but we chose not to break the tradition. A nice cup of tea and soon we were on the hills.

While climbing we could see the dark blanket on the mountains and as aai had promised Nimish, we were heading for the clouds. The zigzag, snake like road and every curve leading to a valley made the travel very thrilling. The greenery, the waterfalls, the dark clouds, the red soil and the zephyr was unrealistically a deadly combination. Soon we were at Khandala, the place where we could see the clouds while ascending. It was very dark and raining very heavily now. Certainly we were among the clouds; all we witnessed were the dark clouds below and above us. A real visual treat, albeit it was really chilling and we were literally shivering. But it was such a heavenly experience!! An experience that would remain with us for a long time to come. Nimish, was the happiest person on Earth. Obviously his dream of visiting the clouds was fulfilled in some regards.

A fifteen minute decline and we could get a bird-eye look of Khopoli town. The rains had stopped and the environment was crystal clear. Sun shone brightly; we knew what to expect now! Yes it was a nice rainbow amidst the hills. What better site we could have asked for!

Summing Up
The whole trip rejuvenated us a lot and we have now decided to have similar trips every year. Don't hesitate to join us. You're always invited... More the merrier :)

Singh is King!! – Verdict 2009

2009-05-17T22:53:00.009+05:30

Well, finally 2009 elections are complete and as we all would have found out, its Congress or rather UPA all the way!

In one ways of many, it was good that the people of India voted for a single party in large numbers. This will ensure that there is almost no scope for a tussle between regional parties and either of the major national parties (BJP or Congress) in order to reach a magic number of 272; in turn ensuring a stable government. A good indicator to the people involved in the ‘bull fight’; sensex should leap up.

Second of the reasons as to why the verdict 2009 was a good one was, in this situation of global meltdown, when the terrorism is at its peak (terrorists are virtually at our door steps), it was obvious that the incumbent government was better equipped to handle it. Surely, the new government will take time to regroup and rework on the policies to follow, in such crucial circumstances.

Talking about the outcome, if you have followed what the TV programs and the analysts, that were keeping track of the elections, had to say, none had expected such majority votes for the UPA and Congress in particular, from the electoral. Out of many reasons, the only reason that could be considered as the main cause of UPA’s excellent showing, in my opinion, would be Rahul Gandhi’s work. I believe he understood that the higher percentage of electoral was youth and wooing them would eventually mean a higher amount of vote bank. The policy seemed to have worked and Rahul Gandhi’s youth congress was successful in delivering the goods. In the end, its the numbers that matter.

The image of our Prime Minister, of being a 'honest politician' supposedly worked. Also, you wont find a more qualified guy than him, look at his resume! Clearly Singh was King as far as the Elections 2009 were concerned.

Heartiest congratulations to Dr. Manmohan Singh and UPA for their second term. Hope they do well for India, together.

Note: this is completely an objective view.

IPL Season 2

2009-04-20T10:17:00.007+05:30

Indian Premier League Season 2 started on Saturday 18th April, 2009. This time’s show was no less pompous than the last years’. The only notable difference being, this time round the venue was South Africa and obviously the excitement that cricket gets in India was a bit missing. After the election row that took place in India, seemingly, “Show must go on!!” was what the organizers including the audiences worldwide felt; hence the location of the event became immaterial and the interest remains perpetual.

Commissioner of the IPL Mr.Lalit modi declared the tournament open and the games were on their way! The first four matches included some extra ordinary performances by the legends of the game who were supposedly “not made“ for playing T20 matches. To begin with, the performance of master blaster, Sachin Tendulkar, in the opening match was fabulous! 59* valuable runs from him made it possible for the Mumbai Indians to reach a total of 160 odd in the process helping the team to win the match against Dhoni 11. Second match saw Rahul Dravid with a very well calculated, fast, sparkling 66; again a match winning one with Kumble scoring the best figures in T20 with 5/5. Wow!! Shane Warne wasn’t behind too. His magical leg spin trapped almost all the batsmen in his web. He was getting better with every ball bowled. On the contrary all the young players, so called the great hitters of the ball, failed to impress. Too early to conclude here...

In a way, its good that IPL is being played in South Africa, as it shows true value of a player; flat Asian wickets don’t do any good to the talent. Also this would help IPL to take a more global stage than ever.

All the best to IPL Season 2 and hope we enjoy it better than the 2008 season! May the best team win.

Goa: The most happening day of the trip....

2009-04-03T13:48:00.009+05:30

This was the most exciting and happening day of our trip...Early morning breakfast at Kamath Restaurant and we were at the Aguda fort... Everybody seemed to be DCH mood for obvious reasons (For people who don't know, Dil Chahta Hain movie was shot there). The pics would be perfect evidence of the same. I think, if you ask, none of us would able to answer what the fort was all about like when, why, who build it? Everyone was there to have a great time, who bothered about all this??

After some historical milieu, we decided to hit the beach as someone said, "Abey hum log Goa aaye hain, Khajuraho nahi..." The water sports at Calangoute beach were really exciting. Banana in particular was the most enthralling for me...The dip into the sea at the end of the ride spurs you up like anything. Parasailing was the most empressive of all; once you are up with the parachute, you feel like you are sailing on top of the world...what you see is only the blue seas below and the blue skies above...Fanatastic!! is the word.

After a nice north indian lunch along side the beach, it was time for a walk from Calangoute to Bagha beach. With so many desi and videsi titliyan around, I could have continued my walk till eternity... Here we got some time to collect some sea shells, look at lagoons if we could find and plan for the evening cruise and the South Goa trip the following day. The sunset from the shack at Bagha with Veg Cheese sandwich plus the Mo (bartender) factor, what else you could have asked for?? Mo was very happy to show some of his bartending skills like flipping the bottles as we usually see....I was lucky to pick up some of the skills...If someone thought this wasn’t enough, the evening cruise at Mandovi river was again an unforgettable experience.

Reaching the river for the cruise was not all that straight forward...First of all, we had asked our hotel reception to book the tickets for 2030 hrs, but getting people moving from the Bagha beach took a while and then a traffic jam ensured that we wouldn't have reached the hotel to collect the tickets in time for the cruise..Luckily, the guy at the reception called and informed that he couldn't get the tickets for the decided time and hence he had booked 2130 cruise...That was a huge relief. That meant I could meet Sushil, my childhood friend, who was already waiting for me at the hotel..While the others got ready for the cruise I was busy talking to him and at 2115 we all were geared up to move for the river...We were about to start when one of my friends asked this typical question, "Chetan, ticket tere pass hain na??" Guess what, I had no information about it. I remembered that I had handed over the tickets to someone but not sure whom..Panic spread and people started running to their rooms to check if they had ticktes..I was preparing for the worst and talking to the reception guys to check out if we could board the ship even if we had no tickets and if someone from reception could speak to the cruise owners or someone. Just then we found the tickets, hah!! Sushil said that he knew a short cut to the river, but it turned out that he had driven us into a one-way. This added to the so called nail biting quotient, and to take it to the climax, the security guard at the cruise entry said, we were already late for the cruise. But as it turned out he thought we were there for a 2115 ride, while we actually were targetting 2130...Finally we got on to the ship. I think we had to dance on the cruise deck, that was in our destiny.

Wait, this was not the end of the day...After the wonderful ride on Mandovi and an exhausting and exhilarating dance on the cruise, it was time for dinner. We reached near our hotel and then, on foot, checked out near by restaurants to see if we could get some north indian food...A 30 minute search led us to an eatery named 'Veg Baba'!! By the time we could finish our delectable dinner, it was mid-night...In comes Republic Day, 26th Jan 2009...

Phew, Too many things in a single day!!

Goa trip - Setting the expectations….

2009-03-02T15:08:00.001+05:30

This, I think was the first trip when I came to know about the plan just 2 days in advance. I remember Deepti calling me and asking me, “Goa chalega kya..??” and without thinking much I said yes. But then, after some contemplation, I encountered a question “who all were accompanying us?” I had no idea!! I asked Deepti about the same and she gave me names of 4 girls and a boy. ”Now, what was that?! “ I got a bit intimidated…4 ladkiyan and 2 ladke?? And that too Goa?? I felt like, kya hoga pata nahi….and to top it, I didn’t even knew any of our companions for the next 4 days…!! Bhagvaan par bharosa rakha and I started….Frankly, I never expected a great trip and neither was looking forward to it…I had to pass my time (24-26 Jan) and this didn’t look like a worse option…so I thought…Okay, Chalo!!! Moreover, it was quite sometime, when I had been to a beach. Goa looked like a perfect candidate for some water-fun.

Experience in Austria - III

2009-02-02T15:16:00.000+05:30

Another suspense packed and an enthralling experience. Hope you remember we had taken a bus from the Salzburg bust stop to reach the train station. Yes, we reached the station and started hunting for the train that would take us to Linz. We referred the time table and confirmed that the train was expected to start at 1844 hrs from platform 4. We were at platform 1 and it was already 1842 hrs. The time indicated that we had to hurry, and we did, but the effort was in vain. Even before reaching the platform, we could see the train had already started and there was no facility of catching a speeding Eurail unlike in India. So we had to suspend our endeavor and had to resort to other options available. Time table once again came in handy and some responses from the fellow passengers helped us find out that there was a train at 1902 hrs directly to Linz and it took almost 45 minutes less than the train we were thinking of taking for our return journey. It was still around 10-15 minutes before we could board the train, at platform 2 this time round. We were relaxed and soon distracted by some Austrian butterflies (titlies) and didn’t realize the time until 1900 hrs. We raced to the platform, saw the train, confirmed it was headed for Linz and boarded it. While on the train we could appreciate the fact that the coaches seemed to be different than some of them we had earlier travelled in. First, we thought it was a first class, so we walked towards other coaches. But to our surprise, all the coaches looked similar. We spoke to some of the passengers and understood it was an ICE (Inter City Express) coming from Munich, Germany. It was called an intercity train as it was connecting two cities but of different countries. We were kind of stuck. In familiar terms “hamari toh phat gayee thi..” , wondering whether we had boarded the train that suited our ticket or not. We couldn’t have done much about it because stopping the train was not an available option. Top of that, we had not got any place to seat as it was a packed train with maximum people wanting to go to Vienna for work after a nice weekend out. Some had already found people whom they wanted to go out with the next weekendJ. Between this, we were tensed and preparing our excuses that we could give to the Ticket Checker for wrongly boarding the train. We didn’t want to ask our co-passengers as this would have created more panic. Also, who knows, if the TC didn’t come before we could arrive at Linz, we would be saved!! So we settled ourselves near the exit in the first coach of the train thinking it would take some time for the checker to reach there and till such time we would have reached Linz. We also discussed that we won’t sign any stuff if were caught and put into jail. Also we were trying to gauge the money we had with us for paying the fine, if any. All these ideas, I need not tell, were form our very own, good old, Bollywood films. Soon, the checker arrived and I could notice him at the rear end of the coach. We stood up, while some of the frequent and native travelers chose to sit on the floor, just to give an impression that we were sophisticated people and not used to breaking laws like this. The checker came, started checking our tickets. My heart started beating with the speed like never before. The tag of an international criminal wasn’t too far and not too good considering our past records. Terrified, horrified, worried, N number of synonyms would be difficult to explain our situation. We were simply trying to look innocent. The checker checked the tickets, punched them and said “Thank you sir” and was gone. It took us some moments to come to grips with the situation. “Hurray! Yipee!!” we wanted to shout, but that was not possible, rather plausible. (Between, have you thought of the contexts where probable, plausible, possible could suit?? I feel these three words are in increasing degree of certainty. Let me know if you think otherwise). We felt relieved, as if someone had managed to help us and we had eschewed a dangerous and an unthinkable situation. Out came our cameras and click and click was a thing everyone could hear.

The Change

2009-01-20T23:12:00.002+05:30

20 Jan 2009, 10:56 PM IST
Well! well! well!! The CHANGE is here.

A few moments ago, Barack H. Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the US. Indeed, it was a proud moment for United States of America and for the whole world!! But what kindled me to pen down my thoughts was a belief he expressed during his speech.

Mr.President said, our challenges might be new, the tools we use to meet them may be new, but the values of honesty, hard work, and fair play are old and we would use these to achieve our goals. Watching on TV and to hear him speak was really humbling.

Wishing Mr.Obama and US all the best!! Hope, The Obama phenomenon has its own good for India...

EnAble India - Some more...

2009-01-17T23:40:00.000+05:30

This was the most difficult of lot. We encountered a candidate who was dumb and deaf. Now, how do we communicate?! It was as if someone is mocking at us and asking, “Kyon! Chakkar kha gaye na??” now even Deepti started looking at me in dismay. She was clueless. I thought, “Ab mujhe hi kuch karna padega” I made that candidate comfortable and gave him the form so that he could fill it with a hope he would understand it and would do the needful. He zipped through the form top to bottom thrice and asked us in his sign language “What the hell is this?” we were like “Hey Bhagvaan!” we had understood now this was a nut that needed some brilliance to crack. Luckily, we saw him conversing with a guy nearby in the sign language. We went to the gentleman who was talking to him. Technically, he was deaf (minor version of it) but could hear, after using a hearing aid and knew English as well. He was a life saver for us. We started talking to him and made him cognizant of our problem. He immediately started the conversation with our candidate in the “divine” sign language and in no time we were through. We had filled the form. Yippee!!! We then sent the candidate with the filled form for further processing of his case. But what we did after that was to learn from the gentleman to talk in sign language.

Here's some gyaan on sign language:

He told us that every area/city had its own sign language. But somehow signs were similar and if we could grab some of them then that it would be perfect for our job. Seeing that we were keen to learn the art, he should us some signs. For e.g., to ask for the name, stretch the thumb and the index finger of your left arm to make a shape of L and with the index finger of right arm, just rub that L. This meant we were trying to know the name of the person. And if we had to ask him his address, with 2 hands make a picture of home; that was easy. And to ask his education, with the right palm rub your forehead. Yes, this is because education is always related to your future and future is depicted with your forehead. Interesting, isn't it?!

EnAble India

2009-01-07T12:17:00.002+05:30

This describes one of the special experiences I had in my life. Do read it. Here it goes!

It was a Friday evening; with too much of work during the week, I was getting a bit jaded. Moreover the sense of Friday evening was getting me edgy and wasn’t helping my cause as I had no plans for the weekend. It wouldn’t get worse; there was no movie that was getting released that weekend. People, who know me closely, would understand what kind of situation I was in. Helplessly, I e-mailed Deepti (name changed), one of Wipro batch mates, to know about her plans. I thought, I could be at least engaged in something, if she had some good ideas! But it was disappointing to note that she was busy throughout the weekend. Generally, I would have satisfied myself with this reply, but that day, I don’t know why, I got a little inquisitive and enquired her about the work that was keeping her busy. She replied that, she was a volunteer at an organization named “EnAble India” that worked for the employment of the disabled. She added that she had to be there for registration of the handicapped so that they could be counseled later for the suitable job. Without thinking much, I asked her,”Can I be helpful? Can I join you in this endeavor?” Her response was affirmative and I was glad that such opportunity had come my way as I always wanted to help the society in whatever way I could. I sincerely hoped it would be great even if I could make a small positive difference the following day at EnAble India.

For the benefit of people reading, “What is EnAble India?”
This is straight from the book;
“Enable India works for the empowerment of people with disabilities. We believe that every person with disability has infinite capabilities waiting to be tapped through right training, counseling and rehabilitation. We offer a variety of training and employment services for visually impaired, hearing impaired and physically disabled individuals, to help them gain economic independence and live a life of dignity.”

Saturday morning!
I was all excited to be at the place. I didn’t know the exact location so I called my dear friend. Sometimes it gets very difficult to get her going, especially if it’s a weekend and more so if she is fast asleep. We had to be there at 10 AM and I had called her at 9:30 AM only to find out that she had just woken up. As I mentioned, I would have been jolted if this was not the case. It was frustrating, but as they say, patience pays. Some petty arguments, while on the way, saw us at EnAble India.

Welcome to EnAble India…
We reached the place and met the PR officer there. As expected, she knew Deepti; realizing that I was new, she began to detail me about the institution and the work they did. I could see many people in line before the front office and the volunteers were interacting with them for completing the registration formalities. The milieu was so pure, encouraging and you could see everyone working there for a noble cause with no personal interest. I was getting a feel of things around me. Just then I happened to meet the Director of EnAble India. She too briefed me about the institution and explained me the work for the day. I was now getting comfortable.

In comes Subbiah…
In midst of all this, I heard a person coming from behind me, he was shouting “Deepu, where are you?” He was Subbiah, an important person in the scheme of things, who took care of all the volunteers and got the work done from them. He was calling Deepti and was waiting for her to speak up as that was the only he was going to know as to where she was. Yes, he was blind, but that didn’t seem to have affected him. I could find him more enthusiastic and more productive than a normal person. He was all busy with the work planned for the day. Deepti introduced me to him and he was happy that young and so-called rich people (as we worked in Software company) like us were not far behind to support such noble endeavors. What happened after this amazed me, to say the least! Subbiah, as he was head of volunteers, took me to a computer to fill in my registration form since I too was joining there as one of the volunteers. I thought I had to start the PC, browse to the form, print it and then fill in my details. On the contrary, Subbiah started the PC, he logged on to the system with Username and password, browsed to the shared location where the form was located and asked me to load the form with my credentials and save it in my name. All this fascinated me. He was too confident in handling the computer. I wondered, why he had put on a head phone for operating a computer. Later, I came to know he took the help of software called JAWS that spoke for the blind and guided him as it did for the other blinds. I completed the registration form and duly saved it. What next?!

Learning experiences!
After completing my registration formalities, I went back to Subbiah. A very busy Subbiah guided me towards Deepu, as he calls her, and asked me to accompany her for the rest of the day. This made me a bit comfortable as Deepti was more experienced than me and I didnt know anybody there apart from her. That day, many candidates with assorted disabilities were invited so that they could get enrolled with EnAble India and could be further counseled for the job, depending on their capabilities. We had to help these candidates filling the enrollment form.

My, rather our, first candidate was a blind guy. We started filling his enrollment form with the required details. After his name and address, came his qualification. I was happily shocked to know he had completed MA with Ist class and was now pursuing his PGDM from an institute providing distance learning. To top it, he was an expert of Carnatic music, played various instruments and had won different awards at the state level. We were his fans straight away. No second thoughts! Really these guys had it in them to fit against all odds. Wander how could we do it? It was easy for us to complete the form; we later submitted it for further processing. But we hadn’t experienced a tricky situation at work as yet.

Fortunately, at first, we got candidates who were either blind or physically disabled. But we had not handled candidates who could not speak. Our next candidate fell in this category. Now, this was a challenge for us. Fortunately, he could hear and knew a bit of Hindi apart from Kannada. We managed to get the form done with all the credentials. But what we could not get out from him was his Government Registration number which he should have had as he was handicapped. One of our senior volunteers; she came and spoke to him in Kannada and got it for us. Next time onwards we knew, we had to ask for the registration number by making a sign with our hands similar to one we make to bus conductors to suggest him we have a pass. Ah ha! We were beginning to catch up with things!

We also faced some tricky situations…Stay put to know more….

My Experiences in Austria - Part II

2008-12-27T22:02:00.001+05:30

First day at McAfee, Linz office – The Keyboards

We were expected to reach office at 9:30 AM and surprisingly enough, we did manage to reach at the work place in time. Surprising, because we had had a long and tiring journey and it felt as if 15 hours of sleep wouldn’t have been enough. Reached office, greeted our colleagues and got all settled with the laptops. The manager of the Austrian team was ready with his training stuff and asked us to install operating systems on our machines so that setup could be done ASAP. We took the CDs and completed the installation successfully. People who have been doing setups would know what’s next. Yes, getting these systems on the network. We installed the network drivers and gave the IPs for all the systems. In order to check if the IPs were correct and pinging each other, I went to the DOS prompt and keyed in “ipconfig /all” (command used for checking IP and DNS). The command didn’t work fine and threw an error. “Arey!!” To my surprise, I could see the command typed in as “ipconfig -all” instead of “ipconfig /all”. Also when I started giving the Computer Name, I could not find “y”; then realized “y” was at “z” location and vice-versa. After some confusion and ingenious findings, we realized it was a German keyboard that we were using. Bizarre, at least for us! We never realized it before encountering this situation. We were experiencing a feeling of amazement and amusement. This was really a new and unexpected experience.
Wait, this is not the end of it. I reported this to one of my Austrian colleagues. Understanding the issue, he asked me “Chetan, what language do you speak??” Pompously, I said, “British English!!”. He was happy to note that, as he was a European. He handed over a new keyboard to me; I changed the Regional Settings in the Add Remove Programs and was happy using the same. After all, I could now type “ipconfig /all”, “y” and “z” was at the right places. But the pleasure was shorted lived. I could not find “@” and “#”. Poor me! After some analysis I realized that it was a “British Keyboard”. "Oh no!" That’s what I uttered in dismay and my colleague who was sited just behind me in the cube did not take too long to comprehend that what I required was a US keyboard and guided me on the whereabouts of the keyboard. I had to open up a rack that was untouched for some years, I believe, to find the US keyboard. I felt glad, a feeling I could only compare with a sentiment of attaining nirvana. (On second thoughts, nirvana is too much to say, but still). FYI, the keyboards we use are called “QWERTY” keyboards, for obvious reasons.

My experiences in Austria !!

2008-12-18T15:47:00.000+05:30

It has been while after my trip to Austria and every time I meet any of my friends or relatives that I haven’t, after my visit, happens to ask me about my experiences. So I thought, why not make a diary entry of some sort describing the same. Here are a few, noticeable and funny incidences. Hope you too enjoy them reading.

You find Indians everywhere, almost

Yes, you might have heard many people saying this. I can cite three instances, where I felt the same way during my trip.

Here's the first one: This was on the first day. We had reached our hotel late in the afternoon and in the evening came down to the reception to check out if there were any restaurants nearby where we could have our dinner. Tamara, the receptionist, who had identified that we were Indians (when we registered our names in the hotel guests list) gave the name of two Indian restaurants where we could satisfy our tummies. One of them was “Hotel Taj”, the other being “Bombay Palace”. My manager didn’t commit the mistake of consulting me about the choice of eatery. Invariably we had to go to Bombay Palace, as the name would suggest. Reached Bombay palace and we were greeted with smiles and unbound Hindi words like “Namaskar!!, aaiye, kya khayenge??” . It was Avataar Singh, the owner of the restaurant who made us feel so important, it was a total esteem boost. We were more than happy to visit the café and enjoy Indian curries with delectable Austrian sweet dishes, especially the Apple Strudel. But, this so called “indianness” was not enough. While we were dinning, a group of 10 people came and sat on the table in our vicinity. We could make out they were Indians. My manager guessed that they were looking like Maharashtrians. Listening and then talking to them, we confirmed they were from Mumbai and everyone spoke Marathi. That was like an icing on the strudel. I exchanged notes with them and felt good. First day wasn’t bad after all.

The second one. It was on the weekend when we had been to Salzburg for the sightseeing. Salzburg is a very beautiful place near Switzerland. After the whole day of tourism we were dropped by our tourist vehicle to a bus station from where we had to take a bus to the railway station to catch the Eurail train back to Linz. We were carefully analyzing the chart at the bus stop to find out as to which bus would take us to the station. We knew hbf meant railway station in Deutsche. I could make out that bus no. 3 could go to our destination. My senior argued that it may also go to any other station on which I counter argued stating Salzburg was such a small town and having one railway station itself was too much to have. Our argument had started to heat up when one guy came from behind and politely said “Aap sahi keh rahe ho!! 3 number ki bus hi railway station jaayegi..” We realized that someone had just spoken to us in Hindi in a small town of Austria. Seconds later he disappeared as his bus had arrived at the bus stop. We looked at each other in some kind of shock but then happily waited for the bus number “drei”, “three” in German and reached the coveted destination. After this we had another argument which was based on the person’s nationality. Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi?? Don’t know?? Didn’t matter.

And the third one: This incident took place the day before we were supposed to leave for India. As per our schedule we had to catch a flight to Frankfurt from Linz, 6 o’clock in the morning. Since the hotel booking was on my name, I thought why not complete the check out formalities of the hotel, the night before we were supposed to leave. I was a bit skeptical about this; so thought of consulting Tamara (who was our fast friend by then) if this was possible. While going for dinner we stopped at the desk to meet a person other than Tamara. Didn’t matter, anyhow we had to ask him. I spoke to that guy and told him the case. He said “Koi nahi, sirjee, hum karlenge…aap khana shana kha lo!!” I replied “What??” He repeated the same thing. I could not comprehend what he was trying to say. I started looking at my companion, Sreeharsha. He too looked perplexed, then suddenly realized and said “Abey voh hindi mein baat kar raha hain..” I was highly surprised. I had understood that you can’t even understand a language you are used to talking everyday when you don’t expect anyone speaking the same. The guy never looked like an Indian, his style of speaking, his dressing sense and all never hinted that he was one of us. Anyhow, I was happy that he had agreed and it was possible for me to accomplish the check out stuff the same night. The next morning he was not at the reception and it was Tamara who bid us good bye. Funny and interesting incident isn’t it??

Watch out this space for some more experiences.....

Idli – 8th wonder of the world!!

2008-12-17T21:44:00.000+05:30

I have been and am one of the greatest fans of idli like many of you and if you don’t agree that idli isn’t the eighth wonder of the world than I think you need to check your cognitive abilities. In fact, I would go ahead and assert that after James Watt invented the steam engine, the second best invention from steam has been idli only.

Morning 2 idlis with some sambar, podi and chatni makes your day. You can’t think of a better breakfast, once you’re addicted to this savory cake, as people christen it.

Even though I am such a promoter of Idli, you can’t ask me how to prepare that. I am best at eating only.

But if you are really interested in knowing the recipe here’s the URL that can get you to the coveted destination. How to prepare Idli: http://www.surfindia.com/recipes/idli.html

The good things about idli are:
1. Easy to cook.
2. You can prepare it quickly, if the batter is ready.
3. Eat it any time during the day!
4. No fat, calories or anything that’s unhealthy.

And if you are a firm believer of “Pet shant to dimaag shant” and “Pehle pet puja, phir kaam duja” then nothing better than idli to have.

So keep eating idli and keep rocking!

A life less ordinary!!!

2008-11-28T16:50:00.002+05:30

It was very early in the morning (0800 hrs is early for me at least); Bangalore’s cool breeze was refreshing and inspiring me to sleep more. But unfortunately it was Friday and I had to leave for office. So, I got up and after performing the obligatory tasks for the day, I switched on TV and started zipping through the newspaper. The Mumbai attacks were still going on and NSG task force was doing its best to kill the terrorists and free the people from clutches of the militants. As I was in a hurry to get to office, I resorted to reading the newspaper more than the TV. At least you get the details quickly without waiting for the TV advertisements!

As I was browsing through the pages, one of the articles grabbed my attention more than the others. On carefully observing, I could make out that the photo that was attached with the article was of one of my friends’ snap who had joined with me as a Campus joinee in Wipro technologies. Malay Banerjee, was an architect passed out of Kharagpur and was native of Ranchi. Even before completing the Wipro training, he had decided to join a bank in Mumbai. Everything had gone well with him. Recently he was engaged too. So seeing his picture in the newspaper, I contemplated that this must have been one of the achievements in his life that TOI has appreciated. With lots of zeal, I read the headlines of the article. I was jolted when I realized the article meant Malay was killed in the terror attacks in Café Leopold, Mumbai. This news came in as a shock to me. Never had I expected anything like this would happen to one of my friends. Immediately, I called Bhakti our common friend and informed her about the incidence. She too was shattered.

It was the first terror attack that had affected me, even though indirectly!! Think of the agony his family would have gone through. Indeed, it was a life less ordinary for Malay.

END OF AN ERA!!

2008-11-02T20:16:00.003+05:30

Yes, it’s really an end of an era. Anil Kumble, fondly known as “JUMBO” played his last test match at Feroz Shah Kotla, Delhi today. Fans will remember the 10 wicket haul, when Jumbo single handedly bowled the Pakistan team out. Pakistan team was Kumbled, I mean humbled!! The memories of that match are still fresh. It feels that it was not too long ago when Wasim Akram nicked the ball to the short leg, where VVS Laxman was eagerly waiting and bucketed the catch to gave Kumble his 10th wicket. It was the same ground, where he bowled his last ball of the illustrous cricketing career that stretched for almost two decades.

It was an emotional moment when he walked round the stadium lifting his team India cap and people giving him a standing ovation. Sitting at home and watching on TV was as touchy. Reactions came in from many former players, legends of the game, like Kapil Dev, Bishen Singh Bedi on what they felt about Anil's talent and his service to the game. Statistics easily would be enough to substantiate comments like “one of the world’s best spinner”, “Best Indian bowler”, dedicated, fighter to the core and many more adjectives that describe him. I think you would remember the test match in Carabean, when Anil was operated on his jaws, but he came back, bowled and took Brian Lara’s wicket. Such was his commitment to the game and duty towards the team and the nation.

He gives all the credit of his success to the people, family, his elder brother who had suggested him to switch to leg spin from fast bowling and presposterously says, "I am still trying to figure out how to bowl a leg spin!" Irrespective of the bowling style, Anil has gained a lot of respect over the 18 years, he played the game.

Never can one memorize him misbehaving on the cricket field. We all are cognizant of the kind of maturity he showed during the Sydney Test when India had toured Oz in 2007. “There were two teams who played the game, but only one team played in the spirit of the game”, a man of few words had to say about the sledging incident.

But…Anil Kumble won’t be seen again on the cricket field. One can hope he continues to be around the cricket field in the form of coach or commentator or match referee or even as an eager audience. It was fitting that such a great player and student of the game ended his career as a captain of a team consisting of likes of Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Ganguly and Dravid.

Frankly speaking, it is because of the players like Anil Kumble, one can say, “It’s not cricket who make cricketers, but cricketers who make cricket”. No doubt, Anil was one of the few gentlemen to have played the gentleman’s game in a gentleman's way!!.

An evening with Madhubala – The Tribute!!

2008-10-20T12:41:00.000+05:30

Cool and cloudy Sunday evening and what better than to listen to some good old songs that Madhubala enacted on the silver screen. If you are a fan of Madhubala, even while you read the first line you are already feeling that you need to figure out or collect all the information on how, where, when to attend such a concert that would promise only and only acoustic delight in the form of old melodies. I was blessed with such a golden opportunity. Thought of sharing my experiences with everyone and the best way of achieving it, I feel, is to pen down these. So here I am.

The concert…
Brief history
It was named “Madhurbala”, after, of course, some “madhur” melodies of Madhubala. Concert began with a brief history of how the actress entered the world of cinema and glamour with Bombay Talkies and how she managed to fascinate people from the tender age of 14. Mr. Ashok Hande, the person who managed the show, talked about the plethora of movies that were successful at the box office that included the likes of Mahal, Naya Daur, Mr and Mrs 55, Chalti ka Naam Gadi and last but not the least, Mughal-E-Azam, practically her last movie. I could hear people, sitting behind and in front of me, taking names of the movies that I haven’t heard of and they were upset that narrator didn’t mention those names. But I guess it was hard to please the populace as almost everyone was a hard core fan of Madhubala like my parents seemed to be. For me, I was content with Chalti ka Naam Gadi and Mughal-E-Azam as I had watched these movies; Mughal-E-Azam being the personal favorite, after all, a milestone movie in the Indian Cinema. Frankly speaking, at first, I was a bit skeptical on attending the concert and noticing people of age greater than 45 years around you isn’t quite encouraging, but I knew if the show is on Madhubala, the script of the show would certainly contain “Pyar kiya to darna kya….” I could have been more than happy to only hear that song being performed even at the stake of not knowing the other songs and the risk of getting bored as the program progressed. Also, my parents wanted to give me a taste of old wine and I didn’t want to be stubborn by saying NO. (Between, Old wine was just a phrase; such beverages don’t go well with me and my familyJ).

The songs, the singers and the co-stars
After the brief history on Madhubala, the choir started with the songs they had planned for the evening. The musical journey began with “Ayega, Ayega, Ayega, Ayega aane wala, ayega” a song from the film Mahal (1949), picturized on Ashok Kumar and sung by our very own, Nightingale of India, yes, Lata Mangeshkar. It’s amazing to note the period for which didi has been singing. Coincidently, I was watching this concert sitting in “Dinanath Mangeshkar Hall”, named after her father. The second in line was “Achcha ji mein hari chalo maan jaao na…” from the film Kala Pani (1958) that featured evergreen hero of Indian Cinema, Mr. Dev Anand. Again, the singers, who enchanted Indians for decades had sung this song, Asha Bhosale and Mohammad Rafi. It was good that along with the singers singing, the video of songs were also being projected. This song was particularly liked by the audience and the singers were kind enough to answer the “Once More” requests of the audience. I was thrilled by now and I felt that I had made the right decision to be present at the show. Then there were some songs from the films like Naya Duar, Daulat, Mr and Mrs 55, Apradhi, Pujari , Naqab, Raj Hath, Jwala, Sang dil and Madhubala (yes, it’s the name of the film.) All these were from an unknown world to me, but still I enjoyed a few of them instead of feeling alienated. Basically the songs were from movies that would cover almost all the co-starts of Madhubala like Shammi Kapoor, Kishore Kumar, Bharat Bhushan, Sunil Dutt, Raj Kapoor, Guru Dutt, Pradeep Kumar and of course Dilip Kumar, arguably the best actor of that time.
“Aaiye meherbaan…” a song from Howrah Bridge (1958) and “paanch rupaiya bara aana” from Chalti ka naam gaadi (1958) charged me up after the lull in between. As the club dancer in Howrah Bridge, Madhubala never looked more beautiful or alluring as she swayed to the seductive notes of Aaiye Meherbaan. Kishore Kumar with all his annoying acting brilliance was a perfect match to the resplendent Madhubala, I feel. As audience, we all knew the show won’t end unless songs from Mughal-E-Azam were not sung. It was just a matter of time as we all were set and ready for it. Patience paid when the choir started singing the famous kavvalli “tere mehfil mein kismet aazma kar hum bhi dekhenge”. The dialogues from the film after the kavvali were shown on the screen and the renowned conversation between Madhubala and Dilip Kumar stating “kanton ko murjhana ka ghum nahi hota jahan panha” was spoken almost by everyone including me along with Anarkali (Madhubala) on the screen. The song of Bade Ghulam Ali from the same movie that used for depicting the love between Salim and Anarkali was also portrayed. Mr. Ashok, the narrator happened to tell us that Dilip Kumar and Madhubala were not on talking terms when this movie was being shot. Having said that, the performances from both the actors in the movie was phenomenal. You would agree with me if you have had the chance of watching the film. It was time for “Pyaar kiya toh darna kya…” the most awaited one of lot. The song started with “Insaan is duniya mein…” and everyone started applauding, hence manifesting their extreme interest. It was a reason for revelry for some. Apparently, people had some or the other memories associated with the song. The audience started enjoying every thing about the song, right from Tabla, flute, sitar, every harkat the singer took well. The milieu should only be experienced as it cannot be explained. It was a moment of pride for the singer to have sung this song, quite clearly visible on her face. Shivers went through my spine when the acoustic effect was used for portraying the mirror scene from the movie where all the mirrors on the roof of Akbar’s palace could only show Anarkali dancing. The song ended with a standing ovation and hence was the end to the fantastic evening.

After thoughts
Obviously, I enjoyed the evening. But, when I reflect, Madhubala was born in 1933 and my parents some 15-16 years after her birth. And she died in 1969, 40 years ago. Even after four decades, people wanted to reminisce about her? You need to be really good for that, I believe.
Also, one more interesting thing was: A family who sat near us, in the auditorium, had members representing four generations. The songs, each one of them enjoyed, were different. But the point is the knowledge and the interest still persists.
Just a passing thought, when I grow up sixty, would I be able to eye-witness a show like this with my grand children, in the honor of “Madhubala” of our generation?? Make no mistakes, she would be Madhuri Dixit. It doesn’t matter if you disagree. J