....... TZP the movie I was really looking forward to ....

Some weeks back I had posted about TZP i.e. "Taare Zameen Par" ... a movie I had then said that I was really looking forward to. We had a "Christmas Vacation" and I had gone to mumbai for 10 odd days. just abt managed to catch up with this movie .... and have to say its easily one of the "real good" movies that I have watched .... n one of the best in recent times.

Nothing really flashy about the movie ... its a simple story which U can identify with coz if not yourself, you must have at least seen someone around you go through what the little Ishaan goes through in the first half of the movie ..... atleast I could. It brought back memories of my school days .. when my younger bro had to go through something similar especially the scene where Ishaan gets compared with his elder bro ... me obviously being the more studious and disciplines elder bro :P Also the scene where Ishaan is checking out the stuff being sold outside his school brought back memories of school days ... as bor/karwanda, buddhee k baal, kachhee badishep (thats wot we used to call it as kids ;)), gola etc were a part of daily lives of most school going kids of Bombay n I hope they still are.

Its a movie with its heart in the right place ... needless to say something I was expecting since it was a movie with Aamir Khan both behind as well as in front of the camera. But still I think Aamir did a brilliant job by not getting trapped in the standard bollywood format i.e. silly heroines, item songs etc :) .... n he didn't get too obsessed with self too ... allowing Darsheel whoz done a great job as the vulnerable Ishaan ....to take the centrestage for the most part of the movie. I seriously feel Darsheel deserves to win a few awards this year .... good lesson or two in this movie for the Tushar Kapoors, Arjun Rampals of the world on how important emoting on screen is.

Coming to the music ... all the songs are equally good and relevant in the movies flow ..... I believe its one of the most complete album to come out of bollywood in a long time. Its class apart in terms of everything be it meaningful lyrics, perfect music or soulful singing ...the album which comes close to it is I guess RDB. Prasoon Joshi is the common link and for a change Shankar Ehsaan Loy has done a real wonderful job with the music ..... moving beyond the pretty woman, its the time to disco, wheres the party tonite type stereotypical music.

All I can say is this movie is worth watching on a big screen .... especially this song which is a real classic ....



.. a song close to my heart coz .... though I am much older than Ishaan ... "B school" is a kind of "Boarding school" too .... and the lyrics truly capture my feelings many a times in this place.... being so far away from home n family.

newyz belated Happy New Year Wishes and many thanks for taking the pains to read my blog. :)

Another "plain weekend" beckons ....

Its that time of the week again ... rather I should say "the dreaded time of the week again" .. yep a "plain weekend" beckons ..... plain coz theres nothing "special" about this weekend ... there's no Delphique/Illumina/Imperium or even an open house by student council/placecom or some extra classes.

After 5 days of hectic activity filled with classes, presentations, assignments, quizzes n other day to day non-academic stuff, the weekend should ideally be a welcome break. N that it is for many people on campus especially all the delhi waalahs or rather NCR waalahs who pack their bags (for many their unwashed clothes too ;) ) and head off to their mom, dad, bro, sis, friends (4 some this means girl/boyfriend) etc.

But for me with all such relationships left back in Mumbai theres no getaway from this place. For outsiders Gurgaon might be one of the most happening parts of "this side of India" but for me thats definitely not the case. As in my opinion having 10 malls on one stretch of the road doesnt make any place happening .... plus if you dont have any mode of transport of your own getting to those places means using the pathetic public transport ..... which is a good enough put off for some1 like me whoz spent all his life in Mumbai where never mind the traffic the public transport is as good as it can be!! (as I write this I realise that a comparative study of public transport can be the subject of one full post )

So such "plain weekends" for me are mostly spent on campus ..... mostly sleeping (which means missing the breakfast and at times the lunch too :) ) ... ocassionally cleaning d room... for some brief moments yearning for the week to start ..... at times pondering & most times wondering what all I can do during these 1 n half yrs I have for myself in general n the weekend in particular (like preparing for the next quiz, completing some presentatn or project work :) which doesnt materialise into action ;) )........... add a visit to the Sector-14 market n the most happening place over there for many if not most MDI waalahs "OM Sweets" .... and some more sleeping, surfing, orkutting, chatting, couple of walks around the campus .... and its sunday evening .....n I realise another weekends gone ....... n the next weeks grind is about to begin ....

... lets c if this weekend proves to be any different :) ....maybe I'll post on sunday night to confirm/contradict this post :)

Zindagi ki yahi reet hai .. haaar k baad hi jeet hai ...

yesterday was a real mixed day for me ..... was waiting for some result the entire day n was quite hopeful that it would come out in my favor ....

..at night we had an open house related to our b-scool fest "IMPERIUM" which starts from tomorrow .... n after the open house a treasure hunt was lined up to kick start the "Informals" of Imperium 07.

Now treasure hunts can be real fun if you have enthusiastic team members who are willing to run like crazy, crack clues, dont get tired or give up midway ... basically who want to win the treasure ....... or they can be real disappointing if you get stuck in a team which is just not ready to try that bit harder or gives up easily.

Was lucky enough to be a part of team falling in the former category .... n we used a strategy which was different than the others ... ran like crazy for the initial part ... commited a couple of blunders mid way through and nullified our early lead ...but didn't give up ....n again ran like crazy towards the end ...... n to our delight we completed it before any one else could.

N guess wot as prizes we got "SENNHESISER" headphones worth Rs.10000/- each :) :)
...felt amazing ... coz I haven't really won ne competitive event in a longgg longg time :) ...n it was even more fun ... coz at the start we were having fun with people ... telling them they hardly stood a chance n for all their efforts all they would manage is the second spot coz first will be ours!! :D

heres our team with the spoils .... me, sumanth (super enthu :) ) n kshitij (perhaps the most he has ran all his life.. we made him do so ;) :P )

... good quality headphones were something which has been on ma wish list since the day I had bought my Ipod nano! :) .. n this got fulfilled yesterday n the sound quality is just amazing!!

But then after the contest was over .... just happened to check the result of d thing I had been waiting all day .... n to my disappointment it didn't work out in my favour ... :(

So on the one hand I was real happy that I had won something wortwhile in a longg longg time .... but there was tinge of sadnesss coz i had lost on some other front ...

Never mind ... thats life ...

P.S: listening to the hindi song "zindagi ki yahi reet hai .. haar k baad hi jeet hai ... thode gam hain .. thodee khushi hai ... aaaj gam hai to kal hai khushii .." on ma brand new headphones ;)

Something I am looking forward to ...

Its been that kind of a week which has dented the self-belief n confidence of lot many people on campus ... leading to a very grim kind of outlook for the future!

Thankfully my self-belief n confidence are both intact .... and I still have a very positive outlook for the future :) .... perhaps the one major benefit of being an experienced guy vis-a-vis a fresher in a b-school .....is that this kind of crisis or rather I should just say "situation" is nothing major ... have faced many more diffcult n challenging times in both personal n professional life to get overly perturbed by the recent turn of events (will write my thots on this in a separate post :) )

Anyways .... theres one thing which I am surely looking forward to ...n thats the latest Aamir Khan movie ..... "Taare Zameen Par" .... the promos n music have got me intrigued .... n as is generally the norm with any thing associated to Mr.Perfectionist of Bollywood .. this venture too seems to be a high quality n sensible one .... esp with the fact that this time hez the person in the front as well as behind the camera ..... found an interesting video on YouTube related to TZP ... which I thot I'll share it here ....

Chalo thats it for the time being!!




PS: For Aamir Khan fans ... came across his blog at: http://www.aamirkhan.com/blog.htm

Zindagi ne Zindagi bhar gam diye .... :( :(

The so called “Oscars” of “Summers of 2007” are over and again there was a range of emotions on display .... and though the “most visible” emotions during the awards ceremony were – happiness, relief n euphoria ......... post it have noticed something else 2.... d atmosphere is not really 100% normal ne more ... agreed there are still around 100 odd people to be placed but still ....

So with no offence to the feelings/sentiments of ne1, I would like to take the liberty to summarise the mood of some “dukhi aatmaas” on campus right now!! :)
... here it goes ....

Logon ko dukh hai .....

K unko ek “FokatKa-Chhola” company chhodnee padee “Treat-aania” k liye (seriously no offence intended here)

K unki ek company main waitlist clear nahin hui (confirmed offer bas nahin hai kyaa ;) )

K unko “Fin” ki jagah “Marketing” profile mil gayee (and vice versa too :) )

K unko “Treasury profile” ki jagah “Analytics profile” mil gayee (in this case I guess no1 vice versa ;) )

K unko kaaash “Fin” company main “Treasury profile” mil jaatee (Laalach booree balaa hai!! :) )

K unko kaaash “FundooBank” ki “JhatakMatak-pore” waali profile mil jaatee (Duniyaas envy “Baba”s Pride ;) )

N in sab k beech kuchh log aise bhi hain jinko dukh hai ...

K kaash woh ek GD to clear kar lete

K kaash woh ek interview to crack maar lete

K kaash woh summers k liye thoda prepare kar lete

K kaash woh thode decent acads le aate

K kaash woh 2-3 saal pehle hi CAT crack maar lete

K kaash woh bhi auron ki tarah har jagah apply kar dete to shaayad unka bhi kahin tukkaa lag jaata

And lastly there definitely are some people (who probably are the only people jinka dukh justified hai accrdng to me)
.. and woh hain jinko dukh hai ...

K unko ek company shortlist karne laayak to samajh leti!!! :( :( (yesss even such people do exist on this very campus)

Newyz ... yeh saalaa summers ne yaato kaafi logon ko badal diyaa hai .... yaa shaayad haalaat badal gaye hain log to vahi hain!! (super-philosophical line ;) )

I hope and pray k all the “dukhi aatmaas” on campus will reflect on not just “their” dukh but also on “their batchmates” dukhs and ..... jaldi hi sab log saare dukhon ko bhoool k phhir se normalise ho jaayenge n we will have the same campus atmosphere which prevailed pre “Summers n Oscars of 2007”!!! :) :)

Big Cheers to all the “sukhi aatmaas”!! :)

newyz .. moi as of now Interning at: Vela-bhai & Vela-das Brothers & Sons & Co.
Punch Line: As Vela as ever .... even though “You’re NOT worth it” :P

n my take on life is summarised as ....

Forrest Gumps Momma: “Life’s like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.”
Moi: Chocolates - you eat em ... else flush whatever u get down the toilet