4 in da morning!!!

What am I doing posting a blog at 4 in the morning? It is not that I woke up early in the morning, it is just that I didnt sleep so far! Saturday is a working day at college, but my time table for this semester is quite strange since it has given me a week filled with classes but nothing and absolutely nothing on Saturdays. This means that when normal BITSGians have to sleep on a Saturday morning sacrificing their classes and feeling guilty about it(a guilt which lasts only until you realise that all lectures are useless and start bunking all of them), I can sleep in peace until hunger sets in and I'm are woken up by weird noises and search for the source of the noise reveals that it is but my own stomach that woke me up!

Enough about the circumstances, why am I doing it? Becasue I feel I have a thousand tales to tell, a thousand things to talk about and a thousand questions to ask. But as always when I want to talk, there is nobody around and this is the case whether it be 4 in the morning or 4 in the evening. So I do what I always do when there is no one to talk to, I talk to myself, a process that happens ever so often that I talk more to myself than any other person. Craziness you say? Read the title of the blogspot my friend! I haven't made a live post so far, meaning to say that I haven't wrote down something and posted in then and there. All my posts have been written down and checked be me and then posted. So if this one feels to be the worst of the lot or maybe the best, it is due to the aforementioned fact.

I tried calling a friend from school but didn't feel like saying anything so it ended abruptly
and so did another conversation. Maybe I have been trying to do too much, pretending to be something that I am not. I should better take a deep breath, get to sleep and wake up finding that everything is in order and all it needs to be made complete is for me to get up and get going. What am I typing, ah well, I suppose it is just unbounded words coming out as they are formed without any conscious effort to edit or hide anything.

Better get some sleep I suppose. I still want to talk, but I am tired of hearing myself talk and the hearing me is the one calling out for sleep and I follow his wish much to the anguish of that me which wishes to talk and discuss-discuss about anything in this world.

Attitudes and Aspirations

Different people want different things in life and have different expectations. I do not say it is wrong to have a certain attitude or that there is only one right attitude. This is an attempt towards examining what people aim to achieve from what they do. I begin with a small instance which happened to me. A friend of mine told me about a yahoo group dedicated to quizzing and the only question that I asked was about the name of the group. When I told this to another friend of mine, his first question was about the prizes that we would get if we answered the questions correctly. When I was looking for only fun, enrichment of my knowledge and the satisfaction of it all, he was looking for material gains. Why was there such a marked difference in the direction in which our thoughts travelled? I believe it is because of our attitude and our aspirations. We do things in life for different reasons and for me it has never been about material gains, whichever action that I was involved in, but rather about the glory and pride of doing it. I do not know whether it is good or not, but that’s what works for me.

What we want out of our actions motivate us and drive us to perform our tasks so that we can get the ultimate price, but in the Bhagavad Gita, Lord ShriKrishna advices Arjuna not to worry about the result of our actions, but it is only given to us to fulfill our duties and carry out our actions whatever their results may be. But in these days, rarely do we find someone who is engaged in a task without worrying about the result. If we are able to stop being concerned about the result, but perform our actions to fullest efficiency, then I gather that the results would be good whatsoever.

These days, the driving force behind anything that we do is money; it is only about the financial gains that we are worried about. The earlier concept was that 'Knowledge is Power Supreme'(the slogan of my college incidentally), but it would be closer to the truth if I say that knowledge is the means to make money and more money these days. Greed, the one thing that we must all avoid, but one thing that enslaves us even without we even know about it. Even when we aspire to be in a good college, the main driving force would be the money that we would be getting on completion of the course rather than our thirst for knowledge or hunger to learn more about our world. I must confess that if I am asked why I wanted to join a good engineering college, I would have to say that it was to gain a good job, but not any noble intentions of pursuing greater knowledge in order to do good for the mankind or such any enlightened aims. My aim was only to gain admission and thus gain more certainty about the salary that I would get, but it was not in the wildest of my dreams to become a good engineer or to study well, something which I find is common to many others and this is the reason why have I lost my way in college, something which I must rectify if I am to succeed in life and do justice to myself, this world, to life and to my parents. We must fulfill our duties and tasks and not worry about the outcome in order to lead a better life and to achieve success.

We must fulfil our duties and tasks and not worry about the outcome inorder to lead a better life and to achieve success. If we do what we are supposed to do in the right manner, success will follow invariably.

Casablanca-A Classic

Casablanca is a town in Morocco, but for me, it is far more significant as one of the greatest movies that I have ever seen and it is in this movie I saw the most beautiful woman I have seen-Ingrid Bergman. As one of my friends rightly pointed out, god doesn’t make those kind of women any more, the ones with sweet, haunting beauty, the feeling of which, lingers long after it’s gone. Its one of the sweetest and most memorable movies ever, with great dialogues, memorable settings and Humphrey Boggart was simply superb as the American Cafe owner in Casablanca. The music from Sam was utterly romantic and Victor Lazlo as the French rebel does justice to the role of a man who has realised his destiny and was willing to do and doing anything and everything in his power to fulfil that destiny. Sharp, witty dialogues, romantics scenes, painful love, all of which made me want to be loved in a way a man can be loved only by a woman. The movie has several memorable scenes which stay with you for a long time. The scene where Elsa asks Sam to sing the song 'As time goes by' and then Rick hears the song and is surprised, the scene when Rick sees the letter from her in the rain and the words fade and are deformed by the water drops, which symbolises love that is taken away and Rick is unable to do anything and he has to leave in the train since he has no other option. It’s not just the pain of lost love, but also the love that Elsa has for Lazzlo another sweet occasion is where Rick saves the young couple from Bulgaria by manipulating and providing money from his own cafe's roulette table and these are all examples of love, honesty and integrity at the times of difficulty, turmoil and conflict. There are just so many things that I like about the movie. The most memorable quote for me is 'Here's looking at you kid' and also 'of all the jinn joints in all towns in all the world, she walks into mine'.

Finally Rick realises his destiny when he does 'the thinking for all of them' as was requested by Elsa. He helps Lazlo escape with Elsa and decides to help the efforts against the Nazi rule in his own small ways and he begins by killing a German General who was trying to stop Lazlo from escaping from Casablanca. In the end, comes one of the best quotes from a movie' Louie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship'.

There is one special moment and that too comes at the end when he convinces Elsa to go and speaks to Lazlo about what had happened between them and tells him that she can not love him(Rick) anymore and her right place is with Lazlo and his(Rick's) place is at Casablanca. She asks him, 'What about us' and he replies, 'we will always have Paris' and that is one dialogue that means a lot in the movie. Those words contain the entire movie, its plot, what happens and how it ends.

OSO a superhit?OMG!!

I just watched Om Shanti Om, the movie that created a lot of hype so much so that it was the talking point months before its release date. SRK wearing an OSO T-Shirt to the 20-20 cricket world cup final was just a small step. To be honest, I can’t quite understand what’s behind all the excitement. Everyone who saw the movie told me it was simply superb, but I think they meant that it was a good entertainer. That’s the opinion I have, a good entertainer but large portions where I just felt that something was wrong.

The first part of the movie does justice to all the hype surrounding it. I liked the aspirations of Om Prakash, to become an actor, his dreams and the fantasy land he has about Shantipriya. Arjun Rampal as the villain looks quite the bad guy! Deepika Padukone does okay as Shantipriya and her second part isnt quite significant when compared to SRK's role as Om Kapoor. In fact, the movie was all about one person and so much centered on an actor, not a character, that makes me feel that the movie is really hollow. Beneath all the hype and excitement, there is absolutely nothing! It’s HOLLOW and the story isn’t something that really impressed me, all about reincarnation and the soul (or ghost!) of Shanti appearing at the end. It was predictable and one could predict each and everything that was going to happen in the second part of the movie, it was so obvious.

"Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!"?? OSO cant get anywhere near Margaret Mitchell's classic and it would take the impossible to make one of SRK's dialogues one of the most memorable ever in movie history! The movie does take a dig at some of Bollywood’s traditions and power concentrations with some remarks and hints of 'SRK is better than your kid and he cant beat me' being thrown on a certain tall, used to be 'the angry young man' person and someone who directs movies. It criticizes the entire tradition of star children entering the silver screen, when Om's friend Pappu asks him to change the name to some Kapoor or a name with tradition! This is something unique to Bollywood and politics, child following in parents’ footsteps and parents protecting them till they have some success under their belts.

Also, the jibe thrown at the way in which movies become successful due to an item song! SRK shouldn’t forget that he too did an item song for a movie along with Malaika Arora!The camera work by Manikandan is really good with several shots having angles that give a unique view and the art direction by Sabu Cyril deserves a huge round of applause, especially the recreation of the 70s feel and surroundings. That remains an outstanding part of the movie. Also costumes were designed with some real good sense by Manish Malhotra, Karan Johar(??!!) and Sanjeev Mulchandani. Music by Vishal and Shekhar was good and some of the songs were really good, which is just business as usual for Javed Akhtar but I have strong opposition to one track that was around 8mins long. I am talking about the song where all of Bollywood’s stars decent upon the set to congratulate Om. A song stretched long enough to present all of Bollywood’s stars (bar a few notable exceptions who I mentioned before), was just too much for me. Editing too deserves some praise I believe for the blending of the first 'Om Shanti Om' actually starring Rishi Kapoor track with Shah Rukh Khan and Farah Khan was flawless.

OSO proves that a movie with a lot of hype, a lot (and I mean a LOT) of superstars, although for just a few minutes, will pull in the crowds and make your movie a huge success even if it lacks a soul and remains hollow!!!

PS-I am posting this around 3 weeks after actually watching the movie but was written immediately after watching it.

Madness doesnt get any bigger than this

What is life? The answer to this question occupied the lives of our great philosophers and thinkers and most of them ended up providing us better ways to live and let live, but no one has been able to gives the answer to real question itself? What is the purpose of our lives, why are we here, why is that we become what we are, who we are and why is it I was born where I was and you were born where you were born? But then, to answer these, you need to define what or who an individual is! What is I and You? Does I and you correspond to two independent human entities with different views, opinions etc? This then transforms the question of ‘who I am’ and gives us another perspective of we are what we are because of where we are! An individual is not born. You and I were not born because when we were born, the difference between ‘who you are’ and ‘who I am’ is nothing. Except for the genetic information, our thoughts, actions are all something similar. It is then that the separation takes place, our upbringing, circumstances, and way of living and what we see around us. So an individual is the result of what he/she sees around himself and the influence of what he sees around himself and an individual is the manifestation of the society's influence upon a human entity. Individual therefore are made, not born.

This too does not answer what is life and what its purpose is. I believe that the society influences a person and this influence is because the society wants something from the individual, something that the individual must supply the environment with and we do not what we must give it. Unless we are able to find out what it is, our lives won’t be complete and it would lack a meaning and purpose. This is what I would like to call destiny. This is what I would like to call the purpose of our living.

It is to find out what the society wants from and the pursuit of this knowledge and also providing the society with what we must, with that, which is our destiny is to provide. For it is the society and the environment that makes us and teaches us right from wrong and even these rights and wrongs are relative since each environment has its own rights and wrongs. It provides with what we need and so it is our duty to serve the environment.

Therefore life is a pursuit of this knowledge about our destiny and once we know what it is, to fulfill the destiny. This is what gives meaning and purpose to life.

Revival

It’s been sometime since I posted something, a fact which I attribute to the complacency that crept in as I was in college and so I was busy with one thing or the other and was never in a situation to think and put these thoughts into words and give form to them, which is the purpose of my blog. Some of my friends visited my blog and a universal observation was (not that the entire universe reads my blog, I am referring to those who have gone through some part of it), some of the posts are too big and too serious to be read. Well, I started blogging to give an outlet to my feelings and to express my opinions about what I feel are important matters in this world. But I think I better give some attention to the readability of my posts and so, taking that into consideration, I am posting this one just for fun. A light post on what is full of topics that require some degree of social awareness to understand.

Finished my second year first semester at BITS and believe my when I say it was different from everything that I had gone through! My friends entered the enchanting realm of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft where they played virtual characters and it was addicting to such an extent that I was scared for them. They forgot to have food on quite a few occasions! Then came the power outage in college, the main problem lasted for 5 days and after that we ran on minimal power needs, and power was restored by the time of exams. The inter-hostel competitions 'Zephyr' had its fair share of controversies, moments and I consider this years Zephyr a near failure caused by the absence of over 30% of the students and the power problem and judges, who had absolutely no sense of what they were doing. There were certain “revelations” (!!!!!!) and some consensus on our opinions about the girls studying in our college which, if I mention here, might just be mistaken as my general opinion about women. But the truth is, I have no opinion whatsoever about women, and as far as the girls in my college are concerned, I can only say, I wouldn’t choose any of them to portray ‘The Indian woman’ or as role models for my daughter, if and when I have a daughter. This brings me to a discussion we friends had at college on whether we preferred a girl or boy child. No one had a second thought as everyone wanted a boy as the eldest child and maybe a girl later, just maybe. The reason being, we know how far a boy can go with his secrets and devious ways and boyish behavior ;-) since we have been through that and are still in that process!!!! But if it is a girl, we have absolutely no idea, and we also know what will be attitude of the boys of her age (not very decent or ‘friendly’ and I say that from personal experience!), then the worries and tensions, whether she has a boyfriend or whether she is dressing properly and a thousand other concerns!

I had started the semester with a determination to reach a GPA of 8 which would get me closer to a CGPA of 7. Well, I wasn’t realistic I suppose. I have this knack for staying rooted to my spot when I try my best to improve, but like all other previous occasions, I will most probably be a 6 pointer with almost the same GPA for all three semester, around the 6.3 mark! I end the sem, making a remark that I have made on two previous occasions. There is always the next sem! I can only hope that it goes differently. I do not go in for an analysis and listing of my marks which would be confusing to anyone from outside BITS who visits the blog spot (again, not that there are many who visit this, but I have to be optimistic!). I learned a lot about social skills and it has been the most informative period in my life, academically, and otherwise. Academic, because I received introduction to basic electronics, advanced knowledge on quantum chemistry, some amounts of higher mathematics and management. I also learned about attitudes, I have been able to better understand or atleast tried to understand a little bit about their behaviour, what each person is looking for and expecting out of what they do. Fruitful, also to my life's pursuit, since I was able to conduct, what everyone in the quiz club at college has praised to be, the best quiz in the sem. I have also got an opportunity to conduct the science and technology quiz during our college's national level Tech-Fest, christened Quark. It has been a good sem for me, except obviously for the academic part and as I mentioned, and there is ALWAYS (!!!) a NEXT SEM!