Music Bands

A close friend of mine suggested again that my blogs are more of technical reports and so are quite boring. Well, I suppose I should atleast make them readable, but it is a sad commentary on what we consider important and worthwhile in our life. We get wat we want, but not what you need(I am borrowing from a song by an English band name 'Coldplay', the song called 'Fix You' from the album 'X&Y') and rarely what we should really be getting. More on that later, but since I have touched upon music and I must write something that is not a technical report, but something personal, I am thinking about my favourite music bands. I do not give very valid or concrete reasons because you dont like a band(or anything for that matter) because of a set of specific reasons. One thing I could say is, I like their music but that is neither here nor there, but thats all I got. I do not want to rank them too and so I am just giving them in a random order.
So, I am mentioning U2 first and songs like 'City of Blinding Lights', 'I still haven't found what I'm looking for', 'Where the streets have no name', 'With or without you' are really great. Bono's voice and The Edge are simply unbelievable and their partners Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton complete a band which says that even you can join in and sing. Next up is Evanescence and this is special. A female lead singer in a rock band and they are the only rock band I seriously like. The lyrics are really great and the singing voice is also excellent, something that really touched me(Tourniquet, Imaginary, 'Bring me back to life', 'Call me when you're sobre' and 'Lithium' are my favourites). I must confess these are my top two and then there is a list of the others. Then there is 'Pink Floyd', one of the greatest ever to play music and their albums 'Dark side of the moon', 'The Wall' are just top of the draw and my favourite songs are 'Time', 'Brain Damage', 'Comfartably Numb' and the obvious 'Another Brick in the wall'!. 'Queen' is also good with 'Bohemian Rhapsody', 'Another one bites the dust', 'We are the champions', 'Bicycle' and we then got the 'Eagles' who titled their album 'When hell freezes over' as they got back together after a break-up during which they said 'When hell freezes over' when a reporter asked when the band would get back together! Songs like 'Hotel California', 'Tequila Sunrise', 'Love will keep us alive' and 'Desperado' simply creates magic. I also like 'Coldplay', with 'Speed of sound', 'Clocks', 'Shiver' etc but I think a lot of their songs sound very much similar, so not one of my greatest favourites, but still there. Nickelback, with videos with great ideas and themes(Savin' me and If everyone cared and one more about the story of a firefighter) are unbelievable. Chad Kroger's voice got a really good range, and I also like Nirvana, especially 'Love Buzz' and 'Smells like teen spirit', but thats all I like about them.

What I havent mentioned so far is that this is only a list of the western bands I like, but any time, my favourites would beCarnatic music songs, especiall those that they have the Violin (I learned it for around 7-8 yrs, but stopped it due to my laziness and I really dont know whether I regret that or not) or the Veena or the flute.

Glory Glory Man Utd!

Manchester United has done the EPL and Champions league double and it was a superb season for us and yes I do say us for I have not cared about any other club in football and have stuck with United for the last 7 seasons, ever since I started watching football. A club with a proud history, a dazzling present and a promising future, Utd has been the team to beat for the last decade and half. Teams have tried and succeeded sometimes but we have prevailed. Its not just about winning, but the style of winning is what matters and Utd have played some of the best football in all of Europe and so were crowned Champions of England and Europe. There should be no doubt about the strength of the team and quality of its players, but there are many who just would not acknowledge we are the best. Some support other clubs and I respect that, but there who belong to a club called ABU or 'Anyone But United' and also those who support the team only when it wins and supports another team when that team wins. This is plain treachery and I say Utd does not need any such supporters and do not give a damn about the ABUs, for we require nobody's acknowledgement. Only true fans deserve to celebrate with Manchester United in this moment of glory as victory is gained only by those who stick with us through thick and thin.
There are a few who simply make fun of us fans when Utd loose a match but when we win and that too in style, they say that it was just a fluke or we got lucky or the opposition was very weak. I would tell them that you make your own luck and everyone plays against each other in EPL, and in the Champions League, only the best in Europe play and there are no weak teams there! For those who stay that we purchase the best players, most of them support Chelsea or Real Madrid who have very little home grown talent. Utd has brought up many players from school boy levels (Giggs, Scholes, Beckham, Nevilles to name a few) or discovered those young players who have potential and gave them an oppurtunity to develop as great players. Christiano Ronaldo was just a name when he joined Manchester United for the 2003-2004 season and my friend says that Utd spotted Ronaldo while has playing in Euro-04, but he refuses to admit that he had already played a season at the Theatre of Dreams before he played in his first Euro tournament! This is just an example of those who try and make themselves believe that Utd is not a good team. Well my friend, I dont care and frankly, the worlds most popular football club does not care either!
It was a great performance by everyone which enabled us to win the EPL and the UCL with some stunning goals, a rock solid defence and great creative work and the goalkeepers standing tall to the very end. The UCL final was one of the best matches I have ever seen with the two teams matching each other for every tackle, some bitter and some sweet moments and ultimately, it was too close to call and was decided through penalties. Unlike previous finals which had to be decided through penalties as both teams were suffocating each other, this one was an edge of the seat thriller and the Red Devils prevailed! So all you Red Devil fans out there, continue keeping your heads above the rest!!
PS-For ABUs-Get lost
For supporters of other teams-Tough luck mate....and may you never have any chance of winning against Utd!! :P!!

Oil-The Black Gold or Satan's fluid avatar?

Crude oil, drilled from the depths of the earth, is called black gold due to its value, demand and utility. The modern economy is so much dependent on oil that any imbalance in its production, distribution or sale will send shock-waves across the entire world. It drives the modern economy in its use as automobile fuel, lubricants, cooking gas, asphalt. Crude oil is refined and its various components are put to the uses mentioned above. Oil has been rightly described by many as the greatest natural resource ever as everything that we do is dependent on oil. Inspite of all this, there are several unknown faces to black gold. I would like to discuss some of the unknown facts about oil.

1)Oil finds its use chiefly as a source of energy since it is made of an energy rich class of compounds called hydrocarbons. The various products extracted from crude oil is burned to produce energy which powers modern life in this planet. This leads to production of various gases like oxides of carbon, sulphur and nitrogen. These are dangerous for a few reasons-
These are greenhouse gases that trap the sun's heat and retains it in the earth's atmosphere. This keeps the earth warm for life to flourish but too much of this can make things too hot for life. This aspect is widely known as the debate on climate change has much to do with the burning of oil.

2)Modern economy is complerely based on oil. Oil's biggest use is for transportation i.e, movement of people and goods from one point to another. Therefore, any fluctuation in the price of oil can affect the price of everything that we use as everything that we use had its raw materials made in one place, processing done at another place, manufacturing then packing and then distribution all of which involves trasportation. So, it can affect the livelihood of everyone and always hits the poor and the salaried class the hardest.

3)The presence of this natural resource has lead to flourishing economies that do not even have to levy taxes on its people since the revenue from oil is used for civic purposes. But the absence of oil has meant that a nation will have to spend a large amount of its foreign exchange reserves for importing petroleum which is a huge drain on its economy. Countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait etc levy no taxes on its people but India spends a lion's share of its foreign exchange on importing petroleum.

4)The oil crisis and shortage of the 70s had implications all over the world with queues that were miles long. The world is heading to a similar crisis with oil reaching $110 per bbl. This would affect the prices of all commodities and can lead to a lot of conflicts.

5)Due to all this, the ones who control the oil supplies control the fate of the world and many conflicts have been fought over oilfields. The Gulf War of the 1990s, USSRs attack on Afghanistan, policies and animosities between Latin American countries and America, American intrusions into middle east politics and the conflicts in Nigeria are all due to the selfish interests of nation to gain strategic control of the oil reserves. Oil has huge geopolitical implications and this does not bode well for the world.


All this shows that the entire world depends on oil in many ways and due to this, oil has gained so much power that all nations are under its influence. It influences their policies, decisions, economy and infact every aspect of life is influenced by petroleum. The question then is, can one material be allowed to possess so much power? With just one product having so much of power, those who possess it will determine the life of those who dont and those who dont have it, will try to possess this resource or control it by means of force, the way America has done to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait etc by establishing military bases and military presence in oil rich nations. The resources of nature are for all to be used, not for the control of lives of the people of the world. It should be used for development of the world and root out hunger and poverty not spread these by raising the price of essential goods above the reach of the poor.

The only way forward is to find a substitute for oil. Not just one substitute, but many of them that will replace oil gradually. We need to develop renewable resources and at the same time reduce our dependence on oil gradually to zero. We need to make efficient use of oil until alternative sources can replace it and also must reduce wastage. Also, we must adopt the alternative energy sources when they are introduced and phase out petroleum products from our world for a greener, free, pollution-free and conflict-free future.

Changes in me and the world

I would like to see a few changes in the world-
1)The way we treat our fellow human beings-Equality exists only in law books but not in practice.It is something that we must inculcate in our lives and practice.Treat all humans equally and with respect for their life, dignity, their rights and also their duties.
2)The way we treat the environment-Most of us have utter disregard for our environment.We Waste Electricity, water, fuel, food and destroy the environment.Ultimately, we will destroy ourselves too.Let us all strive to make a better world for our children to live in.Turn off the lights when you leave a room,don't keep the tap running unnecessarily.
3)The way we treat ourselves-We destroy the human nature in ourselves by chasing success and money.We become selfish and too much concerned about ourselves but we forget that there is no place for individual existence, but only in a society do we have a life.We are social beings and all efforts towards self-fulfillment without considering the society will destroy ourselves.

But I also believe in 'be the change you want to see in the world' and so I should try and change myself and I also hope everyone does give it a thought as we are not ourselves and this world any justice by our present attitude and behaviour

A Hypocritic Nation

India, a nation that takes pride in the fact that it is the worlds largest democracy, a nation with multiple religions and is secular, one with hundreds of languages and ethnic groups and diverse geographic regions. There is one thing that many haven't noticed about this great nation of ours- it is the worlds largest hypocrite. It claims to treat all its citizens equally, whether it be judicially, in the case of employment or anything for that matter, but at the same time provides reservation in employment and education for certain castes and these reservations are just methods to gain benefits as is made evident by the protests of the Gujjar community to obtain scheduled caste and minority status in the state of Rajasthan, but the funny thing is, the state of Gujarat is named after them since they are present in large numbers in that state. Then I suppose its only a matter of time before Tamilians can say they are minority in Uttar Pradesh and start asking for ST status there. The larger issue of reservation has been widely debated and it looks like it is here to stay forever but all I can say is that politicians will want to preserve the reservation on the basis of caste for they cannot afford to loose the bulk amount of votes that come from each caste which in turn violates our principle of equality and that of democracy too when we are supposed to vote on a candidates merit and not on the caste, creed, langauge and religion of the candidate.

We call ourselves a Socialist nation, but we have the one of the worlds highest growing number of richest men and that of the poor too. We have huge disparities in income distribution where the top 10% own 40% of the wealth and the bottom 30% have less than 10%. The rich have special privileges when it comes to justice, education and during various allotments of government aid and development programmes. Education is falling into the domain of only the rich as one can easily get and engineering or medical seat for lakhs of rupees, however badly the person has fared in the qualifying examination. Money is placed over merit and years of hardwork and study can now be substituted with sufficient funds, power and influence at the right areas. There are thousands who deserve to get into a professional college, but only the rich can go in for these as most of the private colleges have management quotas where the colleges charge millions of rupees for admission and so students who deserve it more than the kids of rich men are denied a chance. Another concern is that these students who have spend such a huge amount of money will use their
profession to make the maximum profit and will not have any other concern and this can be really harmful in a profession like that of a doctor for it is not just a profession, it is also a service where the objective of making money can be really bad for the society and the patients who call upon the services of the doctor.

A democracy, we call our nation, where elections are the time of promises and after that, the promises stay still and go into hibernation only to be risen from their slumber at the time of the next elections. Corruption, extortion and blackmailing have become so prevalent in our political system and it has also penetrated large aspects of the functioning of our
government, be it law & order maintenance or land registration as nothing can be achieved without palm-greasing. Should we just accept our fate and sit silent or should we act? There is a glimmer of hope as the people of this nation are waking upto the reality and the state that our nation is in. I write this in the hope that I can find a way some how to contribute in my own way to making India a better place, making it what it really claims to be A Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic.


note-Readers might view me as a pessimist and someone who is just interested in seeing the negative side of things.But I do believe that there is hope and a great future for our nation, and the entire world, if all of us contribute in our own ways, to leave the earth when our time comes, in a better stage than it was when we were born.

A Lonely Journey

A sense of loneliness spreads through,
Those I love seem not to want me.
Hard tasks lie ahead, I look for a smiling face,
a strong hand or comforting words, but dont find any.

I realise life is a journey, many may join you,
for many paths run together.
But they all have their own roads to tread,
and cannot stay with you forever.

Face life yourself, help a stumbling
journeyman back to the path.
Although he may leave without a thanks,
do it for your own heart,
for these are the little joys
THAT MAKE OUR JOURNEY WORTHWHILE......

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.