What does it mean?

What does it mean?

When you search for someone you know isn't there

When you listen to a voice no one else can hear

When you wait for the rain under a sky so clear.

What does it mean?

When a face haunts your thoughts day & night

That leaves you neither in darkness nor light

And yet somehow it feels so right.

What does it mean?

When someone's grief makes you forget your own pain

Words spoken so few, yet for eternity shall remain

When you will wait knowing you'll never meet again.

What does it mean?

When trying to pull away only makes the feeling grow

When you remember someone in your prayers, in joy and sorrow

And it doesn't even matter that they will never know.

Destiny???

Rewind<< 2004 : A few months into my engineering in EXTC, I was wondering if i made the right choice. After a lot of thought( those who know me well can imagine the volume!!), I decided to change my branch to Computers. Because I loved it, and didnt care whether people thought EXTC was more "promising".

Fast Forward>> 2006 : With doing MS fixed in my head, but after a brief stint at work in an Indian IT firm, I went for the on-campus Syntel aptitude test without any worries. I had barely even prepared. Cleared the test, then cleared the interview, and I was right there along with my EXTC friends. Who couldnt help wonder how meaningless running after EXTC was... 

Fast Forward>> July 2007 : Having finished B.E., sitting at home doing nothing. Heard a few friends had called up Syntel themselves for their date of joining. Did the same, and was presented with 2 choices : 30th August - Pune or 11th October - Mumbai. What to do?? Take the later batch in my home sweet home. Or go to this other pretty city right besides mine. I decided the latter. 

Fast Forward>> Playing (2007-2008) : Met new people from almost all over India. Made some really good friends who I am continuing to interact with(wherever they are : here, Pune, Chennai or anywhere else). Still I do regret not being able to have been in the company of a few, for long enough to get to know each other better.

Present Day> : Back home now since 7 months. Looking forward to travelling big time in a few months. Just thinking about these past few years, and how one different decision at any stage would have just things dramatically. Hmm... NowI'm back, good old friends, some new ones... Hey talking about the 11th October batch.. I have managed to meet a quite a few of them, with 2 of them now really close chums of mine!!

Whew!! Life comes full circle. 

Though I do look back and think if I should have done things differently( mind you I'm not talking about choosing comps n Pune, I'm glad about both). Some other decisions I took along the way that sometimes I'm not sure about. But its reassuring to hold a belief, that somewhere down the line, I could end up finding out I was right after all. See at one point, I was gonna go for MS right after BE.. I would have graduated right now, bang in the middle of the economic meltdown. Hmmm... Destiny, Fate??? Dont know???

Viva La Vida... Cheers to Life!!!   

Dont Hate Love, Dont Chain Freedom

Before you misunderstand me, let me get one thing straight. To hell with Valentine's Day. Its just another marketing strategy to mint money. Gift shop chains, hotel chains, music companies: they all just sell it. If I had a girlfriend, I wouldnt need this day to show her I loved her. A special day? How about her birthday or the day we first met? But nobody has the right to force people not to celebrate it. You cant beat up couples for it. Go ahead, burn cards, demonstrate against gift shops, show your resentment against the commercialization. But you cant impose your restrictions on the public. Personally, I dont like going to pubs & discs either. But I dont look down on people who do. Its a matter of choice. If its causing loss of morality, its their parents' problem. Who is this 'Sri Ram Sene' to decide? They look like a bunch of drug addicts themselves. And the Bajrang Dal have always been a bunch of class-A retards. But I was sorely disappointed with the Shiv Sena. It has always stood up for things that matter: for Maharashtra, for policemen vilified for killing terrorists, for poor farmers' rights. But not this. Come on, guys! An average middle-class youth otherwise supports you for your stand on other issues, if not the methods (but personally, I love the way you guys kick ass wherever deserved). You are only driving us away by impinging on our freedom. On a better note, the MNS had declared this as a non-issue. :-)

Looking back at 'The Dark Knight'

Sci-Fi & Action movies always excite me. But its a few particular directors that truly make me sit up & take notice say George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott etc. When 'Batman Begins' was released, I was skeptical. The previous franchise was a dud for the most part, the only saving grace was 'Batman Forever' with Val Kilmer( an amazing yet underrated actor) as Batman & awesome performances by Jim Carrey(my fav) & Tommy Lee Jones. I was particularly repulsed by the new franchise director Christopher Nolan when he took a few liberties with the basic Batman premise. Suddenly, the sleek Batmobile became the gigantic 'Tumbler'. But overall it was a good movie. Then came the sequel that changed it all. Nolan's attempt to make the movie & the characters as realistic as possible paid off. In the guise of a comic-based action movie, 'The Dark Knight' turned out to be a grim, intense, thought-provoking movie.The late Heath Ledger immortalized The Joker, a psychopathic, shrewd criminal mastermind. Christian Bale is perfect as the misunderstood, forever in pain  caped crusader. Aaron Eckhart brought out the contradiction in Two-Face. For me, two things about the movie have made me a truly crazy fan. First is undoubtedly the Joker. His mannerisms, his amazing dialogues.. outta this world. He truly has given us a "better class of criminal". The other is the very meaning of 'The Dark Knight'. Especially since how relevant it is to our world today. Can there truly be a perfectly good hero? Highly improbable, by our human standards. Batman is our hero. He falters, he is misunderstood. He has to take the tough choices that make people hate him. He has to remain the outcast, the criminal. 

So Christopher Nolan has now joined my list of favourite directors. More so, after watching his amazing, time-warped 'Memento'(the inspiration behind Ghajini). And 'The Dark Knight' has become another movie in my eclectic collection which  I watch & discuss a hundred times over, to the point of nauseating those around me.

The Curious Case of Maharashtra

This is a continuation of yesterday's post. Let me take you back to the late 1950's. While the Constitution allowed creation of Indian states along linguistic lines, they curiously didnot want to do the same for the Marathi-speaking areas of Western India. Four years and 105 lives later, the state of Maharashtra was born on 1st May 1960. With its capital city Mumbai, home to the Wankhede, Marine Lines & oh yes... Flora Fountain, rechristened as Hutatma Chowk(Martyr's Crossroads) in memory of the 105 brave souls who laid down their lives courtesy the bullets, not of the British or of Pakistanis, but our own fellow countrymen. The victory belonged to the efforts of the Sanyukta Maharashtra Samiti, whose prominent members included Acharya Atre, Prabodhankar Thackeray(Balasaheb Thackeray's father) , Senapati Bapat and Shahir Amar Shaikh. 

To me, this is a part of history that I feel proud to look back on. But not to nurse any ill feelings towards my fellow Indians. It was just that the people in power at that time wanted control over the financial capital of India. As they still do today. Still efforts are on to create a separate state of Mumbai, a move supported vehemently by the likes of Amar Singh & his ilk. These politicians are covertly trying to create their votebank in Mumbai. Rather than solving the problems in their states(which anyway they themselves have created), these goons & buffoons in the garb of netas encourage migrant influx into Mumbai. These poor people take up whatever work they can, hardworking & determined that they are (something I admire). With stars in their eyes, they are ready to work for whatever measly sum they are offered(which is why they are in demand). Then the bubble bursts, that tiny sum cannot fulfill their dreams and it ultimately leads them to crime. So, like never before in the history of Mumbai, we have record cases of robberies & murders by watchmen, security guards themselves. All employed in bulk as low cost labour from you-know-where. And there are several other examples such as railway recruitment etc that may be cited. This has to change and that is all the Shiv Sena & the MNS are saying. There is no "Maharashtra is only for Marathis" agenda. That even sounds so stupid to me. Mumbai boasts of bigger Navratri celebrations than Gujarat. Also the biggest Durga Puja celebrations outside of West Bengal. People from other states have always been and will continue to be welcome here. The opposition a while back was not against Chhat Puja, but against Lalu, Amar Singh and the rest bringing their slimy carcasses here to play dirty votebank politics. 

I hope people understand what ails us. I guess the problem lies in all of us. We have become a nation of indifferent people, unwilling to look the problem in the eye, imagining it doesnt exist. So, I maintain that this is not just Maharshtra's but India's problem. Maharashtra pays the lion's share of taxes in India. But gets nothing in return for its development. But I'd be more than happy if a good percentage of that money is spent on improving the conditions in UP and Bihar. Just as Uddhav Thackeray said in an interview, "Don't blame us. We are doing this for our state. Blame your states' leaders who have failed you and left you in this plight."

And to my other fellow Indians from more fortunate, developed cities like Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Bangalore etc just try to find out these facts before you base your judgements on the so-called news reports of all these so-called news channels like Aaj Tak, India TV(no prizes for guessing where their patronages lie). 

Jai Hind !! Jai Maharashtra !! Jai Gujarat !! Joi Bangla !! (I'm sorry all the other states are included in the first salutation, I only reserve separate references for my favourites.. :)  )

P.S. : I promise to write on some pleasant topics next time onwards

For Mumbai

Mumbai.... what can I say?? My home sweet home, my native place. So much has been said & continues to be said about this "City of Dreams". The recent terrorist attacks notwithstanding, still the safest & best city in India, though I must say Ahmedabad is catching up real fast. But Mumbai isnt pulling away. Sadly, its deteriorating. Why? Population explosion, congestion etc. The reasons we all know. But the reasons behind these reasons.
There begins the great debate - 'Locals vs Outsiders'. How do you define a 'Local'? To me any domiciled citizen is a local, whatever his mother-tongue is. I have Gujarati, Malayalee, Kannada, Bengali, UPiite & Bihari friends and acquaintances who to me are as Maharashtrian as I am. Then there comes the set of people who form the skilled workforce - engineers, doctors & other professionals from around the country, who come here to form a kind of symbiotic relationship with the city. They utilize the opportunities the city gives them, & they give it back in their own ways. These are the two sets of people that form the fabric of Mumbai. Thisis what makes Mumbai tick. But Mumbai faces a problem. We have a third set of people - illegal migrants. I do sympathize with them. Nobody likes to leave their home. It is the extreme poverty that drives them. But is exhausting this great city a solution? UP and Bihar produce the largest percentage of the Indian Armed Forces. Their capabilities are unquestionable. Both states also produce a large number of IAS officers. Ironic then, that they are the most illiterate & backward states in the country. The reason - their politicians. And, owing to our population - based division of Parliamentary seats among states, these same politicians are the reason for the problems our wholenation faces. I'm pissed off seeing thugs n buffoons like Lalu and Amar Singh represent our country. So why blame the Shiv Sena and MNS? I admire the Thackerays. They have their own way of doing things. You might not agree with their ways, but shut up and listen to what they want to say. Or would you rather hear Lalu explaining how he digests cow fodder, and Amar Singh going on about how the Delhi Police faked an encounter with one officer even getting himself killed to make it look real?
Maybe the MNS is overzealous, but the real problem needs to be brought into focus. I always try to debate this with my friends from other metropolitan cities like Kolkata & Ahmedabad. If my city faces a problem that needs to be solved, there might be a hundred ways to do it. But if I dont have the guts to come up with a better solution, the least I can do is support anyone who atleast has one. Now, I'm not naive to ignore that politicians want votes. But if they are taking up a real issue, can we not use our voting power to make sure they do solve it. The problem Mumbai faces echoes the problems of India - corruption, indifference by all people, not just politicians. Just maybe, Mumbai will be the torch-bearer for the rest of the country on the path to progress.

An Introduction

So as I start off, first a little intro. I am 23 years old & a software engineer by profession. Interested in technology, the sciences, have been into astronomy, palaeontology since childhood. Quite a Hollywoood movie buff, & have a varied taste in music. No specific genre, just that the music must be passionate & deep. Proud of my Marathi heritage and my India.

About my personality, well I'm not good at describing it. I guess you'll just have to meet me to find out. Or some of you psychic types can try to figure it out from my posts( good luck!!).

So, out here in my 'Colosseum of Chaos', I will be talking about a whole mix of things, without giving a damn about whether anyone else gives a damn about it.