India, The World Champions

INDIA - A land of great diversity.

But, yesterday evening, the whole nation was united for a single cause. There was only one religion called Cricket and the biggest festival, the 2011 Cricket World Cup final, was in full swing. It was the clash between India's demigods and Sri Lankan lions. The Indians in the country and abroad were glued to the television sets in support to their team. Every Indian wished only one thing, a win in the finals and becoming the world champions. The Indian team reached the finals thrashing titans like Australia and Pakistan on their way.

Indian team was the favorite to lift the cup even before the start of the series. People were anticipating a fairytale end for Sachin Tendulkar, the man with virtually every record under his name, except a World cup victory. At the age of 38, this could be practically Sachin’s last World Cup and he wishes to win this one very badly. The sentiment is so strong that the team said that it will win the cup just for this man.

And as the history unfolded before the millions of spectators, India fought superbly and became the champions. Gambhir displayed the greatest nerve under pressure and Dhoni matched shot to shot with him. The world cup feather was added to Sachin’s cap in style. It was a very emotional moment for whole team.

The whole nation went into a kind of mass hysteria once India won the cup. Every city witnessed its masses on the streets dancing and singing. Every individual had his own way of expressing their happiness. Some danced to a bollywood number while some were emotionally singing the national anthem. The tri-color was everywhere. The traffic jams became a norm and yet the usually restless souls never complained.

The people of India are well known for their impatience and differences. Yet, a sporting event can put all those differences aside. It was a great feeling to see your favorite team winning, but witnessing the greatest party with no limitations whatsoever is a different thing altogether.

This happens only in India…

Destruction of statues on Tank Bund, Hyderabad.

Frankly speaking, there are no words to express my feelings. I don't know how one can think of future without respecting the past. And the irony is, our so called leaders are not even bothering about future of people.

I still remember my first visit to Hyderabad as a tourist when I was in 3rd class and walking down the tank bund and listening to stories of great people from my Mom and Dad.

Tanknund for me and my sister WAS Hyderabad...

Deshbhakti

Why do so called celebrities do not have minimum ethics about behaving in public? Doesn't they realize the after effects or are they indifferent towards the sentiments?

Here we have Indian tennis ace Sania Mirza having no respect to the Indian flag.



It's pathetic to see our idols behaving like this...

Much awaited Get-together with pals.

Me and my friends have been planning for an outing to Bapatla beach resort since almost six months as part of our annual getaway. And all the planning lead us promptly to the awaited day and I traveled to Bapatla from Vizag to join rest of the guys who came from Secunderabad.

Bapatla is a small town in Guntur district. The town is having many schools and colleges. The Agricultural College is a beauty in itself with a huge campus. I took an auto-rickshaw to reach Suryalanka beach, which is the most common and convenient mode of transport in the town.

The resort on the Suryalanka beach is maintained by APTDC (Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation) and it is very bad in terms of the infrastructure. The AC's won't work sometimes and the geysers are in competition as well. The restaurant is pathetic. It doesn't offer anything other than puri-bhaji for breakfast and chicken is the only non-vegetarian food for lunch and dinner. Beach resort without sea food is quite something. So we have to travel to the town which is 10kms for having a decent meal. Ghumaghumalu is a fair deal with variety.

If I need to say some positives about the resort, then I need to say that the resort is located right on the beach with excellent view from the cottage. Also, the route that you take to reach the resort from Bapatla is scenic.

We visited Vijayawada and Amaravati sparing a day out of our stay for 4 days. We had excellent darshan at both the abodes. Amaravati is a Shiva temple and Vijayawada is, His wife, Parvathi's. We all definitely must have had good past lives to have a great darshan.

One exciting thing in the journey was we had to cross a flowing river due to the recent floods on foot to reach Amaravati. It was scary and fun at the same time. Keeping one another lively through jokes and teases made it easier to venture into something that crazy. Ganga, Shiva's second wife gave us a darshan in this way, I guess.

On the whole, the trip was a great experience and we all are sure to cherish those moments for a life time. Our friendship grew stronger without any doubt by spending those 4 days together and I am already looking forward for another such nice time next September.

My Puri Trip.

This weekend, I had a chance to visit Puri and Bhubaneswar as part of my solo weekend getaway. Bhubaneswar is a small city and the first impression is that it has a very small Railway station with only four platforms to serve. Remember that this is the capital city of Orissa.

I took a train from Vizag at 12:10 AM and reached Bhubaneswar at 07:30 AM. I had 4 hours with me before my next train to Puri. I used this time to loiter around on the roads. One thing that caught my attention was that Litchis are being sold in heaps along the roadsides. Needless to say, that I filled my tummy with them. I also tasted Chanapuda which is a odissi sweet made of milk, cashew and sugar. This is not so great and happily can be missed.

I landed in Puri at around noon which is one hour ride on train from Bhubaneswar. I checked into Puri Hotel on the beach road in Swargadwara area. This area is the most happening part of the town with all the shops and stuff like that. The area is filled with countless number of sweet shops which very strangely prepare only one variety : Khaja. I somehow couldn't digest this fact of being robbed off with local sweets. But, the streets are also filled with stalls serving sea food. I got the biggest prawn I ever saw in my life for a mere 100 rupees. Upon picking the prawns from the lot, that is cut in front of us and cooked. I had 2 big prawns and a pamphret fish for dinner. Its like heaven for sea food. These stalls are right on the beach road beside Monginis cake shop, if you ever visit Puri.

Talking about heaven, Puri is the abode of Lord Jagannath and I visited the Lord as well. Believe me, this is the most commercial temple I have ever seen. Right from the entry till you leave the temple premises, people try to rob you in the name of God. Apart from that the temple is a beauty. It stands royally at 180 feet tall. And at the summit, there is a flag which will be changed everyday. There are four families under the temple payrolls which are trained to go to the top and change the flag. There are no steps and person going to the top will actually crawl up on the temple walls. You can visit the temple between 6 and 7 in the evening to witness this spectacle.

The sea in Puri is very rough. It best suits for surfing. But for others like me, the sea is very dangerous as the tides are very high. There is help available from the locals if you want to go into the sea though. And there are life guards watching over the sea for any mishaps. Baywatch sans babes and boobs...

The next morning, I visited Sun temple in Konark. This is roughly 40kms from Puri. The temple is an abode to Sun God and showcases the heights of Odissi architecture. The temple is in the shape of a chariot and is pulled by seven horses and the sanctum is the house of Sun God. Unfortunately, the temple is showing signs of aging and to save it, the government of India has filled the Sanctum with Stone to support the structure from collapsing inwards. The exterior is a majesty in itself.

From, Konark I came back to Bhubaneswar and visited the famous Lingaraj temple. This is a Shiva temple and it is also a pinnacle showcasing the Odissi architecture.The part of the town in which the temple is located is not developed much, making Bhubaneswar a perfect blend of culture and cosmopolis.

I took train to Vizag the next morning and back to my routine life...

Absurdity at its height.

Imagine you are a captured by the American authorities for masterminding a terror plot in India and you plea for safety.

The US government accepted the plea of David Coleman Headley who was the mastermind behind 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.

New York Times article

Courtesy: Sumith's Tweet

My tastes...

I hated Shah Rukh Khan for his acting all through my life. Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna just didn't work for me. He always acted Shah Rukh Khan on the screen instead of the character that he is playing.

But, hey he is at least playing himself. How many people in this world get a chance to be themselves in front of the whole world? I started loving him...

I started loving him after watching Living with a Superstar on Travel & Living channel. I started loving him after My Name is Khan

Kudos... Shah Rukh.. Way to go. Be your self off screen and on screen and we love you for what you are!

Caligula

Man is a social animal.

Whoever said this must be a real genius in understanding the psychology of the human brain. We live in a society which is bound by a set of rules called Law. Try to imagine what the world would be like if there is no law to govern! Man will become animal. His thirst for blood grows. Absolute power to an individual will bring out the animalistic cruelty and sexual perversion.

Caligula is a film that deals with such absolute power and its by-products, that are bestowed on the infamous Roman Ceaser. Malcolm McDowell did a wonderful job in enacting the maniacal role. All the other actors are merely supporting his performance. Peter O'Toole was great in his role. He was very expressive as a dying tyrant who doesn't trust his heir to the throne. His character is also very pervasive and Toole splendidly performed as one. Helen Mirren has nothing much to do than standing as an eye candy wife of Caligula.

The movie is filled with nudity and gore. Yet, you will not remember the movie as a softcore or you wouldn't be aroused by the content. Director Tinto Brass made sure that the tone was maintained throughout. Watch Caligula for the pure passion of a bunch of men to tell a shocking story.

In my opinion, this is one of the finest movies I have ever seen. Try this movie, if you are OK with the nudity and gore.

Movies

Lately, I saw Aarya-2, a telugu film starring Allu Arjun and Kajal Agarwal. The movie was bad and yet again, I had struggle discussing the movie with some of my film buff friends, who think that this is good and much entertaining.

The term ‘ Entertainment’ has taken a different shape in the telugu film industry altogether these days. If any conversation or situation brings the slightest possible smile on the face, it is being called entertainment. The broader the smile, the bigger is the entertainment. A protagonist who can marry a girl to hand over her to his friend to keep up the friendship is quite something. And yet, it is entertainment to the people. It is us, the viewers whose values have degraded. We are amused by the character of such heroes.

There were days, when people used to make films like Shankarabharanam. Also films like ‘ Miss Pamela’ starring Silk Smitha hit the screens, but everyone knows which one is made of what material and especially for whom! Pathetically, the standards went too low, that the audience is unable to see the difference of the material anymore! Yet, we believe that quality of the art is increasing just like the quality of infrastructure.

Film making is just like any other art. In fact greater than all the arts, as it is a cumulative product of all the arts. But, how good are today’s films to the society? Had a character like Shah Rukh's in Darr not there, the youth probably won't be so possessive about it's so called lovers. The incident at Virginia Tech University was inspired by a Korean film called Oldboy. I personally know a 26 year old man who started smoking after watching Mahesh babu enjoying a puff in the movie Okkadu. And still movie analysts praise these products as art. If someone questions the impact on the society, they are eventually called orthodox and low in taste.

Personally, I am not against the themes of the above mentioned films. But there has to be some kind of differentiation that has to be pumped into the character. For example, the Joker from The Dark Knight is culmination of evil and it was portrayed so. The dialogue refers to this fact throughout the film. This leaves a bad taste towards the character in one's mind and it is less likely that we accept the deeds and less likely to follow them in real life. But, how good are films with Shah Rukh Khan playing a baddie when he is a hero personified to crores of people around the globe?

We give so much importance to various factors like taste, ambiance, hospitality etc., when we visit a restaurant. If any of the above factors fail to impress, we vow to ourselves not to return to the restaurant ever again. If such importance is given exercising our choice for food for the body, what should be the importance that has to be given to the food for thought? One has to understand the impact of a film on the society before praising it and giving it a thumbs up. This will change the overview of the creators of so called art and helps increasing the quality of a dying art.

Sangham Saranam Gachami

Thunderbird

These days I am using all open source software.. I switched to Mozilla thunderbird and it is surely a better Email client. Compared to Outlook, it is a small software (In respect to size of the software) and handles all the functionality offered by Outlook. Only catch is you need to have some Add-ons installed to the base software.

When coupled with IMAP, thunderbird is just great.. But, it has its drawbacks as well and can be addressed with slight tweaks to the settings. I will list down some tweaks and settings to the basic installation that makes thunderbird a competition to MS Outlook.

Calender support

Thunderbird doesn't have a calender by default. So, it can not handle Appointments and schedules by default. To overcome this, we have to install an add-on called Lightning. This is also developed by Mozilla corporation and it integrates into thunderbird very well.

Minimize to tray

Most of the people use outlook in a minimized status to save space on their taskbar. Thunderbird can achieve this by installing an add-on called Minimize to tray.

Cursor position in Reply messages

Thunderbird adds the previous mail content as a quote and the cursor is positioned at the bottom when replying any mail. This is bit uneasy as we have to always press "Ctrl + Home" to go to the start of the mail before writing anything. To tweak this, follow the steps mentioned below:
1. In Thunderbird: Go to "Edit > Account Settings" *
2. Select "Composition & Addressing" for the account in question
3. Make sure the "Automatically quote the original message when replying" checkbox is checked.
4. In the drop-down box below that, select the option "start my reply above the quote"

* On Windows, the option can be found in: Tools -> Account Settings.