What exactly has Google+ stolen from Facebook?

This is going to be a quickie. A vent of sorts to all that is bubbling within me.

What exactly has Google+ stolen from Facebook?

• the concept of friends? And family? That too from Facebook? Really? Because Facebook never really understood the difference between the two, like ever. Google+ apparently does.
• the concept of sharing? Right. I did that with food in my kinder-garden.
• the concept of photos and tagging? *YAWN*

The more serious ones.

• notifications? At first glance it’s exactly like the Facebook thing. But a second glance, and whoa. There’s the Google ingenuity staring at you in the face. What Facebook first brought into social networking – the notifications thingy … it has remained the exact same thing to date. Excepting a few minor changes like clubbing multiple notifications into one, and positioning it from right to left, Facebook has never really improved on it. What Google has done is transform it  into something so much more awesome. You can access it from any Google service, and can even do mini-Google+ ing in the small window that pops up. Also, Facebook had three irritating notifications for friend requests, messages and general notifications. Google+ has just one.
• the ‘like’ as +1 ? Facebook’s ‘Like’ evolved from a means to say “i approve of this status or photo” to simple sharing all across the web. You liked a page on the internet. That got shared on your Facebook feed. That is just simple sharing. Google Reader, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit … had all been there, done that. And did Mark Zuckerberg really think that he would have a copyright over a simple English word like … ‘like’ ?
• tagging? Letting a person know that he’s been mentioned somewhere? Wasn’t it Facebook who stole the exact same thing from Twitter in the first place? Where was the hue and cry of “not original” then?

bonus : What exactly has Google+ stolen from Twitter?

I personally love Twitter. But yes, what is there to steal from it? The concept of followers? Hullo. Jesus Christ and the Buddha have had their followers. So have a thousand people before them. The concept of “following” is too old to actually be considered plagiarism from the 2000s. Nothing new there!

What has Google+ not stolen from Facebook?

This could go on for ages. 

• The epic Google chat : that’s like a slap on the face of Facebook chat.
• Circles == sheer awesomeness. Because every person whom you know is not necessarily your friend.
• Hangouts. This is the sheeez. \m/
• Missing Facebook events? Check the top bar -> Google Calender ftw!
• Document sharing? Google Docs ftw!
• Videos? YouTube ftw! 

Isn’t this like utter pwnage already? Wait there’s more.

• Photo Albums : Picasa ftw!
• Mail : GMail ftw!
• Google Reader for RSS — ftw!

last but not the least :

Google Search FTW!

I mean. HOW is Google+ still a Facebook copy?

—

Well, one thing that Google has actually copied is possibly this.

Because, that’s essentially what Google+ is.

Legen-waitforit-dary.

on 2010

dear 2010,

You’re old, and let’s face it, one irritating little wimp, dwindling at the fag end of your lifetime. But, let’s face it again, that you’ve been one heck of a thing for all of us. You’ve been a year full of oil leaks. A year riddled by money laundering scams. A year of strange obsessions with gadgets that begin with i’s. Most importantly, you were the year of Wikileaks. Which suffices had there been a lack anywhere. A comprehensive research from various sources on and off the internet (the ‘on’ portions overwhelmingly outnumbering the ‘off’ ones) makes for an interesting compilation.

Ten things that you shouldn’t have missed in 2010

(from an Indian perspective, in no particular order. A self composed list, in case you are skeptical.)

the FIFA world cup

the one with all the noise

the one with the tentacles

I am far from the football fanatic, and I mean very far. But this had me enthralled because it was a football world cup where an octopus stole the show and took centre stage. This was a football world cup which heralded the emergence of the vuvuzela. The average black-skinned South African blowing the vuvuzela became the new icon of a ground breaking musician. Much like Jimi Hendrix wielding a Fender Stratocaster in the 1960s.

the Gulf Oil leak

the one with an oily affair

The next big leak after Wikileaks, the BP oil leak (which it is often affectionately addressed as) added to the increasing worries of the environmentalists, and also gave Barack Obama yet another chance to get up on the pulpit and, yes, do something good.

the one with the blown minds

Inception

Referred to by many as the best movie in the history of cinema, by me as a *very good* sci fi movie, it couldn’t really be the highest-grosser, or come even close for that matter. It blew a few million minds worldwide nevertheless, including mine. If you haven’t seen it yet, then I would suggest a running leap into the nearest well.

the Common Wealth Games

the one who hit the jackpot

India tried hard. Really hard to pull off a world class event. She almost succeeded, but for the Kalmadi fund embezzling scam (which furrowed many brows) and the Asiad at Guangzhou (which made the CWG look like a rusted lock). An A for Attempt though. 

the one without the caption, oh sorry

and more scams

The year saw the shooting-to-fame of people like Suresh Kalmadi, for all the wrong reasons. It saw or rather heard, or yet rather tapped, into telephonic conversations between a lobbyist and a journalist. A lot of ministers exchanged looks. A lot of brows creased.  A lot of black money flew in all directions.

the Mobile Wars

begun truly have. If Apple was the Empire, Google became the Jedi. And if the Empire struck back, then Android was the New Hope. The launch, or should I say, the leak of the much hyped iPhone 4 and the path breaking iPad tablet, set new trends in mobile technology. Android wasn’t far behind and soon had ripped apart the sales charts sending Jobs scurrying for cover and etching that big smile upon my face. Blackberry and Nokia fought hard, but for them, luck was harder.

the one with the dishoom-dishoom

the fall of Lalu

the one with the white hair

Nitish Kumar’s definitive victory over Lalu in the Bihar polls was perhaps as significant to the country as the fall of London Bridge is in nursery rhymes. Amongst many things, which included lighting up many faces, this victory even made people contemplate upon a new recipe for the samosa.

Cricketing Glory

the one with the God

Hockey might be India’s official national sport but Cricket is the de facto one, and the most loved sport in the country. 2010 brought, but only smiles and tears of joy to the face of the Indian cricket fan, as the team became the number one in Tests and number two in ODIs. A journey fraught with an Australian whitewash in October and a Kiwi-mincing in December. Not to forget, Sachin Tendulkar breaking two of the most coveted cricketing records by becoming the first person to score a double century in an ODI and the first person to score fifty centuries in Test cricket.

Onionism

The meek onion had its share of the limelight as well. Peaking at ₹80 a kilogram, it cast a shade of gloom over the faces of the majority of the Indian junta. The impact was so huge that it sparked off a new faith which became a trending topic on Twitter : Onionsim.

the one with the teary eyes

Wikileaks

The thing that makes all the aforementioned nine points look Cretazoic. And with reason. One man and his refusal to keep mum, kept the US government stuttering in the rain, and gave cold feet to many other governments around the world. There was no dearth of revelations as document after document fell prey to the public. A lot transpired, including fake charges and a hefty amount of covering-up. But it was Julian Assagne himself who the light burned brightly upon.

the one with all the leak

So that was that. Ten things that made twenty-ten one heck of a year. 

Have I missed anything? What do you say?

PS : a very Happy New Year to all of you.

If you, (like me) suffer from this massively irritating problem of ear-phones falling off your ears, here’s wishing that they do not fall off any more. If they don’t, then I wish they do, so that you get to feel how we feel.

Signing off on this ominous note. See you all next year 😉

the good side to the Obama visit

After a hell lot of Oba-mashing in the previous post, I contemplated for a while and said to myself “Messa thinks every cloud has a silver lining!” and decided to jot down some points, some positive points and indications about Obama’s visit. Most of these points however relate to his address in the Parliament yesterday, views expressed in which, have changed quite a lot from what his takes in Mumbai had been.

*/ a detour –
Apparently this was what Obama was reported to have done after he had read my previous blog post 😛

this post is to tell him “Cheer up, ol’ fella’ … it’s not that bad” 😀   /*

so here goes the points –

• India is the strongest power in Asia

Which puts India on the same footing as China. With one major difference. India is democratic. China is autocratic, bordering at times on dictatorship. Which makes India’s case all the more favourable to this world.

• India’s seat in the UN Security Council as a permanent member

After initially and very craftily avoiding the issue in Mumbai, Obama announced yesterday in the Parliament that, “in the years ahead, I look forward to a reformed U.N Security Council that includes India as a permanent member.” This, needless to say drew a lot of applause from the the MPs.

• end to India’s nuclear isolation

Obama’s confirmation regarding the lifting of ban on high-end technology exports and the removal of ISRO ( Indian Space Research Organisation ) and DRDO ( Defence Research and Development Organization) from the Entity List has been welcomed by scientists all over the country.

• the Pakistan issue

Obama finally brought up the Pakistan issue yesterday, and the stance he took seemed pretty reassuring. To put it in his words “We will continue to insist to Pakistan’s leaders that terrorist safe havens within their borders are unacceptable, and that the terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks be brought to justice”

• the economic perspective

this has certain sub-points :

1. Obama has brought along 300 businessmen and industrialists during his visit.
2. He has asked Indian industrialists to invest in the US. Earlier it had been only foreigners investing in our country. Now it would be a two-way affair.
3. Last but not the least, the offer to sell high-end stuff to India.

This is by far the most significant aspect. The situation is clear. The US is groping about in the dark during the dreary times of a full-on economic recession, with the dollar value plunging every day and share values of big  US firms, plummeting. And by Obama’s implications and actions it is more than clear that Obama is looking towards the pretty-much-economically-stable India to bail out the US from this financial crisis. Obama sees India as a good market to sell stuff to. He recognises India’s stability and knows that Indians investing in the US now would mean a lot to his country.

This is heartwarming, to say the least.

Till then.

*/ There, you can smile now boy 🙂

There, there, a nice toothy smile 😉             /*


PS : I am in love with my elective viz Current Affairs. Messa wants to repeat it next sem, and in the sem after that, and after that … and so on.

400 years : from Sir Thomas Roe to Barack Obama

400 years.

Well, almost 400 years back, a ship had sailed across the choppy waters of the Arabian Sea, the Union Jack waving aloft, and had entered the port of Surat. The affair had been humdrum. Surprisingly so, because the person who had sailed, was destined to leave his mark in the time-stained pages of the Great Indian History.

The year was 1615, and the person was Sir Thomas Roe.

The journey had been long and exhausting. The ship had braved the raging Atlantic Ocean, right down to the Cape of Good Hope. And then had entered the tumultous Arabian Sea. The alighting at Surat had been followed by a long and gruelling journey through the hot wastelands of the North West. When, after weeks of travelling Sir Thomas Roe had finally reached the gates of Agra, his face did not betray his weariness, nor did he lose focus of the humoungous resposnsibility he was bearing upon his shoulders.

For Sir Thomas was no ordinary person. He was the emissary from the court of His Majesty James I, the then King of England, himself. And his instructions had been very clear: Arrange for a commercial treaty which would give the English East India Company exclusive rights to reside and build factories in Surat and other areas. In return, the Company would provide the Emperor of the land with goods and rarities from the European market.

And he was the man chosen for the job.

The “Emperor of the land”, or of what was then the “known India”, was none other than Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir, third of the great Moguls, direct descendant of the illustrious Akbar, and the father of Shah Jahan. And it wasn’t long before the happy-go-lucky Jahangir was smitten by the English offer. Sir Thomas, in fact became his drinking buddy in his own Court and the Mogul emperor, was quick to wrap up the deal in a gracious letter of acceptance to James I.

–pause–


Such was the story of the first commercial contact that India made with the Western World.

November 2010. 395 years later.

The basics remain the same. As had happened 395 years back, it is another Westerner approaching India. With yet another commercial idea in his mind. The only difference : this is no Sir Thomas Roe. Instead it is the President of the United States, who goes by the name Barack Hussein Obama. And along with him, is the First Lady Michelle, and their kids whoseNamesAren’tReallyOfMuchConsequence.

Remember the single ship entourage that had come along with Sir Thomas Roe? In this case it is ..ahem… slightly different : 34 warships, including an aircraft carrier, stationed off the coast of Mumbai. 40 aircraft, including the Air Force One military ‘plane and 6 heavily armoured cars to accompany Him around.

So yes, you guessed it right. That which has changed, is just the magnitude. Magnitude of everything that is of absolutely no tangible consequence to our country. And that is it. At a personal level this entire hullabaloo around Obama’s oh-so-epic visit is somewhere between rotten cheese and half baked cabbages in my priority list. Or maybe lower.

First things first. Why has His Uselessness Mr Barack Obama decided to sanctify our motherland?


The answer my friend is a-blowing in the wind. Obama comes to India, not as a Statesman, but as a mere salesman. Remember those irritating people who wake you up from your mid-day siesta by ringing your door bell and politely asking whether you have tried out the new fairness cream which makes you glow in the dark? Obama comes for a similar reason. The only difference is that, you just cannot ignore his doorbell. So poor old Manmohan Singh, (analogous to Jahangir in the previous example), has to wake up from his mid day slumber and make arrangements and listen to the useless rattling of this person.


Also when He says something akin to “And it is clear that standing in the 21st century, it is but an Indo-US alliance that will save this planet” old Manmohan has to nod his head in sugar-coated agreement and clap. And yes, he has to remember to shake His Worthlessness Mr Obama’s hand at every strategically spaced-out time interval.

Seriously Mr Obama. Whom are you trying to hoodwink?

’nuff with your diplomacies. What’s with getting stuff done? $200m being spent per day to keep His OhMyGoodness alive. 800 rooms in the Taj and Hyatt … beefed up with extra layers of air-tight security to keep His Joblessness safe from the prying sniper rifles of the Al Quaida.

To what avail?

Change. And long rambling eloquent speeches on how India should not misinterpret the outsourcing issue in the US.
More change. And another long rambling eloquent speech on why India needs to buy US goods over Indian ones.
… And more change.And yet another long eloquent speech on how an Indo-US partnership is the next best thing about to happen to this world after Jockey Inners. 


What’s with the compensation for the Bhopal Gas Tragedy victims? What’s with the Sino-Pak threats along our borders? What about the terrorism issues, following in the wake of the 26/11?

Surprisingly, His HollowVivaciousness has no answer. And interestingly, His MasterfulEloquence doesn’t dare utter the P-word in any of His public addresses.

Sigh.

I shall end this now. It’s been dragging along for quite some time. Here’s hoping His PseudoAwesomeness realises that it’s high time He stops beating about the bush. And starts some real work for a change.

It certainly is  necessary.

PS : Goodness, do I sound like a leftist? Well I am not! Anything but that!

Here’s some light humour to wrap up.

inception : the best movie ever made?

How would you like, if the thriller novel you brought the other day, had the entire plot, written … summary, spoilers and all .. on the rear cover? And the rear cover pasted on the front? My guess is, well, you wouldn’t. But that does not deter me from answering the question addressed in the title.

Frankly speaking, from the very fathomable depths in my white and unspoilt, honest conscience … the movie isn’t the best movie ever made. Now before you start throwing those tomatoes and pumpkins at me … give me a chance to explain myself.

First the big picture. Which is … parallel existence. Look into my eyes and tell me, that it is something innovative. You cannot, because it’s … not. Well. When Neo enters the Matrix … then yes, you can say that. But after he’s entered the matrix, after Jake Sully’s been there done that in the humanoid infested lush green forests of Pandora in Avatar … sorry to say … parallelism is getting clichéd.

But the means of implementing parallelism? Well, in The Matrix it was the digital medium. In Avatar it was the … I dunno any single phrase to encompass that entire thing …. in Inception, it’s … no points for guessing .. dreams.

So what’s new? Well … meta-parallelism. Which is creating multiple parallel existences …. simultaneously. (Did I just coin that term? :O ) So while in The Matrix, Neo enters the Matrix and doesn’t dare venture into further sub-Matrices, and Jake Sully enters the other life … and stops at that level, Dom Cobb keeps dreaming … in dreams … in dreams and …. so on. Reminds one of nested loops doesn’t it? Watch this space 😉

So coming back to the typicalities of a typical film review.

Leonardo DiCaprio. I was never an avid fan of this gentleman. What with his boyish, midwesterner twang and delicately poised juvenescence I say. But if there was one film where he actually seemed to sink in to the character he was assigned, Inception is indeed the one. What Nolan has done is not pick stars to fill his cast. Rather, he’s taken people who he believes can act. And yes, he’s chosen well.

Ellen Page. Man! That was a good choice! She did her part well, and was kinda complimentary to DiCaprio. The others in the cast were good too, but yes. I would personally have liked Michael Caine .. in a more important role (like in The Prestige and The Dark Knight … sigh … ).

Cinematics. This is one thing I keep repeating in film reviews. A simple law. If it’s Hollywood and if film A is released after film B, then film A will have better cinematics than film B. OK. Make that generally. Simple. And the Inception is no exception. The zero-gravity thing, while the van in the first dream was falling off the bridge, and its repercussions in the second dream had me dazed. Seriously.  A fighting scene without gravity! And quite unlike the Matrix because there you could choose to defy gravity whereas in this case, you have no gravity to defy! I just wish that sometime in the distant future, there would actually be such a re-enactment in a space mission. 

The snow fortress episode in the third dream and the action clips associated were somewhat mushy and lacked visual diversity but yes, that doesn’t hinder the overall goodness because the genius in Nolan has actually overlapped the evasive car chase, the gravity-free fist fight and the snowy shootout within the same time frame simultaneously.

The … urgh … fourth dream where Cobb and  Ariadne meet Cobb’s wife … and then proceeds to the limbo is also a good turn, complexifying the already complex plot, but yes, artfully maintaining it within the frontiers of comprehension. The portion earlier up wherein Cobb explains to Ariadne … the concepts of extraction and inception are well shown too.

Now well, as a movie critic I feel the need to criticise. A simple question. When you are in a dream, do you remember your plans in the real world? Well you don’t. So Cobb asking in the second dream, how many more minutes does Yusuf have before the van crashes down the bridge (in the first dream) is … a gross error.

Also as a friend of mine pointed out, would YOU really risk so much for a commercial rivalry? If no, then the story ends there. Within the first thirty minutes. But if you do, there’s the rest of the story for you.

Reverting back to parallelism and meta-parallelism. Read this part carefully. The Matrix, as I said a few paragraphs back heralded this concept of parallelism. Avatar took it in a different perspective and Inception dealt the finishing move.

A geometric analogy. The Matrix involved choosing two two-dimensional planes to reside in. You can travel through the three dimensional space that separates the two planes by doing whatever computer wizardry you know or whatever Neo did. And then you had to turn back, travel back through the two dimensional space and come back to the first plane.

To visualise Inception you need to think of an infinite number of shells, each representing a level of dreaming. You can move from one shell to another but never know which is the last one, closest to reality. This important concept is hidden in the perpetually spinning top in the end. 

Wait a second. Lemme explain. You thought that the perpetual motion of the top signified that the real was a dream too. That is not so. It is not just a dream. It is a dream within a dream within a dream …. within infinite layers of dreams. Why? Because once you go up one dream level, time slows down. So to make a top that would otherwise stop spinning, spin for longer, you need to just get into a dream. But what if there was one top that would never stop spinning? Quite simply, a top within infinite layers of dreams. Food for thought? You bet so. 

So to sum it in layman’s terms, if the Matrix was the fresher’s course, Inception was post-graduation.

Here’s another analogy for the sake of it.

Say you are learning a language. I mean a programming language.

First you learn selection statements viz if else. That is the Matrix. Here’s a crude analogy,

if(youWannaEnter)

{

       enter();

}

void enter()

{

       if(youWannaExit)

       System.exit();

}

whereas Inception is like nested loops or possibly recursion or maybe even meta-recusrion.

//n is dream layer

keepDreaming(n)

{

      if(wannaDreamMore)

            keepDreaming(n+1);

     else if (!wannaDreamMore)

            keepDreaming(n-1);

}

There. You seriously expected a film review from me minus my fine touches 😛

But yes, certainly not the best movie ever made.

Chrome, Cloud and Avatar

After a pretty long and boring previous post, well … here’s another for all of you to think twice before stepping onto my blog!

Now as all technogeeks will be aware of, the next big thing to watch out for on the technology front in 2010 is … amongst other things … the much awaited Google Chrome OS. Hopefully, it will join forces with all things bright and beautiful to deal irreversible damage to current segment leaders Microsoft and its minions. So what is actually so great about this OS? Apart from being free and open-source, the Google Chrome OS will be a completely browser based operating system.

Bemused? Here’s a simple explanation.

Consider your daily computer usage now. You load your operating system,and then you want to check your mail, your facebook account etc… so you connect to the internet, and … accomplish your tasks. Infact, in today’s world, there is very little we do on our machines apart from watching movies, playing games, listening to music, and/or opening Office for managing our documnets/spreadsheets/presentations … which we do OFF the net. Most things require us to connect to the net and then proceed with whatever tasks we have at our hands. The Google Chrome OS plans to take this idea another step ahead. How? By making the entire OS load from the net through a browser! So your computer remains eternally connected to the web, and “boot”ing would refer to loading the operating system from the web iteself. Once loaded, you can access your document, games, files … whatever you need from the web.

Google has infact, already made advances in this direction by their Google Docs service which allows you to store your Office work on the net instead of your own hard drive. This not only minimises the need of big MBs of disk spaces but also protects your files from system crashes … becuse you can always access your files using a different system! What you use to access your files is immaterial … it is how you access it! Anoher service that Google, and others have started is online storage and sharing of your photos and videos. We have today services like, Picasa Web Albums, Flickr, Photobucket, You Tube, Metacafe for these purposes.

This fascinating concept is called “Cloud Computing” … computing not on your machine, but accessing the “Cloud” somewhere up there (referring to the net) and then doing whatever you want. Cloud Computing today is getting much acclaim and recognition as a viable alternative to, and as a viable upgrade from our current computing methods.

So what actually happens in Cloud Computing is that you log in to the Cloud and accomplish your tasks. Say, now, you have an account in Facebook, or Google, and once you log in, you get “onto” the cloud to interact with people, in an essentially same yet different manner! With the advent of faster net-connections, even voice-chatting and video-chatting will become all the more common in the future, and the “virtual” cloud life will become increasingly real and merge with our real life.

What am I heading at?
Simply the fantastic concept utilised in the latest Hollywood thriller, Avatar, the story of a man leading two parallel lives simultaneously, one, his real life, and the other his Avatar’s life!

Avatar is not a new story! The same old story-line of land accqusition by a powerful race from tribals has been used in various movies and novels before and, if you are aware of poltical incidences in and around Lalgarh, West Bengal, you can actually see striking similarities of fiction with fact! What is essentially different is the setting more so than the story. It is indeed the setting of the story that makes Avatar so fascinating.

Coming back to the the two-lives concept. When Jake Sully’s mind enters his Avatar’s body, it is akin to you logging into Google/Facebook, and interacting with people there! Just as Jake enters his Avatar’s body and interacts with the natives! The moment he leaves his Avatar’s body, that life temporarily stops. Here’s an analogy.

You are not logged into Gtalk. Your friends, who are logged in, don’t see you on their lists, or they see your name in gray signifying offline. Similarly, when Jake is not logged into his Avatar, the natives cannot interact with him. Suppose they move his senseless body to a different location, so when he now logs in he is aware of the changes in the from of change in his geographical position. Coming back to the Gtalk analogy, your friends may send messasges to you when you are offline, but it is only when you log in that you get to see the changes in the form of new messages!

So it is akin to one person living two lives simulatenously! OK, not simultaneously but having two forms of existence at an instant to choose from!

This is exactly the thing Cloud Computing also brings about. One life of yours is the “online” one and the, other the “offline” one. And today, one cannot deny that the entire humankind is headed that way! As these two lives continue to exist, it is possible that the separation between “online” and “offline” will cease to exist. To put it in Jake’s words “Everything is backwards now, like out there is the true world and in here is the dream”!!!

PS: the concept of two-lives also draws upon the ancient Vedic concept of the atman or the soul of a person residing in different bodies … (though not at the same time!)

PPS: do check out the short movie that follows, developed by my father, and his colleagues three years back. An apt summarisation of the aforementioned idea.

PPPS: also read this previous post of mine.

var addthis_pub=”wrahool”;

Durga Puja @ Pilani

the first thought that hit my head when I opened my eyes to the gleaming sunbeams that heralded the morn of
September 24th 2009, was “OK… this is just gonna be another of those pathetic days … filled with lectures and
tutorials and tests and assignments and quizzes and … all such things that exist to make your life miserable. I
gotta wake up now,and brush my teeth … “. This was followed by a short bout of nostalgia … the days in Calcutta, when my mom had had to put up a Titanic struggle to wake me up. I quickly got rid of them, because they generally made you sadder the more you allowed them to invade your mind.

I looked to my right … my roomie was snoring lightly, completely unaware of the fact that a humungous life form
had actually waken up from a state of deep slumber and was looking straight at him. I reached for my cell phone … my only companion in times such as these, and was quite astonished to find an unread message in it. “OK, so who would care to message me this early ???” Closer investigation revealed that it was from my father, wishing me a happy Durga Puja, and saying that my folks back at home were missing me a lot.

And with that, something hit my mind like a bolt of lightning and my head started to reel. It was like a wilderness of assorted feelings that surged through my body making me numb. Shocked, stunned and totally flabergasted.

“Holy crap”, I nearly whispered aloud … “Today is MahaShashthi? the first day of Durga Puja?” I just couldn’t
believe it! How could such a day actually be as mundane as this? My mind raced back to the previous year, and the
ones before … to the days when Mahashashthi meant an eager me clambering out of bed to be kissed and hugged by my parents … to the smell of new clothes, and the sound of the dhaks in the nearby pandals … to the enchanting
atmosphere of the grand season of Durga Puja, that unites all us Bengalis across the planet.

And here??? It just seemed so very terrible … stuck up in a confounded desert state with people who think that
Durga Puja is just another holiday to waste your time and fool about … who possibly even didn’t know how many
hands Goddess Durga had! Trying my best to keep all such feelings out of my mind, I reached for my tooth brush and
headed for the toilet. The next half hour or so, was possibly the worst half hour that I have spent in BITS till
now. When I returned to my room, my roomie had woken up, and was looking at me bleary eyed. After a short
conversation wherein I didnt at all mention the word Durga Puja, I opened my almirah and glanced through the
clothes. Another bolt of ligtning shot through me, as I remembered the previous years of Durga Puja when I used to
wear new clothes everyday. My phone started ringing, and I took the call. It was from my mum, who wished me on this auspicious day, and asked me to stay happy and celebrate with all my friends here. I vented my feelings out to her, and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t on the brink of tears by then. She consoled me and told me not to give in to such thoughts and reminded me of the new colthes she had left for me in the suitcase. I glanced up at the loft of my room. “Awesome! There are actually new clothes in that thing??? OK … something to smile about” After hanging up, I brought down the suitcase and opened it. Out spilled a flurry of clothes … kurtas, T shirts, shirts, jeans … I couldn’t help smiling. I quickly took out the black and white kurta and studied it. “Hey … this is cool!!!” I took out a pair of new blue jeans and … well it matched perfectly with the kurta!!! I couldn’t help loving my very thoughtful parents all the more!!!

In this state of jubiliation I put these on, and studied myself. Yes … I could now actually feel a fraction of the Durga Puja atmosphere around me …I had a Thermodynamics lecture at 9 o’clock and then a Biology tutorial at 10. So I hastily put on my new clothes and got onto my cycle and reached the lecture theatre. And man!!! Was I the center of attention on the roads … people actually craned their necks to take a look at me!!! In the lecture, it didnt take long to find all the bengali first yearites, and we all sat piled in one corner. They, it seemed were feeling much the same as me too, and even they had adorned themselves with new clothes that they had brought. In the evening, we went to the Durga Puja celebration that the Bengali Association arrange here every year … I mean the profs and the students. We had to help out with the carrying of the idols to the pandal, and some minor tweaks to the decoration. The pandal was pretty small by a proper Calcuttan standards, but at that instant it felt like a Godsend blessing. And all of a sudden, I started loving it.

The work was fun, the people were fun, the profs suddenly seemed so very nice and friendly (not that they aren’t,
but it seemed a lot more then!). And the entire night, we students spent in that pandal, chatting, playing random
stuff, singing… The next day, Mahasaptami, was even more eventful. We were asked to help out with the packaging of the prasadam, and boy! Was it fun!!! It was aorund 6 or 7 of us first yearites who sat huddled around a huge mass of assorted edibles, packing them into neat …. er … packets, and throwing random stuff into our mouths. The evening was spent rehearsing for the cultural programme that was to be held the day after the next. Mahaashthami, followed and this day turned out to be realy special for me, because I danced for the first time in my life … the famous Dhunuchi naach, wherein you dance … or for that matter … random steps while balancing and rotating earthenware filled with buring embers. It was soooooo coooool people!!!And the night was even better because we were invited to a dandiya event organised by the Gujarathi Association.
And we had fun!!! Awesome fun!!!

The next day, Mahanabami was the day of the cultural programme, and man! was I amazed at the audience turnout!!! When ours, I mean the students’ programme began, there was a gargantuan holllering and shouting and cheering from
our fellow BITSians. We did some songs of Rabindranath Tagore (I was in two of these songs), and our seniors danced to some adhunik (modern) bangla songs. After that was a bangla rock performance (well … nearly rock) which included me on the keyboard and vocals, and two others, one on the guitar. I’ll upload pics on facebook by tomorrow guys, so if you can catch up on those then. After an exhiltrating performance, we went to treat oursleves, and after a very satisfactory dinner, went back to the puja grounds to spend the rext of the night, dancing, enjoying and chatting. What amazed us even more was the suddenly accquired enthusiasm of the profs, who seemed to had gone crazy. In fact when we came back to our rooms at 3 o’clock in the night, they stayed on … dancing and dancing into the wee hours of the morning.

The next day was the last day, Dashami, and there was a sudden atmosphere of gloom that seemed to suck all happiness out of our lives. The visharjan (immersion) procession began at 4 o clock in the afternoon, and we boarded two tractors, and slowly headed out of the campus with the idols. It was actually pretty fun, and we all shouted “Jai Durga Mata ki Jai!!!” and “Asche Bochhor Aabar Hobe!!!” throughout the journey. By 6 o clock in the evening we were back in the campus, and the wonderful five days suddenly seemed so distant and unreachable, like a rainbow in the sky.

But well things do end, and they come back again … and you gotta live with it… and stuff that seemed non existant for a period of time, suddenly come back to haunt you … like say, a 60 mark Thermodynamics Test I had on Wednesday … which I screwed up pretty badly … but which, I must agree was a rather nominal price for such an experience of a lifetime!!!

var addthis_pub=”wrahool”;

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: a review

I am indeed late, in producing this post, since Harsh, Avada Kedavra, and Shankar have already comprehensibly reviewed this movie. But … better late, than never … so here I go:

As a book, the Half Blood Prince never really impressed me, compared to the others in the HP series … because in the end it was a complete triumph of evil over good. The main emphasis of the story was as a buffer to prolong the series and allow a seventh book, than take the story any futher. As a result, HP and party, end up in the same position from where they began … in fact I would say, in a much worse position than from where they began … owing to Dumbledore’s unfortunate death. The main focus of the book is however, the revelation of Voldemort’s past, which Ms Rowling has indeed done brilliantly.

back to the movie:

If you are a Harry Potter freak (HPF), and you would rather live by and die by Harry Potter and Hogwarts and JK Rowling, and, you consider reading any other book when a new HP is released to be blasphemous, then you will not like the movie … because the movie seems to … borrow cues from Rowling rather than filmify her novel …. you get what I mean, right? The movie is a heavly mutated … (HPFs would consider mutilated!) version of the novel, and many, many things which JKR had written or mentioned has been … intentionally overlooked, and modified … by David Yates. The entire beginning sequence has been changed … there’s no glimpse of Privet Drive, and Harry meets Dumbledore at a subway station.

Then however, the movie does try to catch up with the book, but fails.

If however, you are the sort who likes Harry Potter … OK, make it love Harry Potter, but that’s it !… no other crazy feelings …. then I vouchsafe, you will enjoy the movie. After all one must agree, that filmifying this novel is difficult. If it wasn’t a Harry Potter … no one would have considered filmifying it … the story is too mundane to be filmified, especially after the Goblet of Fire, and the Order of the Phoneix … which were a lot more thrilling and movie-ish ! Considering that, kudos to David Yates! What he has done, is stuck to the essentials and produced a fairly decent movie to continue the series, masterfully compressing 600 pages to 2.5 hours …

A few points to note:

• WHAT was all the hullaballo attack at the Burrow for? Was it mentioned in the book? If no, then why include it? Specially, considering the fact, that it had no further consequence apart from bringing Harry and Ginny together.
• HOW could the Burrow be attacked that easily? J K Rowling has made it pretty clear that the Burrow was under very strong protective charms
• WHY was Madam Rosemarta NOT shown? Specially when she played a crucial role in the book by informing Draco Malfoy that Dumbledore has left the castle, which allowed the Death Eaters to strom in?
• In order NOT to show Madam Rosemarta, David Yates, has modified an important feature of Hogwarts castle by allowing Dumbledore and Harry to apparate from within its walls. the reason Dumbledore gives is pretty lame – that staying with him has some advantages.
• The movie does NOT thrill. It does NOT make you cling to the edge of your seat … in fact I had my posterior well snugly placed in the middle throughout. The movie is NOT heart stopping. The only point where there is a slight “suspense” is when the Inferi grab Harry in the cave and pull him down. Dumbledore’s recovery and his saving Harry has been very well depicted indeed.
• lastly, and MOST importantly … WHY was Harry not immoblised in the final encounter? WHY did he look on as Draco disarmed Dumbledore? Weak links indeed!

A few more observations:

• Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) still rules the roost as far as the cast is concerned … he is just phenomenal!
• I sorely missed a chase for the snitch, which I generally look forward to in an HP movie 😦
• I didn’t actually find the romance to be as glaring as others did … seriously … it was just for a maximum of 15 mins … or did I fall asleep? OK, there was a lot of unnecessary Ginny Weasley in the movie.
• Rupert Grint has grown stupider and Daniel Radcliffe hasn’t grown much. Emma Watson is pretty much the same too! I particularly liked Tom Falton (Draco Malfoy) ‘s acting. And yeah, this new Tom Ridlle is weird … the Chamber of Secret’s one was waaaay cooler.
• The young Dumbledore somehow reminded me of Metallica frontman James Hetfield … lol …
• Lavender Brown looked like a middle aged woman
• Slughorn was pretty neat too … I mean, the way he sunk into the character, was appreciable
• I hated the Dark Mark … I mean, after the Goblet of Fire … this one was unacceptable. Totally.
• The cave scene and the openeing death eater scene were done reealy well … I loved the way Dumbledore fought the Inferi … though the ending seemed a bit tooo hurried
• the chase and the fight in the Astronmoy tower part was the biggest let-down because it quite simply failed to capture the thrill and the action that JKR had so vividly painted … David Yates just made the Death Eaters waltz into Hogwarts, kill Dumbledore, and escape with a rearkable degree of nonchalance … It didn’t just suit the movie at all 😦
• There’s absolutely no point in rating the cinematics and special effects because every new Hollywood movie sets a new standard … this one was AS good … especially the beginning death eater scene, the Pensieve scenes and the Cave scene.

Now from the perspective of those unfortunate souls who are absolutely unaware of the story … who went to watch Kambakkht Ishq, and ended up watching harry Potter because KI was house full … for people like them, who can only think of Harry Potter as something sharing the same initals as Hewlett Packard … well I symapthise with you folks. You SHOULD have cursed the creator, the director, the actor … everything by now! I would have suggested, wait for the next Kambakt Ishq show and go for that … or else buy the DVD of Singh is Kinng and enjoy it at home. Would have been better options than HP for you!

Finall rating: well … 3/5

an evening to remember …

I love live concerts. They are just awesome, and mind boggling … and too ripping an experience to actually put it down in words. The feeling that grips your mind when you hear the thuds of a bass drum, or the amazing tremolo from an electric guitar, the rythmic strumming of an acoustic guitar … or the blitzkrieg keyboard solos … enchants the life out of me, and numbs my senses … as if I’ve just transcended all the frontiers of reality and am now floating in a world of intense muiscal passion. though I haven’t actually seen international artists performing live …. (sitting in Calcutta that is pretty difficult, because all western artists stick to Bangalore, Delhi, and Bombay … last year when Iron Maiden performed live at Bangalore, I wouldn’t smile for weeks 😦 ) So I have to be content with Hindi and Bengali artists only … but they, of course ,are NOT bad at all … yesternight was just another of those amazing nights when Calcutta came alive owing to one such event.

Every year, the premier Bengali News Channel, Star Ananda organises a special ceremony called “Shera Bangali” (literally translates into the “Best bangali”) to award Bengalis … who have achieved distinctive successes, and set new benchmarks in their respective streams. Since amongst all Indians, it is the Bengali culture that generally tops his or her own line of work 😉 … you can consider the winners of these awards to be pretty well known in the country and across the world. Previous awardees and nominees, for example, included Pranab Mukherjee, Shaan, Pritam Chakraborty, Shreya Ghoshal, Sourav Ganguly, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Mamata Banerjee (had to be!), Mithun Chakraborty, Soumitra Chatterjee, Mrinal Sen … blah blah blah …

This year too, every Bengali was somewhat agog regarding this and were eagerly awaiting the results. ( I WASN’T, and I didn’t even know when this would be held 😀 ). But Surprise and Surprises … on the 8th of July, my dad recieved a call from a Star News (I mean Star Newj) hotshot, and a good friend of my dad, saying that he would be sending over 3 VIP Passes to this event, would he be able to come.

And Why NOT!!!!

The passes reached our residence the next day, and the day after … viz yesterday, it was a pretty exited trio, consisting of my parents and myself who took their seats in the huge National Science City Auditorium precisely at 6 PM (possibly my last outing with my parents … in a looooong time to come). The program commenced at around 6:30 with the enchanting melody of A R Rahman’s Maa Tujhe Salaam , and incredible special effects created by throwing psychedeilc lights thorugh an ocean of carbon-dioxide (dry ice)… emceed by veteran news reader Suman De, and Tollywood actress (oops, actor, no discrimination, mind it) Swastika Mukherjee.

The first award, Shera Bangali in Film, went to the much deserving Rahul Bose, of Pyaar ka Side Effects, Jhankaar Beats, and Maan Gaaya Mughal-e-Azam fame … but mainly owing to his groundbreaking performance in the recent Bengali Film, Antaheen.

The next award, in the music category went to Shantanu Moitro, who had previously directed music for Munna Bhai, and Parineeta, and a few other Hindi films, but this time again it was owing to his awesome tracks in the film Antaheen, sung by the evergreen combo of Shaan and Shreya Ghoshal.

The award in the sports category went to the captain of the Indian Women Cricket Team, Jhulan Goswami, yet another deserving candidate, and a lot better than Ranadeb Bose or Ahok Dinda.

The other awrdees included Ketaki Kushari Dyson (literature), Sumit Banerjee (corporate), Abir Karmakar (Art), and Paoli Dam (new face).

The Lifetime Achievement Award was bestowed upon veteran actor, who had ruled the roost in the Bengali Film Industry (after perhaps Uttam Kumar) for 50 years, Soumitra Chatterjee.

The “Shera-r Shera” or “the Best among the Best” award was given to the Indian Foreign Secretary, Mr Ronen Sen, who had guided the country, and still is, through the troubled water of International Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs … right from being the Indian Ambassador during the signing of the Indo-Soviet pact, till the recent signing of the N-deal with the US.

After the award cermony, it was time for the fun and games to begin, this time emceed by popular TV faces, Neel and Debolina. The first entertainment event was a dance … presented by yet another Tollywood favourite Rituparna Sen, and Hiran … but that seemed pretty stale compared to what followed next. Following a short break, the curtain rose once again, this revealing the awesomely prepared band, ready to rumble … a huge drum kit was positioned in the very centre, at the back. Beside it was more percussions, congos, tablas, and an octopad. Five guitars rested on the wall behind … bass, acoustic, electric, you name it … it was ll there. The other side had a hige compendium of three double-decker keyboards … all ready to kick off the gala celebrations.

The first performance was presented by the much acclaimed Bollywood singer Abhijeet (no, not Sawant) … belting out his hits with incredible ease, and stage composure … well do I need to name the tracks? Chaand Taare Tod Laaoon, Main koi aisa geet gaaon, tumaaye toh haawa mein … and his recent hit from Billu, till the enthralled crowd couldn’t have had expected anything more! But that wasn’t the end … the organisers had ensured that there would be absolutely no one left unsatisfied … just in case there was someone in the crowd who didn’t prefer Abhijeet, the next performer made sure that that person got, all that he/she had bargained for … if not more. And it was, setting the arena on fire, the one and only wonder girl, who seems to have taken command of Bollywood with her enchanting voice and songs … Shreya Ghoshal.

The crowd went mad. Just mad. No other word would do. She began with her recent hits from the Bengali film Antaheen ‘Jao pakkhi’ and ‘Pherari Mon’, and then setting the stage ablaze with her scorching Bollywood numbers … from Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, to Parineeta (Piyu Bole) to Singh is Kinng (Teri Ore), to Gangster to Devdas to Jab We Met … and what not … including a few of her classical pieces, it was a music lover’s dream come true … at around 10:30 the performance ended, with the audience dying for more … it was a rather contented trio that boarded the Toyota Qualis that took us back to our house.

I’m putting up a few pics that I managed to shoot … and I shot a few videos too till my Cybershot ran out of memory … I’ll put up the clips later, for now, here are the pics:

1: the restricted circle pass

2 and 3: the lights during inauguration

4: the award winners line-up so that I may take photpgraphs 😀

5: Abhijeet sets the stage ablaze

I didn’t take still photos of Shreya Ghoshal, shot some videos instead, shall upload them soon … feeling lazy now 🙂

the photos are little blurred, because they were taken by (optical ) zooming. Though optical zooming does NOT, ideally produce blurring … especially on an 8.1 MP Sony Cybershot, a wee little shaking of the hands can lead to a slight distortion. I tried my best to keep my hands steady.

flashback

Now before I start writing this one, let me extend the hearty kudos to my blog for managing to attract 1000 unique visitors, and nearly 2200 page views.

*CLAP CLAP*

(Got this great idea from Roshmi who begins each post by … er … updating her readers with her blog’s statistics, be it Alexa traffic rank, or the monetary value … shh! between you and me … wink wink :D)

But what I plan to write about now, is a lot grimmer than how this seems.

Yesterday our earth turned a day old … and yet another date, viz the 8th of July 2009, made it’s way into the annals of time, and possibly into some historians diary, and along with it, it marked the passage of a decade since the historic capture of Tiger Hill at Kargil. It has indeed been a long time since this achievement, but the memories of the gruesome war still linger on in the mind of the average Indian.

1999 … was in class 3, and I remember very clearly, the huddle-up every evening around NDTV to catch up on the latest news from the battlefront. People had been killed … many, many people had been killed, but then I had been too young to understand the gravity of the situation, and it seemed like … well, a thriller movie. When I learnt to realise how grim it had been, the war was over. It was in 2003 again that I could actually relive those moments of tragedy, and sacrifice … courtesy the movie LOC: Kargil … but I still wager whether that was any close to the real action.

A particular quote keeps getting back to me … by Capt. Vikram Batra, hours before his death on Tiger Hill, during an interview with NDTV: “Either I shall come back after hoisting the Indian flag, or shall come back wrapped in it … but I shall come back for sure…”

sparks with dedication, patriotism, and resonates with the fervour of one’s will to do his duty for his motherland, come what may … the willingness to make the Supreme Sacrifice for his country, which has nurtured him for years …

Yesterday, the Indian Express carried a list of names of the martyrs … the valiant soldiers and jawans of the 17 JAT “MASHOKH” regiment,who sacrificed thier lives during the capture of Tiger Hill (Operation Vijay), under the column “Salute the Soldier”. I, within my meagre abilities, consider it my duty to put down their names here as well … after all, we have been glorified in their glories, haven’t we?

• late Maj Ritesh Sharma
• late Capt. Anuj Nayyar, MVC
• late Sub. Rajpal Singh
• late Sub Harphool Singh
• late Hav Kumar Singh, VrC
• late Hav Hari Om, SM
• late Hav Mahavir Singh, SM
• late Hav Bhagwan Singh
• late Hav Pawan Kumar
• late Hav Prithavi Singh
• late L/Hav Balwan Singh, SM
• late Nk Ram Swarop Singh
• late Nk Krishan Lal
• late Nk Shyambir Singh
• late Nk Rishi Pal Singh
• late L/Nk Rajesh
• late L/Nk Vijay Singh
• late L/Nk Ramvir Singh
• late L/Nk Rajendra Singh
• late Sep Ranveer Singh
• late Sep Vijay Pal
• late Sep Hawa Singh
• late Sep Naresh Kumar
• late Sep Tara Chand
• late Sep Vinod Kumar
• late Sep Syodana Ram
• late Sep Dharamvir Singh
• late Sep Gajpal Singh
• late Sep Satyvir Singh
• late Sep Dharambir Singh
• late Sep Krishan Kumar
• late Sep Karan Singh
• late Sep Raj Singh
• late Sep Kanchi Singh
• late Sep Shish Ram
• late Sep Jitendra Singh
• late Sep Surendra Pal Singh
• late Sep Anil Kumar
• late Sep Virender Kumar
• late Sep Rajbir
• late Sep Sarman Singh
• late Sep Kalu Ram Jakhar
• late Sep Ratna Ram
• late Sep Surender Singh, SM
• late Sep Kuldeep Singh
• late Sep Attar Singh

Please note that the Jat regiment was just one out of several other regiments (especially the Grenadiers and the Nagas, to name the two other significant ones) which suffered the same fate, and this list is therefore far from even half complete, and should have ideally been much, much longer. However, these were the names I could get my hands on, and my apologies are with those equally brave-hearted martyrs whose names do not feature here.

JAT BALWAN, JAI BHAGWAN

JAI HIND