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  • Nine and Zeroes

    Its been a long journey and a bond that has only strengthened over time. Radha completed 90,000 kms recently and is still going strong!

    90000

    With some minor denting/painting done last week, she is shining like new, and gives a lot of new hatchbacks a run for their money!

    Thank you FIAT for making such a brilliant car! Hope you keep doing the same for years to come!

  • I’m Free – Picture it!

    Freedom I believe is perception,
    Freedom I believe is understanding of rights, and acceptance of responsibilities
    Freedom I believe is to express
    Freedom I believe is to grow independently
    Freedom I believe is to know, and share!!!
    The Global Times, a biweekly newspaper of the Amity Group of Institutions, gave Amity students an opportunity to express what freedom means to them through one of my favorite mediums! Photography!
    This competition saw some real good moments through the camera of students of all ages, and what you see below are winners of this competition!
    Freedom to smile, freedom to be with someone who makes you laugh, freedom of expression, and freedom to be is what I see in this delightful photograph by Harshit Walia…
    Harshit Walia ASCO
    Freedom of space, the freedom to enjoy, freedom to do without controls! That is what gully cricket has been for me always! Shashank, who is in Xth standard has been able to capture the mood just right in this photograph!
    The secret of happiness is freedom Shashank Aggarwal X AIS Gur 43
    Dance like no one is watching! Bhuvan Ravindran, in his photograph, has been able to capture this expression of freedom so well!
    Bhuvan Ravindran XI B AIS Noida
    Birds and Free are two words that go together! While it always hurts to see birds in a cage, I can spend hours watching birds enjoying their grains in many corners of the city, and flying around! Manas, in his photograph, has captured this free flight of birds!
    Freedom Manas Aggarwal

    These were the winners of this competition! and trust me there was no dearth of absolutely amazing photography in this edition of The Global Times! Do enjoy some more photographs on their website : www.theglobaltimes.in

  • Lane Driving is inSane Driving!

    There is a 90km roadtrip that I do every day for work, and pass by a bottleneck which was initially supposed to be a flyover to ease traffic movement! Please welcome the RTR Flyover, or Rao Tula Ram Flyover!
    Delhi has its fair share of flyovers, and they have really helped the traffic movement! The number of vehicles increasing is what causes the jams! not these flyovers! This one however has a history!
    When RTR was inaugurated, traffic was allowed to move from Subroto Park/Gurgaon/Airports towards RK Puram! Someone in the Delhi Traffic Police realised that it was causing way too many jams, and reversed the traffic flow… So now this 3 lane flyover was for people moving from RK Puram/Vasant Vihar/Munirka towards Subroto Park/Gurgaon/Airports, and started causing the jam on the other side!
    Some more brainstorming made it a time bound flyover… mornings one side, and evenings the other side! So jams now moved from one side to the other!
    And finally, they have now allowed traffic from both sides to use the flyover, the middle lane is used as a the imaginary median, and there is enough space kept at the entry for a single lane traffic on both sides!
    All of these approaches had their followers and critics both, but what boggles me at times is that why could they not build a wider flyover like the 1000s others in Delhi!

    But this post is not about what you have just read! this post is about what you are going to read, if you have reached this far!
    There is a trick to get onto the RTR… I have labelled the approaching traffic lanes as
    1. Sharafat Lane (This is the right most lane)
    2. Badmash Lane (Second to the right most)
    3. Badtameez Lane (Third/Fourth to the right most)
    4. Pencho Lane (Any other lane)
    Now as the names suggest, the Sharafat lane is the slowest of them all… If you are stuck here, you are probably going to enter the flyover after 3 vehicles from Pencho Lane, 2-3 from Badtameez Lane, and 2 from Badtameez Lane have zoomed past… Let’s see how this looks like from the top usually!

  • More from the phone!!

    I am starting to like Android (but not as much as I loved the iPhone)…

    A few good apps on the App store such as Evernote, Google Gesture Search, and Dropbox have made today interesting as well…

    What you see below are two pictures that I took using the phone and then edited+uploaded using an app called littlephoto…

    Circle in a square...

    Sitting not allowed

  • Phone Photo Phunn!

    Trying out how photographs from the phone work out.. a few look nice so far..

    Traffic Grows

    Morning Drive to work

  • Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

    There is such a significant change in the movies from about 5 years ago to now! I get to notice it and appreciate it a lot partly because I take pictures!!!
    Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag was a flop, a ridiculous movie, however it was a movie with one of the best photography examples! Take any shot from the movie, and it could be used as a reference to how pictures should be taken! I loved it from that perspective… Could have watched it without sound too!
    A lot of firang movies are extremely good examples of well managed lights, nice subtle colors or loads of them when you need’em, brilliant depths of field and what not!
    Zindagi Na Milegi dobara scores a lot of points from me on the photography front! I am sure there is a name to it in cinema language (Cinematography to be exact), but I would call it photography for it to register well in my mind!
    Absolutely delightful light, brilliantly shot under the sun, happily exposed scenes (both indoor and outdoor) and not to forget lovely editing!
    Add to this
    1. a nice light combination of multiple stories running in parallel
    2. interesting dose of humor and right proportions of emotion
    3. SPAIN and a filmy version of what to do when in Spain documentry
    4. moments that you would have wanted to live and would have lived too! I have had the doordarshan scene in my life a few times already
    5. affection and love and honesty and trust and lack of it stiched almost perfectly well
    6. sequences that would make you ask yourself about when you are going to do them (because most of it is definitely doable)
    7. a nicely fast paced, still slowing down movie which would make you breathe in the moments you would want to… the deep sea diving or the long drive in a vintage, or the breathtaking skydive…
    8. comedy where it should be, and beautiful poetry where it should be. I thought it was Farhan Akhtar who had written the poetry in addition to the movie, however it turns out that it was Javed Akhtar who did! not surprised!
    9. an honest real to life friendship and moments
    And what you get it is a movie that you should watch again… because Zindagi mile na mile dobara, is movie ka show dubara ho sakta hai 🙂
    What I did not really like about the movie though..
    1. it missed a bit of name calling.. there are moments where good ol’ friends do not resist the macho pencho language… this movie was too clean to be true
    2. part of the skydive was clearly fabricated… though it did seem that these guys had jumped, I would have loved to see the first tandem jump or atleast a mention of it before they make a solo jump… It is IMPOSSIBLE to have your first jump as a SOLO jump! that kind of was messy!
    3. Hritik Roshan gets to kiss Kat! not fair! 😛
    A lot of us could compare the roles of the three, and say Farhan got a better role than Hritik or Abhay did a better job than Farhan or similar things… I however feel that the three were so good in what they were supposed to do that I would not really want a change if given a choice!
    Here is a little about the two festivals that you can see in the movie too..
    1. Tomatina Festival : An annual festival (last wednesday of August) held in Valencian Town of Bunyol! Approximately 40000 kilograms of Tomatoes sees the end of day on that last wednesday. The great Spanish tomato fight starts around midday for an hour or so in Valencian… The small town with a population of about 9000 is a host to over 30000 people during the annual Tomatina festival, so its best to stay in nearby towns and take a train to the festival!
    2. Pamplone Bull Run : Again annual in nature, this is held every year mid-July in the city of Pamplone, Spain. It is a part of the San Fermin festival, held in honor of Saint Fermin. The bull run starts every day at 0800 hrs and continues from 7th of July through the 14th of July. Participants have to be 18+ years of age and can run a total of 826 meters from start to finish, unless they are finished early by the raging bulls! 🙂
    Back to the movie! Myself and Pooja really enjoyed it! and I would love to watch it Dobara!
    Oh, and did I mention that Farhan Akhtar, more often than not, sounds like he is about to cry!

  • Who are you gonna be?

    One of my online friend’s recently asked a question on FB about what people remember of their childhood dreams, what did they want to be when they grew up!!
    Some pretty interesting answers could be read as responses, and what I see if that after a certain time in your life, money stops playing a role and becomes a necessary accomodity, and satisfaction and peace starts moving towards the top of the “wanted” list! Does it happen because people have earned enough, or know that they have enough capability to earn for their current and future needs, or anything else, and it could be answered in many ways! What is for sure in all of these answers is that with time we tend to set our priorities right, and have enough clarity or atleast we feel that we have enough clarity to move in the direction we “want” to move in, and not what the society or peer pressure or competition “makes” us move in!
    And I believe its never too late to be what you wanted to be! or to realise what you really were, what you have become and what needs to be done to be what you’ve always been or wanted to become!
    That’s all that I have to say about that!
    With that line from Forrest Gump, here is another quote from it!
    Jenny Curran: Do you ever dream, Forrest, about who you’re gonna be?
    Forrest Gump: Who I’m gonna be?
    Jenny Curran: Yeah.
    Forrest Gump: Aren’t-aren’t I going to be me?

  • Long break!

    This has been the longest that I have stayed away from Chai ki Dukaan… Unbelievable actually… there is so much that I want to get out of my system, but am not really finding the time or energy to do it that it has started killing me inside!
    But that would continue happening, there would be something or the other that is going to be an issue, something that would be a challenge, something that would not go the way I want, or something that I would not be able to resolve or even think of a resolution! that happens! will happen!
    What is important, and extremely, is that I continue to remind myself that are better days ahead! There is something nicer about everything that is happening! there is!
    I need to repeat this to myself a number of times these days!
    On a brighter note…
    Saw a few good movies in the last few weeks!
    Delhi Belly! How come I did not know that it was partly an english movie dubbed in Hindi? I ended up being confused for the first few 10 minutes of Delhi Belly trying to understand why the lips were not in sync with what was being said!
    Also there is a certain music and flow in in how Delhi junta swears, and it was totally lacking in this movies irrespective this movie being capable of killing someone with an OD of onscreen swearing! Vijay Raaz is the only guy who is delivering the hindi Pencho Maacho words the way they sound like more often than not! Infact he did that brilliantly in “Pran Jaye per Shaan na Jaye”. If you have not seen that one yet, you should!
    Delhi Belly made everyone laugh! and hard! Mostly the situational comedy part, and at times the swearing part! but it did make everyone laugh! It was a through and through fun movie to watch, almost at the same pace right from start to finish! and post this movie, we were wondering as to where did the time go!
    A plot that has been repeated a number of times in one way or the other, and still was as entertaining as it could be!
    I also saw X-men First class! For people who have not seen the first 4, this might not make a lot of sense, however it was a movie which is full of action, and is not loud at all either! Very fine crafted action is what I like about all the X-men series and this one was no different! Needless to say, a must watch if you are following the series so far!
    Also saw a total waste of time, Double Dhamaal, and its not really worth talking about here!
    More later….

  • Paper or Digital?

    With almost every good magazine having archives available online (FOC- Free of Cost) its a tough call to subscribe for a paper print! Nothing beats the good old romance of a paper print, but is it worth it?

    Some magazines that I am referring to here :

    • Outlook Traveler
    • The Economist
    • Business Today

    Not to forget that a most magazines are available in online editions for reading on laptops/tablets/e-readers and other handhelds!

    Still a paper print? May be! or maybe not!

  • a lot has been going on

    Crank Highvoltage Sharepoint Exchange Lotus Notes Lotus Live Office 365 Status update Deadline Traffic 1.25 hours Chickpeas Green Tea Flat Tyre Coffee with one sugar Swipe in Monitor Torrents Palio RED Toll Plaza Southie Bade Achhe Lagte hain Morning Playlist Lenovo Thinkpad L420 Phone call Birthday Party MBlaze Notes Cold Coffee Caller Ring Back Tone Printout Fridge Magnet Boss Dubai Busy 24 Dell Formals Rain Drive Orccha Blackberry Painting Windows Reinstall Photography Macbook Pro Talking Tom Sudoku 90% Mustang Nonsense Commitment Ring Loneliness Tourist Birds Palmolive Transformers Bose Kungfu Panda

    Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, India