"Slumdog Millionaire"

Yashraj Production presents

"SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE"

Directed by Karan Johar

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Jamal Malik (Zayed Khan) is 1 question away from 2 crore rupees! How did he do it?

The movie opens i a police station. The police inspector (Johny Lever) is puzzled. How did this poor guy, who is surprisingly dressed in Gucci clothes, know all the answer! Jamal looks at him and gives the smile . "its written." he says...... this is followed by name casting.

We are taken back to slums of Bombay (it was Bombay then) where young Jamal is playing cricket. Surprisingly, they are using "NIKE" cricket bats and are dressed in NIKE shoes. Young Jamal (played by Aditya Chopra's nephew) is a smart kid. Though 9 years old, he fools adults! His gang has his brother salim (played by Karan Johar Nephew), a cute sardarji with his turban, a parsee guy (who is fully outfitted in traditional dress) and a girl called latika (played by Rani Mookerjee's neice). Latika is an orphan who stays with the brothers.They are smart kids as seen in "Kuch Kuch hota hai". However, suddenly they break out into a song, wherein we witness all the mischieveous tricks they play on the elders. At the end of the song, the frame changes.

The 2 brothers and Latika then go home to their mother, who had made warm dinner for them, though she works as a domestic maid, she is dressed up well with complete make up. However, to make her seem authentic, the director in a master stroke had added a black scar across he face. She puts them to sleep. On the wall, they have a picture of their deceased father. As the boys sleep, she thinks of the past.

The story now turns fascinating! She was not always a poor girl. She was a well to do lady but the corrupt business partner of her husband, who has 6 fingers in his hands, had robbed them! The film,through a song, takes us to Switzerland, Australia and some part of Africa as she and her dead husband sing and dance. However, the evil partner lusts after her body and her husbands property. When the song is done, they realise that they are penniless. Her husband dies while trying to save her "izzat", falling off a cliff.

Now, she is facing other problems. The local goon has set his eyes on her and as expected, lusts after her. It does not help matters as she always goes around dressed in deep cleavage and body hugging outfits. The local goon, though works for the big Don in Dubai. Inspite of all hardship, she ensures that her kids go to school daily in starched white uniforms! Jamal is the bright kid.

Time goes on. One day the local goon tries to rape her. After showing in graphic detail the rape scene, we are shown how she manages to escape by hitting his eyes. She just has time to make the kids escape. Just as the goon closes in, she kills herself to preserve her purity.

The movie moves forward. The 3 kids, dressed smartly, do petty job. But they all sneak into schools and study under street lights. Now and then, they hum the tune that their mom used to sing with their father. One day, they see the goon who killed their mom. Salim kills him. In the ensuing melee, jamal loses the other 2.

10 years pass. Jamal (now played ny Zayed Khan) works in a call center. Though he is a Chai waala, he is respected by all for his intellect and wisdom. The managers hold him in high esteem and he solves everyones problem. All the call centers female executive (surprisingly all dressed as sluts) plot to get his attention. However, he still loves Latika. This is shown to the audience through a foot tapping item number done by Kareena Kapoor.

Jamal has an idea. He decides to play his family song on radio city. Radio city accepts and on hearing it, Salim (now played by Shahruk Khan) rushes to the station (the time interval for jamal singing, Salim hearing and arriving at the station has been kept at 4 mins). The two brothers embrace as the teary eyed radio city staff look on.

Jamal finds out about Salim. Salim is now the right hand man of the Dubai based gangster. He is rich. Jamal decides to stay with him. He finds out about Latika (Rani Mookherjee). She is now a Bar dancer. Though she is thought as a low woman, she is still pure and virgin. Every morning, she walks around the tulsi plant (always dressed in a body hugging, tight , wet white sari). Latika manages to keep all evil man away from her. She had waited for Jamal. The moment Jamal is about to kiss her, she forgets all about her longing and starts singing.

In this now perfect world, dark clouds loom. The dubai based Don returns and sees latika. As expected, he lusts after her. Salim is in confusion. His girlfriend (played by Priyanka Chopra), who is a prostitute with a heart of gold advises him to leave everything and run away. Jamal realises that the only way he can solve this is by winning a lot of money. So he decides to play KBC.

We then jump into the present. After sometime in the Police Station, jamal slips into a coma. The doctors tells them that they cannot save him now and only God can work out some miracle. After this, we see a song where Latika is praying in a temple, salim is in a mosque and Salims Girlfriend is in a church. When they all simultaneously finish singing their songs, jamal wakes up and is ready for KBC.

The Don realises that if Jamal wins KBC, he will lose Latika. So he decides to attack the KBC station. When they reach there, however, they find Salim baring their way. The Don tries to win him over. Suddenly Salim sees that the Don has 6 fingers on his hands. He realises that this was the same person who had robbed their property. The Don relishes and says he will wipe out the entire family today. But no such luck. Salim wipes out the entire gang. But he takes a fatal shot as he is killing the Don. badly hurt, he staggers inside.

Inside, Jamal is about to answer the last question. It is then the Quiz master (Amitabh Bachan) sees an open locket dangling from Jamal's neck. He is shocked and asks him how he got that locket. He is all teary eyed as Jamal tells him that his dead mom had given it to him. By then jamal also answer the last question correctly and wins the prize. Latika comes and hugs him. The quiz master than reveals, to the shock of everyone, that he is their father. He tells him how he tried to search for his mother but never found her after he came out of the hospital after falling from the cliff.

The scene is broken by Salim staggering inside in a pool of blood. The audience sitting inside sit in rapt attention as a family reunion takes place. After talking to everyone for 5 mins, Salim dies in Jamals arm. Before he dies, he finds out that his girl friend is pregnant with his child. As he dies, the sad version of the family song is played.

Finally, we have the marriage of jamal and Latika, both dressed in traditional Punjabi outfit. Their is song and dance, while salims girl friend keeps on thinking about him. Finally, the song is over. The director fast forwards us to the future. We see all of them in a hospital room, with Latika holding her newborn baby and Jamal holding her. They decide to name it salim. As they dim out, the family song plays in the background.

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This is a sure contender for best movie, best direction, best actors and best actress at the Filmfare awards.

A Bird eye view....

I went for my grocery shopping a few days back...while i was waiting for my bus, i noticed something strange...it is worth writing about....

I was a very cold day...the previous day has been even colder...Because of that, the birds were behaving strangely.... there were thousands and thousands of birds in a a small area, just flying randomly in groups.... in fact the whole sky looked full of birds...they came, sat on an electricity line, then flew away, came again...it was very fascinating to see this....suddenly i observed something peculiar....

I am no Ornithologist, a person who studies birds.... Also all my prior experience of "Bird watching" were totally off the track!!! so i started this exercise without any prior bias...

Next time you see a large flock of birds sitting on a cable, you will observe that 90-100 % of the birds sit facing the same direction!!!! Agreed its not a path breaking observation...but i could not ignore the beauty of it....it looked so planned and much more sophisticated arrangement than a simple "bird brain" thought!!! I decided to observe it for some more time...

As the number of birds kept on increasing, the probability that the new bird will sit facing the popular direction increased...infact, after some time, i could have bet thousand rupees that the next bird will sit in which fashion!!! it was strangely funny... closer examination....i saw an even more funny thing...a new bird who come to the line can approach it in any direction...he then takes a right turn and comes and sits in the "normal" way.... if he sits in the opposite way, HE OR SHE ACTUALLY LOOKS AROUND, and changes the position.....I know all this sounds weird...I suggest you can try this excercise on your own and i am confident that you will come out with the same results!!!

Then one more thought hit me...why this is so? I could think of only two possible reason... One that there is some source of stimulus (like sunlight) in that particular direction, or secondly, it is just herd instinct!!!I think it is a combination of both the factor...then again there is something else i noticed.... the birds did not necessarily search for places where their allignment towards the maximum stimulus would be optimized!!!!! (I hope you are still with me....If u think this guy is going way over board with his birdy thing, i can understand!!!).... Like if you have 2 parallel cable across the road, birds on both side will face each other and the road!!!

Then i thought wheteher everything depended on how the first bird who came sat down.... unfortunately i could not observe this...but i could make an extrapolation.... if the first bird came and sat down in a particular manner, the probability is 90% that the next bird will sit in the same manner. For the third bird, it will be 95% and we can keep on going ahead!!!! btw dont quothe the figures anywhere!!!!!

Now, why does the first bird choose a particular direction? Here i think stimulus plays a part....I refuse to accept it that it is a total random event! The first bird has all possible options to choose from and he chooses the one that best suits him...the stimulus may be weak, but it may push him or her towards a particular orientation....what follows next i have already discussed!!!

Funny..... I think this is exactly how our traditions, culture and ethics developed... At one point somewhere in the past, the first person or first group of who came to a place started following a practice.... The other who came later copied them!!!

Audacity of Hope...

I start my story...


Anecdote 1:


When i was in bangalore, i used to go office through a busy throughfare called Commercial Street. I passed this part anytime between 9-10 Am (this time being a linear function of the time i get up!). However, whenever i went past this place at around 9.10-9.15, i would see this particular sight. It was a Muslim family, pushing a cart of some fruits. Not that the frruits were any special to look at. The family comprised of the Dad, Mom and a kid. The father looked haggard and old. The lady was always in a Burqa so i was never able to judge her age. But it was the kid i noticed. He was always dressed in white shorts, white shirts and a green tie - a school uniform. He would be there, pushing the cart along with his parents, trying to negotiate that big cart in the midst of the bikes cars. I never talked to him (well, guess its called class barrier!!! LOL). But, i would always look for them if the time was right. Why? I seriously dont know but i found that kid very inspiring. He was helping his parents in earning , and at the same time not giving up going to school. Infact, by the way he dressed up, i could see that he was very serious about the whole "school-business"! it was so sweetly romantic... if this kid from nowhere can dream of a bright future, can't this "well brought up" guy dream of bigger things!

Anecdote 2:

This was recounted to me by my freinds. He was telling me the story of a girl he met at the canteen. Let me call her Jane (Well ! I kin of like dat name!) Jane is a school going kid in Texas, US, around 17. But this cute gal leads a very interesting life... She goes to school, does well in acads, and als0o works and earns living for her family. Why? Well her Mom is disabled and i assume her father is not with them. So she has to earn and pay the bills. She work in a cafeteria ..She wants to go to college but she does not have the money. So she is planning to work for a year after school to save some money. Life is not easy for her, but she hopes for a better future! In her privacy, she may complain that all this hardship is unfair, but she wont stop at that... She knows what she wants to and where she wants to go...

Anecdote 3:

His father was an international student from a a poor african country and his mom was a white girl from Wichita, Kansas. His father returned back to his nation, when he was a young. His mom then married an Asian and they shifted to Indonesia. There, he spent ten years of his life. In due course, his mother died of cancer. He came back to the US. He had no Godfather here, but he did not give up. He tried hard and got into Harvard Law School. I wont try to maintain any suspense here - He is barrack Obama. From there onwards, everyone knows the story! Ya, i copied my title from his book "the Audacity of Hope"....

I cant help smiling when i think of all this...there is something in us that does not allow us to think that our future is going to bleak!!! However dark the present may be, there will be a flicker of light somewhere which will still keep on dragging onwards!...defies common sense...we may define it as survival instinct or love for life!!!Hope.... something that makes us wait for tomorrow!!! The beauty of hope, the foolishness hope, the courage of hope, the optimism of hope......the audacity of hope!!!

"To the moon and back..."

First of all, I want to point out that the title is a direct copy of one my favourite songs by Savage Garden...But i felt nothing would be a more apt title!

Last Sunday was one of the most memorable days in my life... I went on a visit to the Johnson Space Center of NASA in Houston, Texas...Also, India is launching its first lunar mission this week...I am literally over the moon with all these developments!!!

Why? Should i be happy? well read on!I am shamelessly biased in favor of space exploration...

Since 1958, NASA has been a pioneer in space exploration...Along with the Soviets, they paved the way for the future generations..at the Johnson Space Center, the history of space travel is well documented... While one walks through the galleries, one does not feel jealous of US of feel indimidated by their technologies... As one looks into the faces of smiling men and women in spacesuits from the picture frames, one cannot help smiling back!!! its not a feeling of inferiority one feels...rather one gets the feeling that we humans have achieved something! It may sound like corny and phony socialism but looking at them makes one feel proud at the technological progrees humanity has made.
We were taken to the place where astronauts are trained, where missions are controlled (yes..there is an actual room like "Houston Calling!") and the rockets that carried humans to the moon...It was so inspiring... There were some kids who were always lifting their hands when someone asked "who wants to be an astronauts?"! I remembered my own childhood when i dreamt ( and i think everyone does) of being a pilot or an astronaut and flying! how time flies...i really envied them, for my elevated status as an "adult" did not entitle me to some simple child like priviledges!
Then there is the human story...how normal people become astronauts (Warning!!! they are not so normal..they have impressive resumes!!)...how they are trained and how they are ready to take all risks willingly... They have rigorous training for 3 years but the most difficult part is, as one lady-astronauts put it "...is the last week before blast off, when you have to say bye to your family, not knowing if you will see them again"...It was such a beautiful expression...afterall, they are not that out-of the world person!
Again, the immense respect given to the departed...for every every astronaut who died, a tree is planted...The name Columbia often comes up and is one of the most tragic days in their history... they play a speech by Bush when one reaches that memorial spot "... We choose the best among us to go out and discover for us...these brave men and women knew the risk they were taking and they took it willingly..." he sums up nicely when he says that if we stop space exploration because of such an incident, we will be sacrificing the very cause for which they died!!!
I fully support India going for the lunar mission-as a a man of science,as a citizen and as a rational person...Maybe 800 Mn of us are below poverty line....but to say that is like saying that our cricket players should not go to Australia or to say that "No more IITs and give money to poor"... I can argue for a whole day on the merits of the lunar mission, technically, but i dont want to do that as i am more drawn out to the human angle... the most valid reason, i feel , has been given by an ISRO official .."It will draw talented youngsters to scientific research and space and aerounautical engineeering"...When this happens, maybe i ll type my blog from the moon in a few years!!!!
I know that there are many people who claim that moon landing was a hoax and blah blah... they have some convincing agruments... My reasoning is simple...proving that US did not land on moon does no one any good except some petty nationalistc person... but knowing that a HUMAN has set foot on the moon- that means something to ME, and i think to many of us...The first Appolo mission was destroyed, killing all astronauts inside the rocket in the fire... these people were the best we as humans had to offer....if we claim that all this is a hoax and these "best"people, with the best technology humans had invented had failed, and We actually did not land on the moon, we are actually looking down on ourselves...the choice is ours...

I once read an story of how several british officers helped 3 british officers helped escape from a German POW camp during WWII... only 3 escaped, but all the officers were over the "moon" on successfull completion of the project.... At that time i thought how was this possible...but i think i understand it now...I may not know the person who goes to space.....but i know that somehow it has been the collective efforts of all humanity that has made possible for one of us to break free of restraints like gravity and soar!!! Only a few may have actually gone to space, but each of them is a story of human success...human being refused to be bogged down immense ans seemingly unsurmountable hurdles nad perform "Earth-defying" adventures!!!! Yes, to the moon and back....

No mans land....

I left for US last month. The thought i penned while sitting at Indira Gandhi International Airport...

"An idle mind is a devils workshop...so people they say.. i have my flight at 2.30 in the morning and i have 3 more hours!!! 3 more hours and i don't have anything to do n too scared to sleep!!! so this idle mind decided to write....
Frankly, i don't understand why i am feeling so low on leaving India.. i don't want to sound being unpatriotic!! jus i wanted to understand... what is a nation, or a country...
i mean, what is India or what is USA - A political entity, bounded by clearly demarcated geographical boundaries, and added to it a good deal of socio-economic, military, historical and religious factors... add all this together and we get it - The birth of a Nation!!!
Not that i am a cynic... i and jus trying to examine something in detail - something that i have taken for granted always...theoritically then, me leaving one geographical confinement for another should not make me feel down... but in actual, the fact that maybe i wont be able to come back here for some years was upsetting... i was like a doctor who has broken his leg... he knows what is causing the pain, but this knowledge does not reduce the pain!!! OR, was my definition of a nation wrong???
This geographical and cultural concept also raises some serious question..to what extent are we moulded by our surroundings? Am I an indian because i was born in this country? suppose i was born in US or say i was a Paki... would i have been different? would i have still liked the same tastes, the same colours ar the same type of music? Would i have liked Rock and blues if i was born in US? I dont know the answer...
one more flaw that i am observing in the geographical model is that the nation then becomes a function of time... patriotism, limited by the view of nation in such model then becomes extremely fuzzy...suppose we take the case of a soldier from Tamil Nadu, who died for undivided india who died protecting Sindh. So is he a patriot? think about it... he was a fellow born in India who died protecting Pakistan.. In todays scene, he will be called a traitor, a spy etc etc etc..but we know he is an Indian patriot... the fallacy in the argument is obvious... then we have to accept that geography model needs serious correction...
so what is a nation - a concept? a philosophy? a way of life?... a nation is a concept no doubt, but there is much more to it ... it is not a philosophy like Marxism... I think nation is a way of life...the way ones goes about his or her day to day life.. makes sense? actually does not much to me but thats the only option left my method of elimination!!! but i makes sense... i am missing india because i will be leaving a lifestyle with which i was very familiar... i was venturing into a world whose lifestyle was not the sane as mine...
However, though it made sense, it seemed very simplistic... if it was a way of life, why did i feel happy when India won T-20 cup? why i feel elated when Tata buys Corus? do people can die or take life for a way of life??? well i don't know..."
I dont wan tthis to be read as an article as it was never meant to be one... i had extracted it from my diary because i felt its something many people might have felt... i don't want the answer because i know that there is no correct answer for my question....

Another day at work....

I was born into a poor middle class family and from a young age i decided that i will follow my heart... some of my relatives told me to be a doctor blah blah blah... but NO!!! I was the owner of my destiny... boldly, i set out to reach for the sky....

After some time in my profession, i was the darling kid... people used to extol my goodness... i was told that i was the best thing ever to happen in My Field!!! sigh!!! when has good times lasted for ever... Calamity, like "Direct Marketing" agents, seldom come invited....

It all started one fine day... i just got out of my bed when one of my collegues handed over the paper... after getting over the fact that some one was interested ever to read about what colour underwear i liked to wear (yes... i was amazed!!!), i started reading... it was written by one so called expert in my profession (well he had no on-site or field experience, so he must have become an expert by studying it... that must make him preety fundoo as i was always dumb in acads...).. he was saying "the bottom section of my working implement was was 3/19 ounch heavier and its shape was slight parabolic than circular than regular ones. This in turn was impacting my concentration level, preventing from giving my best to blah blah blah..." WOW!!! that was amazing!!! I never new my work was so complicated....i made me feel so happy... as they say, everything is planned...

Unfortunately , knowing about this extra bit of wisdom did not help me greatly... my performance in job went a few notches lower... However, the expert got lot of adulation... people wanted to read him!!!! My My My... i must be a fool... it was so simple and even then i could not understand!!!

Even before all these things were over, one of my ex collegues started to say about me "he is very slow at his work . His other collegues have to shield him from critical activities" !!! bullshit... that guy was never considered as a permanent employee!!! and the amazing thing of all - People actually listened to him!!! I cant believe this!!!!

Now it was the turn of one of my collegues who had retired by the time i joined "well, the problem is his attitude.. he takes things lightly... he does not take responsibility"..well done buddy!!! this same guy was one who was never able to finish his task regularly at his time!!! still, people listened to him!!! this is bad? Wait, the worst was to come.......

Mr Le-Jan Chalu-wala was next... "This boy was born when Sagitarrius was in the cycle of Leo, which has resulted in Mercury and Mars influencing his concentration... he should resign from his job... else he will be kicked out"...I went mad when i read this!!! how come Mr watever stars are always in order and ppl like me have screwd up stars???? Again people believed him...and lo- my friends asked me to perform pujas!!!!

Next in line - "u shud add an extra "E" in your name... this will add up to the magic number of 9..then u will regain your lost concentration...." Dude, does he ever know wat pain its is to change ur passport in India??? Change my name!!! Again, people lapped up wat he said...so did my frens....

Next - "you should not wear red colour clothes etc, etc, etc...." & "you should fast on this day" & etc etc etc..... lots of people listened!!!

Unfortunately, for all doomsday prophecies , i disappointed them... next day at work, i finished a very difficult project..... SUCCESSFULLY!!!

Expert - "the unique nature of his working implement was responsible... u should see how he finishes things in a flourish.."
Ex-collegue - "i always knew he would bounce back... he is such a great person"
Ex-retired-collegues - "he has tha wonderful attitude"
Mr Le-Jan Chalu-Wala - "Presently Aires is in cycle of Libra, so Jupiter and Saturn are having a positive effect"
Numerologist - "his family name adds up to 7, hich is equal to his Birth day... this will ensure that he has everlasting success"
Others - "he will be succesfull if he wears maroon"/"success will never leave him if he eats veg on this day"...hahahahaha... amazing things... people still listened to them!!!

In this mad mad world, i realised this simple thing "when u are down, people try to stand on ur fallen body to make themselves heard... when your are up and high, these same people will try to sit on your shoulder to make themselves seen!!!" hahahahahaha Aamzing palce is this world... and amazing are its people....

By the way, did i tell you who i am ... Oh!! sorry... My name is Sachin Tendulkar and my job is playing cricket for India....

QUOTAS...to be or not to be???

Finally decided to write something... a bit politico-socio-economic commentary ..... Oops!!! forgot to add educational there!!!

Quotas... one view - M/s Arjun Singh n his cohorts hell bent on dividing the nation...these guys can do anything for vote banks... so why not bankroll their vote banks by any dubious means.... make easy for them to achieve things...as a sms put it "A cricket boundary for OBC if it crosses the inner circle"!!!.... Hmmmm..... now for the counter view....These communities have been discriminated down the ages... so there is a urgent need for affirmative action... so quotas are a step in the right direction.... Without doubt, Caste system was the greatest hindrance to merit...

Then where thus all this leave us??? Is it impossible to have any view apart from this???

First of all, i think the blame lies with all of us... indirectly or directly, we have precipitated the situation... First by voting for, or by not going to vote against such politicians.....we can whine that the country is going to the dogs, but we wont waste half a day ensuring our names are correctly mentioned in the voters list.... secondly, Indians are generally apprehensive of outsiders and generally shun diversity, particularly intermingling or intermarriage among different castes... Thirdly our self contentedness ensures that we fail to think for some higher cause...

The argument in favour of Quota is strong... Over the ages, the lower strata has been discriminated for no other reason than birth... until recently, they were not allowed to enter Temples or even drink water from the same well...things may have improved in the last four decades...but the scars of 4 millenniums takes more than 4 decades to heal... Maybe the image of a Brahmin to a lower caste person is not that of a learned philosopher but rather that of a social tyrant... Centers of Learning are generally seen to have more percentage of students from the higher castes.... this is not by design but the image that is conveyed to the lower caste people is that of social discrimination... their fears may not have the support of social scientists, but are cannon fodder for politicians.... if quotas are successfully implemented, it may lead to the formation of a strong, sound and financially well off middle class among the lower caste... A strong middle class is generally the strongest bulwark against divisive politics... to correct a 4 millenniums long wrong, we do need to take drastic measures, however painful they may be...

Now, Let me state the anti quota view....CAT or JEE are no doubt the toughest exams... to be in the top 1% among 2-3 L people is no child's play...only the people of the highest merit will be there!!!! The ACTUAL cream of the population, thrown out by this massive churning process called exams... now assume a situation where in people are shown that there can be a short cut which will avoid this painful churning process... the response is as expected..people will make a dash for it!!! This will have the negative impact of discouraging the truly meritorious .. Also it may lead to some section of society enjoying some advantage over others... in the long term this can have disastrous effects , as in Chauvinistic and extremist faction coming into power as every community will be fighting every other communities in the war to gain freebies...today OBC may rule the roost...but who knows in the future, maybe the Brahmins or maybe Kshatiyas or the Baishyas start lobbying and forming caste based voting blocs??? ...and mind you, it need not be caste but region, religion, language, location, sect, sub sect and ad infinitum!!!!!!

I believe that the biggest problem with the whole issue is the super imposition of the macro view and the micro view... macro view is upliftment of lower caste, micro view being "i have to ensure my vote bank stay with me" ... macro view being encouraging people from lower caste coming forward, micro view being "My seat has gone to a person who has lower marks"...... unfortunately the exams only act as bottlenecks, as filters...as one approaches these bottle necks, one gets sucked in with such intensity that the whole priority is to get to the other side.... we spend hours arguing on 27% quotas, but we never protest against government why a country of 1 billion has only thousand seats at the IIMs and IITs... why not more of them??? Some people will point out that it is the filtering process that has worked wonders for these institutes... if that be the case, then why IIMs are no where close to Harvard or IITs no where close to MIT... in Harvard, the ratio is 1:10 whereas in IIMA, it is close to 1:1000!!!!!! People may again argue that there may be not much different in the average salary drawn in both places, but that itself is secondary.... Question is- If Harvard does need such stiff filtering to maintain its class,why cannot the Government of India open and maintain more such centers of excellence???

IITs, IIMs.... islands of excellence, centers of learning....and what have we done with them??? The media only portrays them as goldmine, aka El Dorados.... get there somehow, and get out loaded with cash!!! this is what WE like to read ... Do we read what people do to get there????people are ready to make their lives hell for a couple of years to get to these institutes!!! But we don't read at all about 18 years guys who have left their homes ... but we do read about 22 year old millionaires!!! the media has made them look like the lamps of Aladdin... when u show such images, obviously there will be some people who will like some short cuts... All humans are genetically programmed to look for ways to achieve maximum output with minimum input!!! so the support for reservation reservations can fetch them maximum media mileage, rather than improving quality of primary education....

But is reservation always bad ??? i have personally availed it and I don't think it is that bad... i studied in a college where there was reservation for my states... This artificial way of ensuring people of different parts of the country come together has helped me immensely in understanding diversity and pluralism...Quota cannot be that bad... interestingly, we don't make any hue or cry if we get benefits from quotas... suppose US today sets a quota for Indians for issuing H1B Visa, will we complain??? do students of some particular state complain when majority of Engineering seats in the state are not open to students from other states....Do states complain when 50% of seats in NITs are booked for them??? what I want to state is that if we have to oppose quotas, it has to be universal and not on case to case basis...

I remember the time when fees for IIMs were slashed to Rs 50,000/-... it could have actually led to down grading of the facilities in IIMs, as can the admission of student of students who have less than 85 percentile... but there was very little hue and cry, not much PIL nor any politicians grabbing lime light!!! WHY???? Because equality n merit comes after self interest... as for myself, i am sure that if US gives me visa because i am an Indian, i will gleefully take it...who cares if that guy from Ethiopia needed the visa more than me!!! My macro view may convince me to look into the bigger picture.... My micro view of this world will tell me "Get your seat man...there will be someone who will sacrifice'!!!

Ulysses.....

The tale of the adventures of Ulysses begins in Circa 2001...that was the time when great changes were taking place in the world....changes that would be having far reaching effects on human civilisation- like IIT-JEE being split up into two rounds of the impending advent of AIEEE....with the dark clouds of uncertainty looming, our hero dared to defy all odds and furiously underwent immense hardships like memorising that “differentiation of exponential function by x gives the same results”, finally emerged victorious...this war was no less that the Trojan war...he felt smug when thinking wat fools the Trojans were.... “You spend ten years of you life in one small city fighting for a gal who was married to someone else and who was now living with someone else and ......no doubt they got fooled by that wooden horse”....Naaaaah!!!! He was much more smarter....what more, he even knew calculus!!!!....as he set of on the train that would lead him to his , he looked at the sky.... “Set sail...ahoy!!!”...he set ahead, to join the victorious armies which were coming forth from all parts of the countries....
He made his way to the barren and desolate lands of Trichy..... that place had been paradise when he saw on the crystal glass of a computer monitor.....the colours were so vivid then....but this was hell...the whole palace was haunted by horrible and detestable creatures called seniors who would always torture Ulysses in the most horrible manner by not allowing him to wear branded jeans....the shackles were too stiff....the only rosy part of the story is that the girl he found ok-ok on the first day has suddenly metamorphosed into the most lovely maiden on this world....she was the Helen...she had to be Helen....the gal who could launch a thousand bicycles....(P.S. she will be subsequently refereed as Helen.1.1...her beta version ,(ie on the first day) has been erased from the collective memory)...Old Shakespeare said is a rose is a rose whatever its name be...wrong!!!!! a red rose is different from a yellow rose!!! Ullyses sent her 10 red roses on rose day, only to get back ONE yellow rose!!!!!the club people who organised for the roses were shrewd merchants....
By and by Ulysses fell into groove...he and his comrades had fulfilled their assigned tasks....the Gods who resided in the final year hostel had approved their and baring the instance when ulysees was handed 13 tight slaps for his minor deviation of showing his respect to a final year girl with a whistle, life went on peacefully...
Finally the day came....they were welcomed into the fold of the high and the mighty.....by having the food at the freshi party, that ambrosia, they were transformed from mere first years juniors to.....hmmmm well, let’s say to first years....
How time passes.....ullyses had grown up....he passed the island of first year and reached second year....but it was not a simple task, only to be accomplished by fighting a major war with Controller-of-exam as well as several skirmishes like cycle test....by then he had already formulated his first law of human contact, based on his interaction with the not-so –beautiful-girl-on first day-but who –now-looks gorgeous, on which his whole treasure trove of wisdom rests “never take a girl out for dinner if there are 19 other guys ready to do the same....u will lose ur money for nothing”...
However the-beautiful-girl-who-looked-ok-on first day & the girl-who-looked- not-so –beautiful-on first day-but who –now-looks gorgeous....had decided to sail away on a different boat...ullysees was tempted to chases them had he not found his 6th Helen (....(P.S. she will be subsequently refereed as Helen.6.1.b, to avoid all confusion with Helen.6.1.a whom ullysees had met when he had gone to city and whose-ice-cream-he-had paid only to find that her phone no was actually her dads no)...she looked as if she had dropped from heaven...she was one year junior to him and .....and those parasitic first years were all over her....how dare they....this first years din not know how to behave.... they even dared to wear branded jeans when they would secretely sneak outside...how disgusting!!! Ever ready to maintain the the order of the land, Ullysees enforced strict discipline...alas! when has the world appreciated someone who wanted to do something good.........Helen.6.1.b resisted all his noble intentions like taking her out to dinner and finally tied a rakhi on his wrist when he sent her 10 red roses on rose day....but he was happy with the progress he was making in professional life ...”In 12th class we were only bothered about the chemical formula of alcohol without any emphasis on price”
By and by half the voyage was done...by now Ulysses had learnt the art of fighting the controller of examination....it was a worthy opponent....it gave him lots of bruises on the grade sheet but our protagonist trudged on....panting, he reached the island of third year...
There, in the “Grass”land of Ruby hostel, he found his calling.... he had heard legends talk about those fields but he was now there....in the subsequent months, there immense struggle between the army of Ulysses and the bovine forces lead by the treacherous jersey cow... the night were spent in abandonment on the terraces of Ruby which were like the hanging garden of Babylon....by then he was already a lord of the smoke rings....lost in his world, he was unable to decipher what Helen .8 had not like in him when he had asked her to come for a ice cream and told her that he did not have any change...he only sighed and “the world is going to the dogs”...now and then he would have some remote flashes from the past....and for a moment he would feel guilty of whatever he was doing....but he would convince himself that his life was getting topsy-turvy coz of second law of thermodynamics “Disorderliness of universe will always increase” and convince himself that he was not a absolute duffer coz “according to third law of thermodynamics, it is impossible to reach absolute Zero in a finite number of steps”...
While he let himself drift, doomsday was fast approaching....the enemy was much more alert, much more devious and much more agile than old Controller-of-exams......its name was placements..... Ulysses heart went cold when he first heard about it.....he had lost his weapons...whatever he had with him was rusted....at this critical juncture, he decided to make peace with R.K.Aggarwalls books of aptitude and Yeshwant Kanetkars book on learning C...it was a strategic alliance and the ill will between the allies was visible...Cornered, our hero was somehow able to muster his courage of early years...it was greatly aided by the fact that he saw Helen.11, Helen.12 & Helen.13 being more friendly for men having more GPA...it was fortunate that he had given them only 5 roses...
Now the tale takes an unexpected turn...Ulysses got a job in his first attempt....he could not believe his fortune... he has won the greatest battle of all!!!!! He has finally conquered..but alas many of his closest comrades could not join him....but many joined him!!! Now was the time for celebration, for revelry.... Life was never more beautiful............
However, by now Ulysses was a old man....he had seen his son, his grandsons and his great-grandsons......but he still had life in him.....And then he saw her.......she was the Helen!!!! All the previous Helen versions looked Demo models in front of her....But....he knew it was too late.....Ulysses was never supposed to have the gal in the original story....The original Helen had gone away with Paris ....yet he still got the roses for her, only difference being that he smiled when he got nothing back in return.....
By then, the ship had crossed the final landmark of Eight Semester.....their destination was clear....they were sailing too fast...suddenly Ulysses turned back and looked into the eyes of his closest comrades.....everyone, like him, had a tear drop in his eyes.... “Funny, when we all came, we were crying...and when we all are finally close to our destination, we are again crying....during this voyage, i have done things which maybe i should not have done, said thing which i should not have said....Was this voyage worth all this?”
Then he got the answer “It was never the destination, never.....it was the voyage that mattered...The destination was just the reason for the voyage, not the purpose.......Happiness, sadness, friendship...you found everything...whatever you become , wherever u got, you will be never able to forget this journey.... The voyage was a sentence whereas the destination was the full stop....you don’t write a sentence to justify a full stop na.”
He was woken out of his reverie when his ship touched land....everyone leapt out.....it was a new land...it was the beginning of a new adventure!!!! Everything looked so beautiful....Ulysses looked back at the old battered ship and realised that though he may wish it, he can never sail it again....it has done its job.....Now it was for Ulysses to do his job....and he has decided what he was going to do.... grow roses to earn his living.... he has seen the demand for it and has realised that he could make a killing out of it..... He knew he was an intelligent man...after all, after so many years, he could still remember Calculus.....

Catch 22.....

It has been some months since i read that amazing book, Catch 22!!!! jus thought i would share my feelings with all....
I had been told that it was a great book..but somehow or other i had been putting it off...Yossarins story is the story of us....individuals caught in the cross fire of history and who steadfastly refuse to sacrifice their "Lower cause" (ie sanity, petty selfishness etc etc) for the sake of the "Greater" cause!!!!
It has humour as it has pain....it has sense as it has "non sense"..the beauty is that everyting is so seamlessly weaved together that ones loses track where he is standing at the particular monment...u laugh out aloud when you read aabout someone being killed....u ll feel like crying when a dog is being beaten!!!! the book does not philosophises....it merely asks questions, that too very subtely....
It makes a mockery of the concept of war, with all its noble ideals!!!! as our hero puts it beautifully - it does not make a difference to a guy who is dead as to whoever wins the war....I felt Yossarin is the common man....there can be nothing noble, nothing honourable in death!!! it is plain and simple death....anyone will lose all feeling of chivalary if he had to hold the strewn bowels of his comrade, watching him die without you being able to do anything....
I could go about talkin about the book but i request everyone to read it....many people wont like it.... its overtly lewd and at times amazingly crass!!! but in Yossarin's story, everyone will identigy with....it is the story of a single individual fighting to maintain his common sense against a world that is hell bent on proving him wrong!!!!

This was where it began.....

long long time ago, in a place far far away....................someone wrote the first blog!!!!
Blog...hmmmm never thought i ll get into it...but i m now trying....my first post...there is a lot to be written about...there is a lot to be discovered....infact there is a whole new world to be discovered out there!!!!!
since the time someone drew on caves with charcoal....since the time someone took the first quill and ink pot....even now when somewrites with a gravity-defying ballpen-which-can-be-even-used-in-outer-space-but-of-which-i-see-no-other-use-to-justify-its-price, people have been trying to reach me...ME, yes i said me......for that, everyone of us as an individual....through my blog, i will try to reach to each and every individual......how to be born or how to die is not in our hands....what is in our hand is how would we be remembered......