Today I got mail with subject line ‘Proud to be an Indian’. The mail lists out names of Indian executives of popular Software companies. Out of curiosity, I started reading this mail and saw that my company name appears to be first one. My company has many high flying Indian executives and some of them are leading the most profitable businesses but the name that was listed was one I never heard of. Even the position he is supposed to be having does not appear anywhere in the company’s hierarchy! Someone over enthusiastic patriot seems to have composed the mails without even confirming the details. I wonder reliability of other names too! Anyways the point here is why should I be proud if those people are not working for my country?

Most of these mails are forwarded with lot of enthusiasm and they seem to be very common during the Independence Day/Republic day period when so called ‘patriotism’ is on high. With the over increasing media influence, people find various reasons to be ‘proud’ of our country. Like ‘Sunita Williams’ case. So she has some ‘desi’ genes but after all she is born and brought up in other country. She works for other country pays taxes there. Why should I be proud of her achievements? Why should I keep track of her activities every second? What am I going to gain if she likes samosa ? Is it going to increase sale of samosa’s in the country?

I am one of those people always found preaching others about the not leaving the country, how we should do things to preserve our culture etc. I hate it when people can’t stop talking about how good other country is and how bad this country is. You will find me picking verbal fights with those people. But will I pride for my country because someone with Indian roots does something good in some distant part of the globe? NEVER!!!

Why do we have to take pride for achievements of a person who is Indian just for namesake? What do we get out of it? It just shows our insecurity, intellectual inability. In fact it shows that your country cannot provide infrastructure to nurture those talents and those people have left it for the greener pastures. Why wouldn’t people raise voice against attack on lady writer who dares to speak her mind? I don’t see any forward that condemns daring of that man elected by we people who dares to give public statements agianst her and even manages to gather considerable support.

Tell me what is your take? Will forwarding mails or following coverage of an astronaut’s daily chores make me patriotic?

Open your eyes and all you can see is greenery. It extends beyond the horizon, hills covered with coffee plantation with patches of paddy field in between, clouds lingering on the mountain tops, there is a kind of sweetness in the air, only voices you hear are that of the peacocks or sparrows chirping, the air tingles against your skin. Do you dream of such place? If you do, I might just have found address of one of such places for you!
And the place is not far off from namma Bengalooru. Around 270kms from Bangalore, about 50kms after Chikmanglur, is the resort ‘Eagle Eye’. Situated far far away from the hustle-bustle of urban life, you get to enjoy a cozy holiday with all basic luxuries at good price. The place has something to offer for people of every taste. Are you looking for a silent gateway? Curl up with cup of hot tea or coffee grown in local gardens and a book on the terrace, on a hammock, or just sit by the window in your cottage, explore the coffee plantation nearby or order a massage for yourself. You will loose count of time. Want to enjoy with family and friends? Go for the guided tour of plantations, go fishing, take a coracle and drift on the water all by yourself, go for jungle picnic, bathe under the waterfall or just play badminton in one of the open air courts. Want an adventures holiday? Go for trekking, rock climbing, take a jungle safari or camp in the jungle. Enjoy your evenings by the bonfire. If you want, they will play the funky music and you can dance your way to midnight or enjoy romantic music with special someone.
You can stay in a cozy cottage lined with coffee tree woods, or the villas for a big group or one of the two tree houses. The tree houses are awesome but they need advance booking. Most important part is the place is spotless clean! Food is simple yet yummy; the air does wonders to your appetite. Even normal bread tastes sweeter. Staff is always smiling and very helpful. They don’t have any room service. Their motto is ‘home away from home’. The owner says he hasn’t provided room service because he wants people to come out of their rooms at least for food and get some fresh air.
They say summer is the best season to go there but I went in July. It was drizzling all the time but it added only more fun to the whole experience. More than a week after the holiday and I want to go back again. If you would like to go there too, checkout here for more details!

“Soooooperstar”, “Mega star”, “Most popular Indian Star”, “Shehenshah of Indian Cinema”, “Highest paid star”, “Our own superman”… If you have been reading newspaper these days, you know who I am talking about. The one and only Rajnikath aka peoples’ beloved ‘Rajni’!!! No movie page is complete without description of his latest movie ‘Sivaji’; the budget, the location, costumes, different get-ups and the man himself. I don’t remember reading about so much fanfare for a movie recently. This man is worshiped by his fans! After reading about it for a month, I decided I should also watch it and see what it is all about. I don’t understand Tamil, neither I am fan of Rajini nor I have even seen any of his movies save ‘Chalbaaz’ where he plays very small role. But they say curiosity drives human beings and I am no different. Even theaters in Gurgaon and Mumbai are overflowing; it is obvious that I too get little bit of ‘RajniMania’ :).

Do you know that the tickets were being sold at the rate of Rs 1000, well into second week of opening? We never ventured near cinema hall till this week and were lucky enough to get tickets for Wednesday night. Though it was a weekday and late night show, there was huge rush. We were standing in the queue for half hour just to get in! The atmosphere was building up with people hooting and whistling, waiting for the previous show get over. The show started well behind schedule. Once they opened the door, we rushed fast to our seats and there was one more round of hooting and whistling. I can only imagine how the scene will be in small towns.

There is nothing great to talk about the movie. The movie minus Rajni will be just another masala movie; story, actors, cinematography etc are ok. But the man makes all the difference. He has awesome energy and all the “estyle” still there. The way he flips rupee coin, the way he shakes his hair, he eats menthos mint, the way he says ‘Cool!’ are great. The director couldn’t resist having one of his famous Goggle flipping scene. But I think they should not make him dance anymore. And yes, 10/10 to the makeup artist; Rajni looks just like he used to look 10-15 years ago. The layers of make up are pretty obvious but you won’t mind them. Watch out for the much talked about blond hairdo, what a style! He must have had at least 50 getups in the movie from blonde to complete bald head! And there are few scene where he enacts heroes of yesteryears. That’s cool too. There are fight scenes, in matrix style. I am sure fans will be thrilled to watch them.

There is the comedian Vivek, who makes you laugh just with his presence. There is the heroine alright but she is no more significant than songs. Guys were drooling on her. Ok, She looks good and dances well but acting is ok types. The voice over for her is bad. It was very obvious that she was using someone else’s voice. I liked Rajini’s parent’s characters. They are very cute people. When they discover that their son is after a girl, they won’t mind starting the marriage talk in the police station

Do watch the movie for experience of RajniMania. Why do we need Superman, Batman, He Man when we have all of them rolled into one!!!

PS: The title is the song from movie which I liked a lot. It means ‘Sivaji is my life’. If you don’t know Rajni’s real name is also Sivaji and that’s what makes the movie more special or so I am told by my Tamil friends.

To be honest, I picked up the book at book store as it cover read ‘Pulitzer Prize Winner’. I had never heard of the author and vaguely remembered reading the book’s name somewhere. I never thought I would be finishing it in one go and end up recommending it to others. Books never get old to review, isn’t it ?

The book starts with general description of social life a 7 year old girl Jean Louis Finch aka “Scout”, describing her adventures in the neighborhood with her elder brother Jeremy Finch aka Jem and friend Dill. Their father Atticus Finch is lawyer in local court, soft spoken, true to his ethics. Though not like sporty like other fathers, he is very open to his children.

The name of book is used as metaphor for the theme of the book. The children’s father once tells them that it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird because it never does harm anyone. The book depicts their father’s battle against the system at that time to save a colored man accused of a crime he had never done. The story is set in mid 1930s, in an imaginary place called Maycomb in the American state of Albama. It was a when a man’s character was still judged on basis of color of his skin and some part of society was not considered as human beings. Atticus tries to put in a little bit from his side to change the situation without any open support from the so called sophisticated world.

The narration style of the author is very engaging. You do feel as if it were described by young girl of age 7-9. I started with the first page and couldn’t put down till the last page. The three main characters are very elaborately described and you get good picture of every personality. Innocently but acutely, the little girl talks about how hypocritical and unjustified the social structure was. After finishing, it makes me wonder… its been more than half a century since the book was written and the social situation is not much different. There are still fights going on all over the world based on cast, language, religion, color of skin; sickening things for a logical mind and there seems no end.

I did some searching around about the book and found out that this was the only book published by the author Harper Lee. There was also movie made with same name with Gregory Peck in the role of Atticus Finch. He won Academy Award for his performance and the character was voted as no. 1 Greatest Hero of American film by the American Film Institute. Read more about it here.

This book is sure worth a read. Now I wish I would get to see the movie soon :-).

Here comes another movie on the supposedly controversial issue, romantic relationship between an old man and much younger woman… age difference of 30 years to be precise in this case. A topic assured to raise lot of eyebrows and upset lot lot of fundamentalists in our country. Looking at the topic you would say… oh Amitabh did a similar movie earlier, ‘Nishabd’ which has received lot of criticism. If you happen to have seen that movie, I would suggest you to not at all get prejudiced.

The movie handles the topic very tastefully without any melodramatic effects of typical Hindi cinema and that’s what makes it worth watching. It’s a love story of 64 year old chef, Buddh (Amitabh) owner of a famous Indian Restaurant in London and 34 year old tourist lady from India, Neena (Tabu). He is a man with temper and she is the lady with attitude, and both can manage and understand each other very well and it is almost love at first sight. They meet, fight, get attracted to each other and fall in love. They are so perfect to each other that the age difference is not a barrier till it comes to convincing her father for marriage. It doesn’t even matter to them that they don’t know each other’s name till their second or third date. There is nothing great to write about the story line, from the first scene you know what is going to happen in the end, pretty straightforward. But it’s the actors and direction makes the movie interesting to watch. All the songs play on background and used to take the story forward. The best feature of the movie is the dialogues, they are written very intelligently, effortlessly. This is one is my favorite “Mai jise chahati huu wo muzse umar me bahut bada hai, isame meri kya galati hai.”

Amitabh is aging like a wine. There is not a single moment where you can pinpoint and say he is not good. I would say his acting skills were wasted all these days in the angry young man image all these days. There is scene where he appears fully dressed, ready to meet his date in a white suit… the entry was such dramatic that the whole theatre went ‘WOOOOW!!!’ Tabu is equally great. She moves on the screen with great comfort and elegance. Her styling is just superb. I think it is a role specially written for her. Paresh Rawal is cool in his small role. I also liked Amitabh’s Mother’s character and their sweet little neighbor.

The only ‘Cheeni Kum’ in this otherwise sweet movie is last couple of scenes. They have tried to make it dramatic without any need or reason, I guess just too give it little Hindi film-ish feel. Overall a good movie, worth watching at least once.

Like any other Indian gal, chaats are my weakness. The tangy, sweet, spicy taste does wonders to the tongue and sort of lights up senses. It’s a pleasure from heaven to feast on these delicacies. And pani- puri aka puchaka aka gol-gappe stand out to be the best of chaats. Fried puries of aata/suji filled with the sweet-sour liquid… I can never get enough of them !

When I landed in Bangalore, searching for food joints that serve good chaats was the obvious task. It is hard to please a tongue accustomed to Mumbai style chaats…you see ! I was not sure if I will get the same taste in the land of Idli-dosas (no offence, that’s the image I had before coming here). To my surprise, every sagar joint serves chaats and they are pretty ok save the pani-puries. One is they will give you puries in a plate and the pani in a small bowl. Common… this is the worst way to have them. Real taste is when the guy dips his hands in the water and drops puries in your plate. (If you are too hygiene conscious, pani puri is not the dish for you ). Also they sometimes put the hot curry in puri instead of potato mixture which is total no-no.

But I have found few places which serve pani-puris the way I like. Here are the places I like to go again and again…

Karthik Sweets – This is small sweet shop on CMH road, opposite to Café Coffee Day. They serve the best pani-puries, I have had till date in Bangalore. If you happen to go there on weekends, you might end up waiting for half an hour just to get in the queue to get the coupon. I assure you, the wait is worth it !

Kolkata Chaat – This is another small place on Jeevanbheema Nagar road, close to Fresh@IndiaraNagar. This guy gives you two options to fill the puri: spicy aaloo mix or boiled chana. Try the chana one sometimes it is yummy !

Anand Sweets – This place was recommended by everyone as best paani-puri place in Bangalore. They serve sooji puries which are not my personal favorite. If you are accustomed to the Delhi style pani puris, you will love this place. Other chats they serve are nice. This place is Kormanagala, at waking distance from the Forum.

Adiyar Anand Bhuvan – This place is again on CMH road, near to the Karthik sweets. It is more famous for the south Indian delicacies the serve. Ghee masala dosa here is yum! But the chats are also good. And the pani- puri is not that bad. This is my back up if Karthik is too crowded

I have heard of couple of places in Jayanagar. But it is too far to try out :-).
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Its Sunday afternoon… the weekend is about to end, I said to myself ‘Let’s catch a nice movie on TV’ and just as I try to switch it on, I realize there is no electricity. Another Sunday afternoon is ruined. And looking at current energy crisis going all over the country, I think I will have to spend many more Sunday afternoons and then whole Sundays and then whole week without electricity. I can’t even imagine how the situation is in small towns when cities like Mumbai are getting power cuts. We take all the glory to blame Governments and related people for this shortage. But have we ever realized that we are also equally responsible for this shortage and we can do our bit to prevent it in some or the other way? First thing to realize is that mother earth has very very limited supply of energy resources and it has reached its exhausting limit already. If we don’t act fast we are headed for big trouble.

Another thing to consider is the amount of air that gets polluted with burning of these resources. Recently there were headlines in news paper about UN giving world some 8 years to save ourselves from global warming. Whoa… 8 years that is like tomorrow and most of us don’t really seem to be concerned with the possible effects it might have on us. Studies say, this will affect human kind as much as a world war or big meteor impact would affect. The reports are painting scary pictures of ‘what might happen due to global warming’ and most important thing is that this will be a on going phenomenon and will anything but worsen with time.

With the time frames they are predicting, we can’t even say do it for next generation. If things continue like this, ours will might be last generation to survive. So here are little things that we can do to keep ourselves away from the Dooms day as far as possible.

Switch off those lights – Diwali comes only once a year so save all those lightings for that. Switch off tube lights, fans whenever you are not in the same room. And not just the lights in your house, but anywhere you go, be it office or even the elevator. Even if you are not paying for the electricity directly, you will eventually end up being affected by the loss.

Switch off computers screens and computers too when not in use – The computer monitors consume a lot of energy. Switch them off whenever you are not using. Also switch off the office machine if you can when you leave for the day or at least switch them off during the weekend.

Turn off vehicles at signals – It’s a bad habit many people have. Even of the signal is red for whole 3 minutes; they won’t take pains off turning off their vehicles. It is painful to stop at signals with the engine noise and carbon fumes coming out of the vehicles. We can definitely prevent that and save a little bit of fuel and lot of air.

Talk a walk whenever you can – So you have a nice big vehicle to show off, but do give your legs some work out. You don’t need to drive around to a place around the corner. Who knows, you might end up noticing the greenery on the way which you never had time to see. I want to go a little further and suggest using public transport whenever you can or at least use car pooling.

Put a check on leaking taps – Leaking taps are the worst culprits for water wastage. A single tap is capable for draining out gallons of water. So make sure all the taps in your house and where you use them are always closed properly. Water is also a valuable energy resource.

Use non-conventional energy resources – Solar energy is emerging and huge source of non-conventional power and so is wind energy. In a country like ours, use of solar power is very feasible and the government gives huge subsidy on them. Solar water heaters are in existence since long but these days solar inverters are also coming in. I have seen people using solar inverters not only in case of power cuts but also as regular power supplies. They not only reduce your electricity and other fuel bills but also reduce pollution and definately not noisy like the conventional generators. Best part of these units is that they need almost zero maintenance.

So…it is not that difficult to keep the dreaded days away, isn’t it?

These days there is Job portal boom like they had the dot com boom few years ago. We see advertisements like “salary making you feel small… ” and stuff like that, everywhere. And particularly in the IT world we have so many companies coming up and competing for people. Many people like to do job hopping every six months; main reason being higher salaries. Most of them have take on it as “Ohh… that company is paying me higher salary. Why should I stick with one giving lesser one?” How good is that when we think of long terms? I mean is money the only thing we work for and nothing else. If we look at our counterparts in the other countries and try to understand their situation, they were under similar mentality a decade ago. And today they are facing with outsourcing/job cuts and unemployment. As I understand from them, when it comes to job cuts companies prefer to go for people with good skills and also who have been there for longer time.
I believe its time for us to sit back and think where we want to go professionally in longer term. What will make one stick to a company/work place?

Work - I came across this phrase somewhere “Blessed is he, who gets the work of his choice”. We all have different choices towards work type. And when we get work of our choice, work becomes party everyday.

Growth opportunities – After all we work for betterment of ourselves and it comes with opportunities to go forward in the career path. It is basic human nature to want to go up the ladder and not stay in same position all the time.

People – Yes they form very important part of the work environment. It is always advised to not mix work and personal life. But when you are spending more than 8 hours of day with office people, a comfort level has to be there. You can’t survive in a place for long where people are bitching and trying to pull you down all the time.

Policies/Perks – This is very invisible issue but works wonders when people talk about their company. You will find this as topic of gossip in almost all places, “Hey you know what; this xyz company is cool they provide free food and free massages”. This is just and example but such small things sure do make difference when it comes to giving preference to the company.

Company performance/reputation – If my company does not perform well overall what is the use if they are giving you highest of salaries.

Money - After all, nothing works without money in this modern world :-).