Happy New Year

Moi is back from the Christmas vacation...
Will write a long post(s) about the travel soon...and upload pics too
(about 300 have turned out to be good)

In the mean while lemme wish u all a Happy New Year.
See you next year!!

Rang De Basanti

There is something about this song which charges me up... Daler does a fantastic job...I loved him in Rubaro from Maqbool ... Chitra is like a light soothing breeze in the furore created by Daler paaji... the continuous beating of the drums and the ek-tara do you more good than instant coffee....

Highly foot tapping...rustic lyrics that ooze with "desh ki mitti ki khushboo"....no bhangra-shangra/UK-born-n-bred-desi-boys kinda music...its truly a song to be loved by one n all.. north n south… listen to it with earphones and preferably loud volume.. U’ll love it.

If u haven’t heard it till now, then go get it.

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Thx Anshul for tagging me.. I will surely post all that tagging-wala-stuff once I am back from my Xmas vacation...

This week and the one before have been particularly taxing as this is peak business time for client and we have been on our toes with all the crictical issues and excessive workload.

With the festivities at its highest, the chill in the air, the warmth in the hearts and just the right mood, here's wishing u all a Good Health, Prosperity, Peace of Mind n Happy Times ahead. Cheers!!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year
God bless us all.

SHOLAY

Friday evening it was pizza coke and Sholay... Sholay?? Why Sholay?

Because it is one of the movies I am never tired of watching (included in the list are Jaane bhi do yaaron, Chashmebadoor, Amar Akbar Anthony, Chalte Chalte, Golmaal, Masoom, Baat Ban Jaye, Rang Birangi, Baaton Baaton mein, Andaz Apna Apna )....and what better way of doing it than on big screen....Now you don’t get to see many English movies in Aalborg, forget about Bollywood movies... so we got a projector and constructed this whole setup…and it was really worth the effort

You know that Sholay did not open to a very good response way back when it was released and caught on later ...But for me the movie is a super duper uber hit...

And my fav guy in the movie ..."Gabbar Singh"... unarguably the most famous character of Indian cinema... Even Raju Shrivastav and Sunil Pal have recited his dialogues at the GILC...

"Kitne aadmi they?"
"Katili Nachaniya"
"Jo dar gaya, samjho mar gaya"
"Yeh haath mujhey de de Thakur"
"Bahut yaarana lagta hain"
"Itna sannata kyu hain bhai?"

And many such more dialogues which have crept into our daily parlance... which have become part of everyday milieu...I dont think any other movie has had that kind of penetration

Apart from the fabulous dialogues, the plot of the movie is racy, fast paced, action packed and one in which you can't escape for a leak and come back thinking that u havent missed anything significant.... one stays glued to the seat from starting to the end...

The music is excellent, both background and songs and RD Burman's 'Mehbooba o mehbooba' is simply AWESOME... each of the songs gel so properly with the movie.. its not forced upon you
The music during the numbering... harmonica and violin... gives u a feeling of a great western classic.

Another Thing about Sholay is the Sholay Trivia Quiz... which me n frnds used to indulge in a lot...Questions like :

Q Gabbar Singh ke baap ka naam kya tha?
A Hari Singh

Q Who was the other Hari in the movie?
A Hari Ram Nai

Q Jai aur Veeru ki Bike ka number kya tha?
A MYB 3047

Q Gabbar Singh ko jab pehli baar sazaa hoti hain to kaunsi 'dafa'(section) lagate hain?
A tazrat-e-hind dafa 400 ke tahat 20 saal kaid-e-baamushakkat

Q Post man ka naam kya tha?
A Gulzarilal

Q Asrani ki Jail mein AB n Dharmendra ki uniform ka number kya tha?
A AB - 15 n Dharamendra - 20

Q Imam Sahab (A K Hangal) ke bete ka naam kya tha?
A Ahmed miyan

(and this one is my fav...none of the people I ask this, have been able to answer it)
Q Imam Sahab ke bhai ka naam kya tha?
A Mukaitullah

Once I was at Mondy's (Cafe Mondegaar) and we were playing the sholay trivia quiz... soon the guys from the next table joined us...Its that kinda movie... you cant help but love it ... so if you think that Sholay is the greatest movie ever built... if you think that RD was the best .. and if you think that AB, Dharampaaji n Sanjeev Kumar and Gabbar Singh rock.. then join the sholay fan club.

Thank you Ramesh Sippy, RD, Salim Javed, AB, Dharampaaji, Amjadbhai and everyone else...



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Today happens to be the Bday of two pals
Happy Bday Diana and Deepak!!

Dumb Charades

OK….This is a long one… so better be patient.

This is one thing I can say for sure, I am good at ...rather was... but I am not all that rusted either...

It all started in college when the thought to participate in a certain Dept fest coupled with the desire to know the gals from Eco Hons made us look up the posters and decide to participate in some event...
Quiz - "Naah... we'll never get past the prelims"
Debate - "What do u I know about economics anyway?"
AD-MAD - "What's that supposed to mean?" (We did actually try out that)
.
.
Dumb Charades - Hmmmmm this sounds good... maybe we could try this one

So this is how the journey began.... lets not talk about how we fared in this particular event at that particular fest, coz its not worth mentioning, but yeah the Ad-Mad event got me a cool Rs 500/- ...

Conclusion: The Eco people are not at all economically challenged and more importantly picking up the game seemed a good option to supplement our pocket money(500 bucks in 1999 meant a hell lot more. I got all by books for the first year in less than 200)

The first DumbC that we won was at Miranda House Chem Soc fest in 2000. Yes I still remember the name "Rasayanika". It so happenned that P n me were out in North campus for some work n we saw their poster and decided to go for it... but the problem was that we were just 2.. a team of 3 was required and the organisers were pretty admant about it.. As neither P nor I knew anyone in Miranda we asked the organisers to get us a teammate...All set n done we finally managed to win our first DumbC... Three trophies with Miranda House written in bold at the bottom... I still have mine at my home, so does P ... Dunno about the random chick who was our teammate

We started taking it as a serious sport henceforth and decided to excel in it...
Top 1000 Movies of all times list was downloaded, Photocopies of the complete list of Classic books from British Council Library (thx to my membership which I won in another Radio contest)

Next came in a lot of other wins in Stephens, Hindu, Venky, Miranda(again!!), KMC, Gargi and a few more, both in dept and the main fests... Somehow we always had more luck in the girls colleges..The biggest competition used to come from proff colleges... The first crush came in the form of Rendezvous2000. After a series of wins I guess we got a bit bloated up and IIT happened just at the right time to jolt back us to our senses... we didnt even clear the prelims...partly because of my ignorance on who Riya Sen was (Mind u it was much before Style, Qayamat or that MMS clip happenend) hence could not enact something from which my temmates could guess....silenced we watched the whole game... congratulated the winners , which was a team from IIT, and came back.

P n I decided that practice was the only key and started doing it everywhere.. in between clas breaks, sometimes during the class as well.. in canteen, in the playfield, in the bus. Now in the bus people used to look at us with amused and sometimes pitiful look...now P n I used to travel on the same route and the busses predominantly consisted of people from ISBT getting back to their homes... simple folks whose expression often said "What a pity!! if only he could speak, he would not have to make all those faces to communicate to his friend" and the expression would soon change into "#$#@$%%$$%^%$^$^@$^" when I used to start talking to P...

A few more victories here n there and next year we were back at Rendezvous2001 to avenge our defeat...The team which one last year was again there n so were we and a few other teams ... the contest went close till the very end. With only one more sentence left to crack in the bidding round it was do or die for our team, suitable called "The Craters" in all the competitions, which was behind the defending champs... After much haggling I took the challenge to crack in 47 seconds the foll sentence "It's not that I am afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens." and the team from IIT was virtually celebrating their victory... With hands and feet going numb I took a 1 min break and thought out all the words carefully and the way in which I would do each one of them... Fortune favors the brave and we did win DumbC@Revdezvous2001 finally a target we had set for ourselves a year back had been achieved... Rendezvous2003 was also our year, and apart from that we won at AIIMS, MAMC, DCE n NSIT... BTW by this time we were pretty much acknowledged in the DumbC circle in Delhi and in NSIT we were offered a a wild card entry straight into the finals, as we hadn't reached the venue on time for the prelims... The team from IIT was like a failiar sight and there always would be the customary hi/hellos and then we would take positions in opposite corners...

The biggest challenge came in the form of Oasis2002@BITS Pilani where I was without my regular teammate P. By this time P n I had deveoped such a good understanding that it was like telepathy... nouns, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, verbs, profanities, colors, animals, famnous personlities, shortcuts (which we used to call 'Hathoda'), the cheat codes (we had signs for all the alphabets which was almost impossible to catch ), rolling, phonetics... all was well etched in our memories and the synch was awesome...We always had a changing third team member ...so with one ex team member A and another random guy K we entered our team name for the DumbC events... Yet again "The Craters"...only that this time it looked more like our destination when the event got over...one full night i was explaing A n K the nuances of DumbC...finally we did manage to win the DumbC...The hindi one.. much to my surprise coz I thought we had no chance .. Firstly coz A didnt know the K Kha Ga of hindi cinema and secondly coz K was probably playing for the first time ever...We lost the english Dumb Charades in the finals... nevertheless the trophy from Pilani is def my fav one...(BTW A made it till the last 3 in the Mr Oasis and what happened on stage is a hilarious incident)

Apart from all the certificates and some petty cash, the finest things this game has taught me are:-

Theres always a first time"
If u try hard you will succeed" and most importantly
It feels GREAT to win"

If u think that I was bragging n blowing my own trumpet all the way then I would have to partly agree with you... After completing when I read it, it sounded the same way to me...Bad!

X'mas Dinner

Well last week was at this Xmas dinner with people from office... Client as well as us... about 30 people.

We reached the venue just on time...about 6 pm and the party lasted till about 11:30...

Great food Good drinks and some great company...

I was flanked by Peter and Trine (pronounced Trina - it was actually one of those arrangements where u make sure all the sit in a way that on either side of a desi will be a client), opposite to me was Marcel and next to him were Sachin my roommate, and Regi. Now Trine is a live-wire and the most helpful and bubbly person in the office from client side...

The small talks(involving 2 people) lead to larger talks (3-4 person) and Trine was helping me with the menu... actually all the desis had to be helped coz the menu was in Danish which no one of us understands except the relationhip manager, who wasnt there that evening... the food was ordered n the drinks started flowing... I ordered (what I now recall as) "Klosterbyrg"... thats some kind of inhouse beer these guys had and were famous for (I have been told)...

Now started the bigger kinds of discussions (involving 4 or more person) and some of the topics were :-

How the wives of the desis could start an Indian restaurant in Aalborg(In
hindsight I think it is a great idea)

The great Indian Matrimony (thx to Deepak's almost-fixed arranged marriage thats
slated to happen sometime in the summer of 06)

How Sachin Deepak n me are the only bachelors in the group of 18 people...

How Trine is still single and Why Trine and yours truly should hook up (this one
invoked a out-of-the-book gag reflex by me.. thankfully the beer didnt
spill...Why??? Now Trine is the sweetest, bubbliest and youngest person from
client side but she still is about 9 years older than me and I m not in my
teens)

Some great live music was playing in the background plus the food and drinks & the general festive mood did the trick. I sure had a good time..

At the end of it all Trine knew how to say "Namaste" and she had just discovered that she had been eating "Daliya" all this while for breakfast. Kirsten (the business lead) was waving and saying "Phir Milenegy" to all and I had run out of my ciggarettes, thx to Dutta and Venky.

A picture is worth a thousand words

Danish Countryside

The entire album can be viewed here.

6 Desambar

Doosra Banvaas

Ram banvaas se laut ke jab ghar mein aaye
Yaad jungle bahut aaya jo nagar mein aaye

Raks-e-deewangi aangan mein jo dekha hoga
6 Desambar ko Shri Raam ne socha hoga
Itne deewane kahan se mere ghar mein aaye

Jugmagaate the jahan Raam ke kadmo ke nishan
Pyar ki kahkashaan leti thi angdaayi jahan
Mod nafrat ke usi rahguzar mein aaye

Dharam kya unka hain, kya jaat hain yeh jaanta kaun
Ghar na jalta to unhe raat mein pehchanta kaun
Ghar jalane ko mera, log jo mere ghar mein aaye

Shakahari hain mere dost tumhare khanjar
Tumne Babar ki taraf pheke the saare pathar
Hain mere sar ke khazaar zakhm jo sar mein aaye

Paun Sarjoo mein abhi Raam ne dhoye bhi na the
Ki nazar aaye wahan khoon ke gehre dhabbe
Paun dhoye bina Sarjoo ke kinare se uthe
Raam yeh kehte hue apne dwaare se uthey

Raajdhani ki khiza aayi nahi raas mujhey
6 Desambar ko mila doosra banvaas mujhey.

~Kaifi Azmi(19?? -2002)

Thx Google Earth!!

The development database was down.. some tables went missing and no clue who did it... so with a few hours to spare at hand I started out exploring Google Earth... And boy!! Time really flew by...

Picking up places like my house in Delhi and my school n junior school ...I did put up some placemarks in Google Earth Community...

And I found this - my college in Google Earth... looks like shot from a relatively close distance. Anyways, it was amazing to see the images n revive all those college memories

The picture with the callouts explains it all but what was most amazing was the way the cricket pitch stands out distinctly...as if it has an own individuality... its own purpose of existence... as if laughing in the face of all those buildings and priding itself at the fact that the students spend more time with her than in those buildings...

Thx Google Earth for making my day!!

Gimme Red and more

Reservations have been done, tickets have been made and the wait commences for the long awaited X'mas vacation... come 24th Dec n I'm off to a 5 day holiday to Paris, Rotterdam and Amsterdam (Nudge Nudge Wink Wink!!)... After visiting Goteberg, Sweden, in mid Aug I haven't really been anywhere , except for Hirtshals but it was more like a go-in-the-morning-come-back-in-the-evening kinda trips, which though are very good to give you that much needed break don't quiet satisfy the appetite for travel

The tug of the sack on your shoulders, the waistpouch containing maps of diff places... trying out new cuisines.. wandering in awe of the magnificient structures and their history...Ohhhh the whole thing gives me goosebumps... just can't wait!!

Now coming to the original story of this post... suddenly the color red has captured everything...Posters are red... Clothes on display at the shop windows are red... the decorations are red the clothes are red and the caps are red...whole Aalborg is more red than it ever was in the last six months... Christmas fever catching up.... and today I saw this band which was marching down the road and playing "Jingle Bells"…Small kids were also part of the band ... all decked up in Red... could help but admire the whole procession .... Festivity is in the air and u can feel it... Maybe I will pick up my camera one of these days and shoot all I can and post...

Yeah def. one of these days!!
:-)

Early Morning Ramblings

0700 hrs CET and I am in the office... had run some queries in the production database last night before leaving, so had to make sure that they were either executed or killed before the CRs started with their work... Its pitch black outside... waking up at 0530 hours is not the ideal start of the day for me....
As I got ready making the minimum amount of noise, so as to not wake my roomie S, I kept thinking of the time I had in mumbai where I was before coming here.. for almost two years I was in one project GEMS

The good and not so good times back in India...Started for office at 0630 hrs in pitch darkness,,, hardly anyone on the roads... the cold morning air and the darkness did as much to lift my spirits as Sourav Gnaguly did to lift the score in this recent ODI games ... sorry bad example...

Lekin I am in a bad mood... generally that is not how I am on Fridays... the sole day when u get to wear jeans to work and forget about not sitting in office with one foot tucked under your rear on the chair (you know wat I mean )... that alone is a reason for me to be cheerful and generally I do maintain a rather cheerful disposition ... but I am just not an early morning guy... especially if I have been in the office till 2200 hrs the last night....

The most wonderful thing about GEMS was that we used to go to office late something like 1500 hrs and work till 2300hrs ... strictly 8 hours of work .. Well sometimes.... and that allowed me the liberty to sleep till 1200 hrs .... (my mom suspects that’s the main reasons why I am not shifting base to Delhi)… No I don’t work in a Call Center … just that the client was in US so we had to stay late to have conf in the evenings

Kishore Kumar n Lata mangeshkar crooning softly "Dil tere bin kahin lagta nahi Waqt guzarta nahi".. thank God and www.MusicIndiaOnline.com guy and www.Desi-Radio.com ... without you office would be so boring...

OK enough of my rambling .... sorry to have subjected you guys to such torture... this I what early mornings (read dark cold windy early mornings) do to me...

So I guess I will go nicotinise n caffinize myself n get back to work with a bit of grumble....

Have a great weekend!!