Politics is wonderful

 A politician X's comment yesterday, "If i have done something wrong, then PM A, FM B, HM C are equally wrong in doing what they are doing". The very next day, politician X retorts, "Media has taken my comment out of context. I will follow my party's directives, whatever it may be".

What are we - the voters? No, I don't think so. We are cows, with a bell around our neck. Anybody can I literally mean anybody can come and say things which they do not even mean (in most cases), and expect us (the voters) to accept it. Voters, newspaper readers, common man, I - whatever you call it.

These politicians are not ashamed, not bothered, not even concerned about the reaction that they will get from the public because of what they have done - and actually most of us (including I) are least bothered about the political scenario at the local level, or the state or even the central Government. I am more interested in what happens in my job and my personal life, conveniently ignoring what our elected representatives are doing.

Being a politician is equivalent of having a license to make a wrong, right. And justifying it with valid reasons.

We are proud of being the world's largest democracy, but i am ashamed to have very few politicians who think of themselves as owing something to the people who elected them. Will the desire of these elected men, ever satiate? Probably not, because every 5 years there is a new person who is hungry, with a hunger for power, or money, or land, or something else.

Conclusion - Join politics, since it is actually wonderful!!!

Disclaimer: Just because the lotus appears bigger than the palm, i do not subscribe to BJP's mandate (in fact, i am not sure whether they even have one or not)

Harry Potter - the boy who will live forever

I am not sure what J K Rowling had in mind when she first penned Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The 1st book was published sometime in 1997 and the 1st movie based on the novel released in 2001. Yes, Harry is actually that old, almost 14 years since he was first read by people in England. As i have read in the papers relating to the hype of the latest Potter movie, J K Rowling is one of the richest and most famous  in England and her personal wealth is estimated to be close to $ 1bn. That is the magic of Harry Potter, his friends, Hogwarts and Lord Voldemort.

That is about the author who started it all. Daniel Radcliffe started acting in the series at the age of 11, acted once before in a little known movie - The Tailor of Panama. Could he have ever imagined in his wildest of dreams (even if they were as magical as Hogwarts) that he will be the star of the great movie franchise like the Harry Potter series? I sincerely doubt that. And most likely, he will always be a shadow of being Harry Potter as long as he stays in public memories. Something like what happened to Arun Govil who played Lord Rama in the Indian epic, Ramayana which ran on Doordarshan in early 90s. Emma Watson is another star who emerged out of the series as the girl who would make it big in Hollywood. Bright future, or, will it be weighed down by expectations of being the smart and intelligent Hermione Granger, a half-blood - only time will tell.

No doubt, the series has been a great great experience for people of all age groups. People have read and re-read the books to experience the magical spells, the charms of students at Hogwarts. I also read the books much later; probably 10 years after the release of the 1st book, to see why people are crazy about this phenomenon. I was actually confused about how can a little boy kill the evil Lord Voldemort (yes, I had heard stories from my friends who were madly in love with Harry Potter). And i realised that people transcend into a complete new world while reading / seeing the book / movie. And since I saw the movies along with the books, i could not picture the characters from the book look anything else except Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes etc. Voldemort will always remain without a nose in my mind :) I enjoyed reading the books as well as watching the drama unfold through the movies.

Coming to the hype surrounding the latest and last installment of the movie series - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, movie has got an 8.7 rating on IMDb, which I guess if the highest ever for this series (it actually the 1st movie which has got an over 8 rating since the 1st movie). The movie starts from where Part 1 ended and since we saw that one around a week back, it was an easy relation. It takes on a journey which ends back at Hogwarts where the Order of the Phoenix fights against the Dark Forces. There are lot of things which are different from the actual story but only if you remember the book, you can spot differences. Eg: Elder Wand has a different ending than in the book. I loved the direction and pace at which the movie progresses, although you feel like it should never end so that you remain in wonderland. The climactic action sequence is bit of a letdown and cannot be considered a "showdown", which was a bit disappointing. It is highly recommended, at least for people who have read the books and feel connected to the souls of Harry and the Dark Lord. For the others, it is a definite watch for the direction and 3D effects, which are better than the rest of releases which have been bombarded by Hollywood in recent times.

It has inspired me to read and watch Lord of the Rings trilogy since I have no clue about what that is all about? Food for thought.

Google + Hangout

A new thing called Google+, where you can "Hangout" with friends. Hangout = Group Video Chat.

Couple of things:

1. Video quality is pretty sad. Cant see anything clearly. MacBook Pro's iChat is awesome compared to this.

2. You can't see who all are online. So it updates your "wall" that you are hanging out. It would be easier if you could see who all are online and then you can invite them directly.

3. Website is pretty basic with no colors or life in it.

4. Circles are reaaaaaaaallllyyyyyyy sad. They are passive. There is no activity within those circles. Static stuff.

5. Photo app is very poor. They could have easily integrated Picasa features but i guess it is still not there and hence the app is not so smooth as it should be.

6. Stream is not cool. In its effort to make it simple, Google has made it complex which is not the easiest to understand.

7. There is something called Sparks which notifies you about your interest from the web. I guess it is the Reader function. Ok.

And Google messed up the 1st thing - to have enough servers to get people to sign up. If they have only 10 million users today, it is only because of their own calculations of people catching on to it. I am sure, Wave and Buzz acceptance by the users would have had an impact on them for planning +.

Travel travails and other such nonsense

I like to think i am a traveller kind of a person. I like to search, research new places, imagine what all i shall be doing there and ultimately plan a trip and then go. Unfortunately i am not a vacation-taking guy. I have seen people and i envy them a lot who take vacations - a week or more, off from office and travel to places and then bring back some awesome, everlasting memories. Hitesh is an excellent example of this; he is on a cycling trip to Ladakh right now. That is awesome, if you ask me because i would always want to do something like this. Unfortunately, i have never been able to do that. 

And I am sure there are pretty good reasons for that:

1. Let's start from childhood. I spent my initial years in a place called Guna in the heart of Madhya Pradesh. The place was approx 12 hours by road / rail from Delhi and 7-8 hours by air (which was a rarity then). Air travel was out of reach and was not saving too much time either. It was twice in a year that we used to get holidays, which were fairly long - summer vacations, starting 15 may and lasting approx 45 days (and i was always jealous of my cousins living in Delhi who used to get 60 days), and slightly shorter winter vacations (15 days). So the concept of holidays was to go to Delhi and meet the whole khandaan and my cousins. Hence, those days, holidays meant DELHI. We went to places in MP, on rare occasions and shorter holiday breaks but can't be termed as vacation.

2. Then came engineering days. 4 years in Pune. This time was better since we got 4 holidays a year - 2 of them were prep breaks and 2 post exams. Since i was in Pune, there were good reasons to go back to Delhi  ;) Family, friends, etc were in Delhi, so all vacations were spent in Delhi, sitting at home, doing nothing. Again the time to enjoy a break anywhere else was a remote possibility. But we had managed to sneak in a short trip to Goa in our last year. 4 of us for 3 nights, i guess. I am not sure about the number of days but that was fun - in fact i can write another entry on that, it was so much fun. Actually, i should write one right after finishing this one.

3. Then i was lucky enough to get through to IIFT. Good that, it was IN DELHI. Not that I had too many options, since i had filled forms for a very limited number of B-schools, probability of being in Delhi was the highest amongst those filled. 2 years flew by, with accounts and economics and little bit of marketing and commodity trading. But I was proud to have gone on 2 holiday breaks during this period. Once i went to meet Rahul in Jaipur, which was a lot of fun. And i think it was a week-long break. And another trip was to Mussoorie. Bakli had some Club Mahindra membership so 6 of us had gone. I don't think it was a long break but it was also fun. Hills are always good to be on.

4. And then by some sheer stroke of God's grace, I got through ITC's International Business Division. Close to 6 years, and i travelled to places i had never been to, in my entire life. Villages of MP and UP, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chirala, Vizag, Coorg, Kota, Ganga Nagar, Bundi, Ahmedabad, Alwar, Bharatpur, Akola, Amravati, Latur, Nanded, I can just go on and on to the number of places i visited. And i had a lot of fun. I wish i had an SLR then since i got to see so many places in my first 3.5 years, that i could have really captured some awesome moments of Indian countryside. And i enjoyed these trips, with food not to my liking sometimes, hotels which were in shambles and lizards everywhere, etc etc. But i think those were pretty good days. Sadly, all this was work and not vacation. And since i was all over the place when i was working, the time when i had some holidays, what would i do, go back to DELHI.

The true long vacations that i have taken till date were to the US and Bali - and it was definitely an experience of the lifetime. And i think when you spend 24 hours 1 way to reach a place, it is only fitting to give that respect to the place and stay and enjoy. Although the trip was pretty packed - SF, Vegas, LA and San Diego but I think we had lot of fun, with Bhatias to give us company in LA, SF, Canyons and Vegas, and wonderful hosts in Pooja, Ashu and aunty in SF and our very own home grown Anna in Diego. The thing to die for in America - American breakfast. Can't tell how awesome it was - we had it twice and I would love to have something like that again, anywhere in India.

Bali was our honeymoon destination - so it had to be special, and it was. Although it was not the best time of the year to visit the place, but good thing was, there were very few tourists as compared to how the tourist season in Bali typically is. The calm and peace of Nusa Dua and the lively action of Kuta present an awesome experience. Not to mention, Ubud and other places in  North Bali, which we just went on day trips -  i think it is a beautiful romantic destination. And the best thing about the place is, INR is worth more than Indonesian Rupiah. So there INR 1/- is actually worth something. That feels nice. A lot of Australian influence but the food is awesomely Indian - spicy, with herbs and chillies. There are no direct flights, but a stopover in Singapore, KL or Bangkok should not hurt much, considering all the shopping can be done in these places and have a peaceful holiday in Bali.

Amidst all this, there have been trips to Ooty, Munnar, Cochin, Turkey, and probably some more which do not come to mind right now :) I think it is about time to travel north and explore the beauty there rather than being in the south and overdoing it.

Sorry the post title and post are not in sync with each other, but what the heck, it should be a good read. 

And i hope it is

www.firstpost.com

I am not sure how many of you are aware about this site. It is new and part of Network18 group. For those of you unfamiliar with Network18, they are owners of CNBC-TV18, www.moneycontrol.com, www.yatra.com, www.bookmyshow.com. I am sure we might have used one or more of their portals at some point or other in our daily lives. Till some time back, the share was also doing well, i don't know how is it performing now.

So www.firstpost.com is a new website which is, I guess, India's first news based dynamically updated website. I think www.ndtv.com, ibnlive.in are of the same genre, but that, according to me is TV journalism invading internet. firstpost is pure internet journalism which is first of a kind in India (i have not seen anything of much significance before).

The articles are good, and they have decent updates on latest news. So they have a top ticker which talks about latest news snippets (or breaking news, as we know them) and then 1-page articles on important stories developing during the day. Why i like this site because articles are 1-pagers so its easier for me to read.

They have a mobile app and a newsletter as well which one can subscribe to. Sometimes it feels as if they have copied from www.economist.com, but The Economist is a magazine and the website has come later. So i would still not put it in the same category since you can get the same articles on the net as well as in the magazine. But the argument in Economist's favour is that the magazine is older than the internet hence website was a natural progression for the magazine.

Anyways, should not waste too much space writing, visit the website to check out more.