Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. a.k.a. The Marriage of Superman

Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. a.k.a. The Marriage of Superman

Coma to Heart-Attack scale: High Blood Pressure (8/10)

Bollywood directors and producers have still not understood the importance of a good storyline. Bringing together a bunch of good actors with a below average story doesn't provide for an entertaining few hours!

It was a different movie with the usual cliches. In some parts its brilliant in others disappointing.
I gave it 8/10 because this movie breaks several barriers. Especially the complexities of gay - straight marriages.

It is a good start and I am sure in the future movies will improve and build upon the basic theme of this movie. Very few directors can get such a complex situation right in the first try.

Another amazing point about this movie, it introduces bisexual men in Bollywood movies.

Go watch this movie!

Using your Hands and your Heart

The other day a friend of mine told me that one day someone told her that she looks better in photographs than she does in real life. This 'someone' cares for her.

Firstly we should look better in photographs because we usually show only those pictures in which we look happy and at our best!

Specific to girls:
Well I think when you are with a girl you should not oogle at her like you are oogling at a pornographic picture. Use your heart and your hands to understand her.

When you want to use your eyes, use them to look into her eyes.

You will see the depths of life in them.

Just like when you go to a temple you don't oogle at God. Instead you lower your eyes, bring your hands together and open your heart in worship.

In other words treat girls with respect because whether they look good or not in real life, they are the ones who can actually create and carry LIFE.
Keep them happy and they will make sure you remain happy too!

A Quote of Happiness

Happiness for me is when nothing bad happens.
-Myself

Lockheed Martin on www.timesofindia.com

The screen-shot above shows the advertisement of Lockheed Martin the same bunch of people who make the F-16 fighter (and other nice things).

I wonder why they are advertising on www.timesofindia.com next to ad's for 'easy money transfers' to India and matrimonial sites.

Must be their new method for opening the 'Indian' arms market and to muscle the Russians out of it.

I wonder what will happen if all the countries of the world have similar weapons? Owning weapons has almost become a status symbol and not a question of security any more. The general reasoning goes: if our neighbours have X then we need X+1.

World is becoming a funny place to live in! Next I guess we will find Lockheed Martin selling Paveway laser guided bombs on www.indiatimes.com

;)

Wreath of Barbs - II

From the Wreath of Barbs by Wumpscut. One of my favourite songs!

Holy burning hand of wrath
Piercing forever through the heart
And this flaming orbit of shame
Ravages and splits the path


And I bleed and bleed in this wreath of barbs
And I run and run but I dont get far

A pickup line...

My Caribbean girl type friend found this pick-up line I made very amusing:

Step into my Ferrari said the spider to the fly.

I am sure of it now. I am not destined to meet normal girls in this life time!

Selfishness and Relationships

A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me the following question related to relationships and girls:

Q: Azahar, don't you think you should be selfish in life sometimes?

I replied that no, being selfish is never good. Ideally you should never be selfish.

A relation is not about being selfish. It is about being totally self-less.
A relation is only successful when you put the other person's interests before yours and the other person puts your interests before theirs.

This is difficult to achieve in most relations in this selfish age. Especially in that most sacred a relation enjoyed by a man and a woman united in matrimony under the eyes of God.

A: What is mine will never be taken, what is taken was never mine.

Additional thoughts:
I think it would be even better if we kept mutual interests before personal interests in a relation.

Pain and Dilbert

Such a funny cartoon with a painful twist. Can a normal job be so painful that it kills your spirit?

I love the following line from the cartoon, they are quite beautiful:

Darkness fills my days... I dream of the grave.

What pain can it be that the grave seems the only place where you will find final rest (thus you dream of the grave). What kind of darkness can leave you feeling alone and unloved on a sunny afternoon with flowers blooming around you. The feeling of complete and utter failure.

A Pain-killer

Again and again our attention is drawn to the fact that there is so much pain in the world. What we don't realise is that pain is the only constant. An orphaned child in Africa feels pain as does someone in America who has been cheated by the love of their life.

People have started keeping pain to themselves. That is why psychiatrists are doing so well.
People just don't have the strength or willingness to talk it out. Many people don't even have anyone to listen to them. Everyone has their own problems. Everyone is busy. Why should they lend an ear to someone else's problems?

This is what I think is wrong in today's world. We should always be ready to listen to people no matter how irritated, frustrated or busy we ourselves are.

1. Nothing compares to the feeling of happiness and release you get when you talk to someone about your problem.
2. Nothing compares to the feeling you get when you provide this feeling to someone.

Snapshots of Life..

Picture Title: 'Feet of a Goddess'

Picture Title: 'Na jaao saiyan chuda ke bayian: Don't leave me!'

Picture Title: 'Seen at a food joint: Hospital 800m'

Death of Tech. Outsourcing?

Has the Tech. Outsourcing to India reached its peak?

Read this first:

http://gigaom.com/2007/02/18/troubling-signs-for-indian-tech-outsourcers/#comment-654693

Well the reason that Google is such a hot employer is because of the work culture and brand name it offers.
Most of the Indian outfits like TCS and Wipro are run almost like govt. departments with a very different and restrictive work environment.

Also now we are getting better quality work in India. In IT outsourcing focus has shifted from just coding to other things like R&D and Business Analysis.

Furthermore we should not forget that much of the ‘Indian Talent’ doesn’t remain in India for long. They head off for greener pastures to do their bachelors or masters. Many manage to find jobs in their adopted countries itself and settle there.
But in the recent past there has been an encouraging reversal to this. Students prefer to come back to India after their studies are completed.
India is not seen as a dead end kind of place any more. With a foreign degree in your hands you automatically become highly qualified. Thus the Indian student knows that their chances of finding a job in a top notch co. in India are much better than in their adopted country.

While there needs to be a shift within the Indian companies from bespoke development and services to product development backed by top notch R&D these things cannot come up overnight.

The Indian IT industry is just now waking up from the boom times… now that the headlong rush towards big money is easing off it is the perfect time to take stock of the situation and to plan ahead for the next big thing.

About Death...

I had gone to a temple recently... there I read the following:

Whether you stand still or move, your days diminish.
Then grieve only for yourself, why grieve for anything else.

These above lines had the magical effect of relaxing me. They are translated from some religious text, but the meaning is absolutely clear.

In the recent past I have tried to become emotionless. To remove all emotions from my heart and mind. To attain perfect objectivity.

Why do we indulge in emotions and have thoughts/worries associated with those emotions?
Nothing is going to last forever and the sands of time will cover all.

A Quote after Breakfast...

All good things begin with a question.
-Myself.

An Alcoholic Achievement

My years of dedication to alcohol have finally paid off. I now look like an alcoholic!

Few days ago I had gone for a wedding reception. As soon as I entered the area where the reception was taking place my eyes fell on waiter carrying scotch. I did not say or indicate anything to him yet he came up to me and directly asked me 'with Soda or Water'.

I don't know how he knew I will take scotch. Maybe I was giving off a scotch drinkers vibe or something? Or maybe something in my body language on seeing the glasses full of scotch on his tray?

:D

On a Valentine's Day..

For someone.... special....

You and I will always remain together,
wherever and with whoever we are.
Coz you are the first girl who I have loved,
from the depths of my heart.

- A. M.
13th February 2007

Thank you Arti!

Azahar: how cute u r

u have lost ur power of fighting

:D

if ur fire then im water

thande pad jaate ho aap in front of my logic ;)

hehehehe

Arti: there is no logic

coming from your end

its a simple fact..."you are crazy"

About PhD...

TK: i auditioned for a musical nite as a part of ***'s Research Scholar's Meet
Me: hahaha
TK: and got selected!!!
TK: why "hahaha"?
Me: phd and singing
Me: hahahah
Me: u might be singing for money at a railway station after phd
TK: very funny!!

Stress at School...

A few days ago I was sitting with an old friend from school.
As it often happens in such situations we started talking about the good old days especially the last two years of school (classes 11th and 12th).
We passed out about 9 years ago so it was fun going back to those final days at school.

Suddenly my friend remarked that while those days were amazing he would never want to repeat them.

Now I was thinking along the same lines as we had been talking about school. So I was naturally surprised to hear my friend giving voice to my thoughts.
Then he went on to say that he still gets nightmares sometimes that he has failed the Board exams in 12th and he wakes up in a panic. Once he is awake and realises that those days are behind him he manages to relax.

When I heard this I was even more surprised. I was surprised because I get similar nightmares sometimes. But my nightmares are about having missed many school days (I used to take quite a few holidays in 11th and 12th) and then having to rejoin.
I think what will teachers say, how much of the course I would have missed and what will my friends ask me? Sometimes I too wake up in a panic thinking that those days are back.

This got me thinking about the hidden stress at school. Schools are supposed to be places where a child can grow and develop, not where they develop subconscious stress.

A few questions came to my mind:

Is school supposed to give you nightmares 10 years down the line?

Is that perhaps a 'fringe benefit' of formal schooling?

Maybe we don't take enough time in preparing a child for education like a farmer prepares a field for crops to be planted. I wonder if this is a growing trend in children especially in today's highly competitive study environments where each half percent can mean the difference between success and failure. Where children are evaluated on the basis of exam results and not their true aptitude.

Long Island Iced Tea

The Long Island Iced Tea is my favourite cocktail.

The Recipe:

• 1.5 cl (one part) Vodka
• 1.5 cl (one part) Tequila
• 1.5 cl (one part) White Rum
• 1.5 cl (one part) Cointreau
• 1.5 cl (one part) Gin
• 2.5 cl (1½ part) Lemon juice
• 3.0 cl (two parts) Sugar Syrup
• Dash of Cola

Mix ingredients in glass over ice, stir, garnish with lemons and serve.

It is a deadly drink. As you can see from the recipe its got a wide variety of alcoholic ingredients in it!

LONG ISLAND ICED TEA

View Before consumption

View After consumption

Few Quotes...

Living without a conscience is the easiest way to live.
-Myself

Nothing great seems achievable at first.
-Myself

Life is about living, not about ifs and buts.
-Myself

Making the end justify the means is a sure sign of failure.
-Myself

Guru - A few lessons yet to be learnt!

Guru
My personal rating: Low Blood Pressure (5/10)

The main problem with the movie is that while it does manage to grab your attention now and then, it is not able to hold it.
The movie oscillates between emotional drama and the business side of things. Whenever something interesting seems to be happening on the business side some emotional drama is injected. There is no continuity in the movie. In one scene things look absolutely bleak for the hero, in the other everyone is dancing with joy.
The timeline of the movie itself is not very continuous either and one is not able to understand the temporal gap between events. When you are trying to tell a story of events happening over a period of 30-35 years especially against a dynamic background (in this case Post-Independence India) one needs to be very careful in establishing a clear timeline.

All this inspite of lifting parts of the story straight out of the life of Dhirubhai Ambani.

The end of the movie is one big emotional stretch which hindi movies are so famous for.
It also leaves various loose ends such as:

1. What happens to the conflict between Mithun/Madhavan and Abhishek Bachhan?
2. How does Abhishek manage to recover his personal and business lives after the hearing?
3. What happens to his wife's brother?

It seems to me that the director wanted to make a movie which showed off all aspects of the struggle of Abhishek Bachhan both on a personal front and on the business front. What comes out is a horribly mixed up story where instead of having seamless integration of the two story lines there is a cut-paste feel to it. Its like watching a Powerpoint slide of a movie.

I think Aishwarya Rai should not have been picked as the heroin. They should have picked someone a bit low-key and made the emotional side of the story a background for the business side. I don't think high-profile actresses like Aishwarya can ever be expected to play background roles successfully. Vidya Balan had absolutely no role in the movie except to be the weeping point for both the parties.

It reminds me of the movie Kalyug (directed by Shyam Benegal) which manages to achieve what Guru tries to.

A few positives about the movie:

Mithun's acting. Simply amazing, shows that he still has it in him! But his whole effort is wasted because the story never gets continuous enough.

Madhavan's acting. Role perfectly suited to him.

The instrumental soundtrack is quite nice and the titles are very well designed (flipping pages).

Aishwarya Rai dances well especially in the song 'Barso re megha..' she seems to have a very flexible body.