Republic Day, time for introspection....

Tuesday, 26th January, 2010 is the 60th Republic Day of India. Congratulations to all of us Indians, may God bless us!

Our country is maturing now, and we as citizens of India have huge responsibility to make India a recognizable country of the world. It is in the news papers today that by 2012, i.e. two years from now, India will be the third largest economy of world, in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP). I hope people do understand what is PPP because I did not understand it at first go. By 2020, India's GDP growth rate would be more than that of China. These are indeed very impressive and encouraging findings for us. We, as a country, deserve to have handsome GDP as we have a very large population to feed. As one finding also says that by 2020 (sooner or later) we will overtake China in population as well.

Republic Day means the day on which rights and responsibilities of people defined and given. We have been enjoying these rights on paper for last sixty years. Off the paper, well I doubt. What about the responsibilities? Not much. Yes, we do fulfil those responsibilities that give us pleasure. What about other responsibilities? Who cares!

It is time to look into ourselves, and find how can I make my country better place to live. I hope we will get time for the introspection and more importantly, to implement the finding, if at all we find anything.

May God bless us!

LOTR, a rare movie (trilogy) and a rare book

I just finished reading review of Two States by Chetan Bhagat on Navneet's blog. I felt that I should also share the best movie (trilogy) that I have ever seen, Lord of the Rings, LOTR in short.

Peter Jackson is the director of the trilogy, and it is one of the rare occasion where the movie adaptation is better than the book. Later, I saw one more film by Peter Jackson, King Kong and I must say now I am a fan of his.

From 1930's to 1950's, the world was passing through turmoil of world wars. That was the time when J.R.R. Tolkien wrote this wonderful story, Lord of the Rings. LOTR is continuation of the successful early book The Hobbit by Tolkien. Tolkien has created this mystery world of imaginary characters, Hobbits, Elfs, Men, Orcs and so on. There are some other books which are also related to characters of LOTR.

I, as a regular non-English reader, had no idea of the book till I saw the first part of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001. The first part won 4 Oscar awards. It was the time when first part of Harry Potter had also released. But, LOTR was far better a fantasy than HP (film). The character of Head Master Albus Dumbledore of HP is a clear replica of the White Wizard Gandalf of LOTR.

Well, I was not impressed with the first part of LOTR on my first view. But when I saw it again, I liked it. And since then I liked it more with every viewing! The second part,The Two Towers was even better, though it won only 2 Oscars. The battle of Helms Deep is one of the best fights I have ever seen. It is much better than critically acclaimed The Gladiator. My eagerness to see the third part was ever more after seeing the second part. Characters of Gollum and Ents, i.e. the large walking and talking trees were just superb.

Unfortunately, the third part, Return of the King, did not last for long in India hence I could not see it in cinema hall. When I saw it on DVD, I was awestruck! Just wonderful! The city of Minas Tirith, The Black Gate, Mount Doom and everything that was created on screen was just superb! No wonder the third movie won all 11 Oscars for which it was nominated, becoming only the third movie to win 11 Oscars after Ben Hur and Titanic.

The book is good, but it is not as interesting as the films. Many think that LOTR is a trilogy but it is only a single book, though the film is in three parts. If you really want to enjoy the films, what you should do is this: Buy DVDs of all the three movies and start them at night. One by one finish all three, without any break of continuation.

Comments are welcome.

Adventurs on Uttrayan

Happy Belated Utran to all.

I had lots of fun this Utran, especially the day after. We are four very good friends: Aamir, Ahmed, Pinoz and I. We had decided to cook dinner by ourselves on Friday, 15th of January, 2010. Well the idea behind was to do something new. Every now and then, one should keep trying new things to get fresh from the routine life. We did the same.

We prepared Butter Chicken for 15 people. We started at around 5 in the evening and finished cooking at around 8. Three hours of adventure and fun. Anisha, Pinoz's wife was our coach. She passed through hell in these three hours as we are fantastic cooks!!!

Well, we got complements from all the members who dared to dine the food cooked by newcomers. Butter Chicken was a little sweet, but it was good.

I hope that in future also we get some time to have such "hatke" activities to get rid of the boredom of listless life.

Again, happy Utran and a fruitful new year to you all.

May God bless you.

First Post!

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on the blog. I had my website on geocities, but now they have close down the site. Now, after a long time, I am back to share my views with the world. What other day would be better than the Sankranti day!!

I am happy at present as I have got selected in HDFC Bank through campus placement. My college, i.e. the Department of Business and Industrial Development (DBIM) has given me some good memories and some good friends. The time I have spent here so far has been wonderful. I met various types of people. I liked some of them. I learnt a lot about life. So, I must thank my college for that.