Finally, I watched Avatar!! As I wished, I watched it in 3-D on MAX screen in my Hyderabad :) What about it? Yes, most of the reviews were right, technically, it is probably the best made movie ever!! But, I frankly felt it was a little over hyped. The storyline was very simple and quite predictable. The concept of setting a movie in the 22nd century, though not for the first time, added a lot to the scope of exhibiting the creative genius of the maker. The entire idea of Dream-walking is superb. And, what do I say about 3-D? It was simply awesome, and watching it on the max screen added more to the wonderful feeling. Cameron takes you to a different world altogether. You feel you are part of the Navis - I felt it would be great if we had a world like that - full of greenery and beautiful nature!! All those fluffy seeds coming over to you, will definitely tickle you and give you a strange feeling for sure!!
As I said, technically it is one of the best movies I have ever seen, but otherwise the movie is simple, quite simple :) Definitely worth a watch (or two), only in 3-D, if possible in a good theater - even better if it is in i-max ;)
A colleague of mine sent a mail today with the subject "You might have seen this in your childhood". When I opened the mail, it was the very old and very famous Dairy Milk jingle. It was a common one especially during cricket matches. Those were the days when cricketers played more cricket than shooting for promotional ads ;)
For a moment, I became nostalgic (as usual, these days I have no other better work, it seems!) thinking about some age old jingles like nirma, bournvita etc., serials and beautiful programmes. Some of them were Mahabhaarat, Surabhi (my favourite show, for Renuka Sahane), Swabhimaan, Taara, Shanti, Ruturaagaalu, Sunday Regional Movies, Sanskrit News and many more...I miss those "vintage" doordarshan days!!
Here's the jingle for all of you, watch and enjoy....and feel nostalgic :)
I know most of us remember and miss our school days the most. So do I. I always feel am a little low on such sentiments, but sometimes I can't help it. I thought I could pen down some of the most memorable things that happened to me at school since childhood...
Nursery:
This one class I hardly remember anything. I don't think I had even gone to school half of the days. All that I know was to respond to my name (it was SriChand then, not Tejo Karthik). Sit there till my dad comes and takes me back home. It was a school by name Bharatiya Vidya Niketan in our very own colony.
School: Spring Dales Public School This was located at Yousufguda checkpost, the same building which is now St. Mary's College. Beautiful campus it was. Greenery all around the place with neem and gulmohar trees. We had the chance to go and see live examples of whatever was taught in our Science classes. Occasionally, we had visitors like snakes and chameleons; of course we had enough people to deal with them too. I remember my first day where our teacher Ms. Ramana Sastry gave us a straw and a paper with some ink on it. She asked us to blow air into the straw and make some pattern on the paper using the ink on it. That’s the same day I met my friend Tejasvi.
Our daily morning prayers were rendered in an Assembly Hall, where we all used to sit and sing devotional songs. Some of them...
- vara veeNa mRdupaaNi...
- tEnela tETala maaTalatO...
- jaya jaya jaya priyabhaarata...
- E maalik tErE bandE hum...
- vaishNava janatO....
- naaraayaNatE namO namO...
and many more. Our music teacher, Rama madam was the lead singer along with few other seniors accompanying her. Our Principal (1st class to 4th class) Mrs. Vasanta Lakshmi was a singer herself. She taught us songs like vaishNava janatO.
I remember those days where we collected flowers - white, orange and yellow - and made a garland for the huge portrait of Bharat Mata that stood in our Assembly Hall, everyday.
We had all kinds of sports right from athletics to kho-kho, kabaddi and many other indoor games. 3-legged race, sack race, lemon&spoon race were special attractions for the primary school. Our PT madam Ms. Hannah was a strict lady, yet lovable. We had teachers who always concentrated more on imparting general knowledge to us rather than just teach what the text book says. When I was in 2nd class, I was thorough with the countries, capitals, languages and currencies of all European and Asian countries. Thanks to Madhavi madam.
There were very strict teachers like Ms. Girija, who was a terror to the entire class. I still remember the 'special' techniques she used to punish us. I was a pet of Sita madam, who taught us Telugu and basic Hindi. She is one of the sweetest persons I ever know. My love for Telugu to some extent is because of her. Sireesha madam taught us Social, General Knowledge and English. I simply loved the way she taught us Geography. My fascination for this subject and my love for maps is wholly attributed to her. They were THE teachers, architects of my life, my foundation.
When I was in 4th class, we shifted our campus to a much smaller one in Yousufguda. Most of the teachers left the school and so I too had to shift to a different school after my 5th class.
My Class Teachers, LKG to 5th Class
LKG: Ms. Ramana Sastry
UKG: Ms. Daya
1st Class: Ms. Padmavathi
2nd Class: Ms. Madhavi
3rd Class: Ms. Seeta Mahalakshmi
4th Class: Ms. Vasanti/ Ms. Sirisha
5th Class: Ms. Latha
Other prominent names: Ms. Anasuya, Ms. Hannah, Ms. Girija, Ms. Alamelu
Principals: Mr. Murthy, Ms. Vasanta Lakshmi, Mr. N Murthy
Names of my classmates, whom I remember very well:
- Ramya and Harini fights (both were teachers’ daughters!)
- Japanese drama which we staged for our annual day
- Shaakuntalam drama in our first class, where I played the role of a rabbit
- Lunch box checking after lunch break and subsequent after-effects
- Tug-of-war between Phani, Tejasvi and me for the first in class rank
PS: I always had a habit of copying my teachers' signatures (initials), though I never dared to put them to a wrong use. I proudly say, even today I remember most of my teachers' initials :)
Its just a little bigger than the "bathroom" of the HyderabadInternationalAirport-that's the feeling I got when I saw the domestic terminal at Trivandrum. Point to be noted is the airport got its "international" status in 1991, well before many other major Indian cities. I just had to walk about a 20 steps to get into the aircraft and the flight took off at 7:50pm, 25mins behind its scheduled time of departure. The Trivandrum land had only streaks of lights here and there otherwise was full of dark patches! God save these people's love for trees!! The boring person beside me burrowed his head deep into the "CineBlitz", provided by Kingfisher, as if he is gonna take some exam on Indian Cinema next morning. What irritated me was that he didn't switch off his reading light, even during the take-off and landing, which almost killed my excitement to watch the city lights through those semi-transparent windows!!
I was served with a sandwich and some lime juice. I too read Cineblitz for while, to see what is so fascinating in it. And there was nothing much, except for "this-hero-had-an-affair-with-that-heroine" kind of news(?). Then came Bengaluru International Airport, and here there's something beautiful. The city lights of Bengaluru, it was an enchanting view, completely different from that of Trivandrum. A busy city with streaks of headlights in most of the roads and beautiful patterns of residential colonies and software buildings. A feast for your eyes!! I thought I could capture a snap, but was interrupted by two people-the air hostess and the stupid boring person!!
The flight landed in Bengaluru at 9:12pm and the scheduled time of departure of my connecting flight to Hyderabad was 9:35pm! I just had to run out of the Airport to re-check in!!
And this guy outside the airport stops me and asks me to get a receipt for Rs.265, which was supposed to be airport tax that came into effect from that evening!! In that very little time available to me I managed to curse the government for a minute, paid the tax and proceeded for security check. I was shocked by the way the check was being conducted. There were a total of 8-gates available at the check. But, only one gate was open and a long queue was formed for the check. This worried me, as my flight's boarding was already announced!
Being someone who follows rules, I went and stood in that "long-never-ending queue". After a long wait, took about 12mins, just before I could proceed, there was this "I-saw-him-somewhere" guy clad in white from top to bottom!! It took me less than a second to recognize him as the ace Telugu film director and Member of Parliament Mr. Dasari Narayana Rao. As a simple Indian, I felt happy that I have seen a celebrity. But, before I could even realize that I was happy, what pissed me off was, this guy along with three other people barging into the queue just before me and getting done with their check!! Grrr....he is an MP, I accept. An elderly person, I accept. Let him go first, I accept again!! But, why his followers?! I don't accept. Now, who cares if I do or do not accpet!! HUH!!
I passed through the security ordeal and boarded the bus which would take me to the aircraft. The bus didn't move even as the clock ticked 9:40pm!! It moved only after the honorable MP boarded the bus along with his followers. As soon as he came in, he kept looking at everyone in the bus, and so did he at me too, and we exchanged smiles! Then, all of a sudden, a middle-aged man got up and wished him,
Man - "Hello dasari gaaru, how are you?" Dasari - "Hello, Rao gaaru. Long time, how are you doing?" and they talked about their film business stuff and then...
Dasari - "This new aiport is big, but really buggging! The security check was such a tiresome thing. I always loved the old airport" Me - "Baffled Expression"****!!!
When a Member of Parliament, who was also a cabinet minister until recent past, feels so about an airport that came as a boon from his own government....what about a person like me should feel about the same?!!
Aah, Kingfisher Class, it was beautiful. Only problem I had was with time management....I didn't know if I had to watch the beautiful Bipasa Basu, instructing us about seat belts, or enjoy the delicious meal or the Tom and Jerry cartoon or admire those beauty personified women serving us everything we wanted ;) Overall, the flight from Bangalore to Hyderabad was all together a different experience, may be the Kingfisher experience LOL!!
As we entered the city from South-West, I couldn’t see the night beauty of the royal Hyderabad city. But nevertheless, could enjoy some recognizable spots on the land, just before landing!! We landed at 11:33pm. Felt happy to be home after 3 full months!! :)
Ah...just back from a 9-day trip to Hyderabad-Home sweet Home :-)...very very tired!!! Before I post my trip details, I thought it would be nice to share this one..."O Sayaa..." - the Oscar nominated song from Slumdog Millionaire!! Last night at 11:15 pm, I listened to this song on the platform in Coimbatore Junction Rly Station. And believe me, the feeling was simply "AWESOME". The song is a chase song in the movie, where the slum children are driven away by the security guards. With a mind-blowing background of a "train-running-on-the-tracks" with its tempo slowly increasing and decreasing from beginning to the end.....listening to this song in the railway station was worth an experience!! Here's the song for those who have missed it all these days....
Listen to it and enjoy Rahman's magic...try to go to your nearest Railway station for the REAL fun :) or you can try it out in one of your train journeys too :) I wish this song all the very best for tomorrow's Oscars :D
Good Morning!! Aah, its 6:30 am already!! My mobile starts singing the ARR's Airtel tone...waking me up from my sleep. The day which starts on a lazy note gains some momentum as I prepare breakfast and lunch for myself. Breakfast would be mostly dosa or idly (thanks to the ready-mix revolution) and lunch would be rice with some pickle, a sabji (mostly fry) and curd. I hit the office by 8:30 am only to discover that I am one among the very few early birds (most of them are those who come by the company bus). My sidee Anu, a senior quality analyst wishes me with her warm good morning everyday, cheering up my day :)
Signing in to the communicator, opening Google News and the related news webpages (coz we won't have internet after 9am till 5pm in the evening!!) are the first things I do as soon as I switch on my PC. All the news pages, a few from Wikipedia and a couple of Idlebrain (a total of about 30-40 IE-Internet Explorer windows) would come to my help for at least half of my day :)
Thus starts my day at office at 9am, wishing all my communicator contacts a very good morning. I read all my IE windows, news ranging from Kerala to Hyderabad and Delhi to New York. This is often multi-tasked with chatting with friends, checking mails (mostly forwards) and forwarding mails to other friends of mine. Attending training for 30min-1hr is a break from this busy schedule of mine :P
Thats the morning session full of news followed by a quick Lunch at around 12:20pm. Now starts the real problem. A heavy stomach results in a heavy eye too. We do have a dorm, but I don't know how good would it be to use it daily :P and added to all my misery, my GPM (Head of my department) sits right behind me. So, I cant sleep or listen to songs or watch something in my monitor. Amidst all this starts my second half of the day. I read mails, chat with my friends (we play the online Songs-quiz in this time :P). Then thanks to our internal blogs. I found some beautiful blogs with short stories :P which would help me out in my drowsy lazy afternoons. After all these activities if I am left with any time, I read a couple of pages from 'The Wings of Fire' and call it day at office :)
Back to home by 6:30pm. Checking orkut scraps, reading and writing blogs, listening to songs, watching and downloading movies, checking mails, chatting in GTalk....making roti for dinner and sleep by 11:30pm....thinking about ARR's airtel tone for the next morning!! Gudnite :)
PS: Am planning to bug my colleagues too, by starting my blogging mania in our internal blog portal. Wish me all the best :D
The other day my colleague (Nikhil) and I were talking about the upcoming Infosys campus at Trivandrum. He said that the architect of the new "boat" shaped building is Mr. Hafeez Contractor. More than the boat, what fascinated me was his last name - contractor. I asked Nikhil, if he had changed his name after becoming an architect. Then we discussed for a while about Parsis, the Indian Zoroastrians, and their surnames. They all have their surnames after their profession. Interesting, right?
A deeper thought into this topic took me all the way to Europe. A little research (thanks to internet) gave some interesting (probably known to many) information. Adding surnames to first names started in 12th century A.D. Certain surnames like Anderson and Johnson came from Andrew's son and John's son respectively. It was just a way to differentiate people further from each other. Similarly, there were surnames based on the profession too. Smith, Clark, Wright etc. fall into this category. Some other names came from the place of living (like Hill, Woods, Ford etc.).
In India, surnames like Sastry or Sarma or Gupta came from the caste system that existed in the ancient times. Aachari, Pujari etc. are a couple of examples. In the south Rao, Reddy, Chowdary are quite common surnames, derived from the caste. Or surnames are derived from the ancestral village or the profession of the ancestors (Karanam) along with a tail last name. Tamizhians have their father's/husband's name as their last name.
What is interesting again is the profession related surnames of the Parsis. Probably, more fascinating is the set of Indianized surnames rather than the Contractor or the Engineer. A few to mention are "Daruwala", "Tibrewala", "Mithaiwala", "Rumwala" and some really funny ones like "Acidwala", "Sodawaterwala", "Boatwala" and so on. Every profession has a surname. These names were relevant in those days where the family occupation was hereditary. I must say, it was quite an intelligent way of naming :)
In present day's situation, if we apply the same rule....am sure more than half of us will end up in adding "Engineer" to our first names :P (at least people from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu will accept this fact!). Thanks to the already existing "Dr." prefix for all the doctors. Now what comes to be more hilarious is change of surname. Most of the engineers or graduates want to get an MBA and become a Manager. So after that one should change their surname to "Manager", later "Analyst" and so on. Some other hilarious names would be "Broker", "Printer", "Actor", "Actress", "Producer", "Farmer" or think of a further segregation like "Character Artist", "Financial Analyst" or Indianized names like "Computerwala" (IT-Professionals), "StockMarketwala", "Paisewala" (Finance related). Any other thoughts? Do tell me :)
