UI development is not that bad as I had imagined..

A letter to my cellphone:

My dear cellphone,

I remember when you came to my life. My sister and Jijju had brought you to me. During the hurdles of their marriage, they managed to introduce you to me. But you had not started communicating yet. Some activation of you was still pending and I remember I did everything to make you communicate with me. And I was too happy to get you. You were new and the best of your kind. The smartphone! You were smart, really! I mean it.

For few initial days, i hadn't explored you.. Because I was not aware how much you could do for me. But as and when I explored you, I was very excited and amazed by your characteristics. You had helped me a lot. You helped me through navigations, you helped me write my notes, you helped me not lose my thoughts. I remember you helped me write my experiences during my journeys. You helped me distracting from unnecessary thoughts. You made my journeys entertaining. I played with you and found that I was becoming more intellectual, more confident in my moves. You never left me alone. Whenever I needed you, you were there. You were a true friend. You never said me no. But me... I became dependent on you. And that was my guilt. Any damn thing I depend on, I happen to ..... :(
And thus, today, I lost you. Like I lost all things I would depend on. Were you also tired of me, like others?

Anyway, I won't ask you these stupid questions. Wherever you are, whoever you are with, do good things, make people happy. Thank you for being with me. Goodbye!

If anyone has to be awarded for "Loser of the year", then it should be me!

Mu current favorite - Sun Beliya.
How lively! :)

Persepolis

The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Another nice read of the year - Persepolis!

It's a story of a girl who originally belonged to Iran. The protagonist narrates the story herself.  She describes the various phases she lived through. Before 1979, Iran had the culture of open minds. It was only 1979 when women there had to start wearing veils. And that's because of their government of that times. Then onwards, Iran's revolution reversed, against the will of many Iranians. What all we know about Taliban and his indoctrinations, were imposed in Iran then onwards. It's good to read this phase of transition.

This girl - Marjane Satrapi who was the great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor, belonged to an open-minded, rich and well-educated family. They did the demonstrations against the government, but with no fruitful results. At the same time, Iraq attacked Iran and situation in Iran went even worse. Iran also started defending and the war started. Iranians were already not happy about the new government and its laws and then with the war they were completely devastated. When Marjane turned 14, her parents sent her to Austria to keep her away from all the devastation. Within those 4 years, Marjane witnessed many deaths including one of her martyr uncle and her close friend - neighbour.

Next part of the book talks about her life in Austria which was not so good. In spite of having lived in conservative country, she dissolved herself completely in the western culture. She couldn't stand in there more and hence returned to her home country at the age of 18.

Next, in last part of the book, Marjane talks about how she made the come back to life and tried to survive in Iran again. This part also gives the idea of her freedom amidst all the restrictions she was burdened by the new Islamic Revolution. This freedom was granted by her parents. She educated herself more, married, divorced and finally she left Iran again as it was not the place to live in peacefully. There were no wars, she was not a kid anymore, but still she left the country. There the book ends!

Overall, the book is riveting. The writer is a good narrator. She has illustrated her feelings perfectly through the text as well as the pictures. I forgot to mention that it's a graphical novel. The pictures around the text are perfectly detailed to give you the idea of her state of mind and how exactly she perceived things.


Few of the incidences, really touched. When Marjane was a kid, she imagined talking to God and the way she talked, it reminded me of my childhood. She talked to God as if he is her real father. She got angry with him, she fought with him. Not only this, she also imagined how God would look like. And to tell you frankly my God also looked like hers. Maybe, all kids have common fantasies.

Nice Read! I'll give it 4 stars.

After reading this book, now I feel, even if we don't think about money every moment, still paisa bolta hai! It's money that talks. It gives you freedom to take decisions, freedom to change your life. If Marjane's parents were not rich, could she have managed to get away of Iran's culture? It's said that with money, you can't buy everything; but really, you can buy the freedom at least.



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It's so funny to see people trying to be over smart; to show that they are right even when they themselves know that they are not.

माझे सिनेमा वेड

सध्या मी फारच फिल्मो की दुनिया मध्ये असते. Fortunately, गेल्या काही दिवसात छान छान movies, serials बघायला मिळतही आहे.  मी ज्या कुठल्या भाषांमधून कलेचा आस्वाद घेते त्या सर्वच मला भरभरून देत आहेत.. मराठीतली "एका लग्नाची दुसरी गोष्ट" मधली कुहू मला फार भावली होती. हिंदी  मधले Barfi,  English Vinglish, हे दोन्ही सिनेमे सध्या जोरावर आहेत. मागच्या महिन्यात मी ५ वेळा theatre मध्ये गेले आणि फक्त ३ पिच्चर  बघितले.  त्यात Barfi २ वेळा आणि English Vinglish २ वेळा. I'm thinking of making hat-trick for Barfi. :D English मध्ये I have become a big fan of Nolan brothers. The whole Batman series amazed me. Person of Interest ने तर मला अगदी वेडं केलं. I have bored my roomie and my colleagues with the dialogues of POI. Thanks Mohsin.. you were such a great help :P

So, after many years I've again started living in the world of movies. मला माहितीये मला ते महागात पडणार आहे. :D Need to concentrate on work now.

:)

Sun khankhanati hai zindagi
Le hame bhulaati hai zindagi
Jo karna hai woh aaj kar
Na isko taal baanwre

Barfi Day

What a wonderful day it was! 36kms of driving, next part of the day in competing over the dialogues of POI's season I with Mohsin and calling each other by names of the characters we liked in it, then 2 hours of badminton, 1 hour of POI's first episode of season II and then at the end of the long day, "English Vinglish" - the amazing movie of the week! That happens when you don't have work. I hope tomorrow would be Finch day ;)

Person of Interest!

Every episode starts with following voice -

"You are being watched. The government has a secret system: a machine that spies on you every hour of every day. I know because I built it. I designed the machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything. Violent crimes involving ordinary people, people like you. Crimes the government considered irrelevant. They wouldn't act, so I decided I would. But I needed a partner, someone with the skills to intervene. Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. You'll never find us, but victim or perpetrator, if your number's up...we'll find you."

And that's the series about. About this mysterious machine and the people working on its output.

[Disclaimer: If you want to fully enjoy this series, I'd suggest you, as I do for every great movie/book/series, not to read ahead or any other reviews, directly go and watch the series itself to enjoy the mysteries.]

So this series is about this mysterious machine and about the people working on its output. This machine, unquestionably, will impress you of its algorithms and the way it works. But the person who has built it, Harold, will astonish you in almost every episode by his intelligence. 

This machine on identification of the crime, gives out only a social security number. You won't know if it is of the victim or of the perpetrator. You won't know what's going to happen to this person. You won't know that person's background. And now you need to get all the information and save or stop that person from the crime. Thus along with the technical astonishment of the machine and its creator, there is one more astounding character whose skills will impress you in the process of stopping the crime. And that's John Reese. "A tall guy in a suit." Both of these characters run this series. 

In the series, both of these folks are assumed to be dead by almost the whole world. And still, they do this great work of stopping crimes. In return, they don't expect anything. Harold, who is such a genius to create this machine, John who is playing with his life to save people; both of them prefer to stay away from being observed, being credited. And when I look at the people around, most of them want credits of whatever minute things they do. Probably I also appear the same to others. Who knows? Such characters, however fictitious they may be, they are the real inspirations to me.

Now talking about the creator of the series, Jonathan Nolan; I'm very ordinary person to comment on him. I can just keep wondering "How can someone be so clever to create such extraordinary things?". Each character in this series has something unique in its way. I can see how much effort he must have spent in designing each of them. I have become a great fan of this guy and his equally genius brother Christopher Nolan. Batman Series, The Prestige, Inception and now this series. I'm sure "The Memento" won't be less riveting.

 

Season 1 = 5 stars

I'll do it my way

I'll Do It My Way: The Incredible Journey of Aamir Khan by Christina Daniels
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It talks about Behind Scenes. It has the interviews with the people around Aamir who made movies with him. It contains several stories happened during the shoots - few interesting, few knowledge boosting. It also tells how Aamir always thought innovatively. For example, QSQT was one of the rare, maybe the first film to have a negative ending where hero-heroine die, Raja Hindustani's second half started where most of the movies end, Rang De Basanti was the first movie of songs with no lipsing, Lagaan was entirely a different concept and so on..

In initial pages, I found it good and inspiring to know about Aamir's qualities, but later they were repeated; just from the mouth of different people. So this makes the book little dull. Book could have been smaller with no repetition of content. Instead of stating things in terms of interviews, if it'd have been written like a story, book could have been small yet better.

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Inspirations

A good way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

One of the best ways of learning how to do anything new (including software APIs!) is to get your hands dirty as quickly as possible.

On Travelling

“I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about; I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people—Americans and Europeans—come back and go, ohhhhh. And the light bulb goes on.”

~Henry Rollins

Courtesy - Renuka Bindu.

Just Another Day

As I'm not a kid anymore, I felt this time it'd be just another day... But it wasn't, as usual. Many unexpected surprises, unexpected wishes. But what I had expected didn't happen. So taking resolution from now on - not to expect anything but to get everything. My just another day went well with few more realizations. Thank you all for all those blessings. :)

Realization

Everyone has been good to me. Those, with whom my chemistry matched, made me a better person. And those, with whom it didn't, made me stronger.

 

***

 

There is a set of people who I like. There is also a set of people who I can survive with. Unfortunately the intersection of the two is very small. :D

 

***

 

Feeling guilty is not enough; action is important. 

Some people think they are very great just because they can criticize any damn thing!

कुहू

 ए कुहू, मला ना तू भारी आवडतेस. तुझं एका लग्नाची मधलं character एकदमच मस्त आहे. ते तुझं कविता करणं, इतकं निरागस असणं... असलं तर खूप खूष नाहीतर मग अगदीच रडत बसणं. मला मी शाळा-कॉलेज मध्ये असतानाची आठवण करून देतं. तसं मी अगदी आता-आतापर्यंत अशीच होते. मलाही कविता खूप आवडायच्या. ते असं काव्यात्मक तर मी एकटीच बोलत बसायचे; घरात कुणी नसताना. कितीतरी चारोळ्या तोंडीपाठ केल्या. नंतर या कामाच्या रगाड्यात हे सगळं कधी विसरले कळलंच नाही. पण अजूनही कुठल्याही गाण्यातली एखादी ओळ आवडली की मी ती लक्षात ठेवते.
आजची तुझी ती ओळ - "चंद्राची उशी करून अंधाराची दुलई पांघरून घेते." वाह वाह! काय उपमा आहे, राव! सहीच! सॉलिड वाटलं अगदी.

aaj fir dil ne, ek tamanna ki
aaj fir dilko humne samzaya...

More I read/listen it, More I like it..

Don't talk like you're one of them! You're not... even if you'd like to be. To them you're just a freak, like me. They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out. Like a leper. See, their morals, their "code"... it's a bad joke, dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these uh, these "civilized people", they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve.

Not getting time to check the non-official mails, is the symbol of stepping ahead!

“I’m tired of trying to do something worthwhile for the human race.They simply don’t want to change!”
- Dr. Dvorak

eldg

काय गरज होती त्या घनाचा कठीण असा भूतकाळ अचानक कथेत आणण्याची? कोणतीही प्रेमकथा साधी सोपी सरळ फक्त दोन जणांची नसते का? एकाला दुसरं आणि दुसऱ्याला तिसरं कुणी आवडावं असं का असावं नेहमीच? मी केवढ्या तरी गमतीने बघत होते ही serial . हट! आपल्याला नाही आवडलं बुवा!

Clicking Birds

One more benefit of shifting to new place. I could click these pics. \o/

It is very difficult to click birds with my 300mm zoom lens as they fly away so quickly even with the little glimpse of my presence. But the above birds are used to human's presence around them. And I got a chance. :) Lovely... they are! And their movements; I just love how nicely they walk moving their neck to and fro. So cute they look! I had kept my camera aiming at one of them until it started flying. And fortunately after only few minutes, it flied and I could follow it's flight and click its all movements. Amazing! Animals, birds are difficult to click. Sometimes we need to spend a lot of time to get the right click. And of course a lot of patience too. But when we get it.. that bliss is awesome..!

While clicking these animals, I have started to know about their peculiarities. And even if I knew them before, to witness them in reality is amazing.

[n] -> [n-1] :(

Staying 2 days continuously in Pune is boring.The evening appears to be terrible to me.
Weekend had started amazingly.Watched Amazing Spider-man. Completed 6 more objectives of my current favorite game - Temple Run. Washed lots of clothes. Did my first try on hacking. Played badminton; for not a significant time though. Watched another movie - Gangs of Wasseypur. Even after being able to do so many things now I'm feeling weird. Earlier, if I would feel weird, I'd start reading books and it would help. But now somehow I'm not able to concentrate on reading. It's been really long time, I haven't completed any book. And now it has become even worse. After reading 2-3 pages, I've started dropping book. Symbol of losing mental peace. Need to work on it. My next step towards being stronger.

Sometimes I feel, more I try to be self-sufficient, more people I'm losing from my life. :(

hacking begins..

My first try (for ethical purpose) in hacking a live portal was successful :)

हा पाऊस मला अजिबात आवडत नाही. असा कोसळायला लागला ना की मला अस्वथ करून ठेवतो. - eldg  (माझ्या आणि अधीर च्या मनातली गोष्ट!) 

Extended Desktop - Extended Reading

Today, I could grab a spare monitor(screen) which was lying on someone's desk. And I rushed to connect it to my system. After playing with wires, now I have an extended desktop. 

 

Without extended desktop, while working on my tasks, if I'd get a pop-up of an interesting mail, I'd open it. I would skim over it and minimize it so that I can read it immediately after finishing my current task, which never happened. With this way I'd collect lots of emails, articles to read. At end of the day, before leaving if I remember to check my list, I'd read one or two and would leave. While working, if I'm stuck on some activity like running builds which last for a minute or so or Windows taking time to open a window, I would open my list of to-reads to pick one of the items. But still, to know if my build is finished, I'd keep switching between the windows which never resulted in effective reading. So I avoided this multi-tasking.

But now, with extended desktop, I get a pop-up of a mail, I open it, I drag  it to the new desktop and keep it open until I finish the current task. If I'm stuck on something I just need to move my eyes between desktops. Moving eyes is a lot faster than switching between windows and that too on Windows. Yipee!

Another benefit of this desktop is, I can keep distracting pop-ups on main desktop and keep the window where I want to focus on secondary one. 

Also, when I want to monitor 2 windows simultaneously, it's lot easier now.

Life is smoother now. I can also not lose the temptations of doing something immediately without forgetting of what I was doing previously. Like I wrote this post *now*... OK, enough of expressing the joy. Going back to do what I was doing.. ;)

My Slow Wit

http://rajasen.com/ 

Few days back, I came to know about the above link though a blog. And I tried to check what is so great about it. It was a review of Rockstar. I had liked Rockstar a lot and because it was the movie criticized by most of the people, I did want to read its reviews wherever I could. And I tried reading what this man had written. I was so frustrated/irritated. Not by the content of it. But by his style of writing. For me, his writing is one of the most difficult writings I had ever tried to read. And it's not only language which is difficult; it's his style of writing too. Sometimes he is sarcastic. If you are not getting the meaning words, then it is very difficult to understand the sarcasm. Then sometimes this guy is very fearless and hence so direct in condemning anyone/anything that I can't believe if he really meant that. And I get confused. This increases my frustration again. The content looks very interesting but I'm not able to understand it. I hate myself at such times. Then I start hating this man for making me hate myself. I know I'm becoming too aggressive. But the positive side is, I do want to understand this complexity. I don't want to miss it. And because of this strong desire and my tries, now I've started understanding most of what he writes. And I'm very happy about it. I will recommend it to everyone specially who like to read/write the reviews on movies and books.

And now I liked his review on Shanghai too. Do read it - http://rajasen.com/2012/06/08/review-dibakar-banerjees-shanghai/ 

“Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.” 
― Lance Armstrong, Every Second Counts

Cycling again

Cycling after longggg time.. Could do because of my new home.

a quote

Just happened to hear following quote from a friend whose nature has always amazed me. Found it very inspiring.. :D

 

"Be the kind of woman, who, when your feet hit the floor in the morning, the devil says, Oh NO, She's Up !"

?

http://iwastesomuchtime.com/on/?i=32643

Does this happen to the very very very great people?

Karla again

Mistakes are like bad loves. More you learn from them, more you wish they should not have happened. - Karla from Shantaram

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...

Lunch table is shrinking even more.

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Turning 30

Initially appeared to be an unrealistic movie. But later, found that it can be the truth for someone; or may be for all of them who tried not to bind their lives to the typical (life)style. It's a story of a woman who is in her downtime and how she tackles it or more importantly how she goes through it. It was a nice watch! Few things I liked/learned -

- Success has a power to wash all of your sins. If you want someone to forget your mistakes, then work. Get what you really like. Not any human of course. Your work. Get into it, succeed at it and then show it to the people who think you have mistaken. But that's not so easy as it's shown in the movie. And when I say it's not easy, I don't mean succeeding but showing it to the people who got you down.

- What can keep you happily alive is your work. So before you get down, and then making your work the highest priority, start giving it priority now itself when you haven't reached your downtime.

- Enjoy the present, don't hang on to the past. Of course this is not the only movie that says that. But still... to count learnings.

- You can be respected only by getting mature. And to become mature is to let go things, to not express your broken heart and to show understanding even if you don't have it. After all you are just what you pretend to be.

test blog

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शाळा

या वर्षातल पण केल्याप्रमाणे लगेच दुसरं पुस्तक उचललं. शाळा. नववीतल्या जोशीने वर्णन केलेल्या त्याच्या चालू वर्षातल्या घडामोडी. शाळेवर पुस्तक लिहायला अतिउत्तम वर्ष ते. त्या वर्षी शाळेत जे काही घडतं ते किंबहुना कुठल्याच इयत्तेत घडत नाही. लेखकाने अतिशय साध्या आणि स्वच्छ शब्दात संपूर्ण वर्ष रेखाटल आहे. पुस्तक वाचताना कितीतरी वेळा नकळत आपण हसत असतो. अर्थात, तुम्ही सुद्धा तशाच शाळेमध्ये गेला असाल तरच. माझी शाळा तर अगदी अशीच होती. शाळेत साजरे होणारे उत्सव, वक्तृत्व स्पर्धा, त्यात पुढे-पुढे करणारे विद्यार्थी, घोकंपट्टी करून पोपटपंची करणारे, शाळेच्या hall मध्ये होणारे कार्यक्रम, तिथे होणारी टिंगल टवाळी, त्यात एखादा तरी गाववाला असणं, ऑफ पिरेडला केलेली धम्माल, सिनेमांच्या भेंडया, सिनेमाची गाणी तोंडीपाठ असणं, एकमेकांना आडनावाने हाक मारणं, कॅम्प मधली मस्ती, मुलंमुलींनी एकमेकांशी न बोलणं, आणि सहलींमध्ये सर्वकाही विसरून एकदम खुलून गप्पा मारणं, मुलींनी स्वतःलाच हुशार समजणं आणि मुलांनी त्यांना बावळट, शिक्षकांकडून पट्ट्या खाणं, मुख्याध्यापकांची भाषणं सगळं काही अगदी जसंच्या तसं. बऱ्याचदा तर वाटलं आपल्याच वर्गातल्या कुणीतरी लिहलं असावं हे पुस्तक.

शाळेत असताना मी जोशीने म्हटल्याप्रमाणं भावमारू लोकांच्या किंवा त्या चिमण्या मुलींच्या category मध्ये मोडत होते. सरांनी प्रश्न विचारला की त्या चिमण्यासारखाच मी-मी करताना तेव्हा खूप उल्हास वाटायचा. आता ते आठवून खूप हसूही आलं आणि ओशाळल्यासारखंही वाटलं. किती वेडे असतो ना आपण!
पण मला बाकी सगळ्या category मधल्या मुलांचं जगही तितकंच शुद्ध दिसत होतं. फक्त त्या जगात वावरायची हिंमत आणि इच्छा दोन्ही नव्हती. इंजिनियरिंग कॉलेज मध्ये मात्र इच्छा आणि हिम्मत दोन्ही आल्यामुळे मी तेही जग अनुभवता आलं. अर्थात, प्रत्येक जगाचे फायदे-तोटे आणि गंमत वेगळीच असते.

खरं तर हे पुस्तक त्या छोट्याशा जोशी च्या प्रेमकहाणी भोवती घुमतं. पण त्यातही खूप मज्जा वाटते. त्या कोवळ्या, अज्ञान वयात प्रेम झालं म्हणून खूप मोठं झाल्यासारखं त्याचं वागणं पाहून गंमतच वाटते.
पुस्तक तुम्हाला जमिनीला खिळवून बसवत याला आणखी एक कारण म्हणजे त्यात सर्वांना त्यांना लावलेल्या विशेषणानीच संबोधलं आहे. त्यामुळे ते पुस्तक अगदी आपलंसं करून जातं.
पुस्तकाचा शेवटही अगदी योग्य आहे. मात्र तो वाचताना हलकासा चटका लागून गेल्याशिवाय राहत नाही.
जो कुणी मराठी शाळेत गेलाय त्याने एकदा तरी जे पुस्तक वाचून बघावं. बघावं, काही आठवतंय का ते!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Finally after almost an year, I held some book and completed reading it. Even if it is not a huge book, I'm happy. "Diary of a Wimpy Kid". I remember when I bought it - only 3-4 days before my sister's wedding. I had gone to buy golden sandals (:-|) which had taken a long long time.. Shopping is actually a lengthy business especially when you are looking for perfection. My sister's wedding made me do all that I had never done before. And the most significant example is shopping clothes and accessories. Fed up of buying this boring stuff and without thinking of the huge list of other pending tasks, I literally ran into Crossword and bought this book.

By the name, definitely it's a book for kids. But I enjoyed reading it. Sometimes I feel kids' books/movies are way mature than adults'. The imagination that kids show is highly fascinating! And Jeff Kenny has done nice job to express such imagination; through words and through cartoons. Some pages remind us of our childhood. How seriously we'd take our mistakes! As if we have become criminal now and are going to be sentenced. How creative we'd become sometimes! We'd even plan to start our own business, join NGOs, help people, improve the surrounding and to do all such bumper activities. Looking back, it looks so kiddish! But is it? :)

I'll recommend this book to everyone who hasn't spent childhood in books.

Players

Players is Abbas-Mustan's try to create something different than Bollywood's typical style and he has definitely succeeded. The plot, the actions, frequent change in angles, the tricks and the technical touch made this movie riveting. I had liked his Race too, but this was definitely better. Abhishek, Bobby, Bipasha and mainly Neil; all have done justice to their acting. Sonam could have been better. But her stunts were nice. I felt she is suitable for this character more than the romantic ones. For a change, I liked Johny Lever too.

The rating to the movie would have increased if it was faster. In the first half the robbery part and the fighting scene between Abhishek and Neil were extremely slow. Later the movie caught the required pace though. The agility of the Hollywood characters make their movies impressive. If Bollywood actors and directors work more on this point, then their movies will also have the same standard. Also, I didn't find the need of dramatic emotional scenes in this kind of movie.

In spite of these negative points, movie makes you grounded to the seat for all 3 hours. So, a must watch!

Rating = 3.5 stars.