If I were Sonia Gandhi

As described in one of my previous post, I like Sonia's style of leadership(I am striking this out after looking at all that's going on with Congress Govt.). Recently, I saw an interview of hers on NDTV with Barkha Dutt. The usually media-shy Maa of Congress has after a long time spared a few minutes and it has been aired for like 5 times in a span of 1 hour. Getting this interview is an achievement, i should say. I can also recall that even Karan Thapar strived hard for an interview from her, but she always denied. Being a fan of hers, I would obviously say that the interview was awesome .. to the point and straightforward(it actually was :) )

While watching the interview, i started thinking ... if I were Sonia Gandhi, what would be my top agenda for the country. I thought of the following stuff and please note that this is only a personal opinion and not intended to hurt anyone:
1. Strengthen the judicial system of the country ... the courts and the police. With so many pending cases and delayed justice, things have gone so bad that one may feel -- committing a crime is not a big crime at all.
2. Ban all the reservations ... entry into anything and everything should only be based on merit and not based on caste/creed/gender. However, in order to encourage the deprived, which is very essential, there are other means such as giving incentives in the form of scholarships etc.
3. Tackle the biggest demon of the country .. corruption with even greater force. Getting information from Swiss banks would never happen. Neither would the UID project yield better results. All the babus have to be thoroughly interrogated and brought to justice .. of course the government would collapse immediately, but however, it would win the people's hearts and can come to power again(inspired by a telugu movie "leader").
As always, I wait to listen to your views :)

Paa -- Haha

Last night, this movie is telecasted on Star Plus and then I remembered that I wanted to write a post when I had first seen it in the theater. But since I was busy then, it skipped my mind. Better late than never .. I'm finishing it now :)
Weeks before the release, I saw the ads and got very impressed on the thought of making such a film and waited to see it along with my Paa. Finally I did, and on the first day of the release itself. There I was at Big cinemas holding my Paa's hand like a kid and going into the theater.
The very first scene where Auro wins an award for the white globe and Abhi explaining what the white globe intended .. it was just ammaazing. I really felt after that, why should we be having these boundaries which separate ppl.. separate continent, country, state and now separate Telangana :)
A part of the movie revolves around a young and dynamic politician trying to change the fate of this country -- my fav subject. And Vidya Balan, my fav actress(after Kajol though) did perform very well.
After an hour or so, I saw that the exit doors being opened. I liked the movie soo much that I felt, "has the movie come to an end already?" Thanks to the frame showing the interval notice, i felt relaxed and thought .. "ah .. i can enjoy this for an hour more" Sounds extremely funny .. but yes, i really liked the movie to the core.
The only thing that I really wondered was why the name Paa? Is it done for publicity as the real roles of the B's have got exchanged with this movie? The story is actually about Auro more than Abhishek. So, I felt it would have been named better :)
I would go with a 4.5 out of 5 for this masterpiece (Masand's shtyle :) )

The mismatch'd guy

This time while going home for pongal, I came across a person who is very weird. I would name him a TERRIBLE MISMATCH. This person was(unfortunately) sitting close to me in the train making my journey miserable.
At the very first look, I've almost identified that he is a krackjack with his very unusual combination of a puma track, one junglee t-shirt(i'm hundred percent sure, he would have bought it in some local market in koti) and a reebok shoe.
This hero has just returned from the US and wanted to show his US-ish style to all the unfortunate folks in the train.
An angry "Khooollll dyoooode.. chillaax"(as if he was cool by himself) was the first expression that I've heard of his. This is another mismatch, angry and chillax :) . This was when he filled up almost 3/4ths of the empty space with his 3 big suitcases and another guy was trying to pull out one of his big bags to fit his in.
After the luggage issue is settled, he bored his fellow passengers to death by uttering his supposedly unique(he feels so) US stories. :) From the day 1 of his jet lag to the last day(that's when he boarded a flight in business class), he kept on telling his stuff to everyone.
A young girl(to her bad fate) showed him her iTouch and said, "uncle see this, you can scroll, zoom soo smoothly on this." That's the end of her life. He immediately took out his iPhone and shows her that this is a much superior device than iTouch. The girl wondered why was it switched off. The kanjoos s**la replies "i've actually have roaming enabled on this. so, if I power it up and I get some calls, i would be charged." But he didnt stop there. He turned on his flight mode to avoid any incoming calls and kept on showing the unlimited number of games downloaded on his iPhone. The girl with a bitter face asked him politely "can i also download these on my device?", to which I thought "Oh dear.. you made a big blunder by asking him this."
"See actually these are all downloaded for 2-5$ each, that is 100-250Rs. per game. These are the ones which are better than the freely available ones. To download you should also pay the money and install them on your device" is what he said. Actually I've missed out his lengthy installation instructions to not bore you'll :))
Suddenly, he gets a call(not in his iPhone. hero maintained 2 phones) from his father who is supposed to receive him at vizag. The mismatch wanted to tell that he is in coach B1. But since his father couldn't get that "B" properly, he repeated "Dad it's B .. B .. B for ahhhh" he started thinking. I thought in my mind "abbe, if you dont tell B for Bombay, you will be murdered." To my disappointment he said "ahh yeah.. it's B for Boston." No, B for your blood... i thought.
All his night was with his laptop watching some English(obviously) movie. I wish he could have his headphones on.
Though I had a miserable journey through out the night, I was lucky enough to not see him again in the station the next morning when I left. That was a happy start for my Pongal, i felt :) and as expected, this time I had a very happy pongal :)

My Gas Cylinder

Confused looking at the title?? Wondering what would be so special about a gas cylinder??? Then you have to read on to truly understand what makes this post special.
Post marraige, I knew that I should be taking up more responsibilities and own many things myself. I should get prepared for leading a new life, in my style. As part of this, I have taken a few vows. The primary one being -- never never contribute to the biggest demon of this country ... CORRUPTION. Now you must have understood the context of this post. :) It all happened this way:
I've been trying to get a new gas connection since a couple of months. While Bharat Gas and HP have turned down my request straight away citing lack of supply as the reason, Indane Gas ppl have responded positively saying that new connections are issued in the first week of every month.
The first visit: This day, after looking at the iocl website, I took all the documents mentioned there. However, the distributor wasn't impressed. He asked me for a ration card which was n't mandated at all. I politely rejected his statement and said that it isn't a requirement. Prolly he didn't expect the reply and started screaming. I boldly said "give me your computer, i'll show you what's mandatory and what's not". Obviously he denied. Then, I said, if you don't accept my application I'll call up your head office and take the matter forward. Surprisingly, he gave his cell phone to me arrogantly. I shivered a little initially not knowing what to do if this fails. But I was stern on not wanting to offer any bribe which that RASCAL wanted. However, I took his phone and started dialing the number. Prolly he didnt expect that and finally he said... ruk ruk, give your proofs and a person will come to your house for inspection.
The second visit: The inspection was done to confirm that I do not hold a connection already. Once that was certified, I immediately went to their office. I was turned down saying .. "arre.. your inspection was just done. why are you in a hurry. meet me after 2 days"
The third visit: "why did you come at 2pm? new connections are given only from 9-1" . I thought "one day your hand/leg will break in front of me and then i'll fix up some muhurat and then take you to a doctor"
The fourth visit(at 10am):"the printer is not working today. if you want you can come after 2 days" to which i replied "this is the fourth time I am visiting you for a connection." He said, "that's okay come once more." This time, I lost my temper. But if I quarrel with him, I was sure that I was not going to get anything fruitful. Afterall, I have to visit him for refilling my cylinder in the future. I said "hope it would be the last time." But the angry man in me tempted me to dial up the head office. And there I go .. i should have recorded the conversation then :) i've told them all that has happened with me. They've heard all of it and accepted their problem and asked me to visit once more and it would be done.
The fifth visit(today):Gud news .. i got it done. Of course with a warning "u will get it only if you purchase a stove from us and you have to wait till your turn for a new connection arrives." I said "we'll see"
So, this is how it all happened. Now, on this last day of 2009, I want to end the year by publishing this and expressing all the SATISFACTION that I've got after this achievement. Things in this country aren't that worse. They are just bad. And it's a responsibility on all of the citizens of this country to not make it worse.
Many thanks to my colleagues for sharing all the frustration I had each time. :)
Finally, I wish all the readers a happy and a prosperous new year 2010. :-)

Random things about me

I was tagged by a fan to post 25 random things about me.
The rules being:
Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. If I tagged you, its because I want to know more about you.
So, here it goes..
1. I am a patriot.
2. If I get even a slightest feeling of someone trying to corrupt this country, I get totally irritated. Should I have combined both 1 and 2?? :D
3. I am a foodie. Like to try new new varieties in food.
4. I love being an optimist. Nothing in this world should make my day down. So, I like to derive something positive about whatever happens.
5. Movies that I like to watch an infinite number of times.. Swades, Iddaru, Dasvidaniya, some other old Telugu classics
6. I wish I become a politician atleast for a short time in life.
7. I want to visit all the 28 states in India atleast once
8. I love to tease my wife :) tease .. on a lighter note please.
9. I like giving surprises. Sometimes, they are flopped becos, I reveal it to atleast one person.. bad at keeping secrets :(
10. Like to read biographies/auto-biographies of gr8 ppl in this world.
11. My childhood dream was -- not an engineer, doctor, astronaut etc. etc.. it was that I should one day build a movie theater(atleast my in-laws should have one) :D. Love to watch movies a lottt.. One day I watched all the 4 shows(4 different movies of course) .. that was a record in my childhood.
12. Feel very badd when I see my friends leave India.. of course they go for their own reasons.
13. Don't really like the company of ppl whose only aim in life is to earn money.
14. Like long-drives .. only if someone else is in the driving seat.
15. Wish there is a concert where Lata Mangeshkar and AR Rahman, both are on stage. I would certainly attend it. I think my list is becoming tooo random.
16. Similarly, wish Abdul Kalam, Jayaprakash Narayan, Kiran Bedi are together on stage discussing about something.. would certainly attend it. No .. i won't club both of these together :D
17. These days, I somehow started liking Sonia Gandhi's leadership a lottt.. love to be a similar personality.. ability to lead a BIGGGG party, being tough, being a good decision maker, powerful etc. (I am striking this out after seeing all that's happening with Congress Govt.)
18. Love to teach students. There aren't really good faculty in most Engg. colleges these days. Wish to fill the gap atleast part time.
19. Used to solve puzzles a lot ... but now, nooo time :-((
20. I wished I could have proposed to one girl(before my marraige please). I could have done that, only if she was't 3 years elder to me, did not have a boy friend with whom her marraige was scheduled to happen in a month at the time I decided to propose. :(
21. Like playing cricket, only when no one bowls me out.
22. Love to learn new things in technology
23. Wish I could have atleast one patent on my name. I love finding out new thigns.
24. Have a good business idea in mind. Would like to pursue it once I have enuf money. This is one of the goals that I have in my life.
25. Wish I could settle in my hometown Vizag in the near future. After a long day's work, it gives me gr8 happiness to drive all my family to the beach, play something in the sands and then have a sound sleeep.
Yeppp.... I've completed my list.
And I would like to pass the baton to Zana, Uday Shankar, Chakri, Ajoy, Naveen, Sheetal, Priyanka, Nandy, Uchint, Ravi Phanendra, Rammohan, Naiem, Pradeep, Sudha, Pavan, Chetana and Navdeep

A smiling story :-)

Today it so happened ...
I pressed the lift button .. and after waiting for a while the lift has come ..
It was almost full.. in the sense that .. if a person inside can move a litttttle, there's room for one more person.
Now, mee waiting outside the lift, with my eyes gave a signal to one of the person inside to move.
That guy, in his own world, did not catch my signal.
I was surprised to see that a girl(can definitely be rated 4/5) gave a similar signal to that guy to move.
But he didn't quite get it.
Then, the girl and me had our first looks towards each other ...... :)))
There was a litttttttttle smile on each of our faces signalling helplessness.
U should note that until now .. there were no words at all. I know this is obvious .. but made it explicit for someone whose IQ levels are low :DD
Ok .. next part of the story now.
As we both were giving the helplessness smile to each other, the lift door started closing.
It got closed 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90% and thudddddddd 100%. It's fully closed.
All this while, we were just staring at each other.
And now meeee took the stairs and went down.
And there she is coming out of the lift at the ground floor. This time we had a full fledged smile and we both left office :-)

Independence Day 2008 - At School

I had a wonderful experience in my life for this year’s Independence Day. I wanted to do something different and kept on thinking what to do since a few weeks.

And then I finally got an idea. Actually, I was planning to do this for the last 4 years – since the time I left Vizag and shifted to Hyderabad. But then I couldn’t do it for some reason or the other. Finally, I made it this time. Lemme not hold it anymore. The idea was simple – Why not go back to school and savor those good old moments? Fantastic right.. So this is how it happened.

I headed back to Vizag on the 14^th evening. Reached Vizag early 15^th at around 6:00 AM. All that I had in my mind was that I shouldn’t go home and start sleeping J .. else I am quite sure that I’ll miss it for the 4^th consecutive time. As planned, I just passed time and asked my Dad to drop me at school so that I’ll be there on time. We usually have flag hoisting by a guest, an inspiring speech by the Principal, march past, few cultural activities etc. on this day. When I started, I figured out that the camera batteries aren’t fully charged. How stupid of mee. Then my dad took all the pains of stopping at each store on the way that was open early in the morning – spencers, more, reliance none of them had the required batteries. Finally I gave up hope about the photographs and with a dull mood, we started. This feeling didn’t last longer, once I had a glimpse of the school gate, all the sadness has gone and a smallll smile has come automatically.

Once I entered the school, after close to 12 years now, I realized that nothing has changed. It was all the same except that it was painted a little bit here and there. Library, laboratory, class rooms, the teachers, peon nothing has changed. I was there at the assembly area and I was a little disappointed that I missed the flag hoisting, but then, I just forgot about it and started enjoying the programs that started later. As the programs were going on my eyes started searching all around the ground for all the teachers whom I wanted to meet. As I could see one after the other, my happiness kept on increasing. Two teachers Ms. Josephine Clements and Joseph Sir recognized me, though not my name and there were no bounds to my happiness. For the rest, I had to introduce that I was their student and they taught me this subject. They felt very happy after knowing about my whereabouts. One teacher also showed me to her present students and said .. “Look children, Amruth is my student. He listened to me in 3^rd standard and he flourished in life. Do you also want to become like this?” And that’s all .. no more words to express this feeling. I was glad to know that each of them had close to 25, 30 years of experience in the same school. There was one disappointment though -- A few teachers, especially my favorite teacher Ms. Daisy whom I thought I would meet, left the school. She was one person whom I thought would definitely recognize me even after these many years. She’s my Maths teacher.

As I was passing through all the corridors of the school, I could recollect some sweet and funny things during my childhood.

• This is my favorite one. My cousin and me, both good at maths used to count the number of “Good”’s Ms.Daisy used to write in our homework book. We used to count Good as 1, Very Good as 2 and so on. Whoever gets the maximum count would win at the end of the year.
• There used to be a teacher in our school. This gray haired lady used to SMOKE in the school. She’s an Anglo Indian. We small kids used to gossip a lottt abt her. Whenever one found her in the staff room smoking, he used to rush immediately to the class room and inform all of us – with a great sense of achievement. And all of us like big heroes used to pass the staff room or go in and ask some stupid doubt to another teacher so that no one would understand our intent. All this just to see how can she smoke.
• There were 4 houses in our school – Gandhi, Nehru, Shastri and Kennedy. I was in the Gandhi house. The captains and vice captains are chosen based on elections in which students from class 4 and above would participate. Until 6^th I think, I just voted based on how good the name of the contestant was. In 9^th I contested myself. In every election, the contestants used to distribute chocolates, note book stickers and used to ask for votes. But I thought that was incorrect and did not give any such stuff. I remember that I got around 5 votes in total. The school’s total strength was close to 2000 students I think. Of the 5, two votes were mine and my cousin’s. I am 100% sure. I just thought of who the other 3 were J
• I remember doing 2 projects at school “Volcanoes and Earthquakes” in Geography and “South Indian Temples” in History. For this, we struggled like anything. There was no Google at that time right.. so .. went to libraries and collected materials from news papers, searched news papers, brouchers and wat not, to make each of the projects 80 pages atleast. At the end, when we felt that we didn’t have enough number of photographs, we just used any picture – be it a small accident or a collapsed building – and wrote it to be because of some earthquake that happened in some year at some place. As it is the teacher wouldn’t definitely go through each and every page of all the 60+ students’ projects right J
• It was the first time in Fourth standard that we played Football in the PT(sports) period. The first time we had this, all of us counted the number of times we kicked the ball rather than the number of times we scored a goal. This used to be a lot fun. This continued for a few weeks also. J
• We had a Basket ball court as well in the school. More than basket ball, we used to play on the border lines that are drawn in that court. So, one can run only on those lines and chase any other guy. This was the game.
• In Ninth standard I think, dissections in Biology lab have started. That was the first time all the students(veggies, non veggies no one was spared) were given one fish and asked to cut it exactly the same way the teacher did. With that stinking smell and students shouting all the time, we finally did it.
• We used to speak a lot in Telugu in our school. To avoid that the teachers have come up with a card system. There used to be one card with “Do not speak in telugu” written on it. Whoever spoke in Telugu had it with them. Once he sees another guy speaking in telugu, he can pass it on to him. The person with whom it was at the end of the day will have to stay back till 6PM in the school or pay 5Rs. as fine. The rest should pay a fine of 50paise. We used to get dead scared once the card was with us. Luckily, I never had to stay late in the school.
• The second standard teacher, I still remember had a watch in her locket. She was the one who had actually taught me how to hold a pencil and have a good hand writing.
• The last hour every Friday was a CA(Cultural activities) class where everyone is supposed to do some activity or the other. I had a reasonably good fame as a singer at that age itself, I think.

I just hope that you would have already started thinking about your golden childhood days.