What do you want to be in life?

Well there are some days when you start to think and keep on thinking about an answer which probably took you 3 seconds to answer in your childhood days. The most baffling question is What do you want to be in life? The answer to this question is the most difficult to find. I have asked this to many people and each of the answers have been so very perplexing. I believe most people are not aware of the answer to this question and they are as confused as the person beside him.
This question is the most common question on which students are asked to write essays on. Well I have also written many a essay on this topic. To begin with as far as I can remember back my first ambition was to become a pilot, to fly those supersonic jets and feel free like a bird. I don’t know how to define this, perhaps it was a romantic sense of freedom that kept calling me to the skies and probably trickled off this ambition. Then came a phase when I wanted to be a doctor. Well I am not sure why but perhaps seeing my aged grandparents suffering or moms frequent ailments probably made me think that if I became a doctor then probably I can reduce their pain. Then came a phase when I wanted to become a cricketer and/or a footballer. This did not last long enough as Dad blew this idea of mine from my head the moment he thought I was taking it a bit seriously. Probably his wise farsightedness saw my dim future in the field of sports which is largely politicized these days.
By this time I had grown up and a sense of rationality had developed in me and I had started to think about my future a bit more logically. I still remember in the class 8/9 I always wanted to be a historian. History was my favorite subjects those days. The old stories and the ruins of old civilization beckoned me like a ghost risen from his tomb. I used to think about visiting those places and work on finding the unknown periods of our pasts. This idea never lasted beyond these years. Then I landed in the mainstream of competition. I could think nothing beyond JEE and IIT. Well I don’t blame my thought as these thoughts were grinded in the common perception of a career. By this time I had developed a liking for Physics and after 12th I wanted to be a physicist. I took up Physics as well but eventually I had to pursue Engineering. Well call it my destiny or tradition I became an Electrical Engineer. Never knew what to do in life throughout these four leisurely years. Life was nothing but a rainbow in the sky. And in the end of my 6th semester I was picked up by a software company and thus I became a software engineer. Well everyone was happy about this but frankly I did not know what was going on. I had no idea of what I have become. I had no notion what a software engineer does. But since everyone was happy and I was getting well paid I became a Techie. At first money started pouring in and started leading the life that I had wanted but soon I realized that something is not right. I am standing in a no mans land and I don’t know what to become in life. After lot of soul searching I realized that actually I am a ship without a rudder and is sailing in the direction that the wind is blowing. I looked around and saw everyone doing the same. But that’s not what I had intended to do.
I had asked this question to many people whom I have met. But most answers are as hazy as the other one. To elaborate this with example; One of my friend told me he wants to buy a car by 2007 end. Well I just asked him then what? After you buy a car what will be your source of motivation in life? The answer was DUNNO. All of us have goals in life may be short term or long term but only very few have ambition. And thus the question-What I want to be in life? Keeps haunting us day in day out. I think if we have the answer to this simple question happiness and peace are just at arms length, so think and think hard.

Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain

Life in its complexity is an amazing journey. But sometimes life can be seen and told in the simplest of way. Yesterday I saw a French movie Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain), or Amélie which portrays life through the eyes of a girl Amélie Poulain. The language was difficult to understand although I have some knowledge on French language but the subtitles made it easier for me to grasp the essence of this beautiful movie.
Amélie is the story of a girl who grows in a well protected family where his life evolved around her strict mother and her doctor father and a not so friendly neighborhood. The classic side of this movie is the fact that the photography and the humor used to depict the realities of life is amazingly powerful. Her father had his mistaken belief that she suffers from a heart disease (a mistake in fact resulting from the increase in her heartbeat caused by the rare thrill of physical contact by her father, who only ever touched her during medical check-ups). Her mother (who is as equally neurotic as her father) dies when she is young, victim of a freak accident involving a suicide from a Quebecan who threw herself off the top of a cathedral and landed on Amélie's mother.After her mothers death Amélie grows up and goes out to work in a pub and the story encircles her life, her aspiration and her dreams. The Two Windmills, run by a former circus performer and staffed / frequented by a gang of eccentrics. By age 22, life for Amélie is simple; having spurned romantic relationships following a few failed efforts, she has devoted herself to simple pleasures, such as cracking crème brûlées with a teaspoon, going for walks in the Paris sunshine, skipping stones across the water surface, trying to guess how many people in Paris are having an orgasm at one moment ("Fifteen!", as she tells the camera), and letting her imagination roam free.
Life was as mundane as ever for Amélie till he chanced to hit upon a hidden treasure (On the day when Lady Diana dies) of little boy inside their house. He goes in search of a boy promising to herself that if she managed to find her she would continue her selfless good deeds for the humanity. She managed to find the boy who is now a man in late 60’s and managed to give him back his childhood treasure, the happiness in him made her feel like an guardian angel. As her practice from the childhood she goes on to make life easier for the people around her, punishing the guilty and helping the ones that need help. Till one day she met her childhood acquaintance and falls for him. She tries to keep her feelings and identity hidden from the man yet succeeds in making him understand her feelings. The images of the painter which actually tries to depict her state of mind is really fascinating. He was like her own conscience that kept her edging for more out of life. Her life was lonely as ever although she tried to fill up others lives with happiness, may be that’s why the painter couldn’t get the expression of the little girl who happened to be Amélie in his drawing. The story ends in a wonderful way with Amélie meeting her love destiny and solving most of the problems that she got hold of along the way like the mystery man in the photo album and so on..
This movies has a rich use of colors and imagery. The most important factor is the simple way of story telling. The touching part of this movie is the way at which the life of contemporary French society is depicted. Every character in the movie should be applauded for bringing their characters to life.
The cast of the movie is given below
Audrey Tautou....Amélie Poulain
Mathieu Kassovitz....Nino Quincampoix
Rufus.... Raphaël Poulain
Lorella Cravotta....Amandine Poulain
Serge Merlin....Raymond Dufayel
Jamel Debbouze....Lucien
Clotilde Mollet....Gina
Claire Maurier....Suzanne
Isabelle Nanty....Georgette
Dominique Pinon....Joseph
Artus de Penguern....Hipolito
Yolande Moreau....Madeleine Wallace
Urbain Cancelier....Collignon
Maurice Bénichou....Dominique Bretodeau
Michel Robin....Mr. Collignon
The movie is really great and is worth watching. May be its my first movie in French language but the movie is good enough to draw my attention towards French Cinema. Hopefully I will be able to see more of such movies in the days to come.

Broken Arrow

Well this is taken on 24th of June 2006.I had broken my leg in an accident and had come to office on that day. Well kinda TRUE BLUE feeling..huh!

19/07/2006- Swimming to Office on a Rainy day-Mobile PhotoGraphy.

AND IT CONTINUES...

Blocking Blogs-A solution to terrorism.

The constitution guarantees us the freedom of Speech and Expression. We as citizens enjoy that freedom. Suddenly after the Mumbai blast the intelligent heads in the government decided that the only way to stop communication between terrorist organizations is to stop few sites and few blogs, some even suggested shutting off Google Earth, many even said to block emails and information exchangeable sites. This is probably the best way they can keep a tab on terrorist activities. Let’s look at the real story, the fact remains that it is impossible to control the net. Either you block the whole of net or do nothing. Because tabbing a few areas in the network will not control anything.
But blocking the blogs from the ISP perhaps defied all logics. How does this stops the activities of the extremists? Well it doesn’t. But what it does is it hides the protests and fury of free expressing netizens against the large scale failure of the government and its intelligence system. Power and politics have become so very arrogant that they have decided to whatever they want. Be it Education, Reservation, Religion and Sovereignty,the government is getting flack from the netizens on its failure. Instead of finding the root cause of the problem they are just trying to gag all the raising voices. This is not justified. Since people elected them, I guess they are all answerable to the people for their actions. And it’s high time they answer. What was the after effect of Mumbai blast-Few arrest, few promises by leaders, finger pointing at one another at the international level, one speech by the PM and rest of the events slowly disappearing from page 1 of newspaper to page 10. The people of Mumbai braved all the hardship and loses to rise to their feet once more…probably to wait for the next series of blast to happen.
The reason my blog remained devoid of any entry was that I was not able to access my blog all this time. Blocking Blogs from ISP’s will never solve issues that plague a country after 50 years of its Independence. So,think the wise law makers of the country, think. Don’t treat this great nation like an Italian Pizza!!

But the HEAD-BUTT....

Football WorldCup is over. Italy has been crowned as the champion. I think it’s justified to some extent that they have won the cup. A team that can net in 5 out of 5 tie-breakers deserves to win. But this final will always be remembered as the one where Zidane head butts Materazzi for swearing at him. Well over the past few days lots of news articles have floated across on this incident. Here is a few of them:

• The actual incident
• The song that was created on this and had 1 million hits in 1 day
• Zidane’s Interview on the incident
• Other News on the Topic

How much of Boom Boom???

The whole nation is rocked by the series of blast in Mumbai yesterday. This once again reminds us that we are so very involved in politics that matters like national security and terrorism are taking a back stage. Kudos to the Mumbaikers who have braved all terror and have brought the city to life the very next day. Here lies the difference between India and other countries. This return of normalcy on one hand shows the tolerance capability of people, breed on Gandhian principle and on the other hand shows the lessening of value of human lives in the country. Imagine this happening in any other country, life would have been stopped and ripped apart. But here it goes on.
I feel sorry for those families whose members will never return from office to home anymore. I feel sorry for those who have been bled by the madness of few fanatics. I just don’t know why this keeps happening in India. If some external force is causing this then just have a war and annihilate the force for once and for all. If some internal element is doing all these, search them out and blow them off. We have professed peace for a long time now. Let’s be practical and practice it now, we cant afford to bleed anymore.

Rethinking India.

Well our politicians and politics never seem to end. Just when everyone’s focus was on the world cup THIS happened (see PICS). Well I do admit that vandalizing a statue is very bad and can be termed as a crime but that doesn’t empower a group of people to go in a rampage and destroy public property running into lacs of rupees. The most surprising thing is that when one of their ministers was asked about his reaction he told that it’s their followers who are showing their emotional outburst and that he or the party can’t do anything about it. Come on Sir you can obviously tell them to keep things under their control. But who cares for the public anyway all that matters is how much political mileage you can gain from it. The situation reminds me of the movie “NAYAK” where a leader lets the whole city burn in order to save his own chair. These politicians should realize that Mumbai needs a relief from the incessant rainfall and it can’t afford to burn the way its doing now. The next thing I fear is some communal color would be given to the whole issue and it will be used in the BMC election! Sigh! Many common men will die but I guess Indian politics have become such farce only.
I am really not sure where the politicians are taking this country. They are targeting education, health department and dividing the country on the lines of caste. Films and social issues are curbed on the pretext of religion; criminals walk with their collars high or become a politician, money and corruption has become the brother of political scenario. I think the time has come to rethink about this:
“WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:
JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;
and to promote among them all
FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION”

It end's tonight....

Finally the day has come. One month of madness, passion and obsession is going to end tonight. Yes, today is the World Cup 2006 finals. Defying all predictions France and Italy will clash in the mega final. France has the dream of conquering the world for the second time and Italy wants to cleanse its country of all football controversies, so the final is going to be an interesting clash. Interestingly the two countries played some pretty ordinary football to start with and then picked up when required and reached the finals. My support will be there for the French team. My favorite teams are out so no harm in choosing one of these two and support it.
One month of madness is finally getting over. May be this is the only cup where I have not missed any single match. Yes may be luck in a cruelest way has favored me. Well since I broke my leg in an accident and had to take 4 weeks of bed rest. I had ample time to watch my hero’s in action. In spite of the fact that I had to spend most of the time lying in my bed but I never got bored. ESPN channel with its loads of Football shows actually kept my mood and spirits pretty high.
This event has seen many moments of glory and many moments of loss. Looking back the images that come to my mind is Argentina’s 6 goals, J.Coles unbelieving goal, Rodriguez’s spectacular effort which may be counted as one of the best goals so far, Ghana’s amazing football, Brazilian super heros falling from grace, Australia’s sad exit in the dying moment, Portugal Holland off the turf battle, Rooney’s Red card and Beckham’s tears, Argentina’s exit in the Tie Breaker, Germany’s shock defeat in the dying moments of extra time, Zidane and Henry flaring up at the last leg of the cup, Podolsky and Klose’s amazing combination, Ronaldo and Figo’s inspiring performance to take Portugal to the semi-final. Last but not the least this world cup will always remind me of refreeing blunders, some of which may have costed some countries their dreams. On the whole my world that was entrapped in the 8’’ diameter will finally come to an end, tonight.
May the best team win tonight! All I want is an entertaining football.