Rajneethi - Review.

I like Prakash Jha's films. Gangajal was impressive to say the least. Rajneeti is an average film. Liked the direction and camera work. But acting, it left a good amount to be desired. You can also find shades of The Godfather and a very little of Guru with Mahabharatha thrown in between in fair amounts. Also, the scenes moves quite fast. Story did hold me that much, but I also did not get distracted too much. But yea, a one-time see movie.

Ranbir - Not too much force in his acting. As one of my friends put it, did not feel like he was shrewd enough to play 'rajneeti'.

Katrina - Did best what she had to, show her pretty face! 

Nana Patekar - Wasted skills. Only thing he did was smile and escort people holding their shoulders.

Ajay Devagan - One of my favourite actors. Again wasted. Only frowned in the entire movie.

Naseruddin Shah - Guest appearance. Again wasted.

Manoj Bajpai - Best amongst the set. Justified his role nicely, especially showed his angst quite nicely.

Arjun Rampal - Average.

Give it 3 out 5. Watch it, you will not get bored, but you will not be speaking much about the movie after you come out of the movie hall either. As for me, watched in 100 bucks, so worth it

Force to reckon with.

Magic, I simply can't think of any other way that Force India would have got the result - a second position, the first podium for the team. The transformation started in the previous race, in Valencia, where they updated the car with a new package. And as per Force India, the updates would help them to continuously reach Q2 of qualifying. That is what happened and now in Belgium they have just outshone everyone to grab the pole in qualifying. Am a bit surprised that Sutil could not manage a top 10 in the qualifying round as he has been, I feel, the better of the two drivers this season.

Before the race started, I thought that Force India would definitely be in the points and max they would get 3rd place. But the pace of the car was baffling. Fisci did a real great job. Throught the race Kimi could not shrug off the Force India car from his back, the gap being less than a second between the two for most of the race.

The race started with a crash in the first lap, and that brought out the safety car. With Kimi behind Fisci, a car with KERS against one which did not have it, a track where cars run at almost the top speed for around 10 seconds after the last corner, it would have been a real difficult thing to stop Kimi from overtaking. But the manner in which Fisci took the fight to Kimi even though Kimi had overtaken him just before the next corner was highly commendable. I think Force India could have won it had it not been for KERS in the Ferrari.

The future holds good for Force India. They have progressed gradually over the years and are taking the fight to the big guns. Their's is a team with the lowest budget and still they managed to fight it out with one of the biggest spenders in F1. Red Bull is another team that does not have a big budget and they are fighting for the championship. Augurs well for the sport.

The next race is in Monza, Italy. Do I feel that Force India can be amongst the points. Yes. And here is the reason why? That is a track where cars run with minimal downforce and Mercedes engines, which powers Force India cars are the fastest currently in F1. A podium? Maybe, just maybe...

Satyam - Life's learning curve

Life certainly is life. Do not ask me what this statement means. It's like saying "Varghese is Varghese". I never imagined that I would ever be in the middle of something so monumental. If recession was not bad enough, I have a career problem now.

This October I completed my 2 years in Satyam. What a journey it has been! With all honesty I can say that I enjoyed my time in Satyam. A project where there are no restrictions as long as you showed your work was the beginning. Being judged as one of the best associates in my project was and still is the highlight of my time in Satyam.

Much water has flowed now. Pictures seem brighter now, but there are still uncertainties. The major question with me, as, I believe, with other Satyamites, is what should our next step be. Should we leave Satyam in the state it is and watch as events unfold, or should we stay here, but have the lingering question about our future. Questions, not easy to answer. If only I could have a peek into the future and see the results of my actions.

I have learnt some lessons from this incident -
1. Only change is constant. An often used sentence, but mightily true. One time life was so stable, I never worried about my job. Infact, I had planned what my next step would be. And in the next instance, so sudden, life became a mess.
2. Do what you need to do, fast! Do the course you had planned to do, change your profile if you want do, but do not wait for a muhurtam.
3. What you plan may not always happen. Life changes so fast, so be flexible in accepting what you get.

I never imagined that I would be at a point so helpless, helpless to decide what my action should be. I am still a Satymite in my heart, but you cannot always let the heart make the decisions. I am going to be practical. If I feel good staying here, I stay, otherwise...

The day I threw water on a girl

This is incident happened in the cafeteria where I am working. Well, I just had joined my project and was having lunch with my friends. I finished my lunch earlier than them and while they were at it, I waited for them to finish their lunch. I held a glass of (what else) water in my hand.

As I was waiting, I saw this girl from my office (she had given me training) coming and I sat leaning back on the chair with my legs crossed looking at her. And then suddenly it happened. For some reason I started getting a feeling that I was sinking. And yes, it was happening. The right back leg of the chair started going down. The chair was going down , I was trying to get up, the chair was going down, I was trying to get up... And it continued till I was down on the floor with a very awkard posture. More than the fact that I had gone down, I was more concerned with my embarassment. You don't see people going down like that always, and believe me you won't like it happening to you. My friends saw me going down (slowly of course- maybe they were shocked to help me immediately) and rushed to pick me up from the floor (sorry chair). The entire cafeteria was abuzz (with some having their on their theories).

After all these happened, I started hearing some girl saying "Shit", "Shit". Now in all these confusion I didnot know I had thrown the water from my glass on her ( I was struggling for balance you see). That was the height. Falling down and then turning around to find a girl irritated. Luckily for me, she turned out to be quite nice and politely asked me what had happend (as if I knew what happened) and just smiled at me. That saved the day.


I told my friends that it was better they finshed their lunch while I waited outside...better for me.

Another adventure in Hyderabad.

Enjoy the adventure...

Well here is an adeveture story....

I and one of my friends had just finished our MCAD (Microsoft Certified Application Developer, yea folks I am now Microsoft Certified.. :)) exam, and well the next thing to do was to chill out. So we opted for one of the obvious choices- watching a movie. The show was supposed to start at 9:45 pm according to some of our friends ( we came to know later it was a wrong assumption, movie was at 10). We coolly decided to have our dinner and leave at 9 pm (by the way the movie was Rocky Balboa, or Rocky Six). It was another matter we all started at 9:30 pm (yea tensions began-we might be late). There were 8 of us and the decision was to hire an auto...

Now one of my friends, he is one of the best bargainers you'll see... He bargained so nicely that instead of us going in 2 ricks, we all travelled on a single one. Imagine 9 ppl (include the driver please if you have counted only 8) in a single ricd- 3 at the front and 6 at the back. Well none of us had this experiece before and we were like on top of the world doing something so adventurous.

So finally we reached the theatre, got the tickets and went in. Now, the theatre was all empty- somewhere around 20 people. You might be thinking the story ends here. Well think again. We bought tickets for the wrong movie! The problem was, a single compound had two theatres and we went to the wrong one. So it was a mad dash to cancel our tickets and then to the other theatre. Finally, we had our tickets and saw the movie, again with a small audience.

And yea we came back in a single rick....

The Highway Man

Life is journey. It has many twists and turns. One has to face problems as well as search for happiness and peace. Many a times things appear to us when least expected. This is what makes us more ready to take new challenges head on. If everything is known before then it would be difficult to enjoy what life offers to its fullest. We would almost lead a mechanical life, tuning ourselves to what is to come.

There are people who believe in destiny and luck. I, for one am not one of these. However, I believe strongly in a guiding force who helps me and you in becoming what we are and what we would. The environment we are placed in influences us a lot in what we become. Our perspectives become what is taught to us and what we become.

My life has and is shaping up wonderfully well. Nice parents, nice friends and a nice comfortable world, there is nothing to take away. A hug or a thank you or a sorry from a friend assures me that I have been able to influence people’s lives and their thinking. Atleast there is some use of me!

As I stated above, life is a journey. You have to be aware of what is happening to overcome problems and to live the life you want. You have to take diversions, avoid bad patches, take twists and bends as they appear until finally you reach your destination. Precisely for this reason, I call myself “The Highway Man”. I guess it also applies to you too.