Some observations

Since last three days all we have seen and heard of is news about terrorists attacking Mumbai. All of India has one, two or may be a lot more things to say about the whole incident, everyone has some opinion on someone or the other associated directly or indirectly with the episode. And so mentioned below are some of my observations based on what I have been seeing on TV before, during and after the incident:

@ Terrorists: 10 terrorists against more than 300 NSG commandos and yet they were able to hold ground for three days. I am highly interested in understanding the psyche of such men, what is it exactly that motivates them to kill innocent people, what is exactly the point which such people are trying to make, do they really think that by killing innocent people they will be able to win something for themselves, after all against whom do they have all the hatred and anger. If someone comes up to me and tells me to carry out such an act for whatever he may offer to me, I cannot imagine myself doing it. Then, what is it that is told to such men which motivates them to be a part of such operations knowing that they would not be able to hold their ground for long and would ultimately perish, which actually happens in most terrorist actions.

@ All political leaders: While the action was still being carried out, BJP runs a campaign wherein through a letter, our former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee, makes inability of the government to fight against terrorism an election agenda and seeks votes from the voters. And this campaign by the way is not even for national Lok Sabha Election but for the Delhi assembly election which were scheduled to be held on that day. How can a senior leader like him be a part of such a campaign? And how idiot can those people be who thought of such a campaign and how insensitive can those leaders be who approved of such a campaign. Rather than being in Mumbai and suppoting our commandos, politicians are busy seeking votes.
And then today morning, we hear about our home minister Mr. Shivraj Patil's resignation. So, instead of highlighting the point that he has resigned because of his failure to fight terrorism, all of the congress is focussing on the fact that L.K Advani did not resign in his time and look our minister has resigned. Again, a very basic lack of common sense and sheer stupidity on the part of our politicians.
Maharashtra home minister R.R Patil makes a statement that such small incidents keep happening in bigger cities. Can Mr. Patil please explain in what regards is this incident a small one. I feel that by making such a statement, he has actually degraded the sacrifices made by all those officers and men killed in the attack. How can someone be so idiot to make such a statement? Rather than asking for him to resign, he should actually have been sacked from his ministry.
In an all party meet convened by our Prime Minister, our leader of opposition and a future prime minsterial candidate L.K Advani is missing and the reason given for his absence is that he is busy in an election campaigning and therefore could not make it to the meeting. Fantastic!!! what is more important: coming to power and becoming a prime miniter or ensuring India's safety and prosperity. For someone who gives a higher importance to the former issue, has absolutely no right to be in the politics. Very simply, if someone is in politics sitting in Lok Sabha, his/her primary objective should be to ensure that India grows and becomes a developed economy but all such people worry about is how to rule the centre.

@ Raj Thakerey: Where are you Sir? Over the three days and beyond, no one has seen any comments from Mr. Raj Thakerey. I am sure everyone would have understood the point which I am trying to make, with people from all over the country and not just Marathis coming together and rescuing Mumbai. So, I just have one thing to say to Mr. Raj, this country India belongs to Indians and therefore all of us are first Indians and then Hindu, Muslim, Sikh etc and then may be UP, Southie, Marathi etc. Therefore there is no place in our country for someone who calls himself/herself first a Marathi or may be something else and then an Indian. So I would request Mr. Raj to take all the Marathis (who so ever feels that he is only a Marathi) with him and go to some place where he can find only the Marathis to live with. Why trouble us Mr. Raj, please leave our country and go. We do not want people like you in our country.
And I fail to understand those who support him. Can't such people understand that you are shedding the blood of your fellow countrymen and what is it that is stopping you from living together and in harmony. Such people seem to lack sheer common sense and how idiot or stupid can they be to follow an even more idiotic mind like that of Mr. Thackerey. So, please follow advise, simply leave, you will be happy and so will we.

@ Aam Junta: My friend calls me and tells me or rather asks me that her good friend from her engineering college died in the attacks and therefore what she should do. He was the only son to his parents. Then yesterday, I read an account of one of our alumni losing his very good friend. Do I or anyone else has any answer to the question which the girl asked? Aam Junta is defnitely angry, and wants to see some action now, probably every one has had enough. People are talking about the spirit of Mumbai, but the problem is that we are becoming used to terrorism, terrorism has now become a part of pur lives. This, my dear friends is an extremely dangerous sign and therfore our government and officials should take some action. If not now, then when?

@ Pakistan's involvement: News is coming thick and fast that all the terrorists belonged to Pakistan and there is a clear involvement of them in the attacks. But no action has been taken so far. Either, we have no proof to establish that Pakistan is involved or we do not want to do anything. If the Indian experts are so damn confident about Pakistan's inolvement, why don't we share all the evidence with UN, USA and other international bodies and help declare Pakistan a terrorist state. If all the world countires get convinced, we can look at cutting all ties with Pakistan, stop the supply of all the exports to the country and grow more international pressure on them to finish all terrorists camps and organizations. Remember, when America was attacked, they finished entire of Afghanistan and since then there has been no further attacks on the country. And in our country, attacks are happening regulary and at increasing frequency now. I can understand that it would not be as simple as I have written but this can certainly be one way, after all war may not be the only solution.

Today even my ipod has refused to play any song, it can't think of any for the occassion, so sad and so bad is the situation of our country!

I m gonna miss those days.....

I begin this post by congratulaing my dearest friend and my wonderful room mate at MDI, Vineet and another dear friend from Jamia, Shiti on their marriage and wish them a very successful and a happy married life ahead. I must admit, it was a great experience sharing the room with you buddy, moments that I will never forget....you getting up in the morning (I used to wake you always) and logging on to orkut, pagalguy, gmail and various other sites and discussion forums even before your eyes were fully open (who on earth does that but Vineet)....always the one doing the laundry (thanks to Vineet, I never did that even once during the two years)....handling the IT infrastructure of every room in the hostel ( I won't mention which part of the hostel though)..endless hours of talking on phone and chat ( and always distrubing my sleep :P, see am a good roomie, never told you that :) )....many hours of bakar session, countless movies, night outs and eating out. Over and above all this, you have been a great friend as well, one of those few with whom I now share an ultimate level of comfort when it comes to sharing or saying anything. So, once again wishing both Shiti and Vineet a rocking life ahead.

Besides being Vineet's marriage, it also turned out to be a perfect alumni meet with atleast 14-15 people from my batch turning up for the wedding and it was as usual back to the regular dance sessions and endless bakar. It was truly great to go back to those times, remember the things we used to do and shout at the top of our voices, " MDI Rocks" and ofcourse "Chakka Wing rocks" as well. Sometimes you wonder how quickly the time flies, its been almost two years now since we passed out and none of us seem to realize it when we met. Its only at times like these when you sit in isolation and write such posts that you realize that the time has moved ahead at its own pace and so have you. But I always want to go back to those times and relive them again and again, some of the life's most cherished moments I have spent in that campus, moments which will always remain with me and remind me that among maybe a thousand of aspirants and equally desrving people, I was one of the lucky ones to have expereinced those moments. Thanks MDI and thanks to all my friends and teachers who have made those times worth remembering.

" kab milenge na jaane hum yaaroon fir se sabhi
laut kar ab na aayenge wo masti bhari din kabhi
khud ye apna kahe ki ae doston....
I am really gonna this place....
I am gonna miss my college days!!!

Yaad hai wo saare lectures...humne jo bunk kiye the
proxy ka pakde jaan, lafde kya kam kiye the...
milke likhna wo journals aur submissions last minute pe
exams ki wo taiyari, aur likhna wo teen ghante..aur bahar aake wo kehna...
Saala kya bekaar paper set kiya tha

Milta first class kabhi yahan to lagti thi KT kabhi...
laut kar ab na aayenge wo masti bhare din kabhi
O dil ye apna kahe ki ae doston...
I am really gonna miss this place
I am gonna miss my college days

Yaad aayenge teachers, humko dil se hamesha
Yaad aayega ye campus aur iski apni duniya
aur yaad aayega hamesha ye aashiyan
I am really gonna this place..
I am gonna miss my college days..."

My i-pod was just playing this song, liked it so much that wrote it all here...njoi

Miss You MDI!

Exciting times ahead

Last week went well with meetings going successful, work progressing well and the guitar lessons moving on in full swing. And the week ahead promises to be the most exciting in the journey so far.

The second phase of content development would get over in the first two days. Moreover, some more input is also expected from two different sources which would defintely add a lot more comprehensibility to the content developed so far. Why things would now take an interesting turn is because if the second phase is cleared with no more alterations, the idea would now move on to the pilot or test stage. This would involve testing of the concept in a real life scenario, wherein we would actually go ahead and conduct test sessions in front of students in schools and get a real time feedback on the acceptibility of our concept on various parameters. Ofcourse this would involve convincing one school to allow us to do what we intend to do. We have a good product on our hand ( well, atleast that is what I believe !!), the challenge now is to take it to the right people or to put it more conventionally to market it well to the target audience.

As the journey takes a new turn begining next week, as I said the excitement levels are also rising. Yes. there are apprehensions but there is excitement ( repeated usage of the same word, but i do not remember any other) as well and as long as the level of the latter is more than that of the former, we will keep moving ahead, just like my i-pod has switched suddenly to the old classic " musafir hun yaaron, na ghar hai na thikana, mujhe chalte jaana hai...bas chalte jaana".

Enjoy the song, as I log off. Good night!

Have had two meeting in the past three days, and both of them were extremely successful. The project has now reached a stage where the work on content development is on in full swing. The first draft has received favourable response but there is a lot more work that needs to be done before things get finalised.

Ever since the project has gained some pace and momentum, a lot of apprehensions are also becoming an important part of my though process. The feeling of "what if" which so far had never come to my mind is suddenly affecting what I think, the way I act, and how I approach my work. There are so many doubts and questions for which I have no answers because somehow I am not blessed with a far sighted vision which is attributable to almost all the successful people in the past and the present. I am definitely convinced about what I am doing, I know where am I heading but I am unable to figure out what would happen if anything anywhere goes wrong. Actually, the problem with me and has always been with me is that I just cannot visualize things going wrong, the hope that I have from life is immensely positive, which means that no matter what, I believe that if I have put in my best, somehow somewhere things will fall into place.

I am at a stage where there is absolutely nothing to fall back upon and therefore the only way I can go is move ahead. I guess that should be the answer to any query or any apprehension that I have as of now. Just keep the spirit on, believe in yourself, and keep moving ahead. Guess, this is exactly, what I would intend to do from tomorrow, work with a lot more passion, with a lot more attitude and with a lot more conviction.

Now, I realize, how wonderful it is to write a blog and discuss everything with you. Probably sitting alone in my room, I would have just slept over all my fears and might not have ever come up with a solution to my negative thought process. Thanks dear blog!

By the way, Praveen underwent an operation today on his nose. Get going soon buddy, we have a lot of work to do. It was just a small operation though, but small or big, an operation is an operation and it definitely brings in not very good or healthy feelings. And since, it was Praveen, I was a lil worried throughout the day until I spoke to him in the evening and got convinced that he is all well. So once again to you bhai, get back to shape soon!

Amongst all the blogging war that has been going around in the MDI group since past two days, we have still not come up with something nice and relevant to gift to PP. Soon, his marriage will be around the corner and like always we would still be struggling to gift him something which he can cherish all his life. Don't blame me PP, but people are not ready to listen to my wonderful ideas.

And what is this, why is my i-pod playing, "mere yaar ki shaadi hai", its still time to go for PP's marriage. But anyways, as I log off, you guys enjoy the song.

Memories

Last week was extremely busy with almost no time at all to sit and relax. Reason mind you was not work (after a very long time in my life) but was first Diwali followed by My Best Friend's Wedding.
We met first when we were in batchmates class III and became friends when we became classmates in class IV. Since, then we have been friends and not just friends, we have been two people who have just about seen everything in each other's lives. Sometimes consciously and a lot of times unconsciously he has shared with me all my joys, excitements, sorrows, frustrations, fascinations, my past, my present and my future as well. As he got married on 1 Nov, while i was shooting the video covering his entire marriage, I also wish him all the happiness and my best wishes. Shikha (Chetan's wife) is definitely a lucky girl to have married a gem of a person and am sure Chetan is one lucky boy as well.
While making a movie for Chetan to gift him for his marriage, I went through all the old pictures I had and all the wonderful innocent memories of those times flashed through my mind. First stage show of Magic Land, first visit to Appu Ghar, movies and ofcourse the famous benches of Wazirpur. I also wondered if ever again, four of us ( Chetan, Praveen and Nitin and me) would be able to meet the way we used to and chat our way through long hours. I do not know but one thing is for sure, the memories would always remain and a mere mention of it would make all of us smile and remember each other irrespective of where and how we are.
As I wind up for the day, the song " Hum rahein ya na rahein kal, pal...yaad aayenge ye pal" plays in the background. Enjoy!