malls and life..

Best part of Gurgaon is, successive chain of really massive shopping malls located on either sides of the road, maybe on a half-a-mile road strip. Heterogeneous mobs from all sorts of places in all sorts of attire move in to malls. As I see, most of the people(like me..) come over for window-shopping,killing time, just shooting the breeze, strolling around leisurely. I like the way I get lost in the crowd, pretty girls sporting shades, looking busy, hustling around the cafés and pubs,clothing stores, but essentially checking out smart guys, maybe I guess.

On regular weekend evenings, I reach over the malls, may be in 10 minutes, on our good old cycle-rickshaw. I'll walk around, unhurriedly, chewing on thoughts, staring at activities performed by representatives of various products to attract the crowds, occasionally buy a pair of jeans, have some good coffee,perhaps a couple of good fiction paperbacks, then get tired and go back. The other day, I spent nearly 5 hours in a mall, without realizing it. Best part of it in an amazing book store.Landmark. Checking out all kinds of stuff till I got exhausted and ran out of steam. It's truly one of the best stores I've ever walked into.It has got books on virtually every conceivable topic under the sun, categorized in a noticeably impressive manner.

The way the “mall” culture has been spreading rapidly across the cities, doesn’t really surprise me, especially, by looking at the way people resorting to it. Notably in metros, people end up getting clogged in traffic. As the malls developed, they soon realized that it’s better to spend time totally in them, which has plenty of alternatives to chose from on a myriad of things. May be shop around for a while, watch a movie,choose to have dinner from multitude of cuisines around, all this without having to get caught-up & annoyed in serious traffic. In my viewpoint, particularly here, malls are the only kind of place, people resort for amusement . However,it’s quite a sight and I've had a pleasant time staying in Gurgaon.

Sensational T20

Roaring music. Fabulous dancers. Glorious fireworks. Mayhem every where. Completely unpredictable format of the Game. Everything is excitement. Let it be Harsha Bhogle’s description of the lousy throw from an out-fielder as a “slow looping parabola”, or David Lloyd screaming every moment as mayhem & pandemonium, the big screens screaming “Yeah baby” whenever a boundary is smashed….uh…high drama...everything happening in a breath…. Players are charged up; Umpires under pressure, Bowlers pray not to see nightmares, Passionate crowds going crazy and wild, heavy duty entertainment for the Television viewers.
I’m extremely enjoying every moment of the on-going sensational format of cricket, I must confess. This format might not concentrate on the finer points & subtle nuances of the game, but it’s the flavor of the season. I’m pleased that, match schedule timing has been perfect for me, at least for India matches so far. I reach my flat from the office around half past 8 in the night, & we’ll be perfectly geared up to have a blast with the rapid force format of cricket. One moment it’ll be 2 Wickets in 2 balls, a couple of minutes later, batsman smashes 6 sixes in 6 balls. Television Rating Points (TRP) are sky high, Advertisers are making fortunes. Everything is fabulous & everyone is happy about the Twenty20. It’s here to stay folks.

My wishes are with team India against Pakistan today. This should be one of the most dramatic contests ever.Lookout.

Review of Lee Child's 2007 thriller

Matchless style of writing.Lee Child does it superb every time by unfolding different facets of the protagonist Jack Reacher eventually with every book without re-inventing the character time and again.Likewise happened this time too. Lee child hits the bull's eye with Bad Luck And Trouble, his 2007 release.

Child is as immaculate as ever with his sharp, crisp sentences. Very elegant in characterizing the no-nonsense guy Reacher in different angles. The pages automatically turn themselves, and I felt gratified as I moved on with each chapter. "We would all love to walk up to someone and shoot them in the head, there's no doubt about that. We're too civilized to admit it, but we're happy to read about it.The key to thrillers is vicarious pleasure." says Lee Child in an interview.

After 9/11 blasts, Identity proof is unavoidable in the United States. So Reacher this time carries his passport and his ATM card as baggage other than his folding tooth brush.The new thriller starts off with an impeccable sense with Reacher visiting an ATM and finds someone made a deposit into his account. He figures out a hidden message from the deposited amount and realizes that, one of his Army colleagues is looking for him. Reacher finds her and learns that, one of his former Special Investigation Unit members had been thrown out of an helicopter.

Now Reacher and Neagley(one of the unit members) chalk out a plan to put the old unit back together to find out what had happened and make a counter blow to the bad guys. All through the book Reacher is fascinated with numbers and calculations.I loved it when the author writes the reasoning behind Reacher using 8197 as his PIN for his ATM card. 81 being the only number whose square root is same as sum of the two digits, and 97 being the biggest two digit prime number.

The whole plot is very tightly woven with Reacher's unit always staying a couple of yards ahead of FBI whose trying to investigate the same. The investigation remains very interesting throughout the book with mighty twists and turns. Reacher books are particularly interesting for his unique style, as in his way of making threat to a thug in a scene in the book "Buy yourself a bottle of wine, rent a DVD. But not a box set.You’ve got about two days, max”. Sounds wonderfully menacing.Ain't it?

Reacher's unit makes progress with each investigative move, estimating and evaluating odds well. The book ends as the old unit takes revenge against the bad guys as they pick some worst choices of messing with former Special Investigators. Reacher does what is to be done and disappears.

Bottom line is, this is a must read for thriller lovers. Everything is attractive about books featuring Reacher, even the tag line on the cover of the books which reads "Jack Reacher, men want to be him, women want to be with him."
I'm desperately waiting to buy the Hardback edition of Child's 2008 release Nothing To Lose featuring Jack Reacher.Loner.Soldier.Hero.Lover.

Ramblings from Gurgaon

I never made plans. One can very plainly see that in my outrageously infrequent blog posting. Every time, I really, try to talk to my self. Get up early.Jogging.Exercise.Fitness.Discipline. Sometimes I just feel, am I writing just because it’s the thing to do this year? Or is it the trend of this month? By the time the talk finishes, my alarm will be screaming 8:00 AM at an ear-piercing decibel. I wish ill soon come good through all this. A chance arrived, and I’m here in Gurgaon. A new work assignment for 3 months. I've never really lived outside the Pearl City.

In the view of the fact, it’s been a hair over a month since I’ve landed here. Life here is not quite bad, but I surely miss the warmth of Hyderabad. Weather conditions are really awful here. Burning hot. Exceedingly humid. The heat index as I’m writing this right now is hovering around 40 degrees Celsius. I don’t quite know about people over here, but at least for a guy who’d been in Hyderabad for well over a decade, it would be similar to walking in a hot oven. It’s like I’ll be clad and smiling when I come out of the lift, and just within the time I walk over to the car, I’d be sweating as if I had just ran a 1000 meters. But the good part is, most of my waking hours I’d be in the office or in the apartment house where the AC runs endlessly.

To mention about the place, Gurgoan is a posh and extremely urban suburb of Delhi. What I like is it’s entirely planned with a sense of ecological care.
Particularly the place I live around has plentiful of natural flora and plant life. In fact it’s so much so that one cannot locate the houses absorbed in the greenery while strolling around. One evening when I had a leisurely stroll around my dwelling, I wasn’t really surprised by the kind of urbanization that I was staring at. Massive amount living apartments spread out all over. One thing I had to bring up is, it’s quite an expensive place to live in, and also there’s no public transport at all despite over a million people living around. There are cycle rickshaws here and there, but however can’t travel miles in them.

I haven’t been the most studious now when I talk about exploring the cities around, but I’ve been to a couple of places. Delhi Metro ride was premium. While transiting, I was pleasantly surprised when the pretty girl sitting across me got down the metro at Connaught Place, which was what exactly my cousin told when I purposely mentioned on phone that she was very cute. Visit to Akshardham was high-quality. One of the main attractions was The Exhibitions. There are 3 of this kind. The first is an 80 minute exhibit showcasing short films, life-like animated robotics, puppets which portray the message of peace, harmony, service to others in an impressively entertaining way. The second one is an astonishing 40 minute film pictured on a giant of a screen which features the life of a saintly kid who travels across the holy places of India. The third is a spectacular 14-minute boat ride; the specially designed peacock boat travels on an artificial river journeying us all the way through 10,000 years of fascinating Indian history. We pass along the World’s first university, Ancient Defense systems, early chemical laboratories, art, culture, and plenty more. I should say that this is a must-go place for the Generation-Y.

Of Course the visit to Agra was marvelous with me soaking wet with sweat all the day. At the splendid Agra fort, I liked the way I went up and had a snap with a bunch of huge Spaniards bizarrely (bizarre in the heat) clothed like pants tucked into a cow-boy kind of shoes and huge drapes on shoulders in blazing 40 degree heat. I wasn’t surprised when I felt myself obviously mesmerized while I kept on gaping at the imposing majesty of the TAJ for hours together.

Shivaji - The Boss

It was just a typical second show that i went along with friends. As usual, i was having dinner around 9:15, a friend rings me up from a theater near by with tickets, and me over there in 10 min, this time for the telugu version of Shivaji.

I've never seen such scream and roar for any other star(except chiru), and it's no wonder.To talk about the flick in a slick phrase, it was one awesomely terrific entertainer. Right from the kickoff with the Nayanatara Sizzler. She looked hotter than ever with a perfectly toned body.

First half was all about Vivek's comedy and Rajini twisting and turning around the super gorgeous shreya.Here,we have the vintage Rajini, from Cigarettes to mint, magnificent younger than ever looks, flashy suits with designer buckles. Thanks to the super designer Manish Malhotra for his stint.Talking about shriya, she looked incredibly beautiful as ever on screen. Music was commercial and listenable from Rehman.

Shankar is one amazing guy who knows the pulse of the film goer better than anyone else with perfect placing of commercial aspects and at the same time not taking anything away from the class viewers. we can feel the visual pleasure of the magnificently huge sets from the genius thota tharani. The film runs entertainingly smooth with no heavy-duty sentiment stuff.

Second half was all much of Rajini making pay the bad guys big time with his typical punch dialouges. The roar was intense when he says "nanna pandule gumpuga vastayi...simham matrame single ga vastundi("pigs come in hordes, only lion walks alone"). Citing the bad guy in the film, Suman pulled off a stunner with a towering frame and clad in sun glasses, and his "pancha" attire. The Imitation of Chiru, NTR, ANR in a song has got the most deafening Clamor and Roar ever.

"aaru taruvata edu ra, shivaji tarvata evadra"...one of the punch dialogues from Vivek.It's really true. Must watch for anybody who's eying for fantastic commercial Entertainer.

Finally i had it

Last week,Thursday morning, my discolored mobile buzzed.Voice on the other end of my mobile mouthed into my ear piece that we were going for a holiday, and by the evening were were on our way, hurriedly parked ourselves in the train. This is how our(3 friends) cruise to Bangalore got switched on ...I loved it all, right from the kickoff.Messy plan for a holiday. Flashing start to the train..Heated spat with a night duty guard in there for a birth...


Early Friday morning, three of we, staring through the window,at the beautiful Bangalore weather, waiting to get off the train. We were picked up by a friend and he drove us up to his place. All the morning we've killed time just by lazing around, tidied ourselves up. Went for a little stroll, just to get a feel of the place around and for breakfast.We waited for a friend from Surat to join us. Almost around in the afternoon we've set ourselves up to go to ooty.It struck us as a fine place to go in early summer. We had real fun all the way, went past Mysore,Streamed through Bandipur national forest. As we drove closer to ooty, roads got narrowed, valleys went deeper down,the air got chilled and we went on.

Friday midnight,around twelve thirty, finally we've reached the hill-station.It was virtually cloud nine(read it cloud 8000 feet). Couldn't find a room not even in a single hotel.All of ooty was swarming with crowd and was jam-packed.Obviously.What is it, its early summer now. Yep, it was unplanned, and so we didn't had the luxury to book in advance.Everyone of us were running and panting around, trying to find a room in a hotel or a motel or a cottage.Or someplace else.The reception guy at one of the hotels' told us we were very lucky, and said we've got a 'cottage'.And we were jumping at it. We got to knew the actual thing when we've been to the 'cottage'.Its actually a tiny, untidy room built on top of a small house with a cramped washroom in it.We had no choices to make. Had to slip into that room. And the icing(read it as 'burning') on the cake was, he charged us 3000 bucks, which was thrice a 3star hotel price. But we had no regrets.

Beautiful Saturday early dawn. Had a reasonable nap for five hours. Woke up early, around five.But i had to say, we had a very neat view of the hill station from our place. Until what started in a crowded Hyderabad railway station, with an untidy plan for a holiday, has arrived at 8000 feet above sea level. It was freezing cold in the morning.Felt awesome.We were enjoying the feel of it.Standing at a peak of 8000 feet from sea level,clouds below us, with wonderful cool breeze near us,staring at the beautiful step cultivation of tea plants, felt like heaven.So we've started off to drift around. I had been to ooty once before, may be 5 years back. I had that,what they call the sort of a faint trail of memories going in my head. So we had an idea where to go(with me kind of a lead guy :)).Went along to visit some of the places around 25 KM radius, stopping in between for having the delicious tea. So the whole day we've wandered and drifted around, with the cool air throughout the day, got a feel of it and by evening we were back in our 'cottage'.I felt, places like Coonoor, Pykara which are perhaps 15-20 km away from ooty were better than the place itself. I felt the whole of the ooty is getting commercialized with hotels, cheap stores stuffed and crammed in. We were exhausted and have refreshed ourselves and headed for local shopping. Bought some homemade chocolates, purchased some novels in low-cost book stores, had dinner and went back to early sleep.

Sunday early on, around 3AM, we've started back to Bangalore and we were there by 11 AM. We were back in the room and relaxed for a while and in the evening went for a stroll through the city streets. It was an awesome stroll. It felt very good inside, walking along the trees strewn sidewalks, buying some cheap clothes on the footpath stores, making eye contact with some achingly cute girls. We've spent around 2 hours. Time to switch off was nearing by. We've got back to room and got our stuff packed up and waited for the Bus back to Hyderabad. The bus jerked to a halt and as i gazed outside, we were already back to the hustle and bustle of the pearl city.Finally i had it.A nice little break.

a day in a hamlet...

It's the day before christmas 2006.I was excited to the hilt.I was going to my native place, first time in my life.I should be.Obvious.All the way i spent time visualizing plush green fields,kids playing around, cattle grazing, nice little streams of water and all those other elements of a typical village one would visualize of. Finally we(went along with my sisters) got off the train at a place called sattenpalli, and rolled into a taxi that was waiting to pick us up. Forty more miles to knock the destination.Passed through a few more hamlets,dumped off fields,desperate stares,empty lands,and we were there.Mouthed as chamarthy.

We drove past a few crumbled walls, scary streets all strewn along with thorns, and then came to a halt,and were out of the car.We were pleasantly surprised and were gaping open-mouthed when my father and his brothers, smiling widely,were coming out of a nasty construction(they call it a house)to recieve us.We freshened up leisurely and tidied ourselves.Had food. I must say,we've had some really delicious and flavorsome curd ever.We went on to have a stroll in the evening.It's a tiny village.Looked like it shouldn't look.Isolated and deserted and dejected.As we've strolled along, all that we could see was debris and remains of the broken-down houses,constructed a while ago. Hardly any souls.Most of them relocated.May be 80 people if swept all the village.Long ago decent and well-off.Now, where trees and fruits and flowers are synonymous to thorn shrubs and small woody plants bearing sharp bristles.Pulling an analogy,it's like the place to which sharukh khan travels long to collect the lease for a piece of land from a poor farmer in film Swades (i know its exaggerating to the filmi level).

One of the pleasant things during the stroll were the breeze from the krishna river near by. We came back and ate and slept. Next day early morning we've been to the river bank close by. Saw village dwellers loading large proportions of sand from the shore into huge carrier trucks.It's kind of an employment for the village folks. We played and fiddled for a while near the shore and went back dirty.Showered and consumed food. Hurried to the station, just got into the train on time. It was an experience of sorts. I liked it. I wanted to take a video, but i dint need that. I had already comitted all the visuals to the memory.