Korea: Experiences continues....

I am finally returning on 22nd september to Bangalore. It will be 2 & 1/2 month by then. Though most probably it remains the same as it was when I came over here, apart for that my enthu for CAT doesn't remains the same.

Over the time, I made some good friends over here. I felt every moment that Koreans are by far good people at heart. Most importantly "Kid" at both heart and mind. And their hospitality has been the best. The worst part is they work too hard and expect same from others. Anyways, thats the reason for where they are Now. And most interestingly, girls over here always look much younger than they actually are.

Some beliefs that I had about the place before coming here got changed with time - girls still hesitate in talking about the relationship status; they are no longer senti with their own languauge; SAMASUNG,though being a Korean private company, its like "Sarkari company" for them but with more devotion towards work; India is not very popular over here in general public though better than most of the Asian Countries; people dont care or know much about other than their own place; commmunication is much more difficult than I thought of, etc. In fact if one lives here for long time, one will forget the use of verbs, prepositions, conjunctions and will only talk in terms of subjects and key words.

The most interesting incident that I will remember forever will be the one that I had on my first trip to Seoul. You never expects anyone to call you in this ChinkiLand in your familior tongue. Though I dont remember his name(their first names are anyway very difficult to remember and last name will always be one of the four guesses that you can make) but the way he was speaking Hindi was even shameful for one of my friends (who is from kerela and speaks a little Hindi). He was there organizing the youth film festival and invited us to watch films. The way he started it looked to me as he was trying to catch attraction of our group for the films. But in the next moment he was speaking though not very fluent but appreciable hindi. And guess what?He was able to write as well. My disgraced friend in no time tried to get lost in crowd before I could start teasing him. We could not refuse his request for watching films and that also for free in the multiplex. At last it turned out to be a nice Romanian film. The most astonishing fact is he was upto that level in 6 months during his stay in India. He tried to contact us later also. But in my busy schedule over here I was not able to contact him back. May be will meet him someday in my own country.

There are many more things to cover. I will try to continue with such posts.

Experiences & Realization

So I have completed 60 days outside my homeland today. When I look back at these 60 days which went by at the speed of light for me I, it reminds me of the experiences and realizations that I had at some point of times within this period. Most of them happened only on weekends because of the kind of work that kept me engaged for weekdays (abt 12-13 hrs a day) and sometimes on weekends too. And I am writing the blog, I dont why, on the day when I came to know my final day of returning which has been postponed thrice and will be making my stay here for about 2 and a half months. The visit to so many places can be seen over here(http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/tej.nishant.shekhar).

This has been for the first time that two of the festivals (out of millions in INDIA) Rakshabandhan and Janmashtami went by without myself knowing that half of it is already over. But then I do realized the importance of so many festivals back at home. Here in Korea they have a some kind of celebration (thanksgiving) in the last week of sep., the biggest for them after Christmas and people out here with an excitement in their eyes asked me about any such thing clebrations happening in India. When I told them about some or the other things happening almost every month they were quite amazed to know more about it.

And along with it INDEPENDENCE DAY was also during this period, though kinda the mood here was same, with Korean Independance Day falling on the same day. Infact attended a function for joint celebration of Indian and Korean Indepeneance Day which was quite a unique experience (http://picasaweb.google.com/arunsdevine/IndependenceDayJointCelebration).

Along with these there have been many other things to talk about which I will do in my next post.

Movie Reviews

As usual, I watched a lot of movies for last few weeks and thought of writing reviews for them

• Shootout at Lokhandwala(**&1/2) :A bigtime manly film with so many heroes (many playing villains) that few of then did not get enough space in the whole film. Its a Vivek Oberoi film (reminding Company) with Sanjay Dutt and Suniel Shetty playing their usual stuff. God knows whenTusshar kapoor will start acting like actor, but still better than his previous films, it seems until unless her sister is involoved in the film he is not going to get any roles(atleast for which acting is desired). A gud entertainer as whole. Camera work required a better work. Dark yellow colour of the film suited the film best. Apoorva Lakhia did made a film in a way which he had been talking all these days.
• Cheeni Kum(**&1/4): Amitabh Bachhan can make a mediocre film look like a gud entertainer. This can be seen for a different style where, instead of routine bollywood treatment of old-young affairs with heavy and emotional dialogues, director kept the situation under control with crisp and light weighted dialogues which will make you either laugh, smile or enjoy rather than just cursing him for the heaviness. 2nd half is better, but for one sequence. Big B and Tabu complemented each other really well which was missing in Nishabd. I watched both of the above films back to back in the theatre and guess what? I got the same seat as well. So it was like watching a long film with three breaks. And it really also showed AB's ability, from an old guy romancing a girl whose father is younger to him to a Lawyer making a judge realize what Police do when it really means business.
• Metro(***):This film is must watch being one of the best so far in the year. Look out for Irfan and Konkana, the star couple of the film. Irfan again showed why he is a class act. KK is the 3rd person to look out for. Rest of the cast played the roles given to them with sincerity. But its actually the script and the screenplay which makes the film worth watching. It captures everything-the stars, all stories, all ages, positives, negatives, timing, their interleaving-so well that it never gives u a moment to keep urself out from the plots going on in the film. MUST WATCH-thats how it can be summed up.
• Bheja Fry(***&1/4):When I came out after watching this film I said "Its the best film I have seen in this year". If you rarely watch films, lets say once or twice in a year, than this is the one you should go. Vinay Pathak aka Bharat Bhusan is awesome. Its a full situational comedy with no scope for cheap or double meaning dialogues. Some situations (its ringing/redial/opening of briefcase) keeps on peaking during the film, everytime it happens it looks better than the previous time. Go out for this film and you will forget everything, but laughing for one and half hours. Bharat Bhusan will not give you time to deviate from his acts and dialogue delivery. BEST FILM OF THE YEAR.
• Ta Ra Rum Pum(**&1/2): A full family entertainer, "live ur life, live ur dreams" funda film. Lead roles have been played superbly which makes film worth watching. Few squences(car crashes/races) have been shot really gud which makes you feel bollywood is coming of age. Background acore by Vishal-Shekhar is another attraction. I watched it twice in the theatre.
  
• 140 ki last local(**): A proper boyish film. I found people who came up with their family or GFs looked embarrased with the kind of jokes and language used in the film, otherwise would have enjoyed it a lot as we people did. An average incident based film with a good, different script. I would say a good time pass where you can enjoy the kind of dialogues like Uncle maachis milegi kya, aag lagani hai.....aunty bhi chalegi. Average acting by the cast and a gud background score especially "Laaree choote" which has been a big hit.

Witness of changing times

Some day back during the WC (when India was still in race) one of my friends asked me "Why u people don't buy TV...its really worth buying it now". And I was able to give him two reasons: it gives me an opportunity to go to my friend's sweet home and then enjoy matches together there in an envoirnment full of cricket enthusiast and if we buy TV, then after long days in office, sticking to TVs which we have seen in some cases will decrease the socialization aspect of life (with friends/roommates/others) to minimal. With few people's appreciation I felt my explanation overall made sense. And also made me write this blog about the college days.

With so many people (56, if I remember correctly) joining hostel from different parts of country, the various ways of entertainment was always high on everyone's mind. I remember with no personal computer in our hostel batch in first semester, it helped everyone a lot to interact, socialize, share, be creative and even identify each others habits very closely. With only a small computer room with about 7-8 PCs, it gave every person enough time to spend time out of their rooms. I do remember people who after 1st year were rarely found out of their rooms were never in their rooms after returning from institute for 1st two semesters. There were full bakaiti and haha hihi chaupals, bumps sessions, sports activities, visits to almost each and every 20 rooms and then these PCs started arriving which changed a lot many aspects of hostel life. One of my friends having CD player and speakers and the other having a two-in-one were the only source of music in the whole wing. That was also the time that on slightest hint everyone used to assemble for everything. I still remember a day when whole batch ran, like a 100m race, after a couple of guys to give them bumps for spreading wrong information about someone's birthday (which had resulted in that guy getting a lot of bumps with nothing ON) and then came after me because they were not able to locate them at the place told by me. Then people used to share their personal troubles, complains about the system, day happenings, plans and I believe hanging around at different places in Delhi itself with friends was much more during those days. 1st PC in the whole batch was brought in 2nd sem by my friend who used to stay in the room which was just in front of mine. And in a way his life changed-few classes(almost none), all days sleeping(this is because no one let him sleep in night for obvious reasons), full time LAN games (i still remember those AOE sound effects) and definitely his interaction level decreased.

By 2nd year most of the people got their PCs and the socialization level decreased more which can be for many reasons like exposure to many new interesting arenas, time pass activities or may be learning few more things, though this last thing must be the case with least possibilty. And with few other aspects of sincerity to improve CGPAs, political and ambition clashes, personal commitments emerging ,this got reduced to minimal level.

With the latest batch that entered hostel, while I was leaving, this thing changed very much with many guys bringing their PCs or laptops along with the basic necessity that they brought with them to live in hostel. And that left with me no surprise when I get to know few guys not remebering their batchmate's names even after a month (we used to remember them in 3 days!) because they had been too busy getting adjusted to the system or just fascinated with the kind of things that they are exposed to using the LANs(DC++ which started from IITD is a big hit in all IITs and everyone who went through the transition from IPScan and Sharescan to 0DC++ knows what kinda effect this thing had and still has) or the Internet itself or even without these things the PC itself has so many options to keep one engaged.

If I remember those days I do believe that these PCs do made a lot of changes in our hostel life and though in a sense it made many things better but in other it made many things worse. And I don't know whether this TV will have the same impact but surely it made me reminisce the dull effects that PCs brought in our happy and happening hostel life few years back.

Movies Movies and Movies

Movies Movies and Movies. This is a thing for which I have been regular since I shifted from the initial accomodation provided by my company in Bangalore and it rightly coincided with Jazz bringing his Yamaha from his hometown and HB buying his new Apache. And since then there have been movies every weekend, may be two in a week also. And most of the credit goes to HB for enthu that he kept showing to make people watch more and more movies. A big thing that changed from IIT time is that I don't watch movies on computer rather in theatres. And another change is it can be any film without any starcast or good previews, i mean if we decide we need to watch a film we go irrespective of anything and thats why list includes films like "Shiva", "Naksha"(3rd film in Bangalore), "Woh Lamhe", etc. The journey started with "Omkara"(costliest movie I ever saw); proceeded with "Lage Raho Munnabhai"(which i saw thrice in theatre) during ofice hours, on the day I was allotted my project and on the encouragement of my boss; and went on getting strengthened with all the movies that I have seen till now. We though prefer a bit cheap theatres as we are the regular guys watching almost every film in theatres, but still that is a preference and not a necessity as many films are shown only in multiplexes.

There has been gud times when we watched films in gud number but "Dhoom 2" was the one in which went in larges nos (11 if i remember correctly). It was also the first one for which we bought tickets in advance(infact we went twice),"Guru" being the the second. There are different kind of experiences associated with different films as well. "Naksha" was the one in which Sasu did not turned up(that also along with Sid'd bike) even after buying tickets which was because of the start of series of "events" that later made us associate with Sasu a lot.

"Jaan-e-man" is the only film which we watched in our group but HB was not there. This film is the one in which our intrinsic qualities of comments/cheering/anticheering etc became extrinsic to everyone as film came out to be a proper skit in first half. Omkara is the only film in which Lalit accompanied us. "Honeymoon travels Pvt Ltd" is the only film which I did not watched with the whole group. "Babul" is the film which is on the top of the films on the recieving end of HB's abuses. Though I dont remember HB abusing any other film to any extent. We have watched most of the films in Rex or Symphony with PVR fortunate enough to be our host for one or two. "Vivah" has been the one for which we travelled maximum distance to watch in GandhiNagar. The endless list also includes "Bhagam Bhag", "Saalam-e-ishq", "Nishabd", "Casino Royale", "Don", etc.

May be its a weekend effect or something else but it surely drives us (atleast HB and me) to watch films. This may be just for time pass or may be bacause of habit of watching films or being movie buff or may be there is no concern now for the money that I spend on these films or just to carry up the image that I have build over the days by watching new films in hall or may be to have break from the very scheduled monotonous life(though this has also started to become monotonous) or may be a mix of all; but this has now been regular with me for past 6 moths.

After the rent that I pay for my sweet home, I believe movie tickets are the thing that comes second on my monthly expenditure (not considering food as it is essential). But what I can say surely about this habit is it definitely gives me a break from everything and this is the time during which there are no concerns, no thoughts, no tension about anything because apart from enjoying film, my film making and dramatics pursuit make me take interest in cinematogaraphy, camera angles, overall directions, predictions of the film without thinking for other considerations. Though I try not discuss these anymore with people out here as I have been on recieving end for few times on starting the discussion.

Ans I believe this is not going to stop in near future with a long queue of films (includes everykind) awaiting for we people to watch them with "not getting bored" spirit.

Fever is back

The fever is back and yes its back with a bang! I am talking about the fever which will be gripping atleast 8 countries in the world for next about one and half months. And for India this will be like a full envoirnment, ambience, enthusiasm, passion, influence, integrity, emotions, etc of a big festival which will there for so long, atleast till the INDIAN team is performing according to their hopes. This World Cup will be largest in terms of teams(16) participating but actually the cup will start once the fight between top 8 teams begins. I have not seen anything in this country with so much diversity uniting people to such an extent. This is one thing which brings people from all regions, customs, languages, beliefs(including superstitious beliefs), religions, economic class to cheer for the same cause and even if their personal concerns and loyalties comes up, the final hope is all the same.

On the personal front WC generated very good memories each time it arrived. In fact its the 1992 WC that i can remember as the one which made me mad about watching cricket and this madness only grew up with the time. India winning against Pakistan and Javed Miandad's frog jumps may be the moments which will remain fresh for almost everyone who watched the WC. Otherwise India losing few close encounters with against Australia in particular(I remember people shouting out six and then watching Raju getting run out) and the rain rule ruining SA party was the most worse in terms of emotions.

1996 was the one which helped Sachin start his world record breaking streak. And for sure Ajay Jadeja's blast against Waqar will be there in Indian cricket history for many years to come. But the semifinal will remain buried sadly in many people's heart. 1999 was the one successfull for many on personal fronts(Rahul,Saurav) but yeah India won the little battle "thrice" in a row.

2003 was a special one because that gave a chance to the present generation to watch Indian playing the final and the result was the worst one can think of. But again "Sachin is God" was proved. The six against Shoaib, Caddick and other innings are worth watching million of times. But the glory still remains unachieved. This has been the WC which I enjoyed watching most becuse of the hostel ambience and about 400 people turning hostel TV rooms into grounds with all kind of cheering and anti cheering that one would have loved to be a part of. It was an era which everyone will like to be repeated for every such occasion and I will surely miss many people and discussions around here while watching WC.

Every WC has moments which make one joyful as well as full of sorrow or anger as if it was not a game but a part of passed time of their own life. May be this WC will bring the best end to my as well as other's hopes but what I am sure is that this is going to effect normal life of many people out there with the time of matches not matching with the timing of biological life and also may be the productivity and work efficiency of the country as a whole will also suffer.

Old times ....time pass

It looks like to me, infact i have started believing it a lot, as more and more time progresses I want to be more in the past, revisiting old times again and again, imagining them, laughing at times when I cried alone or sometimes with many, becoming nostalgic for times that I spend laughing or enjoying with many(wait for those people in next blog) . It makes me think how cruel this "time" is which makes one feel presently exactly opposite of the feeling that one had at the time he is trying to reminisce. But its angel in the way that it gives you something to keep with you all throughout your life i.e. memories.

These memoirs comes out to be union of the time we enjoyed innocently in school with school friends, the time of sorrow and joy that we relished together with our college mates and then once again during those initial two months that I spend with few special people out here in my first corporate life. School times are one to which everyone wants to go back and rewrite it once again. In those days everything was like as innocent as the pitch on the first day of a test match, without any deep rooted and pre moulded thoughts about anybody. Comparing that to the present day, where one start to observe and develop thoughts about someone before even saying hello to him, makes me feel so bad and irritating but these things have settled so deep that I feel its easy to go back in past and live life once again than start thinking innocently once again.

College life is indeed the best part of life that everyone had. And its the part that one always enjoying reciting to others whenever he gets a chance and surely that does not stop after one go. The recitals may be about endless night outs; Nescafe/Canteen trips; practicing for a lot many events and waiting for the next, the day one ended; cheering and anti cheerings; bakaiti; politics and planning; judgements apart from other regular recitals(list is endless). But this was also the time that I judged a lot of people may be because once a leader always wants to be a leader or may be they made me judge them or may be jealousy made me judge them or may be I innocently judged them or may be politics made me judge them and lastly may be academics and future of theirs and as well mine made me do that. But this was the time I lost innocent thinking about anyone but started to have some deep rooted thoughts. I believe this happens with everyone and this is carried out from here for full life. And may be this blog also has this element in it. But as much I cherish the moments that I spend, I also regret missing few things and over doing few things which again may be the result of the judgement phase that I talked about. But this is the time I believe will remain the best part of life throughout my life.

The same haha hihi life continued here where I am presently. Though it became memories too early but it was the one that alteast I had not predicted. It was almost the same college life and the corporate world only started after about two months or so but these memories will remain as fresh in my life as has been the the first day I went to school.

May be thats how life will go on trying to go back few years back everytime clock clicks for the next second.

War between Heart and Mind

I have this war between my heart and mind for almost 2 years now. This war has been between creativity and routine well defined algrithm, between what u luv to do and what u r required to do, between risk taking and knowing atleast the minimum benefits, between not taking things for granted and taking it granted, between new challenges everyhour(by everyhour I mean evryhour) and may be new challenges every week or fortnight, between doing every thing of my own and doing things according to other's wishes, between enjoing and trying to enjoy..................

I dont know how this idea evolved in my heart !(mind this), but for past more than a year an ambition of opening my own Ad Agency has been there in my heart. This may be because of something that really interested me in my school days or may be because of the exposure that I got during my IIT life or may be both, but what I am sure of is that this is the thing which i will enjoy doing in my life best. Creating new ideas, new imaginations with really no boundaries, connecting thoughts, linking aspects, evolving background, team work (this is the place where i have seen this working to maximum), using everything that- u have been with-u have passed along-u have experienced-u are trying, learning and reusing and expressing the real thinking, these all are like inviting my heart to chase them. But then this mind comes....

This mind raise a lot of questions....am I realistic? am I practical? Who is going to trust my abilities? Who is going to give me work? Where do i get the money? and most importantly how i am going to start? .....then an important thing that mind always bring is that my all experiences have been with a team who all enjoyed doing all these at that stage of their life....will I be able to carry the same enthusiasm and passion alone. And when I asked people with whom i worked a lot, it helped my mind create a lot many doubts and concerns. Sometimes it gives a feeling as economic security many a times, in fact I would say most of the time, help one chase his passion without any fear and concerns. I saw most of the people, atleast from the part of country to which i belong, just going along with the regular and tested trends without any thoughts and regrets and few not strong enough to chase their dreams if they had any. Exceptions are there (I heard about a guy who comes from a small place and loved cooking from childhood days and presently working as head chef in Taj group) and that do inspire me.

For this moment I may not mind to delay this war for sometime and most probably in near future one of either my heart or my mind will then still stick to its beliefs and thoughts and whichever dilutes its present thought will help me decide in favour of the other.

Learning...a bit different

I have been in this introspection phase for last how many days i dont know myself. And worst part is how long this is going to be thats also not crystel clear to me. As like almost every IITian I want to see me doing Indian MBA throught CAT. Then sometimes this big ambition or "chahat" for doing it from some international college which i may not be knowing now also looms over. This last 8 months of chill, relaxed, bakaiti, a life full of haha hihi is now like an overodose of all these things. And apart from this, on suggestion of few of my close friends, CFA has also started occupying a part of my introspection phase.

I dont know whether I am delaying my decision because of exploring all alternatives before finally arriving at something which inspires me or my present life is making me delay it forever. Though this short life here made me learn many more things not only technically or academically but on personal front as well. I remember one of my friends here talking about a number of non-IITians big stature people pushing around other people here and questioning as whether we are at the rite place. But what i found in contrast was though only very few IITians are occupying managerial and leader seats over here, most been taken care by others, it gives a feeling as these non-IITian people have been really the people who are actually taking the company forward. These are the people who have the real urge to learn and implement. Its like here i found MCA(Master in computer applications) leads explaining OS concepts to an IITian very common. These IITian always remain under the feeling as they remain under achieved or need to do something out from here. I think here comes the definition of satisfaction and What I need to do in Life becomes really important. And its not that these people(non-IITians) have been doing the routine job only, some of them are really so talented in many other fields with some being big time choreographers, some part of music bands in their prime days and still so down to earth. This i felt as stong contrast to IITians who always love having people around them to whom they enjoy telling the stories of what different kinda things they have been doing in their college life.

I dont know why i thought of writing a blog on this but I got to learn from these people so much that it made me think a bit differently towards life and made me write my perception of this situation of so many people, atleast around here.

Its a short and beautiful journey within this long one

The only time i really feel that it was worth buying ipod/ishuffle is (which other my colleagues got as gift from the company few days back) in the morning when i come office walking. Mind u it was one of the 1st things that i bought from the money that I started earning about 8 months back. Its during that 10-12 min walk that songs that plays on my ipod gives me an immense pleasure and sometimes the actual meanings of the songs and music make me think, inspire or sometimes even raise enthu to such a level that had it not been the big crowd that keep coming in between my walk it would have made me dance on the footpath itself. I don't know where its my ambition (yeah i am calling its an ambition) of making the new morning a good morning or just like that, but it surely makes a gud start for the day. Its that 10 min journey that i wish to be a bit longer everytime so that the last song that i am listening is completed before i enter my cubicle or may be because of alltogether different reason. Sometimes songs like "sandeshe aate hain..." from Border makes it a "single song journey". And its really listening song from Iqbal, "Aashayien.." in morning thrice (kept on pressing the back button) today during this my short journey that made me decide that today i am going to start writing blogs ..though i am not a gud writer..but just giving it a try.

"Kuch aisa kar ke deekha ....khud khush ho jaaye khuda....aashayien"

Its the same song which also made me think what am i doing for these days. It has been like, these endless days will keep on passing and I will keep myself in introspection phase without any conclusion. I am not even able to give answers to myself. There was a single ray of hope which also got expired today and that also not on the good side. (May be this also inspired me to write my first blog). So it is turning out to be a long journey without any mission, without any creativity which i had given due respect all thru my life, without any manzil, without any conclusions. without any answers, without even any questions, without any sweat, without any breaks, without any consciousness of what i have been doing, without any effort, without any results, without any achievement, without people i would have loved to be with but yeah with few good people, with few good pals and with few successes(mind it..its not achievement) here and there. Nothing has been the driving force that is what makes it all bad journey.

Its that short journey in morning within this long journey that sometimes gives new "Aashayien..". And that may be the reason that makes me hope it to be a bit long every time i enter my cubicle in morning.