Bomb Blasts all around

Something quite sinister seems to be taking place. Yesterday it was Bangalore (8 blasts + 1 unexploded bomb) and today it was the turn of Ahmedabad (9 blasts). All blasts quite small in nature. The casualties were fortunately quite low in comparison to Jaipur serial blasts a couple of months back. However the question remains. Is this part of some larger plan to create anarchy all around the country? And if so which city is going to be the next target?

The Mystery Duo

So the star studded Indian line-up did not live upto its name. And Team India lost a test by one of their biggest margins ever. To put it simply they were outfoxed by the Lankan spin duo of the veteran Muralitharan and the newbie Mendis. Mendis actuaaly lived up to all the pre-debut hype surrounding him, getting both Dravid & Laxman in both the innings. The question now remains whether the line-up has any answers to the spin duo or is it going to be another abject surrender over the next two days.

I guess we will have to just wait and watch.

Horse trading and the Dark Knight

It has been some time since I last posted on this blog. In between shifted to a new city and started on my new job. All this activity and the fact that everything is blocked in my office has prevented any new postings in the blog. Today's blog is on a couple of totally unrelated issues. The inspiration for this blog is the daily blog section which appears in the newspapers.

The first issue is the victory of the UPA in the trust vote. It was something which I personally felt should have happened but the manner of the victory with all the allegations of horse trading which took place further lowered the already quite low opinion of our so called "honorable, elected" representatives. Wonder why we keep choosing such people for making our decisions.

And now to the second topic. The Dark Knight. An absolutely brilliant film with some fantastic acting all around, although Heath Ledger's Joker simply outshines the rest. The film did lead to a couple of conclusions
1. Comic books are for kids, but this movie is definitely not.
2. Batman does not have to play a central character in his own movie. He is more of a secondary character here.
But still overall a great film to watch.

And the India-Sri Lanka test series is underway. Hope our star studded batting line up has some answers to the mysterious spin duo of Murali & Mendis.

Till next time "Why So Serious"

The season's flavors: Facebook and IPL

With the league phase over and the knockout phase about to start, the IPL show is about to end. Surfing on the net found and interesting article about facebook and IPL. If IPL had a profile on facebook it might be something like this....

Here's the link to the article
http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/facebook-and-the-ipl/

I am Back

After giving some thought to the friends who actually read the crap that i write, I decided to keep posting my random thoughts in the blog

Actually today's post is inspired by an article I read about a blogger who posts everything about her life on her blog which is more like a personal diary and is getting about a few million hits a month on her blog page. My blog has an average of 50 hits / month :(. I definetly do not want my blog to become a personal online diary but still here are a few things which I did over the last month. Visited relatives, got bored at home, saw a few movies and appeared on national TV (a telecast which I did not see myself) and got bored more. and so decided to re-enter the blogging world.

My learning from the previous month
"Doing Nothing is seriously boring work"

The Last One (?)

It was a mid-August weekend night. Having nothing better to do, and trying to follow the latest fad, I decided that it was time to enter the blogging world. And thus Nishantzworld came into existence.

The blog has coincided neatly with my two years of life as a student (or participant as we are called here) of the Indian Institute of Management, Indore (or just Planet-I). Now after about 40 posts over a 18 month period, I think its time to move on. This blog had posts with glimpses into the I-Life, and some random thoughts about the world. There were quite a few posts on cricket too. The blog was shut down for nearly 3 months during my summers. And now that the I-Life is nearly over, I am not so sure about the future. I think maybe its time to move on.

But before that a few random memories of the last two years. I can easily use all the cliched words and expressions.... It was a most amazing and wonderful experience.... I had the time of my life.... learned quite a lot [:)].... made new friends and blah blah..... Well have to admit that though it may sound cliched but all of this is actually true.

The stay started with making acquaintances with lots of new people. Of course there were a couple of familiar faces in the crowd of unknowns, a fellow student and a professor (both from my previous college). I also managed to find one person who had actually heard of Duliajan to whom I did not have to explain its location. And then the classes and the routine life began. However life was far from routine, batch meetings at 12:30 a.m..... club events at 11 p.m.... assignments having eod as the deadline.... And of course the classes and the professors, each one bringing their individual touch. Time flew and soon it was second term and time for the summer placements. having gotten through it a bit early, it felt good to rise early in the morning get suited up and play cards to pass time and cut the tension. And time flew again.... there were water fights, parties, celebration of all the maor festivals. Soon it was time for summers to get a taste of corporate life.

After the summers got over it was back to normal grind, though the fourth term was much more grinding than usual. This term also witnessed the saddest point of my stay here. We lost two of our batchmates and those were the worst days of my I-Life. However life went on and things slowly limped backed to normalcy, but there was a permanent void left.

The fifth term was definetely the most relaxed.... had more than its fare share of holidays, pretty few classes and the T20 world cup going on... It was a term for travelling and visiting new places. And it was the term for IRIS. Me tried to conduct 2 online quizzes at a national level which lets say were not completely glitch free. This was also the term for catching up with lots of serials and movies.

The sixth and final term was a term filled with expectations, hopes and nervousness about the future. After all it was placement time. It was light in terms of classes but definetely not as fun as the previous one. But in the end all's well that ends well. And the only the thing left here is to collect the degree and walk out of the campus as a Post Graduate Diploma in Management. For me it would be back to the same industry.

So these were the some of the memories of the past two years.

I am not too sure about the future of the blog... whether I will be able to continue this or not? Maybe will have to think about it as time goes. However this would most certainly be my last post from this place.

The Silent Letters

27 January, 2008

Watched the Australian Open Men's Singles final betweer Novak Djokovic and Jo-Wilfred Tsonga. It was one of the more entertaining grand slam finals with the two players playing with aggresion for the ultimate glory. In the end the "Djoker" prevailed over the Frenchman Tsonga and became the first Serb to win a Grand Slam singles title. The result was good for tennis breaking the monotony of Federer winns.

However this post is not about tennis. Seeing the players' names on the screens, a thought crossed my mind. Why does Djokovic begin with a silent "D" and Tsonga with a silent "T". Why are there silent letters in the English dictionary at all. I mean if one does not pronounce these letters why have them in the spelling. I remember spelling knife as nif when I was small because I wrote it the way it sounded. And who was the persom who introduced this concept of silent letters. Must have been a real sadist to have deviced a way to torture generations of people with this crazy idea.

Then maybe this idiosyncracies give the language its appeal. After all, Amitabh Bachhan did once deliver the famous line "English is a very funny lamguage".

Alien on Mars

Maybe I have been watching too much X-Files lately (finsihed the second season now) but this news seems interesting. Mars explorer Spirit has supposedly taken picture of what looks like something resembling a human form on Mars.
Here's a look at the pictures

So is this real or just another hoax?

P.S. - The figure is claimed to be that of a woman but weren't men supposed to be from Mars and women from Venus?

The Kite Runner

Saw the movie today. One of the most moving films which I have seen in the recent times. It tells the story of Amir, a storyteller, and his kite runner and friend and half brother, Hassan. Its also the story of the rapid degenearation of Afghanistan through the eyes of Amir. Afghanistan, a beautiful and happy country in 1976 (when the film begins), is ruined by the Soviet invasion and Amir escapes to USA with his father. However, he comes back in 2000 and sees a strange land completely savaged by the Taliban rule.

The narrative is compelling. One feels for the protagonists and feels sad on seeing the vents which had happened. The move is mostly in the local languages Dari & Pashtu with English subtitles. However there are a few disturbing scenes in the film regarding child abuse.

It has the simple message "There is a way to be good again" and says not all is lost ever

HAPPY 2008

To anyone & everyone who reads this blog....

Wishing You A Very Happy & Prosperous 2008