Bade dil waale!

Scene 1. New Zealand

Four people drove down to Kapiti coast for weekend excursion and on their way back their car crashed. Apparently they had driven it for 20 or so kilometers without a drop of water in the radiator and in most likelihood the engine had burned out. The car needed immediate technical assistance. Location: Expressway. Stopping not allowed. There aren’t any ‘nukkad pe mechanics’ in New Zealand. They waited for the car to completely cool down, topped up the radiator with water, tried to start, but the car did not start. With lack of options, they decided to call a tow away service to get them… and the car! After about 20 minutes, a big tow away truck arrived. It lifted the car and put it in the truck (as opposed to dragging it on two wheels). However, the driver said that he could take only 2 guys along – as per traffic rules, and not all four! Shit! How would the other two guys reach home?

They still had atleast 150 kms to go, it wasn’t a city exactly to have cabs, it was dark and deserted. The truck driver turned out to be a nice guy, who would go the extra mile to help the strangers and decided that he would take the other two boys also and drop them at the nearest railway station. So all four got into the firang truck. The two small little ones were hiding behind the big front seats to avoid being spotted by traffic cops, who otherwise would fine the driver for running over capacity. On the way the driver decided that the other two guys are anyways not visible and he can drop all 4 of them back home. He did :)

Scene 2. India

Five people drove down to Lonavala and on their way back one of the wheels of the car caught fire. Location: Toll Plaza, Time: 2:00am. They extinguished the fire with water and waited for the tyre and the car to cool down to carry on with the return journey. But as the fate had it, after about an hour of waiting it was found out that the car is not in a position to go any further. The breaks had burned out and there was no hope that they could be fixed onsite by a visiting mechanic, if at all the boys could arrange one at that hour of the night. They were 20-25 kms away from home - actually Hotel. It was decided to abandon the vehicle and reach the hotel. For some reasons no Bus/ Volvo/ Cab was willing to give lift to 5 guys at 2:00 am. Guess who came for rescue? The same old reliable TRUCK! This time the five of them got inside the truck of a helpful driver who dropped them back to the hotel.

Common thread between scene 1 and scene 2 is the truck ride and yours truly. In the first scene, I was one of the little guys hiding in the back so that the traffic cop could not spot us. (The second guy hiding opposite to me was my boss) In scene 2, I was one of the 5 guys and I spotted the fire. The second truck experience was like Déjà vu for me. Exactly same situation, same feeling, same excitement – remembering the Dil Chahata hai dialogue where Saif Ali Khan says “To tujhe kya lagta hai? Mein roz takiye pe baithta hoon?” I wondered if it is the height of coincidence or is this pattern a result of either me choosing crap cars, or hanging out with people who have crap cars. Is it normal to be in such a situation twice?

How many times have you come back home in a truck?

I think everyone should take a ride back home in a truck, atleast once in their lifetime. It is a different kind of feeling. An enriching experience. But above all, its fun. Whenever you are in such a situation, some smart ass would always remark how ‘adventurous’ this journey is. Indeed.

Bade dil waale - Truck waale!

Car stuck on beach

This happened on 14th february. I was awestruck by the sheer power of a 4 wheel drive car and the utility of this feature. I mean, I always knew what this '4 wheel drive' jargon means, but for the first time I saw the remarkable difference that a 4x4 power machine can make during off-roading, as compared to a more conventional rear drive car. On Valentine's day, when most of you folks were out with ur dates, I and my 4 male colleagues drove in our Mercedes C280 to a far off beach - about 25 kms from our place. I know the plan sucks on V-day, but that's how it is in a foreign land - come whatever may u r always stuck around with the same bunch of people. Anyways. I was driving the car. The beach was beautiful and to soak in more of the pristine natural beauty, Vijay on the back seat, was pumping me to take the car closer to the water. I kept driving towards the ocean through the quick sand and soon ...the worst thing happened. Our car with 5 of us inside it, got stuck in the sand! We tried hard to come out, but harder we tried deeper the car tyre would sink in. Man, we were doomed. What do we do now? Almost all of us were engineers. How could we let such a god gifted opportunity - to apply our indigenous mechanical skills - to go, without making the most of it? It was extremely windy and we got down to work. I would disucss some ideas that may come to you in such a situation, and would seem very bright initially, but they would NOT work. We thought of fitting a jack under the car and lift the wheel. Car jack of Merc, is a scientific instrument in itself. Its very different from the usual car jacks. See the picture which I found somewhere on the net, which depicts such a car jack.

The car has an inbuilt hole (which had to be discovered), where the jack would fit in and there is no other way that it can be done (which we figured out after trying various angles and positions for 45 minutes). In the mean time Gopi went to another car that was standing far away to get a 'normal' car jack. He also asked the driver of that car to direct a rescue vehicle to us in case any happens to pass by. After a LOT of crap ideas and some decent ones, we were able to lift the two rear tires one by one and put stones under them. By this time we were all covered with the beach sand, even eaten some of it, quite tired, and after out best efforts I didn't have even 10% hope that we would be able to drive out because even if we could escape this pit, its sand all around. Just then I saw a big old car coming towards us. It was a Hilux 4x4 car driven by a gora man with pierced lips and eyelid. His girlfriend was sitting next to him. I believe the driver of the other car (the guy who lent us the normal car jack) had directed him to the bunch of desi idiots. This Hilux was cruising towards us extremely smoothly. For a while, I thought even his car would get stuck in sand, and professional help need to be called to rescue both the cars. But this guy could smoothly come, stop, turn back, move ahead etc in the same sand, where we were stuck and struggling for last 1.5 hrs. I don't know why, but this guy had a very strong synthetic rope, which looked more like a strap and the two claws to hook on the two cars. He pulled it out, fixed the rope in the two claws, anchored one on our car and another on his and our car was ready to be pulled out. It took him just 5 minutes to do all the setting. It seems that he comes across people like us quite often. He pulled out our car so easily - like a hot knife from butter - just like that! We really thanked him and all, and he started on his journey all the more deep into that sand field. Again, without any difficulty. I felt like an idiot, first to buy a Merc, then having driven it in sand, and then having got stuck & this guy came with an old looking vehicle (ignore the 4 wheel fact for a second) pulled us out and carried on with the rest of his journey - all without straining a muscle of his forehead. Man, I was impressed! Kapil got into the car and started driving it out. I think he paniced a l'il bit or something and the worst thing happened again. We were stuck in sand - Again. Terrible. TERRIBLE!!! V-day with a bunch of guys - very bad - they being your colleagues - badder - your car being stuck in sand - all the more worse - your car being stuck in the same sand AGAIN - Arrrrrrrgh! Some1 who said about universe conspiring shit was right - Its celestial conspiration that's bent upon screwing me up! Luckily the Hilux guy saw our S.O.S signals and came back to help us again. We said we were sorry and confeesed that we r idiots, but we need his help again. He said no worries boys - but get a 4 wheel drive next time. His car deserved that praise i believe! He pulled us out again. I was double impressed by this 4 wheel funda. This time I carefully drove all the way up to the road. This guy dint charge us a single penny for this, when we offered to pay him. If we would have got professional tow-away service, it would have lightened our pockets by atleast 400 dollars - may be even more. We all were so involved into this entire episode that it didnot even strike me to take pictures. My bad. Looking at pictures with this post would have been fun. But all in all it was great adventure.
Thanks Hilux guy. I like your dirty car! New Zealand folks are very helpful.

Avatar - the best cinematic technology

I watched the movie Avatar and I simply loved it. The film - as we see it on the screen and the effort, technology, patience and hard work that has gone into the creation of this masterpiece is simply AWESOME! If you haven’t watched the movie, hit yourself three times for the crime and go and watch its 3D version right now. If you have watched it, then you partly understand what I’m talking about. This post is to appreciate the entire movie making process of Avatar, right from its conception in Director James Cameron's mind to becoming the highest grossing film of all times even surpassing the 12 year old record held by Titanic. It’s not about the film, but about the technical aspects of movie making.

Whenever we see something unreal on screen we just attribute it to a black box called "computer animation" and enjoy what is shown to us. However, we tend to forget that this black box is actually as much a human effort as a machine’s capability, where a group of nerds have worked day in and out to create that shadow of your favourite animated character, which you may not even notice, but it tricks your senses to believe that its actually happening in some wonderland which looks a little strange from reality, but where most physical laws exist.

Avatar is the epitome of this computer animation. Though I don’t claim to be a technology guru or an animation expert, but the facts listed below make this movie stand out and speak for itself.

1. Avatar is a technological breakthrough in movie making with 3D viewing and stereoscopic filmmaking cameras, specifically designed for this film. Don’t ask me what it means. It’s some advanced Hi-tech funda!
2. James Cameron conceptualized the movie in year 1994. At that time the technology had not caught up with the story and vision that Cameron intended to tell. He waited for 15 long years for the right technology to develop and then made the film. Oh, in the meantime I grew from 12 to 27. More than half of my life so far, some1 spent waiting for some technology to be developed. Whatz wrong with this guy!!!
3. James Cameron had to do a proof-of-concept for Fox executives to demonstrate what he has and mind and whether it is at all feasible! As if making the Titanic sink on screen wasn’t enough to prove his worth for these bunch of good-for-nothing Fox execs.
4. At one point, Fox decided to pass on the film. This got Walt Disney interested in the movie. Fox then exercised their right of first refusal and went ahead with making the film – what faceless losers!!!
5. Film had two different production designers, and two separate art departments, one of which focused on the flora and fauna of Pandora (the city of Navis), and another that created human machines and human factors (Navis) – watch the movie to see the magic they created!
6. The live action was filmed with a modified version of proprietary digital 3D Fusion Camera System co-developed by Cameron himself – you are a genius Mr. Director.
7. Cameron made use of a virtual camera system which displays an augmented reality on a monitor, placing actor’s virtual counterparts into their digital surroundings in real time allowing the director to adjust and direct scenes just as if shooting live action. Cameron gave fellow directors Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson a chance to test the new technology – Try this assholes, I’m better than you.
   
8. Navi's (ten-foot-tall blue-skinned species of sapient humanoids in Avatar) language is developed by a linguist at University of Southern California which comprises of about 1000 words and is partly inspired from New Zealand's Maori language. What’s the need to hire a linguist? They could have been speaking Tamil for all I know, I won’t understand – but I’m sure it would have been funny then.
9. Navi's are blue in colour for two reasons. First, Cameron's liking for blue colour and secondly the connection to Hindu deities (lord Shiva) - as remarked by Cameron.

A few interesting facts about the movie:

1. Avatar means Incarnation of the Hindu gods taking flesh form - in Cameron's words!
2. Movie Avatar implicitly criticises America's role in the War in Iraq (see, u never thought about that!)
3. Avatar is partly shot in Wellington, New Zealand. Now you'd ask why this is interesting. Find out where I am :)
4. Love story between Jack and Neytiri in Avatar is similar to Jack and Rose in Titanic - star crossed love theme - which means both couples come from radically different cultures that are contemptuous of their relationship and are forced to choose sides between the competing communities. They both fall in love with each other, but they need to fight side-by-side, and so there's that kind of requirement to let the other person go in order to do what they need to do.
5. Movie has been nominated for 9 Academy awards

Source of Information: Various websites, publications and Wikipedia.
Source of crap comments: Yours truly :)

Proud owner of ultimate luxury

Does this symbol of a three pointed star remind you of something in particular? Since I was a child and I realized that cars interest me, this symbol has reminded me of the epitome in luxury sedans – Mercedes Benz. Recently with global auto makers targeting Indian market, there are options, but a Mercedes will never loose its charm. Being a true desi I have always secretly wished to own a Mercedes one day, and I always thought that I’ll be able to afford one, at least when I’ll be nearing my retirement age. But my friend up there had different plans. He made sure that my first car is an EFFING MERCEDES BENZ C280 - Aiiieee jhakaas! Yes I’m the proud owner of this mean beauty baby, which I bought in New Zealand! Man – it feels good.

It’s a grape red (dark dark maroonish) colored, 4 door luxury sedan with a factory fitted 12CD changer and a sun roof (Rest all is also there, but these were the highlights). Can you believe that the front seats can be adjusted in 6 different ways all electronically.

Although I bought this car about a month back, but I am writing about it today because I got the feeling of ultimate luxury very recently. Not that I dint get it before, but that day it really sinked in. I woke up late on a lazy Saturday, brushed my teeth, slipped in my shorts and muddy floaters – half sleepy, drove my Mercedes to the near by super store and bought a bread! Man, the feeling soaked in that day. I drive Merc to buy bread – unlike those who clean it everyday in their garage & take it out on that special once-in-a-lifetime occasion to impress their neighbors (or worst - relatives)! I was swell the whole day and especially while enjoying my bread toast.

Attaching a few pictures to make some of you jealous and some of you proud, of me.

In the streets of New Zealand, if you spot a sexy Mercedes, with windows rolled down, sun roof open and loud dhinchak bhangda music playing, come over and say ‘Hi’. It would be nice.

Messing up with the CEO of a billion dollar company

Let me start with by setting the context. I am out of India working for a big client on a project that may last more than a year for me. I would not divulge more details because I do not want you to zero down on the person this article is about but you would still guess that anyways, if you are smart enough and in touch with me.

My first 'Billion dollar company CEO handshake moment' recently came, when I got the opportunity to meet the client CEO, who heads an organization with 1.62 Billion USD of annual revenues (much more in NZ dollars). For guys more comfortable with 10's and 20's, thatz lot of money and a big company.

So recently, there was a big out-of-office event to mark the beginning of a key phase and many important people gathered for it. Before the event formally began, Mr. CEO was just hanging around and chatting with people. I did not get an opportunity to say Hi to him, then. The seating layout was such, that there were about 8 round tables, each with 8 chairs and a list of 8 people. I saw my name on one of the tables and took a chair. Some one asked me to shift to the next chair and I did. What I didn’t notice was that Mr CEO was supposed to join my table, until he reached there looking for his seat and stretched out his hand to me telling me his name. We shook hands, I told him my name and he sat right next to me. After about 5 minutes into that session, I realised that this is the first time I ever shook hands with a CEO. As a matter of fact, I can call my friend Pradeep the CEO of the business which he manages - but this guy was the top executive of a publically listed company with more than a 1.6 billion in revenues!

When you are doing your MBA, you have a feeling that going forward your circle would mainly be the CXOs, with whom you will get to attend evening parties and play golf. That image fluttered for a second or two in my mind. To get people talking, the MoC started a game where everyone on the table had to tell two statements about themselves to rest of the table occupants - one true, one false, and everyone would guess which one is true and which one is false. Shitty game, isn't it? I'm sure I would not play such a game even back in 3rd standard. But here I had to play it at 27! Anyways, all the people, including me said two statements and everyone guessed the true and false statement. Mr CEO was the last one to go. The story that follows in interesting.

Mr CEO said following two statements:

1. I have a girl friend who is 24 years old, and

2. My favourite sport is golf.

Since he was sitting next to me and we were playing this crap game, I thought of having some fun. I told the big guy that 'I'm sure you hate golf' - and I laughed as I was quite amused at my sense of humor. Surprisingly, there was silence on the table. My table occupants (the jackasses) either dint get the joke, or dint find it funny, or were scared to laugh off at their CEO! Mr. CEO looked at me with a straight face, he then looked at others. They were already staring at me. Alright, I'd realized I've made a boo-boo, but why did everyone had to embarrass me like that? All of us have had that moment when we say some things after which we wish we could just vanish. There is nothing that we could say to undo the damage. During that awkward silence and staring which lasted for about 1-2 seconds, I was hoping if I could turn into a rat - at least they would not think about my comment! In the middle of this, one member on the table started laughing - so late! I think this genius got the joke. The air got relaxed. The discussion went on and soon it was 'discovered' that the first statement is false. Mr. CEO endorsed it and I could not have cared less about that. I was thinking about my comment. It made me realize that everyone is not the 'Bakar type' material.

I feel it must be whole lot boring up the corporate ladder, where golf comes to your mind when you think of sport! Or having a 24 year old girl friend is the most whacky false statement that you can tell people - instead of something like "I’m wearing pink colored polka dot underwear today" (of course if u r actually not! And if you are - u can be anything but boring)

Herez my advice to all CEO's. Get a life babies. Have a genuine smile at times, that doesn't go into the news papers. And when some idiot cracks a joke on you - at least laugh because it wont be very often that you'll come across something like that :-)

Finally, I could make it

And at last, I could. After all the hide and seek which project dates play and with a whole lot of other drama, this time I was lucky enough to NOT miss the wedding of a dear friend of mine - Kavnish. Though, the stars tried their best to clash my project dates with Kavnish’s wedding, but ultimately things settled in such a way that I had to leave for Australia on Saturday and Kavnish’s wedding was on the previous Tuesday. Damn! Yet so close! I have already missed the wedding of two of my great friends by a margin of 1 day. On Both occasions I was travelling abroad for official assignments. This time I was in Bangalore but Kavnish was getting married in Delhi, that too on a weekday. In my company, when you are on a project, you don’t get leaves. Still I tried and thankfully managed to convince my bosses that they let me travel to Delhi, as I would continue working from home or Gurgaon office, not letting the work getting affected and also I’ll be able to attend the all so important marriage. Thanks Boss that you agreed and I could make it to the wedding.
Kavnish was one of the coolest guys on that Ghode waala rath and also on stage. We all know of the stud boys who during their wedding night feel that it’s a life time achievement to get married and how much proud their forefathers must be, and that now after this success no one else around is worth a look, let aside words… and they just pose for the camera, most of the times looking at the skyline and not even smiling when u look at them… as if u r an un-invited guest. Hello dude! You were the one who sent me the invitation, I dint come on my own! Anyways. I don’t care for them either. Kavinsh was nothing like that. He was very comfortable and cool-ly talking to other people. He was all smiley and maaroing gappe with us even when he was on that Vijay rath. I like that.
The funniest thing is that these days they make the Dulha and Dulhan stand on a rotating platform at the time of Varmala, so that everyone can see the couple and then the machine showers flower petals on them. Imagine how stupid one would feel presenting garlands, 15 ft above the ground on a rotating platform with 1000 people looking as if the duldha is going to pick the girl and run away from the ceremony!!! Such rotating platforms were last seen in some Rishi Kapoor’s song.
The couple looked good, the food was good. We spend the whole night sitting in Kavnish’s fere. About being interested in fere; even Kavnish wasn’t. He was too sleepy to enjoy the thing. But I thoroughly enjoyed the entire marriage because I met so many friends and I get to dance a lot. I always like places where I get to dance, in my own way - not like the firang night clubs where you have to dance so restrained. Bhangda nahi kiya to kya dance kiya!
All in all a good night, well spent!
Kavnish, thanks for the food...Burrrrp! And all the best for a happy married life.

Munnar from an Auto

Thanks to Good Friday, there came another long weekend, and I dint want to spent it like the last one – sitting at home and watching TV for 2 straight days. Even Udi was insisting to get away from Bangalore. But I was too lazy to plan anything in advance. As a result by Friday I afternoon I realized that spending 2.5 more days in Bangalore would be a nightmare and its time to get away. Munnar - came the suggestion from Chaudhary, which got finalized and the accommodation, travel etc everything was decided on Friday evening. We had to leave the same night. I had to forgo my sleep (I really hated it) to go and get tickets since nothing was available online on such short notice. Already a day was wasted.
Anways, me, Udi and Pravin reached Munnar on Saturday afternoon. Leaving its relatively difficult reach aside, Munnar is one of the most beautiful places in southern India. For the non-initiated, it is a hill station in Kerela, and used to be a summer resort for British Govt whenever they were there.
Journey, Lodging and local travel:
I thought it would be an over night journey, but it was a long one. Due to such short notice planning we did not get reservations in the direct bus from Bangalore to Munnar and our route was:
Bangalore– Coimbatore-Private AC Bus-7hrs
Coimbatore – Udumallai pet – State Bus– 2hrs
Udumallai Pet – Munnar – State Bus -4hrs
The last 6 hours of journey was in strip down state buses with no reservations and we travelled most of the time standing. But it was fun, since it made me remember by DTC days in engineering college.
The hotel where we stayed was 17kms from the Munnar town. The view outside from the room’s balcony was breathtaking. The skyline was visible with spiral roads, lush tea gardens, small houses, mountains and clouds painting an extremely beautiful sight.
The best part of the trip was that we did all the sight seeing and travelling, by an Auto. We hired the auto for 2 half-days. The auto waala was very cooperative, who waited for us, without creating any fuss, took us to the best places to eat in Munnar town and guided us where to buy tea from. If you wanna have that thrill too, contact Alagu Autowaala in Munnar at 9447825632.
The weather in Munnar was fairly cold but not chilling. It was pleasant and as I said the view from our hotels balcony was simply breathtaking. I want to take mom to Munnar. She would love the place. Large part of Munnar is covered with Tea plantations owned by various tea estates. Places that we saw were:

• Mattupetti Dam - 10km from Munnar, this popular picnic spot activities like boating and horse riding and is a great place to spend the day. We could just have a look at it, since on the way back we did not had much time left to spend on the dam.
• Mattupetti Indo-Swiss Farm - Better known as Mattupetti (cattle village), Tamil migrant laborers had once upon a time reared cattle here. The cool climate and abundance of fodder made it the ideal location for the Indo-Swiss dairy farm. The dairy farm is a unique one of its kind with more than 100 varieties of high-yielding cattle being reared.
• Echo Point - 15km from Munnar, on the way to top station from Munnar is a small lake set amidst rolling hills. Every loud call made from a spot on the lake embankment is returned manifold by the echo from the surrounding hills. Have a look at this beautiful place, in the adjoining picture.
• Top Station - 37km from Munnar on the Kerala and Tamil Nadu border, has great views of the Western Ghats. Top station is the "top"-tourist attraction. This place gives a real 'above the clouds' experience. The area is known for the Neelakurunji plant, which flowers only once every twelve years. The flower is violet.
• Kundala Lake - This lake is very beautiful amidst lush jungles. Hiring a pedal boat and exploring the lake and its surroundings is an awesome experience. Except at the place you hired the boat, don't expect to find humans around the lake as it is surrounded by scenic jungles and hills.
• Atukkad Waterfalls - A scenic waterfalls amidst hills and jungles. You can find a road leading to Atukkad Waterfalls on Kochi road (just about 5 km from Munnar). This road is very narrow and needs a lot of experience to drive on. Besides, at this time of the year, the waterfall wasn’t too big, but turned out to be a great photography spot.

People of Munnar seemed to be quite friendly. Kerela being the most literate state, stands up to its name, with every one from Auto driver, to the rediwaala selling honey – able to understand and speak decent English. I bought honey and tea from Munnar. We spent 24 hrs in Munnar and could cover most of the sight seeing places. In addition to it, the drive anywhere is full of viewpoints and photo spots. Its not too commercial till date, and that may be because of its relatively difficult reach. While leaving all of us were feeling if we could skip the Monday's office and spend a day more in Munnar. But we all knew, this excuse would not find much favor with our manager and we reluctantly started our return journey.
I had great fun in Munnar. So if you have 2 days to spare and wanna beat heat, run to Munnar.