Motorola HT 280 Bluetooth headsets


Nokia 7210 Supernova

Slumdog Millionaire -

Finally watched Slumdog M. Liked the narration and actually the entire plot. There have been a few debates off late about the way India is portrayed and what is shown. Yes the portrayal of slum life, the cheating, begging etc.. may have their own exaggerations in it, but what the heck its a movie. We have seen movies giving a different take to historical events, on underworld, on social issues as well. This is also one such example. None of the mini plots are totally improbable. All in all great narration, good cinematography. In my opinion the music was not that extraordinary at all.

Venkata in Sankata -

Venkata in Sankata is a kannada comedy by Ramesh. Its a huge collection of PJ woven over a very thin plot. The movie has many scenes which resemble a few of the new bollywood movies. All in all an average movie

Watched Delhi 6 last friday evening.

Warning : Reading on may reveal some parts of the movie

The movie is good overall. The first half is great, could not remember of a better movie depicting the chaotic energy  of india, religious harmony or for that matter delhi better. The movie paces very well, with a very subtle plot building up. There is no big story as such and the characters are created by a few actions rather than any small plots as such. The muslim prayers, the terraces of chandi chowk , the sound track, red fort, ram lilas are all great.

The director ( Om Prakash Mehra) has done a fantastic job. This movie unlike RDB has a very different story telling style. Abhishek Bachan has done a great job in his portrayal of a NRI hero . Unlike many movies where there are many stars appearing rather than acting, here everyone has performed very well. Chandni chowk's chaos is very likable. Politician stopping the ram lila in between, or the fighting brothers, gobar, the hype created by the media about minor issues, the rude police officer speak a story in itself.

The second half how a small incident perceived in a wrong way can cause communities to fight can be seen. But ending is when the entire movie falls. Kala bandar is made out to be something of a big deal and the message out of this movie is centered around it. The ending is in total contrast to the rest of the movie and appears very much made up. My opinion, atleast if the hero had died, the end might have been better.

By the way any guesses why the movie is called Delhi-6 ? 6 is the pin code :-)

Read this very interesting auto biography of Richard Branson. This has detailed notes of Richard's life till 2001. A very good business man who dared life many times through the various sports he got involved with.

Richard has always been an entrepreneur all his life. May it be the music store, the first virgin flight or any other big business he has sought after creating opportunities and succeeded in most of them. The experiences have made him what he is, may it be the ones that got him punished ( by law) or the ones that made him sign some of the most talented singers. He was a guy who made most decisions on instinct and gut feel most of the times. Thats something which reinforces the confidence and the drive to make sure that a venture succeeds.

I have know people comparing Richard to other lavish spenders, but after reading the book, my impression changed a lot. This guy built the whole empire brick by brick. Took risks many times. Had the guts to look ahead and make moves which none did. His entire passion for flying hot air baloons to proving that he can acheive anything that can be acheived is quite amazing. Was not surprised to read recently that he is making a bid for Honda formula one team.

The naming of the empire as 'virgin' in itself is a good trivia:) The first flight in which all the passengers were tricked. The book has a good description of some funny incidents as well. All in all a very good read.

Brida is a novel by Paulo Coelho. Its about an Irish women who is in search of wisdom. The story is paced very well and does have lot of details about witchcraft, magic, and does give an in depth view of the traditions of sun and moon. All of this was quite new to me and with a totally outsider view did find it interesting.

A theory explained in the book is about soul dividing and growing similar to cells in human body. Quite contradictory to the evolution theory but none the less a perspective. All in all a good read.

bangalore-tumkur-chitradurga-haveri-hubli (NH4) - Dec 22nd
Hubli-kittur-dharwad-hubli - Dec 23rd
Hubli-Navalgund-Nargund-Bagalkot-Almatti- Bijapur - Dec 24th
Bijapur-BasavanaBagewadi-Aihole-Pattadakal-Badami-Ron-Gadag-Hubli- Dec 25th
Hubli-Dandeli-Joida- Hudsa-Syntheri Rocks-Hudsa - Dec 26th
Hudsa-Doholeri-Kali Rafting-Dandeli-Hudsa - Dec 27th
Hudsa-Dandeli-Kavala caves-Dandeli-Hudsa-Joida-Kudombo-Ulive road-Anishi-Karwar-Ankola-Kumta - Dec 28th
Kumta-Yana-Gokarna-Kumta - Dec 29th
Kumta-Dharishwara-Idugunji-Murdeshwara-Honnavara-Jog Falls-Sagara-Shivamogga - Dec 30th
Shivamogga-Tavarekoppa-Kadur-Arsikere-Tiptur-Tumkur-Bangalore - Dec 31st

Route map here
Looking back, it was a great ending to a good year of travel.

Our year end vacation got over. It was a good one yet again and had a chance to see lot of places, talk to lot of people and drive in different road conditions. Needless to say, now am a more experienced driver:)

Here is the route map of all places that we went over the past 10 days. Will post in detail very soon.

We started around 11 30 AM from Bangalore yesterday and the ride was fantastic. The road all the way through the NICE road and then the NH4-user fee road till Chitradurga is in very good shape. We managed to reach Chitradurga is just over 2 hours. The max speed clocked was 170kmph a personal milestone for me and my car:) Wind mills welcomes one to this historic place and just the view from the highway is breathtaking.

Started climbing Madhukarinayakana kote. Had only seen this in movies till now ( nagara haavu and then songs of kallarali huvaagi). The place is amazing, it really felt like going back to some other age. Since it was a weekday, not much crowd and kudos to the ASI, the place is very clean and well maintained. I did explain to Suwarna some of the stories and we did do a lot of reading. The symbolic Obavanna kindi, ontikal basava, gaali gopura are all a must see experience. Some of the places in the fort reminded me of hampi and places around it. The fort has 4 to 7 levels of security ( depends on how you see it). In the midst of all this roaming Suwarna broke her sun glasses.

We started form CDurga at around 4:30 with thoughts of coming back here for a light and sound show. We went into Davangere in search of Benne masala dose and managed to eat a yenne masala dose:-p After Davangere the road worsens, infact Rani bennur does not even have a by pass yet. After crossing haveri the road is good again.

When the meter had clocked 415 kms for the day, we were finally in Hubbali. The first sight of this huge city was very impressive, but once we entered the old city en route to the new city, we had different opinions. Final destination being Silver town near Akshaya park, Gokul road. The new town is very good again. A sumptuos meal at Ananth residency and then EOD.

Todays plan is to visit Kittur and Mundgod. Looking forward to yet another fort visit.

Am really excited at the propect of a series win in England and looking forward to watching the final test(if star cricket continues come on TV).. It will be an amazing feat for the aging superstars that we have and a fitting last series for some of them. I am not sure as there are high chances atleast one of them or may be even 2, may be around for another 3 years.

Hopefully Sreesanth gets another chance to entertain everyone and we will have some "real" fights on the screen!

Was playing around chacha search!  The results are pretty neat. For novice users who are new to using search engine, I found the feature of talking to guide and asking him to tune the search on one's behalf to be absolutely cool.

Wonder how they can scale, lets say this goes to millions of queries.

Watched Naayi Neralu in a special screening yesterday. The screening was followed by a chat with the director himself Girish Kasaravalli.Was indeed privileged to be there.

The movie is awesome. If any of you get a chance watch it and am sure you will enjoy it. The story is based on a novel by Bairappa but has been reinterpreted.

The story is based around pre-independence era in an upper caste Brahmin family of Malnad region.Its protogonist VenkataLakshmi(Pavithra Lokesh) is a widow and lives with her in-laws. Her daughter RajaLaksmi is studying in Mysore. Differences between the life in Mysore and life in a secluded house in Malnad is shown very well.


The direction is amazing and the narration is gripping. The story has hope, emotions and all the drama needed.Though it does not take a stand as to what happens is good or bad, the ending leaves one thinking about the protest that venkataLakshmi brings about against the system in her own personal reach.

The chat with Girish Kasaravalli at the end of movie, helped to clearly understand the main theme, his viewpoints, his message through this movie etc.. Was really impressed.

Pavithra Lokesh has done a great job. Not just her the entire cast, the direction, camera work, location even every minute detail is covered very well.

All in all, dont miss this masterpiece.

There seems to be lot of Buzz these days about S L Bairappa's Aavarana. Last sunday had been to a 'samvaada' in Gandhi Bazaar with the author about his latest book.  Heard to most of the reviews there from critics, fans and sounded very interesting. The book has sold out 4 editions within a couple of months and looks like the going is getting stronger.

looking forward to read the book!

Time Search is an amazing time based search engine. I am with it for past 15 mins, theme - politics and the time line control onto the left. Cool it is.

Caught up with the preview show of Eklavya yesterday. The movie is good. VV Chopra has done a fabulous job of narrating a good story in a very non-fussy way. There is no fuss about anything in this movie and the attires, the location, the palace, the background beat all are well done.

Big B rocks in this role and all the others have done a great job!

Yahoo today launched a website for Bangalore

I installed Mallige ,Kedage and Akshara kannada fonts on my system (firefox-Free BSD) to read some kannada web content. Though the rendering is quite ok, I am not very satisfied with the way othh-akshara's are handled.

Any suggestions or experiences with using such fonts are welcome!

Very interesting stuff if you are looking at blogs and want to analyse the kind of sites they are linked to and linked from.

very interesting..Mac does give a speech and its a good one indeed...

For those who have been using delicious or my web here is the new Yahoo Bookmarks. The best part, as was with my web being that the entire text of the page will be cached.

Drama, comeback, strategy, spirit and an amazing finish.Brazilian GP had it all ... Great end to the season!