where is indian film music going

For quite some time I have been listening to the latest hindi film songs from raaga.com . There are some nice songs, hit numbers by Sunidhi Chauhan, Soni Nigam and all the new music directors. But usually after listening for an hour or so, it just felt like its getting so noisy and I needed to stop them. Today I started with old golds from 80s and late 70s. There is a unmistakable difference. The older songs are so soft and melodious. Even the voices of singers (mostly Lata Mangeshkar and Kishor Kumar) are so pleasant. I have already listening for more than 2 hrs and its still nice, quiet and happy mood here. This definately brings up the questions where is our film music going. With songs like 'Just Chill!!', are we blindly running after the american pop music (which BTW is horrible), why are we loosing our melodious roots and trying to adopt somthing that does not at all fit in society. Is this the end of evergreen, melodious, soothing songs in Indian cinema?

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tuls

world's most densely populated countries

according to http://www.aneki.com/densely.html, world's most densely populated country is Monaco? Anyone ever heard of it? incidently its the world's second smallest country with area if 1.95 sq. km. Then come Singapore, which is understandable.
India does not show up in the top 10 at all, which was a little surprise to me. Maybe we are headed there, but not quite there yet.

It also gives me another thought, if we take world as a whole, the population density is < 50 per sq km. Wouldn't it be great if we just forget all boundries and evenly redistribute world's population. I guess it would be really hard for people who get assigned to Siberia say, but we can rule those places out. And we can also rotate people so that everyone can get a feel of what it looks like to live in certain parts of the world.

PS: more research tells me that wikipedia has better data http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density
I should get back to work now.

why are we here?

well, sometimes when I am stuck at work, doing things that I do not want to do, and wishing all the time that I was somewhere else, doing something else, having a lot more fun. Its at those times I wonder (though I know I should be concentrating on finishing that unpleasant business rather than wondering) why are we here, on this earth? Are we here to devote ourselves to whatever profession we are in, and think about other stuff only in the little time after work. Or are we here to enjoy ourselves, have fun, do things we love, live by the saying that life is short, enjoy it while u can? Of course in the second case there is the question about where are we going to get the money for doing all those stuff.
There are always these people talking about striking a balance between work and personal life and blah blah. But has anyone every really struck that 'balance'. Is it possible to have a balanced life when everything needs to be done NOW. And if you spend your life trying to strike the balance would you not end up in a situation where you neither worked well not enjoyed well?
Then there are always these people whole 'enjoy' their profession and cannot think of doing anything else. How many of those people are there and how many of them are just deceiving themselves, making themselves believe that they do not want to do anything else?
To these questions you would often hear answers like 'prioritize', 'do time management', but if you try to do that stuff, are you simply not adding more stuff to the things that you want to do and creating even a bigger problem?

PS: I am in the camp that thinks that we should prioritize :)

flood of old memories

Thanks to Sanjukta again, my mailbox every morning is full of e-mails from old school friends. She created a google group and its been totally successful. I hope we keep the enthu.
Till now only my BITS friends (particularty Prajakta only) used to say that I have changed a lot from my 1st year at BITS, but now even Sanjukta who has just talked to me on net claims that I have changed a really lot and more 'interesting' to talk with :). I totally agree with the last part. And here is another memory of me from Nidhi - "I cant get over ur thin hair choti the front flicks and ur ever eager self to complete all the homework and answer all the Qs shot at us by our dear teachers!!! ;-)".
well, Harry Potter fans, does that ring any bells :)
I would not at all mind to have been like that in school. But yes now things are different. The 'choti' is gone, flicks is still there, but going soon. A pair of spects got added to my face right after school, but I got rid of them now. Homeworks and teachers are no more there and I am no more eager to complete any office assignments. They take their own sweet time.

why do we blog

It was another of the wonderful dinner parties that Srijan place. It started with something new, Chaat. After a long long time I had chaat and it was great. For dinner we had hyderabadi biryani, kofte, daal and something non-veg. It was quite a gathering. Among all the jokes, leg pulling, one questions that came was 'Why do we Blog?' Do people just have lot of time and get bored, so start scribbling here. Or in today's world where communication is ever progressing and its claimed that you can remain 'always connected' with friends and family, we still need something like a public webpage to express our ideas? Or is it that people just do not want to talk to other people and write everything they want to say here for anyone who cares to read it :) Although I have been blogging for quite sometime, but I do not have answer to this question.

Harry Potter series - audio books

There is only one word that I can saw in the review of Harry Potter series. They are simply great, and if you have not read it, then you are missing something great.
The audio books are great if you want to re-read the books.

harry potter audio books

I am reading, correction .. listening to all the Harry Potter all over again. The audio books are great, reader is just amazing at making things interesting by giving sound effects. Although I did not very much like Harry and Hermionie's voices, but overall effect is good. Now that I have read the 6th book and its almost clear what 7th book is going to be about (not ruling out surprises though), I can events in all the books in a new light. The books are totally sequential, and it appears that J. K. Roling really thought about the whole story before starting to write. I can clearly see how there are hints about events in book 6 right in book 4!!

The Tristan Betrayal - Robert Ludlum

The main plot of this book takes place in Moscow during Stalin's rule. The times are when Hitler is advancing in Europe with full force.
One of the best plotted spy ring novels. There are surprises at every corner. Its the story of a genius spy, bound to keep your attention till the very last. I do not want to say anything more about the book as it might give away the small surprises hidden in every page.
A must read.

Murder at Nob Hill

The title of this book attracted me because it was related to San Francisco, lately I have been feeling that I miss living in that windy foggy city. Anyway, so I started listening to this book thinking that if nothing else, it will be like remembering San Francisco again. But I was totally surprised by the story, what a great mystery it turned out to be. Its one great adventurous book, and the reader has done a great job of immitating various characters. The book is fast moving, events after events happening, and its hard to put down after you have overcome the first few pages. Its just in the beginning that it goes on and on about problem a women lawyer faces in getting herself taken seriously in a man's worked of 1800. But once you are past that, it becomes quite interesting. A enjoyable investment of time according to me.

Networking again

I have recently been taken to networking with my old old school friends again, thanks to another old old school friend Sanjukta. Its just overwhelming to find that those people you know as teenagers in school are not all grown up, working at different places, pursuing all sorts of careers. Its just great.

audio books

Audio books are my new found love. They are just a great way of reading (listening) a book which u know u are never going to read on paper as its boring and 1000 pages thick. And its great way to spend time in the gym, it gives a whole new motivation to get on the treadmill. I always find listening to same old songs so boring. And they are great for bed time listening when everyone is fighting over turing light on and off. Good to pass time in moving vehicals without straining eyes. I am sure ears are not really bothered by the motion. So in all, its a great way to know the exact contents of a book :)

I am still alive

yes, I am still alive, just not putting anything on the blog. Things have not being going exactly great lately, and I hate to put bad things in the blog because they are best forgotten, hence no posting for a long time. Well things are still the same though, but I wanted to share some newly found interesting things. Like yesterday I discovered that cars (atleast corolla) have a small little thing on the doors called child lock which do not allow doors to be opened from inside. Recently when we got our car back from the mechanic, for some reason that child lock was turned on on one for the doors. (Now I wonder what the car was doing at mechanics with child lock on) anyway, so that was on and the door would not open. I spent 2 days worrying about it (the whole weekend), cursing the mechanic to do such a bad job as to fix the trunk and break the door, and then drove 10 miles just to discover that all that we had to do was pull that little thing up and release the lock. What a badly designed car!!

what can be more like monsoon back home

Heavy rain in heavy wind followed by a power failure, what can be more monsoon like, only the temperatures are a bit lower, and its not easy to just go out and get wet in the rain, and yes, ofcourse noone but me seems to be excited about the rain. Still I can feel that same excitement that you get from rains in July, same happiness in the air. It just washed away all the blues I was feeling since yesterday!!

Its monsoon time

yes, its monsoon time here in Seattle. Its been raining heavily for few days now, and not just Seattle style, but real heavy rain which can drench you in minutes. There are heavy clouds, poor visibility etc. etc. With temperatures being not that low now, its a definate reminder of monsoons :)

My BITS visit 2005

I recently made a visit to BITS campus, one of the advantages of being from near Pilani. I was definitely expecting lot of changes to the campus from the reports going around on different BITS mailing lists, but still the extent of change surprised me. The most visible being conversion of all the guys bhavans into something resembling very close to jails. The corridors in front of the rooms have been closed with impenetrable jalis. Apart from any inconvenience to the guys, it has also made giving gate calls somewhat harder, now you cannot just shout and catch someone from the front wing to run your errand. I did not get a chance to find out what new mechanism the girls have deviced. And as most of know by now, the other major change in the face of hostels is that Mal has been made a girls bhavan now, enclosed in MB like boundry and with its own mess. But I am sure what most people did not hear is that girls from Mal claim that food in their mess is very very good, much better than food at MB. I did not get any chance to verify that statement, but I got that statement from a lot of Malites voluntarily. More news from MB is that MBans has retired and someone else is the warden now, I forgot to get her name. A new guest waiting room has appeared near MB gate, but I guess its not open for the guys waiting for their gate calls to be answered.

Here are some of the selected photos
library
campus-and-insti
bhawans

and here are all of them
(and they are on yahoo ;))
BITS2005
BITS Library

As we are hearing everywhere, there are a lot of new structures coming up on campus. Akshay has been converted into a US style department store, where you can get all the stuff from spices, aata, daal, oil to shampoo, creams, dustbins and even rajai, gadda! Bye bye Nootan. And everything there is cheaper than the regular rates. I did all my US shopping from there this time too. If you get a chance, drop by our apartment and taste some daal from Pilani.

Oasis 2004

http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in:12346/bitsaa/menu_frames/index.htm

there is a oasis 2004 video up there. though its not the video of the
actual oasis fest as I thought, still its quite nostalgic. shows all
the departments at work before oasis and some glimpses of fashp. the
theme was Expressions Unleashed I think.

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tuls

what an exciting day

It was the height of excitement when I heard from a school friend
Sanjukta. We were in school together and then lost contact for almost
7 years. Today she discovered me on orkut and we synced up on yahoo.
its really really a small world now!
long live orkut!
long live yahoo!! (I mean untill google come up with something even better ;)).

The day started great too when I got my UCSD degree, all safe and
addressed to the correct place and person.
--
tuls

new addition to our home

We have a new teddy bear added to our home, its big life sized and white. According to Rahul, it looks so real that he is scared to touch it, so you can imagine its so great. He was anyway thrilled to get it, me too especially since it came for free, well, almost, its one of the long stories on how :) Will have a picture here as soon as its all washed and dressed and ready for display.

driving to work!

finally I am driving to work, all by myself, parking in the office garage, its just great!! I am still slow, not all that confident to leave my hand off the wheel for even a sec to adjust the sun shade, but still its working.

Library

Yes, we have a big new great fancy impressive library on campus now. Its designed like a big pink jaipur palace, huge.


dear refli and stairs in front, do I have to say more about it, we all have our memories associated. closed now for some fancy structure 


ah, the new library, wait, is that pink, what happened to the yellow paint!! 


BITS Library entrance, phew are we still on campus 


This is where current BITSians study 


pillars pillars, more pillars, what happend to the nice cozy refli 


library stairs