Marriages in IT industry.

Kumar and Sheetal met in a software firm where they got the chance to work in the same project. They need to spend long time together in the office working on the project assignments. They started liking each other and after over coming some resistance by the families, eventually got married. Kumar changed the job for the higher salary while Sheetal keep on working in same organization.

Now as the work timings got different, they started spending less time together. Sheetal was assigned a US based project with tough deadlines so she had to stay for late night meetings and work. The project dead lines started to interfere in their lives. Kumar's nature became annoying and he used to have fights on her priorities. Some times they even don't talk for days and thus relationship started to break.

After 2 years, Sheetal got pregnant so she resigned from her job and went to her parents. She gave birth to a boy. Kumar came to see the child, spend 2 weeks and then went back to job. After that he neither calls her back nor responded to her call. When he was forcefully asked to talk about this, he replied, "what is the proof that he is my child? However I am in love with some one else."

Sheetal broke down after this and thus their marriage is heading towards a divorce. This is a true story of a couple and this is not a rare one. Although IT industry made India a superpower financially but it has made India much poorer in relationships. If majority of marriages are happenings in IT industry then majority of the divorces  happenings in India are in IT industries too. TV and cinema culture has made divorces like a normal thing which used to be stigma in Indian culture. 

Many Many Congratulations Chiranjit and Sauparnee

First of all...

Heartily congratulation to Chiranjit and Sauparnee...


Either it is love for Chiranjit or interest in my writing; I would like to thank you for visiting the page. It has been more than one year since I have written anything and I thought of giving Chiranjit a gift through my blog. Attending marriage is one of the toughest things to do in my life and if it involves travelling then it becomes like a nightmare as my mind starts thinking about all the arrangements I have to do to travel and stay there. Now being a married person, I have additional responsibility to take care of comfort of my partner. None the less, as soon as Chiranjit informed me about the marriage date, I got the air tickets booked so that I could push myself to attend the marriage and thus instruct my mind that if I don't attend then there will be no refund :)

Just one week before marriage I was not even in condition to walk properly because of which I missed the marriage of one of my family like friend Shubham. I was not sure if I will be able to travel so far just after 7 days. Luckily my condition started to improve and I started feeling lesser pain while walking. Finally D-day came; I took 2 days leave and with the help of my wife completed the packing by friday night. We reluctantly woke up at 3 AM on Saturday 6th December, day of marriage and reached Airport to travel to Kolkata, a place where I have never imagined traveling in my life.

There were lots of doubts in mind like how will we be able to speak to People, what to eat and how to survive there for next three and a half days. Thoughts of going back to home started to fly in my mind but air tickets in my hand were enough to push me in the plane. Finally we boarded flights with no delay and reached Kolkata by 9 AM. As guided by Chiranjit or Chiro as we like to call him, we booked the taxi from the bidhannagar police counter and exited from Airport. As soon as we got out of Airport, we had the feeling of heritage city seeing a big queue of old yellow ambassador taxies which are rarely seen now a days. With the help of police person, we got ours and while sitting in taxi, we came to know that even taxi driver knows Hindi so there should be no issue in staying except we might be treated like a American travelling in Delhi. There was no issue in reaching our destination, a guest house booked by Chiro after his instructions to the driver. Near Guest house, we met him and needless to say meeting someone known in an unknown place feels like meeting angel of God.

In the guest house, we got settled, had bit of daal rice and took rest. After some time, chiro visited us again and we met Ashish Dutta, our ex-colleague, staying with his family in same guest house, came for attending the marriage like us. Thanks to Chiro, even though it was his marriage day, he was putting his best efforts to take care of us. I might have never been able to take care of anyone in such a way on this day. In the evening around 6 Pm, Chiro's father visited us with vehicle to take us to Sauparnee(Bride)'s place for marriage event. We boarded the vehicle and our journey from North Kolkata to South Kolkata started. In the journey, it felt like a time travel tour where I saw Kolkata changing from a small town city to a metropolitan city in form of narrow roads to broader one, from small shops to bigger markets, with traffic lights being the only common thing. However I will try to detail my Kolkata Trip sometime later in future. So let us get back to the events.

After 2 hours, we reached destination and at the gate, there was a big lovely statue of Ganeshji for welcome.

As we had Ashish with us who is well versed in Bengali, we had no issue in reaching Chiro’s room at the second floor. Dressed up in lovely Kurta and traditional dhoti (with elastic :) ), he was looking really good. He introduced us to his family, who after knowing that we do not understand Bengali, spoke in Hindi and let us know that how happy they are after seeing us. Chiro's mom is such an adorable lady as she showered me with so much love which made me feel so good on my decision to come to marriage. 

Seriously love and affection of people has been the only remaining thing in the world which make life worth living a bit. After that we got out to inspect the things which we can have to satisfy our hunger. Ashish and Bhabhiji were really caring for us, looking for veg servings everywhere only for us to have. After a while, we settled for Palak Paneer and Kulchas with gulab jamun and ate to full. After making our tummy full, our mind was in condition to analyze the arrangements. It was a multi floor building having different floors for everything. Ground floor for non-veg food, first floor for marriage ceremony and second floor for veg food. All this was much different from a north Indian marriage where we are used to see a big ground having eating stalls all around and bride and groom staged in-between. However it was very refreshing to see a simple arrangement with no show-offs for relatives and other attendees; which I have seen all my life.

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After finishing our food, we moved to first floor where a beautiful mandap was setup. Really it was one of the most beautiful mandaps I have ever seen.









After a while, Chiro came to sit there and introduce us to his sister who is really an intelligent and simple girl. We had a brief talk about almost everything about Kolkata. Setup of really good reputation about me by Chiro, really made me feel great. Sometime later, Sauparnee dressed up as bride came there looking very graceful in traditional clothes. 

She was covering her eyes with leaves and was carried on hands by relatives while circling around chiro whereas Chiro's eyes were covered by hands.

After some rounds, both were lifted up and exchanged garlands almost similar to North Indian marriages.

Then they were settled inside mandap and chanting of Mantras by panditji started and I started to click pictures in between. Frankly speaking, I have never been a keen observer so I would like to apologize to Chiro if I missed some important steps in between. After a while, I heard traditional sound being made by relatives by rolling their lips.

 Apart from that, almost all rituals were similar to marriages I have seen including mine; chanting of mantras, seven rounds around fire and filling sindoor along parting line of Bride's hair. 

One thing not there was photographers’ disturbance in following the rituals. They were silently doing their job and I wish if it would have been same in my case as well. However, I must mention that Chiro's family were really concerned that if we have had food for sure and it was really hard to convince them :)

 After completion of marriage rituals, Chiro's parents saw us off to the taxi in which we went back to guest house. Again I was overwhelmed by their affection as they hugged us and express their happiness due to our visit. We informed them that we are here and will meet again at reception on 8th December. We reached guest house in half of the time we took to travel earlier and took a tight sleep after a long day.

Event 2 - Reception

After spending Sunday and most of the Monday in roaming around Kolkata, finally reception night came. Again Chiro showed his care for us and sent his uncle to take us to the venue, though venue was not even at 10 minutes walking distance. Place arranged for reception was almost similar to that of marriage with multi story arrangements. At the gate, Chiro was waiting for us and was looking very smart in white attire. He guided us to the first floor where reception event was in progress. Sauparnee was wearing a beautiful blue saree. 

We were again showered with love by the parents and relatives. I would like to say big big thanks to Chiranjit and his family for so much affection. After spending some time there, Chiro's uncle guided us to second floor where food arrangement was done and asked caterer to take special care of us. We had kachoris and sabzi along with gulab jamuns and went back to first floor.

It was not a big lavish arrangement but simple, sober and lovely. I wish people in my part of country take inspiration and focus on strengthening the relations in such events rather than burning money on lavish arrangements. Everyone there was enjoying to the fullest, talking to each other and taking pictures even with phones which were very small. I felt everyone here is completely content with their lives and happy with whatever they have. Bride and groom were sitting and talking, no one was in hurry to get their pictures clicked. We also got our picture clicked by Chiro's uncle who were really very caring for us.

After a while, Sauparnee's parents bid farewell and we were advised by Chiro to go back to guest house as event was expected to take long time to be over. We had an emotional farewell given by everyone there and were seen off by Chiro till our Cab which took us back to Guest house. Next day after meeting Chiro's father who even arranged taxi for us to take us to airport, we bid good bye to Kolkata, seeing so many things which I never knew that they could exist in India and in hope to come back here in my life again. It was really a journey worth having.

In the end, I would like to wish Chiranjit and Sauparnee, a very happy life ahead and thanks everyone to read it till the end :). Hope you enjoyed the events with me.

Congratulations on completion of SEVEN years of professional life.

Congratulations Friends.

Hope all of you are doing great in your respective lives. Today we completed SEVEN years in our professional life and I thought it’s a good time to give a big congratulation to you on this achievement. For me this is also an excuse to communicate exclusively with all of you who started this journey with me on the same day as Entry Level Trainee Programmer (ELTP).

From that entry level, all of us have grown professionally as well as personally in this tenure of 7 years. Most of us got directions for our career in PeopleSoft while some changed their paths to alternate careers by opting higher studies (Shubhadip, Karnabeer) or moving to other field( Indranil Roy). Majority of us have found their soul mates and some very lucky ones found them in the Batch itself (Ayshna- Harjot, Richa-Kamal) or in their organizations (Akhil, Swati). Whereas some have moved one step further and have become 3 from 2 J. Just don’t ask me when I am getting married at this point as there is no answer for this with me.

It’s my belief that everyone gets what is there in destiny and our meeting, friendship and relationships all are part of that.

It still feels unbelievable that seven years have passed from the time when we used to sit in a training room trying to learn a technology which was not that famous and to be honest, it’s still not that famous as every time, reference of SAP is required to explain what PeopleSoft is, just like seven years back. Though all of us joined at the same time yet according to our nature, likings and un-likings we made friends and decided to stay in touch regardless of places we move across and companies we work later on. We had groups in between us in which we wanted to talk, laugh and roam around.  I am sure those small groups were the most reliable connections which are still keeping us in touch.

Unlimited sweet memories are also there which have become very light with time like boarding the buses from Secunderabad to Satyam in early morning, envying the people from Dorms, wishing that no one comes in our training class to teach and going back to our respective rooms was so tiring but still that nervousness in mind about future is still unmatchable. I still think that training room was the only time when I learnt something and now also I am still at that level which I was in the training in terms of PeopleSoft.

After training, earmarking the people who will go to Chennai was like deciding who is going to Kaala Paani and when half of the batch was sent to Chennai unwillingly then there were tears in eyes of most of our mates who have come to see off us at the station. In Chennai also we enjoyed like we would have done in Hyderabad.  After 2 years, most of us and even Ramalinga Raju left Satyam but as it is said, first love and first company always remains there with you, I still love to be called part of ELTP 614.

 I am sure most of you are connected with our ELTP friends through numerous media like phones, messaging, emails or social sites like FaceBook and the latest one in the list Whatsapp if it has not been possible to meet in person unless we are working in same company because of our busy lives. But still it feels great to be in touch like I am trying to do with all of you through this small blog.

I can keep on writing page after page but that is not the motive of this blog. I just wanted to be in touch with you and want all of you to be in touch with each other as possible as much because it is not a big task. It does not cost much to say Hi or Hello to each other as we need not send letters, we can do it through whatever medium is available and if we can meet and have a dinner or lunch or just 15 minutes talk then there is nothing like it in case if we are in same company or in same city.

We were 47 people excluding laterals in this batch. I have tried to compile a small directory with all the limited resources I have with me. Some information might be outdated or wrong but it is just a small effort to make you aware of where all of us are shining and when you will look at the list, you will see we have not left any organization in our current or past endeavors J. I, myself don’t have email ids of all so sending this to those email ids only which are available with me so you are the lucky ones :)

•  HCL:  Chander Sharma, Richa Kochchar, Sumit Goyal, Ramji Pandey, Lalit Thakur (All in Noida)
•  Oracle:  Shikha Singh (Bengaluru), Divya Vaish (Hyderabad)
•   Igate:  Jaydip Neogi (Bengaluru)
•   IBM:  Indranil Biswas (Kolkata), Devesh Arora (UK), Anindya Bhatacharjee (Ireland), Abhishek Malhotra (Noida)
•  TCS:  Neha Joshi, Jasleen Sachdeva (Kolkata), Ashwani Garg (Toronto), Gundeep Malhotra (Gurgaon), Shilpa Khanna (Mumbai), himadri (Gurgaon)
•  Summit Technology: Ravneet Singh (Noida)
•   HSBC:  Swati Srivastava (Pune)
•  Hexaware:  Chiranjit Sarkar (Bengaluru)
•  Capgemini:  Preeti Gupta (Gurgaon)
•  Oceaneering:  Harjot Sidhu, Ayshna Kaushik, Pankaj Aggarwal (All in Chandigarh)
•  Infosys:  Subhadip Thakurta (Texas)
• GE:  Karnabir Ahluwalia
• CSC:  Prateek Suneja (New York), Priyanka Chibber (Bengaluru)
• Wipro Infotech:  Harpreet Singh (Delhi)
•  Accenture:  Gurpinder Singh Gandhara (Singapore)
• Wipro Technologies:  Akhil Bhardwaj (Bengaluru), Aditi  Rhency
•  Ameriprise:  Kamal Bhardwaj (Gurgaon)
•  SAIL: Indranil Roy (Kolkata)
•  PWC: Ankit Saksena (Texas)
•  RBS: Simerjit Singh (UK)
•  Clifford Chance: Varun Khurana (Gurgaon)
•  York University: Sandeep Bhardwaj (Toronto)
•   RexQuist Group: Gurasis Singh Lamba (Toronto)
•  DB Schenker Logistics: Usha Gupta (Germany)
•   Presence of IT: Chinmayee Mohanty (Brisbane)
•   Independent Consultant: Vaani Garg (Boston)
•   Shaveta Wadhwa (Ludhiana), Rachna Kukal (Singapore), Upma Chibber (Hyderabad) and Rajeev Gakhar      

Take care friends and keep shining in your personal and professional lives, whatever you do and wherever you go but try to be in contact always.

Awaiting your comments and information from you. I would love to hear responses from my very first professional buddies J

With lots of Love,

Chander

Man of Steel - It's big but not the best

Cast:- Henry Cavil, Michael Shannon, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe

Director:- Zack Snyder

Running Time:- 2 hours 25 minutes

I have never been a fan of Super man and though being the most powerful hero, he has not been that much popular in hollywood in last 3 decades. I watched last superman movie 'Superman Returns' that came in 2006 and even if I ignored the highly outdated special effects considering the time when it was made, the movie did not arise any interest. If a superhero cannot die by bullets or any weapon, can fly more than speed of anything on earth, can carry air crafts, ships or even small island and still become like a dead body in front of small piece of Kryptonite then no one will be interested. 

Still I decided to have a go at this one as it is a re-boot of Superman series by Warner bros like they did with Batman by "Batman begins" in 2005 and that was a major success. I decided to watch it in 3D as there was a large scope of 3D effects as evident from the trailers. Due to my laziness, I reached without ticket and thus entered the hall 10 minutes late. I am not sure how much movie was missed but I know in such movies word like missed story does not mean much. I just wore my 3 D glasses and here the story begins.

Russell Crowe appears as Jor-El which was being called a scientist and arrested by some troops on a planet Kryptone. He somehow contacted his wife and escaped to get something called codex which was shown as very important thing. Later on it was told that it has DNAs of millions of Kryptonites, if it makes sense to you, it did not make any sense to me. He sent his newly borne son (Kal-El) and codex to earth and died in fight with rebellion general Zod (Michael Shannon). Kryptone army arrest general Zod and Later on Krypton got destroyed due to unknown reasons to me and thus Lara, wife of Jor-El is also killed.

Kal-El aka Clarke Kent (Henry Cavill) is shown as young man on earth who keeps on changing jobs and helping people with flashbacks of his childhood and adolescence. In the flashbacks his earthly father and mother are shown giving hints of how he was found and brought up. He met Lois Lane (Amy Adams), a reporter in Daily Planet in arctic where some strange signals were detected which were found to be coming from a Kryptonite ship and there he came to know his super powers.

Then as expected General Zod came to earth in search of Codex to re-create Kryptonion race and thus real action begins. Rest are just mad action sequences with ineffective emotional scenes.

Coming to acting, our Superman looks more like a TV actor than a superhero. I liked Brandon Routh as Superman in Superman returns much more than Henry Cavill in this movie as Brandon's personality suited Superman's character. Amy Adams looks like Jennifor Aniston and acts like her only. There is no chemistry at all between her and Henry Cavill.

Michael Shannon as General Zod reminded me of one of my batch mate in Satyam as his face structure resembled him:) but he acted best to his capability to show himself as bad as he can with single expression of anger. Russell Crowe with emotionless face acted well and performed an anchor's role in movie very well. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as Clark's father and mother on earth acted well too.

Moving to screenplay, it was like Amazing Spiderman as it also showed the story from childhood till becoming a superhero and I must say it was bit long and slow as repeatedly Clark is shown being bullied but controlling himself. Also movie feels like bit long and never ending. I heard people screaming in the end, "please end this now" :). It became confusing sometimes when you just able to see something is being done but not able to understand what is happening exactly.

Coming to 3D effects, I will say whenever you enter the hall in any movie, 3D are most effective at that time but as your eyes become used to, they look like normal 2D scenes. Still I will say, under water scenes on Krypton in the start and final fight between Superman and Zod will be worth your extra money spent on 3D and last fight scenes in 3D; I will say are one of the best 3D effects I have ever seen.

Action wise, movie is just fine. There is nothing special in this movie which Iron man has not done in "Avengers" and if you have seen that then this will surely going to remind you of those special effects. 

First time a superhero has done lots of destruction himself while fighting with villains. He did not care a damn while destroying anything coming in a way while fighting and US army as usual just kept on firing bullets and missiles without any impact.

However lots of efforts has been put in making this big movie and those are visible. Spending more than 220 million dollar on a less popular superhero movie is a big risk. I will say this is not a bad movie but if you like to see superhero movie with lots of noise and some good 3D effects though for small time only then go and watch. 

Anyways there is no good movie released this week and in near future also.

Cheers. Awaiting your comments.

Fast and Furious 6 - Ultimate Action

Cast:- Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Luke Evans, Michelle Rodriguez, Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson

Director:- Justin Lin

Running Time:- 2 hours approximate

Only one line should be enough; this is the best Fast and Furious movie till now. Car chases, crashes, tank, aircraft everything is there and its just like a chaos on screen where you can leave your brain in home and still don't feel guilt for that. Similar to past F&F movies, this is also  a movie without any logic but who wants a story when action can spell bound you to your seat.

As there has been a latest trend in Hollywood, action movies and heroes are being shown as humans now with more of drama and less of action like in recent spider man, Batman, Iron Man and Die hard franchise (Though G.I. Joe had neither drama nor action); human emotion angle has been added in this movie also but thankfully not at the expense of action. This movie has just released F&F movie from just car chasing sequences and turns out to be a surprised complete action movie. This movie could have been one of the best candidate for 3D effects but has been released in 2 D only.

Story is simple. F&F team has taken retirement after their last task and they are left with so much money that they can spend their lives luxuriously without doing anything. There is one gangster Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) who has plan to steal components from different location and make a dangerous device. Agent Hobb (Dwayne Johnson) after first robbery in the start made decision that he cannot capture shaw without help of Torreto and his team even though he has hundreds of policemen and he even knows where the boss is hidden. Hobb convinces torreto(Vin Diesel) to help him by showing picture of his lost love Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) with Shaw's gang who is assumed to be dead in past. To bring Letty back and to get rid of their past crimes; team is formed again and thus the real movie and chase begins which slows down sometimes 

but does not stop till the last scene of the movie taking the action from London to Spain to Tokyo.

Car chase though have been seen many times in many hollywood movies but no one can compete with Fast and Furious. There are unique miltary sports cars, sports bikes, tank crushing the everything coming in the way, car chases, dangerous jumps, bullets firing, hand to hand fights between men as well as women and betrayal just on the line of our desi RACE movies; whatever you can ask from an action movie is there in ample quantity. Also there is big comedy relief provided by Tyrese Gibson playing the role of Roman Pearce. You will not be able to stop your laughter whenever he utters something from his mouth.

Only thing that can be sometimes painful when you see some un-required sequences thrusted in the movie which hold no meaning like brian going to USA to meet  Braga, a gangster to get some clue about Shaw but got nothing significant but these can be ignored. Two times in the movie, you will feel that movie has ended and when it actually ends you will left wanting the movie to not to end.

With an action movie of duration more than 2 hours, its a big achievement. Just a tip; don't leave the cinema hall when every thing looks settled in the end and Justin Lin's name appears because at that point you will see the start of next installment and I can bet that after seeing that 1 minute sequence, you will start waiting for next installment from that time on-wards as another big action star has been roped in the movie.

This is a great movie for action movie lovers and not to be missed in any case.

Shootout at Wadala - Old wine in new bottle

Cast: John Abrahim, Anil Kapoor, Manoj Bajpai, Sonu Sood, Tushar Kapoor, Kangna Ranaut, Siddhanth Kapoor, Ronit Roy, Mahesh Manjrekar

Director: Sanjay Gupta

Running Time: 2 hours 30 Minutes

First thing first, if you have seen Shootout at Lokhandwala and did not like that movie, please ignore this. I meant to say don't ignore the blog but the movie. If you liked or you did not mind watching that then you will feel nothing different in this one. This movie is strictly not for family audiences so parents who use to bring their children together to see the movies may find that their children have learnt some pure Indian abuses till the end of this movie.

Plot is as simple as you can imagine. Gangsters killing members of rival gangs, when nothing to do or have done something like killing any other gangster, then dancing in bars. Police watching them fighting and killing people till the end and suddenly realized their duty and decide to kill one gang just like selecting a chit randomly and that gang will be of person who became criminal just because of circumstances and not by family business.

Same was story of lokhandwala and same is of our indian SAW (Shootout at Wadala). You will find some diluted scenes like of english SAW movies also like cutting hands and thrashing head. Though this is a real story of first reported real encounter in India (With some cinematic liberty in story) yet film makers have exploited same plot so many times that real story has nothing unique in it. I think nothing remained to tell and rest you know, still let me give you brief synopsis if you did not care about watching the trailer which has shown the complete story if there is any.

Manohar Arjun Surve (John Abraham) is a bright student and loves his fellow student Vidya (Kangna Ranaut) while his brother is a criminal. While saving his brother from being killed, Manohar hold one gangster from back while to his surprise, his brother killed that gangster with knife and thus he is framed with murder charges along with his brother and sentenced to life imprisonment. In jail, he had to fight for survival with other criminals and ran away with Munir (Tushar) from jail.

After getting out of Jail, they meet Zubair (Manoj Bajpai) and Dilawar (Sonu Sood) who have their own gang against Mastaan (Remember Haazi mastaan?) gang in Mumbai. Earlier they planned to join their gang but because of ego differences, Manohar aka manya decide to establish first hindu gang.

Rest is the story of their fight with each other and in the end encounter by police of Manya. Let me tell you one thing, though this story is of real Manya Surve but our bollywood does not have courage to disclose the real names of leaders of opposite gang. Dilawar's character which is being played by Sonu Sood is actually character of Dawood Ebrahim who ran away from India later on but no one want to take risk by showing the real name or might be his money has been invested in this movie too as it is co-produced by White feather (Sanjay dutt's co-owned company).

Any ways, acting wise, this movie is said to be best work by John Abraham but frakly speaking, I never noticed a single difference in his acting from Jism where he started his career. Though he has worked a lot on his muscles. All of his intense work looks similar to what he has done in Zinda (incidentally Sanjay Gupta's last full movie as director in 2005 before this). Though he has tried as honestly as he always does but it does not mean that if I try to be a good singer then I will become. Ok..might be I become but acting requires much more natural talent. Tushar Kapoor as always a side kick in her sister's produced movies, acts just fine. I don't know how he manages to abuse so much in his home production movies.

Siddhanth Kapoor as one of henchman of Manya has been given a role just like his father Shakti Kapoor used to play and you will be easily able to see the glimpse of his father in him. Manoj Bajpai is good in his part while Sonu Sood has been given just a single expression of anger ( I am doubtful if he has any other expression too). Anil Kapoor has been taken seriously in this movie (at last) after he has made fun of himself in movies like Race 2 and Mission impossible. For him also there is nothing different and he just acts as a serious and frustrated police officer who keep on threatening the gangsters but no one damn cares for him, neither you will do. Ronit roy is fine and mahesh majrekar can induce some laughters with his dialogues. Kangna is a pure consistent torture with her acting so you have to bear her even in her some intimate scenes with John. 

One thing that can be liked are the dialogues which are written much like punch lines on the line of Once upon a time in Mumbai but here most of the punches are abusive unlike the clean punches in once upon a time..Still these can be enjoyed with your friends(strictly for male though women are progressive too now a days) if you are really use to hear and speak such lines. As its a gangster movie so full liberty has been taken to use as much foul language as they can. First time, you will hear such words from John. Songs are thrust-ed in the movie which might be liked depending on your preference i.e. whether you like song on basis of video or audio (mean to say on basis of video here).

Sanjay Gupta direction is good but there is no depth in characterization so something felt missing (actually lots of things) in the end. I will say if you just want to go then go with your friends and strictly not with your family or family to be in future rest you know them better.

Thanks for reading...Please put your comments below if you like it or dislike it and even if nothing.

Take Care...

G.I. Joe: Retaliation - Sheer disappointment

Cast: Bruce Willis, Dwayne Johnson, Channing Tatum, Adrianne Palicki, Ray Park, Jonathan Pryce and Lee Byung-hun 

Running Time: Approx 1 hour 45 minutes


Dear Friends,

First of all belated happy holi to all of you. I hope this holi would have brought lots of joy in your life. For me it was an opportunity to break the routine and so I broke it by playing with small quantity of colors with my family after a gap of more than decade and it was indeed a happy surprise for them and in turn I felt happy too. Happiness is so infectious but obviously it should be of your loved ones not enemies :). Happiness of enemies is infectious too but in bad way.

Coming to the movie, sorry in advance for spamming the mailboxes of all those who are not fan of action movies. This weekend 2 major movies got released; I required to be super duper himmatwala to bear Sajid Khan's Himmatwala and even in my worst mental condition I can not think of watching that.The other movie which got released was much awaited movie for me. Here much awaited means I have been waiting for one year as the movie was earlier planned to be released in 2012 which was delayed till end of march 2013 to convert it into 3D. I liked the action in prequel G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra and expected this to have at least same amount of action if not more than that.

Initially I planned to watch it with my friend in Noida in 3D but as an integral bad dream of software engineer's life, he got some production issues to spend his whole day with.I asked always ready to be my partner in crime; my brother to accompany me and thankfully he agreed this time also. As usual we were late again in entering the cinema hall so missed the first 5 minutes :(. Hope I did not miss much of it.

I have this problem while watching the sequels and you might be having the same problem too. As soon as movie starts, comparison started with prequel and my mind tried scene by scene mapping; expecting some similar level of action to begin. Though director of this part was different (Jon M. Chu; Director of Step up movies), he followed the same route. War sequence in start of prequel was matched with war sequence here too, though unexpectedly one major character of movie died in this.

You might have read or heard or experienced before also that English action movies are dumb and are mostly without story but this movie is an exception. This is much much dumber. I do not expect action movies to have any great mind boggling story but atleast for god sake there should be something which can keep the interest alive. If there is no story then I expect continuous action sequences but unfortunately if I leave bits and pieces of action, real action started after one hour of start and ended within 5 minutes.
This was one spectacular never seen before fight scene of samurais on the mountains of Himalayas. This is the only scene which I wished I could have seen in 3D. 

As there is no story so there is nothing to reveal. G.I. Joe is special team of USA for special missions which got destroyed as planned by team of antagonists by using political power as weapon. Survivors of G.I. Joe team regrouped and save the world by fighting with villains.

Movie kept on moving slowly without any story with some twists which were unexpected and unwanted. If you have seen and remember the prequel, one of the most enjoyed part was fighting scenes of Snake eyes and Storm shadow and here when they become one team it meant all that fighting got missed :(. Characters were half developed and every scene seems to be borrowed from mission impossible and die hard series. Only one actor impressed, Jonathan Pryce playing the role of Zartan disguised as president of USA. He was really excellent in his dialogue delivery. Bruce Willis was more of a guest appearance and in absence of any main character, it can be painfully assumed that Dwayne Johnson aka Rock was the main protagonist of movie. Adrianne Palicki tried hard to look glamorous but she looked quite older than her age of 30 years. 

After crawling without any objective for around 1 hour and 30 minutes, when in the end villain's main objective came up there was no surprise. If there are no aliens in English movie then one of the 2 things remain; Virus/chemical weapon or nuclear weapons. Chemical weapon was used in first installment so there is no award for guessing the central objective of this one. Yes, you need not be a Nobel prize winner to guess that once again Nuclear weapon is the idea which story writers have come up with. Only creativity is that they thought of using satellites launching the weapons.

In the climax, I waited for any one of the characters to press the stop button at the last moment to stop the destruction of world and yesss we were going to be destroyed yet saved again by USA. I must applaud the writers to give a very good message as a part of climax that whole world is sitting on the heap of nuclear weapons and buttons are lying in the hands of corrupt and illiterate politicians and slight laziness or foolishness of them can destroy whole countries or even humanity. But decision is in the hand of the authorities and average movie goer like me cannot do anything and this movie was so much below average that no one will notice this.

Finally, I will say that you can avoid this movie and only in one situation can watch this if you want to watch any movie with your friends this weekend and want to save your mind from torture of watching 
HIMMATWALA :). Too much bashing for Sajid Khan but he deserves that for this movie :).


Thanks for reading. Keep smiling.

Hello Friends..Welcome Back to my world!!!!!

Hello friends. 

Hope all of you are doing great in your respective lives. It has been approximately 15 months since I communicated with you through my blog.

This was like an exile period for me as 2012 was one of the most forgettable year of my life and I am bit relieved that finally its over but not sure how much time it will take for its traces to disappear from my life. I am really thankful to all of you who stood by my side in this period and kept on listening to my rubbish talks with all the patience in the world and kept reminding me that I am not bad to that extent which I was made to feel. Many Thanks to all of you again.

With your efforts and best wishes I have gathered enough courage to start interacting with all of you again. First of all belated happy new year and happy holi to all of you in advance.

Last year was said to be the year where world will end and I was almost wishing for that but as the director of famous movie '2012' on this disaster was busy in making movie to release in 2013 so there was not even minute chance of becoming it a reality. Many of the english people made fool  of themselves by staying in bunkers or moving to mountains after selling their property but we Indians as usual were happy as even though it was end of world but it was free of cost. 

It was not entirely a rumor, there was end of world for many of my friends in 2012 and in early 2013. Don't take it in negative way. End of world is not always a bad thing if it results in start of new world. Many of my friends got married and thus an altogether new world started for them filled with new responsibilities unknown to them till now. Some of  the married friends became parents which again was like a start of new world in which responsibilites became more than doublefold giving them the taste of what their parents must have said to them many times when my friends were not listening to them  "You will come to know when you will become parents".  Remember this phrase?

Now its upon you to decide whether your old world was better or you are enjoying more in new world :). We as a friend can just say best of luck and keep on reminding you that life is no longer the same for you :).

I would like to use this medium to give my heartily congratulations to my friends who made their parents very happy by getting married in 2012/2013:

(Thought of adding references so that its easy to identify common friends)

Shikha Singh (Satyam), Ritu Ranjan (Birlasoft), Anurag Sharma (NC College, Accenture), Karanbir Ahluwalia (Satyam), Harjot Sidhu (Satyam, Birlasoft), Ayshna Kaushik (Satyam), Ashok Kumar (NC College), Isha Chwala (Birlasoft), Amit Sharma (NC College),Pankaj Sehgal (NC College), Shiv Kumar Sharma (SD School), Ramji Pandey (Satyam, BirlaSoft), Ashish Gupta (NC College), Aman Arora (NC College), Priyanka Salaria (Satyam, HCL), Indranil Biswas (Satyam), Anil Malik (NC College), Rajan Chugh (HCL, Macquarie), Vishnu Singh (Birlasoft), Vikram Chandna (NC College) and Amit Rastogi (BirlaSoft)

I might not able to recall all the names and as I am not on facebook too (which is only medium now a days for being socially active) so I am really sorry if I missed your name. This also signifies that you have not invited me to your marriage :).

Many congratulation to the friends who promoted further by becoming parents and made their parents much happier by giving them their much awaited smaller version of you (Believe me wait starts as soon as you enter the world)   

Sumit Goyal (Satyam, BirlaSoft)  and Shinni (Sumit's wife), Preeti Gupta (Satyam, BirlaSoft) (End of 2011), Pradeep Kumar (Birlasoft) (Twins), Manjeet Singh (NC College), Vikash Kundu (NC College), Divya Puri (Satyam),  Jasleen Sachdeva (Satyam), Sandeep bhardwaj (Satyam), Ashish Rastogi (BirlaSoft, Satyam, HCL), Prateek Suneja(Satyam), HITESH ARORA (NC College) ( Latest entry in the list, blessed with an angel) and Swati Srivastava (Satyam)

Best of luck to my friends who have decided to take the risk and will soon sacrifice their bachelorhood in 2013:

Ankit Goyal (Macquarie), Sumit Narang (NC College), Dixit Pasricha (NC College), Ravneet Singh (Satyam), Ajay Kumar (BirlaSoft), Rashi Goyal (BirlaSoft) and Achin Gupta (BirlaSoft).

Many congratulations to those friends also who I missed in the lists above.

I am not sure whether rest of my friends who have almost finalized their life partners are comfortable in letting the world know or not so I will not disclose their names.

There are some of my friends lined up for becoming parents soon and again this might be confidential thing and I will not let their surprise known to you before them :).

Why to leave those friends who are happily managing their married life. Congratulations to those friends also who have completed their first anniversary or second, third and so on. Wish you make silver, golden or even platinum jubilee. 

My friends who are still bachelors I will just like to say best of luck in both the cases whether you want to get married or want to remain bachelor. Latter is much tougher thing as everyone around you will use every way possible to convince you to lose your bachelorhood but in the end its your decision.

I feel this post has become more of a newsletter and as it was a long time since I wrote so I 

thought of  dedicating this to the my priceless friends (in place of waiting till friendship day) as it is said "Friends are God's way of taking care of us" so friends please take care of yourselves and your friends and be in touch.

Before signing off, one small update from my side also. Please don't think otherwise, its nothing like linked to my marriage. Its for all of you who are not aware that I am back to Noida so whoever planning to come to noida or in noida and wish to meet then just drop an email or give me a call/sms (SMS in case if I don't pick up the phone) on +919717771457 and I would love to meet you.

Bye bye till my next post and thanks for reading it through.

I would love to see comments/updates from all of you.

Mission Impossible 4 - Ghost Protocol. Ultimate dose of action

MI 4
Cast: - Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Puala Patton, Anil Kapoor( Baal kalakaar in guest appearence)
Running Time :- Approx 2 hours

Before writing anything I want to put a disclaimer that I like action movies and I am sort of a fan of MI movies. Though I was not able to understand Mission Impossible One and there was hardly anything to understand in other two instalments still I like the way action and technology is represented in MI movies more like american version of James Bond but without limitations of suit and tie.


Finally coming to the movie, only one line is enough, completely worthy of watching in cinema hall. From the very first scene action starts and till the last it continues. Success of an action film can be measured by the moments which can shake you while sitting on your comfortable seat and believe me MI -4 has many moments like this where unexpected happens.


Film starts with death of an IMF agent and escape of Ethan hunt (Tom Cruise) from the moscow prison with the help of his newly formed team consisting of a female agent Jane (Paula Patton) and a computer specialist Benji(Simon Pegg). Ethan is asked to lead the team on his new mission to get a file from moscow archive to intercept a secret. From there on everything happened wrong for them and set the base for the rest of film


I dont want to reveal what ever happened there after as it all may dilute the effect of the film and I did not read the story of the film although it is available in full on wikipedia :). Just wanted to say there is continous action from moscow to dubai and finally India.


There are so many moments that make me feel like I have got worth of my money. The action level kept on rising with every scene. Prison escape was not that much of full packed action but later on destruction of kremlen, murder of IMF secretarty and the best scenes at Burj khalifa in dubai outclassed the previous scene. Spider man act of Tom cruise on burj khalifa with one hand from 130th floor and sand storm coming in backend along with occassioal slipping of hands from a height of 2000 ft made my heart miss a beat some times. Even if that is not enough coming back from such a height by running on the glass was an exceptional stunt.


All this happened till interval and as in first hour itself so much action of high voltage has happened, there cant be anything better in second half. Pace dips and so as action.This time team of ethan hunt got their part of action too. William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) an IMF agent disguised as an analyst, got the chance to do the famous mission impossible scene of hanging vertical to ground which Tom Cruise has repeated in all of his MI movies but this time with no strings and above a gigantic running fan. Even in the climax, mumbai parking lot has been shown like that of international standard which has not been shown even in hindi movies till now. However climax is bit extended and fight of an old strategist with expert IMF agent looks enforced when we know that our super hero will save us any how.


Talking about story there is nothing to talk. There is same beaten to death story of probable nuclear attack from which our heroic team want to save the world. A new flavour of comedy included this time with benji in place of luther(in previous movies) as a computer specalist. There are some conversations between Benji and Brandt which will put smiles on your face especially the dialogue of brandt after dangerous stunt that "Agli baar ladki wala kaam main karunga(Next time I will seduce the rich guy"). However when movie is so highly paced with so much happening around we are least concerned about the story.


Samething can be said about technology. Computer securities are broken like a decoding of school boy project. Iphones have been used for unlocking access doors, Ipad has been used for highest quality 3-D views, contact lenses has been used as scanner and printer. Touch screen phones have been used as tracker and even computer hackings. We cant say anything apart from wasting oyr mind on how all this is possible.


Talking of acting, Tom cruise is perfect in the role of ethan hunt and no one can think of any one else in his role though he started to look quite old and watching him shirtless was quite a pain. Simon pegg provided comic relief and Paula patton looked beautiful and quite effective in her action scenes. Jeremy Renner as an ex-IMF agent filled with guilt for himself for his past mistakes was effective too in action scenes. Anil kapoor played a very brief version of what he is doing from a long time in hindi movies, playing a role of rich business man having eyes on each and every beautiful woman.


All in all, illogical story, out of world techonology and unseen high voltage stunts make this a highly effective film. Some scenes will remain in memory for a long time. So if you are a mission impossible fan you can't dare to miss it seeing on large screen as you dont know when the next installment will come and that will have tom cruise or not.