Talking the Walk , The memorable hindi film lines

If you think only shawshank redemption and The matrix had those lovable and memorable dialogs; I am sorry you are wrong. May be you will have to stress your brain a bit and try to recollect some lines that have defined the Indian Cinema culture.
Here are some lines I have taken from India Today

Sholay (1975)
“Kitne aadmi thhe?” Gabbar (Amjad khan)
Bollywoods greatest villain the Gabbar singh asking this very trivial question to the “Are -o-Sambha”. As he said the words the crowd in movie hall stood up to applaud. Students of cinema have studied this dialog as a masterpiece. Not one or two the whole script of the movie could have been considered as classic qoutes.
From “Itna sannataa kyon hai bhaai?” to “Basanti in kutton ke samane mat nachana” almost everybody had a classic dialog in this movie. However I liked Jaya bhaduri who doesnt utter a single word but says a lot. A true genius.


Deewar (1975)

“Aaj mere pass gaadi hai, bungla hai, paisa hai...tumhare pass kyaa hai?” Amitabh
“Mere pass, mere pass... Maa hai” Shashi Kapoor
It was not just a dialog but it tells us about importance of maa in an Indian Cinema. It got very popular but the dialog delivery and timing showed by both actors was classic.

Yaadon ki Baarat (1973)
“Kutte, Kamine, main tera khoon pee jaoonga,” Dharam paji
Difficult to say why this line got so popular as garam dharam always threatened his enemies in this fashion.

Souten (1983)
“Jinke ghar sheeshe ke hote hain, who batti buzake kapade badalte hain” Prem Chopra
I love this dialog. It resembles a dialog of Rajkumar in words but its meaning is so insulting. A insult line I have used for so many.

Vishwanath (1978)
“Jali ko aag kahate hain, bhuji ko raakh kahate hain,jis raakh se baarood bane usey Vishwanath kahate hain” Shatrughna Sinha
You must have got it as an SMS but this famous dialog was delivered by the shotgun sinha in his unique way.

Deewar (1975)
“Main aaj bhi pheke hue paise nahin uthata” Amitabh Bachchan
A signature dialog from the angry young man of his time. Dont know how many fans repeated that dialog to their friends.

My 5 Fav.

A beautiful Mind
Men's triumph over nature's cruelty. This movie made me crazy. It showed me what exactly a movie should be like and shattered my understanding of acting and direction.
It's not just about a genius who scored a victory over a psychological disease it's about limits of human mind, determination and power of love showed by our beloveds
There is no time in man's life when he should accept his defeat. One never looses a battle until he stops fighting. That was the message given by this film through unmatchable acting skills showed by Jeniffer Connelly and Russell Crowe and superb direction from Ron Howard. He later made one more masterpiece with Russell called 'Cinderella Man'.
I remember each and every frame of the movie and almost every dialog. I have seen this movie so many time and every time I saw it I found it as beautiful as I found it for the first time.

Bichhoo
Nope. Its not the movie again. Its a marathi novel I read some 12 years back. I don't even remember the author. The book I guess never got aclaimaition in the world of literature. However that book has got a permanent place in my mind.
Its about a tribal man and his young daughter chasing a panther in a forest. The novel proceeds with the view point of all three including the panther. The panther is young and wants to escape to a far away place which he thinks is safe. While the tribal man wants to kill the panther for his skin. The young daughte is not old enough to understand why her father is so desparate to kill the panther and develops love for the animal. The man get more and more despo. As he cant find the panther and the girl starts fearing her father. At last he gets a clear opportunity to kill tha panther while the panther is a jump away from the place which he thinks is safer for him. The man realizes that his chase has damaged the emotional world of his daughter and spares the panther. The panther too hurt and exhausted from a long journey rests in peace in the same forest.
It was a first thick book I understood fully.


Ruchi- The restorant
A best place to hang out with friends or without. Exotic veg dishes and lip smacking ice creams. I like the left side AC room facing the road. I have my regular table over there and I like to watch the vehicles entering the city while tasting the filter coffee or black current ice cream.
One good thing about this place is that it is not usually crowded unless you come there after 8:30pm. The waiters are not at all hostile and its extreamly clean.
My fav. Dish is Dahi batata puri a special type of chat which tastes so well only in Ruchi.


Hazaron khwahishein aisi
Again its not the movie nor the song. Yeah! Indeed the song is my fav. One as well but here I am referring to the Gazal Maestro Jagjit Singh. A singer blessed with divine voice that straight way touches your heart. When his melodious voice is coupled with Galib' meaningful poetry you get a reason to forget this world and get involved in an experience. An experience that makes you understand the beauty of words, music and feelings.


Computer Networks
By Andrew S Tannenbaum is a book that made me fall in love with computer networks. It might sound weird but I do love Computer Networks more than anything else. No matter how much you learn there is still so much to be learn. I have high regards for the author who has touched almost every aspect of computer science.

Doordarshan Nostalgia

Days of Doordarshan

Spending countless hours before the screen is a fav. Timepass these days. Many people have got RAS by pushing the remote buttons continuously. However there was a time when watching tv was ultimate experience after the days hectic schedule.

My house was one of the few who had televisions in the village. My neighbors gathered to watch the popular serials at that time starting from Hum Log to Recent ones like shaktiman. Here are the few serials I remember and happy that I saw them.

HUM LOG
Very contrary to todays no brains daily soaps which show pretty women clad in expensive sarees and jewellery and moving around in big sedans this serial was truly a family drama. A middle class family with their every day problems and some unforgettable characters alikeness's Ram and a mausi whose name i cant remember. Written by /manihar Shyam Joshi a low profile marathi author this serial was a landmark.

Every family of that time could see characters that resembled them or their surroundings. Love, hatred, faith and fate the serial showed all this in a manner that made this serial a classic.

RAMAYAN
Despite of poor production values this serial was a mega hit on tv. Arun Gowil and Deepika lived the indian legends on the tv screen. Directed by Ramanand sagar this serial gave every indian an image of Ram and Sita which they could imagine.

It was not just the serial but it was the faith of people in the epic that pulled them to this serial. The serial too in my opinion did justice to the story and portrayed the perfect couple well on the screen. I still remember how eagerly I and everybody else use to wait for this serial every Sunday. People stared the tv not only with amusement but with a faith as well.

MAHBHARAT
'Mein kaal hoon' use to be the first line of this serial. I loved the character Arjun while everybody loved Krishnaa played by Nitin Bharadwaaj who had almost become synonymous with Lord Krishna. I use to cry if they did not show war scenes in one episode and my mother use to have tough time explaining why the war did not take place. She use to tell me that the Arjun's arrows had got over that is why the war was postponed. I read mahabharat many times after that and every time I came across Arjun in the book I visualized the Arjun in Mahabharat.
This serial helped a generation to understand the value of mahabharat and introduce the convent going kids to the different characters in the worlds biggest epic.
Hardly any ones knows much about mahabharat these days and reading such books are considered to be waste of time or getting communal. The true wisdom in the story remains untouched in todays society while the legend of Krishna remains prisoned in the Temples only.

WAGALE KI DUNIA
Frankly I never appreciated this serial when it was being aired. It was after 5 years that I learnt that the serial was an television incarnation of legendary cartoon figure 'The Common Man' by R. K. Laxman. The common man was heard speaking for the first time the serial. Wagle had his own Dunia which was not much different from the world around each one of us. Today the Indian Middle class had changed a lot and the story might look irrelevant on modern terms however I liked the serial when it was re-aired on DD-Delhi 5 years later.

REPORTER
This was a serial that inspired me. Especially the first few episodes of struggle and failures faced by a journalist portrayed by Shekahar Suman. I think I am one of the few people who have seen him performing a serius role so well. Supported by Nandu 'Makarnad Kulkarni' this serial was my and my fatehrs fav. We together use to see this serial while struggling not to sleep. 10:30 was too late in our house at that time.

FAUJI
It was then when I loved Shahrukh as abhimanu rai a commando in Indian Army. His impeccable acting soared patrotism in the hearts of we kids.
The scene in which a soldier dies while controlling his sneeze was the best scene I ever saw on television. The serial shares a corner of my heart along with Abhimanyu Rai. However I dont find Shahrukh there.

MALGUDI DAYS
Malgudi was not just a small village but it was a prototype of India. Swami was not just a character but a figure represented Indian children. I did not posses the vison to understand this serial when it was aired for the first time but I wa it on POGO recently. Each small story had a message. A message that touched our hearts and forced us to look around us for the characters in the episode. Swami was a hero in every house at that time. It showed the cosmopoliton metamorphism of Indian villages very nicely. I am yet to start earning otherwise I would have bought and read the origianal book.

VIKRAM AUR BETAAL
Many people heard these names for the first time when this serial was aired. However I was already familiar with these characters better than anybody else through the original stories. Vikram in reality was the best king India ever saw and his greatness was spread with this stories. He had answer for every question Betaal had his comittment to his duty brought him back to the Samshaan.
Every story had a message that was discussed in form of question and answers by vikram and betaal.

I am really nostalgic about this characters and I feel bad that my kids perhaps will never get to hear about them.

GUL GULSHAAN AND GULFAAM
Kashmeer is beautiful and this story took Kashmeer to every part of India. Everybody loved these characters for the reasons I never understood, I never understood the serial may be my young mind was not developed enough to understand horros and tormoils of the valley.


The list does not end here there are many more names which I am not able to recollect right now. You are not always an idiot to sit in front of the television. However recently I have stopped watching serials for the only reason that I feel very stupid watching them. I watch only CNBC and HBO/STAR MOVIES these days.

Some Poor Kavita PKs

Poor Jokes च्या धर्तीवर PK म्हणजेच काही Poor Kavita
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मी आहेच प्रेमांत वेडा, दुसर्य़ांच्या प्रेयसीना चोरणे माझे काम आहे
मजनूला सुध्दा वाईट म्हणते लैला माझ्या पुढे ।
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बसवून प्रेयसीला जवळ रात्रभर, लोकहो
जे काही करत नाहीत ते कमाल करतात
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प्रेम नसेल माझ्यावर तर,
मला एकांतही चालेल

माझा एकांत तूझ्यासाठी,
कदाचित आनंदाची बाब असेल

तोडू नकोस हे संबंध,
काही नाही तर शत्रूत्वही चालेल
_________________________________________________
पिंजर्यात मला सांगताना सख्या,
वाईट वाटून गेण्याची गरज नाही,

जळून जे राख झालं,
ते घरटं माझं कशाला असेल?
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जिवन जर असेल आणखीन एक दिवस
तर मी ही लढेन आणखीन एक दिवस
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तू गेलीस त्याच्या बाईक वर बसून तर मला त्याचे काय? जेव्हां उठेन;
तेव्हां घेईन एक पेग सोड्या बरोबर.....


(this is not at all funny, श्ब्द कदाचीत वाट्तील विनोदी पण feel the pain in it., he is drinking to forget her but not ready to accept the FACT that she means a lot to him)
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स्वर्गांतून माणसाचे बाहेर येणे ऐकत आलोय परंतू,
तूझ्या घरातून बेईज्जत होऊन बाहेर पड्लो मी,

आकांक्षा आहेत ह्जार अशा की,
प्रत्येक आकाक्षेवर थकतो मी,

असेन विजीगिषू मी परंतू,
प्रत्येक वेळी कमीच पड्तो मी ।

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दुःखे एवढी होतीच नशीबांत तर देवा,
ह्रदय सूध्दां अनेक द्यायची........................

नव्हतेच नशिबांत माझ्या, ओळख होणे तीची,
जगलॊ असतॊ आणखीन तर, त्यात सूध्दां वाट बघितली असती,
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On Project Duty

Started my project.........................

Its time for me to take a brake with other people's projects and start doing my own project. I have started my website specially dedicated to the project. The title of the project is
"stock market analysis using artificial intelligence'.

Mostly a theoretical project its probably one of its kind. More about the project can be found on
http://akshar.frihost.net/aipro/

English First

English First!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For any country aspiring to be an economic superpower needs excellent education system and the cause of worry is that India lacks exactly in the same thing. Around 40% children in India especially girls never complete their primary education. Education is a topic very close to my heart so I have decided to devote a blog to it.

Chotu is a boy who works in the Hotel near my house. Every evening he comes to my house to watch movies on cable. Since our TV is free that time none of us mind. Seldomly even I sit with him to watch movies. I was astonished to see that he has seen almost evry movies that comes on Zee Cenema or Filmy and even few english movies on AXN. He remembers even the finest details which being an movie lover even I cant recollect. His little mind is full of the things they show in movies those fights, romance, tragedy and super natural things. He has not even gone to 1st std. but he does not regret it. Today he is 14 serving tea and samosa's i nthe dirtiest hotel in my neighbourhood and movies is the only thing that perhaps stimulates his brain and makes him think. It is not difficult for me to understand that he perhaps tries to relate his life to the life shown in movies.

I remembered my childhood when I hardly got any chance to see many movies. One reason was we had only doordarshan and second reason was that I had to study. I use to see at the most 1 movies per month and never remembered the story.

What I am trying to say here is that when you are a kid in 1st std. whatever you see and hear makes a huge impact on your life. What skills you develop in your life largely depends on your childhood learning. Compared to america or britain the quality of primary education in India is bad that we cant even cosidered it as education. It is a process that makes student hate learning and even if they learn what they learn hardly helps them in life. The teaching methods are antiqued and education gets low priority in rural areas.

I happy that some initiatives by recent governments and involvment of corporates has been responsible to change this scenario to a very large extent but still 'Dilli abhi door hai'. What I have noticed with our system is that we lack in a clear idea of 'Education' and the whole 'purpose of education'. The way any company determines its vision and goal I feel even the education department should determine the vision and goal of the education system in the country. Since there is no clear idea what education is meant for there is no firm and illustartive policy about how to achieve the goal and carry forward the vision. At the most our education ministry sets the goal of educating some 2-3 million kids but I dont feel that is the goal.

British introduced a systematic and centralized education system to India. The goal was to provide a pool of human resource for running various government agencies by training the locals for that work. There were much wider political motives as well. Education will open some new (but limited) horizons for the Indians resulting into increasing their faith in British goverment. That was the plan and it was well studied and executed. When we got independence I feel the government should have revised the whole purpose of education in India. The government lacked the forsight to do so and no one bothered also.

The same syllabus and same methods were continued which created only bunch of clerks every year. People who had extra ordinary talents in mathematics wasted it in calculating balance sheets. Dear friends you may not agree with me but the education system has not changed much over years. We are only creating clerks every year.

Every minister has his own opinions about education and no sane person has the authority to question them. The clerk mentality is so much wide spread that almost every body agrees to the minister and executes his decision.

The recent decision in our state was to make English a compulsary subject right from 1st standard. For which a set of textbooks are published which are of very hight standards it seems. This word 'high' is relative to the quality of american or european textbooks. When I read the third standard english textbook I did feel that it could have been a US textbook. The flowers mentioned in books were never heard of nor they are found in Goa.

I think its good that government has learnt importance of english and has willingness to improve english of an average Indian student. However it should not happen by killing our own regional languages which are very advanced and also have the power of expression like any other language. Instead of taking an decisive stance of this issue it would have been better if the government had done a deep study about how the english of students can be improved without hampering the growth of regional languages. There should have been a long term policy not only about the textbooks but also about empowering village and school libraries with quality english literature. With my personal experience I can say that english can be improved only through conversation and articultaion. The current syllabus do not feature both these things sufficiently. In short I feel government lacks vision and plan to enrich the knowledge of english in Indian students. Also a possibility to play regional and religious politics can not be ignore fully.

If we take example of china (chinese is the worlds largest spoken language) their government has striked good balance between english and chinese. Chinese people are everywhere and they take their language everywhere in the world. The world respects them because of this and they have created their own identity. However that is rarely the case with Indians especially when language is concerned.

Thanks to Nandakumar Kamat prof. in Goa University who enlightned me through his article in local news paper that a kid between 3 to 7 is capable of learning as many languages as it is exposed to even 10 is not a large number. However after that the ability to learn a new language is reduced. Parents may note this.

Back to BLOGS

I am back to BLOGs.

Just the way those hardcore bikers love to take a free ride on straight road I like to set my thought s free and run them over the pages of a blog. My blogs are exclusively written for myself and I do you a favour by disclosing them to you. My blogs are for my satisfaction not for your entertainment.

Blogging is an art, its an science and above all its an revolution. Blogging has strengthned the principles of democracy and its and perfect example of how technology can bring sense of equality among the people beyond limits of gender,religion,age and even nationality.

Its time for me to allow my thoughts run free...................................

Stolen Thumb drive part 2

Stolen Pen Drive part 2

I just prayed to god that I should get that pen drive back. I know he listens to everyone but we talk to him only when we are in trouble still he listens to us. May be that is why he is called God. I was very depressed and was thinking how it will be possible for me to compensate that drive. I spoke with Aniket and we together decided that we will pay 2000 bucks and remaining will be bared by the customer. I never did anything in my life that would make me feel ashamed of myself. This time I cursed myself like anything. I thought for a long time and decided that it was my mistake and I should compansate the whole amount not matter how difficult it is going to be for me. I went to college next day with these intentions. I figured out how I can gather 400 bucks.

We had lost all hopes of getting the drive back. The customers were girls and had gone total nuts over that drive. They approached me in my college to get some help about their website. I was not at all interested in that work but I had lost their valuable drive hence I owed a lot to them. I was explaining to them how difficult it is to make a server side script and I saw Aniket in front of me holding the drive in his hand. My mouth was wide open and I was wondering how this man got it back.

Is this the same drive Akshar? he asked me. I swear even if was not the same one I would have told him that it is the one. But this drive looked almost same. When we checked the data we found that it was formatted. I was so happy that I could not express myself I told the girls that I will mail their site at midnight. I was not bothered about them anyway. I started dreaming about what to do with the money I am gonna earn. A treat to my friends was pending for a long time, lets settle it down I said to myself.

The facts got revealed as we came out of the lab and discussed. One of the diplomat friends of Aniket had found one of our own classmate with a Toshiba pen drive the same one. That classmate had joined our batch because of block i.e. he had failed in 6 subjects. So foolish on his part to bring that drive in college and we were so lucky. The diplomat cleverly kept a watch on him while he sent one of his friends to call Aniket. Aniket was very shrewd he went near the culprit took the drive in his hand and said "nice drive man. even I had one but I lost it." That fellow got scared like anything. He was speechless for a moment. Aniket was surrounded by two of his diplomat friends who had butts larger than that nuts head so he couldn't do anything about it. "Let me keep it with me for verification. Why dont you produce the receipt of purchase and take it back from me. I guess you have the receipt, isn't it?" Aniket carefully mounted the words. "Yeah... ," He realized that he was making a mistake by committing to show the receipt which would mean that drive will remain with Aniket till then. Aniket did not wait for his reply any more he ran to me confirmed that the drive was ours and handed them over to the girls.

That is why I call Aniket my friend. That is why I was paying him 50% of my earning. That's called risk management. I was learning the trends of management. :) I wished that the story will get over that too with a happy ending. But the next day the culprit arrived with a reciept that looked fake from the quality of the paper. Besides it showed the worth of the drive as 1599/- which was a bad joke. Aniket this time took him outside the lab kept one hand on his shoulder. I remained out of the whole matter after all I had hired Aniket to handle these kind of situations why do I fall into all this I told myself. Perhaps I was quite sure that my intervention would spoil the whole scene. Aniket told him that the owner of the lost pen drive was a girl and her father was a well known lawyer of the city. (I could make out from the tone of his sentence that he lied, I confirmed it later). Aniket also explained him how worse things can get if he messed up with the drive and also convinced him that even police could interfere in the whole matter. Aniket did not wait for his response. He dialed her fathers number ( the actual number was a fake one I gussed.) The plan worked just fine. The culprit wiping out sweat from his head said "Yeah? Then may be the drive belongs to the girl. and escaped..." Aniket had convinced him so well that a normal fellow would have given away the drive even if it was his own.

Some people are just not as smart as me. they steal the drive but they dont resist the tempatation of bringing it to the college. Then they easily give it into the hands of the person whom it belongs. The height is they belive that a lawyer will waste his time on something worth just 4000 and the police will believe the story. Though I have the smartness I lack the most basic thing that is the "courage to steal it in the first place". God knows what to give whom and what not to.

5 things that changed my life

5 things that changed my life 4/29/2006

I had a teacher in my village school that use to always tell me one thing. “If you dream to achieve something in life it is always possible. Whether you succeed or not is totally dependent on the intensity of desire you have in your heart for that goal. The ultimate source of the energy is within you itself. “

I though understood what it meant did not believe in it; however as I entered the higher secondary in the city of margao I got affected by a kind of inferiority complex. I saw smarter and smartest people around me and I saw them achieving what they wanted. How? I thought they were intelligent and smarter than me. I blamed myself for not being like them. Thankfully I did not try to become like them I knew each person is different and there is no point in imitating someone. But a person can change and I always tried to change myself. To day when I look behind the memory lane I see a tremendous change in my personality not exactly the way I wanted but certainly an acceptable change. I see 5 main reasons that made me change. There is a 6th reason also which should feature right before all of them but not all things can be mentioned to others.

1st
But somewhere deep in my heart there was a voice that told me that I just need a small impulse that can give back me my confidence and determination to achieve something significant in life. That was precisely the reason why I joined Information Technology engineering rather than computer or electronics which were supposed to have better scope. Instead of joining ETC or CS would have made me one of those students but I wanted to be one of kind.

In InfoTech I thought the students will be not so smart and hence I will be the smartest among them and that might help me to gain some confidence. Surely the decision was smart one. I wouldn’t say that I was the smartest but I was never a small fry out there in my class. I saw people appreciating my knowledge and skills which made me feel special. I never wanted to be proud of what I was good at but I wanted everyone to know that I am not one of those who just blindly follows trends. I wanted to be a trend setter. The day I joined IT in GEC I think was the most important day in my life. It was a new life for me.

Though GEC did not satisfy my expectations from an eng. college it gave me lot many things. There are so many things about GEC that I would rather love to forget but I can not deny that this institution was responsible for that great change in the personality of a small village boy suffering from some kind was infi. complex that he is not so smart.

2nd
To be honest with others is very difficult and to be honest to yourself is more difficult. Sometimes we know the wrong things in us but we do not admit them. One thing I have learnt from the autobiographies of great people is that they admitted their mistakes and incapability better than others not just that but they worked to improve on them.
Just after 2 sems in GEC I met a boy from my village who was doing eng. in some low reputed college somewhere in Maharashtra. He was rather surprised to hear that I did not get backlogs in my first 2 sems. He challenged me that eng. is not so easy and the studies will get difficult and more difficult for me in the higher sems and I won’t be able to pass eng. without backs.

That really hurt me. I was extremely good in computers and all that stuff. I could not imagine myself getting a back in any of the IT courses. How can I fail? It happened and it was very difficult for me to digest. I got an unexpected backlog in discrete math a subject I was by default good at and I loved that subject like anything. I didn’t know how come but I did not ask that question to myself. How come?

The day the results were out I faced every friend of mine. Mohnish, Sid, Ashish and all getting distinctions and very good marks and me getting a back and extremely pathetic score in all the subjects. What really hurt me was the score of 42 in Data structures a subject I was so good at. Things which looked so beautiful until yesterday looked very ugly today. It was one of the longest days in my life. Everybody showed their surprise at my results and I felt that they made fun of me. Some felt sorry but some looked very excited to say that he just mugs up the things and hence he couldn’t pass in mathematics.

As usual I never showed the emotional side of me. I kept a smiling face said that failures are just a part of my life and we should learn to live with it. That was my philosophy but I had lots of clouds gathering in mind. I went home put on my PC and started listening to one of the Gazals. 'Dil hi to hai Na samazega, Koi hume batayein kyon. Royenge hum hazar baar, koy hume sataye kyon..' Chitra Singhs voice gave my heart a way to express my emotions.

This incidence thought me two good lessons. First; I was not among those fortunate who get success without doing anything hard. Second, failures are just a part of life and they strengthen your character to make you a stronger man than before.

3rd
I don’t like people who act smarter than they are. Aniket was just one of those. The day he entered as a diplomat (students coming for degree after diploma) and spoke in such a way as if he was the king od our class. He entered and told our DSAC prof. that he was late because he was in toilet along with a raised finger. The class was laughing and I thought it was very unusual and this man was different from us. I saw that he had a very dominating nature, kind of people I don’t like to face. He was accompanied by two jumbo-sized students who looked just like the wrestlers in WWE. It seemed that they were very enthusiastic and were totally dependent on Aniket for the source of ideas. Any way I did not like that such people entered our peaceful class.

The worst thing happened and Aniket joined our practical batch. I was very apprehensive to face him and since I was the first bencher he probably took me as an ordinary studious boy who knew only but studying. Our first DSAC practs was a clash between us. He threatened to kill me in a very unusual style. Keeping a one rupee coin in my hand he said "Go call your mom and tell her that you are not going to come home today." I was not used to listen to this kind of dialogs and was not quit assertive about his capabilities to do so. Slowly he learnt about me and I learnt about him. His confidence was in the form of aggression. Probably he believed that, it was the best way to defend him. Also he was at least 6 years older than us and had seen lot more about life than any of us. He must have thought that these all are kids in front of him and tried to prove his superiority but eventually I guess he learnt that, the best strategy was to get mixed with everyone else and be one of them.

Certain things I learnt from him. To put it in better words, I envied him for certain skills he had. The way he spoke to people the way he buttered them and finally cooked his own KHICHADI. He even buttered me and took all my programs from me and just fooled around during practs. I do not regret this because I loved to do programs and helping others is in my blood. Though I felt that he utilized his time in studying more and that fetched more marks to him. Absolutely, no regrets about that. I too solved one of my problems through him. I use to write the programs and he use to take printouts for me. One of the lab assistants was his childhood friend.

I wondered how come he managed to put people in his pocket so easily. I learnt from him how to talk with people how to butter them and make them feel good to get your work done. Acting smarter than what you actually are works well sometimes. He showed me how easy life can be if you have better communication skills. Everybody found a friend in him, he was with everybody but I felt that he is different. He has purposefully maintained a distance from everyone else even with his two close diplomat friends.

Whatever it may be he was one of my closest friends and I found him very trustworthy. There were so many things that I learnt from him. Though he did not tell me anything about his personal life I could guess what all things must have made him this kind of person. Some said he was exploiting me but I never bothered. As long as I get my work done I need not bother about others. Now that’s what I had learnt from him.

4th
Not two many girls got opportunity to peek inside my life. Whatever stuff started between me and Neha was just because of phone calls. I had no attraction for her nor I found anything special in her. I thought she was very dumb. But no she was fairly smart. I don’t know what she felt about me but somewhere I thought she got emotionally involved in me. On my side I was just getting bored with my life and wanted some spice into it. Something other than my programming skills capable of attracting people’s attention to me. That was the only reason I guess I allowed her to come so close to me.
That was not a waste of time. I learnt a lot about female psychology from her. What I had learnt from my little experience with girls was that they have a habit of telling lies. And if the girl is very pretty then it is hard to disbelieve her. But when they tell you how smart they acted by telling lies to others you get a doubt in your mind that perhaps you too are forming a similar story for her to tell others. I was getting what I wanted from her and I was happy.
People started to talk about both of us and everybody was curious to know how such a quite boy got this girl and how come this girl managed to potofy him. Actually that was not the case. Some things never happen in reality its our perspective that make us feel that it happened. For example sun never disappears from sky not even during the eclipse; we are at the wrong position.
I will not like to admit it but she certainly attained some importance in my life. I don’t like to involve myself into things that I cant get off within 30 seconds. But whatever we had between us was not the typical girl-boy attraction at least not from my side.
One more quality that girls posses is to make fair comments in a nice way. They can nicely express whatever they feel. May be they think to much about people and relationships. When two guys come together they either talk about politics or girls or cricket. I liked all the comments Neha made about me. Some I know were true some I was aware of and in some case I could make out that she lied. She helped me to improve myself.
I can write more about her but I have some special dedicated blogs for the whole story.

5th
I came to know about my GATE results in the strangest way. A ETC guy was asking other students on bus stand about who is this ‘Akshar Prabhu Desai’ he told others that his All India Rank was 50. Unbelievable! I thought. I had worked hard for GATE and right from 1st year I had concentrated on it. But this amount of success was very surprising. This event brought a great change in me. Now I understood what my teacher in school use to say.
When I checked the results on net and very next day I saw so many guys and gals congratulating me for my success. There is no tonic like success. I use to tell others and now I was learning what it meant.
I understood that sky is the limit if you are set to conquer it. All the doubts in my mind are extinct. It is not my over confidance that I will succeed in whatever I do. No I don’t expect that I will succeed in everything I do but I do believe that I am capable of doing it. And when I am capable I don’t see any reason why I should not try for it.
My attitude towards people changed after this. The inferiority complex suddenly disappeared, my image in my own mind got improved. I wont mind now not getting into IITs but I ll never forget this achievement in my life. This achievement is unforgettable not because I was 50th and I was better than thousands. But because I understood that any ordinary person among lakhs can achieve something extraordinary if he has a burning desire for it. Friends, I am very sure now that my lfie is not going to be a waste. I would achieve something that will make a difference to this. I believe that I am a common man. I am not so intelligent etc. as my friends think of me but I am much focused. I know exactly how I am going to shape my life and I want this to happen with everybody around me. The day this will happen with the youth in this nation the face of this nation is going to change. I had read somewhere about Vivekananda saying “ give me 100 young people like me and I ll change the face of our nation.” I cant even compare me with him but I understood why he was so confident.

Story of a stolen Thumb drive

Sometimes in life you wish dinosours were not extinct and could be whisteled to come and gallop you down their throat. That exactly describes my state of mind when I lost the thumb drive given to me by Aniket. Without Aniket the description of my college days will be incomplete. He is my close friend. Calling him a friend is an irony. I never heard him uttering a sentaince without bad words and he was tha master of all sorts of buttering. I learnt a hell lot from him.

He was the one who brought some outsourcing projects I mentioned in my prev. blogs. One of the customers had given a 1 GB pendrive to us. I knew very well that I am absent minded and I ll loose that drive so I kept it in my bag very carefully. As usual we chatted surfed and fokyfied each others in the lab and on the way back to home I just cheked my bag for the drive only to find that it was missing.

Something worth Rs 6000 that could mean all I earnt through these projects would be insufficient to compansate that. huh..

I immediately called all my friends who could possibly had taken the drive. No avail.
I was just imaginating what badwords I am now gonna hear from Aniket. I called him on his phone. Hell0 I said, I uttered the sentence I had prepared for him. Aniket said I ..
I lost the pen drive...
No No It was stolen from my bag....

There was a silence for a few seconds and I just felt it will be great if one of those dinasours could come down to eat me up. But to my surprise no bad words came from other side. He surely was depressed a bit but he understood the situation and it's seriousness. Now thats I think is a sign of a good friend. I would have felt a lot better if he had given bad words for me but his silence was more pathetic for me.

I decided in my mind what I ll do if the customer comes to me she was a girl remind you and the best thing they would do is to cry as I could have guessed.
The story will continue in the next blog..