Movies based on Books

I have often heard people opine that great books don't necessarily translate into great movies, for whatever reasons.

In my limited experience, I haven't seen great many a movie based on a book that I have already read. In fact, I can remember only two of them. Ayn Rand's "Fountainhead" was one, the movie adaptation of which I thought was abominable. The other one was Harper Lee's "To kill a Mockingbird",which I loved and also enjoyed watching it's movie adaptation equally, if not more.

Having said that, there are scores of movies in my list of favorites, which are based on or inspired by a book that I have not yet read. Examples in this category being The Godfather, Shawshank Redemption, American Psycho, Sin City, the latest Batman Series to name a few. But I have heard people say that in case of The Godfather and Shawshank Redemption, the movie adaptations have surpassed their literary counterparts in depiction the underlying theme of the original.

So, coming to the topic of discussion, I wonder, having enjoyed some book thoroughly, is it possible for anyone to objectively judge it's movie adaptation? More often than not, the film writers and directors seem to take liberty in deviating from the plot-lines of the book, either to cater to the commercial interests, or to make it suitable for the present times and audience. When such is the case, can someone who already has a clear picture of the characters and the plot-lines of the book, accept some other portrayal with ease? Probably not. In such cases, it makes a bit more sense to accept the fact that the movie version, might not be the same as that of the book, since the director of the movie might choose to alter the premise slightly, and hence some of the alterations become inevitable. To quote a recent example, the reasoning Chris Nolan provides for Joker wearing the make up and the story about how he obtained the scars on his face in the movie "Dark Knight". But these minor deviations do not take away anything from Joker's portrayal as an anarchist psychopathic criminal.

However, there are times when deviations from the actual source appear to be too superfluous. At times they even act as a hindrance to the development of some of the characters. This is when the puritans tend to get miffed.

I have watched all the three movies in the Lord of the Rings trilogy long time ago, I totally enjoyed all three of them. For I thought that the visuals were astounding, the story was interesting, and most of all, it was a heroic saga and I am a sucker for movies belonging to that genre.

However, having finished reading the first volume of the book last week, I decided to watch the movie again, since I felt there were a few short-comings in the movie, especially in terms of the portrayal of some of the characters. For example, I felt that the characters of the Hobbits aren't all that well etched in the movie. In Tolkien's epic, Hobbits are not plain shorter versions of humans, but they're different beings altogether, who have a different culture and are driven by completely different needs and wants. Throughout the movie, Frodo comes across as a weakling who seems to have lines of worry permanently etched on his forehead. He doesn't seem to show any spunk when the Nazguls pursue him. One expects the Ring-bearer to be a bit more brave, especially since he is up against the Dark lord whom the bravest and the wisest on the middle-earth consider as a redoubtable foe. But when Gandalf tells Elrond that Frodo has a stout heart, I was wondering on what basis did he make that comment!

Also, the characters of Merry and Pippin come across as a couple of dumb mischief-mongers whose only contribution seems to get the fellowship into some trouble or the other. And the steadfastness of Sam Gamgee is rarely highlighted. In the book, the part of the plot where the Hobbits travel through the old forest, the barrow downs, their interaction with Tom Bombadil, highlights many of their defining characteristics, such has love for food and drink, capability to endure, capacity for stealth, dislike for conflict and so on. This plot is totally missing in the film.

The other glaring deviation, which I thought was totally superfluous was the extension of Arwen's character as the brave elf-woman who outruns and defeats the ring-wraiths, saves Frodo and later shares mushy moments with Aragon in the stealth of the night. Pray, why was this needed at all? More than anything else, it takes some of the credit away from Frodo, who in the book, shows remarkable resistance when allured by the Dark Riders at the Ford of Bruinen.

Peter Jackson has done a great job with the epic, no doubt, but he needn't have substituted some of original plotlines with an invented one, just to woo a particular section of the audience. The original one was far more cogent, and the invented one was definitely no improvement over the former.

That said, I still maintain that LOTR:FOTR is a really good movie, and if you haven't read the book prior to watching the movie, you will really enjoy it, like I did once upon a time.

Mumbai Meri Jaan

I watched "Mumbai Meri Jaan" yesterday. It's a movie about the post-7/11 serial bomb blast experiences of a few Mumbaikars.

The movie is an honest attempt in filmmaking. It has it's heart in the right place. It does not try to be too preachy, nor does it try to place the blame on some one section or unit of the society. It's a movie which portrays in a simple manner, the pre and post blast experiences of a few people. It describes the problem, but does not venture out to provide any solution.

The movie has five parallelly running tracks, each showing the lives of different people. R Madhavan plays an socially conscious person, who has a decent job, opportunites to settle down abroad, but chooses to stay back, and prefers to travels to office daily by the local train instead of a car, which he can afford. Soha Ali Khan plays a modern Indian television journalist, who works really hard to report the news stories that have some kind of an emotional appeal, but in the process being apathetic about the emotional state of the people whom she's interviewing. In her opinion, her job is well done as long as she gets some salable "sound bytes". Kay Kay Menon plays a young self employed person, who is mostly seen idling at a small restaurant with his friends. He dislikes Muslims, and doesn't deal with the people from "Another community" (BTW, a short story by that name, written by R K Narayan, is one of my all time favorites), thereby losing out on a lot of opportunities. Irrfan Khan plays a immigrant from Tamil Nadu, who sells tea for a living, but is pretty much taken aback by the prodigal and nonchalant lifestyle of the "Rich people". And finally Vijay Maurya and Paresh Rawal play the two police constables. The former is a rookie cop who is frustrated when he realizes that he cannot change the "system", while the latter is an experienced cop, who has learnt the art of being a spectator.

We're shown how the lives of these people change with the serial blasts and how they react to it. Madhavan's character experiences post-blast traumatic experiences and cannot bring himself to travel by the train anymore. Soha Ali Khan's character ends up at the receiving end of the modern television journalism, by being treated as yet another Prime-Time news story, after her fiance dies in the train blast. Kay Kay Menon's character starts suspecting every Muslim to be an accomplice in the train blast, and even goes on to spy on one of them, Irrfan Khan's character plays on the fear-factor by setting up hoax calls, his way of getting back at the rich who he feels, look down upon him. And finally, Paresh Rawal's character begins to come to terms with the fact that by being a spectator, he hasn't really done much. There's more to life than "chalta hai".

The actors have done their job very well, especially R Madhavan, Kay Kay Menon and Paresh Rawal deserve a word of praise. One can really feel for what they're experiencing. I didn't find even a single shot as being wasted. The pace is moderate, but then, this is not a film that fits into the fast paced movie genre.

However, I thought that Irrfan story was a little bit weak. Especially, the scene where Irrfan's character realizes his folly, was a bit too abrupt. It might have been the editor's decision to snip any scenes leading to the development of guilt in the character in order to restrict the film within the 2 hour time frame.

Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. I would rate it 3 out of 5. Compared to the few movies that have come out in the last fortnight, this one undoubtedly, is the best one.

Books Read in 2008

This year, I have been reading more for knowledge than for pleasure. However, whenever time permitted and when the mood was right, I did lay my hands on books, some of which I had bought ages ago, and some bought at the spur of the moment to satisfy an immediate curiosity.

Anyway, the list so far looks as follows:

1) Just for Fun - Linus Torvalds and David Diamond: An autobiographical account about the person who wrote the first version of the Linux kernel, and gave it out to the world, which now hacks it, for pleasure or purpose. I enjoyed the book, except for the bit towards the end which got a little bit boring.

2) When Nietzsche Wept - Irving D Yalom: A book I gifted myself as a birthday present, this talks about a fictional interaction between Josef Breuer and Fredrich Nietzsche, and how the former helps resolve the mental issues that the latter is suffering from, and in the process, cures his own personal problems. It's a relatively unknown book, since not many of my friends have heard about it. The theory behind the birth of psychoanalysis that's presented in this book is quite interesting. The book does wander into the philosophical territory, but more than anything else, it goes on to show the human side of the brilliant thinker and a gifted physican.

3) Shantharam - Gregory David Roberts: My roommates gifted this for my birthday, and I took quite a while to finish this book about an Australian convict who lands up in india, interacts with the local mafia, and becomes a pakka mumbaiyaa. Good book, read it if you get it.

4) Prisoner of Birth - Jeffery Archer: Bought as an act of impulse when I saw the jacket photograph on the doors of Sapna Book house. A very "Count of monte-cristo" like story which has no surprises in store, but the execution is quite deft. Typical Archer novel.

5) First amongst equals - Jeffery Archer: Four ambitious MP's and they journey to grabbing the coveted post of the Prime Minister of Great Britain. In typical Archer istyle, it keeps you guessing asto who will end up with the PM position, until the last page.

6) Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carrol: A prequel to GEB, I thought when I picked up this book long ago in Pune. But read it only after three years. Some of the puns are the wittiest I have ever come across.

7)The three biggest mistakes of my life -Chetan Bhagat: I made a mistake reading this one. Guess it was written inorder to be made into a stereotypical Hindi movie.

8)The Broker - John Grisham: Bought it at the Chicago airport, when I realized that "I am a strange loop" by Douglas Hoffstadler wouldn't keep me hooked throughout the 14 hour journey. I have mixed feelings about this novel. While the story was interesting in parts, the Italian lessons in the town of Bologna was really not that exciting. And unlike the Grisham novels that I have read in the past, this had little to do with courthouse.

Currently reading the Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien.

Back to my previous home!

I am moving back from Wordpress to Blogger.

No, it's not because wordpress is bad or something. I am just bored and I want to move!

Anyways, I ended up changing the template of my blogger page. Which made me wonder, in the days of google-reader and other feed aggregators, how many readers do "visit" the blog-page?

Because as far as my blog is concerned most of my visitors read whatever I write(which is not very often) through one of the feed aggregators. Except when they feel the itch to comment on something, I don't think someone actually visits the blog-site :)

Transition

Ok folks, I have started experimenting with Wordpress now. The transition, if at all is gonna happen, will take some time. I wish to make it a smooth one and slowly migrate over.

Here's the link to my latest post http://rand0mwalkoflife.wordpress.com/ (Note the '0' in rand0m)

Cya there, but keep watching this space for more.

Thanks and Regards
Randomwalker.

Maya

Opening Mood: Merry Christmas :)
Opening Song: She will be loved - Maroon 5

Santoor! What an instrument. Listen to it and you begin to imagine the ripples in the clear pond. Slowly growing in size but at the same time, fading away. Slowly. Steadily. Wonderful Experience.

I first heard this wonderful instrument when Pt. Shivkumar Sharma came over to NITK in my second year of Engineering to perform for Viraasat. I loved that performance. So many strings vibrating in tandem, but vibrating in perfect harmony.

Earlier this week, I went beserk shopping some instrumental music. Bought off Desert Rain by Indian Ocean (truely earthy music), Krishna by Pravin Godkhindi and Maya by Rahul Sharma.

Maya is extremely soothing. It's a compilation of ten tracks, based on the theme of Maya, the godess of illusion in the Indian Mythology. The title track features Sunidhi Chauhan her volcals suitably complementing the santoor. Each track is a fusion of Santoor and some techno beats. All the tracks are good. My personal favorite is the one titled "Permeability". It sounds happy and light as compared to others which are sound slightly more complicated.

Wonder how would it be to play the tabla for these compositions. Should try it out sometime.

Closing Song: Kandisa - Indian Ocean.
Closing Mood: Extremely hungry imagining all the christmas cookies and brownies.

Participation

Opening Mood: Relaxed
Opening Song: Soona man ka aangan - Parineetha ( What a song! )

A week back, I went on a trip to Nagarhole with my colleagues. It was a lot of fun. We stayed at JungleInn resorts which is very close to the Nagarhole forests.

That night, the resort folks had organized a tribal dance around the bonfire. A bunch of people from the Kuruba tribe sang tribal songs and danced around the fire. They used wooden sticks as props for their dance which was a tribal variation of the popular dandiya.

However, we didn't quite enjoy it. Standing there like fools and watching the tribals sing and dance was definitely not our idea of fun.At least not mine. So we started clapping and shouting, in order to have our share of fun ( It's only been a while since I've been out of college, so it wasn't unusual for me :) ). On seeing us behave like one of them, the tribals invited us to join them. Bharata and myself, we joined the tribals for the dance, and boy! I must tell you, we enjoyed it a lot. It wasn't very difficult or very artistic or something. Just a simple rhythm and simple steps to go with that rhythm.

This must have been the favorite pass-time of these tribal folks since ages. After a hard day's work, just get together and have fun singing and dancing. Their idea of socialization. What's important here is that, you won't really have a lot of fun unless you participate. Just sitting on a chair, sipping beer and trying to *find* beauty in the song/dance might not yield as much fun as participating in that dance might.

That's exactly the case with culture too. Unless you participate, it is very difficult to understand a particular culture, let alone appreciate it. True, these things are not invented by any one particular person. It has contributions from almost everyone. But what makes it work is the fact that no one bothers "who" contributed "what". The bigger picture is what matters. And this is the bigger picture which prompts people to take part and contribute.

So what about the ego?! Well, I guess it gets dissolved in the social spirit of participation. After all, ego is of any use only when left alone. It's utterly useless and predominantly pathetic in a social gathering :)

Closing Song: Lakshya - Title track.
Closing Mood: Hmmm.. Vacation. Smells sweet despite the bad cold.

Change!!!

Opening Mood: It's a new day of a new week :-)
Opening Song: Standing in Motion - Yanni

Change is inevitable.
The Proactive bring about it;
The Reactive adapt to it and further stabilize it;
And the Inactive try to resist, only in vain.

The inactive idiots sleep soundly, wrapped in their quilts of security and stability when the first winds of change start blowing over their heads. But they are so engrossed in the lazy music their own snores that they hardly catch these first winds. With time, these light winds grow stronger metamorphizing into a storm. The inactive idiots wake up in the middle of this storm and think that they are in the middle of a "Revolution".

Remember, o fame seeker, it's these idiots who stay back to write the history books!

Closing Song: Santorini - Yanni.
Closing Mood: Munir Lands the Plane - Yanni.

Love!!!

Opening Mood: Just returned back from home.
Opening Song: None.

There are thousands and thousands of quotations on love. There are millions of songs and Zillions of stories and Gazzillions of movies on love.

And I am not sure which one of them to believe, because of so many reasons, one of them being the lack of experience. So I better keep my mouth shut about this kind of slippery stuff, but I feel like barking today. For no particular reason [probably theg's post has triggered something, which I am not able to concretely identify] I want to talk of one quote on Love.

Ages ago, I read this very powerful book "The Fountainhead" which had a great line about love -

"To say 'I love you' one must know first how to say the 'I'."

When I first read it, I was like "Wowie! What a statement" without even half realizing how might it feel to be in love. I don't think I understand that now either!

I have been wondering, I have been thinking. I don't have an answer, but, you bet, I do have a question.

All's fine if you treat Rand's statement like a photograph. Look at it, appreciate it, turn the page and look at the next photograph in the album. But when you start thinking of Dynamic quality, you start wondering, is this statement always true?! I mean, will this statement hold good once both "I" and "You" have acknowledged the "I Love You"? Will knowing to say the "I" help, once "I" and "You" have combined to become a "We"? Shouldn't "Love" be the guiding light for "I" and "You" then onwards?

Arrrgh @$#!@#!! What am I even thinking?! Something about which I know absolutely nothing.
Where is the Mop, where is the Broom???
Let me shove this thought outta my Room...

Whoooosh!! Mop Mop Mop!!!

There - Swept away. Back to a clean state of mind again :-)

Closing Song: None.
Closing Mood: In a hurry. Another trek. Charmadi Ghats this time!

Imagine

Opening Mood: Weekend blues again...
Opening Song : None...

Fixed a stupid bug which had been creating a lotta noise recently. The fix was accepted in the -mm tree!!

Anyway, I was listening to John Lennon's "Imagine" the other day. Imagine (not the song, but the verb)
how Lennon would have written the song if he lived in the present day. He probably would have written an anthem for open source.

Something like,

Imagine a world so open,
Without any gates or windows
Where people love to share and care
Where knowledge freely flows.

Imagine all the people,
Living with the source.

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one..
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

One more of my stoopid imaginations!!!

Closing Song: None.
Closing Mood: Running home for the weekend!

Weekend Mujik (Continued ...)

Opening Mood: New version is out... Gotta start porting everything soon.
Opening Song: Piano Man - Billy Joel.

Have you noticed that when you want something *very* badly, it's always out of stock.

Like yesterday, I went to Planet M, hoping to buy Switch by INXS. Searched the whole shop and finally found INXS. But no Switch. There was every other album of their's except Switch. Now my usual response is to walk out of the shop with a dejected face. But not this time!

Right next to INXS was James Blunt's "Back to Bedlam". Something that I had not planned on buying. But I wanted it the moment I saw it. For the past two days, the song "You're Beautiful" has stuck like some worm in my head. I simply cannot seem to get rid of it.

And then after a bit of browsing I also found "Piano Man - The best of Billy Joel". If you like Billy Joel, you gotta have this one. This has all my favourite songs including - "She's always a woman", "Piano Man", "We didn't start the fire", "River of Dreams" and many more.

Shakira! I don't know what's there in her music except the fact that it make me go "oo-la-la" everytime I listen to it. Bought off "Hips Don't Lie". Trust me, they don't!!

But the top buy of the evening was "Let's folk again" - A planet M Exclusive. It has some of the best folk songs by stalwarts like Dylan, Baez, Simon and Garfunkel, Chris De Burgh and others. It's a two CD Album and also comes with the lyrics book. Nice package.

Also bought off "Anand" DVD. I've been wanting to *own* this one for quite sometime now. It's one of my all time favorites.

I know I've spent a fortune on all these. But the knowledge that the music you are listening to is one hundred percent legal, is simply priceless!!

Closing Song: Kya mujhe pyaar hai - Woh Lamhe.
Closing Mood: Fresh!

Weekend Mujik

Opening Mood: Weekend Blues!
Opening Song: Piano Man - Billy Joel.

I walked to office today. It was pretty early in the morning and there wasn't much of traffic. And had Radio Indigo to keep me company. The usual soundtracks played on the airwaves. One of them stood apart.So much that I made a conscious attempt to remember the refrains inorder to google it and find out more about that song.

It turns out to be this awesome song called "Afterglow" by the aussie band INXS ( Pronounced In Excess).

When I first heard this song, I thought it was some remix version of Bryan Adams' "Here I am". But it wasn't. It was something much more special. The percussion in the background reminds you of bollywood. But boy, the lyrics ... They are simply too good...

"Touch me and I will follow in your afterglow
Heal me from all this sorrow
As I let you go I will find my way, I will sacrifice
Now I’m living in your afterglow

Bathed in blue, the walls of my memory divide the thorns from the roses
It’s you who is closest "

Buy of the week is their album - The Switch.

Closing Song: Speed of Sound - Coldplay.
Closing Mood: Running home.. Weekend's here!!

Undecided yet

Opening Mood: Accomplished - Patches posted.
Opening Song: Lucy in the Sky - The Beatles.

Ok, I am not quite sure what to write about. Haven't thought of anything. But I *know*, I will write something and in a matter of minutes the amount of junk here is going to increase exponentially.

Yup, found my topic. Or rather topics. Bangalore night life, Diwali celebrations, and Bridge on troubled waters. Dunno which one to expand on. I feel like a third grader who has been given a set of topics to write a full page essay on, but has no clue how to begin or end. Just a few bones here and there but the full skeleton is not yet known. Archealogy. Yeah, that's what those idiots probably do. Dig out a bunch of bones and try to fit them together and give it some weird name like pithecanthropus, whatever that means.

See! I have already filled up more than ten lines without actually writing about anything concrete. It aint all that difficult to fill pages.

Ok, Bangalore night life it is....

Just a few months back, one of my collegues got mugged when she was going back home from work.The time was somewhere around 10pm at night. Which makes me ask the obvious question, what was the Bangalore Night Patrol ( I think they call it Hoysala) doing?!

Now I know. They were all on MG road and Brigade road, waiting outside the pubs to ensure that there were no "drunken brawls" or "drunken drivers" on the road.

Hmmm, that's a nice way of showing your authority. Just catch hold of some damn guy and test his breath. The probability that he will test positive for alcohol would be extremely high. Fine him a coupla thousand bucks and thy job's done!! Thou hast done thy duty. And how!

If you are thinking that I am going to talk about Mr.Adam Biddappa's innocence, stop right there.

On then contrary, I feel today's kids are given too much freedom including the freedom to shy away from the responsibility that comes along with it. Don't you think that the reason why the police does night patrolling near the pubs might be because of the past experiences of "irresponsible" behaviour by these children of freedom??

I come from a society where one is expected to "earn" freedom by proving that you are capable of handling responsibilities. But I don't like this model. Because freedom is a fundamental right, and the "guardians" of freedom can always end up being the guards thereby screwing your happiness. That's definitely not the way to go.

But that doesn't mean that we start assuming freedom comes for free either.

Yeah, I know, I know. You are thinking, WTF is this guy talking about? Neither this nor that, can't he just stick to any one thing ?

My answer would be - NO. I cannot. Because I believe that life is all about striking the right balance between conflicting goals.

So now you would wanna ask, Ok Mr.Smarty Pants, how am I supposed to strike the right balance? Hmmm, you know what, if I knew the answer to that question, I would have just coded the whole thing up, compiled it, executed it and rested in peace. I mean WHAT is the point of living if you knew the answer to that? It would be like playing Age of Empires with god mode on. What's the fun? Satisfying your stooopid ego probably!

Yeah, so my take on night life at bangalore - It won't improve unless we are ready to behave as responsible citizens.

And having said that it would be of great help if we could have more policemen patrolling on ring road. I wouldn't want to get mugged like my collegue!

PS: Its so much fun to dump your mind's snapshot :D

Closing Song: Free as a Bird - The Beatles.
Closing Mood: I am hungry. It's dinner time!

Evolution Vs Revolution

Opening Mood : Attentive.. Running stress tests :)
Opening Song : None.

This is what the Benevolent Dictator for Life ( read Linus Torvalds ) had to say about Evolution vs Revolution.

"Only stupid people think they should throw away old proven concepts. What happens quite often in academia in particular is that you find a problem you want to fix, and you re-design the whole system around your fix. This is how we get crap like microkernels. They have 'an agenda', and that's the _worst_ thing you can have when designing software. You fixate on some perceived problem, and the end result is that yes, maybe you fixed _that_ problem, but in the meantime you also generated a whole new of issues - usually things that were solved by the original approach. The UNIX/Linux approach is a very pragmatic thing - leave the things that work well alone. There's no point in re-inventing the whole system just because of some small perceived flaws... And many things _can_ be done without throwing out old designs. Implementation improvements are quite possible without trying to make something totally new to the outside. That's how things like the dcache come about, for example - keeping the standard old boring UNIX filesystem approach, while internally caching it in new ways, improving performance tremendously. Not throwing out the baby with the bath-water doesn't mean that you cannot improve the system. I'm only arguing against stupid people who think they need a revolution to improve - most real improvements are evolutionary."

Now I know why I love this field so much. Just love the idea - to evolve, to grow, to change, to adapt. Dynamic, eh? You bet it is :)

Who made the statement "Have your head in the clouds and your feet firmly rooted to the earth" ? I can't remember.
But, if you can't imagine how to do that, think of climbing a mountain, and you'll know how. :)

Closing Song: None
Closing Mood: My tests need me. Something not going according to the plan. Need some Change!

My World View - Postmodernistic

Opening Mood: Normal da.
Opening Song: Some peppy thing on Radio Indigo

What is your world view ? Are you a Postmodernist, an Idealist, a Romantic, a Fundamentalist??
Find out at http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=23320

Looks like I am a Postmodernist! This is what the site said:

You scored as Postmodernist.
Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.
Postmodernist 94% Idealist 88% Existentialist 88% Cultural Creative 69% Materialist 56% Romanticist 44% Modernist 31% Fundamentalist 19%

Well, from the looks of it, I am more of a materialist as compared to a Romantic! Well, I always thought it was the other way around!!

I don't know, and I don't care!

Closing Song: Belly Dancer by Akon
Closing Mood: Didn't you read properly?! I don't know and I don't Care.

Mes chansons préférées de l'amour

Opening Mood: Nice :) The patch has come out good.
Opening Song: El Condor Pasa by Simon and Garfunkel.

It's been a long time since I blogged. That doesn't mean nothing happened.
Infact lot has happened since I last posted. My first patch got published,
It fetched some good reviews, and some *not* so good ones.

I also went for my first trek. It was fun, the trek. We walked
from M.M Hills to Nagamale, and from there to Palar. 24 kilometers
altogether. Details can be found here.

Other than that, I also visited my hometown twice more.
And did the obvious - Sleep!

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The Shastra contest is back with Priya's entry going great
guns. The key words this time are

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Boy!  I still have a thing for Anagrams!

Ok, back to the post, this one is about mushy songs. Doesn't
quite fit in this blog, now does it?! I know, I know, but I seem to have
kinda developed a liking for some of these songs lately.

For four years in college, I've just been collecting
a lot of music, but listening mostly to the instrumental genre.
Even at work, I love my Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Mae, Yanni. Probably
the lyrics distract me from coding ;). However, I wanted a change and for
the past two weeks I've been listening to songs with lyrics.
And guess what?! The mush songs seem to be the most relaxing ones!
With them, you just drift away, where the singer wants you to.
Like taking you back in time. Mmmm, nostalgia, smells sweet!

Here's the list of my favorites. In no particular order that is.

I want to spend my lifetime - Mask of Zorro Soundtrack.
I guess this one was sung by Mark Anthony. Vipin recommended it way
back in 2nd year Engg. But I was busy listening to Hindi Music back then.

Lady in Red - Woman in Red Soundtrack.
Don't know who the singer is. But it's damn good. One of the
first english songs I ever listened to.

I'm leaving on a jet plane - John Denver.
I had heard the Aerosmith's version of song back in college. Probably
it was the soundtrack of some movie. I remember Steve Tyler screaming
his lungs out towards the end of the song.

Love will keep us alive - Eagles Original.
A nice song from the Hotel California gang. The vocals are girlish.
I had the video of this song from their 'Hell freezes Over' concert.

That thing you do - The Wonders soundtrack.
Would have deleted this song, if Thamie had not made such a fuss outta it.
Thanks maccha, it's a nice song.  Also saw the movie "The Wonders".
They were truely  The 'One'ders.

Iris - City of Angels Soundtrack.
This has been my long time favorite. Though didn't quite know
who was the singer or the name of the song. It was played on
Radio Indigo today morning. Seems that original was by Goo Goo Dolls.
The one I have is Ronan Keating's version.

Sealed with a kiss - Bryan Hyland, The Wonder Years Soundtrack.
Got this one from the songs I flicked from our seniors. It's the mushiest
of them all. But boy, does it have that retro feeling! Awesome!!

Ain't no sunshine when she's gone - Notting Hill Soundtrack.
Bill Wither's version, this is one those songs which can put you
in a light-blue mood!

When you say nothing at all - Notting Hill Sountrack
Silence is Golden! Reminds me of the night-walk-in-the-park scene
from Notting Hill.

Love is All around - Four Weddings and a Funeral Sountrack.
I haven't seen this movie, but another *mushy* movie which has
this same song is Love Actually. Liam Neeson's story in that movie
was a nice one.

Bridge over troubled waters - Simon and Garfunkel.
What a song this one. It's certainly one of my all time
favorite. Abhinav Chaturvedi recommended it while we were
interning at Pune. Thanks dude, else I would not have listened
to this awesome duo.

El-Condor Pasa - Simon and Garfunkel.
Another one of their beauties. I am not sure which is the string
instument they use to create the opening tune of this song. Sounds
simillar to santoor. The song has a Mexican feeling, evident from it's
title.

Good Riddance - Green Day.
Reminds me of Lenon strumming on his guitar while we were sipping
hot tea. This one is considered to be a famous breakup song.
Suitably named :D!

She's always a Woman to me - Billy Joel
I had this song since ages. Listened to it only last week. The lyrics are
really good. One of those narrative songs with very little background music.

I just called to say I love you - Stevie Wonder.
Those who've seen Omkara, this is the *same* song which
Viveik Oberoi teaches Kareena Kapoor.
Only that the original version sounds *much much* better :)

Something Stupid -Robbie Williams version feat Nicole Kidman.
The original version of this song was sung by Nancy Sinatra. Another
of my latest discoveries. They played this song on Radio Indigo
this morning.

By the way, Bangalore has a new international radio station -
Radio Indigo 91.9 FM. Finally some good music in the airwaves.
A big relief for anyone bored with nasal "over"tones!!!

DISCLAIMER: The paragraph above is not a sponsered Ad
for Radio Indigo. It's just a token of gratitude for playing
great music. Keep up the good work guys! :D

Closing Song: It's Probably Me, Lethal Weapon Soundtrack.
Closing Mood: Good. Brilliant  infact, to get started with the locks!

Quality

Opening Song: Pulp fiction Title track.
Opening Mood: Cool. Infact hangover from ZATAOMM.

The past few days of my life have revolved around only two things.
Locks ( all sorts of them ) and ZATAOMM. I wanted latter to be more of a way to relax so that I wouldn't dream of the kernel-code.

But, it proved to be much more than that. It was as if you are groping for something in the dark and you find something, which you just keep for the sake that you have found it. But later when you shed light on that find of yours, you realize what wonderful a thing you've found.

ZATAOMM is *the* Elixer which has to be sipped slowly inorder to savour it. Gulping it down in one shot might leave you with a dizzy feeling.

Anyway, this post is about Quality. The subject that we've been discussing all through our seventh and eight semesters through Software Engineering and Software Quality Assurance. I wish I had read this book back then.

The excerpt below echoes most of my ideas, only that it presents these ideas in a manner that's way more enjoyable.
So without much ado, I present before thee Phaedrus and his discovery of the qualities of Quality.

The world now, according to Phædrus, was composed of three things: mind, matter, and Quality. The fact that he had established no relationship between them didn't bother him at first. If the relationship between mind and matter had been fought over for centuries and wasn't yet resolved, why should he, in a matter of a few weeks, come up with something conclusive about Quality? So he let it go. He put it up on a kind of mental shelf where he put all kinds of questions he had no immediate answers for. He knew the metaphysical trinity of subject, object and Quality would sooner or later have to be interrelated but he was in no hurry about it. It was just so satisfying to be beyond the danger of those horns that he relaxed and enjoyed it as long as he could.

Eventually, however, he examined it more closely. Although there's no logical objection to a metaphysical trinity, a three-headed reality, such trinities are not common or popular. The metaphysician normally seeks either a monism, such as God, which explains the nature of the world as a manifestation of one single thing, or he seeks a dualism, such as mind-matter, which explains it as two things, or he leaves it as a pluralism, which explains it as a manifestation of an indefinite number of things. But three is an awkward number. Right away you want to know, Why three? What's the relationship among them? And as the need for relaxation diminished Phædrus became curious about this relationship too.

He noted that although normally you associate Quality with objects, feelings of Quality sometimes occur without any object at all. This is what led him at first to think that maybe Quality is all subjective. But subjective pleasure wasn't what he meant by Quality either. Quality decreases subjectivity. Quality takes you out of yourself, makes you aware of the world around you. Quality is opposed to subjectivity.

I don't know how much thought passed before he arrived at this, but eventually he saw that Quality couldn't be independently related with either the subject or the object but could be found only in the relationship of the two with each other. It is the point at which subject and object meet.

That sounded warm.

Quality is not a thing. It is an event.

Warmer.

It is the event at which the subject becomes aware of the object.

And because without objects there can be no subject...because the objects create the subject's awareness of himself...Quality is the event at which awareness of both subjects and objects is made possible.

Hot.

Now he knew it was coming.

This means Quality is not just the result of a collision between subject and object. The very existence of subject and object themselves is deduced from the Quality event. The Quality event is the cause of the subjects and objects, which are then mistakenly presumed to be the cause of the Quality!

Now he had that whole damned evil dilemma by the throat. The dilemma all the time had this unseen vile presumption in it, for which there was no logical justification. that Quality was the effect of subjects and objects. It was not! He brought out his knife.

Those of you who are interested to read more, there's an online version of the book which can be found here.

I am only half way through the book by the way!

Closing Mood: Calm.
Closing Song: IRIS ( Movie OST of City Of Angels).

Google Topper.

Shastra , the techfest of IITM has a smart new competetion this time. It's basically asking you to create a webpage such that google returns the webpage as the top-search result for a certain search string.

Here's Nitk-Numbskull's effort for the competition. coecelanth zeppelin shaastra durbatuluk equivocate.

Random Walker wishes them all the best!

My One Week Vacation

Vacation! What an interesting concept... or rather, should I say, an
alien concept!

It's been like four years now that I have taken a proper vacation.
Ever since joining engineering, I have spent my holidays either learning
a new language, or doing some project here or there.
Not even once in the past four years did I get time to wake up at like say ten
in the morning, order mom to serve breakfast, then ponder over the day's
newspaper and laze on my bed reading a novel or day-dreaming.
Instead, I chose to spend time in some obscure lab, either deciphering
protocols or designing them, or creating weird image editors and what
not!

However, this time, I got myself like a full week off from work, thanks
to a few people in the office. And I kind of needed it badly too. Recently
I had been seeing kernels compile and systems crash even in my dreams!!!

So I decided, I am going to relax like never before.
I took home with me my Thinkpad,and 2 novels - "Eragon" , and
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence" (ZATAOMM henceforth).
These were supposed to occupy all my attention for the next eight days.

Eragon was my first prey.Or rather, I fell prey to it!
It was Kripal who one day asked me - "Do you like fantasy?".
The exposure I've had to fantasy is like very limited.Other than grandma's
tales from Indian mythology and the three LOTR movies, I was a complete
fantasylliterate (to be pronounced as Fantasy-illiterate).
"I'd like to try",I blabbered.
"Then here's just the thing for you.",he said and handed over the copy of
Eragon.
"The author,Christoper Paolini is hardly twenty", he added.

I finished Eragon, and this is what I thought about it.

I got ZATAOMM as a gift a year ago. I've been trying to read the book for a
year now, but didn't quite succeed.
Even in these eight days, I managed to just get past the first 150 pages.
Not that it is verbose, but the material presented demands apt attention
and needs to be understood carefully if it is to be enjoyed.
However, I feel, this is the perfect time to read it.

Other than reading novels, I also visited my alma-mater , met the professors
there, got some offical work done, conducted a workshop on Introduction
to Linux Kernel Programming. Basically, had a lot of fun at the college.

I also got a chance to meet all my relatives. Had a party at my maternal
grandma's place. Grandma's prawn curry preparation was awesome.
I hogged till I was satisfied.
My appetite, has to be lauded though! I managed to hog so
much after a wonderful afternoon lunch. Diseal and Cherry's rock!
Anyway,we played cards that night, pulled each others legs and chatted till
wee hours.

Now that vacations are done, and I'm back, lemme get back to work!
I am missing it already!

PS: Next time, you see a guy carrying a Giordno Backpack,
and sporting a haircut akin to that of a ISKCON monk,
walking somewhere in the streets of Bangalore, shout (one of )my
(many) name(s) aloud!
I shall respond :)

Offer valid until the hair grows back ;)

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Eragon,the first book of the "Inheritance Trilogy" tells the story of a
young farm boy named Eragon and how his world changes since the day he finds a
bright blue stone. How gets to become the "chosen" one to be first among
the next generation of Dragon Riders,a race considered extinct.
Helping him in his pursuit are Brom,the story teller,
Murtagh a trustworthy friend with a doomed legacy,Varden the rebels,
Arya the elf and of course his dragon Saphira (pronounced as Saf-ea-raa).

The story is set in Alagaesia - the kingdom of a evil king named Galbatorix,
a former Dragon rider himself who had usurped the throne by betraying
his felow riders. There's a faction who call themselves Varden (The Warders)
who had challenged against Galbotorix's despotism.
So it's basically set amidst a raging war for supremacy.

The story consists of all the elements of fantasy.
There is magic, there are Urgals ( akin to the Orcs of LOTR)
the Kull ( eq. to Uruk-hai's of LOTR ), there are soccerrers and Witches,
there are Dragons, Werecats, Dwarfs and Elfs. There's also the ancient
language, the dwarven language to add more flavor to fantasy.Very similar
to LOTR (which I haven't yet read) probably.

Coming to the characters,

Eragon's a young farm boy who accidentaly discovers something which makes
him the next Dragon rider. Hardly fifteen, he is confused about his destiny.
His transformation from an adoloscent to a brave and manly dragon
rider is very well portrayed.

What's more endearing is the relationship between the Rider and his dragon.
You never feel that Saphira is a dragon.Paolini has made her very human.
She can relate to Eragon like no one else,counsel him wisely and also
display emotions when there is a need.In the other folklore, Dragons have
always been objects of fear, but in this one novel, through Saphira
you'll find them very much lovable.

The other character that stands out is that of Brom. Old, he
is but also wise and strong. A perfect teacher for someone who is destined
to be a Dragon Rider. He has many secrets, most of which are revealed
in the novel. A strong character and a well etched one.

Murtagh appears a worthy ally. He is a bit older than Eragon, but
is supremely skilled in the art of weilding the blade. He has his priorities
right and is wise. The only thing that goes against him is his flawed past.

Bad guys : We encounter in this novel the
Urgals - a monstrous species which are neither humans nor animals. Call them
brutes if you will. The Kull which are the elite among the Urgals are like
some eight feet tall and more powerful. Then we have the Shade, the main
bad guy in the book - a powerful man who has traded his soul with the evil
for power. He is very cunning and extremely competent with the blade.

There are others who manage to make an impact in their brief appearence
- Jeod (pronounced Jode) Brom's friend, Arya the egg carrier elf,
Orik the dwarf, Ajihad - the wise leader of Varden, Angela the witch,
Solembaum the werecat to name a few.

Out and out it is a very vell written book. Something which I would strongly
recommend to anyone who loves fantasy. You won't be dissappointed. I just
can't wait to lay my hands on the second book of the trilogy entitled "Eldest".