Anupam Kher Unlimited

Yes am talking about the famous actor Anupam Kher. It happened that my favorite news paper Times Of India was organizing a week long Bangalore Festival...comprising different areas...viz...music...dance...food...and theatre...the theater festival was the closing ceremony of the festival.

Manu called me in the office and asked me to get the passes from the itpl planet m, but I guess they were in so much demand that they all got picked up even before I reached there. The guy at Planet M told me that I might get it from brigade road planet m, but who will do a mistake by going to the brigade road on the busy weekday. Well we were both upset, moreover one of her friends was more interested in going than us. Then came this Saturday when we happen to be at the brigade road for some work. It was 11 am and I was alone, went to planet m asked for the passes(giving every possible try) but no success, then he gave me an option of going to the Times of India office and try there, it was 1 km walk…still I decided, I wont loose anything if I give it a try. I entered the office lobby, peeped inside, and before I could get a good look at the beautiful gals behind the desk, the guard asked me what I want. I asked him about the ticket, and he said he has last 2 available, I was like man, and these 2 passes were made for me only. I asked him for two more and he took away the passes he had just given me and said he would give them to those who need only 2. I settled for 2 passes. I was happy and full of joy; I was preparing myself for one more theatre, after a long break. Well we both were quite excited…

We reached the auditorium which was 25 kms away from my house 1 hr before the scheduled time, but only after waiting for 1 long hour we were allowed to enter inside.

Then after 15 mins i.e. @ 6.45 Mr Anupam Kher made appearance, and started shaking hands with everybody there in the public and guess what a guy came and kissed Mr.Kher.He was taken aback. Between a lot of hustle bustle the Monologue started, which was actually an autobiography of his. It was full of fun, humor, satire, love and emotions. He started with his birth, went till teens and then moved up to the current status. Anupam Kher again showcased that; there can not be a finer theater artist then him. He was self sufficient for handling around 500 audiences without any artist. Well I enjoyed to the maxim, and hope to witness more such events in future.

From his childhood in Shimla to his decision to study acting to his failures and his phases, Kher weaves in every aspect of his life in his autobiographical play Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hain, without meandering or delving too long in one phase. He makes you laugh, cry, ponder and go nostalgic through the two-and-a-half hours. And only makes you reflect over what Javed Akhtar had once said, “You cannot make a film without two things — raw stock and Anupam Kher.”

Cheers to that rare star who can laugh at himself effortlessly.

So the journey of thousand miles started late .

Yes we were leaving for Ajmer for Diwali Vacation. Firstly the traffic on the way to Bangalore Station was awesome. Seems everybody in Bangalore was heading to the station. It took us almost 1hr and 45 minutes to travel a distance of 13 kilometers, which other wise takes 30 minutes.

The usual financial crunch in the monthly budget made us travel thru the Indian Railways. Anyway we reached station and in a bid to save every single penny; we did not take the coolie. And unsure where the train would arrive we were waiting for the announcement on the over head bridge for around 20 minutes, which also gave us a chance to regain our lost breath. After asking several coolies we made a decision to go to the platform and then run at the runtime. But as not expected (yeah I know unusual when we are talking about IR) the train came approximately 30 minutes late and it started about 30 minutes later. So from the beginning it was an hour late. Well we boarded the train, but we got the seats near the gate of the compartment. So we were very unhappy, and more then me my wifey. The foul smell is one of her greatest turn offs. Then some gujjus gang was there near to us and one of them asked us to interchange the seats as they were 9 people and all had seats in different compartments. We thought god had listened to our requests and sent these guys, we happily got ourselves interchanged. So came to a new compartment and new bogie too. It had 3 gujjus, 2 rajasthanis and 2 cosmos (yes am talking about ourselves), the rest were not the part of the party. Well we immediately befriended each other. So now in more detail 2 were students, Himanshu and Garima and the guy was as usual flirting with the girl, another girl, Shalini pretended to be an employee of a leading Indian multinational who actually was an employee of the BPO arm of the same company. One guy Divyesh was an employee of US multinational and another guy, Satpal Singh was a practicing lawyer from a village in Rajasthan.

Day 1 went without many events, and then day 2 came, which went without much trouble. We played cards talked about several stuff like dirty politics, good colleges, paying software companies, optional education, and unforgettable traffic of Bangalore. Also watched Rang De Basanti (courtesy my laptop), also towards the end of the day we watched Garima’s fusion dance performance.

Pune comes around 1830, we thought of calling Ankit to the station, so we called Aniruddha bhai for the same. Came Pune station. Met both of them after a long time. And Anirudha bhai was same as before, asked them to put on some weight for shaadi. It was good to see all of them. That night was the last night we all together, wished Himanshu Happy diwali, coz he was getting down @ Surat. We retired to our births and slept immediately, though we dint do anything great in the day, and still we were tired. When did Himanshu leave I don’t know, and when did Shalini changed the coach I don’t know.

In the morning, Ahmedabad was scheduled @ 7.35 and it was right time. Before that we exchanged cards. Fone numbers and the email ids. So now after Ahmedabad only Satpal Singhji and we were left in the whole compartment, and as I said briefly before about him, he sucks, is typical rajasthani and ganwar. Only God know how he became a lawyer. So the rest of the journey went into chatting with Manu, was very much excited about telling people about the H-1B. Did a bit of coding and listened songs too. Train was late by an hour. It took 2.5 hours to cover a normal 1 hour distance. Generally Indian Rails are made to wait for other trains for a crossing once it gets late, so once a late, always a late.

Wonder La

Well 2nd October everybody was out of town, I was wondering where they actually went. Affter reaching Wonder La I got to know where they had gone. Can anybody imagine there were 7500 people inside?

Now something about WonderLa. We were there at 1 pm though we thought we would be too early but there were already 6k people inside. An attendant came and told us for every ride it would take almost 15-20 minutes as compared to 3-4 minutes in routine days. The weekend footfall is 3-3.5 k and the weekday would attract 1-1.5 k people.

As compared to other theme parks, this was far better in cleanliness, though management was bad at few places, but it still is ok. The best were the water rides. By the end of the day, the water was damn dirty, still people were flocking for the wave pool like anything. To best enjoy the place, one should be there @ 11 AM and leave only @ 8.30 PM. So that s/he can also enjoy the night lighting there. Also the one thing which is not to be missed is the Musical fountain-this one is better then the Brindawan Garden (as heard from others).

Well all in all, see it to believe it.

MG Road @ 70 kmph

Can anybody tell me if he or she has ever zipped past the busy, bustling and ever filled with activity MG Road in Bangalore. The long weekend of 2nd october 2006 was one such long weekend where everybody who was passing thru this road was not crawling but cruising. The reason being a long weekend, everybody, virtually everybody was out of Bangalore. It was good atleast for me

Communication Meet

After repeated requests from the US counterparts and also due to influx of people from so many dialects, Tech Lead at last thought of doing a communication meet, so that everybody speaks the same tone. People from same states have different language understanding, and more over they never even try to rectify it, thinking whatever they know is the best of best.

So the tradition of meeting twice weekly started, spending some time together, and were asked to pick mistakes (if any) from an individuals' 2 minutes speech.

Some people welcomed it and some tried to escape it. Well they were even threatened that their performance will be measured on this basis too.

Well, days passed by and somebody got benefited with it and some wasted their time. During that 2 minute session people were more horrified than comfortable, as they were afraid, that his performance appraisal will be affected. Also, that became more off a tech session than a place to learn. Anyway after some time we all got bored with the monotonous routine; we decided to shift to reading session. And in between we also managed to have a group discussion.

One of the best discussions was when Chinna said English language should not be made mandatory for primary schools, and it should be the choice of parents in which medium they want their child to study. Topic came out to be a heavy blow on each others face, who were against it and in support of it. As all the discussions went on there was no conclusion. But the thing that I enjoyed there was that people who generally do not speak can be asked to speak and present their views as the topic is general. When a technical topic is discussed then it remains confined to the scope of its technicality.

Any which way, all in all the topic was really mind opening and I guess in future we should discuss more of general topics, to make all involved.