Sitcoms and background laughter.

Why do you give a background laughter when you make a comedy sitcom ?
I guess they give a background laughter to cheer the viewer up, and give a theatrical touch.

But the big question is HOW DO THEY TAPE LAUGTHER ????

I guess they go to one of the laughing clubs. I had been there once. You go there just to laugh for no purpose. And you actually start to laugh heartily after seeing so many people putting an effort to laugh. The fact and principle at laughing clubs is this :-

They are not lauging WITH you. They are laughing AT you

All this thoughts come into my mind after watching Friends and Seinfeld and other shows like that.So, finally, I started enjoying the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. serial. The serial which I never thought which I would like. Everything you say is followed by people laughing at the background. So you never know whether they are laughing at your jokes or yourself! But who cares! Just lol and sit back!!

For example :-

I have been watching it everyday here.
(the background laughter erupts).

I think this serial is FAR BETTER than Everybody loves Raymond.
(the background laughter erupts).

So the weekend is here!!
(the background laughter erupts).

The fact is that boring people never know the fact that they are boring
(the background laughter erupts).

Now I dont know whether I am boring you .
(the background laughter erupts).

SO I have nothing to write today!
(the background laughter erupts).

!!! APPLAUSE !!!! !!! APPLAUSE !!!! !!! APPLAUSE !!!!

And the serial ends.

wtf.

Current Music - Friends Title Song

A Rang De Basanti happening ..

Check this link out

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/specialcoverage/1482489.cms

Medicos protesting against the qutoa ruling. The police lathi charged and shot tear gas.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Some thought the RDB thing was just a fiction.

What say Mr. Anderson ??

Some great music videos

The local music channels and radio stations here are big patrons of modern rock music.
"System of a down" has come up with an amazing song called "Lonely Day".

Red Hot Chilli Peppers , the grand daddys (the guys who have been there from the 80s and giving us really great music ) have come up with another song called "Dani California".The video is simple amazing.

Another music video which has inspired me to write a script (when I get the time is Nickelback's "Saving me"). This video is eerie, very chick and philosopical.

Weekend was AMAZING.
I had been to Niagara Falls and experienced Nature at its fierce best!
and I had also been to Downtown Toronto.

Toronto looks like your typical American city (the ones I saw in HBO).It is huge, and has sky scrapers everywhere. But man! that place is infested with Indians everywhere.
It is much much bigger than Ottawa. Ottawa is a small city with a little neighbourhood. But I heard that the rate of crime is high here in Ottawa.

Initially I was joyous when I saw an Indian in Ottawa. But now the feeling is like :-
Yappa esht jana indians!!!! yella kade virus thara band bittidaare....

ESPECIALLY Toronto. Indians and Chinese everywhere.

Not just engineers. Infact, engineers are a minority. It is full of bus drivers, grocery shop keeper wallahs, taxi drivers ,coffee shops (even astrologers!!!!!)

Hmm ashte....

I have browsed orkut today more than 3 hrs...phew! But it was good today.
Going home .... Tired + Bored.

Down...Down and into the depths.......

Current Music : Moby - Natural Blues......AFT,ISANL

Job quota: PM's advice to industry

says rediff and economic times puts its well. This comes close on the heels of an announcement by Arjun singh abt reservations in IITs/IIMs and other central institutes.

Obviously, all these reservation moves are aimed at 'minority community' votes. What I find unbelievable is the direction of vote bank politics. Let us analyze the premise for reservations: people from backward classes dont fair well because of socio-economic reasons and hence need a push to ensure that they are 'well represented' in most fields. Agreed. So, this means that 'majority community' is omnipresent because of whatever reasons and to strike a balance we will take away something from majority community and give it to minority community. Logically, isn't this a political suicide? You are trying to appease minority community at the cost of majority community? A second standard kid can say which community has more votes and 'arithmetically' speaking, whom should you try to win over. The other possible explanations for wooing minority community could be that political parties have taken majority community for granted or political parties are very confident of majority community support for some reason(which i can't make out)...wait a minute..is minority community really a minority community in terms of population or more precisely, population that actually votes?

Disclaimer: Strictly speaking, I am not against reservations, I am just against the way it is being implemented and in this post I am not hinting that majority community should raise in protest or some such thing..I was just wondering about the arithmetic of vote bank politics.

PS:some stupid thing happened with blogger and i lost my previous post. Fortunately, I had copied it before publishing..but if the same post appears twice..blame it on blogger.

Mob Handling ..

Somehow I missed mentioning this event which happened on the day Dr.Raj passed away.

I have to thank my bus driver, who was sensible enough to assuage the crowd from pelting the buses.

This is the conversation, when our bus was stopped at BSK 2nd stage.

Local Goonda/Dr.Raj fan/anti-social element : yelli hogta iddiya ?
Bus Driver : Sir manege
LG: Yaaru ivaru
Bus Driver : Sir Infosys alli kelsa maduvavaru (at this time I felt a lump in my throat, I was sure we will be pelted, you know the Gowda-Murthy politics and we were in Mr.Gowdas territory)
LG: Ninge gottilva annavru hogiddare, gaadi odsa baradu anta
Bus Driver : Sir, manege bittu innu yellu hogolla, depot ge hogi bidtini.
LG: nedkondu hogli bidu avaru (Well I was sure by now, the bus will be demolished), yenu kaalu savadi hogotta
Bus Driver : Gottilla anna, yeno meliruvavaru heludru adakke hogidde...dayvittu kshamisi bidi
LG: aytu hogu

Thanks to the driver who pleaded on behalf of us

While getting down, the bus driver said.. 'boli makklu avara appa amma sattru ishtondu feeling irolla'.. i just acknowledged that and went home.


strange are the ways of people ..isnt it ??


In a similar incident, my brother escaped from another group by giving away water bottle and some biscuits to the mob.

This might sound simple but
Mob handling is a talent. I remember during the Cauvery row my house pelted with stones, due to my mom giving some harsh words to the mob.

India is certianly a challenging place to live

V for Vendetta.

For people who have not seen "V for V"

Good one jag!

When jag said he was refreshed with Barron's wordlist for V, he meant this :-

This is how the protagonist "V" introduces himself!


"Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and
voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose vis-à-vis an introduction, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V."


And this is said by the guy who played Agent Smith who speaks crystal clear, and slow English.

Moving Weekend

A long weekend. A very "movie movie" weekend. I saw two movies :-

-Scary Movie #4 (they could have renamed it to Sh***y Movie)
-V for Vendetta (One word about this movie - "Duh?" . What is the movie abt? )
-Ice Age #2 (Very , very nice).

A word about the mulitplexes in Ottawa.

So many resources, so little people

There will be 500+ seats.

For Scary Movie , there were about 30 people in the theatre.
For ice Age about 50 people .
For V for Vendetta , about 20 people.

So, if the fun of movie going was solely to WATCH the movie, it is very good.
But the place is EMPTY.

And EMPTY THEATRES MAKE NO NOISE AT ALL

And there was lord of the rings. #1 , #2 and #3 running back to back on TV.

And there was Tere Naam of Salman Khan.

I enjoyed watching Salman Khan and Bhumika in Tere Naam.

Bhumika is booming in my heart.

hahaha.

I have no clue , about the exact date , when I am coming back to India.
But I am damn sure , it is by end of May. Because my Visa is till june beggining.
My schedule has not started properly here , because people are really busy over here.
If they are very busy, they work from home.

I will update you guys, on this!

Heard that

there is a big bandh in bangalore and the streets look damn empty!!!
I am sure ALL the shops will be closed EVERYWHERE...

I post a link which shows photographs taken by a German visitor currently in Bangalore!

Shops barricaded

Bangalore : About Mobs and Morons

The bandh pictures : (this is how ottawa looks even when there is no bandh!!!)

My favorite Rajkumar movies.

As my testcase bombs, I just recall some of my favorite movies of Rajkumar.

I know by writing this post, I am actually procrastinating, but I will write this post.

:)

My favorite Rajkumar movies.
=============================

I have watched many Rajkumar movies.The very first movie I can ever remember watching in a theatre was a Rajkumar movie called Guri

I have listed some movies which immediately come to my mind when I think of Rajkumar the actor.And most of them are monstrous hits.

#10 CID 999 series
====================
These movies, namely Operation Diamond Rocket, Jedara Bale, Bengalooru Mail were the heavily inspired James Bond flicks in the early and late sixties.Yes, they consisted of "gadgets" (you have to see this movies!) and quite a few "good looking" & "scantily clad" women. The most important woman who made her debut in the CID 999 series was the Hindi film actress and daughter of Gemini Ganesan , Rekha. Rajkumar looked pretty suave in the suits (ofcourse the movies are black and white) but his english was really bad.

But the best part of the CID 999 series was the camaraderie which he had with another great comedian, NarasimhRaju

#9 Bhaktha Prahallada
=====================
Dr. Raj IS best remembered for the roles , he donned as kings and characters of mythology.He came from the famed drama company "Gubbi Company" and had a strong theatrical background, early in his career .Thats why he could effortlessly blend good songs into his movies.I dont think any Kannada actor today can make justice to the "Mythological" roles, like he did. He is brilliant as HiranyaKashipu in this memorable movie.And the moustache he dons in this movie shows the age which it was filmed and he does justic to this.

#8 Shravana Banthu
====================
This movie has got little to do with his acting skills, but it has a lot to do with his songs.I love the song
Ide Raagadalli, ide taaladalli
Nice fairy tale-ish script and a good movie which kept me glued to my seat.
However, it addressed the "then-sensitive" issues of inter-caste marriages in a nice way.It is to be kept in mind that, people were VERY DIPLOMATIC when they wanted to convey social messages. They were never hard-hitting/direct.So this movie will fail to make any impact today.

#7 Eradu Kanasu
================
A good movie dealing with heartbreaks and marriages having a rough start with a lot of cold war. Very good song. I loved two songs from this movie.
Tam nam, Tam nam and Yendendu ninnanu Marethu

#6 Mayura
============
A very stylised , improvised story of the history of the Kadamba dynasty founder "Mayura". Good swordfights (for Kannada movie standards) and garish (but colorful costumes!). Again, the movie hits a home run because of Rajkumar's charisma.

#5 Babruvahana
===============
An excellent movie, dealing with ego conflicts between Arjuna and his son Babruvahana.Excellent rendering of dialogs in the form of dramatic verses, in the form of songs.Rajkumar has excelled in both the roles , as the older Arjuna and the younger and dandy Babruvahana. The PB Srinivas & RajKumar song is awesome!

#4 Bhagyavantharu
===================
Another good movie where Rajkumar plays the role of an old man who loses his power gradually in his family over the years.His strict upbringing of his children make him the person, which everyone loves to hate. One of the best tragedies played by Rajkumar.

My top#3 will be seen by most of us here.So I wont write anything about these three movies!

#3 Dari Tappida Maga
=====================

#2 Kasturi Nivasa
==================

#1 Bangaradha Manushya
=======================

A great actor departs ..

Rajkumar - the prominent Kannada film Icon, succummed to heart attack today at 2:30 pm. A great actor and a prominent propellant of the Kannada cause.

It is really a sad day for Kannada.

Philosophy & computer science

Shishya :-
Oh learned one! Who am i ?

Guruji :-
It is simple....Are you a Unix user?

Shishya :-
Yes.

Guruji:-
Type whoami at your terminal.

Shishya:-
Thanks oh holy one....I am blessed by your answer.

Guruji :-
Go * yourself....

And...

Weekend happened...It was okay...compared to the lousy weekend I had previously.

This weekend , I had been to Downtown Ottawa and this place reminded me of the plush places of Paris....This was a goood place to see. Well, there is a parliament, and everybody can walk into the canadian parliament!!! I dont think any other country would do that!! There is one mall called "CarlingWood mall". It is FULL OF senior citizens. There are apartments here which are meant for retired people. These are called "Retirement Suites". Man! I guess this city fits the bill of "Pensioner's Paradise" VERY VERY well.

The weather is gradually improving and we can see the sun is actually trying its level best to bring the warmth.

There is a lake (or river?) called Ottawa. When I came here, it was a flat land of snow and Ice. Now the ice is gone (70%) and the water looks really blue.

Well, I am still trying to find the bus numbers. I have went in the opposite direction as many as a dozen of times.Apart, from all this, I caught three movies on TV. The best one, was "The Untouchables".Nice movie.

Mandalism ..

More reservations. And this time it will affect all the premier institues - IIM, IITs JNU and the likes. Vote bank politics ???

With passage of time, one thinks reservations has to reduce. But, in our country the reversal has happened and now its getting frenzier. The MHRD is proposing a 27% quota for the OBCs in the above mentioned institutions ( I have no clue as to why the med institutions like AIIMS, JIPMER,PGI have been left out. fishy ;-) )

The reservation bill will not be implemented till the assembly elections are over. HMMM interesting. Should people vote for teh UPA govt or not ? - will it be a double edged sword.

Why are people still behind reservations for post-graduation studies. Why doesnt the govt look for improving the quality of primary education? try to alleviate the standard of life of the OBCs, minorities etc. How will reservations solve the problem ??

The creamy layer in these category will again make use of the reservation quota. Sons of IAS officers will be IAS officers. We will have IAS families, engineering families , a medico families etc etc from these sections, but these will represent just 1% of the whole targetted audience.

The acadamecians are already fuming about the proposal. The politicians have taken care not to heat up more, the already blazing summer by postponing the implementation of the reservation bill after the assembly elections. Will the monsoon by dry this year ?? Only time will tell.

Btw, anyway this policy can be stopped ? Can Supreme court do something about it ?
Will SMSes work time similar to the Jessica Lal case. ???

One small PJ

What do you call a Canadian Citizen ?
Answer :- Canadiga.

Okay. One more PJ whenever it occurs to me.

At a temperature of -3 degrees and snowfall, we chose to move into our new apartment.
There is snowfall in april in Canada and they calll it as "spring winter" it seems...

I met my old college mate Subramanya ( GD and Richie, remember "Kudre Motte"? ).
I think even Kumar knows Subramanya. He is from MES high school.

So, I know quite a few people here.

But the main problem with the apartment is that it doesnt have a phone.
I need a phone.

Flash thought.
Some guys have got ways with the girls.(I write this sentence for memory)
Anyway dude, I really admire your pataaifying skills.

I am planning to see a movie called V for Vendetta. It is directed by the Wachowski brothers.There is a Basic Instinct2 released here.

And on Sunday, we heard a lot of Rang De Basanti & MAala Maal songs on TV !!
Man! it felt like home.

Well, I plan to go to Montreal this weekend.
Montreal is supposed to be bigger and more "happening" place.Ottawa is full of government buildings and high-tech companies and also old men and their wives walking with scarfs and woolen caps with their dogs.The city stops at 8:30.That is a little too early even for me.

There is a lot of white geese flying around the city. So, it looks like some birds sanctuary. Also there are traffic signs for "Geese crossing" & "Ducks crossings" like "school children crossing".Talk about living in harmony and following the traffic rules.

Accident..

My car was hit by a speeding car from behind yesterady. This incident left a dent on the bumper and made the bumper little out of its original place.
It happened on the BTM main road, near the building named "Seattle". It was a normal slow drive, with every one travelling at 30kmph and me having eyes wide open not to bang into someone. But, the other driver wasnt that careful. Bleady hell, he overestimated himself, his car, his brakes, his abilities .. blah blah blah..

I was furious, but I did not shout at him. I stopped the car, had a look at the dent (which wasnt major), gave him a loook and asked him to be careful and left the place without creating any ruckus. There were a few reasons to do so.

1. If I had continued for a few minutes more solving the issue, the whole road would have been jammed and there would be hazaaar people who would have cursed me ( I wouldnt handle so much curse u c ;-) )
2. I once banged a bike enroute office. The contact was at a perpendicualr angle with the mistake being entirely mine. All the bike guy said was "Dont worry dude, it happens". This left a lot of guilt within me, and from then I have been a careful driver.
3. A similar incident happened during the recent Kudremukh trip. My friend was overtaking a bus under a blind curve. A biker from the opposite direction travelling a 70kmph controlled his biked and managed to save himself without hitting the bus or the car. ( Rossi would have been proud of the control the guy displayed). All he managed was a cold stare which induced a lot of guilt in us.

Now it was my time to do the returns, and I returned without much tantrums. Hope the guy has learnt his mistake and wont repeat it.

I JUST HOPE

Ottawa is a good place, but it is sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepy.
Probably more sleepier than Mysore.

Man ! consider yourself LUCKY if you find 10 persons on a busy road.
Ofcourse there are cars zooming at unbelievable around everywhere.

The apartment search(for my friend (and me?) ) continues and hope it is to end tomorrow.

Nortel Office is like Vidhana Soudha here.It kinda looks like that.
It is a huge place and everyone knows this place.Great facilities.
It is BIG and AWESOME, and better than the swanky Infy Bangalore/Mysore Campus.
But buses are huge , empty and infrequent.

And the weather is merciless in the night.If asked, any Indian will easily walk on burning charcoal in this weather.And they will enjoy the stroll on the charcoal.

And they say, this is the summer.

For a guy who had never seen less than 10 degree Centigrade, man! it is like Brrrrrr....

I have got some mobile numbers. I will call you guys as soon as I get some time!


Current Music : Unknown - Chali Chali taalenu Ee Chaliya

alma mater

Today, I woke up at around 12 and when I came out of my room to attend to daily chores, I saw four aged people(looked like two couples) walking around in my hostel wing. At first I thought they must be relatives of some kid and were here to spend a sunday ...but there was something different about them...they did not have the oh-this-place-is-new-to-me-and-i-am-lost look on their faces, generally all visitors have such a look..but these people were perfectly comfortable..I did not bother to find out who they were..

I saw them again..when I was going for lunch..they were talking to hostel G-Sec and he was holding our hostel t-shirts.

During lunch, my wingmate informed that the men were from the batch of 67!!and they were here to show their rooms to their wives!!! I found it unbelievable..I can't imagine taking my wife to pesit, 40 years after my graduation..just to show the place I studied..I am not talking about iit as I am still here and what I feel about this place may change..anyway..coming back to the point..why is it that I dont feel the same amount of belongingness towards pesit?even when I was in pesit, I never felt it was MY college..it was just a college were I studied..why is it so?because I never spent more than 5-6 hours per day in the college??is it because I did nothing other than attending lectures at campus?? or is it a plain and simple reason like pesit can never give me what iit gave to these people?I dont know..or is it a common phenomenon, as in most of us dont feel it? if it is a common thing, then again why is it so?