Summary post of the past fortnight

First, here is something I got in a forwarded email. I have not had any “New Year post” as such and therefore these words of wisdom could possibly be a good start to a new year:

A Group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help them-selves to hot coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other’s cups.

Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn’t change. Some times, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it.”
Don’t let the cups matter… Enjoy the coffee instead!

Here are the posts I wrote recently:

Top Ten movies of 2008 This list is a personal one and as I have not been able to see many of the films I wished to, particularly the English ones, this list will remain very subjective.

Best movies of all time (tag) The kind of movies which I like are those which give me thrills, whether of the mental kind  (psychological thrillers) or the funny kind (I do not have a partiality towards a particular kind of humour and can enjoy situational, mental and slapstick humour) or the action adventure kind (sci-fi are my favourites and so is fantasy) or the romantic kind (I prefer serious romance)…If a movie throws light on some important issue, makes me think, is not preachy and holds my attention as well, then the movie would be at the top of my list, not otherwise. I consider the ability of a director to entertain very important…

Is voting for a political party better than voting for the candidate? It has been said that in the political systems of Canada, New Zealand and the United States, only about 20 percent of the voters vote for a candidate who is not from a preferred party…Some believe that in America there has been a shift from party-centred voting to candidate-centred voting, particularly in the recent presidential election…One wonders why a good percentage of voters vote for a candidate whom they don’t like too much…In India an overwhelming number of people vote for candidates based on party affiliation…here are some new parties which have promised to bring in honesty and transparency into Indian politics…

Will India’s Power and Transport take that big leap forward? A Special Report in a recent issue of The Economist hammered home the point that India cannot progress without a major step forward in infrastructure development. Well, the positive thing is that our government knows what to do, even if it is going about it very slowly…There are plans to double infrastructure investment to $475 billion in the next five years, which amounts to about 8% of GDP a year. Here are a few of the government’s plans to boost infrastructure…

Ghajini movie review Ghajini is a gripping and powerful movie, and draws you into the violent world of a man terribly wronged. It’s a movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat from the start and is replete with violence, even after three scenes were cut by the censor board…certainly not a pleasant ride for kids under the age of twelve despite the film getting an UA certificate! That said, Ghajini is a well directed film with brilliant music by A.R Rahman. The film begins by introducing us to Sanjay Singhania (Aamir Khan), a man suffering from anterograde amnesia, a condition which prevents him from remembering anything beyond 15 minutes…Ghajini is a typical Bollywood masala movie, with song and dance, a heart wringing romance and plenty of dishum dishum, but what will make this film memorable is Aamir’s performance.

Funny signs (photo post) Here are some photographs of funny signs, some confusing, some quite ridiculous!

Antulay’s vote bank politics Abdul Rehman Antulay, the Union Minister for Minorities, thought that by saying that the death of ATS Chief Hemant Karkare in the recent terror attacks was suspicious, he could be a hero to Indian Muslims . However, I rather doubt that Antulay has impressed his vote bank… On the face of it, a rather dense statement by Antulay considering that the Taj and the Trident were attacked a good half an hour after CST station. And even Leopold Cafe was attacked about 15 minutes after CST. In the CST massacre, around 60 people were randomly gunned down and then the terrorists ran away.  It was most logical for Karkare to rushto the spot to follow them! But like MJ Akbar says, Antulay was not interested in the truth or saying anything intelligent. He wanted to please his vote bank…

Awards
I received two awards, the “Bloggers for World Peace” award given to me by Indian Homemaker and the Garland Blog award by Kanagu.  Thanks both!