A morning person

"Good morning" these are the first words we hear everyday, may be from our family members or friends if not then surely we hear it at our work place.
But do all people really enjoy mornings, does everyone is very enthusiastic about their day. Well i can't say for others but i am very much a morning person. I like to get up early, though i didn't liked it much as a kid. But soon i realized that i am more productive in the morning as compared to any other time of the day.
My dad is a very much a morning person. Even now he is the frist person to wake up in the morning until and unless he has been out for the night due to work. So i guess i have it in my genes to be a mornig preson.
So what make morning so special and why do i call myself a morning person. Well it is all about productivity for most people. The time they are most productive, it may be late nights or early mornings, they like that time.
As a morning person i think it is more to it. Other than the freshness of the day which morning brings along with birds chirping and the rising sun. The most important thing that a morning does it makes or break your day. Just imagine having a bright morning will make one happy and more enthusiastic about his/her day on the other hand a dull morning with rains will make one slip into the quilt and sleep for a couple of hours.
So whatever makes one happy and more productive work wise is the best time of the day.

Sh*t it happens

How many of us have said "Oh Sh*t !!!" when we did something wrong or we forgot some thing. There words seem to be very common and we tend to hear them more than once per day. So why do we say these words, i mean we can say something else too like "Oh P*ss" or something nicer "Oh my God".
Well once again Forrest Gump helps me out over here to understand these words. The scene goes something like this, Forrest is doing a cross country running and he has become a celebrity so people look up to him for help and inspiration. A guy comes after him asking for a slogan for bumper sticker while he is still running. Just at that very moment Forrest runs over dog's poo. The guy asks him why did he run over the "Sh*t", he replies "it happens". The guy uses " Sh*t it happens " and that becomes very famous.
So don't worry when you say "Oh Sh*t !!" since we know we have done something wrong but it was unintentional. Basically we all create mess in life but there is nothing wrong with it. Say the above words and move on with the intention of never returning to the mistake so that the use of the words "Oh Sh*t !!!" is reduced day by day.

Chronicles of Narnia - the lion, the witch and the wardrobe

Simply awesome. These two words can sum up the movie Chronicles of Narnia -the lion, the witch and the wardrobe.
The movie is based on a book by C.S.Lewis which tells the story about four kids who are send up north of England during the Second World war to get away from the Air raids in London. They are staying in the house of a professor and while playing hide and seek the youngest of them Lucy hides in a wardrobe and discovers a fantasy land of Narnia, which is been ruled by a witch. Due to the cruel rule of the witch there has been winter for long time in Narnia and now the long gone away ruler Aslan, the lion is prerparing to rage a war and regain power. The four humans ( the kids) are the ones which will help in wage the war and bring freedom to the place. So the basic premise of the story rests on the victory of good over evil.
But the way the movie is presented with all the special effects leaves one speechless. The british english sounds very sweet and the little girl Lucy Pevensie has given a mind blowing performance.
SO anyone with a childlike curiosity should not miss this movie. And those who liked the movie there is good news since the next installment of Chronicles of Narnia is underproduction and planned for Summer 2008 ( there are total of seven books about Narnia). Can't wait for the next installment.

Johnny cash - walk the line

" Hello, my name is Johnny cash", if i or some one else says this line it wieghs nothing but when Johnny Cash spoke in his husky voice it became instantly popular. Before watching the 2005 Oscar nominated movie "Walk the Line", i didn't have much idea about country music and knew next to nothing about Johnny Cash. This movie is a autobiography about johnnny cash and the title is a line from one of his popular songs. The lead actors Joaquin Pheonix and Reese Witherspoon have portraited Johnny cash and June Carter really well.
Johnny Cash is shown as a simple man who is interested in music since childhood. But in his route to fame and popularity he gets into booze and drugs but June's love helps him to get back not only to his music but also his life.
Two scence truly standout (or should i say i liked a lot)in the movie. First one is when Cash wanted to get his first song recorded and he goes to the recording company. Johnny plays a gospel song which he and his buddies have been practicing. The owner right away rejects the song. Johnny asks for the reasons for not liking the song. The owner replies that if a man has fallen in the gutter and he is about to die, and there is just one song he has to sing, he is not going to sing the song that Johnny just sang, since the song lacked soul and originality. After this Johnny plays a couple of his original songs. After listening to them, the owner records Johnny's first album and he becomes an instant hit.
Johnny didn't share a good relationship with his father (some of his songs depict this), and after he lost his career to drugs and landing in jail. He tries to get back to life and calls June's family and his parents for Thanksgiving lunch. Johnny has yet not completely recovered from his drug habits. And in a half drunkard state He asks his father(Ray Cash) on the dinner table why his father blames him for his kid brother's death (Johnny's brother died at the age of 10 in an accident) and why he was so rough on him. His father replies that he was not rough on him, he just does not likes the way Johnny lead his life. He(Ray Cash) did the best with whatever skills and talents he had. But looking at Johnny he feels sad since he didn't put his exceptional talents and skills to good use and just used it to destroy his family life, get into drugs and literally mess up everyone around him. This is a self defining moment for Johnnny. He wants to get back in life and June really helps him and together they form not only a great pair on stage but led a wonderful and happy life.
These two scenes are great because in life we have to give our best to whatever we do.Other than this there are lots of country music and songs which are good to listen to.
The movie shows that as human beings we are vunerable to failures(and they are unavoidable), but one has to gather oneself and keep going in life.

Wonderful Human being

We come across atleast one new person every day. And about hundred thousand people in ones lifetime but the people who touch our heart in a special way are very few, may be a hundred or maximum a thousand. These people are generally family members, relatives and friends, but sometimes they are strangers whom we luckily happened to meet.
One such person whom i happened to know for quite some time is the bus driver of the campus bus at my university. His name is Lala, he is an african american, 73 years age who just enjoys talking to people, sharing his thoughts and having a good laugh.
I still remember the first time i met Lala, i used to take the shuttle to my work place, it is about 10 mins ride and generally after a short hi hello 's with the driver and talk about the weather the discussion ended. It was the time after spending a year in the US i was going back to my home country. After a short hi hello's with lala I was enjoying the view from the bus when he asked me how long i have been in the country, what i was doing, i told him i was going back to meet my family in a month's time. To my amazement Lala asked did i have any problems in the short stay in the US, did I in any way got racially discriminated or had any adjustments problems in this country. If so he wanted to appologize for the behavior of such fools. Now that is such a beautiful thing to say.It really struck me and since then had a soft corner for this man.
After this whenever we met he used to talk about his time in the army, how he used to work in the postal department and his laughter was always there. It is so contaigious that it automatically brings a smile to the other person's face however bad his/her day has been. Being the postal service he used to walk about 10 miles every day, even now he walks about 2 miles everyday and during his walks he just waves and smiles to all the pedistrians and car drivers. He simply enjoyed smiling at people, talking to them , with his childlike curiosity always intact.
Today while riding on the shuttle with Lala, he was asking me about using internet more efficently other than writing emails. I wondered wow at such an age this man is so keen on learning new tools which scares people half his age to learn.
The best thing about Lala is always evolving himself, and as he put in his words, if we stop evolving we are as good as dead since aging process never stops.
After many interesting discussions with him I told him, that when i grow 70 yrs old i want to be like him , always smiling and laughing and to have a fit body with a pleasant mind .

Interesting Love story or is it stories ?

Movies depict it either too perfect so that it is hard to be real or make it total chaos. But surely love stories have their own sweet bitter taste which we all enjoy. And if you are not one of the person involved in the relationship then you can sit back and enjoy the ups and downs of the relationship.
Nowadays at my office i am happily enjoying a love story get evolved (developed) in real life. Let me first give a small background of the scenario and the characters for this love story.
Well my office setup is like normal office, there are rows of cubicles with a phone line been shared by three cubicles. Normally phone conversations are easily audible and generally people either keep the phone conversation short or use their cell phones for longer conversations .So normally it very quiet in the office with the printer and the desktop making the most noise.
Now the people in the office, most of them are young guys between the age group of 25-35. The protagonist of the love story is a mature guy, who has been in this office for about 6 years or so. Talks to quite a lot of people, his country of origin is very close to India and right now searching for the right girl to get married. Well by searching i mean he is following the pattern of arranged marriage. I don't know how he gets the phone number of prospective brides. But daily he spends about 4-6 hours on the phone conversing with them.
Sometimes it seems to be like an interview, sometimes it's all sweet talks, while other times it is convincing how they are a made for each other couple .
This guy explains a lot of things to these girls, sometimes he explains about his research work ( which i cannot figure out, god save the girl from it), sometimes he shows his soft side of how caring and loving he is and how much his friends trust him. He explains the visa difficulties to get into this country.He has gone to lengths of crying on phone to explain how upset he was with the concern girl. Or may be it was just the emotional side he wanted to show. Sometimes discussion are about family, religion and goal in life, while other times it is about kids.
Right now everything is just developing in and things are really getting very interesting. So it is a wait and watch policy for now. But i will surely keep up updated about the direction of the love story.
One more thing, I am surely lucky to get the LIVE developments of the love story, since this guy converses mostly in a native language, which i can understaond. However there are couple of people like me who sit back and enjoy life and wonder if we too will have similar love stories.
As Forrest Gump's mom said " Life is a box of choclates you never know what you are going to get" so sit back and enjoy

What makes "Friends" work.

"Friends " a program about 6 friends staying in New york city has been popular not only in US but throughout the world for more than a decade. And it reruns still attract a good audience.
So what makes "Friends" work. It is really hard to say or predict what makes a television program work. Firstly humour is very very important, people laughing at themselves and sustained humour for along time makes it sucessful. There are couple of other reasons which makes me think about the success of this program it is about bunch of regular "John Doe's" who are trying to overcome their day to day problems with a tinch of humour and support from friends. Come what these friends stand by each other.
The basic premise of 3 girls and 3 guys i guess comes from an another NBC program "Saved By the Bell". This program has 6 school going kids growing together and then go to college. Probably friends gives it an extension how these people adjust in real world.
There are couple of universal concepts which makes friends very appealing, this includes youthness, sex lives of each of the characters, every character is so difference however they mix so well as a group. They see their short coming and try to over come them .
Everyone can relate to any of these characters be it a little selfish one like racheeal a " happy go lucky kind " like joey, there is something for everyone .

Each of these six friends come from really strange background but they love each other for what they are and not for what their parents were.
They find really strange people to date but still they learn and move ahead.
And over the years the freshness , the youthness has been maintained that makes friends work.

Forrest Gump

As mentioned in my earlier blog message i see quite a few movies. One the few movies which i wanted to see lately was Forrest Gump.
So finally got a chance to see it on saturday evening. Words are short to describe the beauty of this movie. It is next to impossible to ignore a character like Forrest.
He is stupid, or should i say he is a very simple guy not intelligent or smart to fit in this evolving world. But in each and every incident in his life sometimes he is lucky( introducing black americans in college in alabama), sometimes he just follows his supervisors orders
(like in the army or playing ping pong) and feels lucky to have them as his boss. Or sometimes he just does what he feels like doing (running across america).
One thing which is beyond words to explain is how people are very much surprised to know that Forrest of the guy who owns Bubba-Gump shrimp company, or he is the guy who was invited to meet the president 4 to 5 times . So is recognition and money so important for people. I guess it recognition which stands more higher than money. Everyone is in a fight to show how great they are. How much they can achieve. Get a pat in the back from friends, supervisors and it is this recognition which gives the "TRUE" happiness. Or it is something which they think gives them true happiness. But does it ?
I recently read two articles online which are not related with each other but surely bring an important point - parental pressures.One about an Indian-American born girl aged 18 years, Harvard Student Kavvya Vishwanathan. She received big bucks (six figures) for writing her first book and another one to follow. One would say that is quite an achievement for such a young person. But lately in has seen that many passages ( about 29 of them ) have been plagiarized or copied from another well known author. New york times printed an article about this and the publishing of the books have been stopped and contract has been terminated.
Another incident is about a 16 year old chinese-american girl Esmie Tseng from Kansas who stabbed her mother. The girl was a brilliant student and excellent sports person. But her parental pressure was too much for her to handle. Her online blog which she has been writing for the past 3 years gives the day to day pressures and expectation she had to meet of her parents. Her relation with her parents was stained especially her mother and it was the main reason of
killing her.
How many of us go to these pressures. I guess there are performance pressure from all parents but after a certain point it does not mean " pressure" it is more like " dictatorship " or " military rule " .Something like you have to come first, if you don't it is the end of the world for you.
I should say that i have been lucky to never to go through these turmoils. My parents never pressurized me about anything. I may not be the most brilliant person around or the most smarted but they surely have given me the strength and power to face this world. And that is more that what i can ask for. Now it is up to me set my goals and a path to achieve it. The most important thing that they have engraved in me is about HARDWORKING and i truly value it.
Nothing substitute for hardwork and as some one said " Hard work is a marathon not a sprint " so just keep striving for your goals and always keep inproving since nothing is perfect there is always scope for improvement .

Express yourself

I have always wondered why people create blogs and what do they write and who the hell is going to read their day in day out activitiy.These were my initial views about blogs. I didn't have the paitence to read any of these blogs and never attempted to read though whenever a friend
told me about his or her blog i took a glance. And readlized in many cases it showed the multifacets talents and thoughts of people whom i knew si well. Some may write poems, some about their triumphs in day to day life. But surly everyone had their say about something or the other. A friend even wrote about the 10 of his favorite dishes. Wow so one can write anything under the sun. So here i am today all geared up to express myself. Tell the world what i think, what i am doing. Even if no one reads it will surely help me express myself in a better manner. Help me have a better understanding about my work, my extracirricular activities like sports, watching telivision , watch movies( I should admit that i watch about 1-2 movies per week).
Let's begin with what i am reading these days. Well to tell you the truth i just got hooked to reading just recently. About couple of months back i had a discussion with my brother-in-law and we were discussing about National Treasure (2004 Nicklas Cage movie), which i had seen a day before on his recommendation. And he mentioned that i should read the "Da Vinci code" it will set the ball rolling about the secret societies which existed in the past ( and maybe
exist now too ). I was about to make a trip to india in December so got hold of the book and started to read. I should admit though i am a pretty slow reader and read as and when get
the time. So far haven't completed a book in a single sitting. So took about a month to finish this one. And was extremely impressed.
I don't want to get into the discussion what the books says and what it doesn't. Since it is a piece of friction or more appropriately piece of "faction" (facts + friction) and a lot has been said about it. So will avoid getting into that arguments. But surely this book made me more curious and highly invovled into reading.
After that i read "Deception Point " and "Digital Fortress" two other works by Dan Brown .I think "deception point" has been the best work, may be better than Da Vinci code. I finished Digital fortress in record time of 4 days. Well may not be a record for others but for a person who takes anywhere between a month to a year to read a book this is a record.
A good friend handed over to me "The Chamber " a john grisham novel, another work of friction but so much about history to be learned from it. The extend of details with which John Grisham explains the day to day experience of a person on death row. Even to the last chapter one is hopeful that the person with not be executed. The tricks and methods which lawyers use to win a case. Forget even if they are on the right or the wrong side of law . Winning for their client is the most important thing.
Currently i am reading " the Man who knew infinity", will write a detail post about this soon.
So you see since December 2005 i have read 5 books which i have never done before. Hope to carry the good work.