Vacation in Jungle of Srimangala (Coorg)

On my first marriage anniversary, we planned for an adventurous trip in Coorg. Most of you know Coorg as a hill station which has scenic beauty and can provide a very relieving holiday. I agree but this trip was not in area of Coorg where generally crowd goes. We planned for a trip to Srimangala to stay in Jungle :). The place is Bhiruga village at a secluded place on a mountain. The roads are so bumpy that you would never know when your body organs have dislocated and interchanged positions in the body. The place where we stayed goes by name Beethel Home stay and is run by Rakesh Dhiman alongwith one of his partner Anish. They have 6 cottages out of which 4 are tent cottage while 2 are Bamboo Cottages. There is no electricity or no network connection in the place. They have a generator which is run to just pump the water and that too hardly for an hour in morning and evening. Given the description, you can understand what sort of place it would be. The night view at the place is awesome - with sky studded with stars, gun shots of hunting, pitch darkness, mist during the night and ofcourse the insects noise. Watching a horror movie or hearing horror stories can be scary at this place in night. To add to this, food was delicious and Rakesh took great care of us. At night during camp fire, the starters were great. As it was December rafting was not happening but during June to October month, rafting is great here and you can have a great time. The Irupu falls was amazing and also the river near to this place. All in all a great place to spend vacation away from the hectic schedule of city.

By the way whole trip was done by car driven by yours truly. I did almost 1800kms on road driving alone in 4+ days. The drive was excellent and return journey through Kerala was breath taking :). We also did a wildlife sanctuary drive during our stay at morning and evening. The evening drive was scary - switch off the lights of your car and you cannot see each other and with that knowing you are in jungle can be real scary.

I would ask anyone looking for such a trip to go this place for sure. You would not regret this.

Now I am back to boring office days again. Well I have next trip coming soon from Dec 19-25 to Goa and Konkan.

Signing Off-
Nilesh

Training for next 3 days - Yawning now itself

It was a busy day today with lot of work before going to a horrifying training for next 3 days. Yes, I also work, for those of you who think I do not :). Anyways, I might be off blogging for next 3 days because of training but lets see, whether I get the time to post something new. I am going off to jungle stay after that for next 3 days in Coorg from Dec 5-9 and back on 9th night. So I will be off again from blogging.

I hate trainings, and that too when they are so long. Each day 10 hours and continue for 3 days. But when the training is mandatory, I cannot avoid it for long and has to attend one day. So after lot of delays , the day has come when my poor soul has to undergo the boring act of understanding everything when I am sure, would not understand anything.

I wonder how all of you feel about trainings in your field but for me, its not any fun. By the way, I am one of the trainers for a 60 hour course (in 4 1/2 day) which extends over 60 hours also at times. But being a trainer is different than attending one. Also, I am a trainer of one of the class training any project leader or manager can ever attend, so that anyone can undergo.

Have to go for a sleep now as it has been a long day and have to be ready for a long day ahead!

Keep visiting my blog and the other blog also (link shown on the righ side column). Do pass on the other blog address for sure to market enthusiasts.

Signing off -
Nilesh

Why do I love Mahabharata?

The love for Mahabharata is not too old, it started around 2 years back when I was in UK. It would be difficult for some of you to believe but I watched the entire show in 3-4 days non-stop with hardly 2-3 hours of sleep everyday. I remember watching it when I was a kid but then at that time I was not very involved in the story but watching it in 3-4 days and having the logical brain to understand it helped the love to develop.

To me, this is the best epic story ever. I am sure what is shown on the show is not with 100% accuracy but even if 50% of it is the way it happened, it is unbelievable. Lets assume this is 50% true and 50% fiction but then also we should appreciate the script writer, who made this complex script such an easy to watch and understand. One can easily get lost in the characters and timelines of the story but if you watch it religiously , you would love it and see the simplicity :). Every single character, does not matter how small, is important to the whole plot. How the characters from different eras make the whole plot interesting is amazing. To tell such a huge story and give justice to each character in less than 100 episodes is worthy of appreciation. When we look at some of the soap operas of today, they for more than 2-3 years which is almost 400+ episodes. I wish, if we had serials like Mahabharataa being made nowadays. Now also I try to watch it daily (comes on Star Utsav).

Mahabharata, give us and our younger generation a great insight into our forefathers and what a turning point this story was in the history and probably marked the end of Dwaparyuga. If you have watched Mahabharata, you would realise how we manipulated the word "Dharma" for our selfish needs. If all of us could follow on the path of Dharma as it is meant, what a great place this world would be. The scale at which this magnum opus was made is also worth mentioning. Atleast the producer and director made an honest attempt although, I am sure with all the special effects available today it could have been shown better. But on other hand I think, if the same epic would have been made today, it would have lost its character because it would have been shown in a more commercial way. One example at this attempt is Ekta Kapoors version of the epic :). All the actors in the previous serial were perfect to the character of the story. Atleast I cannot think of any other better Bheeshma, or Krishna or Arjuna.

Mahabharata gave us Geeta and who can fortget the impact it has had on the world. It is one of the most worthy books from India which has been referred in writings of many authors across the world. I also think the show Mahabharata at that time, was also shown in UK on BBC with subtitles and had a great following. It has inspired French people to make a play on this script. The story has impressed many across the world and most importantly the impact of it on anyone who reads or watches it. I have not read either the Mahabharata or Geeta but I wish to start reading Geeta sometime in future probably at the start of next year.

I can continue to write on this topic but I would give a stop now and leave it for you to comment whether what I wrote really is true or you see the show in a different light altogether. I am open for your kickbacks! :)

Signing Off-

Nilesh

The Shawshank Redemption - Brilliant Movie

Being a sunday, it was supposed to be a lazy day for me and I lived up to it. Waking up late and going through morning chores, I realised Shawshank Redemption was coming on UTV World movies. I stopped doing everything and sat in front of the TV to watch it completely (though I started watching it an hour into the movie). I remember , I first watched it a year back and loved it. I even bought myself an original DVD of the movie from UK (as it was still not released in India, if I am not wrong).

What I loved the most about the movie is that It is a very simple movie which leaves an impression on the viewer without trying to be too loud. The characters are lovely, acting brilliant and the script perfect. First time watching the movie, you would wonder, if it is a true story but it is not. There are quite a few dialogues in the movie which are just too good - Like this one:
"The funny thing is that, I was an honest banker outside but to become a crook, I had to come to a prison"
Another one goes on Hope- " Hope is a good thing, probably one of the best things, and the good thing never dies". There are many scenes in the movie, which make you feel good and the climax is also brilliant which probably few people might not guess also. The patience, determination and smartness of Andy Dufresse will make you love him. The movie is #1 in imdb list of Top 250 movies ever. Like quite a few movies, this movie too has a message that you should never give up Hope (as the dialogue above sums it up) and Dreams. To imagine a person being in jail for 20 years and then still has the positive attitude is amazing. It is not surprise that the movie is a work of fiction because having a guy like Andy in real life would be near to impossible because a person wrongly convicted and being in prison for 20 years cannot have the same attitude. Atleast I cant believe it. Overall, a brilliant movie and must be seen by everyone. So go ahead and watch this one! You will not regret it :)

Signing off-
Nilesh

De Dana Dan - My Review

I am an avid movie watcher and you cannot ignore my contribution to producers kitty. I would like to add movie reviews to my blog as I more than often go and watch a movie every week.

This week it was De Dana Dan from the Priyadarshan camp with his lucky team of Akshay, Sunil and Paresh. The expectations were not too high but we were just hoping to have a nice time and laugh but our wishes were not to be true. It is one of a kind experience to go in a theatre and watch these boring movies but then when the love for movies is in blood how can I resist!!! First things first, the movie could have been made in less than 2 hours. It seemed as if the director was trying his luck by stretching the rubber to its limit without realising, if it goes beyond the limit the rubber breaks and thus this movie. The plot was of the same old mistaken identity and it seems the idea of comedy in Bollywood is of mistaken identities with same sort of story line and situation. When would these artistic people start thinking and I wonder, do they even watch the movies they make and judge them in honesty??? I guess, they do not.

The movie started with few words of Akshay and it seemed this could be a nice laugh but then the 2nd shot itself let it down. There was never enough pace in the movie and when you felt as if the movie is gathering pace, the director throws a song at you without any situation and logic. The skills of actors were nowhere tested as the script did not demand it. The promos showed Katrina and Akshay dancing in rain but the movie had no such song. What is the logic of promoting a film on the basis of song which is not there in the movie. There were too many characters in the movie and all were trying out to make situation comic too Loud. All in all, there were probably few scenes where I had a laugh but overall it was all boring. At one moment of time, I thought the movie was over but the director stretched it for another 20 minutes. Finally, he climax of water tank exploding and the complete hotel flooded was such a nuisance. I agree, comedies at time need to be without logic but please do not test audience patience with such idiotic scenes. Akshay kumar has not given a good movie the entire year and it seems his luck is running out for now but hope, he comes out with a big hit soon.

For everyone, give this movie a miss and do not think of watching as it is better to stay at home and watch some comedy serials coming on Zee world :)

Signing Off-
Nilesh

Here Comes Dubai to Haunt the World!!!

If you follow world markets, you could not have missed the name "Dubai" today!!! It was all over the media, whether be news channels or newspaper. I wonder if Dubai has ever been publicized in such a big way across the globe. It was unprecedented - The talk of Dubai debt and the effects it can have on world economy or markets. This all makes my mind wonder, how can a $60bn or $80bn debt rock the world, when over a $ Trillion could not. I do not think this problem happened overnight then why such a huge hue and cry as if no one knew it. Any shrewd investor investing billions of dollars in world markets could not have missed this. The debt did not build overnight, it was piling up over years and the financial crisis over last two years would have hurt the repayments and affected Dubai World also. Then why this had to come out now and that too without much details.

I am a avid follower of stock markets, and since morning when I switched on TV - the only word on everyones mouth was Dubai debt. I know the show started yesterday when european markets started their downfall and US markets were shutdown but then Asian markets already knew this and closed almost 2% down. Now today, when across Asia, Dubai was the "word of the day", European markets opened gap down and recovered and started trading in green by noon their time... Well now please explain me - European banks have the larges exposure to west asia and they are now not falling but we all are panicking. But I know that is how the World market works, lot of time sentimental and give volatile moves on any news, and very less time rationally. But then as a player in market, you feel frustrated when things just happen in a day without full details. It would be interesting to see for how long Dubai would be the word of the town!! I am watching.

Signing off -
Nilesh