What a Factory!!!

No, No..Please don't get me wrong. I am not writing about Design Patterns here :), although I am reading them these days. I wanted to drop a few lines about a unique, excellent Factory product, the movie "Harishchandrachi Factory".
Anything and everything has a beginning. In most of the cases the beginning is the key to it's development. The "Beginnings" are most of the times very memorable and remarkable. Paresh Mokashi has excellently captured the making of the first Indian movie "Raja Harishchandra". He has excellently carved every aspect of the movie. The pace of the movie is so well and delicately handled. All the characters are so simple and with them you gel into the movie in a such a way that you actually start loving them. Everyone should definitely watch it. The time of the British rule in India and the intelligent, innocence of the people is very charming.
I had started writing this blog and then I thought I should watch some of the old movies too. Some of which I have missed out. I am a great Madhuri Dixit fan. So yesterday I watched "Abodh", Vaibhav kept cursing me and the director . Also, I was feeling very stupid about it but then it interested me to watch how Madhuri actually started. May be even that was very silly about myself. I think maybe even Madhuri may feel the same if she watches the movie again. :)
Friends, I want to watch some of the golden old Hindi movies. Please suggest me the ones which are a must watch.

PAA

It was Friday, a day to checkout which is the new movie on list. This time it was "Paa". Had watched the trailers a couple of weeks ago and had it had sounded very interesting. We planned out to go for it and watch it in Showcase Cinema in Bridgeport. Saturday again was impossible to go as weather.com was showing up the first snow showers. Finally, reading the many status' on Facebook/Orkut , and also reading excellent reviews, made up my mind and went for the movie Sunday evening. In general, when I go and watch a movie out in a theatre, I do not like to be just 2 of us watching it as it happened with my recent experience watching "This Is It" and this time I was lucky enough to see people around me.

"Paa" is a very unique movie in itself. Everyone has done great justice to their roles in "Paa". I just loved Abhishek Bachchan in his pure white kurtas and simple, thoughful looks and his role as a brilliant minister who wants to prove politics isn't too bad. I think Vidya Balan looks stunningly beautiful in all her movies, the best one being "Parinita". In this movie too, I loved the character of Vidya, her personality, her independent attitude was very well portrayed. The unwed mother was so well supported by her mother Arundhati Naag. The movie had a very simple story with a introduction of yet another new disease "Progeria". Amitabh Bachan, had a completely new role to be played, though not very challenging for an actor like him, when you watch the movie, you will really be touched by the "AURO" in the movie.

The movie keeps you engrossed till it's ends. What I loved most about it was the strength of the characters, their righteousness. It was all about relationships and it's beauty. Some very simple, small facts are presented so excellently. The kids conversations, their feeling everything is expressed perfectly and it adds up in making the movie very light.

The music gels up well and is soothing. I think the lyrics could have been better.

Before watching the movie, we had thought it to be like very depressing sad story with Amitabh's dominance over all the other roles. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. It's definitely a must watch. In my view it was 4.5/5.

Diwali Greetings!

Wishing everyone on any festival has always been a most loved activity of mine. Earlier it was by sending post cards, then was sending greeting cards, which changed to sending sms and ecards, also phone calls. Though time keeps changing sending and receiving wishes has always been a constant process.

This year, me and Vaibhav created a card on mac, using all our pics from the last Diwali. There are lots of wonderful memories to be shared. Last year, we didn't have a Aakash Diva and we felt that Diwali would be so incomplete without it and so me and Vaibhav made the Aakash Diva at home.

I wish everyone to have a very Happy Diwali ahead full of love, success and prosperity.

World's Largest Kaleidoscope

Transitions are always memorable. May it be a kid's transition from kindergarden to primary school or transition of a person from his work life to a retired life. The phase is exciting, hopeful and full of dreams ahead at the same time it's hurting. Same is the transition time from summer to winter, the season called as autumn.

'Autumn' popularly known as 'Fall' in US is a beautiful season when the nature changes colors. To experience the scenic beauty we went to Catskills mountains this weekend. While searching we couldn't find any particular destination where we should go. So we thought of just driving down and so drove towards "Shangrila" an Indi

an restaurant amidst Catskill. On the way we encountered some pristine locations. We parked wherever we could and clicked the best we could.

Asokan Reservoir

On the way, we just noticed a small, lovely shop with beautiful antique and decorative items, which also had a special Kaleidoscope section. It also said it had the World's Largest Kaleidoscope. When we stopped there, we were still thinking whether to visit it or no. But then we were really curious to explore it. The section of Kaleidoscope was really out of imagination. As kid's I think everyone does have some or the other memories related to them, but the shop had an amazing collection of hundreds of Kaleidoscopes ranging right from $5 to $5000. And each piece had it's own uniqueness, every item was made at it's best and every view was marvelous. The variety just stunned us. A very sweet lady at the store told us that there's a 10 minutes show with the "World's Largest Kaleidoscope" and we opted to see it. The room where we were asked to watch it had a perfect setup to watch the show. It was a small round room and the show would be on it's dome. They had placed some furniture which could support the back while standing so that it's comfortable watching it. But the lady suggested the best way would be to lie down and watch the show. The show was amazing with the views gelled up well with the music. It was the most memorable experience. I got chance to click a few picture of the same.

Then we drove further and reached "Shangrila". It had a wonderful location and the fall colors just added to it's beauty. There was a small trail nearby. We just walked a bit further and enjoyed the evening.

On our way back, the moon just caught our eyes and minds.

The day way awesome as we visited unplanned destinations and it turned out to be a drive full of wonderful surprises.

"D" as in ...

I was playing tennis, some people were watching me. I was surrounded with a crowd. Vaibhav was encouraging me. And suddenly they said, I am selected and then I realized they said I am selected for US open quarter-finals. :D. I said "no, I am not prepared to play against those shrewd players", but everyone around me was convincing me to take a chance and just give a try. It was just the same as when a recruiter calls and asks me for an interview, if I am not prepared, people encourage me to give a try. I was excited, got ready for it. First thing I cared about was proper clothes. I gathered all suitable clothes and arranged them in a nice Adidas sports bag. I was not sure whether it was really true, that I had to play but people were just asking me to go and give a try. When I went there I got to know that my opponent for my first match was "Rashmi Dhote" :D. She said "Priti, don't worry. Just play with confidence" You will do it" . Though I had gathered and prepared all the sports t-shirts, I wore a white salwar kammez with black print on it. I was not sure whether to carry a duppatta on it. She hit the first ball and I caught it in my hand. There were people pushing me from here and there. I didn't know why. Then Vaibhav said "Priti, Get up, It's 6:45 am".

Undoubtedly, everything above, sounds like a dream and yes , it's my today's dream . :).

I just visited my orkut profile, where I have put a quote in my title bar "Dream as if you will live forever, Live as if you'll die today". I had liked this quote a lot , had also used it as a part of my signature in Amdocs, however, this "Real Dream" of mine is not at all related to the quote. It's just a fantasy!

I dream a lot in my sleeps, and when I am dreaming, I do not like my sleep to be disturbed, that's probably why many are scared to wake me up from my sleep. ;) I generally do not remember my dreams. Sometimes, whenever I can recollect them, I narrate them to someone and then forget about it. When I dreamt today, I thought of sharing it with all.

Many a times I keep pondering, where must have these dreamy thoughts entered my mind, because they are so extraneous. Then I thought about my today's dream, Know what yesterday I had watched "Dil Bolle Hadippa". I don't know why someone directed that movie. At the end of the movies, Rani gives a speech quoting great women of India and I thought were those dialogues written by Rakhi Sawnat.. :). And another big shock was when I thought may be my dream might be a consequence of the movie, the US open finals I watched recently and ofcourse my sweet friend Rashmi whose been by my side through all the thick and thin of my life. What a fantasy! What a gelling up of events! Is this what is called a dream?

Above all, the fact is I have never played lawn tennis in my life. :)

Exciting White Water Rafting!

Have you ever wondered, what fun it would be when the fast moving water carries you in the raft through the rocks and surrounded by the marvelous views. That excitement can be experienced by whitewater rafting.

We experienced the fun of whitewater rafting on the river Lehigh surrounded by the Poconos mountains in Pennsylvania. We were a team of seven out of which five of us were holding the paddles and getting into the rafts for the first time. With a few of warnings and tips the guides over there had introduced a bit about the challenges and dangers we would foresee so that the so-called "friendly rocks", giving the twists and turns to the river may not come to us as surprises. Also they had mentioned that the rocks would turn out as a support, if we happen to slip from the raft and go into the river; This had sounded some-what weird while hearing but can you imagine when me and Vaibhav actually and accidentally slipped and got to know that the water-wasn't real deep to drown someone in there. However, we thanked God that we were not among the ones who were carried by the water long ahead and pulled up by some other by some other rafts far ahead, where the savers were proud and the carried-aways were devastated.

In the beginning, we were trying to develop the art of paddling and felt that our efforts to paddle was directing the raft on the contrary the water current was driving us towards our destination which was 13.2 miles away from the start. The real deadlock was when our raft was awfully stuck in between the rocks. Then with the directions of our guides and with a balancing and jumping around we could get back into the river. For the rafts to be directed well a proper sync in the team is a mandatory and everyone took efforts and turns to be leaders and announce the lefts and the rights.

Fortunately, after we were stuck a guide "Hosey" accompanied us in our raft and directed us to move ahead skillfully; after which we had lots of fun through all the rapids and the deadlocks. All this continued for around 7 long hours to cover the 13.2 miles stretch. We did have a lunch break when we had realized that water had almost enter most of our food stuff, however by God's grace we could have some part of it. We had carried the Crispy potato chips which were processed into mashed potatoes by the grace of the river.

However, it was awesome to experience the journey through extremely beautiful and scenic views of the Poconos mountains. The mesmerizing views were when we were crossing the valley though the beautiful river and could see lot of rafts following us with people trying to work in sync, the trains moving by the train track besides the river and the bikes moving by the bicycle tracks.

We were actually seven Karan, Sumit-Khusboo, Sunil-Hina, Vaibhav-Priti.

Virtue

When the sun is strong and the earth is dry ,

Rain is a soothing virtue.

When the rain is strong and the earth is damp,

Sun is a soothing virtue.

When night is dark and the river is loud,

Moon is a soothing virtue.

When aim is strong and the goal is long,

Patience is the craved virtue.

When brain is busy and the heart is low,

Smile is a soothing virtue.

When fear is strong and hope is gone,

Love is the only virtue!