The name called "Harivanshrai Bachhan"

Having gone through the blog posts of Big B Amitab Bachhan at: http://srbachchan.tumblr.com/, it is hard to believe that someone who is so busy with his films' schedule could squeeze out enough time to publish articles on a daily basis for his online fans/followers(whom he calls "extended family")!
The post on his father Harivansh Rai Bachchan on the eve of his birth anniversary(born on 27Nov1907) was particularly touching!
I read a few poems of him during my school days and though I didnt remember the poems, I still remember an incident where I thought Harivanshrai Bachhan and Amitabh Bachhan are not related(just like how Anil Kapoor and Raj Kapoor are not related). It is only after I joined college and watching on TV that I realized that they are in fact father-son duo!

I just now recalled one of the poems that I read as a kid in our CBSE school. Those days we never had an idea as to who he is, his contribution to literature or other facets of his life! All we knew are some names like Munshi Premchand, Mahadevi Varma, Bharatendu Harishchandra, etc. Below is the text of the poem that I remember: 

जो बीत गई सो बात गई (Jo Beet gayi so baat gayi):

जीवन में एक सितारा था
माना वह बेहद प्यारा था
वह डूब गया तो डूब गया
अंबर के आंगन को देखो
कितने इसके तारे टूटे
कितने इसके प्यारे छूटे
जो छूट गए फ़िर कहाँ मिले
पर बोलो टूटे तारों पर
कब अंबर शोक मनाता है
जो बीत गई सो बात गई

जीवन में वह था एक कुसुम
थे उस पर नित्य निछावर तुम
वह सूख गया तो सूख गया
मधुबन की छाती को देखो
सूखी कितनी इसकी कलियाँ
मुरझाईं कितनी वल्लरियाँ
जो मुरझाईं फ़िर कहाँ खिलीं
पर बोलो सूखे फूलों पर
कब मधुबन शोर मचाता है
जो बीत गई सो बात गई

जीवन में मधु का प्याला था
तुमने तन मन दे डाला था
वह टूट गया तो टूट गया
मदिरालय का आंगन देखो
कितने प्याले हिल जाते हैं
गिर मिट्टी में मिल जाते हैं
जो गिरते हैं कब उठते हैं
पर बोलो टूटे प्यालों पर
कब मदिरालय पछताता है
जो बीत गई सो बात गई

मृदु मिट्टी के बने हुए हैं
मधु घट फूटा ही करते हैं
लघु जीवन ले कर आए हैं
प्याले टूटा ही करते हैं
फ़िर भी मदिरालय के अन्दर
मधु के घट हैं,मधु प्याले हैं
जो मादकता के मारे हैं
वे मधु लूटा ही करते हैं
वह कच्चा पीने वाला है
जिसकी ममता घट प्यालों पर
जो सच्चे मधु से जला हुआ
कब रोता है चिल्लाता है
जो बीत गई सो बात गई

                                                  —   हरिवंशराय बच्चन

With love.. Anil

Vaagudu(My take on Aagadu)..

After watching Aagadu yesterday, it seems the dialogue writers went crazy and over-creative and packed 100s of dialogues that would have made it into at least 2-3 movies. If there ever was a movie made only with dialogues, its this one. Vaagudu(talking non-stop) would have been the perfect title for this movie. The villains were shown to be so stupid that they fall for any cooked-up-story that the hero says repeatedly. Is it so easy to fool someone? This is where the hero loses some of his strength because for the hero to be shown strong, the villain needs to be made seriously strong and not some buffoon.

The performances of all the actors seem to be eclipsed by the hundreds of lines of dialogues that they have, so much so that the story writers seem to have written dialogues before the story and somehow wove a story around them!
Many of the characters seemed to be a misfit, including the lead actress Tamanna who is used only for songs and fill up an empty space and nothing else.
Aagadu could have been a movie made as a hobby and for rohit shetty's fans, but not everyone. We can easily close our eyes and just listen to the dialogues since there is nothing much visual or intelligent in this movie. Even for a hard-core fan like me, it is only above average(closer to a disaster than average).

With love.. Anil

Internal battles in sports..

There seems to be lots of internal fighting going on in various sports in India, be it tennis(Paes-Bhupathi unhealthy rivalry that hurt India's morale and chances at major events including olympics), or more recently badminton.

I just saw the comments made by one of the ace shuttlers of India Jwala Gutta against India's best badminton coach Gopichand yesterday on times now and it made me think:

Why is there so much negativity in Jwala Gutta's comments during these comparatively good times of badminton? Are these words of her coach Mohd Arif? Before commenting against other coaches, they need to prove themselves point by point and medal by medal that they won in any major event. Comments like these will only hurt the game and nothing else. Discipline is of paramount importance in sports, and in its absence it becomes a war. India needs medal machines which can bring us golds in mega events, not egoistic meat.
Looking back 2 weeks or so, Sania and Jwala seem to be competing to stay in the news in someway or the other. I just hope they just stop all the nonsense, do their job(after all they are being payed for their game) and bring the nation medals instead of harping on others.

And as far as the commonwealth 2014 scandals involving officials is concerned, it is an insult to the whole nation and it can never be pardoned and should be dealt with all seriousness.

With love.. Anil

Movies vs the reality

Recently, there was a show as part of a Telugu Quiz show which should be an eye opener for many people who get drawn too much by the movies and believe them to be true, especially the ones based upon history.
One such movie is "Chanakya Chandragupta". The movie is in itself  a fantastic one depicting the relation between the great political genius Chanakya(played by Akkineni Nageshwara Rao), the king Chandragupta(Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao) and Alexander(played by Shivaji Ganeshan). It showed Alexander fighting Chandragupta and a fictitious story was built to just add spice to the movie.
In the Telugu quiz show "Meelo Evaru Koteeshwarudu"(Telugu version of the famous show "Who wants to be a millionaire"), it was asked:
Which of the following Indian rulers fought against Alexander the great in battle? And the options were:

1. Ashoka, 
2. Chandragupta Maurya, 
3. Porus
4. Chatrapathi Shivaji

And the contestant, owing to the movie, immediately answered Chandragupta and locked the answer. She was wrong.
The answer was Porus(the Greek version of the original name of Purushottam(or Puru for short)), whom Alexander defeated. The movie just added a bit more drama to its story by including Alexander, but the fact is that Chandragupta and Alexander never faced each other. In fact Chandragupta Maurya established the Mauryan Empire(in 321 BC) 2 years after the death of Alexander(323 BC).
So the impact of movies on the general public cannot be underestimated and sometimes can be misleading.
And the contestant paid the price for believing the cinematic story by losing a big amount of her earnings. Sad, but thats the harsh reality that people have to face for not seeing the movie as an entertainment and assuming it to be a historical fact.

With love.. Anil

The whole noise about hindi vs others!

Ever since the rise of humanity in its present form, there has been a necessity to communicate with each other using some method or other. First it was gestures and later the spoken word came about and later the written word. And groups of these words were collectively named as languages and today we have thousands of languages the world over and many hundreds of them in India itself, with most of the speakers worshiping their native language. So when it comes to one language dominating the other, it is bound to become a critical issue and gets more personal and emotional for those who have a strong bond with their mother tongue.

The recent hungama over the hindi language promotion has been one of them. Some claim that hindi is being unfairly imposed upon some states of India, and it was even termed as unconstitutional and against the spirit of the constitution!
Whoever has read the actual circular will know the reality: It was just an attempt to increase the usage of hindi in hindi spoken areas, specifically in the social media.

"...all officers and employees who operate official accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Google, Youtube should use Hindi and English languages. Prominence should be given to Hindi.."

First things first: In a country like India where there are hundreds of languages, there is bound to be increased level of communication and exchange of ideas between the various regional languages and dialects. And due to this there will be evolution of languages and several dialects emerge due to the influence of one language over another. Now this doesnt mean that one language is superior to another or that there is a conspiracy to eliminate other languages based upon the numbers they have.

With love.. Anil

सपने हैं

उभरती हुई सूरज की किरणों में
आशा भरी हर एक लड़की की आँखों में
ओस की बूंदों की चमक में
हर नदी की ऊर्जा भरी लहर में
दौड़ते हुए बच्चों की खेल में
अन्नदाता किसानो की पसीना में
सपने हैं सपने हैं..
गैर लोगों से क्या लेना,
स्वशक्ति से है दिखाना
हर एक भारतीय की निष्ठा से
कर्म योगी महानेता की प्रेरणा से
हम सब लायेंगे अछे दिन,
निभाएंगे अखंड भारत की सच्चे वादे

सपने हैं सपने हैं..
सपने हैं सपने हैं..

-अनिल कुमार रेड्डी

Expanding power capacity through solar panels

An idea of increasing power generation and feeding to the national grid: why can't we make the public a partner in power generation by encouraging them to rent out or lease their rooftops for solar panels that generate power and feed to the grid? Let the public invest in setting up the panels and let the govt pay them back by discounts in bills.
This policy is already encouraged in some states like TN and karnataka and it would be good if it is promoted on a national scale.

The advantages of the above policy would be many:
1. Zero pollution: It is completely noiseless, without any exhaust gases.
2. The public will take ownership of the solar panels since it will be their investment of their space and thus a culture of partnership can be promoted. They become partners in nation building since they provide any extra power to the national grid.
3. Consistent and wide spread potential for power output unlike the wind mills which work only in certain windy areas.
4. Virtually infinite source of energy: the sun.

One of the detailed articles is here.

With love.. Anil

Team Modi's time starts!

Good morning all! This fresh day feels like a new start, a new beginning. Now that the new NDA government lead by the 15th PM of India Narendra Damodardas Modi is ready to take charge
today morning at 9am, one most important phase of democracy has started that will and should involve people's active participation:
Things I will be tracking of the new government:
1. How punctual will it be: Are the ministers going to deliver the promises on time?
2. Timely updates about the new policies of the new government: There have been so many times in the past when we were left groping in the dark as to what is happening with the bills
in parliament, what are they doing there and why are they shouting at each other.
3. How clean the ministers remain: One big issues have been the thousands of crores of public money lost in the face of huge scams all throughout the last 10 years. This needs to
change.
4. Impact of government schemes on the economy(+ve or -ve): Though we expect a positive effect on the overall economy, there will be a bitter side to face as a side effect. The ailing
economy does need a bitter pill to recover and I guess we need to brace up for initial hard times to reap the benefits later.
5. How much will they improve the infrastructure: The various infrastructure projects that are being implemented do have so many bottle necks that need to be cleared on a war footing.
One example is the Bangalore Metro which was never able to beat a snail!

Why all the above concern? Because I have invested the next 5 years of my trust in this new govt! So I do feel anxious how my investment is going to perform!

Anyway, wishing the Modi Team all the best in their quest to full fill the promises!

With love.. Anil

Uurvashi vs PVR, courtesy Godzilla!

This weekend was a smokey, enormous one with a visit to the latest Godzilla in the town which is wreaking havoc in theaters across the world! For a change, this time its not in my default choice for imax-like experience of Bangalore: Uurvashi, but in the top multiplex in India: PVR. For a change, there is not much difference in ticket price due to the morning show, but the experience was completely different and as similar as chalk and cheese.

Now coming to Godzilla, I can imagine how it would have felt in 3D, on the large screen  of Uurvashi and the sound effects that it has, but at the same time, PVR excels in other departments that make movie watching comfortable, like better seats, better ambience and better rest rooms.

Uurvashi has a much better Meyer sound that is used in music concerts the world over and a much better and bigger screen, but has the feeling of a low quality ambience. Of course watching with a larger audience(1161 seats vs PVR's 

) will be thrilling to some, so that they can hear their comments and enjoy too!

So as expected, PVR is for those who doesnt want a earth-shattering sound system but want a comfort. Just hope PVR can upgrade its sound and screen to the levels of Uurvashi! 

Finally, as always, change is the only thing constant in this world of entertainment and we can surely hope that Uurvashi and PVR will improve things that they lack in their respective theatres right now!

-With love,

Anil

देश केलिए जीओ!..దేశం కోసం బతుకు!.. Live for the nation!

What a slogan it is! There are people who incite innocent people into dying for a region, which is stupidity. But here is a new thought that needs to be strengthened. Why don't we think in terms of how precious is this life and what we can do in our lifetime? A simple habit of giving a whole hearted "thank you" to a customer care or a car driver or anyone who is serving you, can make a difference. I always believe progress starts with compassion and destruction starts with anger and indifference. A small contribution from every citizen would make a great society and a better world. A speech by a proven leader makes a huge difference to a society. It's similar to how pumped up a whole cricket team gets when one of their top players inspire them to do better! A team will achieve greater heights when the leader leads from the front and this is true even in administration of a large and diverse nation like India. Yesterday's  parliamentary meeting of the NDA was like a team lead by a man of conviction, determination and who believes in taking pride of being a citizen of an independent India and I hope this energy continues while going forward.