RoCKnRolLa

--You see that pack of Virginia killing sticks
on the end of the piano?
--Yes.
--All you need to know about life
is retained within those four walls.
--You will notice that one of your personalities
is seduced by the illusions of grandeur.
A gold packet of king size
with a regal insignia.
An attractive implication
toward glamour and wealth.
A subtle suggestion that cigarettes
are indeed your royal and loyal friends.
And that, Pete, is a lie
Your other personality is trying to draw your
attention to the flip side of the discussion.
Written in boring, bold,
black and white, is the statement...
...that these neat little soldiers of death,
are, in fact, trying to kill you.
And that, Pete, is the truth.That is why you and I love the drugs...

Well this is one of the many such lines that the character Johny Quid throws at you in the movie RockNrolla..the movie is pretty cool but only if you are a Guy Ritchie fan..It doesn't fare that well when compared to Snatch and Lock-Stock but still its a joy ride..you will be on your toes throughout ..Johny Quid is the one to watch out for in this movie..the character is so well crafted that it overshadows everything else..Toby Kebbell looks damn cool with his six packs and has done an excellent Job..the way he delivers his awsomely written dialogues leaves you asking for more..other actors have done their job well in whatever scope they had to perform...overall its a racy flick with super cool frames and characters to watch out for..another good one from Guy Ritchie.

The "Acquisition"

i got the call i had been expecting for 3-4 days..it came 2-3 hours before my most difficult and crucial endsem exam...i was running randomly with notes in my hands and infinite nabad in my head trying to make the most of my last few hours..every now and then i would look at the skies and pray,,''bhagwan aaj waala tu dekh le ,,aage ke saare main sambhal loonga" ,,but how many times can you fool the almighty ??how stupid do you think he is, to fall for the same shit again and again. So the praying has stopped yielding any fruitful results for me..infact since my 10th board exams i have been on my own trying to make my way through with no help whatsoever from the top floor....
Now the situation was getting pretty tense and with every passing minute, the end seemed nearer .Suddenly the phone started ringing...was an unknown local no. , "ohhh,,,this must be the call,,they must have started calling people"...
I picked up and the following conversation ensued--

Mr A-Hello, is this Mr. Aditya Shekhawat??

Me- yes, who is this??

Mr A- Hi Aditya, this is A calling from Mahindra and Mahindra.We met that day..remember??

Me- yes Sir, I remember, how are you Sir, How is Mr. B??

Mr A- Mr. B is good and i am fine too.. ahh listen Aditya are you free for sometime ,,we would like to conduct the telephonic interview that we talked about that day..

Me- [confidently] Yes sir,,not a problem [kya poocchega ,,,maa %$%$$ doonga interview mein to main,studd to main hoon hi..:P]

Mr A-Okay,, so Mr C will be taking your interview ,C has been working with the techinical department at M&M for 30 years and the interview is going to be techinical in nature [Fatt li...fatt ke hath mein aa gayi..technical???technical mein to kucch nahi chamkta,,even the KV kids would have more technical knowledge than me]

Me- Errrr...Sir i have an endsem in 2 hours,,would it be possible to postpone the interview to some time later

Mr A- i dont think that would be possible Aditya, Mr C is a senior member [marwa diya,,isko to chutiya bhi nahi bana paaunga] at M&M, and he is generally a very busy person..

Me-[:(] Okay Sir.

Mr A- Dont worry, the interview wont be more than 10 mins [10 mins????itna kya poochhega?? aaj to beizzati hone wali hai..meri bhi aur IIT ki bhi]

Me- Okay Sir.

Mr A- okay then talk to Mr C.

Me- [unsuccessfully trying to recall the one or two formule that i had mugged up an hour back] okay sir [:(]

Mr C- Hello Mr Aditya,How are you today??

Me- I am fine sir [ cant be worse,,please dont butcher me with your "tech questions",,please ask something very trivial,some thing like Newton's law or something..:P]

Mr C- without wasting much time we will start the interview,,it's basically going to be a brief technical interview, i am trying to test your basic understanding of things.

Me- [hahhahahaha] okay sir.

Mr C- first of all, tell me if you see yourself working with in the automobiles sector.

Me-[hah,,that should not be difficult, fatte pel deta hoon ],,yes sir i do. I have been fascinated by autombiles since my childhood..[as a kid i used to chase them and throw water balloons at them when they passed through my street]..i have always wanted to work on cars,,infact the reason why i came to IIT and took mechanical engg. was because i wanted to get into the automobiles..[Damn right]

Mr C- okay,,so what do you know about M&M??

Me- [ yeah!! another easy one ] Sir, Mahindra is a name which all of us have grown with.M&M has its reach in all sections of the society from the farmers, in the form of tractors to the urban societies with cars like scorpio and Bolero [ yeah baby...i am totally in control..],The best part is that inspite of being an indian company it has held its ground against so many International Car-makers and has been able to give the best of services to the people of India......................................................{Now comes the part for which i have taken the trouble to write a post between the endsems}.....[yes...this is going great,,,now i should nail it with something big and give an example or two,,,what ???what???..oh yes...JAGUAR...]....{and then i did it,,i opened this bloody mouth and uttered this to a Senior member of 30 years at mahindra}............. IT WAS A PROUD MOMENT FOR THE ENTIRE COUNTRY WHEN M&M TOOK OVER JAGUAR .......................................................and a deadly silence fell down over the phone..he had been expressing his approval verbally after every sentence of mine ,,but he didnt say anything after the last sentence...,,what had gone wrong [oh shitttttt!!!!Blunder.....blundersupremus....it wasnt M&M ,,it was TATA motors,,the biggest rivals of M&M...ohh God,help me. O dear God, please help me..should i disconnect the phone??..i think i should coz ther's nothing left to say anymore..]

Mr C- Errrrr.....actually we did not take over Jaguar,Tata motors did [ yeah i know ..how wouldn't i know,, i have been fascinated by automobiles since my childhood...:P]..we were in the fray till the very end but we couldn't fix the deal and it was Tata motors who walked away with Jaguar [yeah old man, i can feel your pain and humiliation ,, i should not have done this to this poor 60 year old chap by bringing this up..tch tch..]

Me- Ohh yes yes,,Actually i followed the proceedings till that point only and then i thought it was Mahindra who had sealed the deal [fir fenk di tatti..jai ho...jai ho..]

Mr C-in extreme give up state--okay that's enough about us [yeah man,,i can sense the sarcasm,,dont think i am a fool..oh ok..you have every right to think so..] lets talk about you..

Me- [i thought it was going to be a techinical interview]
what followed it was an irrelevant, crappy discussion on NSS, Street play and ADAA with me nearly promising to take him backstage if i was given the intern...the interview lasted 2 mins 23 seconds with no technical question at all..the results havent been declared yet but i guess i do not need to hear it to know it..:)
The worst part is that i told the entire incident to my wingmates,,,who thus got a way to release their entire endsem frustration by laughing at me..in the last 4 day this incident has been discussed 400 times and i have been called names like ,"the merger boy","jaguar" and stuff and infinite jokes involving me, mahindra, tata and obviously jaguar have been thrown at me..it has been too difficult for me to make fun of others coz as soon as i grab someone's leg ,,,that bastard brings this up again and i have to run away from there to protect my ears from the deafening rounds of laughter that follow.
I'll sign off now,,,have loads to to..lots of mergers and acquisitions to plan...:)

IMBA!!

imba....dont even know what exactly this word means....but being one of the many "followers" of manjanmaxx, have picked it up from him and of all my efforts that i have put into reaching to the depths of it i have gathered that this particular word is used at a high pitch in a super excited tone whenever one witnesses something extraordinarymaxx...something spectacular...now this was the first word that came to my mind when i saw this pic...i dont know why but i fell in love with this one..mann...i have spent the best part of my life with these guys..have loved them...hated them...abused them.,scolded them..and what not..
.. i still spend a lot of time with them, so its not like a nostalgic feeling or anything ..well, wtvr it is..i am just looking at these 24 smiling faces...who have all contributed in making the dream come true,,the dream named MI'08..i guess its going to be too difficult for me to wipe off these faces from my memory...guess it'll take more than a lifetime to get over MI.....imba!!!!!!

P.S.- a big thanks to Ashu bhaiya for this pic...

P.S.S.- if anyone has any idea about the origin of this word,,please do let me know..according to Manjan this is one of his many contributions to the IIT slang..some others worth mentioning are--fart (:P),,chhakke,chhage, oyyyee...etc

what the heck!! i 'll do it..

it's been more than a year now since i wrote the first post ..i wanted to write but was stuck so badly in the middle of so many things that couldn't continue..well,, now that i am lukkha..[relatively..:)] i can carry on with what i have wanted to do for a long long time ..blogging.. so here I go..

a major part of my last one year was spent working for MI and the rest of it too, in some ways :P [those of you who know me would understand]..there were some ups and there were downs too..it was a learning period for me…gave me a chance to work with the best of people and learn from them and right now I find myself to be a much improved version of the old aditya…I cannot think of anything particular to write about,, I’ll write about PAFs-the hot topic of discussion in the insti right now..

According to Wikipedia-The Performing Arts Festival, abbreviated as PAF, is the biggest inter-hostel cultural competition in the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay located at Powai in Mumbai (India). The term PAF is used to refer not only to the festival itself, but also to the individual cultural performances that constitute the festival.
Right now,,PAF season is on in the institute..I am an admirer of the idea behind PAFs ..the idea with which the foundation was laid..It is/was the single largest cultural event which brings/used to bring together people belonging to various cultural streams..it laid the basis for intra as well as inter hostel interaction which i must admit is still lacking..BUT..but..but..going by staggering increase in the number of clubs and events [competitive as well as non-competitive] is it a good idea to continue with PAFs?? i know people in the insti are very senti bout PAFs and a discussion on the cult scene of IIT Bombay cannot be completed without the mention of PAFs but its high time the cult authorities along with the cult junta sat down and thought about it properly..I am most concerned about the fact that organizing a PAF has become a liability now ..a responsibility that hostel councils have to carry...its more about doing it for the heck of it then for the fun part or anything else..i can count on my fingers the no of thirdies who are actually enthu for PAFs ..the level of enthusiasm has been going southwards...
Consider a Freshie..when he enters the institute there are orientations for him..all sorts of orientations--sports, cult [music + dram+ dance and so on], acads, MI, techfest, E-cell and so many other club orientations...he is confused ..he wants to dance ,,he wants to act, he wants to do whatever he didn’t get to do in his school life coz he was busy solving maths problems or attending coaching classes ..then he also gets to know about the "ACTUAL FUNDE" [useless seniors are found in abundance in freshie hostels ] for landing up with a good job he decides that he needs to somehow get a P.O.R coz than only he would get shortlisted..so he becomes an orgie with one of the IBs [well most of them do..:)] ..then we have all sorts of events for them [for them to work as GHODAs ],,we have freshizza ,,we have Theatre fest, AIDs[which in itself has become as big as a techfest or an MI] and many other such things and oh,,i forgot ACADs....Now Do you really think you are right in expecting him to work for his hostel for PAFs??do you really think by showing him the videos of some awsum PAF you would be able to encourage him to work his ass off for a month and that too making prod..the situation has changed now..i suppose its very different from what it would have been in the past when the world was not that competitive[:P] and IIT did not have plethora of activities..
The journey so far has been astounding ..we have had the most amazing stories been told to people ..the OAT stage has been a performing ground for so many gifted iitians..when i browse through the PAF history and read about PAFs like Chnanakya in which actors shaved their heads in order to portray students of the era. ..it gives me an idea about how senti the students must have been at that time ..how motivated they would have been for their PAF to take such a step [it is a different thing though that "Chanakya" won just one trophy and that quite obviously was the best costumes trophy]..in 1992 Hostels 8 and 9 came up with "Locomotivation" in which the main actors were on roller skates, skating through the audience, while enacting a race of locomotives,, one can imagine the effort that would have gone into that PAF .. the kind of dedication that team must have shown to successfully pull off the PAF/.. the point i am trying to make is that i do not see such dedication in my batch for PAFs .. leave dedication people find it difficult to get their butts off their chairs and drag themselves to the OAT to atleast see the PAFs..
if we try to analyze this year's situation..i can say atleast for my hostel,,that we lacked big time in terms of man power..i did not see any major prod work going on ..and very few freshies were spotted doing any kind of work..same was the case with seniors..i was a script incharge and i did not even go for the script meetings coz i was never senti about it and i was made a script incharge because i was one of the very few 3dies who had ever been a part of any dram related activity in the insti..lack of man power showed major time in the PAF in all the aspects ,,in script,in prod,in acting etc..same was the case with other PAFs..while 3,8,11 decided to take the easy way out...the story was lifted from a movie..the screenplay was drab ,,the humour was pretty averagish..what really lifted the PAF up was the climax and the highlight was the upside-down text,,which changed the entire feel of the PAF but that tooo was copied ..even most of the text was lifted with a few words changed here and there ..all in all, in my opinion the PAF lacked in terms of creativity ..6,7,10- the execution was pretty awesome..they had worked hard and it showed at various places like choreo..voiceovers etc[though the judges thought otherwise]..but the biggest pain was the linear narrative, there were no highs in the entire PAF,,though some part of the script was beautifully done but the overall effect was not there and most of the junta didn't like it at all..the funda of using live music for choreo backfired as well...in all, this PAF could not live up to the hype it had created...i cannot comment on the last and winning PAf of the season [other than the fact that the trailer looked more like that of a mithunda movie,,and because of the trailer only i abandoned the plans to watch the PAF] though from all that i have heard, it was okay, better than the other three but nothing exceptional...so what i can conclude from the end products is that it has become more about just somehow staging a PAF about pulling off a story somehow..throw in some random choreoes ,, one-two funny sequences and thats it.the desire or i don't know,,maybe the ability to show something really exceptional is not there,,that motivation is not there ..and i think that this year 4 PAFs happened because still there are people left in the insti who are little bit senti for PAFs.. they will be passing out this year or the next.,my batch onwards i do not see 4 pafs happening..i feel that something should be thought bout it and some possible solution should be worked out...
It might look like i am completely against the idea and some of my thoughts may not go down well with some people ,,but i have just expressed my views for that is the reason why i have created this blog..:)

here's the first one....

I always liked reading.. though haven’t been able to read much after coming to IIT…whenever I went thru some of my friends works who write occasionally I always felt motivated to try my hands at writing ..i sat down many a times to give words to my thoughts but I never found the rhythm.. so I thought I should try my hands at blogging..well that’s the least you can do these days..so here i am writing my first blog..

I think I should start by telling something about myself…. I am a second year student at IIT BOMBAY …the first two years have passed pretty fast and I have two left …I have fallen in love with this place..i have made some very good friends here and I have learnt a great deal about life..

Most recent times have been very important for me…I feel very fortunate for being given the opportunity to work for the events department of our college fest MOOD INDIGO…well my department deals with the cultural side of MI and is our job is to set up an enjoyable ,diverse platter to serve to the crowd coming to MI. we are called HORIZONS and we take care of workshops, exhibitions, street acts, professional shows ,plays etc. ..i just love the way my department works because there is no definite way..:)..we have the freedom to think the way we want..to present whatever we feel would strike a chord with the audience..the part that I love the most about my work is that I get to meet people who have been involved in some of the finest Indian art organizations and I get to see great artworks in the form of amazing plays, various shows, exhibitions etc.

very recently ..about a week back,I got the opportunity to see two very celebrated hindi plays-TAJMAHAL KA TENDOR and SHATARANJ KE MOHARE.i liked the first one but when I talk about the second one I don’t have to think even for a second to accept that those were my best two and a half hours spent in an auditorium… One reason might be that I haven’t seen many professional plays but still that feeling that I had when I was enjoying the treat that the play was ,the feeling that I was witnessing something very spectacular,,,it was out of this world…/I would love to rite about these two plays and also about some other stuff that I hv seen recently…but in my next blog…