Wednesday, June 27, 2007

आज मी पंकज ला मराठी मधे टाईप करायला शिकवले. गूगल ने दिलेल्या हया facility ने तो चांगलाच impress झाला. त्याला auto-help चा option फार आवडला.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Today Joyce got Sticky Rice for us. She cooked it herself and I must say she is a good cook.The recipe is similar to Maharashtrian 'Ukadiche Modak'. The rice cone is wrapped in a Banana Leaf and then cooked on the steam of water. Now its my turn to cook Biryani. Everyone in my office is excited about the idea of eating Basamati rice :)

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Pardes

Things I recently got to know about Houston:
Incident 1:
A family of 4 (father, mother, a son and a daughter) is going to Havana for vacation.
Mother sends email to the school teacher asking for permission.
School teacher replies back positively with 'Have a nice time' note.
The family enjoys in Havana, comes back and gets a letter from county office saying
'This is a warning for criminal C offense. Your child had an unexcused absence for which you and/or your child may get a sentence to jail or a fine of about $500'
According to the law, the parents should make a phone call to the school EVERY DAY to inform that the kid is going to be absent.

Incident 2:
A group of teens having lunch at a fast food place at around 11:30 in the morning get a ticket by the police.
The Day Time Curfew law does not permit the kids below 18 to go to the public restaurants during school hours (8:30 am till 2:30 pm).

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Cruel Story

"The world is too crowded" - one of my American collegues.
"What?" - I and my chinese friend with obvious astonishment.
"The world is too crowded. That is why every man has to think about his bread and butter and cannot do the things he really wants to do" my American collegue was getting grumpy. He wanted to be a movie director but landed in Georgia-Tech University for a bachelor of engineering and stayed there till his masters. These days he is doing 'Software Development'. We all were laughing at his comments. But we did not know that the atmosphere will get extremely serious in next 10 mins.
We started talking about the population and the policies to control the population in various countries.
"In China, the government forbids you from having more than one child" - My Chinese friend.
"What do you mean by 'forbid'? How can someone forbid you from having a child? I mean our government 'discourages' people" - I
"I will tell you a real life story. It is about my sister-in-law" she said.
Afterthat whatever we heard was shocking. Here is the story:
Her sister-in-law is in China. She has a daughter. She wanted to have one more child (a son). When she got pregnant the second time she hid in a country side home. She did not even go to the hospital as she was very scared of the strict government policy. One day she went to her house to collect some clothes. She was 8 months pregnant then. Someone saw her and reported it to the government. Within hours there were 5-6 huge men around her. They forced her to the hospital where the doctor gave her some kind of a shot. Eventually she delivered a cute little baby boy. But the boy could hardly survive for an hour. To put it correctly the doctors killed him. This is a normal routine in her country. The government forces the mothers to abort.
How can someone be so INHUMAN? We went back to the very basic question of morality. How does a human develop his sense of right and wrong?
I think our parents, our society and our surroundings play a very important role in this. But then China does have a developed society and a family system in place. What is missing there? Is it the 'religion'? When asked, the communists say "my religion is communism". I was surprised that how much a religion can make a difference in ones life. I may not believe in religious rituals but unknowingly my religion has helped me to develope the ability to decide what is right and what is wrong.
Thank God!

Metro

परवा 'Life In a Metro' पाहिला. मन जरा वेळ सुन्न झाले. अनुराग बसुच्या इतर movie सारखाच हा movie पण अंधारात घडणारा आणि depressing होता. पण realistic होता. story-line चांगली होती. काही काही गोष्टी unnecessary वाटल्या. e.g. धर्मेन्द्र ची story. पण एकंदर movie कुठे रेंगाळला नाही. गाणी background मधे होती आणि सुरेल होती. इरफान खान, कोंकाना सेन, के के मेनान आणि शिल्पा शेट्टी ची acting उत्तम. मला आवडलेलं character म्हणजे 'Monty', played by Irfan Khan. Monty हा इतरांपेक्षा 'weird', 'less polished' असा माणुस पण आयुष्यात काय हवय हे माहित असलेला. त्याचा एक dialog अतिशय आवडला 'ये शहर हमे जितना देता है उस से कई ज्यादा हम से लेता है'. Overall एक वेगळा movie म्हणून एकदा बघायला हरकत नाही.

Friday, June 01, 2007

The Incredibles

Today I am very excited!!
First of all it is the end of the week and I am going for 'The Incredibles' tonight.
I am going to see Sonu performing LIVE...How I wish I had the first row tickets. The group seems to be impressive. Sonu Nigam, Asha Bhosale, Kunal Ganjawala and Kailash Kher..Wawww