Vanity is my favourite sin

September 23rd, 2009 Supriy 1 comment

I love one-liners. I end up remembering one-liners for years and they end up being a part of my psyche. The power of one-liners is such that just thinking about “I do wish we could chat longer, but I’m having an old friend for dinner” gives me the chills. Secretly, we all long to be in a situation where we can use our favourite quotes.

It might be telling a friend “Elementary, my dear Watson” (although Sherlock Holmes never used it in the books and using this line in front of a Sherlock Holmes junkie will prove what a noob you really are), telling the girlfriend “I’ll be back” in our best impression of Arnold (although chances are that she will not get the significance of the line or worse, will respond back with “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn”), boasting in front of our friends that “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse” and failing miserably as only the Godfather can do that.

My last post was over a year ago after changing jobs and this one is again after changing jobs. One eventful year filled with ups and downs and I didn’t write anything about it

“Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony”. The last post was how blogger widget on Marvin should make me blog more often and now I am posting after a year in the tried and tested wordpress “edit post” interface.The last post was after changing jobs and this one is again after changing jobs. One eventful year filled with ups and downs and I didn’t write anything about it

So why is the itch back? Well, having an independent blog was something that I always wanted and I finally decided to go for it. But the tipping point for this post was something I noticed last weekend.

Being an impulsive shopper, I had this urge to get a blue jeans as a blue jeans & a black shirt should be part of any wardrobe. While shopping for the jeans, I saw first hand how brands appeal to our vanity and this is what this post is about

Now as everyone knows, there are three different fits for any jeans: Comfort Fit, Straight Fit and Slim Fit (The names are self-explanatory). Normal order of preference is Slim Fit>Straight Fit>Comfort Fit. I always thought that these would be some kind of standard measurements but I was in for a surprise. I discovered that size of Levi’s Comfort Fit is the same as Lee’s Straight Fit and size of Levi’s Straight Fit is same as Lee’s Slim Fit.

Now, lets take an example of Mr John who is a normal guy i.e. he wants to look as good as possible and more importantly, feel that he is looking as good as possible. After all, for some reason his confidence level is directly proportional to his feeling that he is looking as good as possible and well, both are non-negotiable requirements for the ladies. Mr John has the option of buying a Levi’s Comfort Fit OR Straight Fit Lee. Like all normal guys, whatever, he purchases, has to be vetted by his gf. Like all normal guys, he would prefer to tell his gf that he is wearing a straight fit instead of comfort fit. After all, comfort fit signifies flab and straight fit signifies fit and like all normal guys he does not like to be judged or to be thought of as flabby by his gf. So what do you think our Mr John would do?

Another example was at Nilgiris. A guy was picking up some fairness cream and there was some clerical error resulting in the guy standing for approx 5 minutes with the cream.The crowd was giving him weird looks as if he was picking up some drugs.Poor guy was so distraught but still determined to go through his purchase.

Sounds boring? It is. It feels stupid and boring to actually read about what many people do, including people we know.Vanity is supposed to be a cardinal sin but in today’s world vanity is glorified and is being banked upon by marketers. A new term- “Metrosexual” was coined to remove the stigma, displayed by men, when it came to using beauty products. Why cant people just be themselves? The answer is as Jerry observed in Boston Legal “When it comes to the opposite sex, we all try to be better than we are. We try to appear more attractive, funnier, more confident.” Trying to be someone who deep down we know we are not is something everyone does. Masks as they are called. However, we can ignore the truth but cant change it. As long as we can ignore it, its all good. Social animals, we are.

Well, time to follow Real Madrid’s match on goal.com. No sports channel picked up LaLiga rights for Indian Subcontinent and streaming is too low quality for me.But how can sports channel ignore a league which has Messi, CR9, Kaka, Xavi, Iniesta, Henry, Zlatan, Benzema, Raul, Xabi over EPL. Makes no sense, business or otherwise. But then I am reminded, neither does the whole concept of “Metrosexual”. Time to sign off. Hala Madrid !!

& just FYI, title of the post is the line by Al Pacino from the movie “The Devil’s Advocate”

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

June 21st, 2009 Supriy 1 comment
Wolverine is the definitive anti-hero superhero- Dark, brooding, anti-authoritarian, bulging biceps, admantium claws, indestructible body and loads of attitude. He is the character around whom the X-Men franchisee has been built and the X-Men trilogy did not explore his past to a great extent. The announcement that 20th century fox was making a movie showcasing the origins of Wolverine was met with an enthusiastic fan response. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had all the ingredients required for it to be another Marvel classic like the Iron Man.

Alas, 20th Century Fox decided to cash on the success and popularity of X-Men movies and focus on action,not on the story. The result is a 2 hour collage of action clips showcasing how destructive Wolverine can be. The story of X-Men Origins: Wolverine veers away from the comic book on quite a few occasions without any need and any reason.

Professor Charles Xavier mentions in X-Men that Wolverine could be much older than him and he was not wrong. Apparently, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) was born sometime in the 19th century before the American Civil War as James Logan. He and Victor Creed (Liev Schreiber),who later becomes Sabretooth of the X-Men trilogy, are brothers with similar powers but are poles apart in terms of their thinking. The elder brother i.e. Victor embraces his animal nature and gives in to the temptation becoming a killing machine (why is the elder brother always the bad one?) while the younger brother Logan can still differentiate between the right and the wrong and refuses to kill innocents. Victor kills a superior officer in the Vietnam war and Logan defends him resulting in both of them facing the firing squad. With their super-accelerated healing, Sabretooth and Logan survive and are invited by Major Stryker (Danny Huston, not a patch on Stryker of X2) to join Team X, a team of mutants under the command of Stryker. Logan gets disillusioned by the methods employed by Team X and walks away from Team X and Victor.

Rest of the movie is how Logan becomes Wolverine, gets admantium claws instead of the default bone claws he was born with, fights off a super-mutant created by Mutant X and loses his memory. The emotional angle which is now a de-facto standard in all superhero movies is there but neither the loss of loved one nor brothers uniting against a common threat has any emotional impact.

The action in Wolverine is good without being spectacular. X-Men Origins:Wolverine is a story of vengeance but the audience does not connect with the angst of the hero or his motive for revenge. Hence, the end result is just another run of the mill action film without any multiple viewing value.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine has earned money for 20th century fox but at the cost of dragging the X-Men franchisee further back after the disappointing X3. There is also an attempt to do a Marvel by putting an end credit scene just like the Iron Man or The Hulk but it is a disappointment and does not tie with the beginning of X-Men movie. It seems there is one more movie in the making for Wolverine as a prequel to X-Men. Let’s hope it is not as forgettable as X-Men Origins: Wolverine.



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Why so serious?

July 24th, 2008 Supriy 2 comments
The Dark Knight is one of the most anticipated movies of the year and it had a huge act to follow. Batman Begins was the best batman movie till date. In fact, it is considered to be the best superhero movie of all times by many (including the reviewer). Everyone has the same question in their minds. Does The Dark Knight deliver?

It does.

Spectacularly.

The Dark Knight begins with Gotham finding its feet and its voice against the criminal underworld. After the fall of Carmaine Falcone, the remaining crime bosses are the ones in-charge. However, the newly elected district attorney. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) along with assistant district attorney, Rachel Dawses (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Lt. Gordon (Gary Oldman) are the ones opposing them and succeeding. Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent plays the role of “The White Knight” of Gotham with aplomb and comes across as a sincere guy who really wants to do good. Batman (Christian Bale) is happy with the way things are going and even comments in a scene that Gotham may no longer need Batman. But none of them accounted for one thing, The Joker.

If the hero can only be as good as the villain then Batman enjoys a huge advantage over other superheroes. The Joker is unparalleled in his unpredictability, creativity and committing the most heinous of crimes with a smile on his face and one liner on his lips.

The Joker (Heath Ledger) unleashes terror throughout Gotham in his hunt for Batman and almost succeeds in bringing down Batman. Heath Ledger has created a psychopath which compares to the likes of Hannibal Lector and Jack Torrance (The Shining). Jack Nicholson’s Joker was the funny kind of joker who would create mayhem while laughing. Heath Ledger’s Joker creates anarchy with a grin on his face and ice-cold sarcasm in his eyes. He exists just to destroy. He is frightening because no one knows where or how will he strike next. The only thing that can be predicted as that he is going to strike and strike big. He is hated because he asks questions that we do not want to answer. Every one-liner joker says deserves to be on a tee especially “Why so serious?”. This line is as iconic as “I’m having an old friend for dinner” (Silence of the Lambs) or “I see dead people” (The Sixth Sense). The last role of Heath Ledger is his best one. It is an Oscar-worthy performance if there ever was one.

The Joker dominates Batman to an extent that batman comes to a crossroad: to give in to Joker’s demands to stop the mayhem or to try and fight him while the whole city stands against him. He has Alfred (Michael Cain) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) by his side but that might not be enough.

Who wins in the end is up for debate and for you to see and decide.

However, the movie does have some flaws. Rachel Dawses is once again more of a showpiece. Even Alfred and Lucius are more of a guest appearance than a full fledged role.

Non-Batman fan(atics) might find that the first half drags a little as it sets the theme for the action packed second half and there is one big flaw at the ending that would make the Joker fans jump up and protest.

The Dark Knight is almost the perfect superhero movie. Batman Begins set the tone for restarting the batman franchisee and The Dark Knight takes it up several notches. The story, direction, dialogues, special effects, screenplay could not have been better. The Dark Knight is a dark, superhero movie with edge of the seat action. But what makes The Dark Knight as the de facto standard for superhero movies is the depiction of struggle between good and evil along with the internal struggle of Batman himself (thankfully without any tears cough Superman Returns cough).

The Dark Knight and The Joker are hard acts to follow. But hey, that is exactly what we thought after Batman Begins.

– Courtesy, Bangalore Mirror

Categories: Movies, Reviews Tags:

Musings of a Confused Mind

May 25th, 2008 Supriy 6 comments
I love Marvin.

For those of you who have the annoying habit of jumping to wrong conclusions, Marvin is my Macbook Pro and not a guy.

Leopard rocks. Again, do not jump to conclusions, Leopard is the Mac Operating System.

The reason for this announcement is the discovery of google blogger widget for Mac. It allows me to blog directly from Marvin without logging into blogger directly. It just provides basic functionality for now but I am hoping it will get better.

Past few weeks have been tumultous (once again).Why can’t I have a normal 9-5 life? Because I would hate it. I prefer things to be like this and a tad unpredictable.

A change of job, change of environment, adjustment to the new place. Let’s just say that the Piscean in me is at its most dominant in such situations.

And the next few weeks are going to be hectic again. Loads of work other than the office stuff going on. Next few weeks are going to be something to look forward to.

The upper management at my new job takes training of the associates pretty seriously. I have seen people groan saying “Not one more session on oral communication or written communication”. What most people do not realize is that no two training sessions are the same as the personality of the trainer makes it different for each session. And learning never stops.

Two training sessions stand out from the rest:

1. Influencing Techniques: I realized how much my mom uses them consciously or unconsciously. Just as an example:
Mom: Son, get married
Me: Mom no. I am still a kid.
Mom: Ok then atleast get a haircut.
That’s what my mom does to get me a haircut whenever I go home. Classic example of Influencing Techniques.

2. Leadership Development
Now I have a different view point of leader from most people. I believe Leaders are either born or become so because of the circumstances. One cannot train a person to be a leader.

I have had a fascination with entrepreneurs for as long as I can remember. Again, entrepreneurs, leaders, managers are confusing concepts.

Entrepreneurs by definition make for bad managers. A leader need not be an entrepreneur but vice versa is not true.

But as regular readers (if any) of my blog know, I really do not like discussing serious stuff. People assume I am not well if I talk serious stuff.

The thing that made that training session stand apart was a story of making split second decisions and making tough decisions. A story of leaders in the army. The story was “The Rope” by Capt. Raghu Raman. In hindsight, calling it a story/case study etc seems demeaning. So I’ll refer to it as “The Rope”. One can find it here

I am not looking forward to being sued for copyright violation. So the disclaimer that no word of “The Rope” belongs to me. “The Rope” is sole property of Capt. Raghu Raman. I would have liked to have his permission to share “The Rope” on my blog but I could not find any contact details for him. In case, he sees this, I request him not to sue me as I am under a huge debt already.

Jumping to the next thing I want to write about. The most abused word in English Language. SORRY. Do anything, just say a sorry. Repeat it and say Sorry again. A cab driver hit my bike from behind on one signal and said “Sorry”. Next signal, he again does it and says “Sorry”. The food delivery boy to my place messes up my order every day and says “Sorry”. A dialogue from Mr India comes to my mind “Soon people will commit murders and say Sorry”.

For those who are not interested in sports, anime or movies, the post ends. Please leave a comment so as to motivate me to continue blogging once in a while. That is if you want me to.

Real Madrid win La Liga for the second time in a row. Yipeeee. The team needs just a more GOOD defender (good bcoz RM just sign defenders and not good defenders) and one CONSISTENT creative midfielder (consistent because Guti is not. And no I do not want CR7. I want Diego).

Euro 2008 is about to begin. Again, I am supporting Spain (I love their style of football. But then again I also love the game of Arsenal who have been trophyless for a while now). However, I think Germany and Italy are the strongest contenders.

RR win IPL against all odds. Goes to show how important the Leader of a team is. Gr8 show. IPL is here to stay. Atleast, it gives something to watch other than the K-serials.

Watched Strangers & Indiana Jones over the weekend. Strangers is a good concept but Indian Directors have something against making fast paced thrillers. It is too slow & hence, not gripping. Indiana Jones is ok movie. Not really as gud as earlier Indiana Jones movies.

Loads and loads of movies to look forward to this summer. The Dark Knight (Anticipation is driving me crazy. Batman movie directed by Chris Nolan with Joker as the villain. Look for a post on Batman in some time), The Incredible Hulk (Ed Norton plays the Incredible Hulk), Wanted (Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman. Promos look really good) and Righteous Kill (Al Pacino & Robert De Niro together for only the second time in Indian movie history. Need I say more?).

Time to sign off. Next post on Batman in a fortnight.

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Blogathon Day 1, Sunday April 20 2008: Infrastructure-How can we improve the traffic condition in our city?

April 20th, 2008 Supriy 4 comments
The city in this case would be Bangalore-The IT Hub of India.Just to give you an idea of the traffic condition in Bangalore, everyone in Bangalore – the auto wallah, bikers, car users, company transport users & so on curses the traffic atleast once a day.

Traffic conditions are not just a well accepted excuse for being late but are also used extensively as an ice-breaker in discussions.In you are at a party, new to your company or a first timer in Bangalore,just walk up to any random group and say “Man what traffic !!”.You would be accepted immediately as a fellow sufferer and a long heated discussion on Bangalore traffic would follow.The car owners will say bikers are at fault.Bikers would say the issue is with bus drivers and auto wallahs.Bus drivers and auto wallahs would pass the blame too. All this is apart from the usual grovel on condition of roads,one-ways,lack of a public transport etc.So as evident, traffic conditions form a huge chunk of conversations across the city.

Everyone knows what the Govt should do.They should provide nice,smooth,8 lane roads throughout Bangalore.Sorry not gonna happen in the near future.Public transport i.e. Metro would take a few years to get completely operational.

However I would say that instead of these long term projects, Govt can take a look at smaller issues to take care of the bigger picture e.g. Parking Space.The Govt should take a cue from the West and invest on building parking complexes.Say we have one such parking complex in the vicinity of MG Road. All the space on Brigade Road, Church Street etc that is currently being occupied as parking for vehicles would get free leading to widening of roads for traffic as well as reduction in traffic.Ofcourse this would mean that public would have to walk for some distance.I for one would not mind it and I think many others would not either. Most of the techies in B’lore could use the exercise anyway as they spend most of their time on their desks.

Better roads automatically result in smooth flow of traffic and less congestion. Now roads like Airport Road, 100 feet Road, Banerghatta Road etc are amongst the better roads in the city.The issue starts once you leave the main road for a side street.Here the citizens can take an initiative with societies pooling in money to build the 2-3 km roads.Or corporates can undertake it as CSR (I am not really sure if it would come under CSR but I am assuming that building better roads for the society can be considered CSR)

However,having better roads is just one part of the solution.Airport Road, Marathalli Bridge etc are areas that have good roads but are forever jammed.

Let me take an example.I used to go for work by the company cab.The cab had a capacity of about 15 people but on a normal day around 7-8 seats were occupied. Many people living in the same area would come to the office late by their own vehicle. Here I believe the willingness of the citizens with a little incentive from the Govt. can work miracles.If people are willing to use the company cab by going office an hour earlier than their usual time (& coming early too), the number of vehicles on the road would go down.One of the reasons why people prefer their own vehicles is the cost effect. In case, going by the company cab comes out to be more expensive than personal transport, people would prefer personal vehicles.Govt subsidy/tax cuts for companies operating their own transport would allow the company to cut the costs and pass on the benefits to its employees.

Traffic congestion is a given at the time of office hours.Hence it would really be beneficial if companies at can co-ordinate the cab timings amongst themselves.Lets take the example of Whitefields.If one-third of companies EOD is at 6, next one-thirds at 6:20 and the last one-third at 6:40 and similar timings for morning cabs, the number of vehicles on the road for those 20 minutes would reduce and so would the congestion.

Finally, the most in-vogue solution of the day-Car Pooling.A gr8 idea.For those who are not aware of the concept, car-pooling is basically a group of people with same/nearby offices can co-ordinate amongst themselves to go daily in a single vehicle.That would save costs for everyone of them, reduce fuel consumption and bring down the number of vehicles on road.However car-pooling is a bit tricky to implement because of lack of info.However, an online application might be the answer.CommonFloor.com an online web portal dedicated to making lives better in Apartment Complexes is planning to come up an web interface for the same.Here I would like to add the disclaimer that the promoters of CommonFloor.com are my batchmates from IIT Roorkee.However this post is not motivated by any commercial interests or marketing gimmick.This is just being used as an example of how carpooling can be implemented.Following is a sample UI of the application being developed by CommonFloor.com

Similar applications or communities on social networking sites would go a long way in helping with car-pooling.

Lastly, I would like to emphasize the point that instead of looking at big solutions of a big problem, there might be a number of small solutions which can each make a little bit of difference.The overall result would surely be one step closer to solving the traffic problems of Bangalore.Howerver, most of the above mentioned solutions would need full support as well as initiative from the citizens as well.A dedicated group of people with maybe support from a NGO could do wonders for this.It is my sincere request that kindly let me know if anybody is aware of such NGO. Also, if there is a group of citizens working towards this or interested in working towards this, please count me in.

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Categories: Past Tags:

Reservation Quotas

April 11th, 2008 Supriy 7 comments
Back after a long time. Seems like a different life. There have been too many happenings, so many changes.

It took some introspection on my part to answer the question, “Why dont I blog regularly?”. I like writing.I havent been blogging very often, so it cannot be a case of “Writer’s Block”.The no of people reading my blog has never affected me, so why?

Guess its in the nature of a Piscean not to be too open.Maybe because I had decided that this blog would not deal with social issues,computer games,anime so on & so forth.However, that condition no longer applies.So I am hoping to blog a lot more often (fingers crossed).

So what have I been upto lately.I quit my job(That’s why the change of blog title).Not that I got another offer or something.I just wasnt finding it fulfilling enough and frankly speaking it had become very monotonous.It just felt right to end that association.So I am now jobless by choice and on a sabbatical trying to get my life into perspective.

But the best news of the past 1 year or maybe longer is that one of the things on my bucket list is taken care of. Actually three if you count “Attending a live Iron Maiden Concert” and “Finishing a Death-By-Chocolate ice-cream all by myself“.Now only about a thousand more to go. But getting back to the third thing……

The third thing was getting a Macbook Pro.Yeah people, I am now the proud owner of Marvin i.e. my new Macbook Pro. For those who cannot make the connection, the name comes from the Paranoid Android in Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy.C3PO and R2D2 were also close runners but Marvin’s dry humor and sarcasm is unmatched.

However, this post is not intended to be about me.But being the narcissist that I am, couldnt help mentioning the few most important things.

Reservation. The buzz word for the past 2 years.Ever since Arjun Singh proposed 27% reservation of OBC, the nation (atleast the youth) have been up in arms.”Dilution of brands”,”Unfair treatment” etc etc are the reasons being given.

Lets get this thing clear first of all. A nation which differentiates between individuals on the basis of birth might never achieve the true greatness it is capable of .Ability should be the sole criteria on which a person should be judged.Anything else race,sex,birthplace etc etc just brings down the standards and nothing else.

Not to say that I am against reservation.It is a well known fact that a discrimination in terms of opportunities has been there.If some people have borne the brunt of this discrimination, they fully have the right to demand preferential treatment elsewhere.

But as always, a good idea doesnt necessarily translate into a good implementation.Reservation has steadily become a way of gaining votes.

If I m not too wrong, there was a 22.5% reservation for SC/ST candidates in JEE 2002. Add 27% reservation for OBC and you have 49.5% reservation in IITs(I might be wrong here so any corrections are appreciated).So only about half the people in IITs would be able to say that “I am here on my merit, nothing else”? Now being an IITian I can say that the biggest differentiator between IITs and rest of the engineering institutions in the country is JEE.With a selection of about 8000 people out of 250,000, the IITs can very well stake the claim to having the Crème de la crème of the country (There is a minority who do get through on pure luck e.g. yours truly but that debate is for another day).Tampering with the selection process is pure blasphemy.So how about free competition for selection.Once a candidate proves himself to be worthy of a seat in an IIT, he can be given whatever the Govt wants.Low fees, all books, scholarship anything.

But if the Govt wants to continue like this, I have one request. Can we please have a heading on the gradesheets as well as the final degree which states the category of the candidate? If a candidate has the guts to mark a small circle on the OMR in the entrance form, he should very well have the courage to stand up for his decision.Sounds fair?
I am ready to bet that no candidate under reserved category will agree. After all, it would hit their credentials that they did not compete fairly which would translate into less opportunities to go abroad for further education,reluctance on the part of Private recruiters, so on & so forth.
Ohh wait, but the Govt is contemplating reservation in Pvt Sector too.They do have the best of minorities at their hearts.Who cares about the majority anyway.

SC (One of the few places in the country where logic & good of the people seems to prevail) has passed the bill with a few reservations (Pun unintended). The creamy layer cant take benefit of reservations. Totally agree. If one generation in a family has made use of the reservations for their upliftment,it shouldnt be allowed to do so anymore.
No reservations in post graduation.Again, agree. Once a person has gotten into top college for graduation on the basis of reservation,he shouldnt be allowed to use it for post graduation but this is where the loopholes begin.IIMs do not offer a post graduate degree. They offer PGDM i.e. Post Graduate Diploma in Management which holds its own against any MBA.BUT Govt might be able to claim that IIMs give out diplomas & force them to accept the reservation too.Lets wait & watch on this.
One observation on the part of SC that had me laughing was that the no of communities under OBC has steadily gone up since independence.So either the Govt discovers new communities which they didnt know existed OR the whole “India Shining” is a sham while in reality India is steadily declining in terms of social equality.

The statistic that I would really like to know is the
(No of Selections in general category)/(No of people appearing in general category) and
(No of Selections in Reserved)/(No of people appearing in reserved category)
to get a clearer picture.

All said & done, reservation in its current format is flawed. There are students in IIT Roorkee planning a “No CAT 2008″ campaign. People think its their loss.I beg to differ.Talent will come out on its own.It doesnt depend on the institute, conditions or the country.And they blame us for Brain Drain….

As a sign of respect to my readers, no football (& no its not because of the fact that Real Madrid is out of CL), no cricket (not because of India’s horrible loss) and no anime (not because Itachi Sama is no longer with us. R.I.P. Itachi sama.U’ll always be in our hearts.sniff sniff)

Disclaimer: Couldnt help the last para.After all such things do define my blog.Topic might be serious but I hate being serious for one whole post.If some of that stuff is Greek to you, I apologize for spoiling ur serious mood

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Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows

July 23rd, 2007 Supriy 1 comment
Warning: Spoilers

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, one of the most anticipated books of all times, is it worth the wait?
The answer would be yes.
But Harry Potter 7 is not a masterpiece by any stretch of imagination or even the best book in the series (for me atleast).

The book has a tepid beginning and a lame ending. However, the central part of the book is the part worth waiting for. The quest for the horcruxes, the story of the deathly hallows etc keep one hooked to the book.

However the book doesnt have as many twists & turns as Prisoner of Azkaban, nor is it as spell binding as Goblet of Fire (my favourite one by far) and lacks the humor of Chamber of Secrets. But its not supposed to be humorous. The darkest book in the series by far with loads of deaths, close shaves and thankfully no mush.

10 years & 7 books later, Harry Potter saga comes to an end. The ending is open & shut so I dont expect a book 8. However, I want more Harry Potter books on the first coming of Voldemort, the life of Albus Dumbledore.i.e. The prequels to Harry Potter. Hope Rowling is listening.

PS: Quite a few of the predictions made by Shradz & me were spot on. Maybe we should write a fantasy series ourselves

Categories: Books, Reviews Tags:

Harry Potter & Deathly Hallows: Unanswered Questions

July 18th, 2007 Supriy 8 comments
Two of us, me & Shradz got together to discuss the unresolved questions in Harry Potter so far. Nice timepass. Here is the outcome of approx 4 hours of hard work.

The unanswered Questions:

1. The Horcruxes
Dumbledore says Voldemort would have 7 Horcruxes: 2 belonging to the founders of Hogwarts, 1 the diary in Chamber of Secrets, 2 that he has destroyed, 1 being Voldemort himself. That leaves 1 more.
Dumbledore mentions Nagini as being the last one. However, cant the last one be Harry? After all, Dumbledore did mention in Chamber of Secrets that Voldemort transferred some part of himself in Harry without intending to (that’s how Harry became a parseltongue). If Harry is the last one, then he has to die to kill Voldemort.
Or could it be both Nagini & Harry? Nagini was present when Voldemort murders the servant in the opening chapter of Goblet of Fire. She can easily be a horcrux too.

2. Snape-Good or Evil
Snape murders Dumbledore in front of Harry. Surely that settles it. Snape is evil.
But is he?
Dumbledore, the gr8est wizard ever. Could he make such a big error of judgement? Everyone tells him not to trust Snape but he does. I dont think so.
Wht if Dumbledore knew that Harry will never become independent, never discover his true strength if he was there. Harry is too dependent upon Dumbledore? Add to it that killing Dumbledore would put to rest any issues with the loyalty of Snape towards the dark side.
Towards the end of Half Blood Prince- Dumbledore says “Severus, please” before Snape kills him. Now lets see hw tht is explained in Deathly Hallows

3. Harry Potter v/s LOTR: Is Wormtail to Harry Potter what Gollum is to LOTR
Its an open secret that Harry Potter is greatly influenced by LOTR.
Harry – Frodo, Ron – Sam, Dumbledore – Gandalf, Voldemort – Sauron, Death Eaters – Nazguls, Order of the Phoenix – The Fellowship
Now when Harry lets Peter Pettigrew go, Dumbledore says something like “Wormtail might do a great service to you someday” akin to Gandalf saying “Who knows, even Gollum might play a role in the quest”. I suppose Wormtail is going to help Harry get Voldemort and maybe dying in the way.

4. Harry Potter v/s LOTR/Star Wars: Dumbledore/Sirius going to return
Gandalf comes back after dying
So does Obi Wan
Well does that mean one of Dumbledore & Sirius is going to come back? At the end of Harry Potter 5, Harry asks Nearly Headless Nick about how people can return as ghosts. Seems like an innocent conversation at the face of it but Harry Potter fans know that even a single, innocent meaning line can have hidden meanings. I think one of them is going to come back as a ghost to guide Harry.

5. Dumbledore’s smirk in Goblet of Fire
At the end of Goblet of Fire, Dumbledore gives a smile when Harry tells him that Voldemort is more powerful as he used Harry’s potter to regain power.Now why would Dumbledore smile on hearing tht? He should be terrified, stupified, petrified, mortified thinking of the repercussions of the Dark Lord being stronger than before. Was it just Harry’s eyes, or Dumbledore being proud of his student for once or something else?

6. The Prophecy
Is there a catch in the prophecy somewhere? Something in the fine print?What if Neville is destined to kill Voldemort after all? I guess Neville is the character who is gonna die and would be responsible for downfall of the Dark Lord.

7. RAB
Who is RAB? Is he Dumbledore’s brother? Or maybe Sirius’ brother?

8. What’s behind the veil in the Department of Mysteries?

9. Does Harry learn any unforgivable curses? Does Harry become a killer?

These are just the major questions. There is a lot of unanswered stuff.

Now I just love to make predictions. Most of them fall flat but that doesnt deter me. So here it goes:
- Harry doesnt die, Neville dies & is responsible for downfall of the Dark Lord. He becomes the hero & Harry can go on living a normal life.
- Sirius/Dumbledore make a return
- Peter Pettigrew plays a hand in the downfall of Lord Voldemort
- Snape turns out to be the good guy

Saturday, July 21. Morning 5 AM. My questions will be answered. Only Time will tell if I am eligible for the post of Divination Teacher at Hogwarts. Maybe I’ll take Shradz too.

PS: Couldnt help the extremely cheesy ending.

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The Bose Effect

July 9th, 2007 Supriy 2 comments
Last weekend, I ended up in the Bose showroom with my flatmate who wants a new set of earphones to go with his N91. Now while he was taking a look at his earphones, I just drifted around taking a look at various Bose products & making a mental catalogue of gadgets I wish to own someday.Sorry but this is also not what this post is about.
And I saw something that defied one of my childhood convictions. The poster said “Necessity is not the mother of all inventions”. That got me thinking and I realized that what the poster said is true. I mean people didnt need bulbs or electricity, they were perfectly happy with candles & gas lanterns. Are cellphones a necessity or a luxury?
However, my inner self also had a counterview.To quote Akio Morita from “Made in Japan”,
people are not aware of what technology is capable of. Its upto us to show them what technology can do
Most inventions start as items of luxury and become an integral part of our lives later on. 24/7 net access, google, wiki, youtube would be a few examples.
Guess like most things in life, this also is in grey. But I still think that most inventions come from ingenuity of the inventor rather than out of necessity.
About the usual stuff starting with cribbing about life in Bangalore.Well, I finally realized two things about Bangalore.
Its next to impossible to find an autorickshaw driver willing to take you to ur destination on the first try.
A movie ticket on a weekend can be flaunted as a status symbol
Ohh and turns out my flatmate was “settling” for Bose earphones. Now he is going for some 10k earphones. (& here I thot I was being extravagent by spending 1300/- on my earphones)

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I am back (Yet again)

April 12th, 2007 Supriy No comments
Long long time since my post. I was so tempted to shift over to a new blog, claim that its a new beginning etc etc and that now I’ll blog on a regular basis. But I have said such things in the past and now I realize one thing. Breaks from blogging are inevitable in my case, some self-imposed others because of situations out of my hand. The last one was a bit of both. I’ll try to be more regular from now on (Have already made drafts for the next 3 posts) but cant promise.

While going through my previous posts(sounds self-obsessed but I do it at times), I realized that my past few posts have been kind of serious. So to make up for them, I thought why not another post dedicated to the God of pessimism, Murphy. As one of my friends commented, everyone looks like an optimist in front of Murphy(even Guns).

The biggest positives of Murphy’s Laws are that they are so true and omnipresent.For example,

Whenever something bad happens(which has been more than usual lately), I remember that “If anything can go wrong it will go wrong at the worst possible time and in the worst possible sequence”. So it wasnt in my hand. Things were gonna go wrong neway.

Whenever I am writing some code and decide to put in some enhancements, the working code bombs.My inner voice says “Nothing is so bad that it cant get worse”.

Basically, Murphy’s Law help in having a laugh if things go wrong and move on.

On my last visit to Blossoms(that accursed place), I spotted a book on ‘Murphy’s Law for Doctors”. Decided to take it for my bro who is pursuing MBBS. Here are some of the quotes from that book. They make my day everytime I think of them. Hope they have the same affect on you.

Murphy’s Original Law: If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong at the worst possible time and the worst possible sequence.

Laws Derived from the Original Law:

- If anything cant go wrong, it will

- Nothing is ever so bad that it cant get worse

- If there are 4 ways in which things can go wrong and you circumvent these, then a fifth way would develop.

- Anytime things appear to be getting better, you have overlooked something

- Most things get steadily worse

- When things go wrong, dont go with them

- Magnitude of a catastrophe is directly proportional to number of people watching and exponentially proportional to importance of the occasion.

- Probability of something happening is in inverse ratio to its desirability

- The Unspeakable Law: As soon as you mention something, if its good, it goes away
if its bad, it happens

- Negative expectations yield -ve results
Positive expectations also yield -ve results

- The less you do, the less can go wrong (This one I follow religiously)

- If what you are doing is working, keep doing it
If what you are doing is not working, stop doing it
If you dont know what to do, dont do anything

- Almost anything is easier to get into than to get out of

- If we knew what we were getting into, we would never get into anything

- Time it takes to rectify a situation is inversely proportional to the time it took to do the damage

- Those who can, do
Those who cannot, teach
Those who cannot teach, administrate

- To learn from your mistakes, you must first realize that you are making mistakes

- Hindsight is an exact science

- Do not believe in miracles, rely on them

- Law of inanimate Mobility: All inanimate objects can move just enough to get in your way

- Do not believe in miracles, rely on them

- If you need a straight line graph, obtain only two data points

- If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once

On a sombre note:
- Even the bestest of friends cannot attend each others funeral

- There are somethings so serious that you can only joke about them

But the best one goes to Mark Twain

If you do everything that your doctor asks you to do- stop smoking, stop drinking etc you still might not live a long time but it will certainly seem like a long time

Enough of plagiarism. At the same time, if you cant better something someone else has said already, why not use it with acknowledgements.

For the essence of my blog, soccer (grin). Last time around I was chided by Shradz on putting soccer gibberish on my posts. Soccer is the main article, rest all stuff revolve around soccer and not vice-versa.

Real Madrid winning the La Liga title – Sweet
First major title after 3 years of waiting – Sweeter.
Ending level on points with Barcelona but snatching the title from under their nose because of head-to-head record – Priceless

I know its cheesy & a bad take on the original MasterCard ad but cant help it. Now time to look forward to the next season. Soccer has a 2 months summer break (a few ppl would be glad, right Shradz ?) but that just means that I’ll be focussing on F1 from now.

Shivaji released. Well I knew that ppl down South were movie crazy. Heard stories about movie stars being treated as demi-Gods. But this was my first time experiencing it. Everyone was going crazy. Ppl in my office have already seen the movie 4 times in its first week only. U have to c the madness to believe it. Want to c the movie myself but as expected no tkts are available.

Harry Potter 7 releasing in less than a month. Booked two copies- one for me, one for my bro. Thank God its releasing on a Saturday. Plan to go to Blossoms early morning, get my copy, go to CCD or Barista & read it peacefully in a single go with coffee. Looking for some company. Any takers ?

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