Ghajini (Hindi) vs Ghajini (Tamil)

The storyline was pretty much the same in both except the ending. The Hindi version, I felt, was crisper and better. The Tamil one had dragged a twin of the villian and blah, blah... into the story.

The emotional scenes in the Hindi version had more stress and rightly so. The song 'Kaise Mujhe' was a well added entity.

The Hindi version also cut down on the length of certain songs and totally did away with 'Ranghola' song in the tamil version. But I felt the Hindi version sorely missed a duet. Both films' numbers will be remembered for a long time.

The Hindi version was slightly more coherent and consistent. The fight scenes in the Tamil version seem to forget the passage of time.

As far as acting is concerned, Surya slightly scores over Aamir. Surya in the flashbacks is more convincing than his counterpart, though I should say I hardly kept an eye on them during that time. Otherwise they were equal to their tasks.

Jiah Khan's role was more sensible than that of Nayantara's, though I am sure quite a few will disagree.

Pradeep Rawat as villain was similar in both, though I am not sure if he lived upto to the expectations of Bollywood followers. I couldn't find anything wrong.

And Asin was ever vivacious and at her best. In the tamil version, I felt the flashbacks were the best part. As in those parts really lighted up the theatre. It was an equally brilliant potrayal in the Hindi version as well.

These were some points which I could compare in the two versions. I would rate the Hindi version slightly higher than the Tamil version taking into account the above arguments. What about you?

And So, It Began...

One fine morning, the student president came to the campus and we decided that today would be the day.

The past few days had been one of the most irritating days in college. You know, those times when you are full enthu about something and ready to put into action all those ideas into perspective, but are hampered by few people higher up the hierarchy. It is not that they are determined to be road blocks, but they worry about the most trivial of matters, which we students hardly worry about. It was one such time.

Towards the end of the semester in April, when we had those 'so called' study holidays, we made our first attempt to infuse some of our ideas into our convener. We were rebuffed within minutes siting the fact that 'our career determining' exams were round the corner and whatever we had to say could wait. 'Yeah right, we would love to stay back and have a chat with you after exams' I thought. But sadly, we had to. I had decided ages ago that I will stay back, come what may, with a project to fill my time. But my chairman, poor fellow, had an arrangement made in his hometown and had to postpone his plans to accommodate this meeting.

So the 'crucial' exams got over and within hours we were back in his office.

He made us sit down and inquired about our exams and our plans for the holidays. We answered his queries and at the end of the next ten minutes, we were slightly impatient to get on with our job in hand. Alas!, that was just the beginning. The following two hours we were discussing some of the most obscure topics peppered with some unwelcome interventions by a variety of people. And finally when we came to the topic of our interest he was too tired to listen and we were too tired to explain. And at the end of a brief try he tells us that he is going on vacation for fifteen days. God save us. My chairman left home immediately and I was resigned to my project.

Today, he returned bringing with him the good news that 'The Man' is back. We decided that a presentation in print would be our best solution to avoid the diversions. And so we sat down after breakfast at about noon time and incorporated our thoughts, ideas, possible difficulties and their solutions in a forty three page ppt. We fixed an appointment late in the evening. Both of us were hungry and half emptied our pockets at samfox and dhabba one. Unfortunately we couldn't procure the print in campus and had to go to Thiru. We got a mixture of high quality and low quality prints summing up to four copies of the original.

We were already late and hurried to catch the local bus to return and to our utter dismay we found out that all we had was a torn tattered ten rupee note which the conductor duly rejected. After all the delays we had so far, this was the most unexpected and hilarious. But fortunately, one kind young man on the bus offered to buy the tickets for us. I regret that I never asked him his name, but without him we probably would have had to leg three thousand five hundred metres not to mention yet another delay in the process. Thank you dear friend. We rushed to the convener's room and he took our presentation and went through it straight away. And So, it Began...

What It Takes to be a Prof?

As a student, we always crib and complain constantly that our profs are pathetic. They don't know anything. What will we learn from them? What is the point of attending class? We ask so many questions among ourselves. Here I try to answer some of them...

I am more of a student who believes in classroom study than self - study. I generally don't prefer to bunk classes unless I am forced to (or sleeping of course). And three years of college has intrigued me more and more that how the interest invoked by school teachers in studies is way, way higher than that by lecturers in college. A simple example would be, a question by a teacher in school would result in a chorus raucus, while in college it is replaced by collective silence. Why should it be so different to teach in a college?

This thought kept crossing me far too many times while my mind wanders aimlessly. I feel, though I may be wrong, that the lecturers or profs we complain about may actually have had other plans of earning their living. But circumstances change and bang! here they are trying to teach us in class. The point is not many today are actually willing to take up teaching as a profession. How many of you are willing to be a lecturer? The job, one feels is monotonous and boring.

I haven't had much of teaching experience. I just taught a few classes of the 'C++' language to the juniors when I was in second year. It was most enjoyable, mainly because I loved the subject. It was my favourite in class XII. The response I got was encouraging to say the least. Then I also realised that it is not enough to know or love a subject to teach it. The willingness to teach the stuff, the push to make the students understand, the enterprise to infuse interest in the subject are also key ingredients to become a lecturer. But most of all, every lecturer should keep in mind the fact that how it was to be a student in his days and how it should have been...

A Desperate Night

I reached Chennai Egmore after a tiresome journey from Trichy at about 9 pm. I ran, to catch a local to the next station to reach Central to see off a close friend. My stomach began to rumble on the way. I walked up and down the platform in vain searching for my friend. I called him up to find that he is still in the waiting room. Poor fellow, had a huge suitcase (The nerd was on his way to US via Delhi for an intern!). We waited for 2 more minutes for his father to arrive.

We made a move towards platform ten. With a war starting in my stomach, I was able to pull the suitcase somehow, for some distance, in addition to my laptop and backpack. I spent the remaining time, roughly fifteen minutes, gossiping, all the while trying to keep a straight face.

Then after the train left I decided enough is enough and went straight to the Saravana Bhavan there. I extended the cashier 50 bucks and asked for a traditional, but satisfying set of chappathis and curd rice. To my astonishment he informed me that I was four bucks short. I was simply too shocked to protest, yeah right like I could. I took the parcel and reached home by 10 45pm, washed my dirty hands and face and sat down for, what I felt at that time, a sumptuous dinner.

Alas, I realised that it was a drop in the ocean. My mother was not at home nor anybody else. In fact, I was the first inhabitant of the place to spend the night after some ten days. As expected, processed provisions in the house were running low. I raided the fridge at around 11 15pm. A bunch of my favourite dry grapes was never going to be enough. Out of sheer desperation I opened the freezer. To my happiness, I found three dabbas along with frozen ice cream spoons. Now my imagination ran wild, considering the summer season and my deep frying in the day train. I quickly dislodged the stuck dabbas from the freezer and opened them one by one.

The first one had dry green peas. So did the second one. And the third one, no surprises there, green peas again. I was mad. I went to my only solace, the Internet. Just when I was chatting with one of my closest friends, I heard a bell ringing. I was not entirely out of the trance, so as was reasonable a Kwality Walls three wheeler flashed across my mind. My dear friends, it was a bicycle with kulfis, surely not the ones you'd like to have at that moment. I would have had mess food for that matter! And so I slept that night thinking this will be one story with no happys endings.....

Cricket

My passion comes first and hence does cricket. And cricket for me is synonymous with someone called Sachin Tendulkar. I grew up watching him play. Cricket for me seems to be enjoying itself when he is on song. Its something I have tried time and again to express in words, but always in vain.

I do not say that he is the greatest batsman. But what I say is when the man is at his best, cricket seems to be at its elegant and graceful best. He is not as technically pure as Rahul Dravid or as explosive as Adam Gilchrist. But he blends the technical purity with subtle robustness that appeals so much to the eye. His straight drives of the back foot are a class apart. I have not yet seen someone else, who has dispatched the ever precise Glenn Mcgrath over square leg with authority and conviction.

If some one can stay at the international level for such a long time he is bound to have some records against his name. Records come, records go, but geniuses seldom do. Every cricketer goes through bad patches. The great Sir Don Bradman signed off his career with a pair. He achieved so much during his time, which was half as that of our Indian great.

If you compare the number of matches they both have played, you'll see that modern cricketers play thrice as much matches as compared to the oldies during the same duration of time. That is evolution of cricket from a game that was played to enjoy and pass time to a game that has become a money spinner.

In this regard, I should mention the recent aberration of the game introduced in the form of T20. If people call flying balls from players' bat to be entertainment, baseball is the game that they should be watching. Seriously, cricket was introduced as a ball game in which both the batsman and the bowler have an equal chance. But now it is a bat game that involves bowlers as jokers who try prevent scoring while batsmen are heroes who plunder runs.

In this context, it is important that test cricket is given highest priority. The true test for a cricketer is to last five days and do his best. Not to be the best in a slightly improved form of gully cricket and getting paid in astronomical figures for it. But who gives a damn! They are getting paid anyways.

People say its a fast moving world and we need to adapt to things accordingly. OK, right we are moving fast, but where are we heading to?...Only time will tell.