Indians play baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates

I just watched this interesting video that talked about two Indians, Rinku (?) Singh and Dinesh Patel who had won some kind of a competition and their prize was I think a million dollar contract to play Baseball for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Both were javelin throw players (which obviously explains the amazing throwing abilities – rather pitching (i think) abilities). This is one sport not many Indians play or even know about so this makes for some really cool and interesting news. Baseball is certainly becoming more colorful

I have been trying unsuccessfully to embed the video to this post. You can check it out here.

Back after a hiatus

I am back after a long sojourn of life. Not that I have much to report. I enjoyed watching the Oscars last night – truly one of the best shows I have seen in many years.

I never really care much for the Oscars. I like the glamor and the whole stardust thing but that was about it I guess. I would be curious about who won the top awards but other than that…never a big deal especially when the pictures that did get nominated were not the popular kinds and were often those who’s names I hadn’t even heard. This year was different.

I watched Slumdog Millionaire a few weeks ago. I had first read about it in a newspaper and then I had heard about how people had liked it and so I thought well I’ll watch it and I did. I liked the movie because it was different, off the beaten path if you please. I liked the actors, was surprised that the movie was in English since I didn’t have any background info on the movie prior to watching it. Anyways, so I liked the movie but was critical of its typical showcase of Mumbai as city of slum dwellers, swindlers, slave traders…anyway that is usually how the West depicts India so it bothered me to that extent but not anymore. I was especially admiring of the actors Dev Patel and the child actors. Frieda not so much, since she hardly had much to do in the entire movie.

As part of the pre-Oscar buzz and roundabout of talk shows, I saw Dev Patel on E! and Dev and Frieda on Tyra Banks and it was always a pleasure to listen to them and the number of fans they had garnered.

So coming to tonight, I was especially supporting AR Rahman and wanted him to get the Oscar. The ceremony as such as brilliant. Not a moment of boredom. Hugh Jackman did a great job, very lively, with just the right dose of laughter and I enjoyed his musical performances – unlike the Billy Crystals who pretend like it is THEIR show, Hugh knew when to shut up.

As the show started, Slumdog won several awards which was good. I caught a glimpse of Irfan Khan and Anil Kapoor. Then when there was some kind of a performance going on, I changed channels and when I returned to ABC, AR Rahman was giving his acceptance speech. YEAH!!!! Right after his award, he actually performed on small pieces of two of Slumdog songs and concluded with John Legend singing something from Wall-E (?). He was nominated again for original song or some such category with Gulzar as the lyricist and HE WON again, this time WITH Gulzar – I was so senti – how exciting!! He even said a line in Tamil which I didn’t understand but he explained that it meant God is great. What a terrific night!! Earlier Russel Pookutty had won for Best Sound Mixing which was a pleasant surprise and even better was his dedication of the award to India – now THAT’s terrific! (Picture on the left courtesy – www.voanews.com/english/Entertainment/images/..)

Just heard David Boyle give his Best Director speech for Slumdog, he thanked all the people from Mumbai who did and did not support the movie and his words – you dwarf even this guy – the guy being Oscar – what a syntactically alluring construction. In other words the people of Mumbai make even the Oscar statue pale in comparison to them. Nice.

Also an India themed documentary Smile Pinki won the Best Documentary – I believe there were two India based documentaries nominated.

Now the argument is always that why should we care about the Oscars. Why should we seek validation from the West? Why should we ascertain credibility in our film-making or consider it worthy of any praise from the West? The fact is we don’t but it helps to get our messages to a wider audience from a bigger platform. Unfortunately they are not OUR movies as in homegrown movies. The ones that have been nominated or won have typically been made by Western film-makers and of course there is a lot of social commentary and criticism that comes along with that. So, not wanting to take any sides right now (mostly because it is almost midnight and I still have the Oscars running in the background that does not allow me to think too deeply), I am just excited to see our Indian actors and artistes getting recognition from the West. Of course we knew they were talented but how nice for the world to find out, and no best way to say that other than through winning an Oscar, perhaps the ONE award ceremony seen world-wide.

Rock n Roll Family

In the last few months, I’ve become addicted to a few different shows, one of them being ‘Rock n Roll Family’. For one, despite the unnecessary drama of showbiz and network television TRP games, I really like this show the hosts and the judges. The hosts are Sharad Kelkar and Mauli Dave (a former Miss Teen India Texas as well as a former contestant on Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. Both Sharad and Mauli are friendly and charming in their respective roles. The judges, Kajol, Ajay Devgan and Tanuja, the wife-husband and mother-in-law trio also make good judges even though they often (which is not atypical with Indian reality shows) wear their emotions and feelings for the contestants on their sleeves or dupattas. Even though there is a certain facade of objectivity, it is quite clear who their favorites are.

In the show, three generations of a family dance together for Rs. 50 lakhs. A good concept and from what the show projects, quite popular too. The families are mostly from Maharashtra and up, meaning only one family from Pune and the others were mostly from MP, Rajasthan and further north India. My favorite family is the Roy family from Kolkata. From the very first episode, this family has stood out because of their simplicity, humility, and genuineness, not to mention great dancing when they put their minds to it. The other family I like is the Saxena family from Indore. In this family, all of the members are good dancers and what I find most exemplary has nothing to do with their dancing but the fact that the third generation, or the dadi of the family runs a school for specially challenged children. Hats off to her!

Anyways, so it is a good show with some good dancers and an amazing concept. There have been several moments on the show when I have shed tears – some raw human and familial emotions just get to me, always, no matter what show I am watching. Tonight’s show got us the three finalists, Saxenas, Roys, and the Bhalke family, another talented and almost identical looking family – the resemblances among the grandfather, father and son are too striking! I enjoy this show and really like how the families have improved over the three months I’ve been watching them.

Here is a clip from the youngest kid on the show, Supradeep Roy’s solo performance from May 24th. I loved this!!

Smarter than a 5th grader?

These days one of the shows I regularly watch online is the Indian version of Fox’s Are you smarter than a 5th grader or “Kya aap paanchi pass se tez hain?” The set design, even bits of Shah Rukh’s attire resembles the original show. I guess since it is a licensed show of the original, they do have to do those things. I enjoy watching that show and its VERY Indianness – more touchy feely, more conversational, religious, more drama, and of course some singing and dancing with SRK himself. The notable things is that while Fox could have a successful show with a comedian like Foxworthy, India needs one of the biggest movie stars, Shah Rukh Khan to pull in the viewership. Hmm….I wonder if they show would have succeeded had it been hosted by a regular host or anchor, say even a Hussein or Aman Varma who have experience with anchoring shows. Used to be that growing up, my generation got to see some of the best quiz shows on television at the time such as those hosted by Siddharth Basu (Mastermind India and others, and who now I believe owns part of the channel or network that is producing Paanchi Pass or 5th grader in India), Bhaskar Bhattacharjee (who I believe committed suicide), Derek O’Brien and others like that. Those quizzes were the real deal. They still dealt with a young crowd but the questions were smart, the kids were smarter and they inspired us, regular kids to want to better our general knowledge. Paanchvi pass…hmm, I wonder what its’ implications on today’s television watching demographic is. Here are some clips from the show:

Here’s the title track:

A random clip from April 27

Soliciting Travels…..

I want to travel world….This is being sent out to all of you out there who would like to invite a stranger to your house for a few days. I will reciprocate the gesture when the time comes. I strongly believe that by visiting other places as tourists, you never really learn anything about the culture – what I am interested in is the lives of every day people in different parts of the world. I want to stay with the people of the world, as their guest, compensating financially where needed, to become a part of your family for a few days so I can experience your culture, your world, through your eyes, to the extent possible. Anybody listening…..?

I am on Facebook!

Yes! Finally did it! Not that it was ever excruciatingly tempting or anything but as I started to find out, if I wanted to maintain friendships with people here in the US, it was important to have an online presence they related to and had one on, themselves. The verdict – Facebook! I actually like it and have been exploring its many features. It is much better developed and user friendly than Orkut is, even though Orkut has its own charm. I do find Orkut lacking in creativity and things users can do to put themselves and every minute mind-numbing detail of their lives out there – since I assume that is one of the biggest purposes of these social networking websites. In any case, I am having fun with this and the greatest gift of all has been having Alex back into my life, even though only virtually. He is truly the personification of the song, “aate jaate khoob soorta awara sadkon pe, kabhi kabhi ittefaq se, kitne anjaan log milte hain, unme se kuch log bhool jaate hain, kuch yaad reh jaate hain”. Here’s to Alex – the dearest, most personable friend I’ve ever, ever known!!

E-books and the Kindle

Okay so here’s another gadget I really think I will buy – could be a few months or a couple years. I first saw an ad for the Kindle or something like it in an airlines’ magazine. It seemed like a good idea and I actually read the ad not thinking much about it. Now all of a sudden, I see the Kindle everywhere. A clever innovation by Amazon and currently out of stock after 1255 customer reviews, I can easily see myself get on that coveted waiting list for a Kindle once it becomes available. This gadget spells doom for the printing industry to an extent. I was describing this to Sudipto a few days ago and he got silent at the end of it and said something on the lines of the printing industry struggling through its last days. Being a printer, I can understand where he comes from and thank goodness for the fact that he has diversified his skills set.

Returning to the gadget, this neat little wireless reader weighing about 10 oz. from Amazon (see details and product description here) offers a great medium to read all kinds of books, newspapers, blogs, etc. with one hand. It boats paper-like quality, a screen up and down, font size increase, wireless access to instantly download books from mostly anywhere for a small price, an ergonomic design, bookmarks, a long battery life, etc. Basically the benefit that I see from it is being able to travel without carrying too many books to read. The best part is it has the capacity to store about a 100 books and with an additional SD card, you can only imagine how many more books, etc. you can store in there. It’s a walking library with you wherever you go. Some of the reviews do complain about the lack of capability to download and read pdfs which is a major downer for me since most of the stuff I read are in pdfs. That is why I mentioned wanting to wait a few months to a couple years to see what new modifications Amazon comes up with its second generation Kindles. Then again, with every new generation, the improvements often get better so I don’t want to be holding a $400 VERY expensive gadget without half the capabilities of what I could have gotten had I waited a little longer. But then going by the fact that I am usually the kind of person who goes for the basics (wanting a cell phone as long as it makes and receives calls – no bells and whistles needed, having an Mp3 player as long as it is able to upload music into it and plays well, etc), I should be comfy with one that helps me read pdfs and other versions that I use.

Anyways, another thing I discovered while reading one of the comments was this website, Wowio that lets you download books for free – ebooks of course. The only downside is that it needs your real identity. You can authenticate your identity by using a non-anonymous email (which means you can’t use any of the usual yahoo, hotmail, gmail, etc), scanning a driver’s license, student Id or using a credit card (not charged, only used for authentication). I used my school email and it worked perfect. I even downloaded a book called The Human Body: How your body works just to see how it works and it’s really perfect. It’ll be a great book to have online to explain to children the different parts of the body with the bright images and diagrams. Even adults can learn something. The best part is, according to the review, you can books downloaded from anywhere into the Kindle. Because the Kindle does not read Pdfs yet, what people have done is convert it using the Mobipocket creator. It is a little inconvenient but if it really works like the people in the reviews say it does, then you have a winner.

This gadget is surely something I am going to buy as and when I have the money and when and after it becomes compatible with more versions. I hope the price comes down. $399 is waaaaaaaaaay to much for me on my very humble student stipend.

Why the iPhone ruled 2007

I’ve discovered a new-found obsession of sorts with new gadgets. I’ve been wanting a Blackberry for a long time even though I admittedly have no real reason to use it…neither am I corporate big shot, nor am I some kinda head honcho or globe trotting CEO – all more or less meaning the same thing and yet it was the coolness factor and the snob value of owning one. When the Iphone was introduced, I didn’t think much of it mostly because I could not afford it. I saw Lorraine use one – who claimed that at her teaching stint at Yale, her iPhone was more popular than anything else. I’ve been wanting an iPod for a while now. I am no big fan of confined-only-to-my-ears kinda music – no sire! I value my ear buds a little too much for that. I fear that we are raising a generation of future deaf people – on campus, almost every second person who passes by has an iPod stuck to their ear SIGH! and yet I want one so I can stay in my own world, nonchalantly and pretend like I-don’t-care-if-I-don’t-have-anybody-around-me-because-I-am-so-cool-and-comfortable-with-just-me-and-my-ipod  kinda discourse. Whatever! Anyways, this is an interest opinion piece emphasizing quality over quantity and I can see why. Good one. Worth a read.

The piece is by S. E. Kramer and was first published on dvice. The image above is also from the same website.

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Lead India

What a beautiful, beautiful video!!! What a great concept, a brilliant creative design! Those of us part of the great Indian diaspora are most influenced by this. People can complain as much as they can about the corruption, the population explosion and all the other economic, political, and social problems in our country but videos like these when truly realized show that there is hope, beyond the current reality of an Indian life. I often feel trapped here in the U.S wanting real badly to go back and be able to make a difference with my education, among my people, for my people. Will this dream ever come true?

Two Indias. Great script and very true!

Christmas around the world-India

This picture was recently published on some news website that I now forget. It was most likely either the New York Times or the Reuters website. Not quite sure. This picture was among a number of other pictures under the slideshow, ‘Christmas around the world’. This was the image depicting Christmas in India 2007. There was another pic from India that made that list from 2003. I like the composition of this picture as well as all the colors involved. The Christmas tree in the background adds to the whole depiction. Hanging in the picture frames above Christmas tree are Hindu gods and goddesses. The panoramic view of everything is this picture is very attractive to me. The human characters in the pic with their smiling faces are very typical I think of most shopkeepers in India when asked to be photographed by particularly foreign journalists. I liked the beautiful craftsmanship if you please of the garlands as well. Over all a nice picture and I thought I’ll share it here.

I do wonder how Christmas is celebrated in India. I remember I had asked one of the supervisors during my first IE job if we had a holiday on Dec. 25 for Christmas. He said no – of course I could take the day off but then I wouldn’t get paid for that day. I can’t really say I’ve had too many Christian friends or friends who celebrate Christmas. Natasha and I never really talked about how she and her family celebrated the day. I wish I had learned more about that when I had a chance. That would have been one more step toward my insatiable desire for learning and knowing new things.