New York - These Streets Will Make You Feel Brand New

• Empire State of Mind (feat. Alicia Keys) by Jay-Z

More Jay-Z music on iLike

The lyrics from Alicia Keys says all I want to say about New York City! 

   I was lucky to be in NYC for 10 days crashing at my college buddy Rahul's place in Queens, who is pursuing a career in film direction from New York Film Academy! During my stay in USA I had a couple of opportunities to travel to NYC for a long-weekend, but I let it all go. Before I even knew about any states in USA, New York was America & America was New York for me. I did not want to tarnish this image of NYC by hurrying up in a 2-day weekend. 

                Since I had about 10 days to spend, I decided not to fly to NYC but instead experience the now-forgotten railroad of America. Fortunately, Amtrak's Cardinal train passes through my car-town Cincinnati, on its way to New York Penn Station from Chicago. I had no excuse not to take the train for my journey. 

              Alas, just four hours before boarding I got a call from Amtrak saying the train will not be going to New York  due to heavy snowfall in NY state. The representative from Amtrak advised me to travel via Greyhound bus. I took the option since the Greyhound station is at 10 minutes walking distance from my apartment. Within 2 hours I was ready & waiting for the bus to NYC that will travel via Columbus,  Philadelphia  & some city in New Jersey.

             The Greyhound experience wasn't the one I expected. In my humble opinion, the MSRTC luxury bus traveling between Mumbai & Pune is much better. But then, maybe this is the only route that has crappy buses. I must, however, mention that Greyhound was punctual - so much that we reached Philadelphia 2 hours early! They told us that probably due to weather the traffic wasn't so bad between Harrisburg & Philly. I opted to spend the 2 hours in Philly by missing this bus and catching a later one. Of course, I had inquired about it from the officials. I had heard about Philly mostly through the movie Philadelphia (1993) starring Tom Hanks & Danzel Washington & the song 'Streets of Philadelphia' by Bruce Springsteen! 

             I so wished I could use the little time I had to walk the streets of Philadelphia! But I guess I wasn't in the right part of the city & did not want to wander far-away from the Greyhound station carrying my huge ruck-sack :( But this little experience did force me to add an exclusive trip to Philadelphia in my wish-list.  Probably I will make a long-weekend road-trip to Philly some day. Gotta find a friend who stays in Philly to crash at his/her place :)

           After this quick visit to Philly I boarded the bus to NYC and by evening 7ish I was at the NYC Port Authority; ready to see the dream city. I can only say that just thinking about that time gives me a goose bump...the awe kind :)

            Got too many experiences to log here...I am gonna try and record each and every day here. Stay tuned. 

A new beginning?

Here's my team and new family. This was taken on the eve of 13th May 2008 - my farewell party. I had my first shot of JagerBomb which wasnt too bad as everyone was saying. But I couldnt gather enough strength to call for another shot. Instead I got a wheat beer. 

Linkin Park- Minutes to Midnight

First of all- Its fucking great to hear some new music from LP :) LP's 3rd studio album- Minutes to Midnight. Its a mix of classic rock and hip-hop. Well I am not really impressed with this album. Its just not LP. Among all I only liked Bleed It Out and What I've Done. Bleed it out is a kickass hip hop ballad! while What I ve Done is nu-metal. This album is a result of their experimentation and looks like they are dropping from nu-metal :( which is not good.

I found this at songmeanings.com referring to Bleed It Out lyrics!

For some reason, I actually think this song is a self satire of their own lyrics on previous albums.
"and here we go for the hundredth time"

- A jab at repetitiveness?

"grind myself out and no one cares"

-They express their emotions on their songs and yet critics don't seem to respect them?

"I bleed it out, digging deeper just to throw it away"

- Translation: I put my life in my lyrics, digging deeper, but it's useless?

Tech Tags: Linkin+Park Minutes+to+Midnight

Best Films of the 90's

I came across the list of best films of the 90's and must say I am pretty impressed by the choice of films.
I havent seen more than half of the movies listed there and now I have a huge list of movies to download :)
With the kind of download speed I get, I feel lost sometimes(infact many times) as to what to download!!!! I just blackout and keep googling for some interestin stuffs. Now that I have this list I guess I ll be busy downloading for the whole of coming month ;)

In this World- A docudrama about human smuggling

Yesterday I saw this film with my friends and almost everyone was stunned in the end. Very few films have brought tears in my eyes and this is one of them. And believe me when I say this there has to be something really
great about this movie. This tale of Afghan refugees is strong, thought-provoking stuff.
This pseudo-documentary makes it's point without being preachy. I felt I was there with these beautiful unfortunate young men on the horrendous journey to escape their life of poverty in a refugee camp. The photography is simply stunning and captures the very essence of the character's journey. There's no much dialogues in this film but it speaks for itself. There are many scenes that makes you contemplate
about why life is so cruel sometimes.
Interestingly I saw an article in today's paper about Astronaut's view about earth(since its an Earth Day today). Among them Bill Anders told, "It was the only colour we could see in the universe.....We 're living on a tiny little dust mote.....And basically, this is it for humans. It strikes me that it's a shame that we 're squabbling over oil and borders."

So please go watch/recommend this movie and let it be known to the world.
IMDB:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310154/

Tech Tags: In+this+world docudrama best+movies human smuggling asylum

Exams and shit

I ve fucked it up again. Everyday I assure myself that I ll start studying soon enough but havent really started anything. I ve yet to buy the books and dont even know which ones to buy. Vivas are starting from first week of May and I am still clueless about the syllabus.

          I think I have a faint idea why is this happening to me. But I am not yet sure whether I am ready to accept it or not. Normally my classmates try to do their best in the last two semesters because thats what people ask when an engineer passes out(and not aggregate). But I no longer have this feeling of scoring marks. All I know is that I am just gonna "clear" this semester. I dont care if I get 40% or 60%. Even my mom doesnt care unless I fail.


So the question that is nagging me is whether I should really perform by really working my ass out or just get 40% and dont give a fuck. I am capable of doing both- just clearing and performing well. But why would I want to do that. Now there's no expectation/obligation from anyone to perform well(except Accenture who want me have atleast 55% or so as aggregate).

Well you may think what a looser I am to write something lame as this. But the point of this post is to tell how much our education sucks. There's no fucking point to study for the knowledge sake. Its all BS. And to top all this- half of our professors dont even know what they are teaching. All this has really put me off from actually learning the stuff I am supposed to as an engineer. No wonder why so many Indians go to abroad to pursue further studies AND NEVER RETURN BACK.

Tech Tags: exams mumbai+university somaiya engineering

Genesis Film festival videos now available online

Ok so almost 99% of the genesis film festival videos are online for public viewing. You can go here to view them.


One of my personal favourite films is the SMILE video made by Global Rickshaw. I am embedding it here directly for easy access.




The main Genesis Film Festival site is here.

Tech Tags: Genesis+film+festival short+films documentary NGO MAM+movies

MAM Team

MAM Team

MAM- I AM

This is a collage of MAM team members.....

After a looong long time

Its been really a long time since I last posted here. I ve been too busy to write anything lately. Thats because I am no longer a "lukha" hooked to internet all day long :)
I hardly get time even to read mails. All day I ve to be present in he college(but considering my attendance that is an overstatement). Then there's the car project which is somewhat falling apart (I dont know why i am saying that). The car project takes up most of the day time. I spent all evenings at MAM Movies office chilling out with my friends(and doing some little work!). Guess what! we wasted this evening watching a stupid cricket match betwen India & Bangladesh and geting a little drunk o_O
But yea watching India getting raped by bangladesis was priceless. Now I guess people will burn down some buses and cars and probably stone some houses. Watching this hulla-bulla cricketers might just start playing better. So basically dont give a fuck whether they are playing good or bad coz in the end they are gonna be rich anyways. So why give a shit!?

Anyways we even played an boxing game on Xbox in which I played miserably fucking gash. And now I am laying on the bed in an open terrace typing in an absolute blackness listening to "Last Kiss" by Pearl Jam.
ohh what a fucking life!!! and I am enjoying everybit of it!
This reminds me of a beautiful line from trainspotting-
"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday night. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life... But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin' else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?" -Renton.

Tech Tags: Trainspotting drunk life India Cricket balls shit

yippee...we bought our engine

I was half asleep while listening to the lecture on embedded systems when suddenly my cellphone rang. I could easily answer the call as I was able to hide behind the person sitting in front of me. It was Ashwajit on the other end. He told, "Dude where are you? I am coming to take you out of the class." I quickly answered, "uP lab." I knew what was coming...

As soon as we stepped out of the class, he yelled "WE ARE BUYING THE ENGINE TODAYYYYY".


We reached a place somewhere near Haji Ali where the Honda CBR600F4i bike was kept. When I first saw the bike the first thing that came to my mind was, "Oh baby you gonna get raped today". It was 2001 red model and ran ~10K km. Soon the sound of engine finally made us breathe at ease. We were waiting for this day since soooo long and to be present there was just amazing experience.

The bike was stripped in less than an hour and finally the engine was separated from the chassis. I quickly found out all the sensors on the engine and made a note of their placement. I was surprised to see that the bike didnt have O2 sensor which a must have for any EFI engine.

I was lucky to see a Harley Davidson and its VTwin engine. Also there was a dirt racing bike.

We left the place at around 9 PM and all of us were in the party mood :) We had hell of a time at OrionPit and were doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Finally at around 11-12 we left OrionPit and went to Khau Galli for dinner.

This was a day to remember. Finally our project kicks off and so does the work load ;)

For more pics click here.

Tech Tags: FSAE Honda CBR600f4i Harley+Davidson

Dream On

The following is a great article that I thought I should share.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler. --Henry David Thoreau

Fact of the Day:
How many of us find our work meaningful? How many of us feel able to do our best work? And how often do we stop to consider the consequences of our work on others, or its impact on society as a whole? Such opportunities to consider the meaning of work are rare, and challenges are salient across stages and fields. To create a paradigm shift, researchers at Harvard, Stanford, and Claremont Graduate University began the GoodWork Project. The notion of "good work" -- defined as work that is at once excellent in quality, responsive to the needs of the broader community, and personally meaningful -- is investigated in both professions and professionals. This article explores various fields, probing whether individuals desire to carry out good work, the obstacles they encounter and the strategies they have devised.