Planet IISERK

While updating some contents in my site - http://sam.botcyb.org, I thought of changing the looks as well. After spending almost a day fiddling with the stylesheet I couldn't come up with a design that pleased me. Frustrated, I came up with the best solution - dump all stylesheet and images. Pure text in pure html, nothing else!

(UPDATE: Finally added a css once again! - 21/12/09 )

At last it seems like India is following China's footsteps in restricting her citizens' access to the Internet. Wikileaks.org - a well known site that "publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational, or religious documents, while attempting to preserve the anonymity and untraceability of its contributors" (description from wikipedia entry ) has been apparently blocked by the Sarkari ISP- BSNL. Tonight, while trying to lookup a "confidential" (alas! no longer confidential) working paper (wikileaks link) about India's proposed "Multipurpose National Identity Card" (link), I was unable to reach Wikileaks.org from my BSNL Broadband connection directly, although the site could be opened through most public proxy servers. Just to verify that it is indeed the Sarkari BSNL who is trying to act smart, I connected through Airtel Mobile Office EDGE connection and I could easily view the page. What a shame for a "Democratic Republic". It seems India is really trying to join the "elite" league of countries like China and Iran. (Others kindly check if your ISP allows access to Wikileaks.org , if not try this mirror at a different IP address - wikileaks.se .)

हमने माना की भूल जाना है आसान नहीं
अब मगर रिश्ता निभाना भी है आसान नहीं

है ये वो मोड़ जहाँ से बदलते हैं रस्ते
अब सफर साथ निभाना भी है आसान नहीं

लिखके वो आखिरी ख़त हमने तुमको ये जाना
अपनी मजबूरी छुपाना भी है आसान नहीं

ताअल्लुक से हैं शर्मिंदा तेरी महफिल में
यूँ ही उठ के जाना भी है आसान नहीं

safiino.n mein liye tuufan jo Gauhar Dhoondhta tha
aise ek shakhs ko main apne andar Dhoondhta tha

(safiina = boat, gauhar = pearl, shakhs = individual)

faqat diiwangi thi ya koi wajah bhi thi
na jane kyun wo sehara mein samandar Dhoondhta tha

(faqat = merely, sehara = desert)

haqiqat jaanta tha duniya ki, Khud mein muqammal tha
apne maquul likhane ko muqaddar Dhoondhta tha

(muqammal = complete, maquul = in accordance,
muqaddar = destiny)

duur tak phaili huyi tanhai hai ye zindagi
jaane kaise raston par laayi hai ye zindagi

raushani me aake ho gayi hai phir se sharm_saar
apne hi gunahon ki parchhaai hai ye zindagi

muddat hui hai zindagi ki maut pe roye huye
yaad bhi nahi kahan dafnai hai ye zindagi

muskura ke dekh liya, dil laga ke dekh liya
aazma ke sabko phir apnai hai ye zindagi

Recently I bought a Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic Smartphone to replace my aging Nokia 6600. 5800 is Nokia's first device based on the S60 5th Edition platform, running Symbian OS v9.4 on a 434MHz ARM11 CPU. Notable features include large(3.2inch 640x360) resistive touchscreen with tactile feedback, HSDPA(3.5G), 802.11b/g WLAN support, GPS (with optional AGPS), accelerometer, stereo FM radio with RDS, 3.2Mpixel camera with Carl Zeiss Optics, blah blah... the list is quite long. For a complete list of specifications see the link to the device specs page, there is no point in copy-pasting the list here.

After unpacking I plugged in an Airtel 2G SIM and the 8GB MicroSD that came with the device. Unfortunately the state owned BSNL is the only mobile service provider in India providing 3G connectivity. Though BSNL has excellent 2G coverage all over the country, their 3G coverage is limited only to few cities. Other operators are yet to receive licenses to roll out 3G networks. So for the time being, I'll have to remain contended with 2G services, which means no high speed data and no video call.

The sound quality of the device didn't really disappoint me, however being an Xpressmusic phone, I had expected better quality headphones. The HS-45 headphone that comes with it, is of average quality. I plugged in my friend's Sennheiser headset and the audio quality simply blew me away. So there is nothing inherently wrong with the device's audio output, it is just that the supplied headphones are of mediocre quality.

The inbuilt browser is nice. Adobe Flash is properly supported (in fact excellent flash support, one can watch YouTube videos smoothly over a WLAN connection).

GPS reception is good, I could get my location even indoors. However the initial lock-in time is variable. Sometimes is takes upto 5mins to lock-in to the satellite signals, whereas at other times it takes less than a minute. However with AGPS enabled, startup becomes lightning quick. AGPS allows the device to download the ephemeral data about the GPS satellites from Nokia's AGPS server through the internet, rather than decoding the same from the GPS signals. AGPS works only if a cellular packet data connection is available (for some strange reason it can't use WLAN).
 The Nokia Maps application is utter crap, atleast for me. It doesn't provide any detail about any location in eastern India. On the other hand Google Maps just rocks. In the satellite view, I could even figure out the room of the building, where I was. Google Maps also provides turn by turn navigation instruction for traveling from point A to point B on the map. With inbuilt Google Latitude, selected friends can see my instant location on the planet at anytime and I can see them on the map as well.

The inbuilt mail client is simple with minimal features but works quite well. I configured it for periodically monitoring my Gmail Inbox and a few other IMAP Folders and alert me whenever a new mail arrives.

The music player app is good enough for playing wma, mp3, aac, aac+, awb and perhaps someother formats as well. However syncing the music folder with my GNU/Linux computer was a bit troublesome. I'll write about this in a subsequent post. Initially I had to use Nokia Music(part of Ovi Suite) on Windows XP to transfer tracks.
The device comes with a subscription to Nokia music store, which allows downloading of first 100 tracks from the site free of cost. Unfortunately all the songs in Nokia's music store incorporates Microsoft's DRM, making them unplayable in my GNU/Linux laptop. Really annoying! I can't freely play songs that I have legally downloaded.

Anyway as a concluding remark, I must add that the phone is quite hackable(though nothing compared to a Freerunner!), in the sense that Nokia freely provides the SDK/S60 emulator as well as the Symbian C++, Open C++ and Java API for accessing the device features. Nokia has also ported Python to the S60 platform and I could easily get a Python shell running on the device. I could access the shell through a serial console emulated  over a bluetooth link. The well documented APIs, helped me to very easily write simple Python scripts to play around with the sensors(accelerometer, rotation, ambient light, proximity and gps positioning) scattered throughout the device. I haven't written any full fledged application, but the potentials are limitless.

baat karne ka hamein hunar nahi aata
bayaan-e-haal-e-dil zubaan par nahi aata

ek umr aashna rahe jis zustazu se hum
uska khayaal dil ko bhoolkar nahi aata

(aashna = in love with, zustazu = wish, actually this word has much more deeper meaning but we dont need them here)

bekhwaab in aankhon mein intzaar-e-sahar hai
is raat ka kyun aakhiri pahar nahi aata

(sahar = morning)

hone na dega sharmsaar mere dil ko wo
jo raah dekhta hoon wo udhar nahi aata

kuchh aur tamanna se hain gulzaar shab-o-roz
tera khayal ab to raat bhar nahi aata

kya khoob ye misaal hai shab-e-firaq ki
falak pe aaj kal suna qamar nahi aata

(falak = sky, qamar = moon)

these two couplets are written by Darshana Joshi

teri zustazuu hai is dil-e-pagal ko lekin
sach hai ye mastana is bekhudi se bahar nahi aata

kehne ko saath magar ek kaarwa hai
par is bheed mai koi kyun apna nazar nahi aata....

chashm-e-tar ki tishnagi se darte hain

kahin jannatjadaan na ho, so bandagi se darte hain
jahaan koi bhi ho hum to jindagi se darte hain

(jannatjadaan = go to heaven after dying, bandagi = devotion, jahaan = world (this one or the other one))

dekhe hain ujaalon ke kai siyaah girebaan
andhere mubaarak ke raushani se darte hain

(siyaah = dark)

bahut jamiin thi jaroorat hamaare khwaab-e-khuld ko
khwaab is shahar me jagah ki kamiin se darte hain

(khuld = heaven)

tamaam umr kashmkash me yun guzaar di humne
kabhii kisi se darte hain kabhii kisi se darte hain

pee lete hain do-chaar jaam bazm-e-yaar mein
maano na maano tum ke maikashi se darte hain

(bazm-e-yar = gathering of friends, maikashi = state of being drunk)

kah de koi to humse sarnavisht hamaari!
kya zindagi hai ye ke ankahi se darte hain

(sarnavisht = destiny)

aatish-e-pinhaa ki to aadat hai pad gayi
khudaya hum to chashm-e-tar ki tishnagi se darte hain

(aatish-e-pinhaa = inside fire, chashm-e-tar = wet eyes, tishnagi = thirst)

hai ishq to ho peshtar sitam ye umr bhar
is karam se nahii "kabhi-kabhi" se darte hain

(peshtar = applied)

the english translations are not exact they are more to the context if you find any anomaly please let me know

but parasti is devotion to a material being। Be it your loved one or the idol of god. Mahshara is an incident of mass casualties.
i am extermely sorry i am completely unable to explain what i've written. very sorry for disappointment.

शौक़-ऐ-बुतपरस्ती के जलवों का शोर है
लगता है आस-पास मह्शरे का दौर है

मूसा में क्या था दम जो कोह-ए-तूर मयस्सर
निकला है जू-ए-शीरी कोहकन का ज़ोर है

क्या काम की कहें यहाँ नफस है जांफरोज़
सुनते हैं तेरी बज्म में जामों का दौर है

हैं याद किसको बुलबुलें वो खंदा-हाए-गुल
हम और, यार और ये मौसम भी और है

हों अपनी जुस्तजू में या बज्म-ए-रकीब में
है दिल जहाँ निहां वो सोज़-ए-इश्क और है

है गुफतगू-ए-चश्म इफ्तिदा-ए-शौक़-ओ-इश्क
खूनबार चश्म-ओ-मिज़गां पुर्सिश का ज़ोर है

आगाज़-ए-इश्क दिल में या तोहमत रही सही
रुख उनका जाने क्यूँ मेरी लहद की ओर है

सहरा-ए-इश्क सफ़र-ए-ख़ाक-ए-मुश्त उम्र भर
इस दिल के रस्म-ओ-राह को आजार और है

है फलक पे खुर्शीद नहीं आतिश-ए-पिन्हाँ
गुजरी शब्-ए-इख़लास तगाफुल की भोर है

अज राह-ए-इख्तियार-ए-कलम लिख रहा हूँ क्या
अशआर-ए-इन्तिखाब-ए-गिरियाँ कोई और है

humne mana ki wo noor-e-mahfil hain
kaun manega ki hum unke qabil hain

wo hain dariya har ek lahar hai gauhar ke khazine
jaan le wo bhi ki siine me humare bhi ek dil hai

unke aashiq ka hai dava nahi hum me junoon-e-ishq
agar humko nahi hai ishq to kya unki mushkil hai

na unko pa sakenge na unhe apna banayenge
hume hai wajd agar bas jhalak haasil hai

gar maan le hum qabil nahi par hausle to hain
gar hausle hai kyun maan le hum nahi qabil hai

jab khwaab me khud ko dekha hai
har baar sisakta dekha hai

meenaar ki haalat kya kahiye
buniyaad khisakta dekha hai

ki aab ki khwahish jab dil ne
suraj ko barasta dekha hai

tumse hi muqammal hai duniya
tumko bhi tarasta dekha hai

surkh lahuu sa dekha hai
jab suraj ko ugta dekha hai

is jahaan pe rota hai wo bhi
ye falak tapakta dekha hai

Hasrato.n se raaston ka waasta na tha
main manzilon ke saamne bhi gumshuda sa tha

rakhta hoon raqabat ka shikva to main magar
ye jaanta hoon unse kabhi aashna na tha

muskurahaton ki wajah dhoondhate rahe
dil ghamzada raha ye jahaa.n khushnuma na tha

gar hota muqammal to kaun baat badi thi
main paak muhabbat ki koi daastan na tha

ghar se tha chala sath hauslon ka kaarvan
tha bas gubaar sath koi kaarvan na tha

mere chaman pe barq fida thi kuch is qadar
gulzar tha chaman to, magar aashiyan na tha

hasraton se raston ka waasta na tha
main manzilon ke samne bhi gumshuda sa tha

As we all move to fourth year of our five year marathon, we can boast of some memorable experiences here. I can aver that there has been some transformation in all of us, good or bad. I have taken up some new hobbies, discovered some ‘hidden talents’ in me and most importantly these three years have changed my personality as a whole. I have become more outgoing, less credulous but a bit pervert. I have started watching a few American serials, playing table tennis, counter strike and cards to name a few changes.

I have watched Friends, Prison Break, How I met your mother, Heroes, Big Bang Theory and a few seasons of Seinfeld and smallvillae. I have written the names in the order of my liking for them. Now,coming to the point, In this blog, I have tried to relate some of my batch mates to any character in the serials resembling them. I found this idea interesting, though not new. All of them may not be corroborated by solid reasons but I'll try my best. Please note that I have missed some names as I could not find their relation to any serial character to my knowledge.

Bradraj ------ Howard (BBT) & Cosmo Kramer(Seinfeld’s neighbor in Seinfeld)

Abhiket ------ Rajesh (BBT), Ted (HMYM) & Ugly naked man (Friends)

ADG ----------- Sheldon (BBT) [No doubt]

Challenger ----------Barney (HMYM)

Sayan ----------- Leonard (BBT)

Nishant ----------- Phoebe (Friends) & Seinfeld (Seinfeld)

Priyadarshi ----------Lincoln Burrows (Prison Break) [Serious and no-nonsense]

Shubham ------------- Barney (HMYM) & Joey (Friends)

Aabhas --------------- Leonard (BBT) & Monica (Friends)

Ebad ---------------------Howard (BBT) & Chandler (Friends)

Asit ------------------Ross (Friends)

Arijit ---------------Hero Nakamura (Heroes)

Kaushik ------------Marshall (HMYM)

Anshul --------------- Ted (HMYM)

Sunil --------------- Joey (Friends)

Rahul -------------- Yaar Rahul ke jaisa ek character toh hona hi chahiye

Raghu -------------- ******** (censored)

Debashis ----------------- Ross (Friends)

Pankaj ----------------------- Joey (Friends)

Dharamraj ----------------- Lilly (HMYM) [Both are interested in kids.]

Manish ---------------------- Cosmo Kramer(Seinfeld’s neighbor in Seinfeld)

P.S.- Give your comments and communicate to me if you think there is any better related character than I have mentioned for anybody.

जहाँ बहार से गुलज़ार है , क्यूँ गुम हो तुम कहो
हर बाद में हैं नगमे तो, क्यूँ चुप हो तुम कहो
तुम कह दो कुछ तो सुकून हो करार हो
चुप रह के सितम करते हो, क्यूँ तुम हो तुम कहो
तुम से किया था इश्क यूँ, भूले थे खुदा को
अब दीन से काफिर हैं तो, क्यूँ बुत हो तुम कहो

I have a 400GB Seagate IDE HDD connected to Mars, our hostel's file-server using an USB enclosure. The USB enclosure is a cheap "Made in China" product. Consequently it has some special "features". One such notable "feature" is that the disk is kept spinning by the controller even if there has been no disk I/O for a long time. I have three other USB disks connected to the same machine, a 1TB Seagate FreeAgent Desk External Drive, a 500GB Maxtor Basics External Drive and a 2.5" 60GB Fujitsu SATA Disk inside a Transcend USB enclosure. All of these spin down themselves if there has been no I/O for sometime. Keeping the hard disk spinning unnecessarily for ever, not only wastes power but also overheats the drive, thereby reducing its life.

I tried noflushd, which is supposed to force idle hard disks to spin down, but found it to be of no help. USB enclosure generally work by performing an SCSI emulation over USB. sdparm is an utility which can be used to send simple SCSI commands. A peep into its manpage revealed that the disk could be ordered to spin down by sudo sdparm -C stop /dev/sdb1 where sdb1 is the required disk (the disk has a single partition, "sdparm -C stop /dev/sdb1" and "sdparm -C stop /dev/sdb" did the same thing here, however if there are multiple partitions, it is more meaningful to specify "/dev/sdb" rather than "/dev/sdb1", since it is the disk that stops spinning).

However I need to do this automatically whenever the disk is idle. First, it is necessary to check whether the disk is active or idle. Info about disk I/O is available from /proc/diskstats.
cat /proc/diskstats | grep sdb1
shows info about sdb1, the output is something line this:
8 17 sdb1 210583 56943 24739612 2328860 11777 24804 292648 69260 0 1209770 2397450

It has several fields after "sdb1", denoting the following:
Field 1 -- No. of reads issued
Field 2 -- No. of reads merged
Field 3 -- No. of sectors read
Field 4 -- No. of milliseconds spent reading
Field 5 -- No. of writes completed
Field 6 -- No. of writes merged
Field 7 -- No. of sectors written
Field 8 -- No. of milliseconds spent writing
Field 9 -- No. of I/Os currently in progress
Field 10 -- No. of milliseconds spent doing I/Os
Field 11 -- weighted No. of milliseconds spent doing I/Os

Field 9 is of importance here, a nonzero value indicates disk activity. Any particular field can be dug out easily using grep and AWK (mawk interpreter is the obvious choice here).
cat /proc/diskstats | grep $DISKNAME | mawk '{ print $(NF-2) }' does the trick.
mawk '{ print i }' prints the ith field.
The variable NF is equal to the number of fields. We are interested in the field 3rd from the end. Hence $(NF-2).
Now this is probabilistic, if there is no I/O in that particular instant
cat /proc/diskstats | grep $DISKNAME | mawk '{ print $(NF-2) }'
will yield 0. To ensure that the disk is really inactive, the check has to be carried out quite a few times.

There is another pitfall, there are 4 USB disks connected to the machine. Which one would be named sdb is not fixed. At every reboot this may change. On the other hand uuid of a disk never changes (unless the partition table is modified). So the name of the disk has to determined from its uuid. grep, AWK, and sed comes to our rescue once again.
DISKNAME=`ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/ | grep "c5df6a02-b7a6-4f39-ad26-7eb915b76709" | mawk '{ print $(NF) }' | sed s_\.\.\/\.\.\/__`
What this essentially does is explained below.
"ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/" gives the following output

sambit@mars:~$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-04-07 14:20 0db6e806-8d4b-4968-8ccc-c00af59bb065 -> ../../sdc1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-04-07 14:20 4294e561-df28-4ddd-a689-0aba31d4d663 -> ../../sda2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-04-07 14:20 4cb989c6-87b7-4179-bb4d-81b2b0193ab2 -> ../../sdd1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-04-07 14:20 4cf2093e-f08c-4127-ae75-fff11edd81ae -> ../../sdd2
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-04-07 14:20 87ba9975-056d-4635-85e4-53f1c76d57fb -> ../../sda3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-04-07 14:20 a74b47fb-a33c-4a5a-ad62-0bc831f6ffda -> ../../sdd3
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-04-07 14:20 af0c007b-a15c-4661-84eb-7dc689dec861 -> ../../sda1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-04-10 22:09 c5df6a02-b7a6-4f39-ad26-7eb915b76709 -> ../../sdb1


ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/ | grep "c5df6a02-b7a6-4f39-ad26-7eb915b76709" narrows it to:
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2009-04-10 22:09 c5df6a02-b7a6-4f39-ad26-7eb915b76709 -> ../../sdb1


ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/ | grep "c5df6a02-b7a6-4f39-ad26-7eb915b76709" | mawk '{ print $(NF) }' prints the last field:
../../sdb1

Finally sed puts some finishing touches, by replacing "../../" in "../../sdb1" with "".

ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/ | grep "c5df6a02-b7a6-4f39-ad26-7eb915b76709" | mawk '{ print $(NF) }' | sed s_\.\.\/\.\.\/__

sdb1

So putting everything together, the script at-last looks something like this:

#################################################################################################################################
#!/bin/bash
DISKNAME=`ls -l /dev/disk/by-uuid/ | grep "c5df6a02-b7a6-4f39-ad26-7eb915b76709" | mawk '{ print $(NF) }' | sed s_\.\.\/\.\.\/__`
let a=0
#check 100 times with 0.1s gaps,
#and go on adding
for i in `seq 0 100`
do
let a=`cat /proc/diskstats | grep $DISKNAME | mawk '{ print $(NF-2) }'`+a
sleep 0.1s
done
echo $a
if [ $a == 0 ]
then
echo "No Activity"
sdparm -C stop /dev/$DISKNAME
else
echo "Disk Active"
fi
exit 0
#################################################################################################################################


I added this to crontab and made it run hourly. The hard disk can rest in peace for sometime in between heavy work now.

It's only 3 months since we have arrived here at Haringhata;a place almost 70 kms from Kolkata,but it seems like ages. Every second is like a light year. We have watched all our collections of series and movies,it all over in just 2 months and now we are left with nothing. There is nothing to do ,nowhere to go. Life is singing a monotonous song. So, I thought why not to pen down the pros and cons of our life here at Haringhata.................

MISS:-
1)The first thing that we miss out are the eye candies...yup...girls......hot,sexy,beautiful....
They where in plenty at Salt Lake.
2)We all are shopping and movie freaks and therefore missing out mall is but obvious.............
3)City Centre: most of ours destination charts on Saturdays and Sundays....The coolest place to hang out
4)The high speed 2mbps internet facility......
5)Our personal rooms at sector-3 Saltlake, where we used to do lots of stuff............ :)
6)Easy accessibility to the most happening places like Tantra,Nicco Park,Eliot Park.......
7)We miss bunking classes,as there is no work out here so we have to attain all the classes...
8)A good hair cutting salon,here it seem like we would be infected by AIDS once we have our hair done..................


HITS:-
1)We have our own gym,although it is deficient but its our own.............
2)The 42” big Sony Bravia LCD TV with a tata sky connection to watch Roadies
and splitsvilla.......MTV Rocks!!!!!
3)Since there is no job,many of us have picked up some musical instruments and started playing them.........
4)The drinks are lot cheaper and there fore much more affordable................ :)
5)Some of the teacher have become very friendly..........
6)Hey!!!! most of us have started playing Counter strike.....it goes on all through the night........

So overall we have sacrificed our “masti” -the essence of a collage life, for our personal academic gains.......Does it worth sacrificing????


P.S: Do point out if I have missed out something................

Making a post after quite a long time. In the meantime a lot of things have changed here. This is my first post after moving to the Haringhata Campus. From the hustle and bustle of Kolkata we were suddenly "teleported" to the calm and serene atmosphere of Haringhata, quite a bit jump it was.
The location didn't quite disappoint me, though many "mall hoppers" and a few "privileged ones" (their homes are in Kolkata) who earlier could slip into the comfort of their homes every weekend easily were unhappy, it has become a bit more difficult for them to do so now. However one thing that I really miss is the 2Mbits connection. There is no broadband connection yet in the hostel, and currently we are trying hard to manage using a 17KBytes Wireless Dialup connection over CDMA. There is little chance of getting any high speed connection in this remote location. The administrative building does have a decent leased line, but it is at a few minutes of walking distance from the hostel making it difficult to land up there late at night.
Apart from this annoyance, life is quite peaceful here. Being located far from the city, the night sky remains glare-free, which provoked a few of my friends to plan to buy a telescope for star-gazing. I am too looking forward for this.

aaj hua kya hum na samajhe kyun tum anjaane lagte ho
kya badla hai hum mein tum mein kyun phir begaane lagate ho
aashna ishq tha humse tumse aur to koi kissa na tha
phir kyun bhooli bisari yadon mein bikhare afsaane lagate ho
gar yaad sametein hum to phir wo yaad mehfilein aati hain
hum tak pahuncha jo khali hurdam tum wo paimane lagate ho
maikhane si is duniya mein hum tarse nazar-e-saaki ko
rindon ki anjaani mehfil mein humsukhan se rindaane lagate ho
duniya me har dil ko hai chahat teri nazar-e-inayat ki
dil halak ko aane lagta hai jab nazarein uthane lagate ho

We had mixed feeling that our campus was shifted to Haringhata before the schedule time. We had to shift in afternoon so a day before I went to Kharagpur and stayed with my friends in IIT Kharagpur. But as always I propose, never disposes, I had forgot my room keys in my home, hence I had to wait for my friends who were coming next day from Jamshedpur. In Kharagpur, with my friends we accessed our life after our school and found that we are living in hell where all doors are closed for us, but still we can hope that someday we may be able to change the society.
We had stayed almost half of our college life in Kolkata. During this period of time, we learnt the art of shopping and some of us have become shopholics. We had 2 malls City Centre and Mani Square nearby us at walking distance where we had our evening adda. This was the place we used to make excuse about bad food to have some healthy food in the restaurants. We had travelled a lot in kolkata may be on shopping spree or birthday bash, or just for fun. we had traveled from from the slums to the malls, eaten from 5 stars to small dhabas, watched movies from Inox, Forum and Adlabs,from luxurious cab to walking along busy streets of Chandni to College streets, exploring new places and sharing our emotions, went from AMRI to local doctors, had fights with auto and taxiwallahs, we laughed at little money saved and showered anger on the person who invented ATMs. Yes, Finally i had got over my moron life.
But what was going to be next we were quite apprehensive about. From January we have to go to live in so called jungle. I were not that unhappy but I had little doubts as during my school life I had been in Narendrapur, which was far away from city hustle and bustle, full of greenery. Yes, I was sorry that we wouldnot have luxury of 2 Mbps net in our hostel, in fact no internet connection. Before leaving for home in winter vacation we bid adieu all of our favorite places but promised to return again .
Trouble started when we got call on taxi routing to hostel that the bus which was scheduled to take us to Haringhata will leave early and it was full. we showered all our anger on school management. This time again they have failed to arrange proper transportation. Anyhow we jam-packed the bus but left over on tata-407. We reached Haringhata in the afternoon. The ride was rough for me, at that moment I thought that I was not going to return Kolkata on frequent basis.(p.s. I returned next Saturday). At this moment I must say I was unhappy with the behaviour of some of my class mates.
Reaching here we were unhappy that 3 persons are living in 1 room and also also room sitting allotments were not according to our choice. But as always we arranged everything. We had no time to roam around. At first view it was as if we were on tour to a village, but our room and hostel was spacous. The facilities on macroscopic level looked wonderful, microscopically had faults like problems with aqua-guards.
The first thing I did was installed my computer and played NFS-most wanted. We had some problems with room arrangements. We hoped next day we will have solve out all problem and had a nice sleep.

my first one after coming to harringhata


kissa shab-e-firaaq ka karte hain kuchh bayaan
humse mila jo ishq to bola wo anmanaa
yun to ye raat tanha hai khoi si yaad me
aur chaandni bhi baadalon me chaand se juda
taare bhi ashk se hain jannat ke mukhade par
jhonkon me badhawaas si hai bah rahi hawa
ye gul bhi yak safed hain jyon bewa ka libaas
chaadar hai sard kohare ki phaili yahan wahan
ye haal aaj dil ka hai ki bas teri yaad hai
jab faasle jo aaj hain wo na the darmiyaan
jab tum the to thi roshni, baad-e-naseem thi
teri hi khushbu jhokon me, har gul me rukh tera
thi chaandni kuchh chaand ke humsaaye ki tarah
shayad the tumhi bewafa ya humse khafa the
jana tha jate humse kyun chhoda ye jahan

I heard lot about the film in media. A. R. Rahman had got his first Golden Globe award was pure joy. Its a movie with lot of Indian emotion and drama. Emotional feelings were aroused to a large extent by acting of small Jamal. The beauty of film was it showed in a nutshell all the social traumas suffered by the slum dwellers. But in greater outlook it has highlighted the troubles of lower income group. Working hard, fighting for recognition and striving chords of their heart.
The movie covering from the Riots ,underworld and modern religion -" working in call centers". All actors have done a marvelous job, except the attitude Anil Kapoor was talking on a reality show was just too low. Editing of the film is excellent. The way story runs is appealing and moving.

A long debate is going on these days someone writing in their blogs that this film is crap and it sends wrong signal to audience about India. As the director and most of the film crew members are Non-Indian so they have ignored Indian sentiments. Perhaps they have forgot that this movie is based on The book "Q& A" written by Vikas Swarup who is an Indian says Salman Hasan. Arindam Chaudhury in his blog has criticized that its like typical Hindi Movie crap and has sent wrong signals and you must not watch this movie. Though he has given such comments after watching the movie himself, so you cannot force any one to not to watch this movie. You have choice in Times rating the have awarded 4,5 out of 5. Now its your choice you want to watch this movie or not.

Coming to music, its sensational. Its already rocking the world chart and pouring awards to much deserved Rahman and Gulzar. My favorite track is "Paper plane" and "Jai Ho". "Jai Ho" seems to be new national anthem arousing sense of enthusiasm. The music deserves laurels.

Western media rates this movie as overrated. It has got more Oscar Nominations than Dark Knight. Certainly I will rate Dark Knight far better to win an Oscar, but its my personal view. The first part where children play a part is new, but young Jamal turns teenage, it seems to be typical Hindi movie except the way it is edited. Yes the movie has used abusive language to large extent to give a real touch.

Overall its a good movie. But the ticket prices have rose sky high after its 10 Oscar nomination is not good.