Idle musings

   My mother, her sister, her brother, my wife and I watched "Dangal" at Inox, Garuda Swagath mall on 28-Dec-2016. The Hindi movie is based on the lives of the Commonwealth Games 2010 55kg category wrestling gold medal winner Geeta Phogat, her sister Babita Phogat and their father Mahavir Singh Phogat. This blog post is my review of the movie.     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------     NOTE : Please avoid reading further, if you want to see the movie . The summary of this blog post is that the movie is worth watching for the performances of its lead actors and to laud the determination of one man to challenge the norms of society in making his daughters wrestling champions. If you wish to read on, please note that this blog contains opinions and descriptions, which may act as spoilers .     ------------------------------------------------------------------------------     We reached the mall at around 4:45 p.m., well in time for th

From 10-Sep-2016 to 23-Sep-2016, I visited Cleveland, Ohio, America on work for two weeks. This blog post contains some memories and experiences from the trip, most of it personal and not work related. NOTE: As usual, I have avoided names as much as possible in this blog post. The links provide context and background information and need to be visited, in my opinion. My colleague and friend in Bengaluru who has made several visits to Cleveland prepared me well. To begin with, he had told me about the pre-clearance counters in the Abu Dhabi airport and warned me that Chicago airport can be confusing while returning. His advice helped me in both Abu Dhabi and Chicago. While returning, I did not see signage towards the international departure terminal in Chicago. Since my friend had warned me about this, I asked the airport staff for directions, who guided me to take the train. Secondly, I got to know my hotel better thanks to my friend: there was a small kitchenette and a refrigerator

On 21-Aug-2016, my wife and I watched the Hindi movie Nil Battey Sannata. This blog post is my review of the movie. The movie has a simple story: a maid (or "bai", in Mumbai lexicon) wants her daughter to take studies and school seriously. The bai Deepa Sahai dotes on her daughter Apeksha, fondly called Apu. Deepa works at a doctor's house where her employers are supportive of her. The doctor's wife is called "didi", by Deepa, the term  of respect used commonly by maids to address their employers. Deepa bares her heart to didi about her worry regarding Apu's maths knowledge and her general lack of interest in studies. It is now that the women realise that both of them are also Nil Battey Sannata (loosely: good for nothings, according to a search on the Web) in maths, just like Apu ! Didi now suggests a radical idea: Deepa herself could enroll into tenth standard ! In this way, she would achieve two objectives: complete her disrupted educat

    Last month, I visited Hyderabad. I stayed overnight in Secunderabad. My impressions of the city and a memorable visit to the Salar Jung museum are described below. Since today is Independence Day, writing about the history and culture associated with the museum is particularly apt, I feel !     I landed in Hyderabad at 9:20 a.m. The Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Shamshabad is about 38 k.m. away from the hotel I stayed, which was in Secunderabad. My first thought was that just like Bengaluru, the approach to the airport looks classy compared to the rest of the city ! The taxi driver took the P. V. Narasimha Rao expressway. In Bengaluru, the Hosur Road expressway is 10 k.m. long, which has made reaching Electronic City a lot simpler. The Narasimha Rao expressway is 11.6 k.m. long according to http://www.businessinsider.in/be-it-intracity-orinter-city-these-5-expressways-make-travelling-a-breeze/PV-Narasimha-Rao-Elevated-Expressway-Hyderabad-Andhra-Pradesh/slideshow/30984915.

An unprecedented event occurred on the evening of 03-Jul-2016. Over a period of 3 months or so, my wife and I watched 3 Kannada movies consecutively. I am primarily a Hindi and English movie fan. It is a landmark that I have watched 3 Kannada movies continuously. It is usually my wife's responsibility to recommend Kannada movies worth watching. The fact that I have seen 3 Kannada movies consecutively shows either: a.) There is a lack of good Hindi movies that caught my attention. or b.) There is a relative improvement in the quality of Kannada movies or c.) I have simply become more interested in Kannada movies. The pragmatic in me says it is c.) that is more likely. The Kannada fan in me says that it is b.) ;-) In reality, I suppose it is a combination of both a.) and b.) In this period we watched "Kirigoorina gayyaligalu" (abbreviated in this blog post as Kg) , "Godhi banna saadhaarana mykattu" (represented as GBSM henceforth) and "U-Turn" in that o

My wife and I took a couple of days off to visit Yercaud. This blog post contains my impressions of the trip. Note: I have avoided mentioning names of people. The photos in this blog post do not contain people. Some friends and relatives would have received a link to an album with more photos. Please email me if you would like to view it as well. Since I don't like driving cars we had booked buses to and from Salem. Our bus was at 6:30 a.m. We reached the pick-up point ahead of time. The man in the counter of the private bus company whose tickets we had booked said that the bus would come in a few minutes. So we waited .. and waited! When there was no sign of the bus even at 7 a.m., I gave him a piece of my mind. He made some calls and said that the bus was on its way. It appeared that this bus had to come from the farthest corner of Bengaluru! I threatened to complain which resulted in more calls being made. Finally, more than an hour later than planned, we were off. I counted t