Monday, June 20, 2005

Movie 'Kaal' Busted!!!

About a few days back I HAD to see a movie called Kaal (is it really a movie??? Well, lets not dive into that fundamental question right now!). I know you might be wondering why the heck is Atul talking about Bollywood movie! I had almost forgotten about it until I read an article in a reputed wildlife magazine: Sanctuary Asia. And thought of sharing this information with you.

I will only reiterate interesting facts I read in the article. It only corroborated my faith that movie is full of utter dinosaur shit (qualifier 'dinosaur' is to emphasize quantity!) Ever since the movie was made, it's in controversy amongst the environmentalist and naturalists and even law has tried to bite it hard. Even before the release of Kaal, Supreme Court as well as Uttaranchal Government sent notices to producers for allegedly violating the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and shooting film in core areas of the jungle. Since trained animals (tigers and pythons) were used in the film, producers were also charged under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. The movie was touted as India's first 'wildlife' movie with a message and guess what... it failed miserably. The characters in the movie themselves portrayed utter lack of knowledge/respect of forest etiquettes. Such an ignorance is common amongst the tourists, but not expected from a supposedly 'tiger expert' Krish. Too much of utter nonsense: They land up in the Park in monsoon when it's closed, they chain smoking on the way through forest, they hunt, wander off alone on foot, bribe their way into restricted core areas and show complete disregard for any rules! No wonder they pay with their lives! But if movie has some message, the why not all of them die??? And why Kali plays the role to avenge, is he the caretaker of the jungle? Why not mother nature? Seeing the murdered bodies, we easily place that it's not the deed of any jungle animal, there has to be damned human factor! What lessons does this apparently wildlife movie implant! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

It is GREATLY regrettable that given the current tiger crisis the film-makers did not choose to get into the VALID problems facing national parks such as poaching and wildlife trade. Potentially, Kaal would have been a really groundbreaking film!
Actually, in a sense it really has been a ground-breaking film: did break the ground (in literal sense) and got buried deep into some dead dinosaur shit!

P.S. All links provided here were not present in the original article, so if you find any incorrect links, feel free to report them to me.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Have you ever felt this?

Oh GOD! Have you ever felt this...
Your goal is right in front of you! 'I can get it, right now!', you tell yourself. Just the thought of it energises you and you start moving with all fervour you have! But the very instant you start, you see your goal moving away from you and in an instant you are enervated. You loose interest in your goal, life, and everything around. And, even in crowed clamouring cubicle, you feel lost! You keep pounding on your keyboard, generating tens and hundreds of lines of code (which actually works) but even that doesn't appease your troubled soul! You browse through your favourite site, thinking to regain composure, but nothing helps :-( :-( :-( Don't know what causes this this irritating ride on a seesaw! I'm sure lot of you out there must have gone through this... (if not, I wish you don't have to go through this mess)
What do you do to get out of such blues? What causes it???

P.S. No, this is *not* love, please, I can recognize when that happens. I'm dead serious here. And no, I haven't been working hard as hell right now. Oh! Is that the solution: Work hard as hell and burn away all the !@#$ing blues! Man, I don't know :-(
-- re-edit 1--
Prasanna says:
If things are going wrong in proffessional life, it matters most. Especially when its setback to you goals, ambitions. Think like, you failed to anticipate that things may take such a unwanted turn...
Well, I fear you are right to an extent. This is definitely one of the factors.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Coming soon

Upcoming posts...
I don't have time right away... but am EAGERLY looking ahead for a few posts as soon as I have some time:
1. Review on Detective by Authur Hailey
2. Review on Godfather by Mario Puzo
3. Review Deception Point by Dan Brown
4. Movie 'Kaal' busted!
5. Movie Review Mr. and Mrs. Smith

If you are too curious, go for 1, 2 and 3. Don't EVER go for 4. And 5. is average.

Friday, June 10, 2005

If Software Developers built houses

If you, like me, believe that Software Engg. is one of the MOST undisciplined streams/industries/sciences, then this article is worth reading: A house designed by bad software developers It is interesting so see how much of a crime some applications perpetrate isn't obvious until you apply THE SAME Logic to everyday things, like the design of a house. I especially love the entrance part! I bet it's worth reading the article!!!
BTW, if you read IEEE's Computer, it hosted an article titled 'A Tale of Three Disciplines' comparing Circuit Engineering., Genetic
Engineering, and Software Engineering!
(P.S. mail me off the post if you are interested in the article)