Kishor Krishnamoorthi’s WebsiteKishor a.k.a Mjuboy’s Blog

“Lets dance ah?”, asked Ranjith as we stood on the dance floor of the Emerald Room.Without hesitation, I eagerly shouted over the din of the music “Okay mama!”.

And thus began our tirade into 2010, a fresh decade promising new opportunities to explore, new lessons to learn, new girls to befriend and old friends to reminisce with.

Our plans for New Year’s Eve were uncertain until a few hours before the start of the night. Having managed to get our hands on passes for Taj Krishna, a classy 5* hotel in the city, the night began with our sober and impatient selves waiting in line for entry into the nightclub. After what seemed like eternity, we were inside. And with wristbands for unlimited drinks, it was the beginning of a night whose madness knew no bounds.

We finished the first few drinks rather quickly in our eagerness to start partying and as the alcohol kicked in, everyone’s face was plastered with broad grins. Time flew, drinks flowed, glasses became empty and soon the countdown to 2010 began. As the clock struck 12, a roar could be heard from the dance floor as the DJ wished everyone a happy new year.

The situation in our group was a bit different to the crowd. Kalyan was laughing uncontrollably. Naveen was hugging a random white man and refused to let go of him. Upendra was doing his traditional dance and smiling away to glory. Vivek was the happiest man around since it was his birthday as well. Ranjith was ordering more drinks. Nakul was in the bathroom. Tharun was nowhere to be seen. Rama was cursing the world and her ancestors loudly. But this was only the beginning.

It didnt take long for us to get bored of Ahala (the first nightclub) so we moved to the adjacent nightclub (Emerald Room) which was bigger but also very crowded. We came across some “interesting sights” as we walked around the place and bumped into a lot of known faces, all of whom we hugged and wished happy new year.

By around 2:30AM, a select group of us were still ready to party more but a few others of our group had passed out completely. So after much deliberation, the decision was made to drive them to our friend’s house which was base camp for the night. Unfortunately, his house was on the 4th floor and the building didnt have a lift, which meant we had to lift three drunken bodies up 4 flights of stairs. Fun times.

And then came the hunger. The crazy yearning for food. So six of got into 2 cars and drove to Y2K, the only restaurant which would be open at 3 in the morning and got ourselves some Biryani, the staple food of Hyderabadis. And now that the hunger was satisfied, the thirst for thrill was next. One of our designated driver’s was convieniently sleepy, I took up the challenge of driving one car. And we were off to Novotel which was on the other end of the city, and we didnt we even know why we were going there. We sat by the pool at Novotel for 15 minutes before getting bored and back to base camp it was. It was nearly 6 in the morning and as much as we wanted to stay awake for the breakfast in Taj Krishna at 7, our bodies got the better of us and we fell asleep in the cars itself. Another glorious night of the most random things had come to an end.

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I’m back in Hyderabad for Christmas! And boy, does it feel good to be back!

The trip back home had no lack of exciting events, with me picking up a Canon 5D Mk II on loan from Canon for 3 weeks literally a few hours before I got my plane back. After handling the glorious device that it is, my first plane journey was an hour late, with the plane being de-iced as I sat inside and watched the process from my window. At this point, I was quite confident that I would miss my connecting flight to Hyderabad from Frankfurt but by some random grace of god, I managed to catch the plane in the nick of time and was the last passenger to board the plane.

This plane journey was quite nice, and possibly one of the most pleasant ones I’ve had in a while, with no crying babies, good food, and plenty of sleep. Infact, it almost seemed too good to be true and I was proven right when my checked-in luggage didnt turn up. I spent a couple of hours at the airport, filling out forms and doing other necessary beaurcratic procedures before finally getting back home at 4 in the morning instead of 1, as I had originally planned.

To add to the woes, there has been a ‘bandh‘ (citywide strike) for a couple of days and this has resulted in me not being able to have my traditional Paradise Biryani meal with Fatik. While this caused me immense frustration with the local politics, it has also provided me with a lot of entertainment, watching local MLAs getting beaten up by students and the likes and a direct insight to the politics at the world’s largest democracy.

But all that bad news aside, they’ve found my bag and its being flown to India as I type this and should hopefully be with me tomorrow evening! I’ve also enjoyed using the 5D Mk II a lot, and it is truly a revolutionary camera. I havent got much planned for the next couple of weeks which is fantastic since I can continue to get 14 hours of sleep everyday…

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Yesterday was the Indian Republic Day, Chinese New Year and Australia Day! And I hope all of you had a good day regardless of what occasion you were celebrating. I had a great day myself, the weather was beautiful and everyone was out on campus, getting some sunlight on their backs.

We had lots of celebrations for Chinese New Year, which is the year of the Ox for those who dont know. We had the Mad for Real artists come over and have a Ketchup and Soy Sauce fight in a huge glass cubicle. It was well amusing and its safe to say that everyone enjoyed it. There was a dragon performance as well, which was very well done and we had some Tai Chi displays too. It was a nice way to kick off the Chinese New Year and with the great weather, everybody was in on the fun. The excitement flowed late into the night with a talent competition which was still interesting, if not as much as the above mentioned ones.

We didnt have much of a celebration for Republic Day, just trying to educate the west on the importance of the Indian Republic Day. Australia Day had its own getting drunk session at a Night Club.

So things have been progressing great so far, I am definitely loving this term much more  than the previous one. I’ve learned not to get easily worked up over things and that the Hyderabadi attitude to things is the best for beating stress.

Technology has got a bit over-the-top for me. I’ve minimized my use of the PC simply because I dont need to use it all the time. Its nice to go and see the world out there for yourself rather than see it through a 19″ Widescreen. So all of those reading this, take my advice and go outside. A computer is only a means to an end, it should only aid your real life, not replace it altogether.

Currently listening to – Street of Dreams – Guns’N'Roses

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Even though I suggested in my previous post that I was going insane, I am pleased to inform you that I’ve come back to the world of sanity after a brief tryst with the dark side.

Christmas Dinners have started and like last year, the first Christmas dinner of this year was at the Gliding Club and it was a wonderful dinner indeed. The food was delicious as always, and I was quite stuffed by the end of the lovely three course meal. We did go Gliding all morning and although it was quite cold, the visibility was great and we did some really good flights. It was nice to see all the familiar faces again and as with tradition, we retired to the bar at the end of day and spent a good amount of time talking about things all around the world while we were merrily drunk. We spent the night there and I must say that I had one of the most well rested sleep in a long time. It was a great day out and did a good job to kick me out of the boring routine and show me that there is another exciting world there after all. We came back to campus next day morning, back to the usual life, back to a 2500 word essay due today morning which I successfully finished by midnight.

We’ve got more dinners, parties and socials coming up this week, all of which I’m looking forward to. It should be a good celebration before going back home for winter.

Amazon recently launched their DRM-Free MP3 Downloads for the United Kingdom which I totally approve of. Its a great alternative to iTunes and will also help in the fight against piracy. I was sorely tempted to buy some music just to try it out but financial restraints held me back. I did end up buying an Audio CD which was not available in the Downloads section and it was quite a bargain as well so there was no reason not to get it.

The CD was something I had been wanting to get for a long time now, it was ‘Pride: The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra play U2‘ and it came in the mail a couple of days ago. It is a beautiful mix of both of my favourite genres of music, classical and U2. (Yes, U2 is a genre for me!) I’ve been listening to it for most of yesterday and today and I cannot get enough of it.

I’ve also realized that I love getting handwritten letters, it has a certain personal touch and charm to it that technology can never replicate. I received one from my father last week and it felt really good to read that familiar handwriting of his. Another letter was surprisingly from the seller for the CD from Amazon who was kind enough to include a personal message along with the receipt. I’ve made sure that I left a 5/5 seller rating for him.

I got my hands on Lightroom 2.1 last week. It does have some nice features but since I havent done serious editing with it yet, I still need to get used to it. It also seems to run faster but then again, I think thats because I ran CCleaner which is pretty darn amazing software to get rid of all unnecessary things from your PC. It saved me 10Gig I dont know from where, but it did.

This week’s schedule looks a lot more relaxed than the past weeks which is a nice transition before I go home and do absolutely nothing for 3 weeks.

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I miss celebrating Diwali at home.

I miss the sound of the firecrackers, the trays of sweets, the horde of guests, the great shows on TV and spending quality time with my family at home.

Obviously, we have none of these here in England, but what we did have was a Diwali Party organized by the Asian Society at Essex. The party apparently had fireworks which I could hear from my room but could not watch because of the damned rains just before it. Nevertheless, it was still a decent night out.

One thing the party definitely did, was to bring out the huge Indian population at Essex whom I’d never seen before. It brought out all these people who had been previously hiding in all the nooks and crannies of Essex. It was a bit daunting at first, to be faced by this bunch of Indians I’d never seen before but existed in the same square mile as me. It eventually got better and they almost made me feel like I was at home. I cant say that they were all nice people, some of them were visibly dodgy characters but a good quantity of them seemed like decent chaps.

For me, the night was basically an alcohol fuelled dance session. I say ‘alcohol fuelled’ because if I’m not slightly intoxicated, I feel that dancing is a waste of time, energy, and effort. Of course, after a couple of drinks, you wave your arm and leg randomly and people think you’re dancing and you believe you are dancing as well and think you’re having a good time. But once the effects of alcohol wear off, you look around yourself and wonder what the hell everyone else is doing. Seriously, without the drinks and the music, everyone would look like a very strange crowd of people.

I also use the term ‘alcohol fuelled’ very lightly because I prefer not to get drunk but drink just enough to make me slightly unaware of the stupid dance moves that I do. However, others think different, as we saw with some people who were just too drunk to be healthy and did not know their limits. What a bunch of idiots, I mean, each to their own.

The music was decent with few occasional good Hindi tunes, however the DJ was bad, he kept repeating songs, played some songs way too long and Windows Media Player could’ve done a better cross fade than him. I’m not complaining too much though, it could’ve been a worse night.

As for the rest of the day, I didnt have any lectures but that didnt mean I could sit at home, I had to go and take care of things regarding the massive event we have planned for the US Elections Results Night. If you are on Facebook, you can view the event here otherwise, you can have a gander at the poster I made for it.

As you can see in the poster, it’ll go on all through the night, and will be at Top Bar (University of Essex) with free entry for everyone so feel free to drop anytime during the night to give everyone some company and watch the results on the big screen.

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The folks over at Smashing Magazine were kind enough to feature 3 of my wallpapers for their September Calender. Check them out here, and there are about 25 more really awesome wallpapers there. Thanks to Vitaly and Sven!

The Winning Shot.

And this photo of mine won the 2nd place in the August Hyderabad Photography Club (HPC) Contest. The theme was ‘Hyderabad at Night’ and I got 13 stars narrowly beating the 3rd place one which got 12 stars. Thanks to everyone who voted for me.

And Google has announced their new Open Source browser ‘Chrome’ which is supposed to improve stability and security and make it easier for the simple user. Lets how things unravel tomorrow.

I watched ‘Daniel Defoe’ Robinson Crusoe‘ today which is admittedly, overall a pretty average movie. What I really liked about the movie though is the way the complex relationship between Robin and Friday is portrayed. Some scenes are very heart rendering, especially the final scene when Robin holds Friday’s dying body in his arms and screams at the top of his voice. Good performance by Pierce Brosnan.

Today is also the first day of fasting of the holy month of Ramzan for Muslims. And with Ramzan comes the Hyderabadi Delicacy, Haleem which I happily gorged on.

And come nightfall, I spotted some beautiful stars in the clear sky tonight and hI eaded to the terrace with my trusty tripod. I got some decent shots of the stars and then I attempted to take some Star Trails. Note the word attempted because I hardly got anything worthwhile. I knew it was possible since I got a few potential shots but my China made remote had to mess around at that time thus making me annoyed and also lost the opportunity to capture more the shots. Maybe next time…

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61 Years.

India is getting old. Almost as old my grandmother infact, who has been 65 for the past 10 years.

I wont lie and say they’ve been a fabulous 61 years filled with fame and fortune because they havent. India has had its share of ups and downs, booms and recessions and here we are today, with an inflation rate of 12.44% and more than a billion similing citizens.

Some citizens are smiling much more than the others, and possibly grinning broadly. And this would obviously include the newest citizen to make India proud, Abhinav Bindra who won India a Gold Medal at the Beijing Olympics. And according to news sources, it is India’s first individual Gold Medal since forever. Thats is quite surprising news and also an impressive feat and for this very feat, the government has kindly volunetereed to give him 1.82 Crore Rupees as a prize along with a lifetime of free travel in 2 Tier A/C Trains. Well, thats good for the reputation of the country and definitely good for him, he’s done his part for the country and now his name will go down in history.

As for the rest 999 Million people like me who still have to do our part for country, unless we become Politicians, hope is quite bleak to affect and inspire the country as much as Bindra has. However, the Indian football did their part as well by winning the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup against Tajikistan with a final score of 4-1. Well done to them, I did watch the match live and cheered for my country with all my heart.

Over the course of the 18 years of my life, I have read about many people who seemed determined to “change India” and “modernize it” only to be eventually faced with failure and blame the country for refusing to change. You cannot simply change a country in the blink of an eye, it takes lot of time, effort and evolution to take place. You can contribute to this process and maybe increase its speed by a tiny margin but thats about as much as the average man can do.

But why do you want to change the country? Is it to make it like UK or US or one of these apparently developed western countries? After having spent approximately a year in England, I have to conclude that even though life there is good and decent, its nothing quite as nice as India with the genuinely friendly people and the small things here which make life worth living. I believe that, with change, we may lose a part of these things that make India the great place that it is. I also believe that change is inevitable and it may be for the better or the worse and that can only be proven with time. Change cannot be forced, it must take its natural course and its own time to be efficient. People will grow up, and slowly, the entire nation will move onto a new path, in a different way and everyone will be happy with the direction of movement. And thats when the change will be deemed to be successful.

I remember my Politics lecturer at university saying that how he has no idea how democracy successfully runs in India because it defies every single defined condition necessary for a democracy and yet manages to maintain the world’s largest democracy. But he also mentioned some small points here and there and even though they seemed to be insignificant, they are the things that keep the country running. And those small things are some of the reasons why I love my country.

Nothing in the world except for death can seperate me permanently from my country, my motherland, my India. Mera Bharat Mahaan.

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The Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was one of the most impressive ceremonies that I’ve ever witnessed in my life. Everything about it was simply spectacular and I didnt even feel the 2 hours fly while watching it. Infact, it was so amazing that the former Mayor of London, Mr.Ken Livingston who was at Beijing went as far to say that it was “the greatest show ever put on in the history of mankind”. I wont disagree with him and you probably wont if you watched the ceremony. I sincerely hope that you did watch the ceremony and if you didnt, shame on you, because even my driver watched it. Anyways, dont lose hope, you can see the photographs from the ceremony here.

The Ceremony kicked off at 8:00 PM on the 8th of August 2008 at the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing with around 2,000 drummers playing their ‘Fou’ drums in Rhythm. I thought this was highly impressive and would’ve been content with just the drumming but there were still scores of more amazing displays to come. The huge LED Paper Scroll was perhaps one of the most beautiful and accurate display that anyone has ever seen. Another part, which was my personal favourite, was the movable blocks which moved in tune to each other and created some pretty darn spectacular movements. All through this display, I thought that the blocks were controlled by machines but at the end, the blocks opened up to reveal hundreds of grinning men waving to the crowd. I could go on and on about magnificent performances but am going to stop here since you can read about that at hundreds of other blogs. The pyrotechnics were very grand and striking and included some unique ones like smiley faces. You can see the photographs of the fireworks here.

Copyright of Clive Rose/Getty Images

Credit must be given to the Chinese Filmmaker Zhang Yimou who directed the entire show and all the participants who had practiced for over a thousand days. The management of the entire ceremony must also be applauded for pulling off the entire ceremony without any visible problems whatsoever. Also, to ensure that the ceremony would not be ruined by rain, extensive measures were taken to avoid any remote chance of a downpour. You can view a visual representation of these measures here.

The show was apparently attended by over 100 heads of state, the most ever, including our very own Sonia Gandhi, who I spotted smiling and waving, when the Indian team marched into the stadium. I felt a sense of pride and patriotism when the Indian marched across the stadium proudly waving the Indian flag and I truly wished that they would win some medals this year. The sight of 10,500 participants marching in the opening ceremony was formidable and comprised of countries that I had never heard of before.

What this means for the future of China

As can be expected from a show of such a large scale, it would brought in a humongous amount of tourists to the country. And when the number of people in the country increases, all the services catering to them would have to be multiplied as well. This would’ve meant more hotels, more restaurants, more taxis, more shops, and more money circulating in the economy. This itself would have been a good boost to the economy which will be kept busy over the next 2 weeks to cater to the various needs of the visitors.

The reputation of China in the public eye will also be heightened now that we have seen their might and what they are capable of. This is probably the best PR any country could ever get since it applies universally to all realms of life. People wont think too much before buying Chinese products, Chinese businessmen will find it easier to makes sales to other countries, and overall, Chinese people will be respected more in the international community. Minor mistakes made by China will be forgiven thanks to those 2 powerful hours of the opening ceremony which was watched by 4 Billion people across the world.

I imagine the Chinese leaders would be sitting together right now and congratulating each other on the awesome job they did to show the rest of the world what they can do and that they can make a difference in the world.

What this means for the future of England

Just like the Chinese leaders would be discussing the success of the opening ceremony, I presume the heads of England would be trying to come up with ideas for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics which are to be held in London.

The Chinese have definitely set a striking impression on the minds of everyone and London will have to do an exquisite job to trump Beijing. And even if they dont plan to outshine the Chinese, they will still have to do a pretty good job just because everyone will be expecting something big after having seen this.

And doing something better is going to require a large amount of manpower, something which is not cheap in a developed country like England. People will have to dragged out from regular jobs to contribute to the Olympics, and many people wont appreciate that. And since England is a democracy, people will have the freedom to do as they please unlike communist China where people would either have the choice to participate in the Olympics or spend the rest of their life in jail.

A considerable amount of resources will have to be invested in R&D to come up with some new technology which the world has never seen before. Money will also have to be spent in acquiring manpower and that will take a big chunk out of the entire budget. I also hope that they manage to sort our all their transportation problems by 2012. Heathrow’s Terminal 5 may not even come close to the size and capacity of Beijing Airport’s Terminal 3 but it does have enough problems to cause headaches to 28,000 passengers whose baggage went missing during its month of operation.

Ideally, all the problems currently existing will be eventually dealt with and by 2012, there should be a grand perfomance awaiting us, or atleast I hope so.

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Last week has been quite hectic with essays to give in, last minute paper work to be done, etc, before leaving for the Easter break. We have one solid month of vacation which is pretty good although can also be a reason for boredom. I, however, will most probably manage to rid the boredom since I will travelling to different places around the United Kingdom over the next 2-3 weeks.

I had to write and submit a 2500 word essay for Politics which was okay. I got the results for my Economic Analysis test and Intro to Economics assignment results and I got 99 and 72 respectively. I had to attend several society annual general meetings since it was the end of term. I was elected to the position of Vice President for the Politics Society for next year.

After a bit of a hassle, I received my printer yesterday. It is a Canon Selpy CP 330 and is truly portable in the way that it has a battery and can be used to print directly from the camera wherever you are. Its quite compact and is pretty fast too. It is a Dye Sub printer and uses a thermal technology to print instead of inks which is what makes it portable. It can print upto 4*6 which I think is enough for quick prints. The print quality is excellent too, with vivid colors and sharpness.  And on a side note, I have to thank ebuyer.com for their excellent service since they collected the first faulty printer I received and sent me a new one the next day.

I watched a couple of movies, ‘The Fifth Element‘ and ‘A Scanner Darkly‘ and both have their own positive and negative points. ‘The Fifth Element‘ had a pretty crazy storyline but I still liked it a lot, it had a good blend of Sci fi and comedy which is something you dont see often. And with Bruce Willis added to that, there is now way it can go wrong. ‘A Scanner Darkly‘ had some really amazing visuals, great work by the animators. They had to edit each frame of the movie individually and it must have take a lot of effort and dedication to do it. I cant say I liked the story too much though, it was okay, but a bit too weird for my liking. ‘The Fifth Element‘ is a must watch for any Bruce Willis or Sci Fi fan while people who like movies with a new feel will enjoy ‘A Scanner Darkly‘.

University life has been good the past term and probably better than the first term since I’d met so many more people and was involved in several activities. I’m looking forward to the vacation, one, for the break (deserved or not) and two, for the vast photographic opportunities.

Have a Good Friday and Great Easter!

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Today is the 58th Republic Day, and we supposedly had French President Nicolas Sarkozy as our guest of honour in Delhi. So, anyways, Happy Republic Day to everyone. I played Portal all night yesterday along with the help of a couple of friends. It was a lot of fun and is definitely a great game. It requires you to use your brain extensively which made it even more exciting. We finished the game after playing for about 4 hours, taking turns for certain parts. It was quite a short game but highly innovative. The game is basically about several puzzles which can be solved using your Portal gun. You progress to the next room after finishing one puzzle. Each puzzle is tougher than the previous one and slowly introduces new elements into the game. At the beginning of the game, you can only shoot blue portals but after a certain level, you can shoot both blue and orange portals. For those who are still confused about the whole concept of Portals, let me explain. You can shoot Portals with your gun and the blue one is connected to the orange one. If you walk through the blue one, you’ll come out of the orange one, which, if used properly, can lead to some very complex and interesting situations. For example, you can shoot a blue one next to you and an orange one at a higher place which you cannot reach by jumping. When you walk through the blue portal next to you, you will come out at the orange one above. If you are still confused, this video should be very helpful, it is the trailer for the game.

The game has a lot of dark and subtle humour which has become very popular all across the gaming society. The final credits song after the game is really hilarious and I feel that everyone should watch it. If you havent played the game, but plan to, then you might not want to watch it since it has some spoilers but if you dont plan to play it, then you must watch this video. I’ve posted it below. And click here to view the lyrics to the song.

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