First of all… wishing everyone a very Happy New Year.. leave all the sadness, disappointment on the shore of 2008.. welcome 2009 with a smile.. a fresh new morning.. a new start…

I am sure, the coming year will bring in lot of joy, happiness, dreams and of course wealth too

So, how was 2008 for me? Well.. it was a mixed bag.. but in the end.. I am happy with how it went..

I had planned to buy a new car somewhere in 2008 but could not buy as there were other priorities on the head… so, last year’s resolution is going to continue this year.. let’s see if I am able to buy one or not.. I am sure, I should be able to get one though..

So, what are the things happened in 2008? Let’s take a look..

January 2008 - 19th Jan 2008 – I got married to my girlfriend Megha (view pics here)

March 2008 wasn’t so good… had kind of tough time..

April 2008, Mahabaleshwar helped me to kick off all my frustrations

May 2008 – Got a great surprise (iPod Touch) from Google, some difficult time with friends (this one kept me disturbed for quite sometime), accounting reports at the end of the month left some smiles on my face…

June 2008 – Had one of the best holidays, in Goa with close friends.. (We all still miss those days… pure fun..)

July 2008 – Some difficult times with finding new guys… started using Twitter

August 2008 – Bought my favorite phone, iPhone (I was waiting for it for quite sometime)

September 2008 – The bad phase for the business resumes…

October 2008 – 13th October 2008, turned a year older, my company too turned a year older…

November 2008 – Work woes slowly come to an end, 26th November 2008 – Terror attacks in Mumbai, left me shattered.. infact, I am still not fully recovered from it.. the images are still fresh…

December 2008 – Did not have any personal posts but many things happened around… on the work front.. the bad phase resumed for sometime… but managed to balance out the things.. hoping things will be pretty smooth by February..  Apart from this.. managed to give kind of surprise to Megha on her birthday.. 18th December… 25th December… reminded me about the same day in 2005

This is how the year ended… reviewed around 50 odd movies, around 30 personal posts, around 30 odd posts for my India & these politicians and handful of technology related posts..

So, what I learnt from 2008….

1. Learnt how to know people using those magnified glasses…
2. Learnt to run the business well.. much better than last year…
3. Learnt some time management skills… still not perfect though… and still kind of bad at it
4. Learnt to be patient… clam… and handle the situations tactfully

The sweet and bitter experiences of life taught me many things and I am sure, the journey will always continue.. I will always be learning… one should never stop learning new things… once we stop… the meaning of the life ends…

Next year… as mentioned earlier…. planning to get a new car… apart from that… new office… few more employees… a Macbook… damn.. the list never ends… but on the top.. I want to see my business grow… I will make it possible… I am sure about it…

Like always.. need your wishes… and yes.. always keep faith in God.. always keep faith in yourself… no need to visit any temple… God is within you… just keep the faith and move on.. trust me.. things will be always like you wanted…

So ending the long post.. with new year wishes… Wish you all a very Happy New Year again…

Life is good…

Deep

The movie isn’t out in India yet… it is expected to release on Jan 23rd… but it is already out on the net… I could not hold myself, so I just got a copy and watched it…

I must say… it is something not to be missed… I am definitely gonna watch it again once it’s out in India…

A very different story… it basically shows how a guy raised in slums wins 2 crores.. but at the same time.. the importance is not given to money.. but it is to the reason why he decided to play and in the end… he gets what he wanted… nah.. it wasn’t about the money

Amazing stuff.. great acting by everyone.. must watch.. it is definitely worth 4 stars out of 5.. Rating:

Whenever any Amir Khan movie is up for release, there is lot of hype created around… smart marketing tactics.. be it those SMS forwards or the haircut… no one can beat him here… so.. obviously, there are going to be lot of expectations too from him… he has already started raising the bar after Rang De Basanti and Taare Zameen Par.. so what about this movie? Well… just scroll bit down for that… hehe

The plot of the movie is very simple… a man who has short term memory loss problem, tries to find murderer of his girlfriend..  he does not remember anything, he loses his memory almost in every 15 minutes.. he makes note of everything, takes pictures of the places and persons, so he does not forget them..

The movie is basically Hindi version of Tamil movie with the same name.. and.. Tamil movie was copied from the English movie Memento. So, in short.. the story isn’t original but the way these guys have carried out the movie, is worth the claps..

Aamir Khan was just superb.. his role reminded me of Hulk.. the anger.. amazing stuff.. no one can beat this actor… superb, simply superb..

But it does not mean that the movie too was superb.. actually the story was so strong that they could have made it one of the best movies of Hindi Cinema but few things messed up the party… the police was almost missing in the movie.. also many scenes in the movie raised the questions.. specially the ones belonging to Jia Khan.

So, without confusing much… cutting everything in few words.. the movie was perfectly fine leaving few things apart (mentioned above), Amir Khan was superb.. award winning performance.. Asin did not have much to do but she was good at whatever she did… (though there was some “so sweet” and “so cute” kind of crap in the beginning of the movie)… Jia Khan was bit irritating.. but may be that’s how she acts.. nothing great…rest of the actors did their job nicely…

The music was top notch.. no one can beat A R Rahman… Cinematography was too good, specially the songs.. nice stuff.. Direction too was top notch but execution was kind of weak in some areas…

So, overall… I would rate this movie Rating: , definitely worth watching.. despite of the flaws… strong story, powerful acting and the music will hold everyone to their seats…

On the box office front.. it should do very good business…

Note: Oh yes.. the movie is pretty much depressing… very depressing… so don’t expect any comedy or happy go lucky stuff from it…

Aaah, this is gonna be a quick post… I am running out of time but this is something which was in my mind for quite sometime and finally… these chain mails about “no vote” made me write this little piece of thought… and Yea.. this post by one of my Twitter friends Danish Khan also helped me to write about it..

Okay… so, what is this no vote thing… well, according to section 49-O  in our constitution, every voter has right to register a null vote or “no vote”. It means, you have registered in the election process but you haven’t voted for anything… logically it means, there is no party worth your vote…

Now, according to this chain mail, it is mentioned that is there are 100 no votes against 100 genuine votes, the party with that votes will be barred from the election… and there will be re-polling. Which is NOT TRUE. There is nothing like that, according to the law, when a note vote is registered, it will be REJECTED…

Yes, some of the sites are saying that it will be counted as negative vote but I am not sure about this.. I just went through “Handbook for Counting Agents” (PDF file) on Election Commission of India website and it clearly states that (18.8), “no votes” should be rejected… so I think it’s as good as not voting? But again, there is no proper information this.. .negative voting looks unreal to me as I could not find any information about it on the official site.

Also, No Vote thing might not be as easy we we are thinking, and it will also disclose your identity, as you will have to sign some document for no vote.. so the guys sitting over there will obviously know about your decision… A blogger has blogged about this experience about “no vote” thing here

Okay… Okay… so in short.. according to me “no vote” is not a good option as noting is clear about it and there is no point in wasting the vote without any clear info on the rules.

My personal view is.. basically it was told to me by my dad.. ALWAYS VOTE… all the political parties are bad… but some are worst and some are worse… so you vote for the worse party so that worst does not win….

In current scenario, out of 1000 people, if 999 go for “no vote” and 1 registers the vote for the worst party, then worst party will win.. so don’t make it happen.. and ALWAYS VOTE…

So, moral of the story is… don’t be stupid and you should definitely vote.. we know what all parties have done… and you can weigh them according to your judgment but DO VOTE… Vote smartly…

24 hours.. more than 150 people dead, more than 330 people injured.. approximately 20 – 25 terrorists, around 10 killed.. Mumbai on fire… messed up messed up situation…

I have no idea what the hell is going on with the security, I haven’t been able to sleep much.. eyes are glued to the TV all the time.. hoping for some good news but I guess, it’s going to take it’s own time…

I am still waiting to see the choppers and army guys jumping in from the rooftop but I don’t see that happening either..

I want to write more on this but for some reason, I am not able to… I am not even able to work..

May be I am disturbed with these things.. I am feeling like cutting each of them into pieces but this is never going to happen.. the ones who will be caught will be sent to the jail and they will again enjoy the free food…

Our so called Maharashtra lover politicians have decided to sit in their holes.. as it’s not safe to go out in Mumbai… may be they will come out once everything is done…

Prime Minister and Chief Minister are asking everyone to stay clam and feeling sorry for the ones who died… but no one is talking about how strictly they will deal with this..

Some of the news channels are showing about Spirit of Mumbai.. screw it guys.. screw it… screw the spirit.. I am fedup with that…

Barkha Dutt is busy in showing how army is planning to trap these bastards.. this stupid female doesn’t know that by showing secret plans, she is not going become smartest journo in the world.. she is informing terrorists with the updates so that they can communicate using satellite phones..

I guess…. I have reached the end of my random thoughts…

Let’s hope we get hold of these bastards every soon…

Jai Maharashtra.. Jai Hind..

Note: You can read updates on the events here on Twitter Hashtags