Published on March 25, 2008
in Me and Misc.
I recently came across a new anime series which was part of the existent Gundam franchise. I won’t call myself an ardent fan of the Gundam franchise. I have seen maybe not more than 3 or 4 series. I have liked most of the series that I have seen. I definitely liked the first series in the franchise.
My friend told me about it and I checked it out. I have seen some episodes now and do feel that the political situations it shows may actually be relevant later on in actual world. I really like it when animes touch on various political topics. This is when you understand how Animes are not not only for kids but also for adults. Even the animation techniques used in Gundam 00 are far better than the older ones that I have seen.
I can say one thing that Gundam 00 will definitely have a great ending. I am now just waiting for the second season to start.
Links: Gundam 00 wiki page
I am a very lazy guy and once I am on PC I don’t like getting up and searching through newspapers to find something that I remembered. We get "The New Indian Express"(it’s the Indian Express for South Region) here at home, though it’s not very good it’s bearable.
So back to the topic, since I hate getting up I wanted to see if they have a online record for their papers and to my surprise they have a very good online e-paper which works quite well. You can visit it by going here. It seems to have most of the news from the newspaper. I thought this was useful to people like me so posted it.
I would start getting "The Times of India" once they start publishing their Chennai Edition. I hope they are better than the rest.
Something I have noticed quite often is that how people get confused between an iPod and any other PMP(Portable Media Player), well atleast in India. It seems that most of the people in India think that iPod is how you refer to any portable media player. I have a Transcend T610 and many times people have asked me what is the cost of this ‘iPod’ and I clarify that it is not an iPod but a Transcend T610. They tell me, "Yeah its an iPod made by Transcend." Then starts an ordeal, where I try to make them understand that it’s not like that and that iPod is a PMP made by Apple. If the person is elder to me by let’s say around 3 to 5 years then he would say that I have no idea about what I am saying. If it’s someone much older they would have changed the topic to something else long back. Then if the person is my age they may agree or may not.
I am sure many people might have faced same or similar problem. It’s just that iPod is such a popular brand that people think it’s how you refer to the device itself. I must say for a country where Apple has no official retail store and no iTunes store, it’s definitely very popular among the masses.
Published on February 14, 2008
in India and Misc.
I have been reading and watching a lot about the statement made by Raj Thackrey on this topic that Mumbai is only for Marathis and everyone else should just pack their bags and leave. I understand that he has said this just so that, he can create rift among the people and get more votebanks, but the worst part of it was the violence which has followed this. It reminds me of the Gujarat incident where all the events that took place where mostly because of the various parties that wanted to create a divide among the people to gain vote from people of specific religion.
Mumbai is like India’s New York(not visually), where there are people of varied ethnicities living together. The divide that these people create just ends up making people feel, that they are right and everyone else is wrong. Such feeling creates problems such as, these violent acts that have taken place in Mumbai in the last week. Claiming Mumbai to belong to a certain group of people is not correct. Though it may not hurt the Marathis living in Mumbai but the Marathis who live in North India and other places in India will be discriminated against just because, someone thought it would be fun to stir up the people. I have had many Marathi friends over the years and they have been very nice to me. I don’t think they would be the people, who would like to fight others just because they live in their city. I personally feel the statement by Raj Thackrey was wrong at many levels.
The problem does not lie with the people but the infrastructure of the city. Even a small city can accommodate many people, if the infrastructure of that city is good. If Raj Thackrey had genuinely wanted good for the city, he should have brought all the problems faced by a common man in the city to light. I don’t understand what happened to the country, where everyone was proud to be an Indian and believed that all Indians are their brothers and sisters. I believe that even though schools make children recite the pledge everyday, they don’t exactly explain it’s meaning in the school. It shows how our education system lacks many fundamental things. If a person who studies in school that, all Indians should be proud of the fact that they are Indian and should never forget that, he or she would never be part of such regional fight. But I guess even schools have played a big part in creating this regional divide. Children are not taught to be patriotic. I have come across many students who have a strong hatred towards the country, which in turn comes out in such forms. Even though people say our country is progressing, such events remind us of the bitter truth that Indians still haven’t exactly developed in terms of their mind set.
I saw on some news channel someone had said that anyone can live in Mumbai without knowing Marathi but no one can live in Chennai without knowing Tamil. I found this to be totally nonsense since when I came to Chennai I didn’t even know one word in Tamil but since my mother tongue(Malayalam) is similar to Tamil I was able manage. Here the thing to be noted is that, since Marathi is similar to Hindi anyone knowing Hindi can get his work done in Mumbai. But what about the person who doesn’t know Hindi and Marathi, he might never be able to communicate with anyone ever. Same way if a person doesn’t know Malayalam and Tamil or any other South Indian language for that matter; is it so that the guy won’t be able to live in Chennai. But to tell that truth nowadays even in Chennai you can get things if you know English or Hindi. There is a really large population of North Indian people in Chennai which makes it easy for an outsider to interact with people since you can ask every second person to translate something for you or help you. Even though Tamilians here have problems with people of other states, they are less vocal about it since the major businesses here have a huge contribution of these people .
I truly believe that all this is just total gutter politics. Anyone who divides the people of any place on basis of their religion, region, skin colour or anything else is just trying to make people fight among each other and get his work done.I hope politicians of my generation would actually bother about the country rather than their own personal agendas.
God save the country.
Published on February 13, 2008
in Me and Misc.
Now I have actually become tired of all these posts where I say that I was not blogging for all these days because, there was some problem with my connection. It seems BSNL had been good to me for sometime since I didn’t have any problem till recently. Around more than two weeks ago my router went bad. I had a fair idea that it was the problem of the router rather than the line or the BSNL exchange. After that I used to call them everyday and I was promised everyday that someone would come to check the line though no one ever came. It took them nearly 2 weeks to send a guy to check the line(Had complained to the Junior Engineer). That guy had totally no idea what was wrong and he told me that J.E would come later to check the technical stuff(he meant the router and the computer since he had no idea how they worked). The J.E came the next day and told me that my LAN card had some problem without even looking at it. I told him the router was not connecting whether it was from my PC or my Laptop. Then he came to the great conclusion that there might be something wrong with the router(Oh God! he was brilliant) and told me that he would send someone with the router next day but since it was second Saturday and Sunday after it, the guy did not come. I thank the God that at last I got a new modem and am able to get back to the lovely and beautiful world of Internet.
If you have read my last post (if not you can read it now), you can see that how I am in need of a good mobile which has good Internet capabilities but does not have a camera. I had been researching on Internet (on univercell’s site actually) looking for a mobile that suited my needs. I have simple needs. They are:
Continue reading ‘Mobile without Camera’
