Orkut.com

A creation of Mr. Orkut Buyyokoten, a Stanford-ite and an employee of Google, which ensured that the vetti(jobless for those who aren't accustomed to the Bitsian slang) are never left jobless. It's re-united many lost friends, spread the message of many events and also ruined many lives(oh havn't you ever been addicted to it?).

It is supposed to be a forum for healthy interaction. It has all these communities based upon people's interests, which one can join. One can read and contribute(if he has joined) to the topics in each community.

There are all types of communities, and I mean ALL types. You got communites on popular and not-so-popular TV shows, movies, personalities, brands and also stuff like "The Pope should break dance" and "Bitch make me a sandwich" which is about guys telling girls to STFU make them a sandwich".

Coming to these communities. When you join any of these communities on orkut, you are demonstrating your affiliation with them. Rationally speaking, it would be expected that since you've joined these communites you should take part in the proceedings.
Yet we see that people join the communities and remain "dormant" for extended periods of time, sometimes even indefinitely.
Many a times, joining communites becomes an obsession. You just want to join more and more communities. You know you've really lost it when you join the community called "I have joined too many communities" . And then to top it off, you also have the community "Orkut Rehab".

Now for the ultimate question. What goes on in these communities?
One would expect that the community would be brimming with meaningfull discussions on the topics associated with the community. Enthusiastic members chipping in with their valuable opinions on the issues posted in the community forums.
Lets take the example "Gladiator", the community dedicated to the Oscar Winning Ridley Scott beauty. A quick glance at the forum will introduce you to the following topics:
#Give only one word for MAXIMUS
#let us make Gladiator the number one rated movie of all time
#Want to be my friendzzzzz
Out of the 200 topics in the community only 2-3 have received replies in double figures.

In another community "Internet Addicts", one of the posts read "How many hours do you spend on the internet?"
The active members of the community enthusiastically answered in succession
"atmost 2 hrs..Or sometimes 3 to 4 hrs.There was a time when I spend almost 8hrs. continous for 3 days"

"hmm.. so i m really addicted :D
12-16 hrs daily.. :)"

Almost all communities that have a substantial number of people are flooded with irrelevant games. In one of these games the last person to post wins(does that explain the smirk on my face), in others you have to answer a queston with a question. I am not against these games, do what ever you want out of your free will, but keep a separate platform for this will you? I'm sure having posts such as "Will you go out with the person above you?" in a "Aspiring Cricket Writers" community is quite relevant ;)

Also observed is a phenomenon that in every community there are a number of posts in foreign languages such as portuguese and spanish. So in an IIT-JEE aspirants community you find stuff like "FOTOS DO FLAGRA DA CICARELLI NA PRAIA"

To witness this phenomenon just create a community open to all and dont assign any moderators and voila!

I admit that for a while I too was mesmerised by Orkut and in this frenzy joined many communities aimlessly. Before I knew it, there were 356 communities on my profile. I figured out that if I spend a minimum of 2 minutes on every community every week, I'd end up spending 1/30*356, thats nearly 12 hours.
Now out of these 356 I hardly checked out 50-60 communites (even if once in a bluemoon) and actively participated in less than 15.

It is also observed that regardless of the number of people that are in a community, the active population is limited to a very small fraction. The vast majority(like me), just join the community and then forget about it. And this vast majority makes up those huge 6 digit numbers.

I am right now in the process of un-joining all those communities(about 98% of the origianl number), though I must admit its going to take a long time.

-Rishabh Kaul

I am suffering from what most of you refer to as a writer’s block. The earlier sentence was thus framed because I have never suffered from a writer’s block before, or if not that, then for a very long time at the least. I use the word “suffered”, as though it’s some sort of disease because it is. It a really pathetic feeling to have when you have the drive, but you lack the what’s that again? Yeah, that’s how it is. I don’t even know what’s missing.

Generally what happens when one suffers from this terrible disease is that one cannot bring one’s self to write anything that remotely makes sense to the target audience(if there is one intended) and neither to ones own self(which is actually bad). This is usually because one is devoid of any ideas in one’s cerebrum, which I believe is the main controller in our brain (something like the brain of the brain)

This is what generally happens.

Sometimes what happens is this:
Your brain gets overloaded and you don’t know what to do. By overload, I’m referring to all those ideas that are jam-packed in your brain. And yes everyone has ideas.
Now when you feel like writing something, and get the pen to paper or your finger tips to the surface of the keyboard(which ever suits you), in your brain there is a volley of random ideas each of which is quite unique and would make for an excellent write-up, story, play-you name it.
The initiative for your writing something is generally a central theme, a rough mental picture of what you are going to write, and then gradually you build up on this skeleton until something concrete comes up. And finally you polish that and voila!
Now this train of ideas in your head clashes with your central theme. Before you start to build up on this central theme you are confronted by a few thousand other ideas and you feel like including all of them somehow in this write-up of yours.

What you do then is erase whatever you have written up till then and start over.

By now you would have guessed that this is a case of infinite recursion.

Okay,perhaps not infinite.

I've got my holidays going on. And what better way to spend them than to watch movies. I've started watching Hindi ones. I started off with MAHAL.
Its a 1940's thriller.
Let me first give you the gist of the movie and don't worry I wont give out the plot as I've been doing so far for the last few movies that I've written about.
The movie has Ashok Kumar, Madhubala and a Mansion starring in it.
Shanker has recently acquires a mansion at a govt. auction. Upon reaching there he gets the low down on the folk lore about the Haveli. According to this, the builder of the house dies soon after building it. His fiance can't bear the shock and dies thereafter. Shanker sees the painting of the builder and is shocked to find out that he's a clone. As the clock strikes two he hears a lady singing, whom he cannot initially see. He truly believes that he is the reincarnation of the builder and that they are meant for each other. What follows next is an obsession. He goes totally crazy thinking about her. Every night he is hypnotised by the song of the dame. He gets married to another lady. She has a hard time with her man considering that he is mesmerised by another woman.
She soon starts going insane and complains to the police about his husbands ongoing flings. Watch the movie to know what happens next.
What I enjoyed the most about the movie was the simplicity of the plot. Its wasnt anything fancy, but it gripped the viewer for the entire 2 and a half hours that the movie was playing. The cinematography was out of this world. Black and white truly is the way to go for horror flicks and thrillers, given that the camerawork is good.
Also, let me confess that I am truly in awe of Madhubala's beauty. She had the sweetest most beautiful face of her era if not of all time. ALL she had to do to get me addicted to her was to raise one eyebrow and deliver a dialogue. I vow to watch as many movies of her as I can in these holidays.
The music of the movie too is quite splendid. Yes! This is the movie which has the Lata Mangeshkar classis "Aaayega Aayega Ane wala...".

Casino Royale is the latest Bond movie.
Bond movies have that charm associated with it. Something is so cool, so sexy and so suave about these movies.
So how did I feel after seeing this one? In one word: Strange. Strange good? Strange bad? Umm..I really don't know, just plain strange.Right coming to the point. Bond movies is mostly about the gadgets and the girls. If you remove either one of them the movies becomes too bland.
This movie had hardly any gadgets. A watch was just a watch, an Omega yes ofcourse, but all it did was show time. A phone was only but a phone, used to make outstation calls and send messages. No knives coming out from sleeves, no camouflaged cars, no cameras in a pen. Even a gun is used in the most primitive way, like a stone, used to hit masses. It was sort of very bollywoodish with a lot of Dishum dishum, running around construction sites and very little sex.
The bond girls too! Very disturbing. Ok Eva Green was decent, but the other latino one whose name I cannot remember was hardly mention-worthy.
The movie shows the scenario when Bond has been just assigned with the 00 status (the 00 in 007 means license to kill). There is this dude Le Chiffre, who is a sort of safekeeper for terrorists. He plans to blow up a plane, the largest of its kind on the Miami Airport, Bond stops this. Now to recover the losses associated with the plan failing, Le Chiffre organises a Poker game in Texas. Bond somehow manages to get inot the playing 8. Now Bond has to somehow win the game, thus making Le Chiffre bankrupt, thus busting his tushy because then the scum of the earth will be after his ass. Le chiffre will have to seek refuge and MI6 will capitalise on this.
The plot as such is very un interesting and to some interesting confusing.
Daniel Craig. What's with having a blond Bond? And whats with that body? He makes Pierce Brosnan look like a stick with genitals. The acting as such was quite ordinary. The movie induces several yawns, especially during the 2nd show. The director Martin Campbell, who co-incidentally also directed former Bond movie Goldeneye, decided to make this movie very realistic, as in Bond was stripped of his demi-god status(which one probably acquires when one is made a double O). However that sort of disappointed me. Bond isn't supposed to be realistic. He isn't supposed to have blood stains, he isn't supposed to be held captive. He is supposed to fight villians in a suit and leave the scene without a scratch. He is supposed to RIDE his cool car, not faint in it. Everyone has been marvelling about the fact that the realistic bond is cool awesome, how they love Daniel Craig, well I miss Mr. Brosnan.
But then on second thought, maybe thats just me.

I just saw one of the coolest movies ever ade, or atleast thats what I thought of it.
Pulp Fiction.
Tarantino is god. He is a genius with the camera. The way the movie was made, the way how the lives of different people merge together, the way it ALL makes sense finally. It's brilliant!
Here is a dialogue from the movie which I feel just has to be put up on my blog.
Its the character of Samuel L Jackson, Jules. Here goes:


There's a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before you popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. Now I'm thinkin': it could mean you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd.

It's 3.43, or so claims the clock on my roomy's computer. Remember the comprees I had mentioned few posts earlier? Well, they're here. 5 more to go. Then, I'll be free. But its rather strange, that I've not felt homesick at all these past few months. Guess I love this place too much, but then lately I've been feeling rather lonely. I dont know why. I'm sure its not homesickness, its just plain loneliness.
Bharti Yadav is back in the news.
Flashback:
Right, so there was this dream boat she was in love with, a college-mate. Her brother didn't like this bloke, and so he along with his cousin decided to eliminate the lover, Nitish Katara. So they kidnap him while he's out to attend a marriage and then murder him.
Try looking at the whole situation from her point of view.
Bharti Yadav after a while turns hostile and has been like that ever-since. She makes claims such as "Nitish" was just a friend.
Now the family is also quite powerful, the dad being an ex MP. So she must have been a lone warrior in this when the event took place, considering the Katara family couldnt do much. Bharati must have got threats from her brother and cousins on numerous occasions. Her family too must have been pressurising her to shut her trap, on top of that she is a girl and I am sure mustn't be having much of a say in the house. So they pack her off to London. Media wants a piece of her too.
She too must be feeling that since she has lost his lover already, none of this is going to get him back. Maybe there is so much love between the siblings that occasionally killing ones lover doesnt really affect the other person. Or maybe she loves her life way too much.