Hike Messenger - India's Answer to Whatsapp

Recently, I heard about a new messenger in the market called Hike. Similar to Whatsapp in terms of messaging functionality, it is slated to be India's answer to the world of instant messaging platforms. And above all, it is being built, developed and backed by one of the telecom powerhouse in India, Bharti Airtel, with the son of the chairman, Kavin Bharti Mittal being the brainchild behind this brand new messenger.

Google "Hike" to know more about the history of the messenger, the developer behind it, the features it has, the platforms on which it is available and also to know more about the unique feature of sending sms through the same messenger as well.

Talaash - The Answer Lies Within

Everyone waits for a Aamir Khan movie and I am one of them. An Ardent fan of Aamir purely because of his choice of movies and his amazing acting prowess. Therefore, I went to see his new release Talaash yesterday at a so called theatre near me.

First and foremost, Talaash is a good movie with a different story line and a new concept. So this Film would be enjoyed only for people loving slow movies that reveal the suspense at the end. It is not that bad a movie as being claimed by people, and I include some of my friends in people as well.

The Movie begins with an accident of a famous bollywood star. The case is now being investigated by Aamir Khan and the movie is about his journey through the investigation and also involving a personal loss in the form of the death of his 8 year old son. What follows is definitely interesting for thrill seekers and some of them still new to the story would enjoy the suspense that unfolds at the end.

However, a word of caution. This is actually not an Aamir Khan standard movie. By standard I mean the calibre or the subjects or themes he chooses for his movies. This is vastly different from what is perceived as "Aamir Khan Standard" and that is the reason of disappointment for many, including me. Personally, I would not recommend watching Talaash for the sake of it as this could have been made keeping any actor as the protagonist and not Aamir. That's the most disappointing part. His acting skills have not been fully utilized and I feel that the movie does not do justice to the likes of actor like Aamir.

Nonetheless, watch this movie for a different and a refreshing story. But if you come out of the theatre disappointed, then please don't blame me as I have warned you much in advance ;)

30 Most wonderful quotes that make you think!

I was going through StumbleUpon and I found some of the most amazing quotes ever said by some really wonderful and important people mankind has ever seen in its so called History.

1. Quiet People by Stephen Hawking

2. Birds by Harun Yahya

3. A Quote by Buddha

4. A Swedish proverb which is so true.

5. What a thought!!

6. Always be Optimistic

7.In your Face....Hahaha

8. Hope we realize this soon, or else we are doomed

9. This is something which even cannot figure it out

10. Unbelievable

11. A mask is all you need to extract the truth

12. A lesson to Learn - Master this art to be successful in life

13. Be Yourself - Always

14. The Illusion of Freedom

15. Worth Reading

16. Be an Adventurer

17. This is for the ones who take life too seriously.

18. I disagree, but then still a good thought

19. What do choose among the three?

20. Yes, its life that gives meaning to life

21. Live your life to the fullest

22. Take this as a positive attitude

23. I want to rebel against politicians

24. Can we just stop fighting and killing each other?

25. Respect others

26. Dictators are Cowards

27. No wonder he is called the Mahatma - Great Soul

28. Glass house

29. How Fish Die

30. True Meaning of human beauty

Why is the US worried about a bean grown in India

Usually, the US should be worried about making their economy bounce back, as double dip recession still haunts them and unemployment rate is at an all time high. But then I read about something which is amazingly surprising.

The US is actually worried about the escalating cost of Guar Bean grown in India's State of Rajasthan and the reason why they are worried is because this little crop has the ability to escalate the cost of oil extraction in US.

Oil Fields in Texas use a gum like substance made from Guar bean to use a technique called as Fracking, which enables them to pump oil more than 10000 feet below the ground. With a failed monsoon in India and the fear of an impending crop shortage, the price of this bean has escalated from USD 2 per KG to USD 30 per kg in recent months, and this is making the Americans shit in their pants.

Guess you can't shun us Americans, Can you?

Color Blind friendly Traffic Signals

Halifax is a city in Nova Scotia Province of Canada and it is one the cities deemed as color blind friendly. Look at the picture below

What a brilliant Idea to make traffic lights friendly for people suffering from Complete Color blindness. If not with the color, they can identify stop and go signs at least from the shape of the traffic lights.

How lucky I am to perceive Colors.

Sometimes, we tend to take even the most simplest things in life, gifted by God, for granted. I am referring to one of the conversation I had with my colleagues last week. This conversation revolved around the ability of how human eye can perceive colors so beautifully and this is something which no one should ever take for granted, because color-blindness is a reality and it happens with a lot of people.

So, during the conversation, I found out that two of my colleague suffers from color-blindness. That's when I realized how blessed I am to see all the beautiful colors in this world.

Now both of these guys suffer from two different types of the same disorder. One is called as Trichromancy, or inability to distinguish between three primary colors, basically red, blue or green. This causes them to see most of the shades or red as either gray or dark blue or dark red or dark green. Weird huh!!

The other one suffers from another type of partial color blindness called anomalous dichromancy, where he is unable to distinguish between shades of green and yellow, and specifically in his case, yellow. He once told me that he can see all darker shades of yellow as white or maybe light yellow, that too depends on the luminescence and the contrasting colors accompanying the yellow shade.

How lucky I am not to have this disorder. Thank god. To find out if you can identify most of the colors, check out this brilliant wikipedia page which lists all the possible color combinations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colors

Don't get disheartened if you are among the color-blinds. You can still live a normal and a healthy life. Its just your eyes and your brain tricking you, nothing else.

Wrong Turn - Tetralogy

So I decided to watch this Horror Movie aptly titled Wrong Turn. And not only one but two sequels and one prequel as well.

Now by definition, anything that imbibes fear in you can be called as Horror. It may not necessarily mean scary ghosts and vicious monsters. And this movie is one of them.

The opening of the first movie, starts with two hikers climbing a mountain and both of them being brutally killed by an unknown figure. In the later part of the movie, it is revealed that they were killed by three deformed humans, who are cannibals, and they have been deformed because of the massive inbreeding within the communities of West Virginia. I am not quite sure how to justify cannibalism and how to relate it to inbreeding, but lets assume it to be true.

So the movie proceeds with 6 people in the lead, getting killed one by one by these cannibals and their quest for survival from this horror. The first part does end with two survivors who manage to escape. And the movie doesn't come to end without the usual gory stuff of head bashing, throat slitting, decapitation, etc. The worst scene in the movie is when the cannibals are actually shown cutting the leg of a girl, cooking it and then eating it. eeewwwwww... Truly pathetic and sick.

Now the story doesn't end here because the directors and the story writers still think that they can add even more gore to these series. So part 2 comes into picture where a hot-shot model, who is about to participate in a reality show, is shown driving through the West Virginia woods in her swanky coupe. She hits a teenager, who is none other than one of those cannibals, and tries to attend him for any medical emergency. However, the teenager attacks her and bites off her lips, followed by one of his accomplice holding a big axe and cutting the female into 2 halves. I am still wondering, how could someone even think of including such a horrific scene in a movie.

The movie endures and lives up to the mark to include some of the most filthiest scenes to be ever shot on camera, including deformed ugly humans, normal humans being cut into 3 pieces at once, hung upside down, shot in the eye by an arrow and so on. The most dirtiest scene was the birth of a deformed child through a deformed couple and the same couple is shown having sex too.......Damnn...get a life you moronic story writers...

The only twist in this story is the deformities in the communities of West Virginia is shown to be caused by consuming water laced with dangerous chemicals suppose to cause birth defects from an old abandoned paper factory within the woods. The horror is still not over, the movie does have two survivors in the end, but the deformed humans still continue to survive.

Come Wrong turn 3: even more bloody disgusting. The plot does tend to get boring with scenes of prisoners being transferred from one county prison to another while they encounter the same deformed humans. The gore factor is average with the movie solely emphasizing on one aspect - the fear factor continues in the woods and the cannibals are not yet dead. Always on the prowl for more.

Wrong turn 3 has its share of some gory scenes where some of the lead actors getting killed by bear traps set by these cannibals. This movie also explores the theme of greed and betrayal, but all this leads to the death of all of them.

But with Wrong Turn 4, which is a prequel to all the three movies, shows how these deformed humans were being researched at a medical facility and how they becomes cannibals and escape from the secure cells they were placed in. This is followed by a gang of college goers, out on a snowmobile trip, getting stranded in the same medical facility due to bad weather, unaware of the danger lurking behind them.

As they settle for the night to have some sum and do some exploration, they are each encountered by these ghastly creatures who are there to kill and eat them one by one. The tale of survival through this ordeal is portrayed well, with some exception of unnecessary drag in the story line. However, the movie still ends with no survivors as two girls from the gang who thought they had escaped, get actually decapitated by a barb wire deliberately placed by the cannibals to ensure no one escapes from their clutches.

Warning - Watch these only if you have a heart of stone.

Rains in Dubai

Now this is something unprecedented in history. Rains in a desert literally translates to once in a blue moon, but then it happened yesterday.

All of a sudden the weather was gloomy, clouds hovering above in the sky, and then magic happened. It poured and it poured like crazy. It was kind of a thunderstorm, with umbrellas freely flowing and cars getting smashed due to harsh winds.

So we were supposed to assume that the rains would bring some kind of relief to the extreme weather over here, but it has worsened the situation lately, with ever increasing humidity levels, some days as uncomfortable as 95% and temperatures soaring to 48 degrees Celsius.

Just survive through this weather somehow :D

Bhangarh - The Haunted ruined town

There are places in this world and then there are really weird and fascinating places in this world. One of them is a ruined town in India in the state of Rajasthan, which has baffled historians and people alike and is a good place for ghost hunters to explore.

So the location for this place is in the Rajgarh Municipality in the Alwar District within the state of Rajasthan in India. The closest famous city to it is Jaipur and is accessible by a number of roads.

This place is really cool, for people from all walks of life. It is in fact filled with beautifully carved temples, havelis and the main palace of Madho Singh, the younger brother of Man Singh, who was a General in Akbar's army. The decline of Bhangarh started when Madho Singh's son Chattr Singh took over the reins.

So why is this place haunted? There are two legends behind it.

One - The town was blessed by a Guru named Balu Nath, but only on one condition that the palace of the king should not cast a shadow on his Holy Retreat, the moment it does, his curse will materialize and the town will no longer be habitable. Well people say, Chattr Singh, son of Madho Singh, didn't pay any heed to the Guru's advice and the day the palace cast a shadow on the Guru's retreat, the town started declining. So till date the curse haunts the town.

Two - The second myth, which actually doesn't sound convincing to me(if Myths were convincing, they would be called as Myths), is that a Tantrik was in love with the princess of Bhangarh, and he tried to lure her with black magic by giving her enchanted oil. But the princess knew this beforehand so she poured the oil on the ground, it turned into a boulder, that boulder in turn crushed the tantrik, before dying he cursed the town and soon after that the princess also died and the town perished.

Now the funniest part is that the Archaeological Survey of India also considers this to be a haunted place and they believe there are ghosts inside the ruins, that is the reason why they have put up a notice saying that it is prohibited to be inside Bhangarh from Sunset to Sunrise. Unbelievable. Please look at the picture below.

The Stone inscription clearly warns about the prohibition.

I am not sure how much of this is true and why ASI also has an office 1 KM away from the actual site, but then something is really fascinating about this place and I really want to explore this once in my life, and see if there is really something fishy about this place.

Check out the 360 degree panoramic view of the Bhangarh site at the link below. http://www.360cities.net/image/bhangarh-the-most-haunted-place-in-india#98.60,8.10,70.0

Mumma's Love Dabba...:D

Staying away from home has its pros and cons. And I am sure many people will agree that there are many cons than pros, at least for me. Missing your family and specially your Mom is one of them.

But yesterday was one of the best days of my life when I received something really good from my both my mothers. As my mom's call it...Love Dabba.

A box full of sweets, Kaju Katri...my favorite..wow I could actually feel both my moms hugging me and kissing me at the same time when I had the first bite. And believe me, this was the most amazing feeling I have ever had.

Love you both my mummy's....Muaaaaaaaaahhhhh

The Shawshank Redemption......A must watch

I must say that in the history of cinema, never has been such an excellent piece of work made. One of the finest, super finest movies I have ever seen till date. Amazing performance by Tim Robbins and above all one of the finest actors, Morgan Freeman.

The movie starts with Tim Robbins who plays the character of Andy Dufresne being convicted for murder of his wife based on circumstantial evidence. Though throughout the movie, he maintains he was innocent and didn't kill his wife, it is shown in the movie that he did went ahead with a gun in his hand, with an intention to kill both his wife and her lover.

However, that is not what the movie is all about. It explores the deep reminisces of the human mind and how people become psychologically conditioned to the situation they are in for such a long time.

When Andy gets convicted for a double life sentence for the murder of his wife, he meets "Red" (Morgan Freeman) and his gang within the Shawshank State Prison. After going through a couple of rough patches with their fellow inmates, he finally overcomes them when he has the support of the warden in exchange for the use of his financial planning skills to file tax returns for the prison staff and also to siphon off money for the warden.

Soon, Andy becomes indispensable to the prison system and 20 years fly by. Within these 20 years, Red has been rejected twice for parole and another oldie hangs himself because he couldn't cope up with the outside world, a fact which is depicted so nicely in the movie about the human mind becoming conditioned to a particular atmosphere.

During one of the conversation, Red warns Andy that HOPE is a dangerous thing and this word should not be uttered by him for his lifetime in the prison. The twist comes over here when Andy actually escapes from the prison one day, by just using the pen hammer, which Andy had smuggled for him within the prison with the help of "Red". And not only does he escape, he also exposes the corrupt warden and the security guard at the prison, while also amassing the enormous amount of money he had helped the warden siphon off from the prison by assuming a false identity and then escaping to Mexico to avoid the law of the land.

The title of the movie is "Fear can hold you prisoner, Hope can set you Free". And the movie lives to this title. Every inch of the film on which this movie was made has justified this very title and if you want to experience the same feeling, grab a DVD and watch this movie at least once in your life time. Absolutely Recommended

Learnt something new.

As a sourcing consultant, I do my due diligence of research for the categories that I am working on and I happened to read a couple of pages about the science behind the requirement of tires for cars. I learnt an interesting thing about something called as the aspect ratio of the tire. It is defined as the distance between the rim and the topmost edge of the tire and it is always expressed as a percentage of the width of the tire. That is the reason why it is called as Aspect ratio. Not this gives us how thick the tire is and how it can effectively lead to greater stability for the vehicle. The thumb rule is, higher the aspect ration, lower the stability while maneuvering through sharp edges and turns and the opposite is true as well. That is why, you will see most of the BMW's, Merc's and high end super car tires with lower aspect ratio. But the trade off comes at the cost of lower air buoyancy, which is actually the counter pressure exerted by the tire from the ground upwards which basically provides the fluidity to the vehicle to move forward. No wonder, Super cars are nick named as gas guzzlers. Now Ain't that interesting. Share it guys Knowledge Shared is Knowledge Earned.

So we decided to go for a movie today. The name however might sound awkward or weird, Vicky donor. Didn't expect it to be a good movie at all considering there were no big names from the industry. But, I would definitely recommend it for fun watch. First of all, a very good message has been given with a loads of humor. And who can forget the typical delhi chhap launda... The Bong babe in the movie is apparently good looking but need to improve on her acting skills a lot. The insecurity scene was not well done at all. Anyways worth watching the movie once again.

We are in China town..

Yesterday, I found myself again at the Chinese heart of UAE, aptly named the Dragon Mart. Though huge as it may look, only some of the shops are worth visiting as you would just find the same old stuff randomly. We were in for a different purpose though, but that didn't materialize and out there we were looking at items we didn't even think of while entering the mall. Good experience though, for the second time over here.