FOUR ROOMS!

Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut and a masterpiece. The movie has been directed along with three others including acclaimed independent director Robert Rodriguez. The movie is set in a hotel and each room of the hotel is directed by one of the directors. The last room of course is reserved for Tarantino where he also plays the lead himself. The fourth room has Tarantino written all over it.

The main highlight of Tarantino's movies is the sheer entertainment value of it all. When you walk away from the movie after two hours, it's not the story that was important but the dialogues that leave you mesmerized and gasping for more. The dialogues are so natural, you almost forget thats its happening on a silver screen. Notice how most of his protagonists are about to commit a heinous act of violence in the near future, yet they are so cool both before and during the actual act of committing the crime itself. If I had been so cool before my JEE exam three years ago, my life might be very different from what it is today. Another attractive feature is the style quotient of these characters in his movies. Slick, cool, composed, they never break into a sweat. Admirable qualities to have in any walk of life.

While his proclivity for violence is somewhat of a put off for some audience, I myself feel that if you mature enough to not be influenced by it, you realize that even the violence is tastefully done and does not disgust you, rather it entertains you. Of course, this is largely due to the inherent sadism present in every one of us at a deeper subconscious level.

The narration of a story is just so distinct when Tarantino is telling it. Whatever anyone says, many claim that his ideas are inspired by other movies and he is just plagiarising other works, may that be as it may, i still am a hardcore fan of Tarantino and am looking forward feverishly to his next big release after the KILL BILL duology.

Meanwhile, Manoj Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water is set for release this Friday, so I'm booked!

Corporate, The Movie!

I just saw this movie about two hours ago. While the movie has reaffirmed my faith in Madhur Bhandarkar's directing abilities, it certainly has shaken my faith of the corporate world. If his yardstick of the corporate world is anything to go by, I sure don't want to be an enterprenuer. The fact that nothing and nothing in this world is untouched by the dirty hands of those uneducated, corrupt poli@#$!ticians is disheartening. Cannot anyone lead a honest life and earn their living anymore. There is no longer any place for principles and morals. The dirtiest and filthiest mind is the winner at the end of the day.

Private corporates are screaming their minds out that the movie is just plain false and maligns the name of the private corporate houses. While not all companies involve in dirty politics to have their way, it certainly cannot be stated that the movie is brewing up outrageous fiction. The truth of the matter is that when our country is populated by incompetent politicians whose only interest is themselves and their bloated up ego, the companies have no option but to toe the line as dictated by these politicians.

After some thought, the usual conclusion is that more educated and intelligent youth should enter into politics and free the country of the present fools who sit in the parliament. But of course, who I am I to preach if I myself do not follow what I preach. So, don't stay away from enterprenuership is what I say. It is only by creating jobs that the country will rise up and prosper, not by taking up jobs.

Pillow of Winds

From 'The Third eYe' archives:

Doggedly, sluggishly he pulled himself up from the covers;
The sun shone through brilliantly through the curtains,
Made not a difference to his wretched self.
The luxuriance of his bedroom mocked him,
The myriad wires in his head were tangled and short-circuited.

The plush sofas, oriental rugs, and rich tapestry,
They all reeked of travesty.

He stepped out into the world, ‘Good Morning, Master’,
That was his personal driver.
‘Not today, Jacques’. He breezed through the gate,
Jacques shrugged his shoulders, irate.

Days, or had it been weeks since he had slept?
His throat clogged up and he almost wept.
CEO of Hardwired was his status and position in society,
Revered was he, that was crowd mentality.
There were many who would kill to have what he had,
Had he known, he would have surrendered them all, glad
To be relieved of all the mindless burden.

There on the yonder, he spied a street urchin,
Not more than eight, clearly not well fed,
Trying vainly to salvage a square meal from the filthy trash bin.
‘Please give me some too’, his four year old sister said.
‘Patience thangi’, said he. ‘You are my responsibility.’
And she clung to his leg faithfully.

An old man on the street could barely walk,
A blind man, most likely his son helped him along,
So moving a sight it was,
To see them clinging to each other and talk.

He rushed back home.
He made three calls immediately;
‘Mom, how are you? Its been a long time.’
‘Shaan, I miss you man. Let us meet today.’
‘Rita, I’m sorry. I have always loved you as mine.’

And that night he was surprised that he slept like a log.

Demand and Supply

India seems to be riding high on the IT wave. The world is sitting up and taking notice. India seems to be the one stop shop for IT professionals. Or so it seems.

While everyone is raving about the quality of brainpower that is being exported out of the country, the story back home is not so rosy. The primary reason being that the exported 'material' is largely stamped 'IIT and/ or IIM inside'.

Every year the final year students of several engineering colleges throughout the country gear up for the 'placement process'. This is the time when companies come wooing to take away the 'gifted' fledgeling engineers to their nest. But the question is whether these engineers are gifted or just have a nice gift wrapping on the outside.

The answer is that the companies just dont care. If we are to speak of how the IT revolution is reshaping the Indian landscape and creating employement for many thousands of youngsters every year, we must stop thinking Google, Microsoft, Intel and and start thinking TCS, Infy and CTS. For these are the very companies which have come out and declared boldly, 'We have a requirement of twenty five thousand IT engineers this year.' So, if you are an engineering college, beware! This companies will soon come knocking at your doorstep.

The truth is that in a population of one billion plus population, it is still impossible to churn out a hundred thousand quality IT professionals every year. It is simply impossible. And yet, here are the IT behemoths ooking to recruit so many engineers each year. Beggars cant be choosers. Yes, my dear lads, if you inspired software professionals, are reading this, you are not the beggars, it is these companies that are beggars.

Recently, CTS ( Cognizant Technologies Solutions ) came to RVCE bangalore to recruit. It seems that they were the third company to visit their campus this year. So, very few students had been placed and the 1000+ eligible student population were still virgin territory. The HR of the company on arriving on campus put up his hands in jubiliation and announced, 'boys! come on, today we are going to hit a sixer. All of you PCs ( Placement Coordinators ) are ready right? We need your help.' What he meant was that since they had come early, they would try and recruit as many students as possible. I may not have the statistics, but to my knowledge two hundred and fifty took the written test and some one eighty plus were gleefully hauled away. what a marvelous performance by the college you might wonder. Is it because we are talking about RVCE, the top engineering college in Bangalore? Quite the contrary, in VIT, Vellore, TCS came first to campus and walked away with a rich haul of 526 students. The total capacity of the college being around 1350, this accounted fro more than one third of their final year student community. In such a scenario, every Tom, Dick and Harry will be placed. A 90% topper and a 60% average Joe. The average Joe has the last laugh. What is the point of studying so hard, he says boastfully, I also got the same job the topper was offered.

Last year, at the CTS job fair organised, nearly two thousand students attended and the police resorted to Lathi charge! At a job Fair!

These companies know that they cannot depend on what is being taught in college. And they rightfully cannot when they recruit from some 500 odd colleges. So they will have to resort to training finally. And the students know this too and several make no effort whatsoever to study or learn anything in college. A clear cut case of demand overshooting supply. False inflation of prices and brand value. In spite of these adjustments made by recruiting companies, NASSCOMM predicts that there will be a short fall of 5 lakh IT professionals by 2010. So the story can only be rosier for these so called engineers. While an average college churns out 500 engineers in 6 or 8 different fields every year, an astonishing 80 or 90% of this output get placed in the IT sector. What of the traditional Mechanical, Electrical and Civil. The truth is that these industries dont have such a large requirement every year adn even if they do, the students ultimately drop core jobs in favour of the fatter pay packet IT jobs.

And so the story of Hi Tech labour continues. The English colonised India in the 1800s to get cheap labour and materiels. The Indians finally realised their mistake, demanded and got independence. But one wonders whether it will ever realise the fallacy of this new IT labour that the US seems to be blissfully employing. I very much doubt it.

Disclaimer : This article only conveys the author's views and does not mean disrespect to the IT industry.

Dogged Day in the Sunshine

From 'The Third eYe' archives

I sat there sedately, in a world of my own. There was a maddening, deafening noise all around me. Some of the noise, I vaguely figured out was in fact directed at me. People were for some reason angry with me. Or maybe they were angry with themselves and I was the outlet to vent their anger. Whatever, it really made not a difference to me.

Life was very lonely for me. He had deserted me almost a month ago, or was it more like a week. Life was so slow, you could barely tell the difference. He said I had grown fat. That was his reason. I was furious. What else was expected of me? I had nothing to do all day but chew on my food. That’s what we do. And he was faulting me for doing my thing. Oh men! They are all the same. I didn’t even try to get him back. It wasn’t worth all the effort, in my opinion.

I perceived a dull thud and suddenly my backside started hurting. That moron, he had just run his car into my backside and got away without apologizing. God, it hurt! Yet I made no effort whatsoever to get up and move out of the way of the passing traffic. It just wasn’t worth all that effort, in my opinion.

The sun was shining down on me in all its glory. Despite, this the insects were bearing down on me with rebellious fury that would have been commendable if not for the fact that it was directed at me. Slowly and painfully, I tried to shoo them away. But they just would not give up. Maybe I was fat. That’s what must be attracting them to my flesh and my sweet blood. After a while, I gave up trying to fight them. In my opinion, it just wasn’t worth the effort.

My life progressed doggedly, sluggishly. Sloth is a sin I agree, but I didn’t have anything better to do. And so there I sat, right in the middle of the road, swotting my tail lazily, and chewing on that blade of grass which had kept me occupied for the better part of the morning. It’s what we do, I consoled myself and continued chewing.

Inspired by a true story

Thought for the day

The step falters, but the mind forges on.

What you do may be insignificant in the macrocosmic perspective of the world, but it is still very important that you do it.