Afwaah!

Himess Bhai!

Weds!

Rakhi Sawant!!!

Phailaiyeee!!!!

and do tell if you would like to attend this marriage or not!

Gems from Hindi Cinema!

Whenever I think of movies, there are a few characters I just cannot miss thinking about... Some of my favorites from the world of Hindi Cinema...

Prem Pratap Patiyaale Wala from Wo Saat Din


Ram Prasad Dashrath Prasad Sharma from Golmal


Soorma Bhopali from Sholey


Miss Chamko from Chashmebaddor


Jai from Sholey



Angrezon ke Zamane ka Jailer from Sholey


Sukumar from Chupke Chupke



Babu Rao from Hera Pheri


Subhodh and Sameer from Dil Chahta Hai


Daljit or DJ from Rang De Basanti


Ashok from Angoor


Som Mangal Budh Guru from Satte Pe Satta




Ashok, Vinod, Tarneja, Ahuja from Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron



Crime master Gogo, and Amar Prem from Andaz Apna Apna


I am sure that is not all... if you remember any other scenes, please do share the links and I would put them up here!

Prediction !

It was very cold, cloudy and very very windy when I walked to the office in the morning today... the only life saver being the amazing light at the horizon...

and I started my day rather dull than with a sunshiny mood...

Wanted to complain and crib about the winter still being here and no spring or summer to be seen anywhere...

but decided to tweak the thoughts a bit and instead of complaining, looked at some pictures of the years that have gone by and what spring/summer brings !

so right now I am not complaining, not cribbing, but waiting for the spring to arrive !!! I have a whole lot to look forward to...

So here is a glimpse of what is going to happen... I promise it will... believe me or wait and watch :)

This is from the Pestigo River in Wisconsin. US.. Went camping and rafting last year with Pritam, Lakhan, Suman and a few more guys! Gotta go there again this year

Wild Flowers clicked on my way to Tungnath, Uttaranchal, India, with Aseem, Tushar, Subbu, Anil, Manish amongst many others... Still remember that trek... gotta do that again too sometime !

A kid enjoying water in the Brahm Sarovar, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India... Went with my family and Aro (who is practically family)... Want to go to Jyotisar (birthplace of Gita) again sometime...

A flower clicked on a tour of Scotland with Abhishek... This was a one day tour and practically took us around half the country :)

If the last few years were so beautiful, there is no way this one is going to be any less ! waiting !!!


and talking of Spring... do go through this link for some absolutely delightful photographs.

Doesn't make sense not to live for fun!

A retired man moves near a junior high school. He spends the first few weeks of retirement in peace and quiet. However, when a new school year begins, three young boys beat on every trash can they encounter every day on their way home from school.

Finally, the man decides to take action and walks out to meet the boys. He says, "You kids are a lot of fun. I'll give you each a dollar if you'll promise to come around every day and do your thing." The kids continue to do a bang-up job on the trashcans.

After a few days, the man tells the kids, "This recession's really putting a big dent in my income. From now on, I'll only be able to pay you 50 cents to beat on the cans." The noisemakers are displeased, but they accept his offer.

A few days later, the retiree approaches them again. "Look," he says, "I haven't received my Social Security check yet, so I'm not going to be able to pay more than 25 cents. Will that be OK?" "A freakin' quarter?" the drum leader exclaims. "If you think we're going to waste our time beating these cans around for a quarter, you're nuts. We quit."


This was a joke that I got some days back on a RSS feed, but I did not laugh after reading this but it got me thinking instead...

The moment we take away fun from what we do and start doing things for returns, the entire perception changes... now the effort is usually defined by the returns we are getting out of it and not by how much we enjoy doing it !!!

When I put myself into this position, I see myself doing most of the things because I enjoy doing them and not because I want some returns to come from them... having said that I really like the returns too in forms of money or attention or praise, but the bottom line is that how much I enjoy doing it, does not change !



I hope to continue living this way !

Well the years start coming and they don't stop coming
Back to the rule and I hit the ground running
Didn't make sense not to live for fun
Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb
So much to do so much to see
So what's wrong with taking the back streets
You'll never know if you don't go
You'll never shine if you don't glow

Smashmouth - All Star (One of my favorite tracks EVER)

puddle puddle jump jump

I wanted to wake up early today to go out and see the sunrise, but I logged on to gmail, and while was talking to a few friends got late for the sunrise...

Still went out and had fun walking around !!!







Brought back a few good pictures, some very nice smiles, a few good morning wishes, a lot of fresh air in my lungs, and loads of soul satisfying happiness !!!

Some more photographs to follow later... till then enjoy life !

Contrasty Weekends and More !!!

I feel very satisfied for being able to do what I started off for... And mind you, it could not have been possible without a few, actually more than a few, people around who played very very important roles during the entire initiative...

I have a commitment of Rs. 12500 from the two posts that show the paintings and have received Rs. 8000 already and the rest is in transition or process and should be with me soon!!! My next step would be to go to ASK and give all this money to them for Sankalp.... Thank you again everyone who has contributed in some way or the other... I am in the process of arranging the paintings and sending them off to their respective owners...

I should, however, mention a few names here specifically...

I had only thought of going to Sankalp and giving away the Stationary etc to the kids there... discussed the thought with Arobindo and our conversation resulted in the day turning into a Painting Competition for the kids where they could use the stuff we take for them... Thanks Bro for your support...

It would have stayed a painting competition, if I had not seen a framed painting made by a small kid at my friend's place... I was at Nidhi's place one day and that’s when I saw the painting... I think AP had bought it for her from an NGO, and that moment a bulb was switched on in my mind... I had more to do than just organise the painting competition... Nidhi, if it was not you, we would not have a single rupee in our kitty today!!! Cannot thank you enough really!!!

Bindiya was told about this thought, and she loved it... We figured out a few things over a few calls and organised the entire event... Kalpana ji from Sankalp was always more than keen in helping us out with whatever we required. I love it the way Bindiya (also read ASK) lets me take complete ownership of what I want to do and also give me the freedom to do it my way!!! Thanks Bindiya for everything!!!

Tushar and my cousin Ashish was both excited when I asked them to join me that day!!!

Not many people knew about the initiative except Me, Aro, Bindiya, Nidhi, Tushar, Ashish (my cousin) the team at Moradabad and Sharanya, whose excitement and loads of ideas she shared acted as a Catalyst to the entire thought process...

And once we were back from the Painting Competition, almost everyone I know in this big blog world helped the way they thought was appropriate... some came forward to take one of the painting, some encouraged me with very kind words, and some mentioned it on their pages to ensure more people knew about the initiative !!! And I also need to mention that my Hughes Gang rocks!!! For many reasons and one of them is the quick response that I got from Aseem, Subbu, Aro, and Naveen to buy the paintings.... Overall a great experience this was and needless to say, a very successful one to thanks to a lot of people!!!

Now something about what I have been doing for a while, other than trying to sell paintings :)

Some flower in my balcony... no idea about the name

The last weekends have been so different from each other yet very fulfilling...

The last Sunday was spent in silence... I did not speak much the entire day was almost locked (with an open door though) in my room... Watched movies (Juno and the Bucket List), read a book or may be more than one, went through the Calvin and Hobbes Tushar had given me for my birthday (A very welcome change from the travel books he gifts me all the time :)

My bed on the floor, the laptop the ear phones and dark !!! nice Sunday it was...

My lunch one of these days... brown bread with Sauce and Jam and Marmalade...

I like the way smoke moves out of Incense Sticks... I have lately realised I can look at it for a long time...

It rained last week... Did you get out to enjoy it? I took a bath in the rain twice last week :)

This weekend I was on a talking mode :) was trying to make up for the silence that started last Sunday I guess :) the weekend started a few hours early with a long drive to meet Ruchi, handed over the painting to her, drove to haldiram, got stuck in a two way truck and trailer traffic on a single lane service road (for about 5 minutes after we were already 25 minutes into the jam, I had a feeling that we might stay stuck there for a few more hours, but thankfully the jam cleared and we were out of it in like 35 odd minutes)...

Friday night at Arobindo’S place, with one more lad from the Hughes gang... laughter and bakar bakar bakar bakar and more bakar... Poor Raj was the target of most of the jokes while I and Arobindo laughed our asses!!!

Saturday started early and ended pretty late (Only on Sunday by 0200 hrs) and it included watching The Gods must be crazy part 1 and 2, having a late breakfast, not feeling like getting up from the beds till like 1400 hrs, taking the metro to Mandi House and not getting the tickets for a play I wanted to watch (GhasiRam Kotwal)... taking a wrong bus to CP from Mandi House, walking towards CP and singing songs fairly loudly on the road with Subbu, searching for Nirula's and finding it eventually after having a nice pan at Odeon, having the Make your own triple sundae at Nirula's with a scoop each of Black Currant, Mango Mania and Tutti Fruity, having the mango milk at Cavenders, going back to Dwarka in the Metro, singing songs, learning some English from Subbu, meeting a few more friends from Hughes at Aro's place and bakar bakar bakar bakar bakar till post midnight !!!! Phew!!! Long day eh!


Sunday was again a lazy day with the highlight being the English play Indian in the Bronz... and interesting subject but not really presented in the best of the ways... I revived a lot of good memories from the past of the various technical things that I had learnt about one act plays and how we used to implement most of them... I wish I can contribute to a theatre group soon... Maybe once I have shifted base to Delhi, I would... Not sure if Bindiya also had the same opinion about the play, but she made a nice single word remark that the play was interesting!!! Let’s buy that opinion for now :) Had to wait a good 20 minutes before we got a seat in the Bengali Sweet house before having our dinner of Chole Bhature, the Pao Bhaji and the lovely Kulfi Faluda!!! A quick drive back home and a few more discussions on how I can contribute more to ASK and various other initiatives in the organisation!!! We did discuss about some websites that talk about one can contribute to the society as well... I am going to write about them too in future once I have gone through the sites in detail!!!


Too long a post eh!!!

Never mind :) If you have managed to read it fully, congratulations, or if just jumped to the last line, well :) I think you missed a lot :)

Have fun, God Bless!!!

Oh and guess what, I have this small water pot in my balcony, which I fill with water every few days... sometime last week I there was this Pigeon who visited visited the waterhole of sorts... There was not much water there, but I guess enough to keep him there for a good 15-20 minutes and there was something in there that he was eating too... I guess he had brought it himself !!! Check the pictures below :) It was nice !!! very !!!



ok... final ta tu !!!

We painted the Weekend in Moradabad :)

Saturday Morning: 0300 hrs... my alarm goes off!!! And then the alarm on the other phone goes off too... I had just slept at like midnight... but getting up was important... I did... Woke up Ashu (my cousin) called up Tushar to wake him up and checked with Aro to make sure he was on his way to my place...

Why get up this early on a Saturday morning?
Valid question :)

We four were going to Sankalp, Moradabad... The same place I had visited in Feb'07... and wrote about it HERE!

Me and Aro had been discussing this trip for a while now, and last week when I realised that my travel plans were still very unclear I decided to go to Sankalp and do what was long due... So a few phone calls over the week, some bit of planning and we were all set... Roped in Ashu and Tushar as well... so we were four of us who were traveling to Sankalp and organise the painting competition...

The weather was good, the roads were good too wit a few exceptions... It did rain almost throughout the drive and at times it was too heavy to drive as well, however with one pit stop just about 10 kms after Gajraula (Reliance A1 Food Plaza) we reached Sankalp around 0800 hrs...

Found these beauties together on the grass @ A1 Plaza...

A Bunch of Happiness :)

I discussed the plan with Kalpana and Santosh who take care of the centre and we were all set to start the painting competition around 1030 hrs... The main centre has 100+ students and it was difficult to involve everyone in the competition, so we decided that we would let the teachers select some students from all the classes and have about 40 students participate...

We started on time around 1045 hrs and the kids finished their work around 1215 hours...

Our goodies for the Painting Competition :)

The kids could use the water colors, or the Crayons or Sketch Pens...

During the Painting Competition...

During the Painting Competition... (She went on to win a prize, for the strong message presented in a simple and very effective way)

During the Painting Competition...

One of the other winners in progress...

All done :) ready for a picture :)

We did manage a riot of colors :) and spread happiness :)

Some of the winners :) It was tough to decide what was better than the other... so we did not differentiate between the winning entries.. We could not have anyway :)

Post this we played "Stuart Little" (Hindi Version) for all the kids... (We had arranged for a LCD Projector, a laptop, the speakers and the DVD last night)... It was an amazing feeling to hear the kids laugh together and react to various scenes in the movie... One of the best experiences that I personally had EVER... So much so that I don't have enough words to write about the entire event!!! Now there was something for the kids after the movie too... We had prepared some questions from the movie, and the kids who answer those questions right were to get prizes...

The movie in Progress !!!

Once we finished the movie, we distributed the prizes for the Painting Competition and followed by the overwhelming question answer round!!!

The post movie huddle :) Had a great time here :)

We had asked everyone to first raise a hand and then we would pick who answers the question :) but as you might have already guessed for 100% of the questions everyone first answered the question and then raised their hands :) by the end of it we had exhausted all our questions and had to make a few set with our own knowledge of the movie :) it was fun...

Everyone would answer and then raise their hand :) It was tough to decide the winners :)

One question we asked was the name of Stuart Little's father... Well no one knew the answer, but one boy very confidently stood up and said "Daddy" :) I even asked the duration of the movie :) when we did not know what to ask :) and kids answered that too without raising any hands :) too bad it did not have a prize :)

I participated too :)

And then moved back to what I was slightly better at :) Capturing the moments :)

Managed to capture a game of Kho Kho too on the terrace :)

Windows XP :) Professional :)

Did I forget to mention that Gupta ji (The caretaker at the centre) also arranged for some Aalu, Pyaaz, and Palak Pakodas for us and the Chatney with Raw Mango and fresh Mint was just too good to resist... Don't know if I was eating the Pakodas with the Chatney or the Chatney with the Pakodas :)

What yummy Pakodas were they !!! Heaven !!!

Only one :) Love the way water rests on Rose Leaves :)

Once we were done at the Centre we moved around in the Community to get a first hand feel of the workshops...

The melting/moulding workshop... and smoke all around!

Molten Brass on fire...

Still from the same workshop...

An Art on its way towards extinction... The artist spends about 4-5 hours on every piece and gets around Rs. 50 per piece...

From the electroplating workshop...

Did not even realise how the time flew by and it was already 1645 hours when we started back for Delhi!!! All in All a wonderful day, an experience which words cannot express, and a feeling of satisfaction...

We have brought back the winning entries from the painting competition and the plan is to sell them with support from Online friends, and people we can reach via other mediums too... In one of my next posts I am going to post the paintings and if you are interested in buying one of them please do write to me @ prashantbhardwaj@gmail.com. I am currently in the process of finding out a place where I can get them framed for a decent price.

More about Sankalp:

Sankalp is an initiative of ASK (ASKINDIA.ORG) which aims at providing educating to the children who are involved in Child Labour in Moradabad... An initiative that is not 500+ children strong and going strong with its committed workforce... The teachers for the schools also come from the local community itself, and hence help the educated local women as well.

You can read more about Sankalp, ASK and my previous visit by clicking the following links:

ASK

Sankalp on ASK Website (The page also has a few photo essays that I did the last time I visited Sankalp)

My earlier visit to Sankalp (http://rightmore.blogspot.com/2007/02/ask-me-how.html)

Pictures from Sankalp and Moradabad (http://flickr.com/photos/prashantbhardwaj_ut/sets/72157594564953401/)

My last picture of the day :) All smiles... all happiness :) All Funn !!! Loved it !!!