Not a one less

I just finished watching "Not a one less" by Zhang Yimou and its fantastic. Its a story about a little 13 year old girl who is given the responsibility to run the school with one catch that she will be paid only if after a month all the kids in her class remains. Then one day the most recalcitrant guy leaves her school for the town to support his family. There begins the ordeal of this girl who goes out to town and bring him. Its a wonderful movie with a happy ending.

I also read part of God's equation. The third chapter is very similar to Keith Devlin's zero. Since the book has an excellent review I hope it will become more interesting as I progress. I am glad that I watched the "Hyperspace" DVD. Its visuals were stunning. God's equation begins with the significant new development that our Universe is Expanding and will continue to expand forever refuting the earlier theory that someday it will stop and collapse into itself leading to another big bang. It says that the mass of universe is not significant enough to make that theory happen. I will write more when I am finished. I also have another beautiful book to read which is "In the empire of Genghis Khan". Its review are all 5 stars on amazon !!

Waqt Old hindi Movie

There are certain things that are eitched in your mind and its a great feeling if you discover that. This happenned two days ago when I was watching the old hindi Waqt movie starring Balraj Sahani. There is this scene of earth quake decimating his whole house. I had seen that scene in a television series called "Darpan" in the early days of Doordarshan. They used to show the clippings of various movies with a common theme anchored by some host. Infact before the scene I had a strong hunch that I will be seeing that scene. It was sweet to realize that what movie it was from. The movie also stars Sunil Datt and I was wondering that since how long he has been around and in the morning I received a message on yahoo messenger that he died.

Yesterday I also got my $18 check from the income tax return. On receiving this my memory was flooded by the images of the 15th April evenning, when I filed the tax return after procrastinating for so long.

Today I have come to library early so that I can catch up with my readings and read some book. I am happy with the results in spring semester and I know that I should be consolidating my knowledge of these subjects. Especially complex analysis and introduction to analysis.

Ayako's Farewell and Elaan

Its Thursday now, today I came back from Ayako's farewell party at Kaya Resturant. One of the place where I have eaten so many times with Ayako and Yuko. So it was a perfect place for her farewell. I reached a little bit late around 18:20 I believe, I didn't have my watch with me. Almost all the people who turned up for their graduation ceremony turned up today. It was great to see Makoto and Tomei also joinning in. In fact I was meeting Makoto after a long time. I was happy that I could email most of Ayako's photograph to her. She looked happy. She was embarassed that she was not able to spend time with everybody. It was a nice party. Yanagi was also there. Then we moved to Coffee house for more chit chat. Yuko, Uma, Yang bo had to leave because of thier class schedule. I had a strong sweetened iced mocha there. We talked a lot from topics ranging to coming school in pajamas to girls fighting over cat. We had fun. Aza has a great sense of humour. Finally I am back to my place and watched the second half of hindi movie Elaan.

Elaan is one of the most misdirected movie I think I have ever seen. The dialogues are threadbare, the fighting scene are so hilarious. You wonder why after so much shooting nothing happens. It has no emotions to carry. It was just too much to watch it. That speaks that shooting in beautiful locations of France and Germany was just a waste for this movie. It will amaze anybody how could the director excpect this movie to succeed. You have to be a nincompoop to make sense of this movie.

Harold and Kumar

Ok, so I finally watched Harold and Kumar. Harold is a Korean American and Kumar is Indian American. Its good in its own class as its different in not stereotyping the Asian dudes. Ofcourse they are shown nerdy but then its their other side which is not often portrayed. Kumar though has a perfect MCAT score is bedazzled with smoking pot and Harold a hifi investment banker lacks mojo to speaks to his next door neighbour. Danielle got this one for me. Its her favorite movie and so she had the DVD. I have got two more DVDs both Japanese movies. I guess I was very much impressed by the last japanese movie I saw which was "Love Letter". Its music is sublime and I will have to ask Mamiko to get me the song for this movie.

Here Ken, Sumant, Kelly and Dave enjoying the delicious eggplant parmigiano prepared by Mary. 

Dave, Kelly,Mary, Dave and Ken at Mary's house 

Road Home, Better Tommorow, Black, Makanda

On friday I finally finished up watching Road Home. The chinese name for this is "Wo de fu qin mu qin". I borrowed this movie after reading the reviews that its a wonderful movie. The movie begins as a black and white movie and then goes back into color in flashback. Its about a son who is visiting his village after his father has died and discovers the reason why his mother wants to have an elaborate funeral for his father. A romantic movie by Zhang Yimou set up in a snowy countryside in China. Definitely worth watching. The other movie I watched was "Better Tommorow III". That was an ok movie. I also finished watching hindi movie "Black" and its pretty good. Its about a child who is blind and deaf and how his teacher help her learn through her triumphs and failure. It also start as a flash back where her Teacher is sufferring from Alzhimers disease. Watch it you won't be dissapointed.

Yesterday I went to Mary's house in Makanda and its beautiful. The location of her house. Had a good time with so many of her friends turning up. Kelly, Dave, Freddy, Tammy, Mary, Dave 2, Ken and Erine. It would have been great if Ayako and Aza could have made it. We played that funny board game involving asking trivia, drank like a fish and paraded naked on the table and yes those crazy snaps. There was some great food the eggplant parmigiano was delicious. I had to eat 3 more times to get enough of that. Nice to know Ken who is vegan and the wonderful array of soy products now coming up in the market. I had my first vegan choclate too. The bitter dark chocolate was different then regualar dark chocolate. Freddy and Tammy were wild and really get going the party. Tammy works as a land scaping consultant and Freddy works at same place as Mary.

King of Masks

I just finished watching "King of Masks" in the library. What a movie it was !! The story is about a street performer who has a family skill of changing the masks in snap. The old guy doesn't have any heir as his only son had died. He buys a girl mistaking him to be a boy. He treats her well and the girl is happy with the old man until he discover that she is a girl. The story is about their beautiful relationship. Its very nice and heartwarming. Loved every bit of it.

Yesterday I saw "Hyperspace" a BBC documentary on the past, present and future of human life. I liked especially the coming technology of space travel involving solar planes. Also it had a description of worm holes. The discussion on black holes was fascinating and coming to know that they are so numerous and present in our galaxy was kind of I wasn't expecting. Then the DVD extra feature on how they shoot the film in Newzealand and post production was also good.

I also saw "Lewis and Clark" video. That was good too. Their epic journey. The first time I came to know about thier journey was when I went to Addler planetarium in Chicago. Thier's is one of the fascinating modern journey of discovery. I also came to know about Thomas Jefferson's interest, The Lousiana purchase, the mosquito problem they had, Sacagochoia and the little bum. Their route along missisipi and the hospitality of Indians, that Lewis used to work for Jefferson and Clark was a fast friend of Lewis and it was Lewis who invited him for this journey. Now I am looking forward to go on the same trail that "Lewis an Clark" took.

I also watched "Beauty and the beast" movie and I had a feeling of deja vu that I have seen it already but that evaporated after 1 hrs. Though I still haven't finished it. I will borrow some other time. Meanwhile Dr. Philip Fiensilver is helping me understand more stuff in Analysis class and I am excited to use Maple to get a better understanding of the subject. Got a mail from Maplesoft that version 10 is released. It looks good but I belive I will have to do with my version 9.5 for some more time ahead.

I have two more movies to go and they are winner of some Cannes or other festival so I am sure it will be some more fun ahead.

Suzhou River

Surprising I watched two different movies directed by two different directors and in two different language and yet the two movies have a very common theme, the main actress has double role. Though they don't meet each other in any of the two is they do realize that they were not the true love of the man they were thinking. But thats it. The two are different stories and with some awesome background music to accompany. While the music of Suzhou River is haunting and foot tapping, the music of Love letter is sweet so much I could play on and on for hours without getting bored. Both are romantic movies and the story telling in both the movies is impeccable. The moment Suzhou river started I was engrossed it starts with the hero narrating the story and till the end you don't see his face ! The narration is superb and the movie is quite short. Its about a hero who gets a new girl friend but still not sure how much she loves her, she insist that he should love her like another guy who loves her girlfriend and his story. Infact she thought he just made up the story and is in love with her. But then she discovers that his girlfriend really existed and she did look like him and then.. See the movie its awesome. I loved it. On the other hand when Love letter started I thought it was just another schmaltzy love story. However it becomes interesting as it progess. Its about a girl whose fiance has died two years ago and she happens to find the girl with the same name as her fiance and the correspondence of letters between the two. Five start from me. Its directed by Shunji Iwai and beautiful Miho Nakayama stars in it. The Suzhou river is directed by Lou ye and has Zhou Xun in the lead. Another five star from me.

Love Letter

So finally exams have ended. Today I have got three new movies called "Love Letter", "Time and Tide" and "Uzhou River". I am half way through the "Love letter" and its interesting so far. Will expound on the story in next blog. Yesterday was spend in doing the final take home test and now I have got two more books to read. One is "The God's equation" and the second one is "The case of the missing Neutrinos". Hopefully both these books will live up to thier hype they have been able to built up on the peer reviews in amazon.com. I am also looking forward to have a better understanding of the book "Div, Grad and Curl" plus Zeta function we discussed in complex analysis class. Besides the Curl theorem and Divergence theorem. I am excited that I am going to take class on "Applied Matrix Theory" with Dr. Jerzy Kocik in fall. His promotional flyer for his class was interesting. Interspersed with famous Matrices. I am looking forward to meet my sister in California and that surely will be fun. My dad is starting some trainning program in electrical and electronics for village folks back home and I am curious what topic he is going to cover. He has got excellent skills in teaching so I am sure that training will inspire more people to look at these subjects in different light. Tommorow many of my friends are going to graduate. I wish them all a great future !! Today I also talke to Remy Joubert on Msn messenger for quite a while. Remy and I played as a team at the rec centre and it was great to have him as a partner.

Iatrogenic

Iatrogenic This is a nice word it appeared on my Readers digest's quiz. It means doctor induced illness !! The google got me to the website of iatrogenic association of America and they explained this pretty well. Here is the facsimile from thier web site. Iatros means physician in Greek, and -genic, meaning induced by, is derived from the International Scientific Vocabulary. Combined, of course, they become iatrogenic, meaning physician-induced. Iatrogenic disease is obviously, then, disease which is caused by a physician.
The second word I learned is Rendition. Which means interpretation for example "brilliant rendition of Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene"

Today I also went to Alongi in DuQuoin, Its an Italian resturant. I also got initiated into TauBetaPi formally with the famous keep secret pledge :)

Trans Asian Highway and Trans Asian Railway

Historically Railways have been the backbone of economy. A good highway coupled with a good railway network can bring prosperity to the sleepiest boondock. India has got a reasonably good railway network and with a little private network it can work wonders to its economy. What is needed is first openning up the Moreh link in Manipur with the Burma with a good road network. I remember there is already a trade agreement with Burma at this point but we need to make it a national highway so that people can travel to Burma and over to Thailand and Singapore on road. The north east should be made a corridor to full trade with the rest of east asia and the north west with central asia. The other road network that India needs to open is with the Pakistan and China. Infact India should take a keen interest in openning various trade routes with China. This will benefit tremedously the economies of the two countries. The future is very much in the economic cooperation between these two countries. Their border areas are perhaps one of the most beautiful places in the world. The mighty himalayas add so much glamour that a peaceful coexistence could fuel the economies of these places.
I am thrilled that now we have a bus service from Srinagar to Muzaffarabad. I hope some day I can take the bus ride. One of my biggest dream is to travel on silk route starting from Turkey to Singapore and then to Shanghai. It would be awesome if I can find a route to travel back to Europe by travelling in Siberia.

Trip to IG, Honor Killing

Today I went to International grocery store. I have brought 11 packet of pre cooked vegetables. It includes Rajma Masala, Aloo tikka, Paneer Tikka, Pav bhaji, Navratan korma, Kadai Paneer etc. Also got some confectionery including Skittles, Brach's Bridge Mix and Brach's California Resin plus my favorite two packs of Hershey's Nuggets, plus four packs of Neoguri noodles. I hope its enough to see me through the next 12 days. I also met Catherine at IG after a long time. She used to stay there in University Hall. Hideki was also at IG. He went there just for a single pack of noodle !!

I was reading the Timesof India web site and was laughing after reading the "Nikhanama". Where Muslim men have now a new option instead of saying Talak- Talak- Talak irrevocably they now have an option of saying it 1 time and then they have 3 month of time to make up their mind and most of the women seem to be happy. I wonder do Muslim women also have the same right to say Talaq and get along with other guy ? Probably she will be stoned to death or someone from her own family will do the honor of killing her and bringing grace to the family. A search on google about honor killing got me to this site where some enlightened soul is trying to make Quranic references to justify that Women have equal rights and can divorce men and the term for that is "Khu". Interesting isn't it ? People have been villyfying Islam for so long that it now appears as a religion which is just antiwomen, hell bent on bringing every one into its fold, subjugating freedom of thinking and starting Jehad everywhere. Or it really is true ? Internet can be said as a beginning of true democracy. Where you can hear the voice of almost anyone from the terrorists to the spritualists. Another quick search brought me to a web site called www.FaithFreedom.org Its an anti Islamic site and the owner claim themselves to be reformed Muslims and have been urging people to leave Islam. Internet may be the first sign of organize revolt against Islam. So far its juggernaut has been rolling. It will be interesting to see how such movement take on the world's biggest religions in the coming decade when most of the people will be occupied with learning and improving themselves. Already there are so many fractions in Christanity. It seems almost everyone can have his own church. Islam so far has been successful in keeping a check on its pupil because of its teaching that just unilaterally term others as less mortal and its bait of after life rewards. Its funny the very things that are prohibited in life are the rewards one reap in after life. Buddhism, Jainism are growing because of the inherent clause of Ahimsa. A recent court in India had some verdict on the use of word Hindu that its not a religion and that its a philosophy of life. Since there is no clause of conversion and proselytizing anyone plus life after death based on Karma makes hindus immune to this politics of religion. I recently checked a Ku Klux Klan website and boy it was funny to say the least. I wonder have these people ever taken a time to know other people or do they ever watch television other than their own programme or do they ever travel to another country ? If they start doing they will know that how much in pain they are living !! God bless them and help them enjoy their life.

It was sad that today that Shiori has to leave for Japan. I wish her my best wishes. Shiori is among those people who always have a cheerful disposition. The one thing that hurts me is that she has to leave without finishing her studies, considering she was thinking of working in Chicago after finishing her studies. Hope some day she can come back to US to finish off her remainning classes and fulfil her dream. I will definitely miss her.  

Yahoo better than Google !!

I don't know if lately other people have discovered the same. Though I am happy that Google now lists my old webpage http://sumant1.tripod.com as the first site when you key in Sumant. It is Yahoo that I discovered is now bringing me more traffic. Moreover yahoo's search are now better than google. Is it because Yahoo folks have now invented a better algorithm ? I don't know. There used to be a time when Yahoo used to use Google's search engine but now they have their own search engine. Another search engine Accona is also good because it lists all my web sites on net plus also my blog's update. Yahoo also has latest of my blog updates. So naturally I am getting biased towards these engines. I was kind of surprised that Indian search engine like Rediff.com also was crawling my blog. May be its using results from some other search engine. But for right now I am hogging the lime light on google and yahoo. See how long this lasts !!