January 28, 2009
Slumdog Millionaire (SM) - a honest review
The whole world is watching and talking about SM movie. No doubt its a beautiful movie with an innovative knot in the screenplay. Some scenes really touches the heart and make one shed tears. The BGM and the tracks by ARR is amazing and blends well with the movie.The cast is also wonderful and they live the characters.
Having said all this, I do have some criticism against the hype and awards its receiving. If we keep away the knot (questions are related to the hero`s life) and just look at the scenes alone, its no different than a typical bollywood/kollywood movie. It has romance, mother/brother sentiments,a villian, betrayal,riots between different religions etc and it even has an end credit group dance at the railway station (not sure whether this is included in the version shown to award committee).
Also lets take the country where it takes place. It happens in my country, INDIA. Is India the only place that has a slum ? All nations including superpowers like USA has slums, no less than what is shown in the movie. But its not that easy to showcase poverty about those nations without any opposition from its government or censors or even local people compared to India coz we people here love movies a lot and we hold red carpet previews to watch the horrific realities of our nation.
The movie attempts every possible ways to show the poor side of India - be it the horrible pay restroom, waiter filling used water bottles with tap water, kids stealing food hanging from top of train etc...is it not possible to show good things about a country and win an award ?
But thank god that not all the questions are related to slum life realities of India. There are questions related to lighter moments like cricket,school stories etc.
The knot is based on a novel (Q&A) by Vikas Swarup. This shows the power of movies compared to books coz it reaches the masses a lot. SM is dubbed in all local languages and its amazing that even rural theatres are having decent collections. I dont know what they named for the tamil dub, hope its not some low grade title as "kupaimettu kotteswaran" !!!
Coming to Music, I have tremendous respect and admiration for ARR. I worship his music and adore his humbleness. Who can keep saying "Ella pugazhum eraivanuke" even after becoming an oscar nominee ?! I have grown up with his music starting from his debut album "Set me Free" with pop singer Shubha. Even the ARR fans does not even know about this album and most thinks that "Roja" is his first music.
But I feel, SM BGM or tracks is not the best of ARRs music that it got GG award. I agree its wonderful but there are much more awesome works by ARR in the past which deserves more than an Oscar. How many would have heard his work in a movie called "Andhimandharai" - an utter flop but beautiful movie. This once again boils down that for a music to reach the awards, the movie has to be good too.
Anyways am very proud that ARR - a chennai origin Indian is in limelight and I wish and pray that he should bag the Academy Awards too. Hats off to ARR !!!
Anil Kapoor has done a great job as the quiz master and his mannerism , his frustration that the contestant is winning is all out of the world.
This same plot could have made in a humourous way too. Each questions could have related to some funny incidents of a youngster living in urban mumbai. But it wont get the award unless we show bad things, communal riots, slum, child harrasment etc !!! Iam disappointed about that only.
Bottomline is SM is a must watch wonderful movie.
January 27, 2009
IMS and SDP
All the Telcos have realized that bidding on voice alone will not make them survive in this current age. So everyone has started digging into emerging markets like data/video/wireless MVNOs etc.
What pushed the telcos into this diversification is the huge adoption of internet and wireless in developing nations like India,China etc. Also the way to content creation is not only restricted to telcos and now a days every subscriber is a content provider too in form of blogs,podcasts,photos,videos.mashups etc.
One side we have several ways and formats to publish content and other side we have several transports/access mechanism to access the content. This leads to a chaos with the stoved pipe/walled garden architectures that telcos were following so far.
How is it solved ? Several Consortiums have looked at this issue and have come up with 2 very important standard called SDP (Service Delivery Platform) and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem).
SDP is a standard architecture which specifies how content or services can be created / published / managed and charged by anyone - be it be a subscriber, 3rd party developers or the telcos itself. A TELCO NETWORK IS NO LONGER A WALLED GARDEN BUT AN OPEN PLATFORM. (e.g. BT`s Web21C)
IMS on the other hand is a standard architeture which specifies various components and frameworks to deal with the various ways an enduser can access the content/service. We have wireless,wireline - Within Wireless we have 3G, CDMA,GSM etc - Also we have TDM, SIP,H323 kind of access protocols - Also n number of devices from POTS phone to iPhone to TV to IVRs to NetPCs. TELCO NETWORK IS NO LONGED A STOVE PIPE BUT CATERS TO
ANY CONTENT-ANY NETWORK-ANY DEVICE-ANY TIME.
What pushed the telcos into this diversification is the huge adoption of internet and wireless in developing nations like India,China etc. Also the way to content creation is not only restricted to telcos and now a days every subscriber is a content provider too in form of blogs,podcasts,photos,videos.mashups etc.
One side we have several ways and formats to publish content and other side we have several transports/access mechanism to access the content. This leads to a chaos with the stoved pipe/walled garden architectures that telcos were following so far.
How is it solved ? Several Consortiums have looked at this issue and have come up with 2 very important standard called SDP (Service Delivery Platform) and IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem).
SDP is a standard architecture which specifies how content or services can be created / published / managed and charged by anyone - be it be a subscriber, 3rd party developers or the telcos itself. A TELCO NETWORK IS NO LONGER A WALLED GARDEN BUT AN OPEN PLATFORM. (e.g. BT`s Web21C)
IMS on the other hand is a standard architeture which specifies various components and frameworks to deal with the various ways an enduser can access the content/service. We have wireless,wireline - Within Wireless we have 3G, CDMA,GSM etc - Also we have TDM, SIP,H323 kind of access protocols - Also n number of devices from POTS phone to iPhone to TV to IVRs to NetPCs. TELCO NETWORK IS NO LONGED A STOVE PIPE BUT CATERS TO
ANY CONTENT-ANY NETWORK-ANY DEVICE-ANY TIME.
nila sooru - a poem
a boy to a girl...
"nilavai kaati en thaai sooru ootinal andru...
un mugathai paarthu sooru unkiren endru..."
"nilavai kaati en thaai sooru ootinal andru...
un mugathai paarthu sooru unkiren endru..."
January 24, 2009
Kangana
I have become a great fan of hers after watching Gangster and Fashion. She is one of the few gifted actresses who can make her eyes talk and reveal the feelings.
Also the flexibility in playing several shades of roles , be it a girl in a dilemaa who needs to choose between "wait" and "move on" (gangster) or the arrogant,frustrated model (fashion) or a rural girl who is awaiting her lover`s arrival and lives in dream world (dhaam dhoom).
Her early career as a Theater artist definitely helps her in performing such an impressive act in movies.She has done few other movies - Woh Lamhe,Life in a Metro and Shakalaka Boom Boom. I remember watching few of these. But now am gonna watch it again for Kangana.
January 18, 2009
Trunking and SIP
Trunking is a jargon used for circuits that connect telecom switches. It can be as basic as a business PBX trunk which connects to a local exchange or a sophisticated inter exchange trunks which is a backbone for call routing.
In TDM world, trunking is implemented using BRI or PRI interfaces. These cards connects to the carrier via telephone lines. These trunks are usually used to make calls to outside world and to receive them too. The main disadvantage of these TDM trunks are that they come in fixed sets, say a PRI trunk comes with 23 channels. This forces businesses to buy more than what they need.
With the hude adoption of internet by businesses, Why not use VoIP for trunking too. The advantage of it is to eliminate these cumbersome TDM trunking interfaces and use one common fat internet pipe for Voice (both internal as well as external) and Data.
Ofcourse there is always the debate of QoS but this can be defeated using proper SIP aware edge devices which can police the bandwidth usage accordingly and always ensures sufficient bandwidth for voice calls.
Most IP-PBXs support SIP trunking including the opensource asterisk. Similarly most VoIP Vendors also provide the SIP trunking capability for business users.
January 14, 2009
Few Pages from a Cab`s Diary - my first short story
Few Pages from a Cab`s Diary
Sep 3 2008
A new driver was appointed today to drive me. Seems the old driver was fired cause of his arrogance with the employees. This new guy was young and also smart. First Day itself, he washed and cleaned me thoroughly including the tires. I felt very happy and started liking him.
Surya…yes that’s his name.
We started for our usual afternoon pickup. Kiran, Anu, Indhu, Arun,and Lokesh are our usual passengers. I like anu more compared to others because she is homely,beautiful and at same time humble , kind and calm. I guess Surya thought the same since he kept looking at her in the rear view mirror.
Surya impressed me again by being jovial to everyone. He cracked jokes all along and was friendly to passengers. He played songs on the Car Player too which the old driver never did himself.
During the return Night drop, usually anu is the last one. When she got down , she said “Surya…you are driving well and also safe…Good Night”
After leaving the car in the shed, he kept listening to “Mannil Indha Kaadhal Indri” song.
Sep 24 2008
During the night trip, they were all talking about some treat. Seems its anu`s birthday tomorrow. When we reached her home, it was past 12AM. Surya wished her “Happy Birthday Anu”.
She felt happy and said “Thanks Surya you were the first one to wish me”
Surya was on cloud nine and this time it got confirmed that he started developing something for anu, because he started scribbling her name all around my body dust !
Sep 25 2008
Today Morning, Surya stopped the car at a shop and got a nice birthday card for Anu. He gave it to her when she got into the car. She felt little shy and happy and said “Thanks Surya…Very Sweet of You”. Our boy was all smiles and was excited like anything. He searched the glove box and took a CD and played it. The song was “Kaadhalikum pennin kaigal thotu neetinal”
On the return journey, they requested Surya to stop at a Coffee Shop so they can have their birthday treat. We waited outside and time was running. I felt bad that they should have invited surya too.
At that moment, anu came out like an angel with a plate in her hand. It was a slice of the birthday cake. She gave it to surya and said with a smile , “Sorry Surya for making you wait…Please have my birthday Cake”.
Our boy almost fainted and I think he had 1000s of butterflies in his heart. That whole night he was listening to “Nenjukul Peithidum Maamazhai” Song.
Sep 30 2008
Today was a bad day for me. Yes, I got a flat tire and that too during the night trip. Adding to that the rain was playing games with me too. We just started the trip and none were dropped yet. We had girls and their safety added to our tension.
Surya did a nice thing. He got down in the rain, tried to stop our company cars and he succeeded in that too. Finally we send off everyone and he started fixing my tire. When we got to the shed it was almost 2AM. We were very tired.
His mobile rang at that time and while he was talking , his face went bright killing all the tiredness. I was annoyed. He kept the phone saying “Thanks Anu…Atleast you had the courtesy to call back and ask about whereabouts”
He went into his dream world again !
Oct 10th 2008
While dropping anu back at home, she told , “Surya, Can you please come to my home little early tomorrow morning. I want to tell you something”.He asked the reason and she denied the answer saying it’s a surprise.
The whole night he didn’t sleep and was staring at the stars and thinking. The song “enna solla pogirai…nee enna solla pogirai” was running.
Oct 11th 2008
Surya got up early today and wore his best dress. We went to anu`s place. I couldn’t tolerate the suspense. What to do. They can’t take me inside.
After 10 minutes, Surya came with a frowned face. He got into the car and banged the door.
When we were about to leave, Anu came running asking him to stop. He rolled the window down and she said with a smile, “Surya…you forgot and left the inivitation...Here it is...you should drive during my marriage too especially for the groom invite. I would feel very happy”.
Sep 3 2008
A new driver was appointed today to drive me. Seems the old driver was fired cause of his arrogance with the employees. This new guy was young and also smart. First Day itself, he washed and cleaned me thoroughly including the tires. I felt very happy and started liking him.
Surya…yes that’s his name.
We started for our usual afternoon pickup. Kiran, Anu, Indhu, Arun,and Lokesh are our usual passengers. I like anu more compared to others because she is homely,beautiful and at same time humble , kind and calm. I guess Surya thought the same since he kept looking at her in the rear view mirror.
Surya impressed me again by being jovial to everyone. He cracked jokes all along and was friendly to passengers. He played songs on the Car Player too which the old driver never did himself.
During the return Night drop, usually anu is the last one. When she got down , she said “Surya…you are driving well and also safe…Good Night”
After leaving the car in the shed, he kept listening to “Mannil Indha Kaadhal Indri” song.
Sep 24 2008
During the night trip, they were all talking about some treat. Seems its anu`s birthday tomorrow. When we reached her home, it was past 12AM. Surya wished her “Happy Birthday Anu”.
She felt happy and said “Thanks Surya you were the first one to wish me”
Surya was on cloud nine and this time it got confirmed that he started developing something for anu, because he started scribbling her name all around my body dust !
Sep 25 2008
Today Morning, Surya stopped the car at a shop and got a nice birthday card for Anu. He gave it to her when she got into the car. She felt little shy and happy and said “Thanks Surya…Very Sweet of You”. Our boy was all smiles and was excited like anything. He searched the glove box and took a CD and played it. The song was “Kaadhalikum pennin kaigal thotu neetinal”
On the return journey, they requested Surya to stop at a Coffee Shop so they can have their birthday treat. We waited outside and time was running. I felt bad that they should have invited surya too.
At that moment, anu came out like an angel with a plate in her hand. It was a slice of the birthday cake. She gave it to surya and said with a smile , “Sorry Surya for making you wait…Please have my birthday Cake”.
Our boy almost fainted and I think he had 1000s of butterflies in his heart. That whole night he was listening to “Nenjukul Peithidum Maamazhai” Song.
Sep 30 2008
Today was a bad day for me. Yes, I got a flat tire and that too during the night trip. Adding to that the rain was playing games with me too. We just started the trip and none were dropped yet. We had girls and their safety added to our tension.
Surya did a nice thing. He got down in the rain, tried to stop our company cars and he succeeded in that too. Finally we send off everyone and he started fixing my tire. When we got to the shed it was almost 2AM. We were very tired.
His mobile rang at that time and while he was talking , his face went bright killing all the tiredness. I was annoyed. He kept the phone saying “Thanks Anu…Atleast you had the courtesy to call back and ask about whereabouts”
He went into his dream world again !
Oct 10th 2008
While dropping anu back at home, she told , “Surya, Can you please come to my home little early tomorrow morning. I want to tell you something”.He asked the reason and she denied the answer saying it’s a surprise.
The whole night he didn’t sleep and was staring at the stars and thinking. The song “enna solla pogirai…nee enna solla pogirai” was running.
Oct 11th 2008
Surya got up early today and wore his best dress. We went to anu`s place. I couldn’t tolerate the suspense. What to do. They can’t take me inside.
After 10 minutes, Surya came with a frowned face. He got into the car and banged the door.
When we were about to leave, Anu came running asking him to stop. He rolled the window down and she said with a smile, “Surya…you forgot and left the inivitation...Here it is...you should drive during my marriage too especially for the groom invite. I would feel very happy”.
January 13, 2009
Mergers and Acquisitions
There is a saying that "Marriages are made in heaven". But some break within short period time. Likewise the mergers and acquisitions doesnt always work in favor of the company if its just a way to beef up the financial statement or just because the other company`s name is the reverse of yours !
Every winning merger has a strategy not just on financial terms but on how the products/solutions/people of each company can be complimentary and enhance the overall offerings to customers, how the IT systems of both companies integrate well and how the locations,distributors,stores etc are properly considered.
The book "Billion-Dollar Lessons" is like how we have "anti-patterns" in IT. It explains WHAT NOT TO DO during mergers/acquisitions with excellent case studies of billion dollar+ mergers around the world.
Following are few of my Fav Mergers/Acquisitions that I know of, which I feel are best strategical successful ones
EMC-VMWare ::: EMC is a storage giant and VMWare complimented it with their virtualization leading to innovations in Storage Virtualization
Google-YouTube , Google-Blogger ::: Google is the Internet Giant and YouTube,Blogger made them dominate the personal publishing market using video and blogs
Yahoo-Flickr ::: Yahoo is the leading Internet Company and flickr with its innovative web 2.0 photo site provided a gateway for Yahoo to enter Web 2.0 Phase
Microsoft-Hotmail ::: With its late entry into Internet, MS needed this more than anything else, so it can grab a chunk of the Internet market and it succeeded in it too
Sun - StorageTek ::: StorageTek was the market leader in backup media hardware/software and Sun was an ideal place for it since its a market leader in carrier grade server hardware. Customers can now buy a single solution and support for the whole datacenter
FedEx-Kinkos ::: FedEx is the leader is logistics and Kinkos provided them document management and also retail branding with its store chain.
January 08, 2009
Virtualization
When Computers were invented, the OS and the hardware were tigthly coupled. Like OS/390 and IBM MainFrames, VAX and DEC machines, Windows and X86, Solaris and SPARC, Linux and X86, HP-UX and HP boxes, Mac and Apple etc...
Later the OS became hardware independent and Linux played a major part in it. This resulted in dual bootloaders, where one can have multiple partitions on same hardware and boot the OS of choice during the boottime.This was very useful during the baby Linux days, coz most softwares were not available on Linux and one has to use Windows.
Then VMWare made the Software Virtualization to masses, where one can run an OS within another OS...Its an amazing technology and opened several possibilities in demos, multiple test instances , software customer support and importantly for Hosted Applications and SaaS. Earlier Customers were sharing one common OS and different instances of the webserver or appserver from the hosting provider. But it created problems when one malfunctioning app in an instance crashed the entire OS leading to downtime of other applications too.
With Software Virtualization, the hosting provider can now, have multiple OS instances on the same box , therein minimizing the OS level crashes coz now if it all an OS crash, it will affect only that Virtual Host. Still all the OS instances were sharing one common set of hardware only and it had its own problems.
Later the Storage Virtualization was the buzz when IT found it as a nightmare to backup individual harddisks on Server and its RAIDs. With this technology, the Physical Storage is managed in a backend SAN or NAS Cluster and the servers just dealt with Logical Volumes. This helped in consolidating storage and also on-demand scaling when storage needs arise.e.g HP StorageWorks SAN Platforms
Now the hot topic is the Hardware Virtualization wherein the virtualization is not just done at software level but even at Hardware level. For e.g. the HP superdome boxes can have 128 CPU cores and 2TB of RAM and with Hardware Virtualization, this can be partitioned into any number of Virtual Physical boxes and the beauty is you can change the partitions anytime based on demand.
Later the OS became hardware independent and Linux played a major part in it. This resulted in dual bootloaders, where one can have multiple partitions on same hardware and boot the OS of choice during the boottime.This was very useful during the baby Linux days, coz most softwares were not available on Linux and one has to use Windows.
Then VMWare made the Software Virtualization to masses, where one can run an OS within another OS...Its an amazing technology and opened several possibilities in demos, multiple test instances , software customer support and importantly for Hosted Applications and SaaS. Earlier Customers were sharing one common OS and different instances of the webserver or appserver from the hosting provider. But it created problems when one malfunctioning app in an instance crashed the entire OS leading to downtime of other applications too.
With Software Virtualization, the hosting provider can now, have multiple OS instances on the same box , therein minimizing the OS level crashes coz now if it all an OS crash, it will affect only that Virtual Host. Still all the OS instances were sharing one common set of hardware only and it had its own problems.
Later the Storage Virtualization was the buzz when IT found it as a nightmare to backup individual harddisks on Server and its RAIDs. With this technology, the Physical Storage is managed in a backend SAN or NAS Cluster and the servers just dealt with Logical Volumes. This helped in consolidating storage and also on-demand scaling when storage needs arise.e.g HP StorageWorks SAN Platforms
Now the hot topic is the Hardware Virtualization wherein the virtualization is not just done at software level but even at Hardware level. For e.g. the HP superdome boxes can have 128 CPU cores and 2TB of RAM and with Hardware Virtualization, this can be partitioned into any number of Virtual Physical boxes and the beauty is you can change the partitions anytime based on demand.
January 05, 2009
Fav Hindi Movies of 2008
Wednesday
Simple yet gripping thriller. Naseerudin Shah holds the audience with his stunning performance. Its Slick focussed hollywood style Screenplay with no usual bollywood masala adds to its win. There is one tamil movie named "Evano Oruvan" which deals with similar plot of a basic citizen taking law in his hands.
http://ssklogs.blogspot.com/2008/12/perfect-good-bye.html
"Behind the Scenes of an Industry" type movies always creates hype and this one cashes on that hype and its a quality movie too. Kangana simple rocks in this movie as an arrogant but frustrated at heart model. "Kuch Khaas" song just melts ones heart.
How can this list end without a "Feel Good about life" type of movie. This youthful , nothing new yet charming story was a clear win at BO with its peppy songs, gorgeous & Cute genelia, Next Door Look Imran and the narration style.
http://ssklogs.blogspot.com/2008/12/jodi.html
This is an Edge of the Seat humorous Thriller (like Saroja in Tamil) with a focussed plot dealing with covering up of a murder. Paresh Raval fits into the role so good and he carries the whole movie on his shoulder. The ending last scene twist is also a nice one.
Simple yet gripping thriller. Naseerudin Shah holds the audience with his stunning performance. Its Slick focussed hollywood style Screenplay with no usual bollywood masala adds to its win. There is one tamil movie named "Evano Oruvan" which deals with similar plot of a basic citizen taking law in his hands.Dasvidaniya
http://ssklogs.blogspot.com/2008/12/perfect-good-bye.html
Fashion
"Behind the Scenes of an Industry" type movies always creates hype and this one cashes on that hype and its a quality movie too. Kangana simple rocks in this movie as an arrogant but frustrated at heart model. "Kuch Khaas" song just melts ones heart.Jaane Tu
How can this list end without a "Feel Good about life" type of movie. This youthful , nothing new yet charming story was a clear win at BO with its peppy songs, gorgeous & Cute genelia, Next Door Look Imran and the narration style.Rab Ne Bana di Jodi
http://ssklogs.blogspot.com/2008/12/jodi.html
Maharathi
This is an Edge of the Seat humorous Thriller (like Saroja in Tamil) with a focussed plot dealing with covering up of a murder. Paresh Raval fits into the role so good and he carries the whole movie on his shoulder. The ending last scene twist is also a nice one.
