Tryst With The Wild- Memoirs Of The Trip to The Bandhavgarh National Park

Law school does take its toll on the the students. Regular studies, moots, articles and exams- this is all what we have to talk about, confined within the 40 acres of NLIU campus. People look for a way out of all this. Some find solace in their laptops, some in socializing, while some often spend their time searching for it. No wonder when it was first decided to take a trip to the Bandhavgarh National Park, the tough part was not looking for people, but restricting it to a respectable number. After much planning, deliberation upon alternatives, ticketing woes et all, the trip was finally ON.

Day 1- To The Station And The Train Journey

 
I would pretty much remember the first day of the trip by two things- Jaiby's leg getting worsened, and Bhatta's window getting broken. After reaching the station over an hour early, there was not much to do except probably useless talks, and clicking pics. But amidst all the fun, Jaiby had already started experiencing pain in his legs. If we had known that it'll only get worse, a ride back to the hostel to drop him off would have been the best utilization of the remaining time.

The train journey to Umaria was for most purposes uneventful, except for an event which would have probably disturbed the whole trip for those who don't go ahead when a cat has crossed their path, and do not leave on a trip without eating sauf. The event was the train window getting shattered, right at the start of the trip. Thankfully, none of us fitted into the above mentioned description, and even if any of us did, they were better off quiet :D And so, the journey went on ..

Day 2- The Check In, And The Interpretation Center

After a night's sleep with half a dozen breaks due to unexpected cold weather in the sleeper class, the last thing we wanted was a bad ride from Umaria to Bandhavgarh. Thankfully, the bus/mini-bus/matador sent by the resort people was comfortable, and so was the single lane road to Bandhavgarh. The comfortable journey was supplemented by a preview of what was about to come- monkeys, dense forests, peaceful environment, and yes, more monkeys.

On reaching the resort, we were greeted by the manager who showed us the rooms. The rooms were perfect. It was as if a whole block was given to us. A completely private block, with rooms close enough to keep the group well connected, and also enough rooms to give privacy to both the sexes. On the expected lines, a good part of the initial few hours were spent fighting over who will be getting which room, and again on the expected lines, the guys won :P

Come evening, everybody was excited to explore this small town. And for the definite nature of our trip, we chose to visit the Interpretation Center. I would recommend anybody planning to visit Bandhavgarh to pay a visit to this center, before entering into the actual national park. It gave us a much needed introduction to everything we were about to experience in the next few days. We came to know about the caves, the Gaur, about the alarm calls given by the monkeys (which help the guides in confirming the presence of a tiger), the fire prevention system used in the national park, the Bandhavgarh Fort, the baghin chauraha etc. Some of the pleasing experiences inside the center included a big replica of the Fort, the sound recording of some of the species of birds living inside the sanctuary, the video recording of a tiger hunting down a deer (not particularly pleasing, but fascinating nonetheless!). The Interpretation Center did give us enough food for thought, at the same time raising certain questions to which we sought answers over the next two days.

A large part of the first night was spent playing this game called 'Mafia'. It took me more than a few minutes to explain the game to everyone, but it was all worth it! The game is so intense that it can carry on for hours without you noticing it. Being a moderator was a tough job, for variety of reasons. But all in all, the game did entertain us enough to end the day on a good note. The safari trip next day was to begin at 6, and nobody wanted sleep deprivation to play as a spoilsport, and thus it was considered safe to sleep off early. Thus, zzzz.z.zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..... followed!

 Day 3- The Safari Trip. (Tala Zone)

A wake up call at 5:15 (by Nishit, even before the official wake up call by the resort people), a bad tea to start the day with, rainfall when you're least prepared, and a good half an hour wait just outside the park gate (wow! that rhymed :P), are all good enough to spoil your day! But on experiencing what these woes led to, it all became worth it. The moment our jeep entered the gate of the park, there was a sudden change in the air. We were greeted by a group of monkeys just ahead of the entrance. The first warning call we heard was after half an hour, through a monkey. A silent and watchful 10 minutes wait yielded nothing except, to our dismay, the start of drizzling. The next two hours saw us watching intently at monkeys, smiling at the cuteness of sambhar deer (which runs when the tiger comes, and after a while turns back to check if it is still there, only to get killed!), "awwwwwwwww... ing" at the sight of wild chicken, taking random pics of trees etc. The closest we got to watching the tiger on the first day was the sight of pug marks on the land and trees just after the meeting point, which was an experience in itself. The 'King's' pug marks were as long as a feet whose size cannot be probably less than 15, and as broad as atleast 4 human legs kept side-by-side! We reached the resort back by 10, without any regret or anger of not seeing a tiger, but with the satisfaction and joy of the experience of last 4 hours.

The rest of the day was pretty much uneventful amidst watching the inaugural match of India, a long power cut, and a short walk to nowhere! The post dinner hours were well spent playing Killer-Detective, watching Roadies, Item Bomb (:D), and yes, taking Jaiby's case where we apparently were called as bak****, kameene, and non-bechare! And thus, all three of us (Uttu, Bhatta and me) could not get a good nights' sleep as we were just turning from one side to other all night, crying and consoling each other :P

Final Day- Second Jeep Safari (Magadhi Zone) and The Train Journey Back

The beginning to the second day of safari wasn't any different from the first day. In fact, it was worse! We woke up half an hour early, reached the gate half an hour early, spent AN EXTRA HALF AN HOUR AT THE GATE, reaching the gate pretty early than the firangees, only to watch them enter the gate (all of them) in front of us! We entered the Magadhi Zone around 7, greeted again by similar sights as the previous day. We were spotting elephants, deers, eagles, vultures, peacock, peahens at regular intervals. Even though we had seen all of them the previous day, it was still a pleasurable sight to see all of them again. The meeting point was not as good as the earlier one, but was ideal for taking some memorable pics. Just after we left the meeting point, a bomb was thrown by the guide of a jeep carrying a couple, who said that a tiger was spotted very near to that place around 10 minutes ago. Some rash driving followed! But the purported place was already filled with many other jeeps waiting to catch a glimpse of the tiger. After a good 20 minutes wait, and some more pics in the midst of  total silence, we gave up to continue with the safari. And yet another long wait came to nothing :(

 And then came the moment when every wait, the before-sunrise wake-ups, the two safari trips and everything else even remotely related to the trip became worth the trouble. The first sight of the King! When we were the least prepared. Right in front of us. Crossing the road. Silently. Peacefully. Right from the moment we saw him, our heartbeat took an upward plunge. And for the next 2 minutes, he seemed to be the only living thing around whose heart was still beating! Now we knew why only he is called the King of the forest. There was a sense of pride and authority in every step he took. Which definitely came from his immense size and strength (luckily we didn't get to see any live demonstration of the latter). After a couple of minutes of deafening silence, the King disappeared into the bushes, leaving us stunned, but content!  

 

This remained as the topic of discussion for the rest of the safari, which ended around 10:30. There wasn't much to do except pack and head back towards the station. The ride back to the station was equally comfortable, though our sleep (lack of it!) got the better of us. On reaching the station it was found that we're in again for another long wait, as the train was late (woww.. it rhymed again!). Expectantly, a good part of the initial one hour of the train journey was spent over seating difficulties (handled well by Nishit and Bhatta). The only highlight of the return journey was Nain getting off for the first time in her life at a station during a train journey, and Jabalpur got the honours. While going off to the bed (berth) for the last time on the trip, everyone was aware of another early morning wake up call, but this time there was no excitement of another safari trip, another tiger sighting, or another day in the wild. But there was a sense of satisfaction, and blissfulness, and a feeling of time well spent! :)

 P.S- Some words/sentences we probably over-used (but they were still fresh the last time we used them)

- Magic dikhau Magic

- Awwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!


- Yayyy!! Now my hands are free of 99.99% of the germs.

- What's up?

- I believe in 'Sharing is Caring'

 Some scenes and images to remember the trip from- 

- Narrowly missing the tiger, twice

- The first, and the only encounter with the tiger

- All the Mafia games

- While playing Killer-Detective, when

      - Nain identifying me as the Killer, when i was already dead!

      - Ritika and Jaiby telling each other that they are Killer, and Detective respectively.

Images Courtesy-  Nain and Priyam

Fun Courtesy- Nain, Priyam, Bhatta, Uttu, Jaiby, Kritika, Ritika and Nishit!

What's Wrong With The Movie Critics? What Exactly Is Their Problem?

Have you ever watched a movie that you thought cannot be possibly adjudged as even 'average' by a normal moviegoer, that it is perhaps one of the better movies of its genre, or that it is one of the best works of the director, only to find out that the movie is bashed big time by the critics! All the film industries are full of such examples. A little digging revealed that movies like 'Milk' or 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' were not so liked by the masses, but were loved by the critics. On the other hand, we all loved Inception, or even Home Alone, but critics have had just too many reservations about the likability of these movies. (Home Alone has a rating of 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, meaning that only 47% of the people found it fresh, or loved it!)


IMDB and RottenTomatoes are full of such movies. Critics loved Dr. Strangelove, or Rear Window, and even Life of Brian. But after watching these movies, we were forced to think- "there are better movies out there which deserved a better imdb rating".  On the other side, critics hated Hook, Equilibrium and even The Godfather III, and we hated them for it!

Critics have often been ridiculed and thrashed as irrelevant, over-smart, and arrogant. Their reviews are often termed as less of scholarly criticism, and more of tabloid journalism to fool the ignorant! But their side of the story is often unheard, which also directly leads us to the answer to our moot question "Why do critics love some, and hate other movies?". Its because they've seen a lot, and know TOO MUCH about movies!

Lets take an example of a doctor. When we meet a person, who seems like at the pink of his health, we seem to ignore probably his occasional coughing, or even his regular hair fall. But its not the same with the doctors. They'll probably catch all these (occasional) problems the moment they notice it, and can relate each one to another (Eg. hair fall because of stress, coughing because you probably had something cold yesterday). But we, while meeting the same person will say "Wow! You sure are looking fitter and smarter!"

That's the problem with movie critics. They know just too much about the movies. And not all of them are fun to analyze! The critics look for good plotting, story-telling, acting, scripting etc. This is where there is a disconnect between an average moviegoer and the critics. Both of them should be seen as two school of thoughts, and complimenting each other.

Critics also tend to over-analyze the movies. To the extent that it's really difficult for them to rate a movie as brilliant. Jeff Stibel, CEO of Dun & Bradstreet, put this point succinctly in an article on analysis-paralysis:

"Decisions are destroyed by over-analysis... The more information you pile on, the less likely you are to make educated guesses. But educated guesses spring from wisdom: all of your past experiences, knowledge and knowhow, coupled with the most recent information and analysis. In other words, wisdom comes from your gut." 


True, such analysis-es help critics distinguish between 'good' and 'enjoyable'. While the latter do not always earn accolades from the critics, the former is recognized and is rated higher by the critics. But this is where the critics find themselves getting disassociated with the masses. And no wonder the masses hate them for it.

In a way i feel sorry for critics. They miss out on the fun of grabbing a popcorn bucket, a medium Pepsi and sitting back and enjoying a film. Sadly, what they look for is weak plotting, outdated story-telling or mediocre performances. And end up ruining their movie-watching experiences!

Cloud Caution: Look Before You Leap! (A small piece published on www.pluggd.in)

The following is a piece of article written by me published on www.pluggd.in. A small article i wrote to get free tickets to an entrepreneurship summit in Delhi! Which sadly i cudnt even attend! :(

The ‘Cloud’ is taking the world by storm, thanks to thousands of happy (debatable) start-ups and other businesses operating in it, and also to the PR force of Microsoft, Google, Salesforce.com and Sun. Before diving into the details, let’s understand the cloud in a few words. Cloud is a virtual storage space and a software holding tank. So it doesn’t only let you part with the heavy servers (space and memory wise) but is also a form of software outsourcing which greatly reduces upgrade hassles and other potential software problems. Cloud computing is a model which certainly has advantage, but for some businesses its shortcomings not be able to offset the advantages. In addition to well known risks like security and performance, some other myths and resulting risks are as follows:

1)    Cloud Computing is a cure all!

Cloud may not be the answer to all your software needs. Based on their sensitivity, not all applications may be ideal candidates for offloading to the cloud. For e.g. when it comes to financial applications governed by strict compliance regulations, “most of the cloud vendors do not provide availability assurance. Service level agreements are almost not existent” outlines Forrester report. So it may not be a good idea for all the businesses of various levels to pass on applications and softwares to the cloud.

2)    Everything offloaded. Only technical risks now!

Yes, you offload and outsource everything to the cloud vendors and think that you need to worry only about technical risks. But the same offloading also gives rise to ‘Vendor risks’. Thus, if the cloud company you rely on experience technical (or non-technical) problems and shuts down, the same will be the fate of your business.

3)     Price- Low and will always remain so!

Richard Stallman, the man behind Free Software Foundation, puts forward this risk. “The interesting thing about cloud computing is that we have re-defined cloud computing to include everything that we already do.. and it forces people to hand over their information to the third party” Stallman says. The risk emanating from this is that the value of information may see an upward surge in times to come.  As cloud vendors take charge of your data, expect high charges and fees which may even surpass the traditional storage model.

4)    Switching cloud vendors may be the solution to all the problems!

“The reality is that I can’t switch vendors” says Fredric Paul, publisher of bMighty.com. Switching cloud vendors may not be as easy as those youtube videos may want you to believe. It largely depends on which VM (Virtual Machine) you are using. It may be very difficult to switch from say VMware to Xen and vice versa. You may have to set up the same VM infrastructure and replicate or set up a physical server resource and do a migration. In a nutshell, high switching cost and data safety issues.

5)    Vendor- Bigger the Better!

This is relatable to the abovementioned second myth, but the halo around the BIG cloud vendors makes it imperative to describe it separately. The presence of online leaders like Amazon, Google and Yahoo! in the cloud industry has boosted its credibility, but their presence may be of very little use if they can’t deliver quality services. Take for instance, in February 2008; Amazon S3 experienced problems for 3 hours, leaving companies worldwide without access to their data. The recent decision by Yahoo! to close down some of its services (though not related to cloud computing) can demonstrate the risk of provider pulling the plug on the service at any moment. The company we are talking about here is no fly-by-night provider but a well established internet giant. Thus, the lesson learnt is that even the gigantic cloud vendors cannot be relied upon blindly.

Cloud computing is the next big phenomenon. The start-ups and established giants cannot completely rule it off. However, it is a path which should be adopted with caution. Cloud computing may not be for every business out there, and even for businesses which prefers the cloud some of the key features like interpolability (harmonious working of various applications) and reliability should not be ignored. Towards the end, it would also be desirous to have a contingency plan in place if ever your cloud vendor may decide to call it a day.      

Some events!

After much deliberation, I've finally shifted to the hostel. It feels great! For the final three months of college/college hostel/academic life. Feels good have much more time for everything (everything = useless stuff). Spending time watching HIMYM, playing FIFA, roaming around the campus, reading random stuff and socializing.!! Feels greaT!!

BTW, Akshu cleared PCC. In her first attempt. She seems so happy and overjoyed. And it feels good that her hard word did not go in vain. Though she was slightly sad that the result was not on expected lines, but thats how she is - slightly pessimistic!! :D 

3 Things I Learnt From The Movie "Life is Beautiful"

Just completed watching the movie 'Life is Beautiful' for the umpteenth time. This is one movie which i can perhaps be never be bored while watching. Everything from acting to background score to plot is perfect! Here i'd like to pen down 3 wonderful things i learnt from this movie:

1) Well at the end of the day, impossible is actually nothing.
Guido (Roberto Benigni) is an almost useless chap who falls in love with Dora who comes from a wealthy and non-Jewish family. Still, he never gives up. And finally ends up stealing her away from her engagement. He manages to hide the truth from his son that the whole plot is not a game but actually the site of Nazi death camp. Yes, this is a work of fiction. But there are zillions of similar instances in real life available.
All it takes is a never ending commitment. Impossible is actually nothing!

2) You should NEVER lose your sense of humour.
Guido cracks jokes when the breaks of his car failed, when he was in concentration camp holding tonnes of steel, in front of the whole class, in front of the commander of the camp and in almost every other scene. What more, he even makes the whole concentration camp seem like a game to his son. And manages to convince him beyond doubt. He manages to marry the girl he loves, manages to entertain his son even in worst circumstances and give some good laughs to the fellow mates, all because he manages to crack jokes even in the worst circumstances. This is what life is all about. Never losing one's sense of humour. I sincerely believe that however bad a situation may be, there can be a joke for it :D

3) In the end, its only about how many hearts you sincerely touched.
Guido, through the whole movie entertains everyone, sincerely. He is one person who proves that he can do anything for his wife's happiness, and son's entertainment. Towards the end, he pays the price by getting killed. But not before being permanently embedded in the hearts of his wife, son, that doctor he meets at the restaurant, his friend, his relatives, his fellow mates in the camp etc. In the end, what matters is how you improved the lives of the people around you, how you made them feel.

This movie still tops my all time favorite list, beating movies like The Dark Knight, The Godfather series and Shawshank Redemption. Primarily because it had a class and an aura of its own. A sense of genuinity attached to every scene. And a climax which gives you a sense of victory, but not before tears rolling down your eyes. :)

   

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Somehow i can never understand the critics. Various questions always pop up in my mind whenever i hear any "critic's" name. How come they're known as critics, and not usual movie buffs? How come they're professional critics. Is this what they always wanted to become? Is there any course for becoming a critic. Aren't they paid for their reviews by the movie director? Who guarantees their transparency?

Btw, watched this "critically acclaimed" movie 127, directed by Danny Boyle. The movie is rated pretty good by the imdb users. But in plain terms, the movie was plain boring. I admit that i finished off the 90 mins movie in around 40-50 mins. But i was forced to. After a decent start, that high was lost somewhere. Only towards the end did that high came back when he  rescues himself.

(This post is the most random of them all. But i'm out of thoughts at the moment. Will probably add something substantial later. Bye for now.)

Lier Lier!!

Watching this new tv series "Lie To Me", with Tim Roth as the protagonist. Its amazing.. He catches the culprits by just talking to them. By their facial expressions when they are asked various questions. The acting is brilliant. But the best thing about the show is the plot of every episode. The ending is largely unpredictable, sometimes due to new characters and twists right before the culprit is caught.

One episode did disturb me a little. It was regarding surrogacy. And what was disturbing was that they chose Indian women as surrogate mothers. The show based in US, which can show any country to demonstrate the ills of surrogate motherhood, did not choose Indians randomly. This proves that what we see, hear, read about Indian women as cheap child carriers is very true and real. And this is known to Indians and foreigners alike.

Anyways, will be watching the last episode of first season now. The last but one was amazing, when even Lightman (Roth) was shown to be erring, only to come back double strong in the latter half. Will probably download the later seasons of the show. Love it!