Great news:Fuel prices go up.

( Disclaimer: This is not sarcasm,I am serious. :) )

For people who are lazy and smart enough to not watch news channels and read 'informative' (Read: masala!) Newspapers, this is the news which is rocking the parliament and the whole country. Fuel prices have gone up! ( Nothing new right?)

Petrol: Rs 3 and some change..

Diesel: Rs 2 and some change..

LPG Gas: Rs 35 and no change!

Kerosene: Don't know, You can read your paper for further details.

Opposition parties,state ruling parties and all other state level organisations are doing what is expected of them, Protesting Vehemently by Burning effigies and stuff ( There is huge potential in Effigies manufacturing business,demand never dies down!!)

But there are few people, who recognize that the move made by government is brilliant and planned keeping future in mind. After all they have a vision for our country.

Of that few people,i would love to call myself one but i cannot! I am still not well qualified!

But i have some thoughts on the issue which will sure get affirmative from brilliant people.

There are many benefits from fuel prices hike, some of them include:

Health Benefits

1] Now you can keep your two wheeler/four wheeler in your garage/parking lot and forget about it. Yes you can! We can walk more,and am sure you all people know the wonderful benefits of walking. You can walk short distances but for long distances comes the second point.

2] Public transport(PT): You can use Buses and trains to cover long distances,and you save money too! Now if you use PT, there will be less pollution as the number of vehicles on the road will decrease. Great news for people who wear the suffocating scarfs to avoid pollution!!

3] No tension of spending money on petrol and handling irritating Petrol pump guys! Less tension more peace of mind. You can even try out spirituality!!

4] This is the best benefit according to me, You can have a clear thinking process! Pretty simple explanation for that, Time spent on vehicle to reach destination will be lot lesser than spent on walking or using PT. Now you do not have to concentrate on driving too. So you can utilize your time in thinking. Because you have already got peace of mind you can think about the betterment of society!! Hence making our country a better place to live in.

Economic benefits

1] As already explained above you will shell out less money on PT and save a lot of money on petrol too. You also don't have to spend on service charge of your old vehicle.

And the biggest save would be giving the money too Traffic policeman!

Now i will give you the rough figures which i will save every month, I encourage you to calculate your savings too.

Petrol for my 2 wheeler-> Rs 500

Traffic policeman-> Rs 100/200/300 ( Varies according to the greed)

Service charges-> Rs 300 ( Considering that my vehicle needs servicing every 3 months)

Air for Tyres-> Rs 10

Total spending per month-> Rs 710 ( Service charge per month is added as Rs 100)

If i use PT for travelling then it would amount to Rs 300.( As per Hyderabad PT charges which by the way are expected to increase!)

Amount saved: Rs 410!!

"Money saved is money earned" Now if you are sensible then you will not spend this amount but save it for investing later. 1 year savings would be Rs 4920!

If you chose to save the money for three years it becomes a whopping Rs 14760!! You can invest this money on accumulating your assets. I am not good at financial matters,i am sure you will come up with great ideas to invest that money.

The money can be spent on buying essential commodities for home as well,Food inflation is expected to go up. Government had planned this too! Great vision!

You know the benefits now, i encourage you people too thank the Government for taking such a Amazing step for the betterment of the people of our great country. We should encourage them too come up with similar ideas to make our country the best in this world.

The calculations above are based upon a middle class perspective, you may ask what about poor people. Government are coming up with great ideas to solve all their problems.

Jai Hind*

* Conditions apply

7 things you don't know about me

This post has been due for some days now, I was tagged my shyam govind to write this post.

For those who are thinking what tag? There is this theme which is being followed, I write the post titled "7 things you don't know about me" and then tag to my friends who in turn tag to their friends thus continuing the chain.

You can check out shyam govind's post here

Seven facts you do not know about me:

1] I am fat,hence i am optimist! There is a connection between fatness and optimism,people who are fat are more optimistic in nature. The amount of time 'sensible' fat people spend on dreaming about becoming slim cannot be measured! Even if we do not follow any diet or do any physical exercise still we are hopeful that magically we will lose weight! As they say "hope is a good thing" no one knows that better than us.

2] I know first point was absurd. Coming to the second point,my friends say i am extremely silly and childish. I have to agree to that! Even though i am 22(err..23 confused about my age,will check out my date of birth certificate and update later) I have no 'maturity' and do not know what is my 'True calling'. I am still waiting for that enlightening moment where i get to know the purpose of my immature life.

3] Talking about Purpose, i read it in a book that "Purpose is a combination of want's and don't wants" Taking cue from the statement let me try to think what my purpose is.

I want to become rich,I don't want to be materialistic.

I want to be a altruist,I don't want to remain as a 'social worker' all my life.

I want to change my country,I don't want to pay tax though!

I want to bring some sense to this post,I don't know how to do that!

So my third point is i am a thoroughly confused guy.

4] I am extremely emotional,I cry when i see a typical bollywood flick for wasting my hard earned( Borrowed from parents) money. Seriously speaking,i am emotional, cannot live without friends and parents.

5] I like to hog the limelight. In doing so i have embarrassed myself many times in past,but i never learn from my mistakes hence i keep on committing same mistakes again and again.

I am that guy in a group who tries to be a leader but does not know even one quality of a leader.

6] I like people who smile when there is no reason to! I hate people who are always serious. I have a stupid sense of humor,i am sure you would have known that after reading this post.

I crack jokes and laugh on them! Obviously no one else does! I love it when people laugh at me for my fatness. It gives me the satisfaction of making people laugh which i don't get after cracking my 'excellent jokes'

7] I am a combination of good and bad,i try to be good but am not consistent. I am spiritually inclined and believe there shouldn't be any divide on the basis of religion. I believe in the philosophy of Karma, I also like seeing a child in everyone. As the great philosopher "Joker" of "dark knight" religion says

"Why so serious?"

I pass the baton to

Satwinder

Prerna munshi

Business-Basic rule

Three incidents which occurred today evening prompted me to write this post. Being a MBA student( I can call myself that now!) i will get to know all the rules of the business world in the coming two years, but i have some basic knowledge which i would like to express through this post.

Business as everyone knows is for making profits, now ethics is also a very important issue but i will keep that topic for some other time. When you want to make profit be it in small scale or large scale business it is imperative that customer/client is the king. Main purpose is to satisfy the needs of our customer/client.( Nothing new right!)

So the basic rule is and always will be

"Customer is the king"

Now coming to the three incidents that happened today,let me try to write how three different people had different perspectives of running their business.

1] First one-Tailor

We had to collect our newly stitched clothes(My dad's) from our family tailor. It is a no brain work,all we had to do was give him money and take clothes. But while we are doing that the tailor talked to me

" The Kurta is looking good on you, you should stitch yourself two more" ( He was the one who had stitched the kurta i was wearing)

Now he has planted a thought in my head and if that thought turns into action then he is going to make money out of it. So he is a good businessman who is trying to maximize his profits. Its secondary what i do but he has made me think thats where he scores his points.

2] Petrol filling guy

Next we went to the petrol bunk which we usually visit, there a short tempered guy came on his two wheeler and stood right in front of the filling guy. This guy asked him to go the next pump ( less than 5 feet away) since this one had a queue. Angered by his rudeness he asked whether he wants to fill petrol or not, our guy din't answer and the angered person went in frustration.

If the guy talked to the customer politely and asked him to join the queue or go to the next pump i guess the angered person would have listened. Because of the guy's rudeness he lost his customer. You might say it would be very small loss but then if it becomes a habit then losses will multiple.

3] Book store manager

Then i went to a big book store to buy some books(Novels). The manager was standing in front of the counter and asked me which book i was looking for. I was looking for "connect the dots" by Rashmi bhansal. I got my copy and then i wanted to check out some management books and i asked him where the section was. To my surprise he asked me to come tomorrow! It was only 8:45pm! I wanted to buy more books and he blatantly asked me to come tomorrow! I am not even a regular customer there, it was my second visit.

He was denting his own profits! He has lost a customer in me. Even if he was sitting in the shop from morning 9am still it does not make sense to close the shop before time. Couldn't he had stayed for 15 minutes more?? It was he who was to gain after all!!

Tailor had more business sense than book store owner!! See business does not have class or caste divide! Thankfully!!

"Books"

"Reading - the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay" ~William Styron

The above quote explains why i try to read books. I say try because i am still a novice when it comes to books. I have not read much but i would like to have my own library in future.

It is said that reading Non-fiction is better than Fiction and i disagree because i consider non-fiction boring! But i know Non-Fiction gives you abundant knowledge whereas fiction gives you entertainment( There are exceptions!)

The first book i read was "Secret Seven" by Enid blyton. I read it in my School library, we use to have a class once a week where we use to spend 45 minutes in a large enough library. But good books were scarce hence we use to fight for Enid blyton books like Famous five,secret seven etc

If we dint get any good book we use to sit and chat in library. I was never encouraged to read books not by my teachers or my parents( I dont blame them) Library in school was more of a formality to get CBSE affiliation than to serve the actual purpose.

School did help me in one thing "To hate books" We were made to focus more on the questions which followed the lesson than the actual lesson! No one cared if we understood what the poet or author were trying to say. We only had to know what were the answers to the questions. If you wrote the answers different from the "Prescribed" one's your marks would be cut!

School got over,we entered Pre university college and our Library was two racks! Nothing more than few textbooks of Mathematics,physics and chemistry. For those 2 years we were donkeys trying to grasp the concepts of Integration & Nomenclature. No contact with books. But all this while we had one thing for entertainment "TV" Two letters which have changed the defination of entertainment. My idea of fun was watching "Hum Paanch" on ZEE TV and movies on ZEE Cinema.

Choice or no choice i got into Engineering. We had a beautiful library which was the only asset our college had. Library was filled with numerous technical books of varied concepts. But I never cared reading them and thus again i had no contact with Books.

In the third year of engineering my friend gave me a book which had become very famous "Five point someone" by Chetan bhagat. I loved the book and thus started my love for books. I borrowed some and bought some, but i dint stop reading. From then on i read Jeffrey archer,Dan brown,Sidney sheldon ,John Grisham,Ayn Rand etc All of them fiction!

Few months back i read Fountainhead by Ayn rand. It was a superb book which makes you think a lot and changes your perspective towards life. Then i realized there are many good books which are out there but it was me who was ignorant of those. Now i have started reading more frequently and thoroughly enjoy reading them.

Children should be encouraged to read at a young age. Rather than giving playstations,computers as gifts,books should be given to them. Most of the parents do that but there are many children in our nation who are oblivious when it comes to books.

Our education system makes children hate books,that is something which should stop.

I have given my cousins books as gifts so that they take up the hobby. I feel it is my responsibility to give them something which i got very late "Books"

"A blessed companion is a book, - a book that, fitly chosen, is a lifelong friend,... a book that, at a touch, pours its heart into our own" ~Douglas Jerrold

"Movie reviews"

Someone had said to me once that "Movie reviewing" was a good hobby to have. When i was told this i thought i could review movies because i watched so many of them! But i had one problem which my friends told(teased) me, i always appreciated movies! I never said that a particular movie was bad and that was because i always used to ignore the bad part and accept the good part of the movie.

But as my knowledge of movies increased( at least i think so) i started noticing the bad or low quality cinema. Bollywood also helped me a lot since a good movie was so rare!

One of the main reasons i started this blog was to write about movies and i have reviewed some of them but in a unorganized way. I din't know what to write in a review,I mean on what parameters will i judge a movie? Thats the reason why you can see that i have abruptly ended the previous review posts. So now i have decided that there has to be certain parameters on which i shall review a movie.

According to me " A Movie is not only a medium for entertainment but also a way of expressing the society" You can learn a lot from movies( I mean good quality movies) Hence for me it is of utmost importance that the Director has a clear purpose of making a movie and if he is successful in portraying his vision on the screen then thats the best award for a film.

Now i shall try to review a movie based on following factors

1. Story or Script which is the soul of the movie.
2. Cast. Is the cast assembled the best?
3. Direction.
4. Is the movie Logical and if it is illogical then does it have a proper reason to be so?( ai wonder can it still be justified?
5. Is it a film for masses or a particular sect of society?

Also technicalities of the movie which includes Cinematography,Art direction,Camera work etc

I do not have much expertise on these but if i find something interesting worth to note then i shall mention it. There are many other factors which can be considered but above 5 are the main parameters around which the review will be centered.

There can be movies which might not satisfy even one parameter mentioned above,i will try my best to ignore such movies. There are many Bollywood movies which are like that!

I would like to end this post with some beautiful quotes on movies

"The movies we love and admire are to some extent a function of who we are when we see them"- Mary schmich

"You know what your problem is,it's that you haven't seen enough movies-all of life's riddles are answered in the movies"-Steve Martin

"Movies are something people see all over the world because there is a certain need for it"-Wim Wenders

"My true inspiration for movies comes from my Grandfather who absolutely loved them"-Me!

"Reservation Road"{2007}

Firstly thanks to Shyam Govind for his tips which helped me to change the look of my blog. Must say Blogger has done some remarkable changes. You can check out his blog here

Now coming to the movie "Reservation Road" by Terry george who also directed the wonderful film "Hotel Rwanda". This movie is a drama which is high on emotional quotient. First thing which came to my mind after watching the movie was the brilliant acting by two fathers and very good direction. If you consider the plot it looks like any other 90's bollywood revenge theme movie but it is more than that! It is a very powerful film.

Ethan learner and Grace lose their child Josh in a fatal car accident which is caused by Dwight anro's (Attorney)SUV. Not knowing what to do,Dwight speeds away from the accident site but Ethan got a glimpse of the vehicle and heard Dwight shouting his son's name "Lucas". Both Ethan and Grace cannot accept the fact that their son has been killed and are in extreme trauma. Ethan tries all options to nab the culprit by going to Police,attorney and personal investigation but success is hard to come by.

Grace decides that she has to move on with her life but is perturbed because of her husband Ethan who is still traumatised. Here both the actors have acted brilliantly especially Ethan played by jaoquin phoenix. There is a beautiful scene here when Josh's sister Emma asks her mother whether music can be heard in heaven,since she wants to play the piano only if his dead brother can listen to it.

On the other hand Dwight is very nervous and does not know what to do hence he hides his car in the shed and tries to concentrate on his work but he is unable to. He tries to spend more time with his son Lucas so as to forget the incident but it keeps on haunting him. He is unable to sleep and tries to confront Ethan and the police for confessing but is unable to gather the courage.

What is interesting is Ethan goes to the same law firm where Dwight works and dwight has to handle the case which makes it more difficult for him. Here both the fathers have given captivating performances which make the movie very engrossing. Finally Ethan recognizes Dwight's voice and tries to shoot him but is unable to do it since Dwight had realized his mistake and is dying every day because of it.

Watch the movie for amazing performances and good direction. If you do not like too much emotional stuff then this might not be your type but the movie is worth a watch.

If you are wondering why the movie has been named "Reservation road" the accident takes place at Reservation road.